Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

02/20 Links Pt1: Hamas Apologists Have Destroyed International Law; US resolution for Gaza ceasefire ‘as soon as practicable’; Hamas' Secret Financial Empire

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Hamas Apologists Have Destroyed International Law

Buried in a long and detailed briefing by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were a couple of important descriptions of Hamas activity that, via repetition, have lost their ability to command headlines.

An IDF operation at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis uncovered the following:
Vehicles used by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 slaughter;
Vehicles of October 7 victims stolen by Hamas;
Hamas terrorists involved in October 7;
Hamas members dressed as medical staff;
Weapons and explosives;
Medicine intended and marked for hostages but withheld from them.

The military released a video of the medications, which clearly showed the names of the hostages they were intended for and, for some, a clear picture of the hostage next to the name. The medicine was sent through European intermediaries and then to Egypt, crossing into Gaza at Rafah. Some of the intended recipients are still being held by Hamas—in need of the medication that Hamas kept for itself.

Coincidentally, that’s what happens to humanitarian aid intended for Gazans, too. Actual civilians—not Hamasniks in scrubs—get shot at by their terrorist overlords for trying to claim some of the humanitarian aid that should be theirs entirely.

But for that to be considered newsworthy, the world would have to be capable of making such a distinction. Instead, everyone who reports the Gaza death toll fed to them by Hamas has made a clear choice to erase the line between soldier and civilian. So it’s no surprise that Hamas terrorists dressed up as hospital personnel raise no alarms among the same coterie of Western media and “human rights” groups.

To Hamas, there’s no such thing as a civilian. To the world, there’s no such thing as Hamas.

Amb. Alan Baker: Unilateral Recognition of a Palestinian State Will Undermine the Oslo Accords

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reportedly requested that the State Department present policy options for possible U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state. It is inconceivable that responsible international leaders are either overlooking or deliberately ignoring the basic principles of international law and practice requiring resolution of the Middle East dispute through negotiation, rather than by unilateral, third-party imposition.

The principle of a negotiated outcome for resolving the dispute figures in the still valid 1993-1995 Oslo Accords, in which Israel and the PLO Palestinian leadership, with the support and encouragement of the leaders of the international community, reciprocally obligated themselves to negotiate the permanent status of the disputed areas.

In the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza signed in Washington on September 28, 1995 (known as Oslo II), the parties agreed specifically that "Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations."

Any unilaterally imposed recognition of a Palestinian state by the international community would be tantamount to undermining the Oslo Accords, to which the U.S., the EU, Russia, Norway, Jordan, and Egypt are signatories.

Not only would it contravene their solemn commitments as signatories, but it would, in effect, be unilaterally prejudging the outcome of the negotiations on the permanent status of the territory. As such, it would constitute an attempt to unilaterally change the status of the West Bank and Gaza in contravention of the Accords.

This would afford Israel the prerogative to consider the Accords as no longer valid, and to take whatever unilateral actions it may judge appropriate in order to protect its national and security interests.

Jonathan S. Tobin: What Americans Don't Get about Israelis Fighting for Their Lives

The war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas is between a democratic nation fighting for its existence against an Islamist movement whose goal is the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. Yet many outside of Israel are increasingly speaking of ending the war as soon as possible. This means that Hamas survives - and gets away with mass murder. It means the Palestinians are rewarded with an independent state. Somehow, that makes sense in Washington. But not in Israel.

The overwhelming majority of Israelis see it very differently. The battle with Hamas isn't one about Israelis ruthlessly harming Palestinians. The hotels in Israel are full, but not with tourists. They're packed with hundreds of thousands of Israelis - families with small children and elderly people - who were forced to flee their homes near Gaza and near Lebanon due to rocket and missile fire from Hamas and Hizbullah. They have been omitted in the breathless coverage of Palestinian suffering.

The Israelis who were called back into the military and willingly risked their lives fighting in Gaza, though eager to resume their regular lives, are just as ready to return to the battlefield because they know the job of destroying a deadly threat to their country isn't finished. Few Israelis are prepared to halt the war until all of the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 massacres are stripped of the ability to repeat their crimes.

Morale among Israeli soldiers is high and stretches across all the cultural, political, and religious debates. They don't want to kill Palestinians and also grieve the loss of so many of their comrades - casualties made more likely because of the strict rules of engagement to lower the number of civilians killed, that prevent the Israel Defense Forces from fully utilizing the firepower at their disposal.

Israeli soldiers know that they are defending their homes and families. It's the civic faith in the justice of their cause that resonates throughout Israeli society and pervades the thinking of those who have sent their loved ones to battle. It is also felt by the grieving families of those who didn't come home. Israel is a nation united by both anguish and determination.

Israelis understand that their opponents are not in far-off lands like in America's wars in recent decades. The horrors of Oct. 7 were not a one-off act. Israel has suffered many terrorist attacks in which large numbers of civilians were killed by Islamist murderers, but Oct. 7 was the worst of them all. What made it resonate throughout Israeli society was the certain knowledge that it was intended as a trailer for what Hamas - and the majority of the Palestinian population that supported and still supports those actions - intends to do to the rest of Israel.

The Nuremberg Trials Didn't Justify All Resistance: Lessons For Pro-Hamas Protesters (Daled Amos)

There is an ongoing claim justifying the murder of unarmed Israeli civilians.

This claim has gained even more support following the Hamas massacre on October 7th, when Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds hostage.

Just one day after the attack, pro-Palestinian protesters came out to defend the atrocities:

The protesters carried signs that called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and argued that "Resistance is justified when people are occupied."

Arab countries, like Iraq, also supported the massacre:

[T]he operations carried out by the Palestinian people today are a natural result of the systematic oppression they have been subjected to for many years at the hands of the Zionist occupation authority, which has never adhered to international and UN resolutions.

First of all, the claim that Gaza is occupied is debatable at best. The legal precedent in international law is that occupation requires boots on the ground -- an actual, physical presence in the territory that allows the "occupying" force to exercise control and authority to the exclusion of local government authority. That is clearly not the case in Gaza, where Hamas is in control.

According to the European Court of Human Rights, this is the definition of occupation.

It is also how the Nuremberg trials defined occupation, after World War II in the Hostage Case, addressing the issues involving the Nazi invasions of Greece, Yugoslavia, and Norway:

Whether an invasion has developed into an occupation is a question of fact. The term invasion implies a military operation while an occupation indicates the exercise of governmental authority to the exclusion of the established government. This presupposes the destruction of organized resistance and the establishment of an administration to preserve law and order. To the extent that the occupant's control is maintained and that of the civil government eliminated, the area will be said to be occupied. [p. 1243]

Defendants during the Hostages Trial in Nuremberg

Because the issue is one of actual authority and control, the European Court of Human Rights makes a point that applies particularly to Gaza:

According to widespread expert opinion physical presence of foreign troops is a sine qua non requirement of occupation, that is, occupation is not conceivable without “boots on the ground”, therefore forces exercising naval or air control through a naval or air blockade do not suffice.

But the Hostage case is especially instructive because it does more than define occupation per se. It also addresses the responsibilities of those who are occupied.

One would expect that the application of international humanitarian law to the occupied population should be straightforward and the distinction between them and the occupying force should be black and white.

But that is not the way the court saw it:

But it does not follow that every act by the German occupation forces against person or property is a crime or that any and every act undertaken by the population of the occupied country against the German occupation forces thereby became legitimate defense. [p. 1247]

In other words, the actions of the occupying force -- even of the Nazis in WWII -- are not automatically illegal just because they are done during an occupation. Similarly, not everything that the occupied citizens do in response to the occupation is legal under international law. And it makes no difference whether the occupation is legal or not:

At the outset, we desire to point out that international law makes no distinction between a lawful and an unlawful occupant in dealing with the respective duties of occupant and population in occupied territory. There is no reciprocal connection between the manner of the military occupation of territory and the rights and duties of the occupant and population to each other after the relationship has in fact been established. Whether the invasion was lawful or criminal is not an important factor in the consideration of this subject. [p. 1247]

What are the obligations of the occupied population?

In his book, The International Law of Belligerent Occupation, Yoram Dinstein writes:

There is a widespread conviction that the civilian population in an occupied territory has a right to forcibly resist the Occupying Power. This is a misconception that must be dispelled. In reality, LOIAC [Law of International Armed Conflict] allows civilians 'neither to violently resist occupation of their territory by the enemy, nor to try to liberate that territory by violent means'. As a Netherlands Special Court pronounced in the 1948 Christiansen trial:
the civilian population, if it considers itself justified in committing acts of resistance, must know that, in general, counter-measures within the limits set by international law may be taken against them with impunity. [emphasis added; p. 94]

The bolded text that Dinstein quotes comes from "How Does Law Protect in War?", Volume 1: Outline of International Humanitarian Law, published by the International Red Cross:

From the point of view of IHL [International Humanitarian Law], civilians in occupied territories deserve and need particularly detailed protecting rules. Living on their own territory, they come into contact with the enemy independently of their will, merely because of the armed conflict in which the enemy obtains territorial control over the place where they live. The civilians have no obligation towards the occupying power other than the obligation inherent in their civilian status, i.e., not to participate in hostilities. Because of that obligation, IHL allows them neither to violently resist occupation of their territory by the enemy nor to try to liberate that territory by violent means. (Part 1, Chapter 8:IV)

On the question of resistance, the court addressed whether the partisans who took up arms against the Nazis qualified as lawful belligerents -- and found that in many cases they did not:

The evidence shows that the bands were sometimes designated as units common to military organization. They, however, had no common uniform, They generally wore civilian clothes although parts of German, Italian, and Serbian uniforms were used to the extent they could be obtained. The Soviet star was generally worn as insignia. The evidence will not sustain a finding that it was such that it could be seen at a distance. Neither did they carry their arms openly except when it was to their advantage to do so...It is evident also that a few partisan bands met the requirements of lawful belligerency. The bands, however, with which we are dealing in this case were not shown by satisfactory evidence to have met the requirements. This means, of course, that captured members of these unlawful groups were not entitled to be treated [by the occupation] as prisoners of war. No crime can be properly charged against the defendants [Nazi generals] for the killing of such captured members of the resistance forces, they being francs-tireurs [a guerrilla fighter or sniper]. [p. 1244]

The court here is dealing with cases of armed groups that fought against the occupation army -- and still found these groups who failed to identify themselves properly to have acted contrary to international humanitarian law.

The Geneva Convention was modified to reflect the findings of the Hostage Case:

Following the Hostages Trial the Geneva Convention was amended to extend protections to captured partisan fighters as legitimate prisoners of war. The convention required of such partisans that they have an established chain of command, carry their weapons openly, and have a distinctive and readily visible symbol of their unit. They also must carry out military activities in accordance with the conventions of warfare, rather than covert assassinations, bombings, and other criminal acts.

It is not hard to imagine what the judges would have said about partisans who attacked unarmed civilians.

Nor should it be hard to see the Hamas massacre for what it is -- and what it is not. Yet around the world, the streets are overflowing with people drawn to emotionally charged chants and self-serving fabrications of international law.

Even in the current war in Gaza, in Hamas' own videos of fighting, they are not wearing uniforms and are violating the Geneva Conventions.

Contrary to what these "protestors" would have you believe, they have no interest in the law.

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!

I've spent years reading various antisemitic accusations by Muslims in Arabic media. The things blamed on Jews are extensive and wide-ranging. I've mentioned them in this site literally hundreds of times.

I just looked at Martin Luther's infamous 1543 work ,"On the Jews and Their Lies." The style and substance of Luther's crazed polemic resembles today's Arab antisemitism in many ways.

Some examples:

They are the real liars and bloodhounds, who have not only perverted and falsified the entire Scriptures from beginning to end and without ceasing with their interpretations. And all of the anxious sighing, longing and hope of their hearts is directed to the time when some day they would like to deal with us heathen as they dealt with the heathen in Persia at the time of Esther. … O how they love that book Esther, which so nicely agrees with their bloodthirsty, revengeful and murderous desire and hope! The sun never did shine on a more bloodthirsty and revengeful people as they who imagine to be the people of God who desire to and think they must murder and crush the heathen.

They are condemned because they have God’s Commandment and do not keep it, but act against it without ceasing. …

Be on your guard against the Jews and know that where they have their schools there is nothing but the Devil’s nest in which self-praise, vanity, lies, blasphemy, disgracing God and man, are practiced in the bitterest and most poisonous way as the Devils do themselves.

Even now they cannot give up their insane raving boast that they are the chosen people of God, after they have been dispersed and rejected for 1500 years! Still they hope to get back there because of their own merits. There is no promise for that on which they could lean for comfort, except what they smear into the Scriptures according to their own imagination …

Their breath stinks for the gold and silver of the heathen, since no people under the sun always have been, still are, and always will remain more avaricious than they (the Jews) as can be noticed in their cursed usury.

Since childhood they have devoured such poisonous hatred against the Goyim from their parents and Rabbis, and still devour such without ceasing, that according to Psalm 109, it has gone over into their flesh and blood, bone and marrow, and has become their life and being.

Therefore know, my dear Christian, that next to the Devil you have no more bitter, more poisonous, more vehement an enemy than a real Jew who earnestly desires to be a Jew. ...In history, therefore, they are often accused of poisoning wells, stealing children and mutilating them; as in Trent, Weiszensee, etc. Of course, they deny this. Be it so or not, however, I know full well that the full, ready will is not lacking with them if they could only transform it into deeds, in secret or openly. Know this for a certainty and act accordingly!

Should they at times do something good, however, know full well that it is not done out of love for you, nor for your good. In order to have space to live among us they must of necessity do something. But their heart is and remains as I have said.

A person who does not know the Devil, might wonder why they are so at enmity with the Christians above all others; for which they have no reason, since we only do good to them. They live among us in our homes, under our protection, use land and highways, market and streets. Princes and government sit by, snore and have their mugs (mouth) open, let the Jews take from their purse and chest, steal and rob whatever they will. That is, they permit themselves and their subjects to be abused and sucked dry and reduced to beggars with their own money, through the usury of the Jews. For the Jews, as foreigners, certainly should have nothing; and what they have certainly must be ours. They do not work, do not earn anything from us, neither do we donate or give it to them. Yet they have our money and goods and are lords in our land where they are in exile.

Do not their Talmud and Rabbis write that it is no sin to kill if a Jew kills a heathen, but it is sin if he kills a brother in Israel! It is no sin if he does not keep his oath to a heathen. Therefore, to steal and rob (as they do with their usury) from a heathen, is a divine service.

Now behold what a nice, thick, fat lie it is when they complain about being captives among us. Jerusalem was destroyed more than 1400 years ago and during that time we Christians have been tortured and persecuted by the Jews in all the world. For nearly 300 years (as stated above) we might well complain that during that time they captured and killed the Christians, which is the clear truth. On top of that, we do not know to this day which Devil brought them into our country. We did not fetch them from Jerusalem!

On top of all that, no one is holding them now. Land and highways are open to them; they may move to their country whenever they care to do so! We would like to add a present in order to get rid of them. They are a heavy burden to us in our country, like a plague, pestilence, and nothing but misfortune.

Whenever you see or think about a Jew, say to yourself as follows: Behold, the mouth which I see there has every Saturday cursed, execrated, and spit upon my dear Lord, Jesus Christ who has redeemed me with His precious blood; and also prayed and cursed before God that I, my wife and children, and all Christians should be stabbed and perish in the most miserable manner—would like to do so himself if he could that he might come into possession of our goods.

Those Jews professing to be surgeons or doctors deprive the Christians who make use of their medicaments, of health and prosperity, for such Jewish doctors believe they find especial favour with their God if they torment and furtively kill Christians.

The similarities with how Muslims write about Jews today are uncanny. Claiming that Jews had all the rights they needed in diaspora and are ungrateful; that Jews are oppressing non-Jews, the blood libel, projection that Jews teach hate in these very treatises filled with bile.

Although Muslims always showed disdain for Jews, their hate did not have this kind of intellectual underpinning for antisemitism until they were exposed to Christian missionaries and the schools they built in the Levant in the 19th century. There are a number of articles on Christian influence on building Arab nationalism and spreading other Western concepts, but the Christians of the time were virulently and doctrinally antisemitic, and it seems highly likely that their antisemitic ideas gave an pseudo-intellectual rigor to the Muslims who already disliked Jews.

Being given justification for one's pre-existing hate is a very seductive idea. It is the only explanation for the enthusiasm, huge turnouts and party atmosphere seen in the current anti-Israel protests.

Today, the cross-pollination of antisemitism is coming from all directions - from the Arabs to the Western world, from Russia and Iran and the neo-Nazis. The previous paradigms of pretending that they were only "anti-Zionist" and only against the "occupation" and that they found terrorism abhorrent have been supplanted; the support for antisemitism and even terrorist attacks are now explicit and justified after the fact. The Internet allows ideas from the Soviet Union to easily travel to the far-Right, from the anti-religious Marxists to the devoutly religious Muslims. Arguments no longer take centuries to morph from being used by one type of antisemite to another - it now takes hours.

Luther's short book ended up with a series of actions he recommended all right-thinking Christians should take to counter the pernicious Jews. These included

To burn down Jewish synagogues and schools and warn people against them
To refuse to let Jews own houses among Christians
To burn and censor Jewish religious writings
To forbid rabbis from preaching
To offer no protection to Jews on highways
For all Jews' silver and gold to be removed, put aside for safekeeping, and given back only to Jews who truly convert

Then as now, intellectual antisemitism leads to actions. We are seeing arson and other attacks on Jewish establishments. we are seeing Jews excluded from public spaces, we are seeing attempts to ban any pro-Israel events, we are being told that terrorism is a human right and Jews do not have a similar right to defend themselves. Like Luther, terrorist-supporting media are convinced of the righteousness of their demands. While the progressive protesters are claim they are against violence, their Arab co-protesters have no problem with attacking Jews and the progressives are justifying rather than denouncing their violent cadres.

Maybe we aren't yet at 1939, but it sure sounds a lot like 1543.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The Washington Post reports that "Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, was moved to tears Feb. 19 during the International Court of Justice hearing on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory."

I watched his performance on a large screen and cannot see a single tear, nor does he wipe his eyes.

This is not the first time Mansour has done this stunt.

In 2011, YNet reported:

A routine Security Council debate on the Middle East and Palestine became Israel's and the Palestinian Authority's dress rehearsal for September's General Assembly conference where the Palestinians will seek UN recognition.

Palestinian observer Riyad Mansour called on the UN to recognize a Palestinian state. It's time to end the occupation, he said before bursting into tears.

It wasn't quite as spontaneous as the news media made it appear.

The point at which he started his acting performance is notable. His pretend crying began when he said, "The state of Palestine appeals to this court to guide the International Community in upholding international law ending in justice and achieving a just and lasting peace, to guide us towards a future in which Palestinian children are treated as children, not as demographic threat."

You know who regarded Palestinian children as nothing more than a demographic threat? Yasir Arafat, who said on many occasions a variant of “The womb of the Arab woman is my strongest weapon.”

The Palestinian Authority does not treat its children as children. Their textbooks are filled with appeals for children to become martyrs while killing Jews.

It is the height of hypocrisy to see Mansour fake-tearfully pretending to care about Palestinian children when the best thing for them - peace - has been flatly rejected by Palestinian and Arab leaders for over 85 years.

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!

02/19 Links Pt2: The Moral Bankruptcy of the West: Accepting Terrorist Propaganda as Truth; The deliberate lies in the Washington Post; Edward Said - Merchant of Lies

From Ian:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Islamism is exploiting Britain’s political vacuum

When observing this downward spiral, it’s fashionable to blame America; it is, after all, the nation that birthed the mantra of multiculturalism. But if America created the seeds of today’s chaos, the European climate allowed it to blossom. It is no coincidence that the European surge in Islamism came just as the continent’s dechristianisation began to take hold. This surging fanaticism was met with a spiritual vacuum — and therefore thrived.

Faced with the arrival of a new community with such a strong belief system, Europe’s political elites sought refuge in the soft bigotry of low expectations. Denying them agency, we shrouded Muslim immigrants in a rhetoric of victimhood. A set of false assumptions were developed to characterise them as a casualty of exclusion and discrimination. It became just another form of “common sense”.

After 2001, when Jihadi terrorism started to take place in Europe, and survey after survey showed that most Muslims quietly supported the belief system that justified the terrorists’ activities, European leaders doubled down on those assumptions. Rules were relaxed, standards were lowered, and excuses were made whenever their estrangement tipped over into violence.

Meanwhile, the phenomenon of data manipulation became the political norm. Academics and think-tankers lined up to produce reassuring outcomes on paper that refused to acknowledge the rising tide of Islamisation, either by ignoring it completely or downplaying the number of Muslim migrants. The establishment of Sharia tribunals was barely registered, while we were told the construction of gigantic Mosques, madrassas, and Islamic centres were led and manned by moderate Muslims. Those brave enough to still speak out — for example over grooming gangs — were silenced or expelled.

This is the backdrop to the rise of Islamist attacks in Europe and the West, but it is also the cause of today’s political crisis in Britain. Across the country — from Rochdale to Tower Hamlets, Salisbury to Manchester — we are starting to witness what happens when Islamism is given licence to flourish. Many were fooled into thinking that 2024 would be a “boring year” for Britain: that, after the turbulence of the Tories, the reign of Starmer would, at worst, be benignly insipid.

But this was always a fantasy. Starmer, like so many of his predecessors and counterparts in Europe, is simply focused on the short-term goal of winning the general election. And, again like so many of them, he now finds himself wrestling with a Muslim base that will require compromise if he’s to win their vote: only yesterday, he called for a “ceasefire that lasts” in Gaza, without explaining how that might come about. It is, in other words, increasingly starting to feel like 2005 redux: a replay of the VVD’s electoral conundrum, and an allegedly “common-sense” response that inevitably backfires.

It’s hard not to conclude that this is the “new Britain” promised by its next Prime Minister, where scenes like those we have witnessed in Rochdale become repeated over and over again. This is, after all, what happens when a nation’s foundational principles are eroded — and when, faced with a moral and political vacuum, Islamism is the only potent force in town.

The Moral Bankruptcy of the West: Accepting Terrorist Propaganda as Truth

The U.S., UK and Europe all are warning Israel not to go into Rafah, even though Israeli hostages were rescued there last week - and despite knowing that destroying the Hamas infrastructure there is key to ensuring that it will not be able to rebuild. Instead of asking why two Israelis were being held in Rafah, the media was more focused on claims by a terrorist organization that people had been killed during the rescue operation.

The Western media continue to lap up the falsehoods and fabrications that Hamas regularly spins. This is evidence of moral bankruptcy. There is something seriously wrong when people are willing to accept lies by a murderous terrorist group over claims made by a democratic, liberal, progressive country. How does it make sense that people think it's normal for hostages to be held against their will and that a country shouldn't do what is necessary to get its people back?

Most of the condemnations today come from the U.S., the UK and Europe. They don't come from Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, or Saudi Arabia. Why do you think that is? The answer is that these Arab countries want Israel to succeed in removing Hamas, while the other countries appear to want Israel to fail.

While I don't expect the world to stand on the sidelines and applaud the IDF, we should be able to expect some semblance of integrity. Sadly, there isn't, and Western media, thinkers, and politicians continue to accept Hamas propaganda as the truth. It's an incredible double standard soaked in a deep undercurrent of antisemitism.

Jonathan Freedland: Those Who Attack Jews in the UK Are Behaving as Antisemites Always Have

Many Jews in Britain can hardly bear to hear the news, not least because they're in it so often. 2023 saw more than 4,100 episodes of anti-Jewish hate across the country, most of which came after Oct. 7. Some of the incidents involved knives, others saw Jews struck with metal bars. Some victims were punched or kicked or spat on, others had stones, bricks or bottles thrown at them. Slogans were daubed on walls, windows were smashed. Hundreds of incidents involved children, whether making their way to or from school or inside it.

When some people want to express their apparent anger at Israel's actions, they direct it at Jewish targets. They are holding a British minority responsible for the actions of a foreign government several thousand miles away, a response that does not seem to happen with other distant conflicts: after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian Orthodox churches in Britain did not brace themselves for attack.

The biggest surge in anti-Jewish activity came immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks, when Israelis were still counting their dead and missing and had scarcely responded at all. This indicates that it was in celebration of Hamas' attack, rather than anger towards Israel's military response in Gaza.

Most Jews feel bound up with Israel. They are deeply connected to it. Given the central place of the Land of Israel in Judaism's holiest texts, as ancient as the Jewish people itself, it could hardly be any other way. They recognize that Israel is the world's largest Jewish community, the world's only Jewish country. More deeply, they hold to the idea that after two millennia of endless and deadly persecution, the Jewish people need one place, a haven, where they can govern and defend themselves.

When British Jews are attacked, their attackers are not striking a blow for the Palestinians. They are placing themselves alongside the antisemites and racists who have always treated Jews this way, reminding Jews why they needed a refuge in the first place - and why they need it still.

If Hamas admits 6,000 terrorists killed, you know the real number is at least double that

There are numerous reports today quoting an anonymous Hamas official in Qatar as saying that Hamas estimates only 6,000 terrorists killed, not the 12,000 Israel estimates.

Who is telling the truth?

Let's look at the full Reuters quote in context:

Furthermore, according to Hamas, the total victory promised by Netanyahu won't be quick or easy.
A Hamas official based in Qatar told Reuters that the group estimated it had lost 6,000 fighters during the four-month-old conflict, half the 12,000 Israel says it has killed.
Gaza's ruling group can keep fighting and is prepared for a long war in Rafah and Gaza, said the official, who requested anonymity.
"Netanyahu's options are difficult and ours are too. He can occupy Gaza but Hamas is still standing and fighting. He hasn't achieved his goals to kill the Hamas leadership or annihilate Hamas," he added.

The context around the quote is that this official is trying to get the world to pressure Israel not to fight in Rafah. If the fighting is going to be protracted and impossible to achieve its goals, then no one would support it.

Israel has already shown that predictions of how the war would go were all wrong. We can objectively see that the number of rockets fired from Gaza has gone down to close to zero, that Israeli forces have control over most of the sector, and that Hamas is disorganized and has little in the way of a command structure.

As we've noted from the start, Hamas' strategy is based on lying. It knows that whatever it says is assumed true even by the media that knows it is being lied to. This is partially a cognitive war and Hamas is fighting that part very well.

Now, realistically, how can an anonymous Hamas official in Qatar have any idea of what the real casualty count is? It appears that communication between Gaza and Hamas leaders outside have been sporadic at best. And Hamas in Rafah probably has no ability to even know how many of its members have been killed or captured elsewhere in Gaza.

The "6,000" figure is indeed the first admission by any Hamas official that any terrorists have been killed since the first week of the war. It is high enough to be believable, low enough to convince Western nations that this war will go on for another year with tens of thousands of additional civilian casualties (based, again, on Hamas numbers.)

But it isn't an admission. It is a number made up by Hamas propagandists, just as they decided that a figure of "70% women and children" sounded realistic enough not to check and the daily statistics sent out adjusted to bring the "official" tally in sync with the diktat. It should be looked upon as a bare minimum number that even Hamas cannot deny, not an actual estimate. It is quite realistic to assume that the real numbers are double that figure.

Oh, and another Hamas official denied the figure.

Everything Hamas says is a lie meant to get military advantage by portraying Gaza as being victim of a genocide and Hamas as a ghostlike, unbeatable fighting force that has destroyed a significant number of Israel's tanks.

Here's yet more proof.

The official Hamas ministry of health wrote about Nasser Medical Center yesterday: "The electricity is still cut off at Nasser Medical Complex for 3 days, which has led to the shortage of oxygen from patients." And today they added, "25 medical teams and 136 patients in Nasser Medical Complex without electricity, water, food, oxygen and treatment capabilities for difficult cases"

Now, here are screenshots from a video in Sky News Arabia showing Nasser Medical Center yesterday, after three days of "no electricity:"

It sure looks like the lights - and medical equipment in the middle photo - are on. Which means they are also lying about patients dying because of no oxygen due to the power shortage. If they only have a limited amount of electricity, perhaps from solar panels, real doctors would direct all the electricity towards the ICUs and dim the lights in the hallways, removing 2 out of every 3 light panels in the ceiling. They clearly have not done that.

So who are you going to believe, the Hamas health ministry that also claims 29,000 dead, or your own eyes?

For some reason, reporters simply cannot believe that a smiling terrorist would lie to their faces. And this has been a problem for many years.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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A new twist on an old Turkish antisemitic conspiracy theory

We've seen and reported before about Turkish conspiracy theories that say that the famous false messiah Shabbati Zevi only pretended to convert to Islam but in fact founded a movement for hidden Jews to secretly subvert the Ottoman Empire and take over its media, banks, and politicians.

Today I saw a new twist, going back even earlier.

According to Dr. Muhammad Abdo Hatamla (they're always PhDs!) writing in Jordan's Addustour, the schemes of Shabbati Zevi were preceded by another Jewish plot to destroy the Ottoman Empire from within.

The unlimited tolerance shown by the Ottoman Empire in its dealings with the Jews led to the prosperity of their lives, and the sixteenth century was considered one of their golden eras in this region. However, the Jews began implementing their plans to destroy the state in preparation for the occupation of Palestine. Through money and intrigue, they corrupted the strongest army the Ottoman Empire had ever known, which was the Janissary army, which was founded by the Ottoman Sultan Orhan (726-763 AH / 1326-1362 AD). The mint (coin) factories were under their control. They minted fraudulent currency, and when the Janissaries discovered that the currency in which their salaries were paid was fraudulent, they revolted, and their revolution developed into a massive sedition that ultimately led to the weakening and demise of the Ottoman Empire.

This isn't at all what happened to the Janissaries, of course. Wikipedia goes into detail of how they descended from the elite fighting force to a squabbling, political group, and the Jews (while they had good relations with the Janissaries, as well as with all of Ottoman society) had nothing to do with this.

Note how the author ties the fictional Jewish backstabbing to Zionism. This shows that the distinction that Muslims pretend to make between Jews and Zionists was never there. But anyone who knows a little history already knows that.

Hatamia is a professor of history who has received honors from King Abdullah. This is mainstream "scholarship" in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

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02/19 Links Pt1: Stephen Harper: Israel's war is just, Hamas must surrender or be eliminated; Hamas is Intertwined with the UN "Terrorism is a Feature, Not a Bug"

From Ian:

Stephen Harper: Israel's war is just, Hamas must surrender or be eliminated

There is an even bigger picture, however, that we in the West must grasp. This war is not an isolated conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It is the product of a much larger and more dangerous force.

Before Oct. 7, we were on the cusp of a new Middle East. It was being created by a new generation of Arab leaders. Determined to be world-leading societies, they were setting aside the religious hatreds of the past and putting the Abraham Accords in their place. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself was deepening its relationship with Israel while continuing an ambitious modernization agenda that remains sadly underappreciated in the West.

Yet, even with these developments, some in western capitals chose to continue seeking reconciliation with an Iranian regime whose vision could not be more different. And so, we turned a blind eye to Tehran’s continued preaching of medieval jihad and its ongoing construction of a theocratic empire. We watched as it slowly took over Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and, of course, Gaza. We ignored advice from both Arab and Israeli allies to counter these threats, and even criticized actions designed to do so.

In this context, the West’s support for Israel’s war effort goes beyond moral obligations. It is but a small step in responding to a much larger challenge coming at us. I am not talking just about reoccurrences of 9-11-style terrorism. Nor am I referring only to the growing attacks on key international shipping lanes, as alarming as they are. I mean the real, potentially global, threat of a powerful regional state that mixes an aggressive and malevolent ideology with the pursuit of nuclear weapons capability. I am hoping that we understand this bigger picture before it is too late.

Almost exactly 10 years ago, I addressed the Israeli Knesset. I said that the Canada I represented would stand with Israel “through fire and water.” I meant it, and the Canadians I spoke for believe it still, as do hundreds of millions like us all over the world.

For we know what history has shown us: that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are always the proverbial canaries in the coalmine. Those who embrace such tribal and sectarian hatreds will invariably, in time, aim their guns well beyond the Jewish people. Indeed, if we open our eyes, we will see that they are already doing so.

This is, in short, a time to support Israel with clarity, consistency, and strength, not only because it is right, but because it is in the best interests of global peace and security.

JPost Editorial: A ceasefire cannot take place without hostages' release and Hamas vanquished

Now is the time for the people of Israel to remain unified and steadfast in fighting terrorism and defeating Hamas. Hamas has sought to divide us and it is trying to get its supporters abroad to save it in Gaza so it can return to threaten us again. Hamas is a vile terrorist organization that has shown what its real ideology looks like on October 7. Any ceasefire is a way for Hamas to prepare for more genocidal attacks.

Today there is a push for a ceasefire that would not bring the hostages home and also not lead to the defeat of Hamas. Israel’s leadership has made it clear that we have several goals in Gaza, two of which are victory over Hamas and bringing all the hostages home.

We must remain steadfast and committed. The war is long but the enemy is too dangerous to leave it in control of the border of Gaza, where it feasts off international aid while it stockpiles weapons.

We have an opportunity now to complete our mission in Gaza. We must continue on this path and at the same time work with our partners abroad to prevent any kind of push for a ceasefire that leaves Hamas in control of Gaza or does not release all the hostages.

NYTs: After Oct. 7, Israelis Can't Live with an Armed Gaza

After the Hamas invasion on Oct. 7, Doron Shabty, his wife, and their two small children hid in Sderot, near the border with Gaza, and survived. A reservist in the infantry, he went into the army the next day.

After more than 100 days in Gaza, Shabty, 31, said that to restore Israelis' faith in their country's ability to protect them, there cannot be a return to the situation of Oct. 6. "We can't live with an armed Gaza - we just can't do that," he said.

The shock of Oct. 7 reminded Israelis that they have powerful enemies next door who wish them dead.

Accompanied by a powerful new sense of Israel's vulnerability, Israeli attitudes toward the war, which Israeli Jews overwhelmingly support, inform virtually their every expectation for the future. It is likely to do so for a long time to come.

According to the latest Peace Index survey from Tel Aviv University, 94% of Israeli Jews and 82% of the total population think the Israeli military has used "adequate or too little force" in Gaza.

Some 88% of all Jewish Israelis think the number of Palestinians killed or wounded in Gaza is justified by the war.

Only 27% of Jewish Israelis (and 24% of Palestinians) support a two-state solution.

US proposes UN resolution supporting temporary ceasefire in Gaza

The United States has proposed a rival draft United Nations Security Council resolution that would underscore the body's "support for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable," according to the text seen by Reuters on Monday.

Washington has been averse to the word ceasefire in any UN action on the Israel-Hamas war, but the US draft text echoes language that President Joe Biden said he used last week in conversations with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The US draft text also "determines that under current circumstances a major ground offensive into Rafah would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement including potentially into neighboring countries."

Israel plans to storm Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1 millions Palestinians have sought shelter, prompting international concern that such a move would sharply worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The draft US resolution says such a move "would have serious implications for regional peace and security, and therefore underscores that such a major ground offensive should not proceed under current circumstances."

It was not immediately clear when or if the draft resolution would be put to a vote in the 15-member council.

There are lots of articles about Israel supposedly attacking hospitals in Gaza. Most are skeptical about Israeli claims and evidence that many hospitals have been used by terrorists - or even run by terrorists.

But there is another hospital story in Gaza that the media has nearly universally ignored.

Israel has allowed many countries to set up field hospitals in Gaza to help Gazans who need medical attention.

COGAT reports:

Field hospitals donated by Jordan and the United Arab Emirates are operational, treating patients in Khan Yunis and Rafah. An additional field hospital is operated by the Red Crescent as an extension to the Al Amal hospital in Khan Yunis. A field hospital operated by the IMC has also begun treating patients in Rafah.

These field hospitals bolster the medical response for the civilians in Gaza, and provide necessary medical treatments.

With a capacity of 41 beds and a personnel of 154, the Jordanian hospital has treated over 27,500 patients, while the United Arab Emirates field hospital, with a capacity of 200 beds and staffed with 100, has treated over 3,775 patients. With a capacity of 64 beds and a personnel of 120, the Red Crescent hospital operates on the basis of an emergency room as an extension to the Al-Amal hospital. With the capacity of 50 beds and a personnel of 200, the IMC field hospital provides surgical care for trauma, physical rehabilitation, emergency obstetric and newborn care, advanced mental health services and more, and treats an average of 400 patients a day.

Additional field hospitals are currently in progress to enhance the medical response in the Gaza Strip.

A French floating hospital was docked at the Al-Arish port for a month. Gazan patients exited the Gaza Strip via the Rafah Crossing for treatment. Over 2,000 patients have been treated and advised on the ship. On Jan. 28 the French vessel completed its mission and returned to its country of origin.

Italy has also dispatched a floating hospital. The ship was equipped with surgery, trauma care, and other medical capabilities, treated over 100 patients and completed its mission at the end of January 2024.

A United Arab Emirates floating hospital is expected to dock at the El-Arish port in the coming days. The floating hospital will be treating patients from Gaza.

Also, here's the truth about Nasser Hospital and Al-Amal hospital that is also unreported in the media:

Currently, the IDF is carrying out precise operations against the Hamas terrorist organization in Khan Yunis. IDF intelligence indicates that Hamas terrorists are operating from inside and around the Nasser hospital and Al-Amal hospital in Khan Yunis. The IDF has been liaising with the hospital directors and medical staff, on the phone and on the ground, to ensure that the hospitals can remain operational and accessible. Prior to the commencement of our operations in the area, we took proactive measures to ensure that the hospitals had sufficient fuel and supplies to maintain functionality throughout the duration of our operation against Hamas. On Feb. 10, The IDF recently facilitated the delivery of over 20 oxygen tanks and additional medical equipment to Al Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, coordinated by COGAT officers, the hospital and international aid organizations. Due to the use of the hospital by terrorists as an operational hideout, the intricate coordination was carried out with an international aid organization and local officials.

All this information is freely available. And nearly all of it is ignored by the media.

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What happened last year on the Temple Mount in Ramadan, and why restrictions on Muslims are necessary for peace this year

Times of Israel reports:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sided on Sunday with far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, endorsing restrictions on Arab Israelis’ access to Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount during Ramadan, according to multiple reports.

Channels 12, 13, Haaretz, and other outlets reported that the decision diverged from the recommendations of parts of the security establishment.

A governmental source told Channel 12 news that the decision was not final, and was still being considered.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office later pushed back at the reports with a vague statement that said the premier “made a balanced decision that allows freedom of religion with necessary security limits, which have been set by professional officials.”

“Any other report is incorrect,” the statement added, without elaborating on what decision was made and what restrictions will be put in place.

A decision has yet to be made regarding Ben Gvir’s demand that no Palestinians from the West Bank be permitted to enter. The Shin Bet’s position reportedly calls for allowing Palestinian men over 60 and women over 50 who have undergone Shin Bet background checks to be allowed in.

It is interesting in all the reporting on the matter that everyone agrees there should be age restrictions on who can enter the Temple Mount during Ramadan and that the restrictions should be wider than those last year, both for Palestinians from the West Bank and from Arab Israelis. The arguments are over the details, but not the basics.

Because what happened last year cannot be allowed to happen again, not during wartime, and especially not when the war was partially justified by Hamas by the scenes of Muslim rioting last year.

Last Ramadan, Israel held summits with leaders of Arab countries in Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh and one topic was how to avoid clashes on the holy spot during Ramadan. Israel came to an agreement with Jordan, which officially controls the Waqf, that no one be allowed to stay overnight in the Al Aqsa Mosque (a ritual called "i'tikaaf'") except for nights before days that Jews would not be allowed to visit - Thursday and Friday nights and the last ten days of Ramadan.

Here is the letter that the Waqf issued on the agreed policy, which was in line with policy on previous years.

The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs
The Administration of Jerusalem's Awqaf and Al-aqsa Mosque Affairs
His Excellency the Director of the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, may God’s peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you
The Council of Endowments, Islamic Affairs and Holy Sites in Jerusalem decided, by its Resolution No. 32/2023 dated 03/21/2023 AD, that seclusion in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque should take place during the last ten nights of Ramadan and on the Friday and Saturday nights of each week during the holy month.
Peace be upon you,,,
Director General of Jerusalem Endowments and Affairs of the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque
Sheikh Muhammad Azzam Al-Khatib Al-Tamimi

Israel arranged that other nearby Jerusalem mosques would be able to accommodate any Muslims who want to adhere to the custom of i'tikaaf without causing any friction.

But others wanted blood. They wanted scenes of rioting and Israeli police response. They wanted an excuse to start a wider conflict.

Last year, Ramadan coincided with Passover. (Luckily, that isn't the case this year.) There were absurd rumors that "settlers" would slaughter and burn sacrifices on the Temple Mount ahead of the holiday, which was used as an excuse by Palestinian leaders to call for violence to "protect" Al Aqsa from a threat that the Israeli police would never allow.

The police don't allow small prayer books to be brought into the Mount. A goat is a little harder to hide.

When this letter from the Waqf was publicized, Palestinian religious leaders were incensed. The Forum of Palestine Scholars and Preachers explicitly urged all Muslims to stay overnight in the mosque every night of Ramadan to block any Jews from visiting the following mornings, and they specifically called on Muslim youth to stay overnight on the days of Passover. It had nothing to do with Islamic tradition and everything to do with blocking Jewish access to the Temple Mount.

The Waqf and Kingdom of Jordan decided to tear up the agreement to limit clashes because they didn't want to look weak and like they were not adequately defending Al Aqsa.

For several nights, the worshipers who stayed overnight in violation fo the agreement did leave peacefully in the morning. This upset the Palestinians hoping for violence and the "shabab" youth chose to force a confrontation.

Muslim youths stockpiled stones and fireworks in the supposedly holy mosque on the nights before Jews would be allowed to visit.

The results were predictable.

They threw large stones and shot fireworks at the police when asked to leave peacefully.

Videos like this were used to incite more violence.

Hamas shot rockets to Israel, and at least one landed and damaged a factory. Their excuse was this video.

Lebanese factions, whether Hezbollah or sanctioned by Hezbollah, shot rockets into Israel as well. Their excuse was this video.

As usual, the mainstream media reported the events as if the Israeli police were initiating the clashes and the rocket fire was justified as a "response," when the police were just trying to keep the Temple Mount open to all during the month and during Passover. None of the major media reported on the agreement to disallow overnight stays on weeknights and the Waqf's about-face.

Israel learned that the Waqf and Jordan cannot be trusted to keep their word or to keep the peace. It learned that blocking only West Bank youth from the Mount is not enough to avoid rioting. It learned that the Palestinian Authority is an ally of Hamas in stoking violence instead of calming the situation. It learned that any clashes will be misreported as if police enthusiastically beat Palestinians even though they did everything possible to avoid violence

Now, during wartime when truth is in even shorter supply than it was last year, and when there is not even a pretense of good-will from the Palestinian and Jordanian leaders, why even give an opportunity for a new set of fighting on the holy spot?

Anyone who could use the mosque for political purposes must be banned from visiting the site for the entire month, whether Israeli or Jerusalemites or from the West Bank. The entire area must be cleared after night prayers every single night.

Palestinians last year deliberately incited and started the violence and used Muslim antisemitism to stoke tensions. Their actions then have consequences now.

Anyone who truly cares about peace should support Israel's decision to severely limit access to the flashpoint site to only allow Muslims who will not use it for political purposes.

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Turkish version of Independent-UK says Israel is sending Ethiopians to die in Gaza because, of course, Jews are racist

We've already shown how the Independent Arabia published pure antisemitism. Now it is the turn of the Independent Turkey to make up lies about Jews.

An article by Mehmed Mazlum Celik spins new lies to give the impression that Hamas is destroying the IDF - and the IDF uses Ethiopian citizens as cannon fodder.

Faithful sons of Gaza with their sandals on their feet have destroyed 40 percent of the tanks known as "Merkava-4" since October .

Moreover, this figure is the official data of the Israeli army, not Hamas.

The Israeli army fielded Merkava-3 tanks, which it described as garbage. They were planning to sell them to some countries in Africa.

While the human population is so valuable to Israel, there is a group that it does not hesitate to send to the front of the front and to the most dangerous points: Falasha Jews!

In fact, most white Jews think that the Falashas are actually Christians and have nothing to do with their religion.

Considering that the Israeli Blood Bank throws away the blood of Falashas even today, the question of why Jews from Falashas were sent in the front units to the oppressed people in Gaza is easily answered.

Where to start?

Israel has about 600 Merkava fourth generation tanks; the number destroyed has not not released but it is probably in the single digits,, nowhere close to the hundreds claimed here. The author's claim that these are official Israeli army figures are a figment of his imagination.

The Merkava-3 tanks are still an integral part of Israel's forces. They are not garbage by any measure.

Israel's blood bank ha not thrown out Ethiopian blood for years. It used to not accept their blood because of (valid) fear of HIV.

At the same time they also banned donations from British Jews who lived in the UK from 1980-1996 because of fears of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Does that make them anti-British, too?

A look at photos in Haaretz' list of soldiers killed in battle in Gaza show very few who might be Ethiopians. I count only 10 with dark enough skin that maybe they could be Ethiopian, but most of those are probably Mizrahi and only about 4 seem certain. On the other hand, at the end of December, some 40% of soldiers killed had graduated from religious Zionist schools.

As far as Hamas' military achievements goes, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described a Hamas military that is disintegrating and its members suffering low morale, eager to surrender to the IDF rather than be killed.

In Khan Younis, Gallant said some 200 terror suspects had surrendered to troops at Nasser Hospital, and dozens more at Al-Amal Hospital, which he argued indicated the loss of Hamas’s “fighting spirit.”
Gallant said Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade had been “defeated and does not function as a military entity in any way.”
“Hamas is left with marginal [forces] in the central camps and with the Rafah Brigade, and what stands between them and a complete collapse as a military system is a decision by the IDF,” he said.

I trust an Israeli defense minister far more than some Turkish nobody who cannot point to a single source.

That's a lot of lies in one Indy-Turkey article.

If this was only in Arabic media it wouldn't be worth mentioning, but this is associated with the Independent and as such it shows how Turkey is making hating Israel a major political goal.

Of course, Al Jazeera picked up on this article and parrots its lies as truth.

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The Kremlin shows: Social media propaganda works

The Washington Post reports on a sophisticated social media manipulation campaign by Russia against Ukraine:

When news first emerged last month that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was preparing to fire his top military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, officials in Moscow seemed jubilant. They had been trying to orchestrate just such a split for many months, documents show.

“We need to strengthen the conflict between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, along the lines of ‘he intends to fire him,’” one Kremlin political strategist wrote a year ago, after a meeting of senior Russian officials and Moscow spin doctors, according to internal Kremlin documents.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration ordered a group of Russian political strategists to use social media and fake news articles to push the theme that Zelensky “is hysterical and weak. … He fears that he will be pushed aside, therefore he is getting rid of the dangerous ones.”

The Kremlin instruction resulted in thousands of social media posts and hundreds of fabricated articles, created by troll farms and circulated in Ukraine and across Europe, that tried to exploit what were then rumored tensions between the two Ukrainian leaders, according to a trove of Kremlin documents obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post. The files, numbering more than 100 documents, were shared with The Post to expose for the first time the scale of Kremlin propaganda targeting Zelensky with the aim of dividing and destabilizing Ukrainian society — efforts that Moscow dubbed “information psychological operations.”

The details are fascinating - and sound very familiar to Zionists. But while this campaign was centered around troll farms that had people paid by the Kremlin, anti-Israel propaganda seems more taking advantage of the many antisemites who are already out there and eager to do their part to destroy Israel.

Indeed, an earlier campaign against the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny in 2021 sounds virtually identical to those that now accuse Israel of "genocide:"

Amnesty International has stripped the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny of his "prisoner of conscience" status after it says it was "bombarded" with complaints highlighting xenophobic comments that he has made in the past and not renounced.

A spokesman for the human rights organisation in Moscow told the BBC that he believed the wave of requests to "de-list" Navalny was part of an "orchestrated campaign" to discredit Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic and "impede" Amnesty's calls for his release from custody.

But on review, Amnesty International concluded that comments made by Navalny some 15 years ago, including a video which appears to compare immigrants to cockroaches, amounted to "hate speech" which was incompatible with the label "prisoner of conscience".

"We had too many requests; we couldn't ignore them," spokesman Alexander Artemev told the BBC, explaining that the team initially discounted Navalny's previous statements - which he has not repeated - as "not relevant" in the light of his current, political persecution.

Amnesty's offices worldwide, including that of the secretary general, were then hit with complaints from "so-called concerned citizens", Mr Artemev says, in an apparently co-ordinated move.

Even though Amnesty knew it was a coordinated campaign, it still caved.

As the article shows, much of the campaign was spearheaded by Max Blumenthal's Grayzone site and writers, which is also a major source of anti-Israel lies like denying any rapes occurred on October 7.

There are tiers of propagandists. The top tier creates the lies and makes them sound somewhat believable. The second tier isn't that imaginative but they eagerly spread these lies. What these articles shows is that there is a Tier Zero, where Russian (and presumably Iranian, Syria, Chinese and other) leaders decide what they want the lies to be and the goals they want to accomplish.

For example, as I've mentioned, there is a large set of bots on Twitter who pretend to be patriotic Israelis but who are trying to split Israeli society. The scope of that campaign is way beyond the abilities of a couple of individuals, and opinion is divided as to whether it originates in Iran, Iraq or Egypt.

Some of the tactics resemble those used in academia. Anti-Israel academics will write social science papers accusing Israel of something, and then other academics will refer to those papers as if they are established fact and build on them. This is how the "settler-colonial" lie became ubiquitous; even though it is absurd on the face of it since Jews were returning to their own ancestral land and aren't "settlers," it is accepted as undeniably true.

The "apartheid" and "genocide" memes have gone through similar cycles but accelerated, and helped by so-called "human rights groups." Again, their arguments are bogus, and anyone who knows anything about those topics knows this. But they recruit academics and "experts" who have a track record of hating Israel, and, surprise, these "experts" all agree Israel is guilty of anything and everything - and no one else is.

This is why it is critical to always, always look at source materials and verify everything and anything that people accuse Israel of. I've shown hundreds of times that the claims fall apart very quickly,. But as the world shortens its attention span and TikTok and Hollywood star opinions are prized more than real experts, this is a very uphill battle.

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