Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

More than half of "journalists" killed in Gaza were linked to terror groups. At least 13 were actual terrorists.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center published an analysis of the 131 names that Hamas has identified as being "journalists" killed in Gaza during the war.

They found that 13 of them were members of armed terror groups and at least 54 of them were linked to terror groups. (The count the Palestinian Authority as a terror group, I don't think that is quite so definite so I'm not counting those.)

As the IDF reported, one of the "journalists," Muhammad Samir Muhammad Washah, was a commander in the anti-tank missile unit of Hamas’ military wing. They found his laptop in a tunnel.

The full report lists all of the dead alleged journalists and describes their affiliations. Many of whom never seem to have actually done any journalism, and they might have received their job titles after they died, so Hamas could gain more points by claiming Israel killed more journalists. The International Federation of Journalists lists 103 killed.

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!

02/27 Links Pt1: Palestinian Incitement Is Central to Hamas’s Sadistic Wars; Israeli officials puzzled by Biden’s optimism on ceasefire; We need to talk about Gen Z’s Palestine mania

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Palestinian Incitement Is Central to Hamas’s Sadistic Wars

I don’t know that I’ve ever made my way through something as hard to read as the comprehensive report released last week by the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel. Titled “Silent Cry: Sexual Crimes in the October 7 War,” the report lays out in gruesome detail what we know—not what is theorized or assumed, but what is known—about Hamas’s depravity on and after October 7.

People who still doubt and deny these atrocities aren’t searching for evidence, and it’s clear they never were. Despite that, the value in documenting Hamas’s barbarousness for posterity is obvious. In addition, the report was delivered to the United Nations, which has a special obligation to read it and act on it because it has a unique level of culpability in the crimes.

I don’t mean simply the fact that UN employees participated in the attacks, though that is certainly part of the picture. The report reveals something truly catastrophic about the society over which the UN has presided as its primary steward.

Palestinians in Gaza have been brainwashed beyond hatred to the point of sadistic reprogramming, and it is incumbent on the world to intervene.

The report is available online here, and readers can decide for themselves the level of detail they are prepared to handle. But one quote in particular has haunted me ever since I first read the report. An emergency responder on the scene described the mutilation of the victims this way: “There’s almost no body they were satisfied with (just) shooting.”

There is abundant eyewitness testimony, but the Gazans who carried out those crimes went to great lengths to leave no doubt. Victims—both men and women, but mostly women—were found with nails, grenades, knives, iron bars, and gunshot wounds in their genitals. There was, in fact, an overriding obsession with sexual torture and mutilation along with rape, and often with family members forced to watch. It is all consistent with the many videos Hamas took themselves of terrorists dragging mostly naked women through the streets as onlookers cheer. Internal organs were mutilated as well, and some victims were beheaded.

Put it this way: You know something is truly demonic when phrases like “just murdered” or “just raped” appear in a report.

'October 7, part two:' Iran plans for terror during Ramadan, Israel charges

Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are trying to use Ramadan to inflame the region to achieve another October 7 disaster against Israel, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned on Tuesday.

According to Gallant, they hope to provoke Palestinians in the West Bank, Hezbollah, Arabs, and Muslims across the region to attack and turn their rage on Israel, using the Temple Mount and tensions in the West Bank as an excuse.

The defense minister has been a leading voice for smashing Hamas and earlier in the war, tried to convince the war cabinet to launch a preemptive strike on Hezbollah.

Gallant calls for reducing tensions
However, at this point, he believes that fighting the war without hesitation must go hand in hand with reducing tensions in areas where there is no reason for there to be tensions.

This means Gallant is strongly against National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s push to reduce access to the Temple Mount for certain Israeli-Arabs or Palestinians during Ramadan, though this time he did not mention Ben-Gvir by name.

Further, he has pushed for over a month to allow Shin Bet-approved Palestinian West Bank workers to return to their Israeli employees.

Before the war, there were around 210,000 Palestinian West Bank workers constantly going to work for Israelis, with the number of those who committed terror attacks in single digits.

A vast number of terror attacks over the years have been committed by Palestinians who break through the security barrier illegally.

Based on these consistent factors, both the IDF and the Shin Bet have consistently recommended returning Palestinian West Bank workers, as opposed to Palestinian Gaza workers, which all authorities currently oppose.

Netanyahu and Biden clash over claim Israel losing world support

Israel risks losing the world's support if it keeps with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "incredibly conservative government," US President Joe Biden said in an appearance on the late-night show Seth Meyers on Monday night, where he joked about his age and Taylor Swift conspiracy theories before turning serious to discuss Israel and Gaza.

Netanyahu appeared to reply to Biden later on Tuesday, saying in a recorded address that "since the beginning of this war, I have been leading the diplomatic front, whose mission it is to block pressure exerted on Israel, while simultaneously gaining support."

Biden said it's a principle agreement that there will be a ceasefire while the hostages are released. He said Netanyahu agreed they would not engage in fighting during Ramadan, a point the Prime Minister later contested.

Biden said Netanyahu made him a commitment that they're going evacuate significant portions of Rafah before beginning ground operations.

“That gives us time to begin to move in directions that a lot of Arab countries are prepared to move in," Biden said, saying Saudi, Jordan, Egypt, and six other countries were ready to recognize Israel.

'Take advantage of the opportunity'
Biden said Israel has to take advantage of an opportunity to have peace and security for Israelis, and Palestinians who are being used as pawns by Hamas.

“I think that if we get that temporary ceasefire, we're going to be able to move in a direction where we can change the dynamic," Biden said.

Biden issued cautious criticism of Netanyahu and Israel's government.

"If it keeps us up without this incredibly conservative government they have and Ben-Gvir and others… they're going to lose support from around the world," Biden said.

At least 50 anti-Biden protestors were arrested inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where Myers' NBC studio is, according to Jewish Voices for Peace NYC, an organizer of the protest.

.@POTUS: "You need not be a Jew to be a Zionist. I'm a Zionist. Where there's no Israel, there's not a Jew in the world to be safe." pic.twitter.com/dKjnxkopDh
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) February 27, 2024

By Daled Amos

There was a time when people believed that computers don't make mistakes.

Eventually, the realization sank in that while computers might not make mistakes, people do make mistakes -- and people are the ones who are programming the computers. Or, to put it another way: garbage in, garbage out.

Today, people look for information not only from their computers but also from the Internet. Search engines are the tool for sifting through all that information for the best results. But that is no guarantee for keeping out the garbage.

Remember 'Jew Watch'?

In 2004, Newsweek reported:

Is Google anti-semitic? For the past three years, if you typed the word "Jew," the first result was Jew Watch, a compendium of hate and Holocaust denial. "It's certainly not something I want to see," says Google cofounder Sergey Brin. So why not "fix" it so that Google points searchers to something else? "The purpose of Google is to provide quality information to people who want that information," he says, and determining what users view is akin to censorship. (emphasis added)

Three years is a long time.

Today, this particular problem has been resolved.
But there are others.

In December 2022, Google was again accused of antisemitism. Typing the word Jew into the search feature brought up the definition “to bargain with someone in a miserly or petty way” along with conjugations such as jewed and jewing.

Now, search engines in general face the problem of a noticeable drop in the quality of their search results:

German researchers said a flood of “search-engine-optimised but low-quality content” had polluted the results of popular search engines including Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo, and that the problem was likely to worsen as artificial intelligence improves.

One way people are trying to get around this problem is to turn to AI chatbots for their information.

But that is no solution.

Newsbusters reported last week they discovered Google's chatbot, Gemini, downplayed the October 7 Hamas massacre:

Defense Attorney Marina Medvin got a similar response from Gemini:

Stacey Matthews of Legal Insurrection also reported about this, and noted that when she posed the question to Gemini, there had been little improvement:

But Twitter user @harad gets the prize for the worst and most insulting of the Gemini responses:

There is no good reason for Gemini's misleading and dismissive answers.

When contacted by Newsbusters, Google apologized for the mistake and said they planned to direct people to Google Search for the most current information. But as Newsbusters pointed out, the rapes and murders committed by Hamas are not a secret:

But despite Gemini’s initial assertions, several media outlets—including The New York Times, Haaretz, The Guardian and even CNN—and Israeli first responders have documented the harrowing sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas following their brutal invasion of Israel, marking the bloodiest event witnessed by Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Gemini is no different from any other computer: it operates the way it is programmed to, based on the data it receives. Just like its predecessor, Bard.

On October 24, 2023, The New York Post carried an article revealing that Bard, Google’s AI chatbot refuses to tell the truth about Hamas and Israel:

When I asked the all-knowing Bard, for example, “What is Hamas?” I was surprised to be rebuffed with: “I’m a text-based AI, and that is outside of my capabilities.”

My editor asked the same question and got: “I’m not programmed to assist with that” — though a question about Hezbollah, Bard said, “is outside of my capabilities.”

The article quotes Google co-founder Larry Page, who said the goal of their chatbot is to “understand everything in the world” and in its responses “give you back the exact right thing.” The question is whose "understanding" and whose "exact right thing" does Google want to pass along to its customers?

When it comes to its search engine, people are increasingly able to manipulate Google's algorithms and programming to their advantage. Now it appears that Google itself is exploiting its AI algorithms and programming to perpetuate their own politics and agenda.

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!

After Israel's airstrike killing a Hezbollah terrorist in Baalbek, Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah, said in a televised address that the attack "will not push us to retreat, it will rather increase our determination."

Israel's "aggression on Baalbek or any other region will not remain unanswered, and the resistance will respond in the appropriate manner," he added.

This is a Lebanese lawmaker who is openly speaking on behalf of an Iranian militia that acts against Lebanese interests. He is inciting the country he supposedly represents into a war that no one in Lebanon wants.

The pattern on the Israel-Lebanese border has been consistent since October 7. Hezbollah started firing, and Israel responded proportionately. Israel wants to deter Hezbollah from attacking, so it is aiming at major Hezbollah members. Hezbollah does not want to appear weak so it responds in its own ever-increasing ways.

Hezbollah's main motivation in its attacks is not to achieve military goals . It is not support for "Gaza." At this time, Hezbollah's motivation is honor: it absolutely does not want to be seen as capitulating to Israeli force.

Hezbollah's deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said yesterday , "If the Israelis go too far, we will retaliate more. All what we have used until now in the fighting is the minimum of what we own."

This is the honor/shame mindset, and it is more powerful than all other considerations.

Yet Israel cannot allow Hezbollah escalations to go unpunished which would be interpreted as its own weakness and invite more aggression. Which means that war is inevitable: each side's responses and counter-responses are calibrated but ever-increasing based on their own calculus of what is a proportional and effective response, which may be and often is interpreted by the other side differently.

The only way to stop this very real cycle of violence is to find a motive for Hezbollah to want to de-escalate and still fit into the honor/shame paradigm.

Clearly the Lebanese government is too weak, fractured and dysfunctional to be able to do anything. After all, an MP openly supporting a non-state army's aggression should result in a censure at least for any self-respecting government. The Lebanese government has long ago surrendered to Hezbollah.

But the Lebanese people have not. Most of them oppose Hezbollah and do not want to be dragged into war. Hezbollah is sensitive to Lebanese public opinion, because it claims to be acting on Lebanon's behalf.

If the Lebanese start a protest movement against Hezbollah, with rallies and demonstrations that receive decent publicity, that would shame Hezbollah more than not responding to Israeli attacks would.

No one can change the honor/shame mindset, but people can use it wisely to influence its adherents. A large patriotic pro-Lebanon, anti-Hezbollah protest movement would influence Hezbollah far more than Israeli assassinations of their leaders does. It would show that Hezbollah is lying in its pretense to be "defending Lebanon." It would give Hezbollah a tree to climb down on; giving it an excuse to ramp down its retaliations by saying that it wants to do what is best for Lebanon and its people.

There are still much bigger issues around Hezbollah that need to be addressed. But right now, the only way to avoid a truly devastating war would be for ordinary Lebanese people to start a grassroots and purely domestic protest movement.

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!

Egypt's Al Azhar denies being antisemitic. Meanwhile, its website says Jews are liars, cowards, arrogant, and lots more.

Al Azhar al-Sharif, Egypt's most important religious institution, issued a statement Monday where they said in part, "accusing Al-Azhar Al-Sharif of anti-Semitism is a false accusation...The Islamic religion, whose sciences are studied in the halls of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, affirms the necessity of venerating the prophets of the Children of Israel: (Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, and others) may peace and blessings be upon them! Al-Azhar Al-Sharif also affirms respect for the right of Jews to believe and worship in various countries of the world!"

So I looked to see what else the Al Azhar website says about the Jews.

In 2016 they published an article about the bad characteristics of Jews mentioned in the Holy Quran. The first paragraph gives a preview: Jews are have "many bad morals, ugly character, and malicious behavior." They are described as " disbelief, ingratitude, selfishness, arrogance, cowardice, lying, deceit, disobedience, transgression, hardness of heart, perverted character, and haste in sin and aggression. And consuming people’s money unjustly.

The article than goes into detail on some of these vices, including:

Their violation of covenants and covenants.
Their bad manners with God Almighty, their hostility to His angels, and their killing of His prophets.
Their ungratefulness towards the truth, and their hatred of the good of others out of selfishness and envy.
Their rejection of the Book of God, and their following of magic and satanic delusions.
Their eagerness to live, and their cowardice in refraining from jihad for the sake of God.

Because of these awful attributes, Jews "deserve to be expelled from God’s mercy, and to be subjected to humiliation and poverty."

Not exactly philosemitic.

Another document on the site from only last month starts off by saying, "The Jews are the people who steal the civilization, thought, and culture of others." It ends by saying, "Living in peace among people is something the Jews do not know. "

If this is respecting Jews, I'd hate to know what disrespect looks like.

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!

02/26 Links Pt2: Unfreezing the Abraham Accords; Melanie Phillips: A watershed moment; Corrupted from Birth: The UNRWA’s Forgotten History

From Ian:

Unfreezing the Abraham Accords

Alongside its defense of maritime security, plans could be advanced and promoted to facilitate overland trading routes - especially in concert with Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

It is economically advantageous for goods to take three days to go from Haifa to Dubai instead of three weeks via the Suez Canal.

The UK and U.S. governments should adopt a unified stance on a hierarchy of escalation in the face of Iranian aggression.

This should be communicated to Iran along with a shared commitment to respond along these lines to aggression by Iran or its proxies.

This may have the desired effect of putting Iran back in its box and helping to reassure the UK's regional allies.

Israeli minister and Saudi counterpart shake hands and discuss ‘making history together’

Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat met Saudi Commerce Minister Majid bin Abdullah Al Qasabi on the sidelines of the biennial World Trade Organisation conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

According to an Economy Ministry statement, Barkat told his Saudi counterpart: “Israel is interested in peace with countries that seek peace, and we can make history together."

The two shook hands and discussed the desire to strengthen economic cooperation, exchanging business cards.

A video published by Arab channels shows the cordial encounter at the ministerial for global trade and economic growth.

Jerusalem and Riyadh were working with the United States on the framework of a normalisation agreement when Hamas launched its bloody invasion of the northwestern Negev on October 7.

Israel established diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and three other majority Arab Muslim countries as part of the Abraham Accords brokered by the Trump administration in 2020. Prior to October 7, hopes were high for a breakthrough with the Saudis.

Reuters reported earlier this month that Saudi Arabia would suffice with a declared Israeli commitment to the two-state solution to normalise ties with Jerusalem as part of a broad agreement including a defence pact with the United States.

It's Chilling How Quickly the Oct. 7 Massacre Is Being Forgotten

Instead of supporting Israel in its attempt to finish a job that is not only of the utmost necessity for its own continued existence, but hugely important for the future of the West, we see instead a wide range of anti-Semitic tantrums thrown globally.

Israel was only ever going to be given two, three weeks tops after the Oct. 7 massacres, after which the great and the good would lose patience, demand that Israel lay down arms, let Hamas regroup and win, and continually and falsely accuse the Israeli military of being trigger-happy where Palestinian lives are concerned.

The thousands who turn out on the streets every weekend to demonize Israel have no clue about the concept of waging a just war and why doing so is different from committing genocide. Outside Parliament, a mob was busy beaming "from the river to the sea" onto Big Ben. No one was beaming: "release the hostages."

It is as if the actual events of Oct. 7 are simply ceasing to exist outside of Israel - as if Hamas' actions have now been almost totally forgotten. Hamas knew all along that, because of the power of anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism, the world would end up siding with it.

I received this from Sheba Medical Center:

Among Sheba’s values are “peace through health” – treating all patients from the region and Middle East and seeing healthcare as a path to peaceful coexistence.

At the outbreak of the war there were sixty-one Palestinian patients being treated at Sheba and housed on the campus with sixty-eight family members.

Sheba has continued to receive Palestinian patients from the West Bank throughout the war, as well as providing food, shelter and any needed treatments to the forty families from Gaza that were being treated at Sheba and cannot return at this point.

One story in particular is stunning.

W-----, who has asked that her identity and photo be obscured, came to Sheba from Gaza, with a toddler son S---- who has a serious and fatal immune system deficiency disorder. What was needed was a stem cell transplant, but he had no bone marrow match with his younger brother or other family members.

Sheba staff told W---- and her husband that if she had another baby, there was a possibility that child could be a match and a donor. They decided to try. She became pregnant and a test revealed that the fetus would indeed be a match for her sick son. So, Sheba put them up on the campus and treated her for the duration of her pregnancy and delivery.

The baby boy, G------, was born on Oct. 17.

While Sheba was receiving a flood of those injured and traumatized by the war, and with 200 doctors and nurses mobilized into the army, they proceeded with taking extraordinary steps to save the life of one Palestinian child.

The newborn’s cord blood was sufficient for the needed stem cell transplant. The procedure has been performed and the now-four-year-old son is expected to regain full health and live a normal life. When it is possible to do so, his family will return to Gaza with him and his new baby brother.

Hamas fired machine guns into cribs and then raped the mothers of the babies before murdering them, and Sheba is going to great lengths to save the life of a single toddler from Gaza.

You unfortunately will not read this story anywhere else. But our values will continue to define us, and we will continue to hold them high.

They are right - this story will not be published in the media. Stories of Israeli Jews being a light unto nations are not very popular right now for those who want to push the opposite message.

There is nothing inconsistent between this story from Sheba and what the IDF is doing in Gaza. In both cases they are doing everything they can to save lives - both Israeli and Arab.

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!

Since 2007, we've jeered at the absurd Palestinian accusation that Israeli Jewish settlers are raising (quite unkosher) wild boars just to have them attack Palestinian farmland and people.

Mahmoud Abbas himself has made this accusation. A number of academic papers have discussed this supposed phenomenon of settler-raised wild pigs.

Of course, in reality the wild boars are a problem for everyone in the region. During COVID, they ran wild in the streets of Israeli cities as well.

You can't train wild boars to attack, let alone to distinguish between Palestinian and Jewish-owned crops. As with most antisemitism, it is a conspiracy theory.

Only an idiot or an antisemite would believe these stories.

From Steven Erlanger in The New York Times:

The Palestinians who live in the villages under Homesh and who own most of its land say the settlers are aggressive and violent. Sometimes armed with rifles, the settlers intermittently engage in housebreaking, sheep stealing and vandalism. They chop down olive trees, roll flaming tires down the hills to burn crops and even send boars to dig up Palestinian seedlings and fruit trees, the locals say.

Salah Qararia, 54, showed visitors the broken windows and doors of his house, on his own land perhaps 200 yards down the hill from Homesh. ...[He] has bought some dogs to try to keep the boars away.

There you go. As with anything Palestinians accuse Israel of, the New York Times applies no sanity check.

Surprisingly, wild boars have been a nuisance in Lebanon in recent years as well. No one there is blaming "settlers."

Yet.

(h/t Honest Reporting)

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!

02/26 Links Pt1: Arab States Are Rooting for Israel to Destroy Hamas; The Media-Savvy Murderers of Hamas; IDF uncovers six-mile tunnel stretching from northern Gaza to south

From Ian:

In Private, Arab States Are Rooting for Israel to Destroy Hamas

The Washington Institute sent a delegation that visited Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and the PA to assess the prospects for security and peace in the current environment.

In private, Arab states are rooting for Israel to destroy Hamas. One senior Arab official said, "Israel is fighting for us in Gaza, and if it wins, it will succeed in defeating an Iranian proxy for the first time in forty years."

But Arab states are focused on their own security and their own interests and are either unwilling or unable to play much of a role in shaping the outcome in Gaza or helping fill the vacuum that will be left by the Hamas defeat they all privately say they want.

The Arab states all face domestic political urgency because of mass sympathy for the Palestinians and Al Jazeera-fueled outrage against the Israelis.

One senses almost zero appreciation that Israel today is a very different country than it was on Oct. 6 and that, for the vast majority of Israelis, even talking about the two-state solution is viewed as bizarre, even perverse. Most Israelis see the world solely through the lens of 10/7.

The general Israeli political sense is that it is wrong to make north Gaza safe enough for Palestinians to return until the Israeli evacuees are safe enough to return to their burnt and ransacked homes in Israel.

In private conversation, Arab officials express great sympathy and understanding for Israel's situation. Arabs are still working closely with Israel to stem Iranian smuggling and to cooperate against radical plans to escalate on other fronts.

Israelis say they are now facing seven hot fronts of military operation: Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran.

They are involved directly in six, leaving America, Britain, and some allies to address the Houthis and their threats to Red Sea shipping.

Iran has activated all those fronts, watching safely from the confines of its own territory as its adversaries take on one proxy after another.

We may be scoring tactical victories, but it's not even clear we are playing the right game.

Amb. Michael Oren: What Will Happen to Hamas?

Hamas will survive the war, but in what form? If we're talking about the 30,000 armed members of the Al Qassam Brigade under the command of Yahya Sinwar and other military leaders, Hamas will not survive the war. Hamas the military force will never be the same after this Israeli campaign. But Hamas the movement, Hamas the idea, will surely survive.

No amount of firepower can annihilate a concept. Both ISIS and al-Qaeda still exist and occasionally mount attacks. In its theology, Hamas is identical to other Islamist groups that seek to recreate the medieval Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. It differs only in seeking Israel's destruction as the first stage in that quest.

That threat can only be eliminated by long-term efforts to combat radicalization, especially among children. Such campaigns have been initiated in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, and are already registering success. Absent a similar effort among Palestinian youth, Hamas the idea will continue to inspire numbers of them to launch terrorist attacks against Israelis. But deprived of the backing of an independent state, the ability of these groups to cause major damage will be greatly diminished.

WSJ: The Media-Savvy Murderers of Hamas

The Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, when terrorists live-streamed their atrocities, is arguably the most well-documented attack in history. Hamas mercilessly murdered, butchered, raped and burned Israeli families alive - documenting their crimes with GoPros and cellphones. The terrorists even live-streamed their atrocities on their victims' social-media accounts.

For the past 16 years, Hamas has systematically embedded its terror infrastructure inside and under civilian areas in Gaza. IDF troops discovered that most homes in Gaza have terror tunnels underneath or weapon caches inside, and the majority of schools, mosques, hospitals and international institutions have been used by Hamas for their military operations.

The Israel Defense Forces, by contrast, conducts its operations with caution, transparency and in accordance with international law. Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza, which is why we take extensive measures to minimize harm to the civilians Hamas puts in the crossfire.

Our mission is to dismantle Hamas and bring our hostages home - not to destroy Gaza or displace its people. We will continue fulfilling the mission of ensuring that Oct. 7 never happens again, while upholding our values.

The writer is chief spokesman of the Israel Defense Forces.

Media is starting to gingerly ask why Egypt doesn't take in Gaza refugees

NPR published an article today, "Why Egypt won't allow vulnerable Palestinians across its border."

While it is slanted towards the Egyptian point of view, it at least brings up facts that had been excluded from coverage of the topic up until now.

The satellite photo above captures the stark nature of the crisis on the Gaza-Egypt border.

On the right, more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are squeezed into tent camps on the Gaza side of the border, seeking shelter from Israel's ongoing offensive. On the left is Egypt's vast, thinly populated Sinai Peninsula, where the tightly controlled frontier has a heavy security presence.

This territory could provide a temporary safe haven for Palestinians from Gaza, where more than 29,000 people have been killed and nearly 70,000 wounded since the war began in October, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

Egypt, however, has warned against an influx of refugees. It facilitates humanitarian aid into Gaza, but has said a mass exodus of Palestinians out of Gaza into Egypt is a red line, saying it fears Israel might never let the Palestinians go back.

And at the very end of the article it says:

Overall, though, Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip has entrapped the territory's population, unlike other wars where refugees can find a country to flee to.
When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, millions of Ukrainians poured into neighboring Poland, which welcomed them.
When Syria descended into civil war in 2011, millions fled to neighboring countries. They included an estimated 120,000 Palestinians, who were already refugees in Syria before they sought shelter elsewhere, according to the U.N. agency that handles Palestinian refugees.
Egypt already hosts around 9 million refugees from the region, though it does not have formal refugee camps. The refugees live like long-term residents among Egyptians in big cities like Cairo. This is very different from the Palestinian refugee camps in several other Arab countries.

This was the first article I've seen that even mentions these facts that I have been reporting from the beginning of the war.

But it is not the only one that is going a little beyond parroting Egyptian talking points. DW.com reported on February 14:

Mirette Mabrouk, founding director of the Washington-based Middle East Institute's Egypt program, said, "If Palestinians do come across the border, Egypt is going to take them in. They are not going to start shooting at desperate women and children."
In fact, local authorities in North Sinai have been preparing for this for months, readying emergency accommodation and medical aid in case it is needed, she told DW. The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that Egypt could potentially accommodate up to 100,000 people in the border areas if needed.
"It's not that Egypt can't assimilate them — the country already hosts millions of refugees from places like Syria and Sudan. It's that Egypt doesn't want to be party to another Nakba," Mabrouk said,

Perhaps fearful that there will be increasing pressure on Egypt to allow Gazans to flee there, Al Jazeera Mubasher used a time honored propaganda method: interviewing Gazans who swear they would rather die than leave their beloved Palestine.

The facts show otherwise: Gazans have been paying enormous amounts in bribes to escape to Egypt. But Al Jazeera will only interview the people who parrot their official line that Palestinians do not want to leave, and then pretend that they represent all Gazans.

Yet no one is saying Gazans should be deported to Egypt. The question is whether the ones who want to leave should have that right.

I found another NGO that asserts that right - except for Gazans.

The Refugees Platform in Egypt wants a word "where everyone is allowed to move freely and safely, within societies that contribute to supporting and advocating for the rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups." But when it comes to Gaza, they say, Egypt must only open Rafah for the injured, not for people who want to take refuge.

Nothing brings out hypocrisy like antisemitism.

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!

People keep talking about the necessity of a plan for governing Gaza, and none of the plans suggested have the slightest chance of being successful.

The Palestinian Authority cannot govern themselves, let alone Gaza. Israel has tried empowering local clans as alternate rulers for years and it has never worked out because there are too many threats from armed Islamists and no one wants to look like a puppet to Israel.

I have suggested that the world give up on an independent Palestinian run Gaza for the foreseeable future and instead turn Gaza into "The Emirate of Palestine" controlled by the UAE.

* Only a Gulf country has the resources to rebuild Gaza and realize its dream of becoming a Singapore.

* Israel is at peace with the UAE and would eagerly cooperate with it in facilitating the new emirate.

* The problem of territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza is no longer an issue.

* Gazans would become UAE citizens, get passports, and could freely move to other emirates if they want. If they prefer to hold on to the dream of an independent Palestinian state, they can move to the West Bank.

* For the first time, there would be optimism about Gaza's future that would encourage investment.

* One can foresee joint Israel-UAE economic projects that would employ thousands of Gazans.

* The UAE would not tolerate terror. There would be no rockets, no cross-border raids, no tunnels.

What would the UAE get out of it?

* A port on the Mediterranean

* Access to natural gas and other fossil fuels off the coast

* Overland routes of trucking and shipping tying the Gulf to the Mediterranean, facilitating imports and exports

* An airport would bring an air bridge as well

* Increased influence in the region, which the UAE desires

* Gaza could become a tourist destination and a meeting hub between European and Arab political and business leaders

Additionally, this is a practical reward for the Abraham Accords, which would encourage other Arab states to make peace with Israel. Egypt would work with the UAE to develop the Sinai instead of walling it off from Gaza.

Everyone wins, except those who want to destroy Israel.

There is an additional piece of data that points to the UAE as the best and most responsible partner for running Gaza: They have helped Gazans far more than any other country during this war.

The latest COGAT report says that more truckfuls of aid have come from the UAE than any other country.

The UAE built the largest field hospital in Gaza, with 200 beds.

Beyond their Khan Younis field hospital, the UAE also opened up a floating hospital in El Arish, Egypt last that is now taking Gaza patients.

While other countries are using Gaza as an excuse to bash Israel and consider Gazans to be cannon fodder for screaming Israel is guilty of "genocide." the UAE is one of the few countries that actually appears to care about the welfare of Palestinians as human beings. Who better to be responsible for Gaza's future? And who, outside Israel itself, has more experience in building a thriving economy out of nothing?

It would not be easy, but this plan is the only one anyone has suggested that has a chance of a permanent success. Let it be debated and compared with the other plans that the supposed "experts" are advocating where a corrupt Palestinian leadership controls Gaza or a weak Palestinian leadership must be propped up by Israel.

Start by describing the plan to actual Gazans and ask whether they like the idea.

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As of Sunday night, Palestinian media is awash in rumors that on Monday, Mahmoud Abbas will ask for the resignation of the Shtayyeh government.

The candidate being spoken about as the next prime minister would be Mohammad Mustafa, chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund and a close adviser of Mahmoud Abbas. He was also previously deputy prime minister.

Mustafa is an economist who attended Western universities and speaks English well. He was interviewed at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. He did not rant about genocide, but he did say a lot of things about the history of the conflict that are counterfactual.

He claims that Israel was behind the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007:

Hamas took over Gaza as we all know in 2007 . But this was unfortunately facilitated by the Israelis themselves. They have only themselves to blame for this.

In 2005 when the Israeli government decided to withdraw from Gaza Sharon was the Prime Minister . We told them that we welcome your withdrawal from Gaza but let's coordinate, let's do it in a proper way so that the Palestinian government can take control of Gaza and ensure that whatever agreements we have will be applied including the security arrangements. They refused to do that.

They withdrew from Gaza unilaterally; left it without any coordination, and a year later they allowed Hamas to come in take over and made all the arrangements possible for them to grow., Now they admit publicly that they made that possible and intentionally in order to undermine Palestinian statehood and the ability to govern.

This is fantasy. When Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, it was officially run by the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas. The elections that brought Hamas to power were held in 2006; Israel attacked Hamas in Gaza that summer after Gilad Shalit's kidnapping and the Hamas/Fatah civil war in Gaza was in 2007.

This articulate, educated economist has a problem with telling the truth.

And that was not the only example. He also said:

I think October 7 is unfortunate for everybody but it's also a symptom of a bigger problem and the symptom is that the Palestinian people have been suffering for 75 years nonstop and nobody would pay attention. Okay that's the history, but now remember in 1947 there was the partition of Palestine. Palestinians didn't like that because it partitioned their country, their land into two nations into two countries, but we accepted that.

Nobody has paid attention to Palestinians for 75 years? The Palestinians accepted Israel's existence? (Perhaps he means in 1993, but it is unclear.)

He also claimed that Israel's process to scan goods entering Gaza for weapons is unnecessary, and that Hamas must be accepted as a valid Palestinian political party, at the same time claiming that if Israel would allow a Palestinian state then the Palestinians themselves would do everything they can to avoid another October 7, something that there is zero evidence for.

One other interesting fact. While Mustafa has not been linked to terror or corruption as far as I can tell, he was mentioned peripherally in the Panama Papers - and a photo of his Jordanian passport was published.

Does anyone find it strange that while he was deputy Palestinian prime minister he held onto a Jordanian passport?

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Jordan suffers higher inflation because of their antisemitism

Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh admitted that the Houthi attacks on shipping has inflationary effects on Jordan.

Speaking at the opening of the economic meeting, he said that “the events in the Red Sea raised shipping costs by up to 200% from East Asia and 60% from America and Europe.”

However, Al-Khasawneh added, "There is no land, sea, or air bridge with Israel, and talking about anything like this is a figment of the imagination, and it is an insult to Jordan."

What is he talking about?

Jordan is heavily dependent on shipping through the Red Sea to its port in Aqaba. Without that, its options are limited. At the moment, it struck an agreement to have the goods brought around Africa, through the Mediterranean and to Egyptian ports like Port Said. From there, trucks send the goods overland to Nuweiba, and from there ships take the goods to Aqaba and from there the rest of Jordan.

Here's the route:

They could have ships go to Tel Aviv or Haifa and from there have the goods trucked to the center of Jordan in much less time and at a lower cost that this sea-to-land-to-sea-to-land scheme they are stuck with now.

But they don't want to partner with Israel on anything they absolutely don't have to.

Antisemitism rots the brain. And in this case, it hurts ordinary Jordanians.

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02/25 Links: No, Joe Biden, most Palestinians support Hamas; US House speaker slams Biden’s policy on ‘settlements’; The European country most hostile to Israel

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: No, Joe Biden, most Palestinians support Hamas

U.S. President Joe Biden declared on X on Friday, "The overwhelming majority of Palestinians are not Hamas." Following the president's statement, various public figures disagreed on social media. Former Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, now a human rights advocate and ally to Israel, countered, "Tell that to the Palestinians in my inbox telling me Hamas are heroes and are freedom fighters."

Though not all Palestinians are members of Hamas or even support it, most of them agree with its basic ideology. Several surveys, as well as monitoring of social media, contradict Biden's remarks. According to a Nov. 14 survey by the Arab World for Research and Development, most Palestinians supported the killing and kidnapping of Israelis on Oct. 7, and just a tiny percentage supported a two-state solution. In the West Bank, 83% expressed their support, while only 7% were opposed.

Regarding a two-state solution, 75% favored a single Palestinian state "from the river to the sea." Though most Palestinians aren't Hamas, a vast majority of them agree with it on almost any question regarding their basic ideology after Oct. 7.

Telegraph Editorial: The West Must Stand with Israel

In the case of Israel, the West is rapidly losing the moral courage to stand for what is right. In the days after Oct. 7, it was widely accepted that, in order to prevent such an evil occurring again, Hamas had to be utterly defeated. Yet before the Israelis had even embarked on ground operations, the criticism and hand-wringing had already begun.

The same disgusting tendency which casts Western countries as innately and uniquely evil turned its sights upon Israel, denying that it had any right to defend itself, or to rescue the hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. Shockingly, such sentiments appear to be gaining ground in public discourse, while political leaders are equivocating.

It is disturbing just how quickly the actual cause of this conflict - the pogrom of Oct. 7 - appears to be being forgotten. It speaks to the limited attention spans of Western societies, as well as the power of the hard-Left to shape the political and broadcast media narrative. Israel did not start this war. It deserves, and was promised, our support. The West cannot go back on its word now, and should remember why we gave it in the first place. It is long past time that the democratic world rediscovered its moral center.

Niall Ferguson: Two Nations Are Fighting for Their Existence Against Absolutist Enemies. One Is the Victim of a Double Standard.

Two democracies are under attack by a sworn foe of Western civilization. One is in Eastern Europe; the other in the Middle East. One is vast; the other tiny. Both have recently seen unarmed civilians, including children, brutally slaughtered, tortured and kidnapped by their enemies. Both are sending their sons, husbands and fathers into brutal battles.

Yet, despite all these resemblances, these two fighting democracies are treated much differently by the world. One is praised for its heroism; the other is condemned - even accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

One is encouraged to fight on to victory, "for as long as it takes"; the other is told to agree to an immediate ceasefire before victory has been achieved. The armed forces of one country can do no wrong; those of the other are charged with "war crimes."

How can we explain the fact that Ukraine is lionized and Israel reviled? Is it because the enemies of Ukraine and Israel are in some way different? In many ways, Russia and Iran are like two peas in a pod. They are brutal autocracies in which the rule of law and human rights count for nothing. They murder without compunction their enemies at home and abroad. They each pose threats that extend far beyond Ukraine and Israel.

Thirty years ago, Israel agreed with the Palestine Liberation Organization on the beginnings of Palestinian self-government under the Oslo Accords - "a separate Palestinian entity short of a state," in the words of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Prime Minister Ehud Barak went even further at Camp David in 2000, but PLO leader Yasser Arafat walked away from the table. Have the Palestinians enhanced the case for statehood in subsequent years? No.

The Palestinian Authority is an oxymoron; Palestinians despise it, and it has no authority. A large majority of the inhabitants of Gaza, to say nothing of the Palestinians of the West Bank, prefer Hamas. The nature of Hamas was laid bare on Oct. 7, which should be regarded as an event disqualifying the Palestinians from self-government, not entitling them to it.

The @NYTimes says US administrations before Trump considered Israeli settlements to be illegal. Fact check: FALSE

From the New York Times:

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s reversal of Trump-era policy on settlements in the occupied West Bank reflects rising Biden administration frustration with Israel, but it is unlikely to dent the strong American backing for its ally’s military campaign in Gaza or pressure Israel to change course, analysts said on Saturday.

During a trip to Argentina on Friday, Mr. Blinken called the settlements “inconsistent with international law," a break with policy set under the Trump administration and a return to the decades-long U.S. position.

This is not true.

While Jimmy Carter didn't use the word "illegal" he did say they violated the Geneva Conventions, which is the same thing. His ambassador the the UN did call the settlements "illegal." But that was the last time this terminology was used by any administration.

Ronald Reagan said when he was campaigning for President and in an interview two weeks after he took office that the settlements are not illegal. Later in his presidency, he said that settlements are an "obstacle to peace."

George H.W. Bush was strongly against settlement construction but did not call them illegal.

Bill Clinton adopted Reagan's phrase that they were an "obstacle to peace" but he was softer on expansion of existing settlements.

George W. Bush called for a settlement freeze but did not characterize them as illegal or even an obstacle to peace.

Barack Obama and John Kerry hardened the US stance against settlement, calling them "illegitimate" but not using the word "illegal." However, Kerry did say, " “the Israeli Government’s program of establishing civilian settlements in the occupied territory is inconsistent with international law” which is essentially the same thing as calling their creation illegal, and that was the first administration to do so since Carter.

Then in 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, "The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law."

Blinken's saying that settlements are "inconsistent with international law" is a return to the Obama administration's stance, but most emphatically not a return to a "decades-long" position, which had been against settlements but that their fate must be decided via negotiations.

(h/t Irene)

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