Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Hamas threatens Gazans who consider working with Israel on security

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu presented a plan for "the day after" in Gaza that relied on local officials, untainted by terror, being responsible for security on each town.

It is widely believed that these would be the heads of respected, influential clans in Gaza who would take full control of civil matters with the support and protection of the IDF.

One of the families responded favorably - so Hamas threatened them.

A source in the ministry of interior in the Gaza Strip told Ultra Palestine that threats had reached families who responded to Israeli communications, saying that Hamas would deal with them "militarily."

The source said that there were still many thousands of Hamas security personnel who are doing all they can to ensure that they will still control the Gaza Strip as soon as the war is over.

The Hamas ministry official claimed that the families considering the offer are most interested in revenge on Hamas for how it took over Gaza in 2007, and they see an opportunity to even the score with the IDF on their side. He also claimed that these same families are the ones attacking aid convoys and the Hamas members with them .

At the same time as these threats, Hamas and other groups insist that no one is interested in taking the civil service jobs from Hamas.

I don't know whether any of this is true, although Ultrapal has been a pretty good source in the past. It would make sense that amongst the chaos, clans will look for an opportunity to settle old feuds.

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03/06 Links Pt1: The New Rape Denialism; Israel Prepares to Go It Alone; The Illusion of a Palestinian 'Demilitarized' State; UNRWA donors likely to resume funding soon

From Ian:

Bret Stephens The New Rape Denialism

On Oct. 7, Hamas invaded Israel and filmed itself committing scores of human-rights atrocities. Some of the footage was later captured by the Israeli military and screened to hundreds of journalists, including me. The “pure, predatory sadism,” as Atlantic writer Graeme Wood described it, is bottomless.

Yet Hamas denies that its men sexually assaulted Israelis, calling the charges “lies and slanders against the Palestinians and their resistance.” And Hamas’s fellow travelers and useful idiots in the West, most of them self-described progressives, parrot that denialism in the face of powerful and deeply investigated evidence of widespread rapes, documented most recently in a United Nations report released on Monday.

The interesting question is, why? Why the refusal to believe that Hamas, which butchered children in their beds, took elderly women as hostages and incinerated families in their homes, would be capable of that?

I’ll get to that in a moment, but first it’s worth looking at the forms this denialism takes. One method is to acknowledge, as one recent article put it, that “sexual assault may have occurred on Oct. 7,” but nobody has really proved that it was part of an organized pattern. Another is to raise questions about various details in stories to suggest that if there’s even a single error, or a witness whose testimony is at all inconsistent, the entire account must also be false and dishonest. A third is to treat anything an Israeli says as inherently suspect.

And finally, there is the point that there are barely any witnesses to the assaults. Where are the women who were allegedly raped? Why aren’t they speaking out?

The answer to that final question is the grimmest: Overwhelmingly, the women who could have spoken out are dead, for the simple reason that any Israeli who got close enough to a terrorist to be raped was close enough to be murdered. As for the credibility of Israeli witnesses, who else — other than the early responders who encountered the victims at first hand — should be interviewed and quoted by anyone investigating this?

The left serves as apologists for Hamas rapists' heinous crimes on Oct. 7

Remember when rape was a sickening crime, and not a form of resistance?

Remember when #MeToo was a universal movement against sexual violence that brooked no excuses or exceptions?

Those landmark advances came after long struggles, and now they are being riddled with exclusions and in danger of being gutted.

All because the latest victims are Israelis.

Or, as an Instagram meme put it, “Me Too Unless You’re a Jew.”

Antisemitism takes many forms, and we must add to the list the refusal to accept as fact the horrific scope of rape and sexual mutilation carried out by Muslim terrorists on Oct. 7.

The claim by Hamas that there were no sexual atrocities has given license for despicable apologists in America and abroad to insist that such crimes never happened.

Or if they did, well, there were only a few.

Besides, the Israelis had it coming.

A new report from the United Nations, though belated and imperfect, puts the lie to the denial and excuses.

The report confirms that members of Hamas, other terror groups and Gaza civilians were guilty of committing many heinous sexual crimes that day.

Notwithstanding the authors’ dry language and excuses about not having enough time to be more thorough, the findings leave zero doubt that scores, perhaps hundreds of instances of rape and mutilation took place in Israeli communities near the border.

The investigators also found “clear and convincing” evidence that some Israeli hostages were raped in Gaza and believe some hostages still in captivity could be suffering the same fate.

It is impossible to read the report and not feel sickened by the savage brutality it recounts.

Aviva Klompas: Fresh Evidence That UNWRA Isn't Helping Anyone—Not Even the Palestinians

The notion that a different set of rules applies to only one people in the world is absurd. But that's how UNRWA keeps its mission alive, its 30,000 workers on the job, and its billions of dollars flowing in from foreign governments.

To sustain the system, UNRWA also moved beyond the "humanitarian aid" business and into the education business. It operates hundreds of schools in Gaza and around the Arab world with curricula and textbooks that incite the next generation by dehumanizing Jews, denying Israel's right to exist, and depicting all of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as Palestine.

UNRWA also turned a blind eye (or worse) to the terrorism perpetrated by the Hamas government in Gaza.

Over the past few months, the world has learned that a number of UNRWA employees participated in Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack. These included a social worker who carried a murdered Israeli's body into his car and drove the dead man into Gaza. And now the IDF released recordings of an UNRWA teacher saying he had captured an Israeli woman on October 7 as a "sabaya," a Jihadi term for sex slave.

The IDF has also produced evidence that Hamas' network of terror tunnels includes an elaborate command center built right underneath UNRWA's Gaza headquarters.

UNRWA officials claimed they weren't aware, but Western nations are skeptical. The United States and Germany, among others, have begun halting payments to the organization.

Now it's time to take the next step.

Other humanitarian aid groups, forward-looking Arab nations, or even the UN High Commissioner for Refugees could step in to oversee the provision of aid to Palestinians with an eye toward enabling a more peaceful and prosperous future.

UNRWA has failed the people it's supposed to help. It's incited and protected terrorists. And now it's lost the trust of its funders. After 75 years, it's clear the agency will never play a role in ending Palestinian suffering—and even clearer that it needs to go.

Aviva Klompas is the former director of speechwriting at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations and co-founder of Boundless Israel, a nonprofit organization that partners with community leaders in the U.S. to support Israel education and combat hatred of Jews.

Last month, the heads of various UN agencies and other NGOs issued a joint statement expressing concern over Gaza and a list of demands, nearly all of them from Israel.

-An immediate ceasefire.
-Civilians and the infrastructure they rely on to be protected.
-The hostages to be released immediately.
-Reliable entry points that would allow us to bring aid in from all possible crossings, including to northern Gaza.
-Security assurances and unimpeded passage to distribute aid, at scale, across Gaza, with no denials, delays and access impediments.
-A functioning humanitarian notification system that allows all humanitarian staff and supplies to move within Gaza and deliver aid safely.
-Roads to be passable and neighborhoods to be cleared of explosive ordnance.
-A stable communication network that allows humanitarians to move safely and securely.
-UNRWA[1], the backbone of the humanitarian operations in Gaza, to receive the resources it needs to provide life-saving assistance.
-A halt to campaigns that seek to discredit the United Nations and non-governmental organizations doing their best to save lives.

Not one of the ten demands was for other countries to allow Gazans to take refuge elsewhere.

This omission is even more glaring when you see one of the signatories: Ms. Amy E. Pope, Director General, International Organization for Migration (IOM) .

And it was posted on the IOM website.

The UN organization in charge of migrants rights cannot even hint that Gazans - who desperately want to leave Gaza - have the right to flee elsewhere.

Indeed, looking through the tweets of Amy Pope, and press releases from IOM, we can find no indication that the organization cares at all about Gazans' right to movement.

(h/t Irene)

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Human Rights Watch continues its long anti-Israel tradition with a new press release, accusing Israel of actively blocking aid to Gaza:

The Israeli government has failed to comply with at least one measure in the legally binding order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in South Africa’s genocide case, Human Rights Watch said today. Citing warnings about “catastrophic conditions” in Gaza, the court ordered Israel on January 26, 2024, to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian aid,” and to report back on its compliance to the specific measures “within one month.”

One month later, however, Israel continues to obstruct the provision of basic services and the entry and distribution within Gaza of fuel and lifesaving aid, acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes and include the use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. Fewer trucks have entered Gaza and fewer aid missions have been permitted to reach northern Gaza in the several weeks since the ruling than in the weeks preceding it, according to United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“The Israeli government is starving Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, putting them in even more peril than before the World Court’s binding order,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli government has simply ignored the court’s ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression, including further blocking lifesaving aid.”

It points to a graphic by UN-OCHA showing that for several days in February the number of aid trucks decreased dramatically.

OCHA's daily report for February 9 says the reason that aid was limited:

The deteriorating situation and escalation of hostilities have caused significant damage to critical infrastructure, including roads, electricity, and water supply systems, impeding the distribution of food aid.

Not Israel actively blocking aid, but the practical realities of the difficulties of getting the aid transported. In other words, logistics.

And more evidence that this is a logistical problem and not because of Israeli actions comes from the semi-regular COGAT reports. I cannot find historic reports online, but I do have emails from COGAT. On February 14, they reported:

208 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were inspected and transferred to the Gaza Strip Yesterday (Feb. 13). 44 trucks were inspected at Nitzana and transferred via the Rafah Crossing, and 164 were inspected and transferred via Kerem Shalom. 87 trucks carried food.

But the graphic above says that only 100 trucks entered Gaza on February 13.

COGAT:

106 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were inspected and transferred to the Gaza Strip Yesterday (Feb. 15). 15 trucks were inspected at Nitzana and transferred via the Rafah Crossing, and 91 were inspected and transferred via Kerem Shalom.

OCHA says only 20 trucks entered February 15:

February 19: COGAT says 100 trucks, OCHA says 9.

And, as photos show, long lines of trucks are lined up at the Rafah border waiting to enter Gaza. Israel isn't blocking Rafah.

Logistics problems take time to solve, especially when Hamas is hijacking trucks and shooting at people trying to receive aid.The World Food Programme paused its efforts on February 20, and described the chaotic and dangerous conditions in Gaza, well before HRW's report:

On Sunday, as WFP started the route towards Gaza City, the convoy was surrounded by crowds of hungry people close to the Wadi Gaza checkpoint. First fending off multiple attempts by people trying to climb aboard our trucks, then facing gunfire once we entered Gaza City, our team was able to distribute a small quantity of the food along the way. On Monday, the second convoy’s journey north faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order. Several trucks were looted between Khan Younes and Deir al Balah and a truck driver was beaten. The remaining flour was spontaneously distributed off the trucks in Gaza city, amidst high tension and explosive anger.

Despite all this, the number of truckloads are increasing week after week.

One more data point showing that HRW lies. Egypt Today reports that not only are the US and Jordan airdropping supplies to northern Gaza, but also the UAE and Egypt.

Israel is very careful about airspace over Gaza. Any country that wants to have airdrops must closely coordinate with Israel, and Israel only. There are no other obstacles to air-dropping aid. And Israel is facilitating those missions, even from countries whose own lawmakers are nakedly antisemitic and anti-Israel.

While the total amounts of aid from planes is still small, it shows that Israel is not "blocking" aid at all.

And it shows that Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch is a liar.

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There are reports that the US is studying ways to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza by ship.

What the media isn't reporting is that Israel approved a similar plan in December - and it was rejected by the Palestinian leadership.

In November, Cyprus proposed a very similar plan to send aid to Gaza via ship. They made an agreement with Israel to have the goods inspected in Larnaca and from there sent to Gaza, bypassing the alleged bottlenecks of Israeli inspection on land.

In December, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen led Israeli teams who discussed with their Cypriot counterparts the technical details of how such a plan would work. “Cyprus and Israel, together with other partners in the region are promoting the initiative for a secure maritime corridor to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Gaza in an organized and well inspected manner,” Cohen said at the time.

Israel was ready to get the plan moving. It put spent many hours into working on the logistics. Cyprus was ready to get going. (In February, Israel said it was willing to build a floating dock north of Rafah to facilitate aid by sea.)

The Palestinian government rejected the idea.

“We objected to the sea corridor agreed upon between Cyprus and Israel,” Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told his cabinet. “This is because we have suspicions that the ships operated by Cyprus could be used to remove our people from Gaza.”

In this one statement, the Palestinian government in Ramallah spurned not only the idea of massive amounts of humanitarian aid arriving by sea, but also the idea (that no one even mentioned) of allowing Gazans to flee a war zone should they so desire. They want Gazans to stay in a dangerous place, against their will, more than they want to avoid their going without food.

This episode shows that Israel cares far more about the well-being of Gaza civilians than the Palestinian Authority.

The world media is simply not willing to report a story like that.

So they don't.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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03/05 Links Pt2: Dawkins: Some fears about Islam are entirely rational; The Deadly Manipulations of the Anti-Israel Mob; To the Squad, Jews Are Second-Class Constituents

From Ian:

Richard Dawkins: Some fears about Islam are entirely rational

In Britain, phobia is hardly the right word for any fear Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, might feel. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the former secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: ‘Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him. His mind must be tormented for the rest of his life unless he asks for forgiveness to Almighty Allah.’ A Muslim who is losing his faith would have good reason to fear the penalty for apostasy, which is death. When I taxed Sir Iqbal with this on television, he said, ‘It’s very rarely enforced’. That’s good to hear. But a would-be apostate doesn’t have to be ‘phobic’ to still feel a reasonable fear.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims’ definition of Islamophobia, which was published in 2018, begins with the statement that it’s a form of racism. In a new paper for the Free Speech Union, Tim Dieppe makes the obvious point that Islam is not a race, and he very well develops the inconsistencies that this remarkable solecism leads to.

I would make one further observation. A religion is something you can convert to, or opt out of. Your race isn’t like that. You can’t convert to a race or leave it. The fact that you can’t leave your race means that, if Islam is indeed a race, apostasy is literally impossible. Yet apostasy has to be possible in Islam or it couldn’t be punishable by death. So the statement that Islamophobia is a form of racism is more than just incorrect. It contradicts a fundamental, and incidentally obnoxious, tenet of Islam.

Here I have not considered the issue of freedom of speech. Tim Dieppe covers it so well that I have nothing to add, except this final thought. If ‘Islamophobia’ becomes punishable by law, will it be illegal to even state, as a matter of fact, that a woman in some Islamic countries can be stoned to death for the crime of speaking to a man other than her husband? Will I be arrested for stating the undenied fact that apostasy carries the death penalty?

If so, bring it on. I look forward to defending myself in court.

Seth Mandel: The Deadly Manipulations of the Anti-Israel Mob

Bushnell felt that complicity, a writer for n+1 magazine theorized, working for “the US Air Force, the mightiest incendiary device that humans have ever constructed.”

He desperately needed people close to him to tell him they wanted him alive not dead. But if there were any such voices, they were clearly drowned out by the activist class falsely accusing him of complicity in genocide. In that way, Bushnell is less a conscientious objector than he is like Conrad Roy, the teenager who hesitated in taking his own life and was told by his girlfriend over the phone to get back in his truck as it was filling with carbon monoxide.

Bushnell represented something evil to these activists: the United States armed forces. Thus to them he was expendable. They came to bury him first, then to praise him. But oh, did they praise him. “Let us never forget the extraordinary courage and commitment of brother Aaron Bushnell who died for truth and justice!” tweeted professor and presidential candidate Cornel West. The suicide was, according to a writer for Current Affairs, “an act of courage and honor.” A professor at Gonzaga lamented he’d never “be able to muster up the courage of someone like Aaron Bushnell.”

Yet it’s hard to escape the conclusion that what they were attracted to wasn’t Bushnell’s courage but his vulnerability. A Veterans Affairs suicide prevention psychologist found in a 2017 study that guilt “had direct effects on” suicide ideation in military veterans. A 2021 study found that “[w]hen examined concurrently, guilt—but not shame—remained significantly associated with suicidal ideation, after accounting for effects of depressive symptoms and past suicide attempt.” According to an Ohio State Medical Center researcher, “literature has consistently implicated guilt in suicidality.” Those studies focused on the U.S. and UK. In similar research in Australia, “guilt was significantly associated with PTSD severity, anger, alcohol use, attempted suicide and being a contemporary veteran.”

I mention all of those simply to show that guilt, the category of emotion into which complicity falls, is nearly a universal marker of the chances of attempting suicide among military and veterans. It is emotional cyanide. The activists disrupting everyday life with cries of “genocide!” are feeding the population a steady dose of rat poison.

Redemption politics have always been a mainstay of extreme political movements—the Soviet gulags themselves were seen as purifying by their sociopathic wardens. And that concept is clearly driving the campaign of human sacrifice that has claimed real victims and whose ringleaders seem to be taking only encouragement from that fact.

Jewish Londoners ‘make plans to flee capital’ amid huge antisemitism wave

Growing numbers of Jewish families are considering fleeing London for abroad because of rising antisemitism in the capital, campaigners warned on Tuesday as they demanded tougher action to combat intimidation and hate.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism said some Jewish residents had already left because of fears for their safety.

But it added that the number of those considering leaving London was increasing daily in response to hostility being displayed towards them.

The campaign group has exposed a series of antisemitic attacks in London amid reports of increasing nervousness among Jewish people about their safety.

Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said an earlier opinion survey had already shown that about half of Jewish people were considering moving abroad and that the trend was growing because of continuing hostility from sections of the community.

He said examples ranged from threats made to MPs and outside Parliament to antisemitism in universities and attacks on the streets, as well as

the impact of Gaza protest marches involving incidents of antisemitism and support for Hamas terrorism.

“We are aware of people now who have left the country. It’s the biggest untold story, the effect it’s having on Jewish families of mass intimidation. The cumulative effect is pretty devastating,” he said.

Yesterday, Hezbollah shot several anti-tank missiles at targets in Israel, killing a Thai worker and injuring seven others.

Hezbollah's weapons are usually laser guided, meaning that they cannot easily miss. Those workers were the targets.

But Hezbollah celebrated the attacks with a video:

انه البركان يا اولاد موردخاي #كاراكوز_حلل
نار وغصب pic.twitter.com/DOLZUxfqkQ
— حسين مرتضى Hussein Mortada (@HoseinMortada) March 4, 2024

It turns out that the song playing in this celebration of murder is a 2009 classic, "Death to Israel." There are lots of people who took this song and made their own music videos out of it.

Here is a mostly machine-generated translation:

I write with bleeding blood...death, death to Israel,
and I create with bleeding flesh...death,death,death to Israel

From the wounds of Al-Durrah, Al-Ayyash, and Izz Al-Din...create the days of victory.
Challenge the angry occupiers from the land of Jerusalem...expel a usurping occupier...Get that one out of your house...That humiliated Zionist

I write with bleeding blood..death.Death to Israel.
And I do with bleeding flesh..death.death.Death to Israel.

I hit them with stones, with a slingshot and with a knife... I chase them day and night, for my resolve is strong

Be a volcano of fire, be a sijjil stone
In the language of your Jihad repeat: “Death to Israel”

... Do not consider that his equipment and the weapons of the soldiers are dangerous

I write in bleeding blood...death, death to Israel
And do to the bleeding body...death, death, death to Israel

Be a red death, do not have mercy on the aggression army... whoever wears the uniform of soldiering and settlement
From the land of angry Jerusalem... expel the usurping occupier... remove that humiliated Zionist from your home...

I write in bleeding blood...death, death to Israel
And do with the bleeding body...death,death,death to Israel...death to Israel

It doesn't seem like they are singing for Palestinian liberation, are they?

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Those Who Deny Victimhood Of Jews Try To Claim It For Themselves (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

If you are in the business of looking for examples of media bias, one endless source is Donald Trump.
Another is Israel.

That is what Newsbusters has found. They are part of the Media Research Center (MRC):

The mission of the Media Research Center is to document and combat the falsehoods and censorship of the news media, entertainment media and Big Tech in order to defend and preserve America's founding principles and Judeo-Christian values.

They even have a section on their site dedicated to Israel/Palestine.

In a recent article, they cover the problem of bias in the media coverage of Israel following the Hamas massacre on October 7 -- namely, the pro-Israel bias of CNN.

That is what Christiane Amanpour and her fellow Arab journalists claim. According to The Intercept, CNN has a double standard when it comes to Israel, and there is an anti-Arab climate at the media institution:

In the hourlong meeting at CNN’s London Bureau on February 13, staffers took turns questioning a panel of executives about CNN’s protocols for covering the war in Gaza and what they describe as a hostile climate for Arab reporters. Several junior and senior CNN employees described feeling devalued, embarrassed, and disgraced by CNN’s war coverage.

I never would have thought of CNN harboring a pro-Israel bias.
Nor would I have thought of CNN having an anti-Arab bias.

Yet that is what CNN journalists claim:

“I was in southern Lebanon during October and November,” one journalist said. “And it was more distressing for me to turn on CNN, than the bombs falling nearby.”

...Instead of finding solace in CNN’s coverage of the war, the staffer continued, “I find that my colleagues, my family, are platforming people over and over again, that are either calling for my death, or using very dehumanizing language against me … and people that look like me. And obviously, this has a huge impact in our credibility in the region.”

The journalist posed a question to the executives: “I want to ask as well, what have you done, and what are you doing to address the hate speech that fills our air and informed our coverage, especially in the first few months of the war?”

...Another staffer disputed that characterization and noted that Arab and Muslim journalists walk a difficult line between feeling proud of working for CNN while facing pressure from their families and communities over working for a network with a pronounced pro-Israel bias.

What is the anti-Arab bias this journalist is talking about?
The Intercept helpfully fills in the blanks:

Another newsroom staffer chimed in to object to the network’s uncritical coverage of statements by Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. “I think a lot of us felt very strongly about the fact that there were very senior anchors not challenging people like, comments like, the defense minister using what is considered under international law, genocidal language, ‘human animals,’ all of those things that made up the first seven pages of the South African legal case at the ICJ,” referring to the International Court of Justice.

...The staffer went on to say that Muslim or Arab journalists at CNN were made to feel that they must denounce Hamas to clear their names and be taken seriously as journalists. “I’ve heard this, where a number of younger colleagues now feel that they didn’t want to put their hands up to speak up even in the kind of the local Bureau meeting,” the staffer said. “People were taking their names off bylines.”

What The Intercept thought was the icing on the cake reveals what is really going on. Criticism and objections aimed at Hamas are being interpreted as attacks on Palestinian Arabs and on Arabs in general.

One issue is the alleged verbal threats. As far as the allegedly genocidal comments by Israeli officials go, Yair Rosenberg at The Atlantic has an article, What Did Top Israeli War Officials Really Say About Gaza? that addresses this. He goes point by point, quote by quote, and demonstrates that quotes directed at Hamas are being twisted to make it seem they are directed at Gazans and Palestinian Arabs in general. That Arab journalists would be expected to denounce Hamas terrorists for the massacre and rape of Israeli civilians is hardly extreme. But the claim by these journalists that such an expectation was unreasonable and unexpected is.

Another issue is that some of the claims by CNN journalists of their reaction to alleged anti-Arab prejudice sound similar to what Jews have long suffered, first on college campuses and now on the streets around the world. We hear about Jews being told they need to condemn Israel or Zionism. For years, the media has reported that Jews are afraid to do anything or wear anything that reveals their Jewish identity. Now, Arab journalists claim they are intimidated by the idea they should condemn Hamas or afraid to raise their hand at a meeting.

This is reminiscent of CAIR's claims about rising Islamophobia.

Investor's Business Daily had an article in 2006 describing CAIR's exaggerated claims about attacks against Muslims:

New FBI data on hate crimes reveal Muslim groups are crying wolf about exploding anti-Muslim abuses. They're actually shrinking, belying claims of mass Islamophobia.

The article went on to point out that the data indicated that 66% of religiously motivated attacks targeted Jews, but 11% were carried out against Muslims.

FBI data showed that hate crimes against Muslims, while a reality, were clearly declining.

But that did not stop CAIR from issuing its 2006 report where it said it hopes "the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and Congress will come to understand the full scope of anti-Muslim discrimination and rising Islamophobia in our nation today."

Fortunately, CAIR is not the only source for hate crimes against Muslims:

The FBI report gives lie to CAIR's alarmist narrative of "Islamophobic" lynch mobs marching on mosques across America. In reality, Americans have been remarkably, and admirably, tolerant and respectful of Muslims and their institutions since 9/11.

The latest FBI report on hate crimes is from 2022:

There were 2,042 reported incidents based on religion. More than half of these (1,122) were driven by anti-Jewish bias. Incidents involving anti-Muslim (158) and anti-Sikh (181) sentiments remained at similar levels compared to 2021.

It's fair to ask if CAIR is still exaggerating reports of Muslim hate crimes.

This issue of antisemitism vs Islamophobia can also be flipped around. We hear the accusation that Jews weaponize antisemitism to deflect criticism of Israel. Rarely is the accusation supported with examples. Some criticize the IHRA definition of antisemitism for the same deflection, even though that definition explicitly says not all criticism of Israel is antisemitism.

Compare that with what some have been saying about Islamophobia for years:

Western Islamists utilize Islamophobia as a label for any criticism not just of Islam and Muslims but also of themselves. Any scrutiny of Islamist ideology and actors can be easily labelled as racist, an attempt by people with privilege to silence marginalized voices of color. This charge is made also against critics of Islamism with a Muslim background, as they too are not rarely accused of being Islamophobes.

This reminds me of a report in 2011 when French President Sarkozy's advisor said Muslims should wear a "green star" to protest against a debate on secularism and Islam.

Abderrahmane Dahmane, former diversity adviser of French President

Nicolas Sarkozy points to a green star during a news conference

in front of the Grande Mosque of Paris on March 29, 2011.

Then, too, Muslims claimed to suffer discrimination that rivaled, if not surpassed, the suffering of the Jews.

The irony then was that the yellow star originated not with the Nazis but with the Muslims themselves.
Just as the current upsurge of hostility against Jews and Muslims originates in no small part from the Hamas massacre.

Hate crimes exist, and there is more than enough hate to go around.

Before accusing Jews of weaponizing Jew hatred, perhaps those accusers should look in their own backyard.

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!

03/05 Links Pt1: UN report accepts Hamas attack included rape and abuse of corpses; Israeli envoy: ‘UNRWA must be defunded, dismantled’

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: The Demand for a Ceasefire Is a Demand for the Annihilation of Israel

When the Americans and British bombed Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed. But it was not a crime. This was a necessity in order to defeat the Nazi axis of evil. When the U.S. bombed Fallujah, Mosul and Raqqa to defeat al-Qaeda or ISIS, thousands were killed. This was not a war crime. It was a necessity, even though there was no existential threat to the West.

When Hamas leaders repeatedly declare their intent to exterminate the Jews, and embark on a campaign to murder innocents, Israel is forced to defeat Hamas. As Razi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, declared: "October 7 was only the first time. There will be a second and third and fourth time." So it is not only Israel's right to defeat Hamas. It is Israel's duty.

A demand for a ceasefire is tantamount to supporting the resumption of Hamas' extermination efforts. Anyone who would have proposed a ceasefire with Germany without the complete surrender of the Nazis would have been considered insane.

WSJ Editorial: Playing Hamas' Game on Aid to Gaza

After the tragic stampede at a Gaza aid convoy on Thursday, President Biden decided to airdrop some aid to the strip and increase his pressure on Israel. The onus on Israel plays into Hamas' strategy: Place civilians in maximum danger and trust the international community to set up Israel to take the blame.

In war, civilians flee to safety. Only in Gaza has the world decided that all civilians must stay trapped in the war zone, in danger and harder to reach with aid. One would expect Egypt to face great pressure to save lives. The opposite occurred. Rather than demand that Egypt follow its obligation under international law to accept refugees from the fighting next door, the U.S., UN and aid organizations took up Egypt's position and admonished Israel not to "displace" civilians from Gaza.

Only when it can damage Israel does it become the liberal position to close the borders and keep refugees penned in a war zone. Instead of civilians fleeing the fighting, receiving aid in freer conditions and then returning after the war, they have been kept in Gaza to serve as "Israel's problem." Rather than get Gazans to safety, the world's humanitarian organs have demanded that Israel cease fire, leaving Hamas in power with hostages in tow. Gazans need aid, and they also need the world to stop playing Hamas' game.

Why aren’t the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 attack designated as terrorist organizations?

On Oct. 7, a horrific act of terrorism claimed the lives of 1,200 people in Southern Israel, with over 240 others taken hostage into the Gaza Strip. Among those killed were at least 32 Americans, with multiple others still held captive in Gaza.

While the primary terrorist organization leading the massacre was Hamas, six other Iranian-backed terror groups participated in the carnage as well. Despite the American blood on their hands, some of these groups are still not designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the U.S. State Department, which provides them with an unacceptable level of operational freedom.

This should be rectified forthwith. Not only would an FTO designation ensure that these groups, their members and their allies face the most crippling and wide-ranging sanctions possible, it would also serve as a powerful declaration that the United States stands firm in its resolve that those responsible for Oct. 7 will not escape justice.

Among the groups involved in this appalling act that are already classified as FTOs are Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. That leaves three groups — the Popular Resistance Committees, the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) — undesignated.

All three groups clearly meet the criteria for an FTO designation, namely Section 212(a)(3)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and Section 140(d)(2) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989.

In fact, some of these organizations have for years faced calls to be designated as FTOs, such as the Popular Resistance Committees, the third-largest terror group in Gaza. One of the group’s notable attacks came in 2003 when it detonated a 200-pound bomb beside a convoy in Gaza that killed three American security guards and injured a U.S. diplomat. On multiple occasions, spokesmen for the organization explicitly acknowledged that it receives financial and military support from Tehran and Hezbollah.

Israel Demands UN Security Council Declare Hamas a Terror Organization

Israel demanded Tuesday that the United Nations (UN) Security Council convene to recognize Hamas as a terror organization, in the wake of a UN report confirming Hamas committed rape against Israelis in the October 7 attack.

As Breitbart News reported Monday, the UN issued a report largely confirming Israel’s accusations, noting that Hamas terrorists had committed gang rapes on October 7, and was also committing sexual violence against Israeli hostages.

“Israel calls for the immediate convening of the UN Security Council with the aim of declaring Hamas a terrorist organization,” Avi Hyman, an Israeli government spokesperson, said. “Now, even the UN recognizes Hamas’s horrific sexual crimes.”

Though Hamas is clearly a terrorist organization, the UN has refused to recognize it as one. As the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) has noted:
The UN does not recognize Hamas as a terrorist group despite decades of suicide bombings, thousands of rockets launched indiscriminately at Israeli cities, and the barbaric actions of October 7. In addition, the UN body formerly known as the 1267 Committee, now known as the ISIL (Dae’sh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, does not view Hamas (or any other Iranian proxy) as a terrorist group.

The UN’s refusal to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization is the result of the influence of Islamic nations, as well as Russia and China, which adopt a generally anti-Western stance.

In that regard, the UN report Monday was unusual.

The UN report on sexual violence by Gazans on October 7 says:

In Kibbutz Be’eri, the mission team determined that at least two allegations of sexual violence, which had been widely reported in the media, were unfounded. These included the graphically publicized case of a pregnant woman whose womb had reportedly been torn open, before she was killed, and her fetus stabbed while still inside her.

The leading independent researcher on the rapes and sexual abuse by Hamas is Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy. In a press conference on November 14, she described the evidence for that exact incident - and it is all on video.

I want to bring one one example we've heard from the in the first week of the war of a pregnant woman found slaughtered. It was broadcast in international media in the second weekend. We were shocked we're like 'could it be that they took a baby out of a woman's womb?'
The second week of the war we've heard about it from the rescue teams; we got a report that the rescue team collected a body of a woman and the baby. And the third week or a few days afterwards we got the information from Shura [military base] from treating the body of of this woman.
And the most terrible thing is that last week we got the video of this woman.
Now I didn't know what really happened to her, we could only imagine, but to see the video - I didn't see it, I had a person next to me describing exactly what it is, I couldn't watch - it was alive. I didn't imagine that she was alive, I don't know, I just imagined that she was dead while they did it, but that she was alive, she had her mouth covered with something, her breasts were cut while she was screaming and tortured, the baby they cut it up, they cut open her belly. I couldn't really understand that this has happened.

Did the UN even speak to Dr. Elkayam-Levy? How could it possibly say that this report was "unfounded?"

Now compare the standards of evidence required by this UN team for Israeli evidence compared to Palestinian allegations of sexual violence by the IDF.

It says:

In other locations, such as kibbutz Kfar Azza, while circumstantial information may indicate some forms of sexual violence, the mission could not verify reported incidents of rape.

Compare to:

The mission team also visited Ramallah in the occupied West Bank to hear the views and concerns of Palestinian officials and civil society representatives in response to allegations of conflict-related sexual violence received by the mandate in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, allegedly implicating Israeli security forces and settlers. Interlocutors raised concerns about cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Palestinians in detention, including various forms of sexual violence in the form of invasive body searches, threats of rape, and prolonged forced nudity, as well as sexual harassment and threats of rape, during house raids and at checkpoints. This information will complement information already verified by other UN entities on allegations of CRSV in Gaza and the occupied West Bank for potential inclusion in the annual Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence.

For Israel, they are quick to deny and reluctant to confirm. Extensive forensic evidence is required to verify the testimony of Jews who cannot be trusted on their own.

For Palestinians, allegations with zero evidence are published in detail and considered important enough to be included in future reports. Not a shred of skepticism is seen with the Palestinian slanders. No hint of corroborating evidence is requested or even expected.

It seems clear that if Palestinians are accused of a crime, then the UN requires "balance" by uncirtically reporting whatever they make up.

This UN investigation does everything it can to minimize Hamas crimes, only publishing what cannot possibly be denied. But when it comes to wild accusations against the IDF, no evidence is sought or required.

(h/t Irene)

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!

Egyptians used to hate Hamas. Now they love them.

The Fikra Forum of the Washington Institute asked Egyptians in November/December what they thought of Hamas after the October 7 massacres.

While we had seen other polls showing broad approval of Hamas' terrorist attacks in the Arab world, this one is especially interesting because it compares Egyptian attitudes of Hamas after October 7 with their historic disapproval of the group.

The turnround in Egyptian attitudes towards Hamas is stunning.

In 2020, 73% of Egyptians viewed Hamas negatively and 23% positively. That has now flipped to 75% who now approve of Hamas compared to only 21% who disapprove.

The poll showed that Hamas' newfound popularity has not bled over to Hamas' allies. Egyptian attitudes towards the Muslim Brotherhood are worse than ever before - an overwhelming 87% disapproval rating. And 79% had a negative opinion of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

How to explain this?

Look at the answers to one other question: Over 70% agreed that "Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and their other militia allies are actually unwilling or unable to help the Palestinians, no matter what they claim."

Egyptians think that Hamas is the only group that actually risks its members to fight Israel; the other groups are just blowhards. There is no bravery in lobbing rockets from a distance. That is why Hamas is so popular: its willingness for martyrdom in its zeal to murder Jews up close.

The poll also found that 94% of Egyptians don't believe that Hamas killed civilians on October 7. This is in line with Palestinian polls that showed that over 90% also don't believe that Hamas committed any war crimes on that date.

These results show the amount of cognitive dissonance necessary in order to maintain an antisemitic attitude. Hamas' own videos show explicit attacks on civilians but people who support Hamas cannot square those atrocities with their beliefs that Hamas is righteous and the only war criminals are Israelis. The only way to make it make sense is to invoke another antisemitic conspiracy theory: all the evidence of Hamas atrocities are Jewish lies.

Jew-hatred is endlessly pliable and can be used to explain anything.

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!

JordanZad, a Jordanian news agency, has trafficked in pure antisemitism for years. has taken the next step.

It is praising Hitler for killing Jews.

The title of column by Dr. Haitham Abdel Karim Ahmed Al-Rababa is, simply, "Heil Hitler."

In light of the aggression, the criminal war, and the escalating events by the Zionist occupation against the Palestinians, especially children, women, and the elderly, some are searching for the most prominent things said by Adolf Hitler, the Nazi German politician. He wanted to exterminate them from the face of the earth, so his view of them was correct that they were the cause of the devastation that was coming upon the world, so he burned them.

The reason for Hitler's hatred of the Jews is because before Hitler took power, the Jews controlled the media and art and spread kitsch and theaters that promoted homosexuality, and this type led to the Germans revolting.

When World War II broke out, he burned the Jews in the famous incident of the Holocaust, where the Jews succeeded in promoting that Hitler burned more than a million Jews, but historians believe that this number is exaggerated, and only 100 to 200 thousand Jews were burned.

...In September 1939, World War II broke out, as Germany invaded Poland. The Jews in Poland were forced to live in specific areas called ghettos, and they were persecuted and many of these pigs were killed. At the end of 1940, the Nazis reached the necessity of having extermination camps to get rid of the Jewish population. In Europe, an extermination camp was established in every country in which hundreds of thousands of Jewish Zionists were killed . Camps were established in Poland, Belarus, Serbia, Ukraine, and Croatia.

I have come to the conclusion that even though 100 years have passed, Israel with this mentality will never be safe in these lands. Because it has built its entire existence on injustice, seizure and genocide.

... In the past, the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas hoped for help from the Islamic world. But everyone now knows that this unity collapsed after the martyrdom of the leader of the nation and the symbol of the Arabs, the martyr Saddam Hussein, and that many of the countries that were founded after that became under the control of global imperialism. Today, Hamas has become more rational and a symbol of jihad and struggle against the usurping Zionists.

Dr. Al-Rababa is a professor of modern comparative linguistics.

Even when Arab media embraces Nazism, the West shuts its eyes.

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!

03/04 Links Pt2: How Much Is a Dead Jew Worth?; UN finds evidence of rape on Oct. 7; Over 450 UNRWA Teachers Participated in Oct. 7 Massacre

From Ian:

How Much Is a Dead Jew Worth?

Lital Shemesh, a host on Israel's Channel 14, has written a new book, How Much Is a Dead Jew Worth? (Hebrew), a detailed look at the Palestinian Authority's "Pay to Slay" policy. The author explained in an interview that throwing a firebomb at a vehicle is worth NIS 4,000 a month to Palestinian terrorists. Stabbing and critically wounding a Jewish youth - NIS 6,000. A key factor in compensation is the amount of time the prisoner serves in jail.

Already by the fifth year, the prisoner earns more than the average Palestinian, and much more than the minimum wage. Abdallah Bargouti, a commander of the Hamas military wing in the West Bank, was sentenced in 2004 to 67 life sentences. Over 20 years he has received more than a million shekels.

The Palestinian Authority also pays compensation to Gaza residents and Israeli Arabs that have attacked Israelis. It even gives a bonus to terrorists who are from eastern Jerusalem or Israeli citizens. And when the terrorist is released from jail, his years of incarceration are counted as part of his seniority for jobs in the PA civil service. In the hostage release in November, one young Palestinian who was due to be released asked not to be freed because he would lose out on a PA bonus.

Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, described cases where the defense attorneys requested a heavier sentence for their Palestinian clients in order to qualify for bonuses from the PA. A week after the Oct. 7 massacre, the PA announced that it would give grants to all the families of terrorists who participated.

In the month after Oct. 7, the PA distributed close to $3 million to families of the 1,500 Hamas murderers who participated in the attack. Every family of a terrorist who was killed in the invasion of Israel received a grant of NIS 7,400 in honor of his participation in the murders and atrocities - a gift from the Palestinian Authority. Seven percent of the PA budget today goes to families of terrorists. This is money that incentivizes the murder of Jews.

The PA has created a well-oiled murder machine which educates and incentivizes people to go out and kill Jews. Today, the best-paid profession in the Palestinian Authority is to be a murderer. When will the West take a stand and tell the Palestinians: "If you want our money, stop incentivizing terror."

Daniel Gordis: Is this 1948 all over again? Comparisons are often made, which is why some say this should be called "The Second War of Independence"

Last Sunday, on Feb 25th, we posted a column about those in Israel who are urging that Israel “help” Gazans leave Gaza. Depending on what they mean by “help,” that suggestion could range from kind to very not PC. We wrote then, “Some readers will find this shocking. We’ll soon review a well-known conversation that the Israeli press had many, many years ago with one of Israel’s leading historians, Benny Morris, on the question of what was the agenda in 1948, whether ‘transfer’ was the goal and what he thought of that. His responses will likely surprise you.”

Today, we’re following up on that. As he is one of Israel’s leading historians, Benny Morris’ work on 1948 (in books such as Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001 and 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War) has been widely quoted and discussed. Almost as well known in some circles is an interview with Ari Shavit, then a young journalist, from about twenty years ago, almost to the day.

What Professor Morris says about 1948 is illuminating for today, as well.

As we’ve noted several times, some people in Israel have suggested that this war, which still does not have a name, be called The Second War of Independence. Because the victory will likely not be decisive, just as was the case iin 1948. Because it’s existential, and long, just as in 1948. And because much of the country will have to be built (or in this case, rebuilt), just as in 1948.

There’s yet another similarity—the issue of what to do with large numbers of Palestinians. The video above, in which veterans of 1948 speak to today’s soldiers, doesn’t have the expressly in mind, but for many Israelis, one can’t raise the issue of 1948 and war without also wondering about the parallels with the Palestinians. Hence the long interview with Ari Shavit and Professor Benny Morris, of which we present a small portion below.

Their dovish hopes clipped, some Gaza border residents make peace with becoming hawks

The fact that the Hamas terrorists who invaded her kibbutz on October 7 wanted to murder everyone there came as no surprise to Irit Lahav, a peace activist from Nir Oz, where one in four residents were killed or kidnapped.

Even before the massacre, Lahav had entertained no illusions about Hamas. Like many other kibbutzniks and moshav residents with dovish attitudes near the border with Gaza, she had seen how the group deliberately targeted civilians, including by firing rockets into residential areas at specific times to increase loss of life.

Yet she had always believed that Hamas’s actions were distinct from and unrepresentative of the wishes of the silent majority of Palestinian civil society — ordinary and decent people whom she imagined were concerned primarily with providing for their children and improving their own lives under difficult circumstances.

That belief was shattered on October 7, by what she says were “hundreds of civilians, including women and children, who followed” behind the terrorists, invading Israeli communities to celebrate and join in the pillaging, vandalization and destruction of Israeli communities.

“This wasn’t something I had factored in,” said Lahav.

In the wake of October 7, Lahav and other Israelis who had supported and campaigned for territorial compromises with the Palestinians as a pathway to peace now say they are being forced to reconsider their views.

“I used to think Palestinians were good people, like you and me. That Hamas were thugs who got in the way of the population’s desire for a good life: a pretty home, a good car, a good job, a nice yard; good schools for the children.” Lahav said from the temporary home she shares with her daughter Lotus, a new three-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a residential project in Kiryat Gat where many Nir Oz survivors have relocated to.

“After October 7, I realized I was wrong. Just as the Israeli government represents Israelis, Hamas represents the people of Gaza.”

Lahav, a travel agent who used to belong to a group of volunteers who would drive Palestinians in need of medical treatment from Gaza to hospitals in Israel, now believes that “all of the people of Gaza, all of them, hate us to a degree where they would murder babies and pillage our property with zero compunction.”

The Road to Recovery, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that helps Palestinians reach medical treatment in Israel, remains operational, although its volunteers have brought patients only from the West Bank since October 7 because Israel is not issuing entry permits from Gaza. “It’s not simple, but I want to keep feeling human,” Yael Noi, the nonprofit’s director, told (Hebrew) Channel 12 in December.