Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 30, 2024

Somehow the @NYTimes manages to discuss Gazans failing to leave without blaming Egypt (article by @haleaziz)

The New York Times has managed something remarkable. It wrote an entire article about Americans trying to leave Gaze without saying a single negative word about Egypt.

"Americans Raced to Get Their Families Out of Gaza. Then the Border Slammed Shut" says the headline. The border just slammed shut on its own, of course, nothing at all to do with Egypt. And the inability of the Americans to leave for the previous seven months also, amazingly, had nothing to do with Egypt.

The story, written by immigration reporter Hamed Aleaziz, ensures that no one knows that a corrupt Egyptian businessman with close ties to Egypt's president has had the exclusive rights to allow Gazans to leave and he extorted millions in bribes to call the lucky few "VIPs" so they could leave.

Instead, the story blames the inability of some Gaza Americans and their relatives to leave on just some sort of unknown bureaucratic problems from - someone.

The criteria are strict: Only parents, spouses and unmarried, under-21 children of American citizens are eligible for the assistance. The United States gathers the names and provides them to Israeli and Egyptian authorities, who control the border, and ask that they be allowed to cross.

Since the start of the war seven months ago, more than 1,800 American citizens and their families have left Gaza with the assistance of the State Department, U.S. officials say. They are only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of Gazans desperate to leave as the already dire conditions there deteriorate.

...And then they wait. Families check a Facebook page run by the authorities in Gaza, which gets updated as people are approved to cross into Egypt. If their name appears, they are advised to go immediately to a border crossing.

Compare to how NPR reported on the story in March:

The border fee service, known as "coordination," is operated by a singular entity: Hala Consulting and Tourism, an Egyptian company with reported ties to Egypt's security services, whose sister company runs the business in charge of aid transportation into Gaza.

Hala provides a crucial service: registering names on the Egyptian list of travelers approved for entry from Gaza, and operating transportation from the border to Cairo.

Applying is complicated, fees have fluctuated and the rules often change. Palestinians in Gaza need a relative in Egypt to apply to the Hala company on their behalf. Hundreds wait outside the company building in Cairo to pay the fee in dollars, with cash. Some say they have paid thousands of dollars on top of the standard fees just to get in the door. Approvals can take months.

....Egypt's economy is struggling, inflation is high and the country is desperate for dollars to purchase wheat and pay off its mounting debt. Since the start of the Gaza war, Suez Canal revenue has tanked, as cargo ships avoid it because of Houthi missile attacks in the Red Sea.

The high fees also reflect Egypt's policy on absorbing Palestinians during the war, Hassanein says. Egypt does not want a permanent mass displacement of Palestinians, and does not want any Islamist militants to enter from Gaza.

"They are trying to condition mainstream Palestinians that coming to Egypt wouldn't be an easy option," says Hassanein.

Gazans wanting to leave has an arduous procedure to go through even before the war. From OCHA in 2022:

Palestinians wishing to leave Gaza via Egypt must register with the local Palestinian authorities two to four weeks in advance. People may also apply directly to the Egyptian authorities, using the services of a private company. The procedures and decisions by both authorities lack transparency. Those that are approved exit through the Rafah Crossing, controlled by the Egyptian authorities, which operates from Sundays to Thursdays. The journey through the Sinai desert is often lengthy and includes multiple stops for checks by Egyptian security forces.

Ask any Gazan. They know Egypt is the reason they cannot leave. Israel is supposed to approve the names, but that is automatic - no one outside known terrorists are being denied, and it sure appears that Egypt can allow Hamas terrorists to leave without Israel's permission too.

This is a perfect example of lying by omission. Both before and after May 7, Egypt has been the single major roadblock on any Gazans leaving. Today, Egypt is not even allowing Gazans who need medical attention to leave.

Egypt can open the border within the next hour if they wanted and allow not only Americans but every Gazan who wants to leave- and they refuse.

Hamed Aleaziz and the New York Times do not want their readers to know this.

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Capitalism is saving Gaza, and the Marxists don't want you to know

Earlier this week, I described how NGOs and the New York Times have been twisting the statistics of goods being brought into Gaza by not reporting on two important facts:

1. Aid organizations are refusing to cooperate with COGAT on coordinating deliveries of aid trucks that have already been brought into Gaza

2. Trucks bringing in commercial goods are not being counted in their statistics.

UN OCHA's latest report admits the last point, and buries it: "The amount of food and other aid entering Gaza, already insufficient to meet the soaring needs, has further shrunk since 7 May, with a daily average of 58 humanitarian aid trucks reaching Gaza between 7 and 28 May compared with a daily average of 176 aid trucks between 1 April and 6 May. These figures exclude private sector cargo and fuel. "

But that private sector cargo includes plenty of food. The amount of food going into gaza has increased, not decreased, since May 7.

Here was my chart showing the number of trucks the NGOs and NYT are counting, and the actual number entering Gaza.

By refusing to count those thousands of trucks of goods being brought into Gaza, the media and the NGOs are deliberately misleading the world and demonizing Israel.

In fact, Israel has changed the paradigm of how to deliver goods to Gaza, and over the past month (after some initial speedbumps) things are more efficient than they were before.

The commercial trade is the key.

Before, the only source for commercial trucks into Gaza came from a single Egyptian company that had a monopoly on commercial trade. Al Jazeera, in a report on the high cost of food in Gaza markets shortly before Israel took control of the Rafah crossing, quoted a seller saying "one company alone controls the items that enter, so it prohibits what it wants and allows what it wants, according to its interests. The presence of meat in all of Gaza became linked to [that company's] approval to bring it in, and the interruption of fruits came after that company banned its entry into the Strip."

Now, there are lots of commercial trucks entering Gaza, and the prices in the markets have gone way down.

The NGOs claim that they cannot deliver the goods already in Gaza because of how dangerous it is, or they claim that Israel is impeding them. Yet the commercial trucks are successfully reaching all of Gaza, according to COGAT.

Since reporters aren't interested in the story, we can only speculate as to why this is.

I would guess that there is a combination of factors that account for this. The commercial traders have their own security. They have financial incentive to take risks. Their trucks are probably not marked with giant logos that tell Gazans that "here's the food you are supposed to get for free, come and get it."

It is also hard to escape the conclusion that Hamas was embedded in the old system where there was a bottleneck of all goods entering Gaza and Hamas could freely confiscate what it wanted and tax the rest. The NGOs worked well with the corrupt system which essentially ensured Hamas would maintain control indefinitely. It worked for seven months, and finally Israel decided to replace Rafah with its own crossings that have higher capacity and no corruption. Rafah could re-open anytime Egypt allows it to, but Egypt profited off the old system as well and has little incentive to support a system where it cannot skim off millions of dollars.

Notice that there has not been a single reported case of starvation since February even though the "experts" had predicted famine well before today. The commercial goods entering Gaza is one big reason.

So the NGOs are pivoting from "food" to "medicine," saying that Israel is stopping lifesaving equipment. I have no idea if this is true - they appear sometimes to discuss specific hospitals that are in areas meant for evacuation - but the answer is, again, capitalism.

Instead of NGOs trying to do the very difficult logistics work, they can work with the private sector to arrange to bring in what they need, when they need it.

And it is not only my idea. The Gisha NGO made this demand from Israel in January:

* Israel must allow the entry of commercial goods to the private sector in Gaza
Restoring private sector activity through Kerem Shalom is an essential step towards increasing residents’ access to commodities. It would enable aid agencies to resume purchasing from the private sector within the Strip, facilitate distribution of goods throughout Gaza, and allow aid agencies to provide aid in different ways, such as through distribution of vouchers for purchase of food and other supplies.

It would be much easier for the aid agencies to administer a voucher system than to try to do everything end to end, which as we've seen, they are ill-equipped to do.

If they are offering money for medicine and equipment, the traders will be happy to do the logistics to bring them in. It is a much more efficient system and far less prone to abuse and corruption.

It is hard not to conclude that the aid agencies prefer the abuse and corruption.

Too bad the media is not interested in reporting about this and researching this further. If there is any consistency in reporting, it is that anything that benefits Israel and hurts Hamas is automatically considered bad.

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

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The Palestine Scholars Association, which is based out of Turkey, issued a fatwa in March mandating that all Muslims boycott Israeli goods.

The economic boycott is one of the most powerful weapons of pressure. It is an effective weapon in confronting the Zionist enemy and its supporters, and it is one of the forms of insulting him and rejecting him that God Almighty has commanded His servants to do. ...One of the most obligatory duties for Muslims is to boycott this criminal entity, its companies, and the companies of its supporters, and to boycott them economically, and to prevent goods from reaching them, or to disrupt their arrival to them, or to target them by any means of jihad imposed specifically on every Muslim. Economic boycott is nothing but a type of jihad with money for the sake of God. ...

Naturally, the fatwa must find a precedent for boycotting Israel, and it finds one - from Mohammed himself!

The Prophet, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, used the weapon of economic warfare against the Jews after they broke the covenant. After the incident of the Jew’s attack on the Muslim woman in the Bani Qaynuqa market and the killing of the companion, he boycotted them economically before besieging and expelling them.

Today's BDS advocates claim that BDS is only against Israelis, not Jews. This fatwa helps prove that it was always about Jews, for over a century.

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!

05/29 Links Pt2: The All Eyes on Rafah Image is another vapid, lazy way to say “I care”; Al-Qaeda lauds attacks against Jews, commends anti-Israel protests on Western campuses

From Ian:

Eve Barlow: All Eyes On Rafah!

Rafah is a horrible situation because it’s war. An explosion happened. Civilians died. It wasn’t Israel, but as per usual, everyone blamed the Jews. Even the Jews jumped the gun this time. All the Jewish advocates blamed themselves, so accustomed to being gaslit. The IDF strike happened outside the humanitarian area, and then a Jeep packed with explosives inside the humanitarian area mysteriously set fire and ripped through the tent village. Awful. Hamas are awful.

You know what is more horrible than even Rafah? Selective outrage. So everyone is upset about civilian deaths in Gaza (reminder: caused by HAMAS). I get it. I see them. In droves. They’re so loud. Where were they on October 7? Oh they were drinking mimosas. Where were they when we released video footage of our young women being taken captive by rapist terrorists? Oh they were in the streets chanting for Free Palestine. They are the problem. This isn’t about them and their selective outrage and their Instagram stories proving they’re a good person. This is about life and death, and they are marching both Israelis and Palestinians to death at the hands of Hamas.

This here is for the morally bankrupt after the worst day online since October 7. Israel is uncovering all the evidence of a genocide on October 7 from the depths of Rafah in Southern Gaza, and guess what - the world is working overtime to stop it. And they have a new slogan to be spread across all forms of social media:

ALL EYES ON RAFAH
“All Eyes on Rafah” but the Red Cross didn’t find the bodies of the dead hostages underneath the UN buildings. Israel did.
“All Eyes on Rafah” but the UN never revealed that a tunnel system hid beneath the ground that goes into Egypt. Israel did.
“All Eyes on Rafah!” but nobody spotted the Jeep packed with Hamas explosives in the civilian area that caught fire and killed 45 people.
“All Eyes on Rafah!” but everyone is blinded by propaganda.

This is the propaganda. It appeared on everyone’s Instagram account today. I’m sure none of you escaped seeing this monstrosity in your stories. Behold, the snow-capped AI mountains of Gaza.

Yes that’s 35.3 million shares of this image. The faces in this post are people I used to be friends with. No more.

What is the ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ graphic and who is behind it?

“All eyes on Rafah” is a phrase that’s been shared more than 40 million times on Instagram in less than 24 hours. The giant text, superimposed over an AI-generated image of Gaza has been posted by major celebrities, world leaders, and activists across the world.

The graphic, which depicts an endless sprawl of tents in a dusty landscape, can be reshared onto Instagram ‘stories’ with just one click. Users can see which of their friends have shared the post and can add their names to the list, which neared 40 million on Wednesday morning.

The story remains on a user's profile for 24 hours.

Numerous celebrities including model sisters Bella and Gigi Hadid, Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan, singer and presenter Michelle Humes, Ted Lasso star Brett Goldstein and actress Suranne Jones, have all shared the graphic.

The viral AI-generated graphic appears to come from a Malaysian/Singaporean photographer and content creator who goes by the usernames @shahv4012 and @chaa.my on social media.

Most of Chaa’s posts are snaps of daily life in Singapore, including photos of his wife, animals, and cars.

His other posts about Gaza include an AI-generated image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a blood-stained prison uniform and the name “Satanyahu”.

Another of Chaa’s “shareable” posts shows a map of Israel with the country's name crossed out and replaced with Palestine. It has been reshared over 15 thousand times.

The All Eyes on Rafah Instagram post is another vapid, lazy way to say “I care”

I understand that there is outrage at the way Israel is conducting its war. The images coming out of Gaza often feel indefensible. As those of us who care about Israel know only too well, every mistake Israel makes puts more lives at risk both in Israel and outside. Every Jew feels the anger of the world towards Israel every day. We don’t need to be reminded to follow this war; we have no choice. That is not to say that well-meaning people from the safety of London or Berlin or wherever else can’t voice their anger. If they feel passionately, they should. That’s what makes the West different from places like Gaza under Hamas, for example.

But what does sharing an AI image that looks nothing like Gaza actually do? Does it improve the material conditions of civilians in Gaza? Does it make Israelis and Jews feel more likely to compromise, to accept a version of the future that ends in peace for both sides? No, it doesn’t. Just like the BLM squares before it, and the myriad “explainers” before that, the All Eyes on Rafah post is another vapid, lazy way to say “I care”, not “I care about bringing the conflict to an end with as little human suffering as possible”, not even “I care about all civilians killed”. It says nothing productive. Which is presumably why so many people have shared it.

To learn about the conflict and to formulate an opinion that maintains dignity for all sides is something that cannot be accomplished by sharing an Instagram post. The learning that so many people on and off line refuse to do will not happen with an Instagram post. All it does is make Israelis, who will have to be involved in any future peace process, feel, yet again, that the world doesn’t care about their suffering. That their pain is meaningless. There was no “All eyes on the Nova festival”, there were no eyes on Kibbutz Be’eri, people didn’t want to see Jewish pain, it didn’t fit the simplistic narrative they’ve concocted.

So while the All Eyes on Rafah sharers may feel like they’ve done something powerful, the truth is they don’t really care because their interest in the story will die when it drops out of the headlines. And the rest of us will have to live with the consequences.

05/29 Links Pt1: Do We Still Understand How Wars Are Won?; Rafah reminds us of the evils of Hamas; Glick: What Was HAMAS' Plan for October 7th?

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: Do We Still Understand How Wars Are Won?

Right now, the Biden administration is trying to restrain Israel and aid Ukraine while operating under both illusions. It is asking them to fight their wars in roughly the same way that the United States has fought its own wars in recent decades — with limited means, a limited stomach for what it takes to win and an eye on the possibility of a negotiated settlement. How is it possible, for instance, that even now Ukraine does not have F-16s to defend its own skies?

In the short run, the Biden approach may help relieve humanitarian distress, allay angry constituencies or eliminate the possibility of sharp escalations. In the long run, it’s a recipe for compelling our allies to lose.

A “peace deal” with Moscow that leaves it in possession of vast areas of Ukrainian territory is an invitation for a third invasion once Russia recapitalizes its forces. A cease-fire with Hamas that leaves the group in control of Gaza means it will inevitably start another war, just as it has five times before. It also vindicates the strategy of using civilian populations as human shields — something Hezbollah will be sure to copy in its next full-scale war with Israel.

President Biden gave a moving Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, honoring generations of soldiers who fought and fell “in battle between autocracy and democracy.” But the tragedy of America’s recent battle history is that thousands of those soldiers died in wars we lacked the will to win. They died for nothing, because Biden and other presidents belatedly decided we had better priorities.

That’s a luxury that safe and powerful countries like the United States can afford. Not so for Ukrainians and Israelis. The least we can do for them is understand that they have no choice to fight except in the way we once did — back when we knew what it takes to win.

Arsen Ostrovosky: Hamas bears ultimate responsibility for Rafah

Immediately following the incident, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that, “despite [Israel’s] utmost effort not to harm non-combatants, something unfortunately went tragically wrong,” and that “we are investigating the incident.”

Israel has also announced that the incident is being investigated by the General Staff’s Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism, an independent and professional body, including what caused the ignition of the fire beyond the target and the tragic result, despite the precautionary measures, including surveillance, precise munitions and additional intelligence to limit civilian casualties.

This is how a democracy operates — when mistakes are made, however unintended, they are admitted. People take responsibility and appropriate lessons are learnt.

The response by the international community to the incident in Rafah has also been telling, with immediate worldwide condemnations and the United Nations Security Council already scheduling an emergency session. One cannot help but wonder, where was this same international community when a video was released last week of five terrified young Israeli girls, bloodied, beaten and being abducted by Hamas, with horrific threats of being impregnated? Where was the international community when Hamas rained down a barrage of rockets from Rafah on central Israel, including Tel Aviv?

We would not be in this situation at all were it not for Hamas carrying out the October 7 massacre and continuing to hold in Gaza more than 100 hostages, including five U.S. nationals.

This of course does not absolve Israel of its obligation to abide by the rules of war and international humanitarian law — a duty it has fulfilled and in many documented respects exceeded. However, it is Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group, that continues to willfully violate every imaginable international law, including embedding combatants in civilian areas.

It is therefore Hamas that bears ultimate responsibility for every innocent life lost, Palestinian and Israeli. The West’s failure to make this distinction only emboldens Hamas and perpetuates the violence.

Brendan O'Neill: Rafah reminds us of the evils of Hamas

And yet many in the West, especially those of a woke persuasion, hold Hamas responsible for nothing. Their collective finger points permanently at Israel. No doubt they consider this a ‘progressive’, even ‘anti-imperialist’ position, but in truth there is a sinister streak of racial paternalism to their ceaseless exoneration of Hamas. Their view seems to be that Israel is the only consequential actor in this conflict, and the Palestinians mere victims. Israel makes decisions, Palestinians suffer the consequences – The End.

This denudes the Palestinian side of agency entirely. It lets even the fascists of Hamas off the hook. It represents the globalisation of identity politics, where the idea is that only ‘white’ forces can be held responsible for what they do, while ‘non-white’ forces must be excused, apologised for, forgiven. Behind the phoney anti-colonialism of the Israelophobic left there lurks the nauseatingly colonialist belief that Arabs are essentially overgrown children who must never be judged – not even when a small section of that people launch a pogrom against the Jewish State and invite war across the Palestinian territories. Behold the double racism of the woke left: the racism of hating the Jewish State above all others, and the racism of refusing to condemn Palestinians for anything, ever. The racism of unrealistic expectations of Israel, and the racism of no expectations of Palestine.

We see this so often in the Western coverage of the Israel-Hamas War – the invisibilisation of Hamas. Think about how rarely we hear about Hamas operations. Its gun battles with IDF soldiers. Its booby-trapping of its vast network of tunnels. Even its firing of missiles at Israel. And, most importantly, how many of its operatives have been slain by the IDF. There has been next to no effort by the mainstream media to figure out how many of the Palestinian fatalities in this war were armed fascists of Hamas, killed as part of the war against the Jewish State that they started. Hamas is being written out of a catastrophe that it itself authored, by observers who see Israel as the only blameworthy actor in the region. It is deceiving war propaganda disguised as reportage.

The end result of this dishonest depiction of Rafah as a crime scene of Israel’s making is that Hamas gets moral cover to continue its war on the Jews. When the International Court of Justice haughtily demands that Israel stay out of Rafah, it is essentially saying ‘Leave Rafah to Hamas’. When the Biden administration condemns Israel for its ‘devastating’ missile attack on Rafah, it unwittingly emboldens the Rafah-based terrorists who attacked Israel first. And when the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court compares Hamas to the IRA, and says Britain didn’t bomb Belfast in the Seventies and therefore Israel shouldn’t bomb Rafah today, he demonstrates the shocking historical and moral illiteracy of the globalist elites; their inability to grasp how existential is the threat posed by Hamas to Israel, and how vulnerable Western civilisation itself is to the menaces of radical Islam.

At this stage in the Israel-Hamas War, if you are not condemning Hamas, if you are not calling on it to return the hostages and surrender to Israel, then it’s clear your concern is not with saving Palestinian life but with humiliating the Jewish State. You are not fighting to end the war – you are giving cover to Hamas’s war. All morally serious people who, like spiked, want to save Rafah and the rest of Palestine from further violence should have as their priority the complete and final defeat of Hamas.

Expulsion of the Jews from Seville, oil on canvas, Joaquín Turina y Areal

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Spain has a nasty habit of expelling Jews. First from Spain, then from Portugal, and now, most recently, from Israel, the Jewish State. The Jews were informed of the coming expulsion by way of a televised speech given by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Jews are to be expelled from Judea, Samaria, and the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount, among other places. With the Arabs to be ensconced there, in their stead.

Spain formally recognizes Palestine as a sovereign nation!

Palestine will be made up of West Bank and Gaza — connected by a corridor — with East Jerusalem as the capital.

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez today. pic.twitter.com/puvPTREgw9
— S.L. Kanthan (@Kanthan2030) May 28, 2024

The last time around, Spain expelled the Jews because they wouldn’t accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. This time it’s because they want the Jews violently crushed; pushed into the sea; and eliminated, once and for all. Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz made this clear, made Spain’s intentions clear when she declared, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” in a video she published on May 24, for public consumption.

The expulsion of the Jews from Spain was one thing. At least then, in 1492, Spain was expelling the Jews from sovereign Spanish territory. They didn’t want the Jews; they didn’t like the Jews; they wanted to punish the Jews, so they ousted them from their country.

Not that they did it nicely. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the expulsion was rough and many Jews did not survive:

Tens of thousands of refugees died while trying to reach safety. In some instances, Spanish ship captains charged Jewish passengers exorbitant sums, then dumped them overboard in the middle of the ocean. In the last days before the expulsion, rumors spread throughout Spain that the fleeing refugees had swallowed gold and diamonds, and many Jews were knifed to death by brigands hoping to find treasures in their stomachs.

The Alhambra edict of expulsion

But at least in 1492, Spain expelled Jews from its own sovereign territory: Spain. Today, in 2024, Spain is spearheading an expulsion of the Jews from territory not its own. This time, Spain is expelling Jews from the sovereign State of Israel, holy indigenous Jewish land.

The Grand Inquisitor friar Tomás de Torquemada in 1492 offers to the Catholic Monarchs the Edict of expulsion of the Jews from Spain for their signature. Oil on canvas, Emilio Sala y Francés (1889)

All of Israel is holy to the Jews, of course. But Jerusalem is the holiest of holy Jewish real estate, and Spain is not Israel. Spain doesn’t get to decide that Israel is now “Palestine.” The Spanish prime minister doesn’t get to declare that Jews can no longer pray at the Western Wall or visit the Temple Mount—even if 140 other countries have already declared it so. Even if all the countries in the world declare it so. It doesn’t matter. This is land that will always belong to the Jews.

Yet here Spain is, declaring that it now recognizes Judea, the place from whence the Jews hail, the place that gave the Jews their name, as “Palestine.” Here is Spain, saying that from now on “East” Jerusalem is really “Palestine.” Here Spain is, stealing Jewish indigenous territory and giving it to terrorists who have promised not to stop massacring Jews until all of them are dead—it’s in their charter.

It’s surreal the way Spain and its cohorts have cut up and parceled out bits of the holy unified capital of Israel to the very people who beheaded Jewish infants, raped Jewish women, and burned families alive in their homes a short time ago. It’s not as if anyone can deny these things happened (though they do). The perpetrators proudly recorded it all for posterity with their GoPro cameras.

From PMW: "Following Norway, Ireland, and Spain’s recognition of a Palestinian state last week, PA Chairman Abbas’ Fatah Movement published the above cartoon. It shows exactly what
'Palestine' the PA and Fatah say, the European countries endorsed.
"The cartoon shows 'Palestine' having replaced the entire State of Israel and the PA areas. The map is formed by three arms painted in the colors of the flags of the three European countries. The 'Norwegian' arm writes the word 'Palestine,' the 'Irish' arm waves a Palestinian flag, while the 'Spanish' hand makes a V-sign with its fingers, signifying 'victory.'”

Here is the key point that Spain will need to absorb: Israel. Doesn’t. Belong. To. Spain. Israel also doesn’t belong to Ireland, or Norway, or to any of the other 140 countries that, according to Pedro Sanchez, have already decided that Israel has no claim to its own sovereign Israeli territory.

And yet, Israel is a sovereign country. Spain, Norway, Ireland—and the others chiming in—not one of them has the right to declare “Palestine” on land that belongs to others—it’s pure hubris—but the world especially has no right to “recognize” Palestine on Israeli soil, and certainly not after the atrocities of October 7, and while Israeli hostages are yet being starved, raped, and tortured by the very people recognized by Spain et al., as the new owners of Jewish Israeli land.

We don’t want these Hamas and Hamas-loving people next to us or near us, especially when 71 percent of them still think October 7 was “correct.” Give them Madrid, Dublin, or Oslo—territory that belongs to you and your ilk—you deserve them.

Once upon a time, in Spain, the Jews had no agency. But in Israel, now, we do. It’s our land, and you are not the boss of it. You have no say over our territory. And you surely will not push us into the sea.

***
On a lighter note, I would be remiss in not finding a way to work in the following classic Inquisition-themed comedy clips. Only Mel Brooks or Monty Python could get away with this--only they would see the Inquisition as comedy gold. (Viewer Discretion Advised)

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!

Israel's current offensive to the Philadelphi corridor adjacent to Egypt keeps finding tunnels.

Israeli Army Radio reported on Tuesday morning that "The IDF has so far located more than 10 smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi axis, which cross from the Gaza Strip to Egypt. Some were destroyed, the IDF is working to destroy the rest."

Times of Israel's military correspondent Emanuel Fabian adds more today:

The Israeli military says it has established "operational control" over the entire so-called Philadelphi Corridor — which runs for a total of 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) all along the Gaza-Egypt border.

IDF troops are physically located in most of the corridor. There is a small section near the coast where ground forces are not present, but the IDF says it controls the area with surveillance and firepower.

Along the corridor, adjacent to Rafah, the IDF has located so far some 20 tunnels that cross into Egypt. Hamas has been known to use such tunnels to smuggle weapons into Gaza.

The IDF believes Hamas can now no longer smuggle in weapons from Egypt, as the military controls the area.

Some of the tunnels were already known to the IDF, and others were discovered for the first time. Some have already been demolished, and Israel has also been updating Egypt on the developments.

Another 82 tunnel shafts have been located in the Philadelphi Corridor area, according to the military.

Dozens of rocket launchers were also discovered along the corridor, some only a dozen meters from the Egypt border. The IDF believes Hamas positioned the rocket launchers along the corridor in an attempt to prevent Israel from striking them, thinking the military would fear overshooting into Egypt.

It sure sounds like cash-strapped Egypt has been complicit in the smuggling.

After all, they had cleared out the area in 2014, claiming to have destroyed thousands of smuggling tunnels. But Hamas' supply of weapons and ammunition during the war has appeared inexhaustible - Gaza might be running out of food, water and medicine, but it isn't running out of rockets, mortars or bullets.

The impression I get is that the media only knows about 20% of what is going on and only reporting on 20% of what they know. There is a lot happening that we cannot even guess. But in the absence of information, the vacuum is being filled up with anti-Israel lies.

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!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a meme that was not one of my better ones. It did not make the point I meant to make very well.

The intended point was that if the "State of Palestine" is represented by a watermelon, it would not be the type of watermelon anyone would enjoy. It would be a corrupt, terror supporting, misogynist, gay bashing, antisemitic dictatorship and probably an Islamist fundamentalist ally of Iran. I wanted to create an unappealing watermelon picture.

But for some reason, anti-Zionists went crazy, convinced that the seeds represented Palestinian children that I was advocating to murder. Some went much further, looking at the history of seedless watermelon breeding and tying it to racism. The amount of analysis in some responses took more time than I did in creating the meme to begin with.

That insane interpretation made this tweet the most popular thing I have ever posted, by far. It gathered over ten million impressions, with thousands of angry responses.

Yes, more people were exposed to this failed watermelon meme than the number of people who live in Israel altogether.

Now that the furor has died down, I have a couple of thoughts.

While the meme itself was not an extreme opinion by any measure, people's antisemitic assumption that it called for genocide drove its going massively viral. Which means that the reverse is true: extreme opinions and hate generally tend to attract more attention than the types of more cerebral, thoughtful and fact-filled posts I try to create. Even my usual cartoons and memes are meant to highlight irony and hypocrisy to make people think,, not to bash people over the head with blunt messages.

I can see how the desire to get posts to go viral can prompt people to post extreme opinions, and they get rewarded for doing so. If I accepted ads on X, I would have made a tidy sum of money from that post alone. (I typically get about 2 million impressions a month.)

When money, fame or egos are involved, objectivity suffers. This applies to even the most prestigious newspapers. Whether they are conscious of it or not, the choice of stories to cover and the wording in the stories, whether in a newspaper or TV show or social media post, affects the amount of attention one gets, and attention for most people leads to either a psychic or monetary reward. This is what drives what we see online and in print far more than any desire for true objectivity and truth.

There is a reason that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty build so many "human rights" campaigns around anti-Israel themes - because they attract more donations than fundraisers for Rwanda.

Money, and fame, make the world go 'round. And they are both the enemies of objectivity.

I learned two other things from this episode.

One is that I wa unaware of trypophobia, the fear of repetitive patterns of holes. Several commenters mentioned that the picture triggered them. For that, I'm sorry.

The other (mentioned by columnist PreOccupied Territory) is that watermelon was originally grown not for its flesh but for its seeds, which would be toasted and eaten. If I had known that, I would have never made the meme since it no longer would make any sense even by my original intent.

So, I ordered some toasted watermelon seeds from a Florida company called Yossef Roasting/IL Nuts, although the products themselves do not seem to be from Israel.

I really wanted to like them, but I'm sorry to say that watermelon seeds are not to my taste. The flavor was OK but I don't like how they felt in my mouth as I was chewing them.

Live and learn.

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!

La Croix reports:

Just a handful of pilgrims attended the first day of the Jewish pilgrimage at Djerba’s El Ghriba Synagogue in Tunisia, where ceremonies were kept to a minimum due to security concerns fueled by the Gaza conflict. Normally, thousands of pilgrims worldwide, especially from Europe and the United States, flock to Ghriba, Africa’s oldest synagogue, for three days of festivities marked by several processions beginning this year May 24. According to legend, the temple's construction dates back to the escape of Jewish religious dignitaries from Jerusalem after the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by Babylonian armies in 586 BC.

“The international situation does not allow us to organize a pilgrimage of such importance,” explained René Trabelsi, one of the event’s organizers, referring to the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

This year, the ceremonies were limited to religious rituals (prayers and candle lighting) without the festive procession behind the large Menorah, a Jewish candelabrum mounted on wheels and decorated with colorful fabrics. According to Trabelsi, “between 30 and 50 pilgrims are expected May 27, compared to 6,000 to 7,000 normally.” However, “the most important thing is that we are here” to convey “the message that Djerba is a land of peace and tolerance,” he said.

Last year a guard killed four people at the pilgrimage.

The public celebration was canceled this year not by the Jewish community, as the article implies, but by the government of Tunisiathe government of Tunisia itself,

This occurred after a Tunisian group that purports to be pro-Palestinian threatened to attack any "Zionist" who arrives, or any Tunisian Jew who helps bring in any "Zionists."

After the decision, one writer was happy that Tunisian Jews could not celebrate. "Because we are an Arab Muslim people, we do not accept that the Jews rejoice over our precious land while they kill our people in Palestine, and the Zionists must understand that things have limits, and that the Islamic and Arab peoples boil like a pot boiling over a quiet fire..."

This is the pattern we are seeing worldwide. Jewish events are blocked, ostensibly because of "security considerations," but the security issue isn't from the Jews but from the antisemites who threaten the Jews. Then the antisemites celebrate their successful banning of Jews.

These threats are a form of terrorism. Terrorism, after all, is the use of fear for political purposes, to force people to act in certain ways to avoid potential injury or death. And in Tunisia, as elsewhere, the threats accomplish what they set out to do: to limit the human rights of Jews.

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!

During a web interview, rock guitar legend Eric Clapton showed that his "anti-Zionism" and antisemitism are the same thing.

He spoke about his enthusiasm for the anti-Israel protests at US universities but then how awful the Congressional hearings were, asking the presidents of universities about antisemitism on campus:

I was so enthused about what was going on in Columbia and everywhere and then I saw - what I couldn't believe, because it freaked me out, was the Senate hearings they would have, which were like the Nuremberg trials, you know the Senate committee would be asking pointed questions to the presidents of the universities saying," I just want a yes or a no! Don't talk to me about context! Yes or no, are you promoting antisemitism in your college? Yes or no?" and I thought., "What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?" And it is! Yeah, it's AIPAC, it's the lobby.... for a while, well, Israel's running the show, running the world! Except for the BRICS."

The Nazis illustrated Clapton's opinion about ~~Jews~~ Zionists 80 years ago.

BRICS is, of course, the coalition of human rights paragons like Brazil, Russia, China and Iran.

Clapton has a history of outright racism. Already in 1976, Clapton - clearly drunk - said his opinions to his audience at a concert (very offensive language):

Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands … So where are you? Well, wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country … I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country. Listen to me, man! I think we should send them all back. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white … The black wogs and coons and Arabs and f*cking Jamaicans don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man … This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for f*ck’s sake? … Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!

He since apologized and has given to anti-racist causes, but we know how that works. He didn't change his opinion, but he didn't want to hurt his career. (Clapton also admitted to raping his wife whenever he wanted to. What a hero!)

Clapton tried to make the best of the situation, but in the end he finally went insane.

Clapton's embrace of antisemitic tropes of Jews (sorry, "Israel") running the world shows that he is still a bigot and a disgusting person through and through, but now he tries to cloak his hate as righteousness.

It doesn't take a PhD in psychology to realize that his opinions of Blacks, immigrants and Jews, 48 years apart, are two sides of the same bigoted coin. And it is a perfect case study of how modern anti-Zionism is a fig leaf for antisemites to be openly bigoted - and be cheered for it by their fellow bigots pretending to be moral.

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!

05/28 Links Pt2: Soloveichik: Hamilton’s Hallmark; Sharansky: The 500; Civilization is from the Jews; Seinfeld on the Rules of Comedy—and Life

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: Hamilton’s Hallmark

As a mob of Columbia students and other anti-Semitic agitators violently entered and occupied the University’s Hamilton Hall, only to be valorized by members of the media and the academy, my thoughts turned to the man for whom the building was named. Alexander Hamilton had overseen the transformation of the institution once known by the royalist name “King’s College” into the American institution called Columbia, and he had also placed a Jew—the New York spiritual leader Gershom Mendes Seixas—on Columbia’s board. This was the first time in the history of the West that a Jew was so honored, a sign of how Hamilton understood the uniqueness of America and the place of the Jews within it. Hamilton would vindicate this worldview in a moment in a New York court case that has long since been forgotten, but that deserves to be remembered in the season in which we find ourselves.

The tale is told by the historian Andrew Porwancher in his remarkable work, The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton. After leaving George Washington’s government, Hamilton earned a livelihood by returning to his legal practice in New York. One of his clients was a local merchant by the name of Louis LeGuen, whose case had worked its way through New York’s legal system and was heard by the State’s “Court of Errors.” This, as Porwancher tells us, was no ordinary court; it was a large tribunal that included not only judges but prominent politicians, including the president of the state senate.

The legal teams on both sides included some of the most famous names of American history. Hamilton was joined by Aaron Burr in representing LeGuen. Opposing them was another father of the American Constitution, Gouverneur Morris. Given that several witnesses for LeGuen were Jewish, Morris chose to focus on the veracity of their testimony. As Porwancher tells us, this was a reaction to the mellifluence of the lawyer on the opposing side:
After Hamilton delivered a forceful closing argument spanning six hours, Morris knew he could not compete with Hamilton on legal grounds. Instead, Morris told the court that he had no intention of referencing law books and alternatively would “appeal to the principles written on the heart of man.” Morris’s flowery address soon degenerated into a base attack on Hamilton’s two witnesses of the Jewish faith. Alluding to them as “these Jew witnesses,” Morris sought to impugn their credibility on the basis of their religion. “Jews are not to be believed upon oath,” he insisted bluntly.

Thus did Morris adopt a strategy that was abhorrent but not insensible: to act on the assumption that anti-Semitism was very potent and that the “heart of man” was vulnerable to it.

There is, of course, enormous irony to this, given that Morris had been the one who had suggested that the Constitution begin with the three words “We the people,” an enduring and eloquent expression of democratic equality. Hamilton, as Porwancher tells us, had already delivered his own argument but chose to speak again—and to respond to the anti-Semitic allegation, attempting in his own way to address the heart of man. One might even suggest that Hamilton sought to influence what another great American would later call the “better angels of our nature.”

What is remarkable about Hamilton’s response is that it not only denounced Morris’s bigotry; it also made a case for American philo-Semitism. Hamilton utilized language that was less legal than theological, asking the tribunal about Morris: “Has he forgotten, what this race once were, when, under the immediate government of God himself, they were selected as the witnesses of his miracles, and charged with the spirit of prophecy?” It was, in other words, the Jews who served as the medium of the very scripture that had inspired American republican government, and who observed that “pure and holy, happy and Heaven-approved faith.” Hamilton further linked Jewish suffering to the destruction of Jerusalem, referring to the Jews as “the degraded, persecuted, reviled subjects of Rome…in all her resistless power, and pride, and pagan pomp.” As Porwancher puts it, Hamilton not only emphasized the equality of all before the law; he also stressed that Morris was “perpetuating a dark history of antisemitism that had plagued Jews since antiquity.”

Natan Sharansky: The 500

In the furor over America’s campuses, it was easy to miss the letter that 500 of Columbia University’s Jews penned and signed to present their position in their own voice. Yet it was this letter, quietly distributed and far less aggressive than some of the other events that overshadowed it, that may prove to be the turning point in the struggle for American Jewry’s future. This is why.

Twenty years ago, just after the second intifada, I went on a tour of American and Canadian campuses. Shaken by what I saw and heard, I told (then) Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the major battle for the future of American Jewry will be fought on campuses. So disturbed was I by this visit, that I titled the article I wrote about it in the Hebrew press “a journey into occupied territory.”

The “occupiers” in my metaphor were the centers for Middle East studies that had sprouted like mushrooms in American universities to spread anti-Zionist propaganda. Their influence was palpable, not only in events they organized, but also in their effect on the Jewish students I met. While many expressed deep solidarity with Israel and support for its struggle against terror, a few young men and women told me that for them, as liberal Jews, it would be better if Israel didn’t exist. “Then,” they told me, “I won’t be perceived as responsible for such awful crimes.”

Such statements, which foreshadowed attempts by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace to dissociate themselves from Israel, didn’t concern me as much as yet another, and far more alarming, set of statements. People who wish to fully sever their association with Israel neither reflect nor sway the sentiments and opinions of the overwhelming majority of American Jews. No, the statements that concerned me and led me to speak of occupation and battlefields were the many variations I heard on one young woman’s quietly spoken and regretful admission that she would very much like to speak against divestment and other anti-Israel measures, but she couldn’t. Her professors won’t like it, she told me. It would harm her future career.

The ideological regime of antisemitism that has entrenched itself in America’s universities will only collapse when enough Jews stop being afraid and stop unwillingly aiding it by hiding and self-censoring.

Dear Lord, I thought, when I first heard these words. We are not in the Moscow of my youth, where one’s career depended on pretending to buy the Soviet credo hook, line and sinker! Yet the more students I met, the more I heard of similar, stifling concerns. Having grown up in the Soviet Union, I knew very well how catching and pervasive self-censorship can become. No one will need to “occupy” the campuses physically if the Jewish students will carry out their own occupation themselves by growing too afraid to speak their own truths.

Totalitarian societies survive by relying on a core of true believers to frighten even those who don’t buy the ideological party line into becoming “doublethinkers”—people who adhere to the party line in public regardless of their private thoughts—rather than outright dissidents. In the normal course of events, the percentage of doublethinkers is always on the rise, as more and more people grow disillusioned with the false promises of the regime yet continue to pledge allegiance to it out of fear instead of faith. The regime controls them not through their own convictions but through the power its institutions hold over their lives, livelihoods, and safety. In other words, it controls them by frightening them into censoring themselves on the regime’s behalf.

Of course America is a free country and not a totalitarian regime. However, it was impossible to miss the resemblance between the culture I encountered in the American academy 20 years ago and the Soviet worldview of my youth. Like the Communist party (following Marx), more and more people started dividing the world into oppressors (read: always bad, always in the wrong) and oppressed (read: always in the right), and claiming that whoever belonged to the first camp wasn’t worthy of the same rights, freedoms, and protections as the latter. Since Israel and successful “white” Jews elsewhere were a priori classified as oppressors, hating and indeed abusing them became less and less taboo.

Eve Barlow: The body keeps the score

So Wednesday. I’d spent a day in Jerusalem, a day in the South, and a day in the North by this point and on Wednesday I was on the bus coming back into Tel Aviv and I received word from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to post a video (3 minutes in length) from the Nahal Oz IDF base on October 7. And the publication was requested by the families of five female hostages - Na’ama Levy, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa, Liri Albag and Karina Ariev. These girls are all teenagers. The video, which you can find on my Instagram account, but be warned, is perhaps the worst three minutes of footage you will ever watch. They’ve been there for over 230 days. This is just three minutes of these girls at their base when they woke up on October 7.

In the video, you see that the girls are surrounded by the bodies of their dead friends, while they are carted around by Hamas terrorists. Na’ama Levy with blood all over her face, attempting to negotiate with the terrorists by telling them “I have friends in Palestine”. Liri Albag pleading “anyone speak English?” Agam Berger with pools of blood dripping from her mouth. Daniella Gilboa being dragged outside, unable to walk properly, limping from pain. Karina Ariev cowering in a corner, looking petrified. And Hamas terrorists telling the girls that they have now referred to as sex slaves: “You are so beautiful”. Every girl knows what that feels like. To be powerless in an uncomfortable situation being told that you’re nothing but a piece of meat. Except to the world outside, these girls are not human. They can’t possibly be. Because here’s the reality: Not a single feminist, or celebrity, or non-Jewish activist posted this video. Not a single one. Nobody shared it. Nobody watched it. Nobody talked about it. Nobody acknowledged it. And once the press did, they printed that the Arabic translation was wrong. That the words used may not suggest that “these are the girls who can get pregnant” but instead the word meant “sex slave”.

Sorry what? What hairs are we splitting here? Use your eyes. We can see very clearly what has happened to these women in this video. It’s crystal clear what’s going on. And yet, no. No the mainstream media gaslights us. And then Jews started squabbling over this, which is exactly what the Islamic regime wanted. The terrorists who raped our girls are being given more grace in the mainstream media than the women they raped, who are STILL in captivity, god knows where. Keeping your sanity is an act of resistance these days. Imagine that.

Anyway the video arrives. I had seen this footage before, but it was never made public. And as I started to watch it again, something happened inside me. From my feet to just beneath my chin, I had this surge like an electrical charge go through me, and I felt like every single one of my nerve endings was on fire. This feeling didn’t leave me. When I got back to Tel Aviv, I had several calls that I missed from a dear friend who follows this newsletter and supports me in ways only a real one does, but never reads a word I write (LOL). This friend was punching a concrete wall with bare fists - such was the rage and the pain and the terror, and I spent hours just trying to soothe and calm and minimize whatever damage could result from this anguish. It wasn’t until I was on my own much later that I could sit in my own impossible feeling. A feeling that the world has failed us. Abandoned us. Sold us out for a psychotic terror regime.

Humanity demands that when terrorists invade and burn down houses and brutally murder innocents and gang rape women and children and steal hostages for more than 200 days, there is a unified global response to condemn and do everything to salvage. I have lost faith in humanity. I am no longer an atheist. I now believe in God. Not people. People are useless. Hashem, dude. You’re up.

I look at those five girls and I see me, I see my friends, I see my family. The pain and exhaustion in me at the moment is on a par with victims who suffer the most appalling abuse. Not only must I process all of this and that evidence thru the lens of my womanhood, I have to process it as a Jew carrying a fate on my shoulders that took millions of our lives including my own faceless ancestors while facing the same brand of terror in 2024, all in the knowledge that anyone of those women could have been me. And the world would line up to spit on them if they were released. I advocate knowing that the world would do the same to me if I was in their position spending unfathomable hours in a situation we can’t fully understand. I haven’t been able to take a second to myself in over eight months because there’s not enough I can do. So yes I cracked. The day after the video was released, the international courts (the ICC) attempted once more to delegitimize our efforts to safeguard our entire people from this thousands-year-old bullshit, and the key to it all is to try to drive us into such a state of psychological exhaustion and dismay that we cannot survive it.

These below taken last week on my delegation are the images you don’t see in the mainstream media. Over 100,000 Israelis displaced. Villages destroyed beyond repair. Over a thousand successful attempts at genocide. Hundreds taken hostage. A country in the throes of extreme trauma. An unimaginable devastation that was achieved in a matter of hours using the highest grades of weaponry to cause total annihilation and erasure. The first four images are taken at the car graveyard just outside the location of the Nova festival. Hundreds of people were burned alive in these cars. Imagine if this was the parking lot at Glastonbury. It will be if the chants for intifada succeed. The latter six are from kibbutz Be’eri where 10% of the community were brutally murdered in the early hours of the morning of October 7; men, women and children. And their homes looted and incinerated, not by terrorists but waves of subsequent Gazan civilians. No Palestinian state should be rewarded for these evil and inhumane acts of barbarism, but the day that video of Nahal Oz base was released: Spain, Ireland and Norway decided to recognize a state of Palestine. For shame. For shame.

The second to last image is of the medical centre in Be’eri where the medical staff were murdered protecting the injured. Similarly there’s an ambulance in the image of the parking lot, where the remains of SIXTEEN dead bodies were found — can you imagine the desperation of those festivalgoers to hide that they crammed themselves in that ambulance, sixteen of them? Did you hear these stories? No. But you did hear about claims that Israel bombed Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, which turned out to be a totally erroneous fib. The victims of October 7 were the Israelis who beleived in coexistence the most. Never ever forget that.

Usually Iranian media tries to differentiate between Jews and Zionists. But the International Quranic News Agency - only in Arabic, not in their English or Farsi editions- - goes whole-hog antisemite:

The Holy Qur’an refers to the characteristics of a group of Jews, which are characteristics that can be classified into four categories: religious, social, economic and political.

The Holy Qur’an separates between the frugal Jews and the immoral Jews. God Almighty says in verse 66 of Surat Al-Ma’idah, “Among them is a frugal nation, and many of them are evil in what they do.” Then He refers to the second category of Jews that had many negative characteristics throughout history.

The first type of negative traits are religious traits, as 26 traits can be counted according to the Holy Qur’an, including: rebellion and disobedience to the teachings of God, distortion of divine teachings, turning towards magic, disbelief in God, turning away from the path of God, killing the prophets (may God bless him and grant him peace), and other negative actions carried out by the Jews throughout history against religion.

The Holy Qur’an refers to 17 negative traits among Jews in the social sphere, including: racism, immorality, spreading corruption, hardness of heart, refraining from jihad for the sake of God, misleading Muslims, pretexting, sarcasm, hatred, and other negative traits.

As for the economic field, the Holy Qur’an described the Jews as being careful and collecting money from forbidden things and usury.

In the political field, the Holy Qur’an enumerates 18 negative characteristics of the Jews, including: provoking wars, breaking covenants, injustice, arrogance, spreading division, cowardice, and other characteristics.

That's the entire article. No caveats, no "buts," no exceptions.

In English they usually distinguish between "good Jews" and "bad Jews," but this Arabic article only divides them into different categories of bad.

So why only in Arabic?

Clearly, Iran wants to use antisemitism as a weapon against Israel, and they look upon the Arabs as the best target audience for that aim.

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!

05/28 Links Pt1: Netanyahu decries false accusations, vows victory; Is the genocide accusation antisemitic? Yes; UNRWA Is in Trouble

From Ian:

In Knesset speech, Netanyahu decries false accusations, vows victory

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday responded to attacks against the Israel Defense Forces operation in Hamas’s last stronghold in Gaza.

“In Rafah, we have evacuated about one million civilians. Tragically, despite our immense efforts to avoid harming non-combatants, an incident occurred yesterday,” Netanyahu said in reference to a mass-casualty event in the city that caused international outcry.

“For us, any noncombatant hurt is a tragedy; for Hamas, it is a strategy. That is the core difference,” he added, during a speech from the Knesset rostrum.

Israeli officials have told the Biden administration that shrapnel from the strike in Rafah may have ignited a fuel tank, starting a fire that engulfed tents housing displaced Gazans and leading to dozens of noncombatant deaths.

The targets of the strike were named as Yassin Rabia, head of Hamas’s Judea and Samaria headquarters, and Khaled Nagar, a senior official in the terrorist group’s Judea and Samaria wing.

The IDF spokesperson said earlier that the strike, based on intelligence and executed using precision weaponry, was carried out in accordance with international law.

In his speech, Netanyahu also pushed back against allegations that he is preventing a deal that would see the return to Israel of the 125 Israeli and other nationals—dead and alive—in exchange for a pause in fighting.

“The repeated false claims that we are the obstacle are not only harmful to the families—that much is obvious, and I sympathize with them,” he said. “But it goes beyond that: It delays the release of the hostages and undermines negotiations. Instead of focusing pressure on [Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya] Sinwar, who holds the hostages in his dungeons, the pressure is misdirected at the Israeli government.”

Netanyahu continued, “Israel is constantly asked to make concession after concession. So why would Sinwar feel any pressure? He sits in his bunker, rubbing his hands in satisfaction, delighted that others are doing the work for him.”

Seth Frantzman: All eyes are focused on Rafah as IDF moves forward

Rafah itself is divided into several areas. There is a refugee camp and another densely built-up area in Rafah city itself which is kind of fans out from the border. That means that as the IDF proceeds it gets close to the center of this fan, and beyond the center it will then face the dense Rafah camp area and only after that the less densely populated area closer to the sea. All eyes are on the IDF now because it is in a complex urban area, possibly at the height of the battle for the city.

The airstrike on May 26 that led to a fire that killed Gazans in Tell Sultan took place northwest of Rafah city and overlooks the Mediterranean. It consists of several planned neighborhoods. The area closest to the sea was built over formerly Jewish communities that were evacuated in the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza.

Rafiah Yam existed near the sea on the Egyptian border. Most of the area is now used to shelter displaced people, adjoining the Mawasi safe zone where Israel has encouraged people in Gaza to relocate throughout the war.

As the IDF advances along the frontier area it will secure most of the Gaza-Egypt border. This will cut off Hamas which has used the Rafah border to control and steal humanitarian aid reaching Gaza from Egypt.

When the battle began, Hamas was thought to have four battalions of fighters in Rafah, but it appears that many have dispersed to Khan Yunis or have retreated slightly from the border.

All eyes are on this area now. The deaths of civilians on May 26 and a clash which killed an Egyptian soldier on May 27 have increased concern about what may come next. The defeat of Hamas is key. However, even when the corridor is taken, there will be a lot more areas in Rafah that may need to be cleared.

Because the IDF is focusing on the corridor itself, and some urban areas, it is conducting an operation similar to the 2003 operation. The built-up areas of Rafah city and Rafah camp are both difficult to fight in and Hamas has likely festooned homes with threats.

In Rafah the border challenge is hard enough because of the matrix of tunnels and rocket launchers. Hamas had installed the rockets fired at Tel Aviv on Sunday a while ago, and launched them apparently because the IDF had reached a few hundred meters from the launch site.

IDF vows full probe into Rafah strike, shows evidence it was not in designated safe zone

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, in an English-language press conference, says the military is investigating the possibility that Hamas munitions stored in the area of a strike in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Sunday night caused a fire to spread and kill civilians.

“On Sunday, we eliminated senior Hamas terrorists in a targeted strike, on a compound used by Hamas in Rafah. The strike was based on precise intelligence that indicated that these terrorists, who were responsible for orchestrating and executing terror attacks against Israelis, were meeting inside this structure we targeted,” Hagari says.

“Sadly, following the strike, due to unforeseen circumstances, a fire ignited, taking the lives of Gazan civilians nearby. Despite our efforts to minimize civilian casualties during the strike, the fire that broke out was unexpected and unintended,” he continues.

Hagari says the deaths of the civilians in the strike is a “devastating incident, which we did not expect.” According to health authorities in Gaza, 45 people were killed.

“We are investigating what caused the fire that resulted in this tragic loss of life. An investigation is ongoing,” he says.

Showing imagery from the site, Hagari says the IDF “targeted a closed structure away from the tent area. There are no tents in the immediate vicinity.”

“Despite our efforts to minimize civilian casualties during the strike, the fire that broke out was unexpected and unintended...Our investigation seeks to determine what may have caused such a large fire to ignite.“

Watch the full statement by IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel… pic.twitter.com/fzaRSnpgbE
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 28, 2024