Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 17, 2024

One reason the "experts" believe the "Gaza famine" myth: Because they don't trust Jews! They officially rate @COGATonline data as not reliable.

The previous linkdump included the news that the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s Famine Review Committee concluded in May that there was no evidence of famine in Gaza as of April, and that the analysis done in March by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS) warning of famine was not plausible. As the IPC notes, FES did not count commercial trucks of food going into Gaza, which more than doubled the amount of food entering the sector that FEWS counted.

How did FEWS get it wrong?

One reason is that FEWS doesn't trust Jews.

FEWS, which still says as of May 31 that "it is possible Famine is ongoing in northern Gaza, is not on the ground in Gaza and relies on third party reports. It lists all of its sources that it gets information from - and judges their reliability.

Here's the beginning of the appendix listing all of FEWS' sources.

The third column rates the perceived reliability of the source of information.

Here are its definitions of R2, R1 and R0 reliability:

Evidence is only reliable if the method used is robust and evidence depicts current conditions. If evidence is yielded through a reasonable but less rigorous method, such as evidence with limited representativeness, or if evidence needs to be extrapolated to the current analysis period because it was collected in past seasons or years, the evidence can be at most R1. Evidence that has either limited soundness of M and T scores R1+, while evidence that has both types of limited parameters scores R1-. Reasonable evidence that scores less than R1 (such as field trip reports and local knowledge) can be referred to as R0 and may still be used in the IPC to support the analysis. However, it should be carefully reviewed and cannot be counted towards achieving minimum evidence needs, except for areas with limited humanitarian access for collecting evidence if the data adhere to specific parameters included later in IPC Manual Version 3.0.

So R0 is the worst level of evidence, somewhat useful but to be treated skeptically.

Now, look how they rate COGAT reports that accurately say how many trucks of aid enter Gaza.

R0.

The official and most accurate statistics on how much food enters Gaza is considered less reliable than secondhand reporting in the New York Times and about as reliable as anecdotal evidence in newspapers.

They define COGAT's statistics as being unreliable unless other sources confirm them.

COGAT has been counting every truck going into Gaza - commercial and humanitarian. When it is contradicted by other sources, COGAT invariably is discovered to be more accurate.

Why is COGAT considered less reliable when it gives more details than everyone else? It counts aid going in through crossings that UNRWA does not count. It coordinates every single truck from every source.

The only reason is because the people behind these reports simply do not believe that Israel, or Jews, tell the truth.

Can anyone come up with better explanation?

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!

06/17 Links Pt1: The Famine Has Been Canceled; It's Time to Start Using the Term 'Palestinian Civilian' Correctly; IDF has destroyed half of Hamas forces in Rafah

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Famine Has Been Canceled

Hamas’s desire to maximize Palestinian suffering is well known, but there’s an easy way to tell whether supposed pro-Palestinian advocates share that revolting instinct: How do they react to good news?

For example, thanks to a report issued quietly earlier this month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s Famine Review Committee (quite the name), we now know there is no famine in Gaza. Yet you will only see this discussed among pro-Israel Jews online. The vast digital army of Twitter martyrs is quiet. Western media appear to be experiencing a self-imposed blackout. The Palestinian cause seems nothing less than deflated at the news that children will not be dying of hunger.

As of this morning, two weeks after the UN agency that monitors “food insecurity” debunked its own hysteria, the closest thing to a reference in the New York Times is an item in a running liveblog that mentions Israel’s latest humanitarian pause. The Times says this brief pause could help “alleviate a severe hunger crisis.” But —hilariously—those words link to the paper’s April report warning that a famine would set in by May. Which is to say, there’s no mention of the fact that famine has been averted. But the Times does mention its own past report, which has been discredited by actual subsequent events.

The cherry on top of this agitprop sundae comes when the Times quotes a British activist complaining, “This is not what a famine response looks like.”

In fact, according to the international organizations that beat the steady drumbeat of famine, this is exactly what a famine response looks like. Sorry to disappoint the pro-Palestinian movement, but it appears the children will live.

The Famine Review Committee “does not find the [famine prediction] analysis plausible given the uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence.” As Avi Bitterman, who spent months predicting there would indeed be no famine based on the available evidence, points out: “The food trucks FEWS NET used for its analysis is significantly less than reported by other sources. One of the reasons for this is the complete exclusion of private sector food trucks (something the UN currently still does, by the way — take note @UN). They also excluded [World Food Programme] deliveries to bakeries in northern Gaza in April.”

The lie that has been told repeatedly about Israel is....@IsrCitizenSpox @EylonALevy @AviBittMD pic.twitter.com/1CeZ86B5k7
— Doron Spielman (@DoronSpielman) June 17, 2024

Your thread is creating a buzz! #TopUnroll https://t.co/W9506Kdt3W 🙏🏼@Quintessen55134 for 🥇unroll
— Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) June 17, 2024

2. UN admits 33% more trucks of food & aid entered Gaza than pre-war. UN itself says 27,500 trucks of aid entered Gaza since 10/7, far more daily then pre-war. (107 trucks daily vs 80 prewar; not 500 which was total trucks, mostly construction good, per working day). pic.twitter.com/QNfUaij8nf
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) June 17, 2024

10. WCK admits food entering Gaza “at a fairly good clip.” WCK, not affiliated with UN, or fake NGOs like @hrw @amnesty who only issue “reports,” actually works to feed people. WCK, lauded by Israel, admits the truth and never claimed famine in Gaza. https://t.co/6AucfvDMEA
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) June 17, 2024

Both the ICJ and the ICC Office of the Prosecutor have based their decisions on this false report. What’s the remedy for the damage done? https://t.co/JaEMn6WGFX
— Anne Herzberg (@AnneHerzberg14) June 16, 2024

Bonus: A May 31 report from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which stated that “It is possible, if not likely,” that North Gaza is experiencing famine, was sourced 31 times — including by big publications like AP and the BBC.

So why haven't they covered the FRC report? pic.twitter.com/QLkGLjjJ7K
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 16, 2024

Washington Post misleads readers, again

The Washington Post today offers another anti-Israel article, this one an op-ed by Tariq Kenney-Shawa who works at the Al-Shabaka pro-BDS think tank.

He writes about Israeli restrictions on exports from Gaza:

Imagine you’re a citrus farmer. You have spent months making sure your orange trees get just the right amount of water and nutrients. You have harvested your oranges, packed them carefully into crates and sent them off to be shipped abroad. But instead of reaching international markets, your oranges are held up by authorities unaccountable to you for seemingly arbitrary “security inspections.” Days, sometimes weeks, pass as your crates sit in the blazing sun, their contents wasting away. By the time the oranges pass the checkpoints, they are rotten and unsellable.

This was life for Palestinian citrus farmers for decades under Israel’s occupation. And their story proves one thing: Israel is and has always been the biggest obstacle to Gaza’s prosperity.

He goes on to claim that Israel is maliciously trying to destroy Gaza's agriculture, with arbitrary rules and restrictions on exports.

Here's what Kenney-Shawa doesn't mention.

Hamas routinely used to use citrus groves to hide its rocket launchers. That's why so many groves have been bulldozed.

Israel has been encouraging Gaza farmers to switch to more lucrative crops, like strawberries, spices and flowers. Israel's COGAT unit used to hold meetings with Gaza farmers on the latest agricultural methods and would even provide them with seeds.

That isn't exactly how a country hell bent on destroying an economy would act.

But the biggest crime of omission in the article is that it doesn't mention how much Gaza was exporting before October 7.

Israel has been coordinating with Gaza to increase the number of exports of crops and other goods for ten years.

The only reason for the drop in 2023 was the shutdown after October 7.

Which is the big story that the media refuses to cover. Israel believed that Hamas was acting pragmatically and working against groups who wanted to attack Israel, and as a result it worked hard to boost Gaza's economy to encourage more moderation and fewer attacks. The statistics disprove Kenny-Shawa's main point, that Israel acts capriciously to hurt Gaza farmers and trade. On the contrary, when the attacks from Gaza were reduced, the trade flourished, and was only getting better.

Israel had every reason to encourage Gaza's economy to grow, without knowing that Hamas was going to use all that economic boon to fund a genocidal attack on Jews.

The op-ed only mentoons Hamas once, offhandedly, as if Israel's treatment of Gaza is divorced from what Hamas has been doing. He doesn't even consider that the reason exports have gone to zero now is because Hamas started a war.

But the facts show otherwise, no matter how many tear-jerking articles about the plight of Gaza farmers are written. Israel has nothing against the innocent civilians of Gaza and would like to see them thrive - in a territory where they are not controlled by an antisemitic Islamist group that treats its own people like cannon fodder.

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!

"Jews learned to be spies and liars from the Torah"

Pity the poor antisemitic analyst. They have to keep coming up with new ways to express their hate, when so many before them have already seemingly picked over every possible angle on attacking Jews.

How can they not simply repeat what others have already said?

Yet every once in a while I find a new way for antisemites to express their hate.

Retired Lebanese Brigadier General Muhammad Al-Husseini finds that the Torah has lots of examples of people acting surreptitiously, and therefore concludes that Jews have learned to be liars and spies from the Torah itself.

He starts with Cain and Abel, with a version of the story I have never seen before:

Cain watched his brother Abel in secret, wondering how was his brother’s offering accepted and not his? So he resorted to devious methods in the hope that his would be accepted. He first disguised himself as Abel to obtain the blessing of acceptance, but he did not succeed. He tried a second time to cover up the lack of information he had by obtaining it from his mother, hoping that he would discover the secret for accepting the offerings, but he did not succeed. He tried a third time to double the size of the offering, but he did not succeed. He had no facts available to him except Abel himself, and when he heard the reason, envy had overtaken him, so his enemy made it easy for him to kill his brother.

We are the told that Moses studied espionage growing up in Pharaoh's palace. This prompted him to send spies to Canaan. Or, as Al Husseini says,

The first 'Israeli propaganda' operation was launched by the 'ten spies,' which became the foundation on which Zionist propaganda was later built....The clear text about spying in the Torah became, for the Jews, a divine command, according to the opinion of some rabbis, and Zionism later relied on it to permit prohibitions...

Left unsaid is that the Torah makes it quite clear that both Cain and the ten spies were wrong.

The next example is even more absurd:

After the death of Moses, Joshua took over the leadership, and after him he continued the “state project,” and field work developed as he sent two spies to Jericho, “so they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and lay down there” (Joshua 2:1) so that the biblical moral discourse changed regarding espionage. When their matter was revealed, she immediately worked to smuggle them to become the first “spy” from the Canaanites. She changed to “Israeli” when they entered Jericho, where they exterminated its inhabitants except for the house of Rahab...and in this way they were the first to use prostitutes as a source of information. Hence, they prepared the rabbis’ fatwa for former Minister Tzipi Livni, who was active with the Mossad, using sex to trap people and obtain information...

Arab media takes as a given that Tzipi Livni slept with her targets when she worked at the Mossad, making up fabricated quotes where she admits it (she actually has said the opposite). For a while, they assumed that every time an Arab leader appeared somewhat friendly towards Israel it was because.Livni slept with him.

And now we know it is all because she wanted to be like a Canaanite prostitute.

The article goes on to say that Jews have been secretly spying on gentiles for centuries:

Mercenary spies who serve the ruler, whoever he may be, for the purpose of financial gain.
“Double agents” with several rulers were active in sowing discord between countries.
Economic espionage for the purpose of blackmail: conditions of agricultural lands, financial activity, industrial...

It is classic "Elders of Zion" style antisemitism, but now it is tied to the Torah, proving that Jews are hardwired for duplicity.

Apparently, the supply of antisemitic conspiracy theories is indeed unlimited.

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!

Hamas has profited by $120-$200 million so far during the war from taxing humanitarian aid

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy published an article by respected Israeli analyst Ehud Yaari about how Hamas is positioning itself to remain in power as a major military force after the current war.

With thousands of its fighters still alive, Hamas is feverishly searching for new ways to stay in charge once a ceasefire is in place. Behind the facade of a Palestinian alliance, it has offered to relinquish civilian control—but only for the sake of refreshing its military arsenal, rebuilding its tunnel networks, and recruiting fresh manpower.

If Palestinian factions not directly involved in the war agree to provide such cover by forming a new Hamas-backed administration, it would make Israel’s continued task of pursuing the group’s fighters much more complicated. Even if Hamas was not formally part of said government, the flow of international aid to such a body would still benefit Hamas’s armed “wing,” which has invented many methods to cut profits from the local economy over the years. For example, according to estimates by the author and other researchers, the group has already gleaned around $120-200 million from taxing humanitarian convoys during the current war.

This Hamas tax on what is meant to be humanitarian goods is something everyone sort of knows about and practically.no one discusses. It, along with stopping arms smuggling to Hamas, is a major reason why Israel took over the area of the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt.

Yaari's estimate appears to be quite conservative. The amount of aid that entered Gaza so far during the war is approaching $2 billion, and this estimate appears to assume about a 10% tax on humanitarian goods, something that UN agencies certainly know about and turn a blind eye to.

To put it another way, the estimate would indicate a tax of about $5,000 on each of the 26,000 humanitarian aid trucks entering Gaza counted by the UN during the war. This is an amount that would be overlooked since it appears to be part of the overhead costs of distributing food and medicine, but enough for Hamas to continue its fighting.

Things are not good in Gaza for civilians. But the exaggerated attention to Gaza suffering, compared to other humanitarian crises worldwide, allows Hamas and its allies to appeal to the international community to send billions in aid - and this aid helps fund Hamas' war effort and desire to remain in power indefinitely. This explains why, even though the amount of aid entering Gaza has increased since Israel took over all the crossings, the UN and NGOs keep insisting that things are worse - because they want to keep things the way they have been.

The world is funding Hamas.

(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!

Eid prayers to destroy Jews - and one British K-12 school links to similar Islamic prayers on its website

An Egyptian preacher in Kafr El-Sheikh was praying for the death of Jews for Eid:

"O Allah, O Possessor of Majesty and Honor, grant victory to the oppressed in Gaza.
O Allah, grant them a mighty victory.
O Allah, turn against the Jews and those who ally with them.
And turn against the Jews and those who helped them. And turn against the Jews and those who supported them.
And turn against the Jews and those who stood with them.
O Allah, divide their gathering.
O Allah, scatter their unity.
O Allah, tear apart their ranks."

I was curious where else these prayers might be posted in the Internet, and I found a similar prayer....in the Arabic section of a British Christian school website.

The Terling Church of England Primary School has an Arabic section that includes various prayers. Under the heading of "A prayer for Palestine 2024: A prayer for the people of Palestine and Gaza" it redirects to an apparent Saudi site Saudi site, which published a prayer that includes, "Oh God, protect Al-Aqsa Mosque from the deceit of schemers. Oh God, kill those who kill Muslims. Oh God, grant victory to the people of Palestine over your enemies, their Jewish enemies."

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!

Latest EoZ cartoons and memes!

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!

06/16 Links: Hamas Terrorists Are Playing the West for Fools; IDF announces the names of 12 fallen soldiers; Crowd applauds Seinfeld as he mocks anti-Israel hecklers

From Ian:

Invidious comparisons are being made between Israel, Hamas's use of violence

IN ITS 1974 plan, a proposed sequence of Palestinian violence is expressed: “First, to establish a combatant national authority over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated” (Art. 2); “second, to use that territory to continue the fight against Israel” (Art. 4); and “third, to start a pan-Arab war to complete the liberation of the all-Palestinian territory” (Art. 8). Ironically, this was and remains the annihilationist plan of a more mainstream Palestinian terror group than Hamas.

For Israel, the existential threat is no longer from a “Pan-Arab War.” At some still-ambiguous point, Hamas (with tangible Iranian support) could prepare to launch mega-terror attacks on Israel. Such potentially unprecedented aggressions could include chemical, biological, or radiological (radiation-dispersal) weapons. Foreseeable perils could also include a non-nuclear terrorist attack on the Israeli reactor at Dimona. There is a documented history of enemy assaults against this Israeli plutonium-production facility, both by a state (Iraq) in 1991 and by a Palestinian terror group (Hamas) in 2014. Though neither attack was successful, various fearful precedents were established.

International law is not a suicide pact. Even amid long-enduring world-system anarchy, it offers a binding body of rules and procedures that permits any beleaguered state to express an “inherent right of self-defense.”

But when Hamas celebrates the explosive “martyrdom” of manipulated Palestinian civilians and when Palestinian leaders seek “redemption” through the mass-murder of “Jews,” the wrongdoers have no supportable legal claims to immunity. Moreover, Hamas celebrations of “martyrdom” underscore the two-sided nature of Palestinian terror/sacrifice – that is, the primal sacrifice of “the Jew” and the reciprocal sacrifice of “the martyr.” Such murderous reasoning is codified within the Hamas charter as a “religious problem.”

Under international law, terrorists are considered hostes humani generis or “common enemies of humankind.” Among other things, this category of criminals invites punishment wherever the wrongdoers can be found. Concerning their required arrest and prosecution, jurisdiction is “universal.” Also relevant is that the Nuremberg Tribunal reaffirmed the ancient legal principle of “Nullum crimen sine poena,” or “No crime without a punishment.”

Generally, Palestinian commanders who control terror-mayhem against Israel cower unheroically in safe towns and cities outside of Gaza. Living in luxury hotels and villas, these commanders are never eager to become “martyrs” themselves. Why? Hamas and wider Palestinian populations believe that because they are fighting a “just war” they are entitled to employ “any means necessary.” Under international law, however, even if a war is determinably “just,” it must still be fought only with “just means.” Here, ends can never justify means.

The PLO, forerunner of Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and of the Palestinian Authority (PA), was formed in 1964. This formation was three years before there were any Israeli “Occupied Territories.” What were the Palestinians then trying to “liberate?” The answer is incontestable and clarifying: “From the River to the Sea.”

The Palestinian objective has always been the “liberation” of Israel as such. For Hamas, the “solution” for Israel remains unambiguously “final.”

Hamas Terrorists Are Playing the West for Fools

Ending the suffering endured by Palestinian civilians seems to be foremost in the minds of those seeking to implement a ceasefire in Gaza. It is now becoming increasingly evident that it is the fanaticism of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas terrorist mastermind behind the Oct. 7 atrocities, that is thwarting peace efforts. Sinwar once boasted of strangling one suspected Palestinian collaborator to death with his bare hands.

Sinwar's sole ambition has been to ensure that Hamas survives in Gaza once hostilities have ended. This explains why, every time the likes of U.S. Secretary of State Blinken arrive in the region bearing new ceasefire offers, the Hamas leadership immediately resorts to its maximalist demand that Israel agree to a complete military withdrawal from Gaza.

Any ceasefire deal that enables Hamas to maintain any vestige of control in Gaza would be seen as rewarding its leaders for committing gross acts of terrorism. Western policymakers should understand that Hamas, not Israel, is the real obstacle to achieving a lasting peace in Gaza.

Jennifer Rubin: Focus on Hamas War Crimes

The Israel Defense Forces' daring operation that rescued four Israeli hostages held for more than eight months provided new context for the war. Hamas committed war crimes on Oct. 7 by killing, raping and abducting civilians. It has continued to commit war crimes by holding civilians hostage and, again, by treating them inhumanely. And in making military targets of civilian homes by turning them into hostage cells, Hamas has again committed war crimes. Any civilian death is regrettable, but in this scenario, Hamas is solely responsible for the casualties resulting from the rescue mission.

To the extent civilians become participants - including hostage-holding - they lose the protection of international law. Hamas has committed a grave legal and moral wrong in erasing the line between civilians and combatants. Hamas wants more civilians to die. It's incumbent on Israel's harshest critics to dissociate themselves from Hamas enablers and antisemites. If not, they have no claim to the moral high ground.

This video was taken at the Al-Manara roundabout in the center of Ramallah on Saturday.

You who have a rifle, and you hide it for weddings (to shoot in celebration), go and shoot the Jew, or give it to Hamas!

I don't know who the bishop is. The man waving the flag is Mustafa Barghouti, a supposedly moderate Palestinian politician and member of the PLO who says in English language interviews that he is against terror - and happily participates in chants to murder Jews.

Notice also that Ramallah, under "occupation," looks identical to any shopping district of any city in the world.

(h/t Palestinian Violence)

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!

Israeli and Jewish media are reporting that a French court has ruled in favor of several anti-Israel organizations that not only will Israeli arms manufacturers be banned from exhibiting at the Eurosatory arms expo in Paris, but also Israeli nationals will be banned as well from even attending the show.

However, the ban apparently goes even beyond that.

Le Parisien reports:

The magistrates thus considered that, “contrary to what Coges [the company that runs Eurosatory] asserts,” the measures taken by the company did not sufficiently comply with government requirements concerning the reception of Israeli companies. And in such a case, the judges considered that the executive decision in fact included the presence of “any natural or legal person likely” to operate for Israeli companies as a “broker or intermediary.” »

In their decision rendered this Friday at the end of the afternoon, of which Le Parisien obtained a copy, the magistrates thus consider that Coges maintained the possibility of these Israeli arms players to participate in the show, and that this would be “blatantly illegal”. To stop it, access and participation “in any form whatsoever” to the show will thus be “prohibited to Israeli arms manufacturers” and “to any employee or representative of Israeli arms companies”.

The measure also applies “to any person likely to operate as their broker or intermediary." At the same time, other exhibitors are strictly prohibited from welcoming them on their stands, or from promoting them.

That "any person" clause does not only apply to Israelis, but anyone from any country who is "likely to operate" as a broker or intermediary.

Practically speaking, this is banning Jews from attending.

Only Jews would be suspected of being secretly working for the Israeli companies. No one who looks Indian or Chinese would be questioned as to whether they are Israeli arms brokers - only Jews.

Since the ruling was handed down on Friday evening, Coges has no chance to appeal before the show begins Monday morning.

But here is what French Jews (who are not also Israeli citizens) should do. They should register to attend tomorrow - the price is €55 for the day, €100 for the week - and show up.

Some should wear kippot. Some should wear IDF T-shirts. Some should wear Israeli flag pins or outerwear, or even carry tote bags from Israeli arms manufacturers.

They should pose in front of the signs that the court ruled must be placed at the entrance of the show banning "brokers."

And they should see if they are blocked from entering the show based purely on their clothing.

If the ruling bans French Jews from attending just because they are Zionist, or only French Jews are questioned whether they are intermediaries, while allowing pro-terrorist Iranians or Syrians or representatives from countries that engage in major human rights abuses to visit unhindered, it would be blatant discrimination against Jews.

This needs to be on video.

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!

Pro-Hamas @WashingtonPost reporter falsely blames Israel, not Egypt, for Rafah crossing closing

The Washington Post "reports:"

With Rafah crossing closed by Israel, Gazans have no way out
Israel’s offensive in Rafah, aimed at eliminating Hamas’s last battalions, has dashed any hope of escape for ill and injured Palestinian civilians.

Exactly when did Israel close the Rafah crossing?

It didn't. Egypt did.

As The National (UAE) reported May 16:

Egypt has told Israel it will not reopen the Rafah border crossing with Gaza while Israeli troops remain on the Gazan side, sources told The National, as the row between the two countries deepens.

“Egypt will not reopen the crossing and that’s its final position despite significant US pressure on Cairo to do so,” one source said.

This was reported widely - by the BBC, Reuters and others over the past month.

That's only the start of how this article bends over backwards to blame Israel for decisions Egypt has made.

The entire article gives Egypt a pass on not allowing Gazans to take refuge there even though tens of thousands have been trying. It doesn't mention that thousands of patients have been requested to leave Gaza to go abroad, and Egypt has denied them.

So how could the Washington Post get it so wrong?

Because the reporter is an antisemite and a Hamas fan.

One of the authors of the article, Hajar Harb, posted her support for the Hamas massacre of October 7 in a series of posts on her Facebook page, as CAMERA documented. For example, when the death toll of Israelis reached 600, she made a graphic of flowers making the number 600, writing, “Although the flowers are a waste on them [the dead Israelis], just the number [of dead] is sweet.”

Commenting on a photo of 85-year old Yafa Arad being kidnapped into Gaza, Harb wrote: “See this place ma’am? Allah willing, you’ll remain inside with us for a while.”

A photo of Shir, Ariel and Kfir Bibas being taken by terrorists into Gaza prompted Harb to celebrate: : “[this is] your home and your spot, you and your children.”

For a picture of Hamas terrorists storming an Israeli home, Ms. Harb wrote: “And this is how we say good morning, seriously.”

The Washington Post knows about Harb's support for Hamas. The Washington Times and the Telegraph (UK) wrote about her in April.

It is almost unbelievable that the Washington Post would continue to use Hajar Harb as a reporter after these pro-Hamas posts were publicized.

Almost, but not completely. Because this is the state of the formerly respectable mainstream media nowadays.

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!

06/15 Links: Never Again: The Fight Against Antisemitism; Biden’s foolish plan for post-war Gaza; Gaza; 8 troops killed in Rafah explosion; Noa Argamani's rescue video

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Ghosted By Hamas

The conflict is stuck in a loop so long as Hamas refuses to give back the ball. Hamas welcomes the deaths of Palestinians as well as Israelis, and Israel’s continuing operation in Rafah arguably doesn’t pose an existential threat to Hamas unless the Biden administration shifts its stance. Until then, Israel is forced to move too slowly to finish the job.

The U.S. is the one party to these cease-fire negotiations that can change the calculus overnight. That’s one of the benefits of being a superpower. But Biden isn’t even threatening to do so; why would Hamas make any sudden moves?

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar didn’t invent this time-freezing trick. He inherited it. When Yasser Arafat rejected the full offer of statehood presented by Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak, Arafat did not make a counteroffer. He simply walked away. And what did it cost him? Nothing. Less than a decade later, Ehud Olmert was back in front of Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, with another offer. Abbas simply ghosted him.

Of course, a half-century before Arafat’s rejection of statehood, the Arabs with whom the Jews were to divide the land did the same. Rather than negotiate over lines on a map, the decision was made to attempt to kill all the Jews and take all the land. Here we are, all these years later, and no Palestinian response has differed substantively from that basic formula.

The difference is that Arafat and Abbas learned their lines and played their parts in the theater of international diplomacy, at least to some extent. Abbas was genuinely opposed—on practical grounds—to Arafat’s launching of the second intifada. An insincere renunciation of violence is good enough to get American military figures to come to the West Bank and try to train the Palestinian security forces.

But Hamas beat Abbas’s Palestinian Authority on the battlefield. And Hamas beat Abbas’s Fatah party at the ballot box, too. What is the PA’s international legitimacy worth? Bupkis, as far as Sinwar is concerned. He’s holding American hostages and the Americans won’t even let Israel destroy Hamas once and for all.

After this, why would anyone abide by the norms of international diplomacy ever again? Why go through the motions? And why even respond definitively to the deal on the table?

After all, what are Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan going to do about it?

Seth Mandel: The Boats of Cherbourg, the Rockets of Lebanon, and the Value of Every Second

The grave situation in Israel’s north gives the lie to a fantasy underpinning the West’s desperate push for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza—that there is such a thing as the “day after” for Israel. Rather than a permanent peace being on the table, Israel’s enemies—and America’s, since they are all working on behalf of Iran—merely shift their forever war to a new front each time Israel temporarily pacifies one of the conflict zones on its border.

Israel will not get a reprieve. There may be a “day after” the Gaza conflict for Western states thousands of miles away, but there will be none for the Jewish state.

The whole situation, including a recent diplomatic tiff with France, serves as a reminder of wars past. And the most important lesson to derive from those reminders is that every second counts.

This year marks the 55th anniversary of the famous story of the boats of Cherbourg. Israel’s magnificent victory in the Six-Day War in 1967 changed the understanding of the power dynamic across the Middle East. The European powers saw Israel as needing to “take the win,” much as the international community urged Israel to do after it came out unscathed from Iran’s unprecedented missile attack in April.

But in fact the aftermath of the 1967 conflict had exposed weaknesses in Israel’s defenses that could have proved fatal. Its navy was, in effect, not a real navy at all but a glorified coast guard. It was easy to imagine Israel getting cut off from the seaways around it.

Israel needed boats with speed, maneuverability, offensive weapons, and basic defensive capabilities—at a price it could afford. The breakthrough came when Israeli engineers began studying how to make the country’s Gabriel missiles compatible for naval use. The boats themselves would be modeled on a German craft and built in France, in Cherbourg.

What happened next is famous. What happened after that is less so.

Charles de Gaulle imposed an arms embargo on Israel, halting the transfer of the last five boats despite Israel having paid for them in full. De Gaulle’s successor, Georges Pompidou, upheld the embargo.

The Israeli government accepted the French slight; the Defense Ministry’s procurement team did not. They kept up the production and testing of the boats in Cherbourg while manufacturing a misleading sale to a Norwegian front company to get around the French embargo. On Christmas eve 1969, amid stormy waters and brutal winds, and with ghost crews brought in over time under France’s nose, the boats sailed home to Israel.

But, as Abraham Rabinovich, who wrote the definitive book on the mission, explains, during that same time the Russians began supplying Israel’s Arab neighbors with naval missiles even more capable than the ones Israel was developing. Israeli engineers had to develop some kind of radar-scrambling system to effectively reduce the Soviet missiles’ range.

Rabinovich describes the nailbiting timeline before the Yom Kippur War: “The Navy now began the arduous process of fitting out the 12 vessels as missile boats and devising an operational system and tactics for a totally new kind of naval warfare — as innovative as the first use of ironclads or the first modern naval guns. Full scale maneuvers of the missile boat flotilla were held for the first time at the beginning of October, 1973. The vessels returned to Haifa on the eve of Yom Kippur. The next day war broke out.”

Why Does the World Hate Israel, and Not Hamas?

For Israel, the choice is stark: act decisively to save innocent lives or risk brutal violence against their citizens now and in the future. To criticize harm caused by Israel to enemy civilians without considering the context is self-serving virtue signaling, and offers little practical guidance for states forced to navigate the treacherous waters of modern conflict.

Rav Shaul Yisraeli (1909-1995), one of 20th-century Israel’s most prominent rabbinic leaders and an esteemed authority in Jewish law, discusses the concept of milchemet mitzvah (obligatory war) in his seminal work Amud HaYemini. This concept encompasses the defense of Israel and its people. A milchemet mitzvah is not only permissible but necessary, says Rav Yisraeli, even if it entails significant risks to the lives of non-combatants and involves difficult military decisions. And according to Rav Yisraeli, “war with any nation threatening Israel is a milchemet mitzvah.”

The ongoing conflict with Hamas, and particularly the rescue of hostages, undoubtedly constitutes a milchemet mitzvah, as it represents an existential struggle for Israel’s survival that is being keenly observed by all of Israel’s adversaries. This is why the cost of kidnapping Israelis must be high to deter such atrocities in the future. The misfortune of civilian deaths, as in any just war, is the tragic consequence of such a mission, undertaken to prevent far worse outcomes in the future.

In a perfect world, Hamas would not have kidnapped any Israelis, and having done so, would not have embedded them in the heart of a residential neighborhood. But we don’t live in a perfect world, where swords can be beaten into plowshares, and dealing with heartless enemies is unnecessary. This is the real world, where rescuing innocent civilian hostages from the clutches of evil terrorists is an inescapable reality.

Meanwhile, the hypocrisy of the media and international actors who criticize Israel is glaring. They refuse to acknowledge that the hostages were all innocent civilians held by Hamas collaborators in residential neighborhoods, where the likelihood of an Israeli rescue raid was, thus high making civilian casualties inevitable.

Which country wouldn’t want to rescue their citizens? Had these hostages been handed back months ago, this entire war might have long been over. Instead, Israel is blamed for fulfilling its obligation to protect its citizens and doing everything possible to save them from terrorist murderers and rapists. The criticism of Israel not only ignores the realities of the conflict but also unfairly vilifies a nation for its honorable commitment to the safety and security of its people.

Rather than hauling Israel over the coals, isn’t it time for the media and international organizations to start hounding Hamas and their lackeys for generating suffering on a scale for Palestinians not seen since 1948? That’s not on Israel. It’s on Hamas. And until Hamas is gone, the suffering will continue — and likely get worse.

06/14 Links Pt2: The looming choice for diaspora Jews; How António Guterres betrayed the Jews; The chilling rise of the Hamas red triangle

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The looming choice for diaspora Jews

Diaspora Jews tend to hold their noses at anything on “the right” because they associate “the right” with antisemitism. They need to wake up fast. While there are certainly troubling increases in neo-fascist groups, the main threat to the Jews today is posed overwhelmingly by left-wingers and Muslims.

Some European “populist” parties are indeed unsavoury. Others are merely authentically conservative. Most support Israel, although some have troubling antisemitic roots.

In other words, this is a mixed picture. And as a result, the pushback against those determined to destroy the west is likely to be messy and complicated.

Whether or not it’s time to uproot is necessarily a personal decision. However, Jews remaining in the diaspora will find themselves having to choose between the devil and the deep-blue sea. Quite apart from any dangers, the political choices they face are likely to make for an uncomfortable ride.

This alarming situation didn’t suddenly burst out of nowhere on October 7. The writing has been on this particular wall for decades. But most diaspora Jews refused to see it.

In America, the majority of Jews have actually signed up for the liberal ideas that are driving anti-Israel hysteria and Jew-hatred. In Britain, most Jews have been too frightened, too craven or too muddled to talk publicly about the threat from Muslim antisemitism and mass immigration.

Of course, diaspora Jews can reasonably point out that, at present, Israel is hardly a safe haven. And unfortunately, there may well be yet more horrors for that beleaguered little country to endure.

But Israel is where everyone knows what they’re fighting for. It’s where there is zero ambiguity about their enemy or its genocidal intention. It’s where the overwhelming majority understand that they are living through another seismic moment in the sacred history of their people. It’s why they know they have no alternative but to win.

That’s why Israel will survive. The same cannot be said for the west.

The chilling rise of the Hamas red triangle

The use of the inverted red triangle to target Pasternak’s home is particularly chilling. This symbol is directed at anyone deemed to be pro-Israel or who does not explicitly condemn the Jewish State.

When used by Hamas, the red triangle essentially denotes that someone is being targeted for execution. It first started using this symbol last November in propaganda videos produced in Gaza. In these, the red triangle was marked on Israeli soldiers or armoured vehicles about to be attacked. Since Hamas started promoting the symbol, it quickly began appearing throughout the Arab world, on everything from children’s comic strips to social-media memes. In the latter, it often appears over images of Israeli soldiers or the Star of David.

Now this repulsive glorification of violence against Israeli targets has been adopted by anti-Israel protesters in the West. As the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil-rights group, has noted, students at the New School, Emerson College and New York University ‘have all advertised their [Gaza solidarity] encampments using inverted red-triangle imagery’.

Its use by protesters isn’t confined to America, either. In the German capital, Berlin, it has been seen at both Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin, and it was also daubed on an Apple Store and other shops. In Britain, the red triangle sign can sometimes be seen on anti-Israel protests and it’s now available to buy as a t-shirt design.

Some will no doubt try to downplay the significance of this red-triangle symbol. They will point to its similarity to the red triangle on the Palestinian flag, in order to suggest it has another, simpler pro-Palestine meaning. But that is disingenuous. Any correspondence between the inverted red triangle of Hamas propaganda videos and the sideways triangle on the Palestine flag is coincidental.

Anyone doubting the threatening intent behind this symbol should see how it is used by anti-Israel protesters whenever they come across peaceful and relatively small pro-Israel counter protests. They will form their fingers into a triangle shape as if they are aiming a weapon at the pro-Israel protesters. This is little more than a coded version of drawing a finger across the throat. It is a threat.

The fact that this sinister symbol is being daubed on Jewish people’s homes ought to be a serious wake-up call.

WOL of sound: Following the money and activism behind anti-Israel ‘days of rage’

WOL and its members
Kiswani originally founded WOL as the New York City branch of the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine. Renamed in 2018, WOL maintains connections with many SJP groups and, according to Canary Mission, is “a pivotal bridge between campus and community.”

Both SJP and WOL receive funding from the Westchester People’s Action Coalition Foundation, according to the New York Post. The WESPAC Foundation receives funds from billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros and Felice Gelman, a retired investment banker who contributes to pro-Palestinian causes.

Like National SJP and individual SJP chapters, WOL is not registered as a 501(c)(3) organization. As such, its donors are not publicly known unless, as in the case of the WESPAC Foundation, it chooses to identify funding recipients themselves.

WOL has organized numerous protests throughout the city since Oct. 7, including supporting efforts to shut down Terminal 4 within John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jan. 1 and again on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Canary Mission cites WOL’s other targets as the New York City Marathon, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting, the New York Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Grand Central, Penn Station, and the Manhattan Bridge.

Canary Mission’s dossier on Kiswani is extensive and includes multiple instances of her calling for the abolition, annihilation, and defeat of Israel. Her arrest on May 31 was not her first in 2024. Kiswani was arrested on Jan. 26 for using sound amplification without a permit at a rally against Israeli corporations and entities. She was handcuffed during WOL’s participation in April 15 Tax Day protests, which were organized across the country to “block … the arteries of capitalism and jam … the wheels of production.”

Mohammed, WOL member, has shared frightening antisemitic language online, according to a Canary Mission dossier. “May every Zionist burn in the hottest pit of hell,” she posted on May 8, 2021. “I pray upon the death of the USA,” she wrote on X the following day. On Nov. 21, 2023, she posted, “Nothing but the complete dismantling of zionism will suffice.”

Video Mohammed shared on Instagram on May 7 is said to show protesters at Hunter College burning an American flag. She shared a post of the burning Israeli flag on April 14 and has shared multiple posts showing the badges of NYPD personnel with Arab last names whom she says “hammer a baton on the backs of their people.”

Akl has used social media to stoke hate. In an Instagram video shared on Nov. 26, 2023, Akl led protesters in chants on a crowded subway car to “globalize the intifada.” According to Canary Mission’s dossier on Akl, he led chants in Arabic on March 30, directing Hamas’s armed wing to strike Tel Aviv. Video on X from March 19 shows Akl being arrested at a protest.

Louder than hate
WOL is one of the numerous entities propelling hatred and decreasing public safety in an effort to promote a one-sided interpretation of peace in the Middle East, where Israel would be denied existence. As tensions mount amid continued conflict in Israel and Gaza, antisemitic actors inflict unending pain on Jewish communities worldwide.

In the face of fringe activists dominating media coverage, this hate speech and destructive rhetoric require a firm response from people of goodwill. Malign influences will not promote a future of peace and stability where Israelis and Palestinians can coexist without fear of terrorism.

06/14 Links Pt1: When it comes to Israel, brains go out the window; Hamas: Nobody has any clue how many hostages still alive; They Criticized the Entebbe Rescue, Too

From Ian:

No Haven for Hamas

Hamas isn't a state worthy of recognition. It's a terrorist entity governing a population through fear, terror, and zealotry. Which is why Americans deal not with Hamas but with Hamas's intermediaries in Egypt and Qatar. We still have some scruples, after all. And if a terror organization does not deserve our direct contact, then it does not deserve our rescue.

Nor is Hamas interested in bringing the Gaza war to a close. As the secretary of state was engaged in another round of shuffle diplomacy, desultorily flying from capital to capital with nothing to show for it, the Wall Street Journal published a blockbuster story confirming what some of us already knew: Hamas's psychopathic terror leader, Yahya Sinwar, follows Vladimir Lenin's dictum of "the worse, the better." The greater the number of Palestinian casualties, the greater the devastation to Gaza's infrastructure, the further isolated the Jewish state becomes, and the more anti-Semitism intensifies around the globe.

Most people are horrified at what Hamas unleashed on October 7. Not Sinwar. He thinks he's winning. No surprise, then, that Hamas responded to the Biden ceasefire proposal with what Blinken described as "numerous changes." Revisions, it should be said, that are too much even for Blinken. Thus Hamas gives every indication of rejecting this latest ceasefire plan—just as it rejected the four previous ceasefire plans that have been floated since November 2023.

Yet the Biden administration continues to act as if Hamas's mass murderer in chief has a conscience. In a June 13 interview with Savannah Guthrie of NBC's Today Show, Blinken said that while Sinwar hides underground, "the people that he purports to represent, they're suffering every day. So if he has their interests at heart, he will come to a conclusion to bring this to a conclusion."

Represent? This isn't the Grand Forks City Council we're talking about. It's Hamas. And Yahya Sinwar isn't James Madison. He's a little Hitler. He doesn't give a whit about suffering. Nor does he have anyone's "interests at heart." He has no heart! He's a kidnapper and a torturer and a killer. How on earth can Blinken say these words with a straight face?

Something has gone wrong when a senior U.S. official persists in the delusion that a terrorist shares his sense of morality, sympathy, and personal responsibility. Something has gone wrong when an administration that responded admirably to the worst crime against the Jewish people since the Holocaust now tries to tie Israel's hands, slow Israel down, undermine Israel's elected leadership, and freeze the current multifront war against Israel in place in a misguided and counterproductive effort to quiet the gross pro-Hamas anti-Semites within the Democratic Party. And something has gone wrong, terribly wrong, when the administration's response to the heroic and triumphal rescue of four Israeli hostages from Hamas and their civilian accomplices is to double down on a plan that increases Hamas's leverage.

"I don't think the deal is blown up," Secretary Blinken told Guthrie. "I think it's still—it's still possible. But at the end of the day, this has to come to a point where it's either yes or no." That came long ago—on October 7, in fact.

The war in Gaza won't end with another ceasefire or food package or humanitarian pier. The war will end when Israel completes its task of destroying Hamas as a military force and rescues the surviving men, women, and children, including five Americans, who were taken from their homes and spirited away to Palestinian captivity. America's role in this task is to help our ally Israel by supplying military aid and assistance, by providing diplomatic cover in a world where Hamas sympathizers have captured the institutions of global governance, and by enforcing the rule of law against the Hamas supporters on our college campuses, in our city streets, and in our public squares. The closer America is with Israel, the stronger our support, and the better we articulate Israel's right to exist and right to self-defense, the faster Israel will achieve her military aims.

Enough with the ceasefires. Put the plans back in the briefcase, Mr. Secretary. Let Israel win.

When it comes to Israel, brains go out the window

THIS HAS long been Hamas’s strategy: civilians are killed in Gaza, and the terrorist organization knows that no one is going to bother to ask why it embeds itself in civilian infrastructure, why it keeps hostages in apartments, or why it shoots rockets from children’s bedrooms. Instead, Sinwar knows that people will blame Israel and Israel alone.

The problem is that when Borrell and Albanese do this, they are emboldening Hamas, putting Israel – as Sinwar himself wrote, according to the WSJ report – “right where we want them” when it comes to the question of who is winning the war. When Sinwar sees that Israel rescues hostages and comes under fierce international criticism, does that make him feel motivated to release hostages in a deal or to hold on to them for longer? Why wouldn’t he feel emboldened when Israel is slammed every time it attacks Gaza?

What these Western politicians fail to understand is that their response is actually prolonging the war. Just look at Hamas’s reaction to President Biden’s proposed ceasefire deal. Why would Hamas say yes when it knows that the world will nonetheless blame Israel and push its government into a corner to accept a version that does not do enough to ensure the Jewish state’s security?

For the war to end, Hamas needs to feel that it has something to lose. Because it does not care about human life, appealing to some moral or humanitarian interest will not work. What stands the chance of getting Hamas to agree to a deal that will return the hostages and potentially end the war is for Hamas to feel that Israel is not restricted, that there is no ticking clock that has been placed in front of Jerusalem, and that the US will continue and even accelerate the delivery of strategic weapons to Israel.

If Hamas leaders in Doha were expelled or arrested, and if Sinwar felt that Israel was not right where he wanted it to be, then maybe he would agree to release the hostages and accept the US-proposed ceasefire.

And if that doesn’t happen? At the very least, the West will have stood on the right side of history. That should also count for something.

Forever the victim: Even if Hamas is defeated, Palestinians will blame external powers

In 2023 and 2024 anti-Israel activists believed that victory against Israel had never been closer. In the hours after the October 7 massacre, anti-Israel activists took to social media to proclaim that the attack would be celebrated as a future Palestinian national holiday, signifying the supposed weakness and crumbling of Zionism.

At the May 24 Detroit People’s Conference for Palestine, speakers bragged how Hamas was supposedly humiliating the IDF on the battlefield, transforming Gaza into “the graveyard of the Merkava tank, the Namer troop carrier, the D9 bulldozer, and the occupation.” The infamous chant “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” has been regularly altered to “from the river to the sea, Palestine is almost free.”

WHEN HAMAS loses the war, and the full cost of the war is appreciated, anti-Israel activists will once again explain the discrepancy between their propaganda and the loss on the battlefield by appealing to the tired theory of foreigners rigging the outcome. Since the beginning of the war, anti-Israel operatives in the West have laser-focused on the complicity of the US and other countries by arming Israel.

They have pushed for arms embargoes and boycotts because they believe that if they disconnect the US from Israel, then Palestinians will finally be able to achieve the victory that has been repeatedly stolen from them. The Israeli war machine being unable to conduct its campaign without US support has been a regular refrain at protests and in speeches at the Detroit conference. Israel is an illegitimate, settler-colonial state, therefore its people couldn’t possibly have the will to match Hamas freedom fighters without US aid.

Everyone and everything but Palestinian intransigence will be to blame for the inevitable defeat of Hamas. Lost in stories of foreign powers or Israeli brutality taking advantage of Palestinian vulnerability, there will be no reflection on how Hamas shouldn’t have slaughtered and raped its way through southern Israel, or shouldn’t have taken hostages, or ignored the opportunity available every day for eight months to surrender and release its captives.

The path of compromise, of peace, of accepting that there is no Palestinian future in which Israel does not exist alongside them, will never be considered, nor will be the consequences to be found on the path of violence be considered. Their suffering in the wake of a war Hamas began is not a consequence of its action, but one more bout of unfair victimization inflicted on them by Israel and the US – and so they will continue to endure them.

Hamas supporters will forever hold onto the fleeting moment of October 7, and, as always, promise themselves that next time victory will be theirs, if only it wasn’t for those meddling kids in the White House.