Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, June 28, 2024

Israel haters don't want to debate, but to censor. Even academics.

The journal American Psychologist recently published an article titled "The American Psychological Association and antisemitism: Toward equity, diversity, and inclusion." Here is the abstract:

This article calls for the American Psychological Association (APA) to proactively include the elimination of antisemitism or prejudice against Jewish people in its current mission to disassemble all forms of racism from its organization as well as society. In this article, Jews (estimated as 2.4% of the population) are defined as a people with a common identity, ethnicity, and religion as they experience prejudice; their intersection in Jewish identity; the history and characteristics of antisemitism and its current manifestation in public life, academic institutions, and psychology. Despite Jews having made major contributions to the development of psychology as a profession, historically through the first half of the 20th century, Jews were systematically discriminated against within the discipline of psychology through quotas for acceptance into graduate training, discriminatory employment practices in university psychology departments, and most egregiously through the espousing of “scientific racism” including eugenics by prominent leaders in the APA. We describe how historically leaders in the APA engaged in overt and covert antisemitism while the APA continues to do little or nothing to combat it. We then offer suggestions for the mitigation and elimination of this form of bias, discrimination, and hate as it once again escalates in society. We recommend that the APA engages in research about antisemitism, its predictors, consequences, and power; evaluates the efficacy of intervention programs; encourages contact with various multicultural minoritized groups; and disseminates knowledge to educate about the psychological effects of antisemitism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

How can anyone object to that?

Roy J. Eidelson, a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, wrote a lengthy response to the article. He is concerned that the authors are Zionists and position Zionism to be the mainstream opinion of most Jews, and accept the IHRA definition of antisemitism, among other criticisms of the article.

If he wants to write a response to the same journal, perhaps as a letter, that would be fine. But this is the title of his piece: "A Call for Retraction: The Recent American Psychologist Article on Antisemitism."

His response makes it clear that he is at least as biased as the authors.

There is also a deeper issue that I cannot ignore. Throughout the article, the authors avoid providing readers with crucial context for understanding much of the criticism of Israel and the ideology of Zionism: namely, the country’s decades-long oppression of the Palestinian people. And while they warn of “the increased threat of annihilation of the state of Israel” (p. 4), the words “Nakba,” “occupation,” and “apartheid” never appear.

Must every article on antisemitism defend Israel from scurrilous charges that have nothing to do with the topic? Apparently, when Israel is even mentioned peripherally, Zionists must defend themselves. Not only that, but they must accept the false, anti-Zionist framework as their starting point.

This is not a call for debating the contents of the article. It is a call to silence Zionist academics and psychology professionals and to force them to deny their own reality.

Retracting an article in an academic journal is a nuclear option. It is used when the paper is fraudulent, relying on falsified data or plagiarized. I do not have access to the original article so I cannot judge the quality of Eidelson's critique, but nothing that he writes justifies the demand for retraction.

Which means it isn't a debate but instead a call to silence those who disagree with him.

The response is written as if it is a reasonable response, but what it demands is not reasonable at all.

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!

Mehdi Hasan is upset.

He tweeted, "Trump just throwing around 'Palestinian' as a pejorative. Brazen anti-Palestinian racism has been normalized in America."

Here's what Trump said: "As far as Israel and Hamas, Israel is the one that wants to go. He said the only one who wants to keep going is Hamas. Actually, Israel is the one, and you should them go and let them finish the job. He doesn’t want to do it. He has become like a Palestinian. But, they don’t like him because he is a very bad Palestinian. He is a weak one."

Trump is saying that Biden is taking the Palestinian side in the conflict. This is presumably what Hasan wants as well.

Assuming that Trump used the word in a negative way, he's right. And this is part of the story about Palestinians that no one wants to say.

70-80% of Palestinians support specific terror attacks against Jewish civilians, after the fact, during the last 20 years of polling. These include some of the most horrific attacks like the slaughter of rabbis in Har Nof in 2014, with axes and cleavers.

80% of Palestinians surveyed, in a poll done by Palestinians, said they supported the attack.

In 2008, a terrorist entered the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and started mowing down students. 8 were killed, including 4 children. When Palestinians were asked if they supported that attack, 84% said they did.

In 2003, when asked about the Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Haifa that murdered 21 including a two month old baby, 75% of Palestinians said they supported it.

And more recent polls show that over 75% of Palestinians supported the October 7 pogrom.

75% isn't 100%, but no one can deny that as a society, Palestinians support murdering innocent Jewish civilians, no matter where they live. Many of them openly cheer those murders.

What kind of people cheer terror attacks? Of course they should be vilified and insulted for their attitudes. Using the word "Palestinian" as a pejorative is quite reasonable without there being any significant Palestinian pushback against the cult of death that their society promotes.

And there isn't any pushback, certainly not in Arabic. I've been following Palestinian media for years and I cannot recall a single article or op-ed that took other Palestinians to task for cheering murders of Jews. Not once.

Any decent person would be more outraged at the Palestinians who have purposefully built a society that supports murdering Jews than using the word "Palestinian" as a pejorative. And Mehdi Hasan is not a decent person.

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!

In the presidential debate last night, Donald Trump said that US sanctions re-introduced under his presidency would have crippled Iran's ability to fund Hamas and other terror groups, and October 7 would likely not have happened under his presidency:

Israel would have never been invaded in a million years by Hamas. You know why? Because Iran was broke with me. I wouldn’t let anybody do business with them. They ran out of money. They were broke. They had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything. No money for terror.

Is this true?

It is a complex topic, but under the Biden administration the sanctions against Iran exporting oil have been loosened and strengthened depending on other considerations (like keeping oil prices low, or incentive for Iran to re-join the JCPOA nuclear agreement.)

As of this year, Iran has exported more oil than at any time since before Trump exited the JCPOA. An analysis from FDD in April states,

Since President Joe Biden assumed office, total Iranian oil exports have exceeded $100 billion, which is greater than the annual budget of Greece or Ireland. Had Tehran’s average daily export volume remained the same as it was while Donald Trump’s maximum pressure policy was in effect from May 2019 to January 2021, the regime would have had $40 billion less to spend on ballistic missiles and proxy groups.

It might not be a fair comparison, since nearly all of Iranian oil exports go to China in ways that make existing US sanctions largely useless. Nevertheless, US officials admit that they have been loosening up oil sanctions on Iran, and more could be done to make it more difficult for Iran to export oil.

The Biden administration also made $6 billion in previously frozen assets available to Iran as part of a deal last year to release American hostages. Claiming it can only be used for humanitarian purposes doesn't mean much if it allows Iran to redirect money that would have gone to hospitals to now go to missiles.

But this is only part of the story of Iranian access to cash that was limited before the JCPOA.

The New York Times reports that Iran has greatly increased its uranium enrichment, "dramatically bolstering the speed at which it can produce nuclear fuel in recent weeks inside a facility buried so deep that it is all but impervious to bunker-busting bombs." at the same time Iranian officials have dropped the facade of saying that Iran's nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, explicitly discussing building nuclear bombs.

Iran has been openly flouting the JCPOA nuclear agreement since at least 2019 when it announced that it would exceed the enrichment limits they were obligated to under the deal. Yet even so, the EU has never re-introduced the nuclear-related sanctions lifted in 2016 for the deal.

These included "financial, banking and insurance measures; trade in the oil, gas and petrochemical sectors; [and] activity in the shipping, shipbuilding and transport sectors. "

In other words, sanctions that should have been re-introduced under the "EU snapback" mechanism of JCPOA have remain lifted, even thought Iran has been certified to be breaking the deal for more years than it supposedly kept to the deal's terms.

The EU External Action page on the JCPOA, updated in December 2022, still describes its efforts to not only keep to the terms of the abrogated agreement but also to act against the US sanctions regime re-introduced when it withdrew from the agreement in 2018:

WHAT HAS THE EU DONE TO PRESERVE THE JCPOA?
Preserving the JCPOA is crucial not only in terms of nuclear non-proliferation but also for the security of the region and beyond.

Following the US decision to withdraw from the agreement in May 2018 and to re-impose previously lifted sanctions, the EU remained determined to continue pursuing legitimate trade with Iran. The EU updated its Blocking Statute, extended the EIB external lending mandate to make Iran eligible and provided comprehensive support to France, Germany and the UK (as core shareholders) to set up and fully operationalize INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges), a special purpose vehicle to facilitate legitimate trade between Europe and Iran. Six more European countries joined INSTEX as shareholders. EU welcomed the decision of six European countries to join Instex as shareholders and encourages further broadening of INSTEX shareholders’ basis. A first transaction was successfully concluded on March 2020.

The EU has continuously expressed deep regret at the US decision to withdraw from the agreement and re-imposition of sanctions. At the same time, the EU is also committed to maintaining cooperation with the United States, which remains a key partner and ally.

Since July 2019 Iran has taken different steps to reduce its nuclear commitments. The EU and its Member States have consistently urged Iran to reverse these steps and to refrain from further measures that undermine the nuclear deal.

INSTEX failed - but not because of Iranian violations of JCPOA. Rather, Iran itself refused to cooperate with the EU initiative to go around the US sanctions. Nevertheless, the attempt shows how the EU has been enabling Iran's nuclear weapons program by sticking with a deal that Iran has itself abandoned years ago. And the EU is stating that its policy is to keep trying diplomacy, and nothing else, even after they know Iran is violating JCPOA.

The EU has introduced other, much weaker sanctions on Iran for its human rights abuses, its support of Russia in the Ukraine war and its attack on Israel in April. But the widespread sanctions in place before the 2016 nuclear deal remain lifted, even at a time when Iran is saying that it is pursuing nuclear weapons.

The Biden administration could have pressured the EU to adhere to its own signed agreement to introduce snapbacks in case of Iran's violations of JCPOA. Yet this could arguably have happened during the Trump administration as well. I cannot find any evidence of either administration pressuring the EU to invoke the snapbacks.

EU trade with Iran was about €5.2 billion in 2022 and it appears to have increased somewhat since then. Iran's total budget is about $600 billion annually, of which perhaps $100 billion is from oil revenue. However, Iran has a large budget deficit so every billion dollars is important.

There is no way to know how much Iran gives to Hamas and Hezbollah, but it is reasonable to say that it prioritizes its own needs before the terror groups, so every bit of economic pressure on Iran is critical to reduce terror worldwide. Both the US and EU could do much more to limit Iranian access to funds to pay for terror groups.

And it isn't only Hamas. The looming war between Israel and Hezbollah is directly tied to Iranian funding of that terror group. It is ironic that the EU justifies its continuing trade with Iran as being "crucial for the security of the region and beyond" when its effect is to promote a probable war.

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!

American Jews are starting to defend themselves in response to attacks (The Tactical Rabbi)

Raziel Cohen, known as “The Tactical Rabbi,” is an ordained rabbi and firearms instructor with a popular YouTube channel.

He wrote a brief guest post.

-------------

This past week in Los Angeles, California, a pro-Palestinian protest took place in front of a synagogue in the area where I grew up. The protest quickly escalated to violence, with protesters pepper-spraying, beating, and even brandishing a firearm at Jewish individuals.

In response to this event, a poll was conducted among the Jewish community to gauge their new self-defense measures. The top two responses were increased political action against antisemitism and acquiring firearms and non-lethal self-defense options, along with appropriate training.

Aside from the poll, I spoke to multiple people who had never considered carrying a firearm. One in particular explained their decision by saying, "The police made it clear that they weren't there to stop the assaults. They were there to contain and respond to weapons. But the boy who was beaten to the ground would not be helped."

It might seem surprising, but the Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement has no obligation to protect individuals. This leaves the responsibility of protection to ourselves. To clarify, while the Supreme Court's ruling states this, many officers do go above and beyond to keep our communities safe. However, during protests or riots, their resources are often stretched thin. Nevertheless, the fact remains that in many cases, we are left to protect ourselves.

I am proud to see people taking action by purchasing firearms, but this is only the first step. Training is essential to ensure you become an asset rather than a liability.

"Never again" is now, but you must do everything in your power to ensure you are a valuable resource to yourself, your family, and those around you.

-----------------------

I made my own informal poll this week on this same topic, asking North American Jews what they were doing to defend themselves. People could choose multiple responses.

The first question was "Considering the worsening situation, and, in particular, the mob violence directed against LA Jews and Adas Torah Synagogue, what new self-defence actions are you now taking?"

As with the poll TacRav mentioned, most people said increased political action and personal self-defense.

For those who said self-defense, the breakdown on my poll was

Pistols/rifles/shotguns	22
Non-lethal gear (pepper spray/tasers/etc.)	46
Hand-to-Hand defence (Krav Maga, karate, etc.)	23
Other	7

The breakdown for higher levels of observance was:

Self-identity via Stars of David, kippah, apparel	30
More Jewish Ed classes (Chabad, JCC, etc.)	13
Increased attendance at local Synagogues	25
Self-education via books, internet classes, university lectures	42
Other	11

There is a lot of concern in the Jewish community, and the government has not made Jews feel any safer since October 7 - on the contrary. Many more Jews feel we must take our defense in our own hands.

(h/t MtTB)

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!

06/27 Links Pt2: Why Did a Massacre of Jews Lead to an Explosion of Antisemitism?; Jewish Profs discuss hostile campuses at House hearing; Anti-Semitism and Tonight’s Debate

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The driver of Western Jew-hatred

President Joe Biden has condemned the mobbing of the Los Angeles synagogue as “appalling,” “unconscionable” and “antisemitic.” Yet his administration does everything it can to prevent Israel from eviscerating the “appalling,” “unconscionable” and “antisemitic” regimes of Hamas and Hezbollah, while also forbidding Israel from striking the head of the genocidal snake in Tehran.

Moreover, not only does America continue to fund the P.A. despite its murderous Jew-hatred, but the Biden administration also continues to promote the Islamo-Nazi entity as the worthy rulers of a post-Gaza war Palestine state.

In Britain, the Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, who is expected to become prime minister in next week’s general election, has written affectingly about sharing Israel’s current trauma through his wife’s Jewish relatives.

Nevertheless, Labour’s election manifesto suggests, albeit in ambiguous and deniable form, that a Labour government might unilaterally declare a state of Palestine—a supremely hostile act that would greatly imperil Israel’s security still further and is promoted by those who want the Jewish state gone.

In a party election broadcast, Starmer also pledged to London’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, that a Labour government would have a “zero tolerance approach” to Islamophobia.

Since “Islamophobia” covers any criticism of the Islamic world, Labour’s policy appears to mean stamping upon any critic of Islam with the force of law, including anyone who dares call out the wildly disproportionate level of Jew-hatred in the Muslim world.

The never-ending war between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel has been created and perpetuated by the West’s behavior in sanitizing, excusing, legitimizing, funding and incentivizing the Islamo-Nazis and their preposterous, mendacious, brain-frying “Palestinian” cause.

In The Wall Street Journal this week, Seth Cropsey, president of the Yorktown Institute and a former U.S. deputy under-secretary of the Navy, wrote that Iran has activated a network of global Islamist sympathizers to ramp up public pressure on Israel as an essential element of its strategy of attrition to destroy the Jewish state.

Tehran’s goal, he wrote, is to get Western politicians to back a ceasefire. “By slowing the conflict down and splitting Israel from the U.S. and its allies, Iran aims to make Israel an international pariah,” he said.

The Palestinian cause has been manipulated by Iran into a wedge issue. It has turned America against Israel, lined up liberals with Islamo-Nazis, and set Jew against Jew. And after Iran finishes with Israel, the West is next.

Palestinianism hasn’t just been used to give a veneer of respectability to Jew-hatred. It is being weaponized against civilization.

Brendan O'Neill: Antisemitism - The Hatred that Hides Itself in Palestinian Colors

I don't want to see protest of any kind outside a synagogue. What happened in LA at the Adas Torah synagogue last weekend was horrifying. Pro-Palestinian protesters turned up with Palestinian flags. They chanted, "There is only one solution - intifada revolution."

Let's be clear: this was the intimidation of Jews masquerading as political protest. The protesters said they picketed the synagogue because a real estate event was taking place inside, at which people were browsing houses for sale in Israel. What a thin excuse for mobbing a synagogue. The fact is this: if you are screaming at Jews as they enter their house of worship, you are not one of the good guys.

In fact, you are reminiscent of some of the worst guys in history. To holler at Jews about "intifada" eight months after an "intifada" claimed the lives of more than a thousand Jews in Israel is Jew-baiting, plain and simple. It is cruelty, not activism. It is more a mini-pogrom than an act of protest. If being "progressive" now means rubbing Jews' noses in an act of apocalyptic violence that claimed the lives of a thousand of their co-religionists, then I guess I'm not progressive anymore.

It feels to me that there is insufficient outrage over the intimidation of Jews in LA. The "anti-racists" are silent. Perhaps Jew-taunting is okay so long as you wear a keffiyeh while you're doing it. Antisemitism is reaching crisis levels in America and Europe. Attacks on Jews have shot up. It's time we got serious - very serious - about this hatred that hides itself in the Palestinian colors.

Why Did a Massacre of Jews Lead to an Explosion of Antisemitism?

The tragedy of Oct. 7 was so enormous, the violence of Hamas so blatant, the images of Jews being massacred so graphic, this posed a stunning threat to the cemented narrative of Israel as the oppressors and Palestinians as the oppressed.

Thus, it would require an immediate and massive response to shift the focus back to Israel. The world must know that big, bad Israel had it coming. That is the narrative that must never be disturbed.

The problem was that no one had seen such savage, monumental Palestinian violence as they saw on Oct. 7, so the usual explanations like the “occupation” were too small, too quaint. Occupation was too 1967. Occupation was two-states.

To match the epic nature of Oct. 7, the haters had to go back to 1948. They had to undermine the very birth of the Jewish state.

That’s why we’ve been hearing cries of “we don’t want two states” and “from the river to the sea”. This is no longer about ending an occupation for future co-existence. This is about ending Israel’s very existence.

The war in Gaza has fueled the rioters in two ways. One, it has given them a pretext to use the deaths of Palestinians as a moral cover. But again, notice the use of extreme language—not occupation but apartheid and genocide.

The second way the war has fueled the rioters is by reminding them how difficult it will be to get rid of Israel. This has exacerbated their rage. They see that these are not the powerless Jews who went to their slaughter in Holocaust death camps. These are badass Zionists who know how to fight.

Nevertheless, Oct. 7 introduced the tantalizing possibility that even these badass Zionists can be defeated. After 75 years of military victories, the dreaded Jewish state finally got the spanking it deserved. The haters smelled blood, even victory.

So while the war has put Israel back in the oppressor camp, this is no longer enough of a victory. Oct. 7 made the haters taste the ultimate victory of eliminating Israel, and they like the taste. That’s why they’re going hysterical. Their mission is to put Israel squarely in the defeated camp.

The Jews have tasted that camp before, however, and no matter how the world may feel about dead Jews, they will fight like hell to never taste it again.

Visitors At Hamas Booth At Columbia Job Fair Disappointed By Lack Of Sloganeering Positions (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.
Check out their Facebook page.

New York, June 30 - Alumni and aspiring alumni of this city's premier academic institution in attendance at an event for prospective employers to recruit attendees acknowledged that the representatives of the Islamic militant group that has run the Gaza Strip since 2007 - and for whom many of the students have expressed enthusiastic support in the wake of the group's massacre and kidnapping of Israelis on October 7 of last year - offered few, if any, opportunities that dovetail with the students' demonstrated talent stack during the last ten months of campus protests, most notably with a discernible absence of even entry-level jobs that call for proficiency in chanting rhyming English couplets while wearing surgical masks and accosting passers-by.

Visitors to the Hamas booth at Columbia University's Alumni Employment Fair this past Saturday noted with disappointment that the skills they have developed and showcased since October to back Hamas and its allies in Gaza, have next to no overlap with the positions the organization advertised at the fair: not a single position in harassing normies, challenging the visibly-Jewish to condemn Israeli "genocide," or even making righteous demands at press conference for others to provide vegan, gluten-free food, to name a few.

"I still have dreams of working for them," admitted Reef Boyles, who will begin her senior year in the fall. "I spent the better part of the last two semesters showing my solidarity with Palestine and denouncing Zionist settler-colonialism. My professors even gave me political science and sociology course credit for it. I'm just not seeing my would-be employer showing the flexibility that I've always been shown whenever things threaten to get slightly less than perfect for me. That's worrying."

"Maybe they'll come around," she reasoned. "That's how it's worked or me until now. And Hamas is known for its willingness to compromise."

"I thought my experience holding a janitor hostage would be an asset," lamented Lelies Smith, now pursuing a Master's Degree from Teachers College. "I even wore my Hezbollah T-shirt here. The guys at the booth kind of gave me a funny look. Maybe I was wearing my keffiyeh wrong? I don't think so. It was dyed rainbow. I'm super-progressive, just like them. Thing is, they didn't encourage me to apply for anything. What I did see required skills and experience that I didn't put in my resume."

"I did make sure to put my pronouns in, right at the top," zey added.

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!

06/27 Links Pt1: A Terrorist Group Is Not a Legitimate Government; Fetterman: Recognizing Palestinian state rewards Hamas; Biden’s Phony Saudi-Israeli Peace Deal

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: A Terrorist Group Is Not a Legitimate Government

In a sign of the times, what has made news about the ceasefire talks is not that Hamas rejected the latest offer but the fact that yesterday the State Department finally said so.

“They gave us a written response that rejected the proposal put forward by Israel, that President Biden had outlined, that the United Nations Security Council and countries all around the world had endorsed,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. Miller’s use of the word “rejected” made headlines. “The comment marked the first time that a US official had publicly gone so far,” reported the Times of Israel. “To date, only Jerusalem has branded the Hamas response as a rejection. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken two weeks ago criticized Hamas’s counter-proposal as including changes that are ‘not workable,’ but insisted the gaps were still bridgeable.”

On the one hand, this is progress. The Biden administration has in recent months mostly avoided displaying its impatience with Hamas. In the world of diplomacy, this type of definitive language is meant to exert pressure on the holdouts.

But on the other hand, so what? Hamas isn’t a normal government, bound by nation-state norms and treaties and diplomatic niceties the very practice of which confers a certain amount of legitimacy on those who play along. All of this theater keeps Hamas in a can’t-lose situation: the West’s obsession with a negotiated settlement to this war means Hamas is indispensable, and if Hamas is indispensable, it cannot be destroyed.

Up north, Hezbollah has found itself in similarly beneficial circumstances. According to Politico, “U.S. officials trying to prevent a bigger Middle East war are issuing an unusual warning to Hezbollah: Don’t assume that Washington can stop Israel from attacking you.”

To which I imagine Hezbollah responded: Don’t threaten me with a good time.

As if the implication wasn’t clear enough, the reporters spell it out: “The American message is designed to get the Lebanese-based Shiite militia to back down and de-escalate the brewing crisis along the Israeli-Lebanese border, a person familiar with the discussions said.”

In most of the world, the prospect of all-out war with a stronger state would be a sufficient deterrent. But Hezbollah isn’t a state. It simply controls one from within. It isn’t put off by bringing death and destruction to the Lebanese population; that is its mission. Same with Hamas: these are terrorist entities who survive by waging asymmetric warfare. They do not, themselves, want to be totally destroyed. But everything around them can burn.

Recognizing Palestinian state rewards Hamas, Fetterman says in Israel, ‘what’s wrong with you?’

A two-state solution is something for which Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) hopes in theory, “but certainly not at this—not right now,” he told reporters in an intimate gathering in Jerusalem on Thursday.

“I was appalled when our allies, whether it’s Ireland or Spain or others, were calling for recognizing that—that’s outrageous,” he said of some countries opting to recognize an independent Palestinian state. “Why would you give Hamas that kind of a reward when you have Israeli citizens still held hostage, and you’re in the middle of a war?”

“How is that, what’s wrong with you?” the pro-Israel senator said. “It’s crazy. I can’t explain it.”

Fetterman responded to four questions from Alex Traiman, JNS CEO and Jerusalem bureau chief, during the press conference on Thursday.

Asked what he thought of reports that the White House has been slow-tracking weapons shipments to the Jewish state, Fetterman said that he disagrees on the matter with U.S. President Joe Biden.

“I’ve been very clear there’s no conditions, and that hasn’t changed with me,” he told JNS. “Before Oct. 7, I was clear I always fully support Israel without any conditions, and after Oct. 7, it’s even more of a period to deliver whatever Israel needs.”

“I didn’t support withholding any of those large bombs because they have to fight an enemy that hides in tunnels,” he said of Israel Defense Forces efforts against the Hamas terror group. “I trust Israel’s judgment. They are not looking to maximize all civilian deaths or anything like that.”

Fetterman told JNS that he is always much more eager “to trust Israel than pretend that there’s anything that you could trust with Hamas or even some of the other nations in our region.”

Fetterman: A reckoning's needed on the political left with antisemitism

Those on the political Left who have tolerated or accepted antisemitism should be held to account, Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) told reporters in Jerusalem during his first visit to Israel.

“It’s crazy now that [Zionism] becomes a slur in certain circles,” Fetterman said, adding that “it’s been turned into like, ‘you Zionist,’ or whatever. It’s crazy.”

He sat in a side room at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel wearing his iconic white-hooded sweatshirt and shorts.

The tall bald-headed politician with a small gray goatee is an unabashed supporter of Israel, and October 7 has only made him more so.

“There is a reckoning necessary in the political left with antisemitism and [how] certain factions have responded after October 7, whether it’s somebody in a pop tent on a campus or blocking worshippers in Los Angeles from getting into their synagogue. It’s vital, and I don’t hear a lot of people in on that side really being asked about that,” he said.

He also dismissed as absurd the charges of genocide leveled against Israel for its war in Gaza, noting that if this were the case, the IDF would not have allowed over a million people to flee Rafah ahead of its military campaign there.

“What kind of a nation that is committed to genocide would allow” its supposed victims to leave the battlefield scene so they would not be hurt.

“There are people… calling that this is a genocide. That’s appalling,” he said.

Unapologetic in supporting Israel
Fetterman noted that US President Joe Biden has been clear in describing himself as a Zionist and a supporter of Israel.

“I absolutely believe that Joe Biden is a strong, strong, unapologetic ally of Israel, even when I happen to disagree with him,” and those disagreements “don’t in any way diminish my support for him.”

Fetterman said he also supported Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the democratically elected leader of the State of Israel. He backed Netanyahu’s plans to address a joint session of Congress on July 24, noting that it was important for American politicians and the US public to hear from him.

“I think the Prime Minister has the right to have that opportunity,” he said.

“We just voted billions” in military aid for Israel, so “let hear” from the country’s leader, Fetterman said, adding that Congress had a responsibility to do so.

Fetterman questioned why some members of the House and Senate plan to boycott the event.

“I don’t understand how that does anything but to cheer Hamas on,” he said. Sometimes you’ll hear things you don’t agree with. I really don’t think you need to be that fragile or offended.”

The food situation in Gaza is not just better than January. It is better than it was before the war!

The New York Times headline says::

When you look at the actual report from IPC that they are referring to, the actual numbers show a dramatic improvement in food access in Gaza since earlier this year

Here the IPC shows that the percentage of people with acceptable food consumption in the north, center and south of Gaza since November.

Green is "acceptable" and red is "poor."

In every part of Gaza, the food consumption score has increased by a huge amount since January.

From 34% to 77% in Rafah.

In Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, from 30% to 75%.

In the North, from 0% in February to 60% this month.

That is not just "improvement." That is a sea change, all done while the world is saying that Gaza is on the brink of famine.

It gets even more insane. The FCS score is higher now than it was before the war!

In September 2022, the World Food Programme published that 14 percent of the households in Gaza had poor FCS scores, while 59 percent in Gaza had acceptable FCS.

This was roughly the findings from the Global Network Against Food Crises in 2023, as they compared food insecurity in Gaza between 2020 and 2022, showing an FCE score of 57, lower than IPC is saying in all areas of Gaza, today.

This is the story that the media not only refuses to cover, but actively tries to report in a manner that is opposite to the truth. The "famine" myth has been exploded, but why let facts get in the way of a good human interest story where people who have trouble getting food are featured and made to apppear like they are typical?

(h/t to Mark Zlochin who provided the detail charts.)

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Debunking the lie that Zionists target Black politicians

Peter Beinart posted this insane tweet:

Somehow, he is simultaneously admitting that AIPAC happily supports Black candidates who support Israel, yet still claiming that they are racist when they oppose Black candidates who are anti-Israel.

It is a theme that Beinart has been pushing for years.

Foreign policymaking is white? Tell that to Gregory Meeks, the Black member of Congress who chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2021 to 2023 and still sits on the committee as ranking member.

But this is a theme in crazed progressive spaces, that AIPAC is racist and attacks Black politicians, especially women of color.

Equally insane was this Intercept headline last year, where the subhead likewise contradicts the headline:

If AIPAC hates Black Democrats, why is it giving millions to Black Democrats?

Similarly, anti-Israel Rep. Summer Lee said last year that "what AIPAC does to me is textbook anti blackness" and complained that their support of pro-Israel Black candidates is still "textbook racism actually.”

Textbook racism is discriminating against people of a certain race, not giving millions to their campaigns.

The "progressives" know they are lying, but they want to make people think that Zionism is racism, Their evidence is just as inane as Beinart and The Intercept's. For example, Rashida Tlaib and Nina Turner recently wrote in The Nation:

Since 1948, the US has approved more than $141 billion in weapons to the Israeli government as it continues to carry out ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Just imagine what $141 billion invested in our communities could do instead.

According to Tlaib and Bush, the Jews are taking money away from Blacks. This is as antisemitic as it gets. US military aid to Israel is a minuscule percentage of the federal budget (and most of it goes to US defense contractors, employing countless numbers of people of color.) Yet none of the other spending is criticized. Not the $600 billion every year to pay the interest on the national debt, not the billions that go to Egypt and Jordan annually, not even the trillions of dollars the US spent on defense over the same time period. No, only Jews are taking money away from Blacks.

People who hate Israel want to racialize the conversation, even though they know it is nonsense. They are the racists, not AIPAC.

In 2022, AIPAC supported a majority of members of the Black and Hispanic caucuses in Congress. This year they supported many candidates of color - you can go through their list - including these Black female candidates:

And even that is not a complete list.

Which disproves Beinart's thesis that Black candidates are more often anti-Israel. The truth is the opposite - most of them are pro-Israel, not just Ritchie Torres.

That is the fact that the anti-Israel Left does not want you to know. They want to divide the Black and Jewish communities. They are the ones promoting both racism and antisemitism, and they are doing it while pretending to be against both.

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Hamas uses mosques, cemeteries and archaeological sites for war. Israel gets blamed for destroying them.

Bellingcat and Scripps News published a video report on the destruction of "heritage sites" in Gaza during this war.

Using satellite images and videos taken in Gaza, they identified over 150 such sites that have been either damaged or destroyed in Gaza.

The well-known anti-Israel group Forensic Architecture has a prominent role in creating 3-D graphics of some of the sites, showing evidence of Israel using bombs, bulldozers and other equipment. The report suggests that Israel may be violating international law by deliberately targeting these sites.

It is nothing short of antisemitic libel.

Pretending to be even-handed, the report briefly shows that Israel has found weapons caches and tunnel entrances in mosques.

Tunnel shaft in mosque

But it immediately dismisses that as saying that IDF "claims can't be verified for every mosque." As if the IDF would publish videos of blowing up mosques for no reason.

The report doesn't mention Hamas using cemeteries as rocket launching pads. In fact, it only mentions Hamas twice, and one of those times was to complain that Israel had tested out flooding Hamas tunnels which is considered, of course, an ecological disaster - but Hamas actually building the tunnels under Gaza mosques, cemeteries and hospitals doesn't merit a single disparaging word.

War crimes require intent. The evidence that Israel intends to target Gaza heritage sites is exactly zero. Hamas brags that it has built hundreds of miles of tunnels under an area that is only 25 miles long and less than 8 miles wide, and Israel has uncovered literally thousands of tunnel shafts in mosques, cemeteries, hospitals and children's bedrooms. The idea that Israel is targeting the mosques and bedrooms, and not the tunnels and weapons caches and Hamas terrorists, is simply libelous.

Beyond that, it makes no sense militarily. Targeting is not a casual activity - it requires multiple levels of oversight, legal advisors, and approvals. To think that that all levels of the IDF are secretly scheming to destroy Palestinian heritage during a war, using expensive bombs whose supply is not guaranteed to last forever, is nothing less than an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

The clearest proof that this is nothing less than antisemitism can be seen in the report itself, when they describe how Hamas builds on top of archaeological sites, destroying them (a point I made when Forensic Architecture made the same absurd charges in 2022.) That is justified - because Gaza is under "occupation" and it is somehow Israel that forces Hamas to build on top of ancient Roman ruins. (See 5:40-6:20.)

Israel attacking heritage sites that have become military sites is terrible. Hamas using those heritage sites as military sites is justified, because where else can they do it - Gaza is so crowded!

Here's video of the IDF uncovering rocket launchers in a cemetery from January.

This wasn't shown in this report, because that violates the holy narrative that only Israel desecrates cemeteries, not the religious Hamas members.

רקטות בתוך בית קברות בעזה pic.twitter.com/NnHiANISRd
— יוני בן מנחם yoni ben menachem (@yonibmen) December 22, 2023

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Report: IDF not targeting Gaza "civilians" who murdered Jews on October 7

Israel's Channel 12 reports:

The military attorney's office ordered not to eliminate Gazan citizens who participated in the Sheva massacre in October. The reason for this: they are not defined as Hamas terrorists, as we published this evening (Tuesday) for the first time in the "Main Edition".

From the interpretation of the military attorney's office for the laws of war, it is claimed that only those who belong to the fighting force can be killed intentionally in war. Targeted elimination is a preventive measure, not a punishment, and therefore, since the "civilian" is not part of the fighting force, he cannot be killed in retaliation.

This order was given despite the fact that after October 7 the government promised that Israel would bring everyone who was involved in the massacre to account. Despite this, if the Shin Bet and the IDF learn of the location of Gazans who have murdered, looted, raped or kidnapped Israelis, they will not have legal authorization to eliminate them.

The terrorist organization "Lords of the Wilderness", which holds the Bibas family hostage, is not defined as a group in a state of war with Israel. Therefore, if intelligence is discovered about the whereabouts of the kidnappers of the Bibas family - it will not be possible to eliminate them on this basis.

More than five sources in the army, at the field levels, claim that there have already been similar cases in practice: at the end of April, intelligence information was received about the participants of the massacre and it was not translated into their elimination due to the legal prohibition.

The army denies this report. Defense Minister Yoav Galant is expected to respond next week to Knesset member Amit Halevi's question on the subject.

An IDF spokesperson said: "The policy is to act against all participants in the massacre, regardless of their membership in a terrorist organization. To this end, an orderly operational process is carried out in accordance with international law. The IDF is not aware of an incident in which it was possible to attack a participating terrorist and did not do so."

Srugim clarifies the report, saying the legal department of the IDF "imposes a prohibition on the IDF to eliminate [October 7 attackers] out of revenge if they are found. The only reason they would be able to eliminate them is if intelligence is received showing Their intention is to carry out further terrorist attacks."

The report is, unfortunately, quite believable. Even though the world doesn't believe it, the IDF follows international law strictly - and often too strictly, beyond the letter of the law.

Customary international humanitarian law defines civilians as "persons who are not members of the armed forces. The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians." There is no doubt that when the civilians are actively engaged in fighting that they lose civilian status.But if they are not members of an armed group, and they are not actively carrying arms during the fighting, their status appears to revert to that of civilians."In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian or not, that person must be considered to be a civilian."

Instinctively, this is horrifying. I suppose that the IDF could snatch the participants of October 7 and put them on trial, which is not a reasonable possibility on the battlefield in most cases. But their hands are tied because international law does not deal well with a situation where "civilians" are eager to join in terror acts themselves while not formally members of the terror group.

While this is sickening, it also is proof that the IDF is above all an army that adheres to international law. The law is the problem, not the IDF.

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06/26 Links Pt2: The Squad’s Forever War; The Child Soldiers of Ethnic Studies; Liberal Jews Deluded Themselves on Palestine; Inside the war over Israel at Wikipedia

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Squad’s Forever War

This is the language of pogromism, of turning anti-Semitic incitement into an ideology all its own.

The fact that nothing in the Tlaib/Turner op-ed is truthful is beside the point. I don’t think anybody expects honesty out of either of these women. But the lies they choose to tell are still important. “If our elected leaders will stand by and allow American police to brutalize Black and brown people in our communities,” they write, “it makes sense that they also excuse the Israeli forces that train many of them.” This rhetoric was part of the belief system of the perpetrators of the deadly anti-Semitic shooting spree in Jersey City in 2019. It has become many left-wing figures’ favorite blood libel. When you want violence against Jews, you stick with what works.

Another Squad member, Missouri’s Cori Bush, has been pushing that line for years. Bush explicitly linked the racial unrest in Ferguson to Israel and suggested police brutality was an Israeli export.

The interesting thing about Bush’s competitive primary race with challenger Wesley Bell is that it isn’t specifically about Israel or Jewish voters, yet the candidates’ respective attitudes toward Jew-baiting and incitement is a key part of their political personas. Bush has Jews on the brain—like Jamaal Bowman in New York, she can only be made interested in issues local to her district if they can be connected to Israel. Bowman’s opponent George Latimer, and Bush’s opponent Wesley Bell, have structured their campaigns around serving their actual constituents. The anti-Zionist obsessives in Congress are far too busy with Israel to take care of the people they represent.

Bell was elected as a reform-minded county prosecutor in the wake of the Michael Brown riots in Ferguson. But he broke with the left on the movement to “defund the police.” He was seen as a strong Democratic contender to take on GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, and Bell jumped at the chance to do so. But in November, Bell changed course and elected to challenge Bush in the House primary instead. Bell said the district needed a representative willing to stand with our allies and stand with President Biden.

It wasn’t about Israel per se but about the district and the people of St. Louis. A progressive operative and ally of Bush’s shot back that actually it’s just like the Bowman-Latimer race because it’s all “one big fight.”

Tlaib and Turner clearly agree, as do Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others on the left. Latimer and Bell want local-focused public service. Their opponents have drafted them into the Squad’s forever war.

Seth Mandel: J Street’s Bad Romance with Jamaal Bowman

It’s worth noting here that one of the places J Street took Bowman to chip away at his belief in Israeli legitimacy was Hebron. The Jews of Hebron go back to biblical times, to Abraham purchasing land for the Cave of the Patriarchs nearly 4,000 years ago. The ancient Jewish character of the town was ended violently in 1929 when an Arab pogrom broke out and the Jews there suffered one of two fates: violent death or expulsion.

The brief interlude of Judenrein Hebron was ended in 1967, and ever since then, the Jews returning to Hebron have had to live under Israeli military protection.

All of which is to say: If you manage to use Hebron as an example of Jewish illegitimacy, you must be well-practiced in the arts of deception and propaganda. The argument over the concept of indigeneity begins and ends with Hebron. You have to really try, in other words, to make the expelled and murdered Jews of Hebron into the bad guys.

But J Street knows what it’s doing, and Bowman was convinced of Jewish villainy.

The fact that J Street is trying to drive a wedge between Democrats and Israel is important. Last night, after Bowman lost his primary to Latimer, Ben-Ami sat by the waters of Babylon and wept: “It’s a mistake to read Jamaal Bowman’s defeat as a victory for pro-Israel Americans,” he posted on X. “In fact, turning Israel into a wedge issue in Democratic Party politics is actually a major loss for those who hope to promote a bipartisan US-Israel relationship.”

As many people pointed out on social media, this is demonstrably incorrect. The result of the Latimer victory was a more bipartisan U.S.-Israel relationship, by definition. Democrats last night improved the party’s relationship with Israel and with pro-Israel voters, even if modestly, and signaled that not only can it still be safe to support Israel and be a Democrat but that there are times when it may noticeably benefit your intra-party campaigns.

Ben-Ami’s message, then, contradicts his organization’s stated mission. But it does not contradict his organization’s actual mission, which is to turn Israel into a wedge issue in Democratic Party politics.

Liberal Jews Deluded Themselves on Palestine

When reality is too frightening to contemplate, often the response is either to deny it or to assert that what’s staring at you in the face is merely a facade. Hence, it’s common to see progressive and seemingly liberal movements that endorse anti-Zionism dismissed as fringe or fleeting phenomena. The result is the further obfuscation of an increasingly obvious political reality: The Democratic Party is openly courting the most antisemitic forces in America and the world.

This mystification also helps affirm Zionism’s own authentically liberal, even progressive identity: On one side are the prestigious and glamorous Western forces of liberalism, equality, and progress, of which the liberal Jewish establishment is part; and on the other, the forces of religious fascism, exotic fanaticism, and foreign barbarism on which the anti-Israel activists live.

Young American Jews have often shied away from facing the prospect that other liberal Americans of their generation—increasingly indoctrinated into left-wing ideologies and seeking a “leftist organizing space” for the struggle against racism, colonialism, and imperialism—are much more likely to align with pro-Palestinian activism than with Jews. One of the reasons is that many young Jews go to the same schools, where they are indoctrinated into the same ideologies, and are often unlikely to critically question whether there is something inherently distorted and dangerous in them.

Cries of “intifada” and “from the river to the sea” are not bugs in the new politics; they are features. There is no “version” of “social justice” politics without them. And as long as American Jews persist in ignoring that reality, they will continue to feel shocked and alone. The American Jewish establishment’s hope that it could overlook this reality and instead impress its erstwhile friends with “allyship” and stories of its contributions to the civil rights movement, feminism, and other progressive causes was a profoundly mistaken strategy that squandered whatever communal power they might have retained within the Democratic Party. The result is that the American Jewish establishment is increasingly disposable, both to Jews and to those who hate them.