Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, June 29, 2024

06/29 Links: John Spencer: ‘Israel is measured by double and triple standards,’ does more than anyone to prevent civilian harm; Noa Argamani: 'Because of Arnon, we are here'

From Ian:

‘Israel is measured by double and triple standards,’ does more than anyone to prevent civilian harm, US warfare expert says

“Israel is being measured by double and triple standards” in its fighting in Gaza, a standard “that does not exist anywhere in the world,” said John Spencer, head of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, at a recent “War Room” briefing in collaboration with the Jerusalem Institute for Public and State Affairs (JCPA).

Spencer, the world-renowned urban warfare who served for 25 years as an infantry soldier and did two tours in Iraq, has publicly and repeatedly defended and praised the Israel Defense Forces' performance during the Gaza War in recent months.

“The IDF uses tactics that no army has ever seen to prevent harm to civilians and still fulfill its mission,” Spencer told the JCPA after visiting the soldiers of the IDF’s 98th Division in the field.

He also stridently rejected international accusations that Israel was using starvation as a weapon, bombing indiscriminately or committing genocide.

“It’s all a lie,” Spencer declared, noting that if the standards currently applied to Israel were applied to Western countries in the future, it would make anti-terror warfare almost impossible.

Such standards include requiring the massive evacuation of a population before entering an area, not using heavy “bunker-buster” bombs to reach enemies hidden away underground, and the demand to prevent any and all civilian casualties.

“It’s impossible and unimaginable,” Spencer stressed.

“When ISIS ruled Iraq, it held the territory for about two years and built up its defenses. In the battles against the terrorist organization, the number of dead ranged from 10,000 to 40,000 people, and the numbers were reported only after a year,” Spencer said, criticizing the use of unreliable Hamas casualty numbers to determine the proportionality of Israel’s actions.

“No one posed a question to the United States then, how many civilians were killed? And no one asked ISIS that question. It’s simply impossible.”

“This imaginary standard of zero civilian casualties in a war where Israel is required to meet a new standard is very problematic,” Spencer emphasized.

He has made this point repeatedly over the past months. In an article in Newsweek in March, Spencer brought up the IDF’s operation at Al-Shifa Hospital as an example of the lengths the army goes to prevent civilian harm in Gaza.

“Israeli media reported that doctors accompanied the forces to help Palestinian patients if needed. They were also reported to be carrying food, water and medical supplies for the civilians inside,” Spencer wrote.

“None of this meant anything to Israel's critics, of course, who immediately pounced. The critics, as usual, didn't call out Hamas for using protected facilities like hospitals for its military activity.”

From the Battle of Badr to Military Defeat: Changes in Hamas Perceptions of the Gaza War

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023 was quickly characterized by Hamas as fulfillment of a prophecy about the destruction of Israel. Hamas cast the invasion as a Palestinian version of the Battle of Badr, a battle in which a small force of Muslim believers under the command of the Prophet Muhammad succeeded in defeating a large force of Quraysh and Makkah who had opposed his prophecy. The battles of October 7 were labeled a divine victory by believers over the enemies of Allah, and many verses in this spirit were broadcast. However, more recent articles published on the Hamas website suggest that its view has undergone a transformation. Hamas has apparently shifted from extolling its “divine victory” on October 7 to admitting that it has been defeated in battle again and again. The great suffering Hamas has inflicted on the Gaza Strip has put it in the position where it must now explain to the Palestinian public why it started the war in the first place, why it did not expect a massive military response from Israel to its atrocities and attempt at genocide, and why the suffering of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip is not in vain.

To faithful Muslims, the Battle of Badr marks the victory of a small group of believers of the Prophet Muhammad over a far superior force. The battle was held in Ramadan in 624 AD between Muhammad’s group of warriors, numbering about 300 men, and an expeditionary force of Meccan men numbering about a thousand. The battle was held near the Badr Springs; hence the name.

In a preliminary battle, Hamza, Ali, and Ubaydah Ibn Harth fought three of Quraysh’s warriors. They lost, and Ubaydah suffered mortal wounds and died a martyr. At the Battle of Badr, the Muslim force was organized, determined, and acting under unified leadership. The Meccan force was larger, but fought in a decentralized manner and without a central command. Surat al-Anfal (The Spoils) in the Qur’an describes the battle. After the victory, Muhammad revealed that angels had participated alongside the Muslim army. In a famous hadith by al-Bukhari, it is claimed that the angel Gabriel himself fought on his horse against the people of Quraysh and killed many of them.

On October 7 and throughout the waiting period until the beginning of the ground operation in which the IDF forces entered Gaza, many comparisons were made between the success of Hamas on October 7 and the famous Battle of Badr. A small military force of about 3,500 men was able to overcome deployed IDF formations along the border and breach a formidable barrier consisting of an elaborate fence, multiple firearms and tanks. The photos of the bulldozer destroying the fence and of destroyed IDF tanks became images of the victory Hamas had purportedly achieved by divine inspiration.

The website of the Al-Palestinian Center for Information gives us a glimpse into changes that seem to have taken place in the view of Hamas operatives. Where they once gushed words of praise for the rare victory over Israel, they are now admitting their military failure in the confrontation with Israel.

Consider, for example, the following article published by Dr. Muhsen Saleh, a senior researcher at the Zitouna Center in Lebanon. The article, entitled Tofan Al-Aqsa – Coping with the day after the operation, was an early response to the Hamas invasion:

The Al-Aqsa Flood operation carried out by the Al-Qassam Brigades on October 7, 2023 was a qualitative historical blow to the Zionist entity. It had not had such a [defeat] since [Israel’s] establishment 75 years ago. The operation combined the elements of military surprise, an incredible security and strategic move. [The resistance] invaded a significant area of Palestine that was occupied in 1948, causing the largest number of dead, wounded and prisoners (that is, kidnapped) compared to all the battles the Palestinians have fought since the [1948] war, in which the entity [Israel] was established. This is the highest even in relation to most of the Arab-Israeli wars.

The Israeli occupation [at the time] looked confused and shocked and felt humiliated when it saw with its own eyes the shattering of [its] security theory and the collapse of the walls of physical and psychological deterrence. [The occupation] also saw with its own eyes how the men of al-Qassam broke into 20 settlement sites (towns and kibbutzim) and 11 military sites in a matter of hours. The occupation realized that it had failed to subdue the Palestinian people and crush their resistance.

To Saleh and other writers on the site, the operation began and ended on October 7 with a decisive Palestinian victory for the Hamas organization. It was a divine victory, as described by Dr. Khaled Qaddoumi (Hamas’s representative in Iran) in an article entitled: “Hamas is making history” that he published the day after the war broke out:

… we must prepare ourselves for this campaign (against Israel) with all the means at our disposal, including sanctification and strengthening the truth and justice for the Palestinian people. We must support comprehensively and in all areas the battle for liberation until the true promise is fulfilled.

The Obama and Biden Administrations: Paving the Way for a Nuclear-Armed Iran

America's "diplomatic efforts," instead of putting a stop to Iran's nuclear program, have only resulted in a series of concessions that have empowered the Iranian regime. The lack of stringent enforcement and verification measures, and especially lifting secondary sanctions -- by which any country that does business with Iran is prohibited from doing business with America -- have allowed Iran to accelerate its nuclear activities "under the radar."

Iran's continued development of ballistic missile technology and its persistent test firings of missiles, both in clear violation of UN resolutions, were largely overlooked. In addition, the growing bellicosity of Iran's huge militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as the nuclear program itself, were apparently never addressed with the seriousness they warranted -- thereby allowing Iran to expand its military capabilities and regional aggression unchecked.

The Iranian regime strategically allocated these funds to support and expand its own proxy presence throughout the region, including, among other spots, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Mali, Burkina Faso and the Gaza Strip.

The Trump administration implemented a "maximum pressure" policy aimed at curtailing Iran's economic capabilities by particularly focusing on reducing the country's oil exports, and, most importantly, establishing "secondary sanctions" that banned any country doing business with Iran from doing business with the US.

The Biden administration's passive approach of trying to use what might look like "protection money" to try to bribe Iran into compliance has simply backfired. Iran took the billions and, unsurprisingly, appears to have fungibly used them to finance several wars in the region -- Hamas and Hezbollah's war against Israel, the Houthis' war against Israel and the US, and Iran's own April 13 missile- and drone-attack against Israel -- as well as Iran's nuclear weapons program.

The Biden administration, sadly, seems to have been the enabling factor in Iran's continued regional assertiveness and nuclear advancement. The administration's series of policies favorable to Iran significantly strengthened the regime to the point where Iran and its proxies are now actively engaged in a comprehensive war against Israel, the Sunni Arab Gulf States and, since October, more than 150 attacks on US troops in the region.

06/28 Links Pt2: The global lust for Jewish blood; Don’t trust me, I’m a Gazan doctor; The Quincy Institute’s Middle East Fantasies; David Draiman: 'I needed see my people again'

From Ian:

Phyllis Chesler: The global lust for Jewish blood

Such a silence has deep roots in the politically correct academic world.

You are either a victim or a victimizer; you are oppressed or you are an oppressor; you are colonized or you are a colonizer. Israel has been designated as the world’s chief oppressor and colonizer.

Some victims are more sacred than others. Men of color are more important than white men; Muslim men of color are even more important, unless they’ve been killed by other Muslims. Then, their deaths do not matter. The murders of women of all colors matters even less.

In addition, there is the belief in multicultural relativism—that all cultures are equal; that there is no objective truth. Everything is relative, subjective; everyone is entitled to their own narrative.

Here’s one reason my views are so different:

Most Western pro-Palestinian feminists, leftists and academics have never lived in a Muslim country or moved in Muslim circles or worked with Muslim dissidents as I do.

I wrote about this in An American Bride in Kabul.

They have absolutely no knowledge of Islamic gender and religious apartheid; Islamic imperialism, Islamic colonialism, or Islamic conversion via the sword; no understanding that Muslims practiced anti-black slavery and sex slavery—and many still do.

Demonizing Israelis as “worse than the Nazis” allows Europeans to continue the Holocaust against the Jews and feel that they are rendering themselves safe from radical Islamic hostility by appeasing the Islamist Muslims who live in their midst. It is also a way of scapegoating Jews and Israel for the crimes of European and Muslim racism and colonialism.

Like so many, I had assumed that the world’s hatred and persecution of Jews had ended; that Jewish history would never again repeat itself.

I was wrong.

It was foolish to have thought that Jew-hatred would suddenly become extinct or that Israel would not remain under siege.

We must shed our illusions—permanently. We cannot expect that conditions will always improve, or that one country or another will always be a safe haven for Jews.

One cannot win a war of ideas if one refuses to fight it.

I will take a step back, take a breath or two and return to my frontline post.

Don’t trust me, I’m a Gazan doctor

Deference to doctors is perhaps the more charitable explanation for the false report by Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, in November 2023. He claimed that Gaza’s Al-Ahli hospital had been ‘flattened’ by a deadly Israeli airstrike. But, as soon became clear, the hospital was very much still standing, no one had been killed and the explosion in its parking area was the result of a misfired Hamas missile. When the same hospital was later captured by the Israel Defence Forces, soldiers found scores of Kalashnikov assault rifles and RPG rocket launchers inside. Bowen then bizarrely suggested that such weapons are a normal sight in Middle Eastern hospitals.

The unwillingness to scrutinise claims from healthcare workers in Gaza is deeply troubling. Under Hamas, Gaza is very much a one-party state, with a record of punishing perceived dissidence with severity. Its hospital directors are often military officers and many hospital staff are also members of Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. That Gazan medics were involved in the mass kidnapping operation that accompanied the atrocities of 7 October has been confirmed by the recent revelation that some of the hostages recently rescued by the IDF were held at the house of prominent Gazan GP Ahmad Al-Jamal.

That doesn’t mean that every statement issued by Gaza’s health ministry, hospital administrators or doctors should be assumed to be propaganda. It just means that their statements should be treated like those given out or approved by the Assad regime in Syria, the Taliban in Afghanistan or the Kim government in Pyongyang – that is, with scepticism.

The ongoing inability of Western and especially British journalists to imagine that a doctor – a middle-class person like themselves, but with even more years in higher education – might also be a fanatic, a supporter of killers, or even a killer himself requires almost wilful ignorance. And not just of Second World War monsters like Nazi Germany’s Dr Mengele or serial killers like Harold Shipman. Recent history features doctor-dictators, such as Haiti’s ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad – a UK-educated ophthalmologist. Then there are the doctor-terrorists, like Ikuo Hayashi, who carried out the deadly Sarin Attack on Tokyo Subway; and, of course, Hamas co-founder and suicide-bombing innovator Abdel al-Rantisi.

Doctors have been almost as prominent in the jihadist world as engineers. Osama bin Laden’s successor as head of al-Qaeda was Ayman al-Zawahiri, a surgeon. The head of the viciously anti-Semitic Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, is the NHS’s own Dr Wahid Asif Shaida. Scores of physicians based in the UK, Pakistan and the US joined ISIS when the so-called caliphate was enslaving Yazidi girls and burning alive Jordanian pilots.

None of this should be shocking. Many who train to be doctors do so because they desire status and wealth, not because they are intrinsically benign, or devoted to the diminution of human suffering. They are as likely as any other profession to be drawn to political extremism, and perhaps more likely to have a stomach for the results of violence. The British media’s propensity to treat doctors as if they are priestly figures, presumptively above the fray of ordinary politics and prejudice is not just naïve and ignorant, it’s also dangerous to the truth.

The Quincy Institute’s Middle East Fantasies

The positions adopted by the think tank’s scholars during the war in Gaza are illustrative of its overall Middle East agenda: appease Iran and demonise Israel. From this, it follows that Palestinians are oppressed by Israel, which is systematically denying them their legitimate national rights. Quincy scholars argue that the US must therefore press Israel to withdraw from Gaza and end its occupation of the West Bank.

This is at variance with the Quincy Institute’s stated position on Russia and Ukraine, which it dresses up as hardcore realpolitik. Quincy scholars hesitate to criticise Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine, and they treat the whole notion of Ukrainian nationalism with deep scepticism. So, while the onus is on Ukraine to reach a deal with the more powerful Russia in the interests of regional stability, powerful Israel is expected to make whatever concessions are required for peace, and the US is expected to coerce it into doing so.

Quincy scholars claim to be bullet-biting realists who believe that the US should stay out of the Middle East because its interests there are limited. But they are transformed into mawkish idealists—not to mention interventionists—when it comes to Israel, insisting that Washington take a clear stand against its wayward ally. Some of them have even begun to wonder whether the world’s only Jewish state should be allowed to exist at all, so they promote a post-Zionist one-state outcome instead. As similar experiments in bi-nationalist arrangements in Yugoslavia and elsewhere have demonstrated, this is a recipe for even greater instability and bloodshed.

Quincy’s scholars have repeatedly opposed Western intervention in Syria’s civil war or Western condemnation of the Chinese Communist Party’s treatment of China’s Muslim minorities, but they urge diplomatic détente with Iran, which is one of the world’s leading human-rights violators. And now they blame Israel for the outbreak and escalation of violence across the Middle East that an Iranian proxy started. And they demand that America condition its support for Israel on the latter’s willingness, as one Quincy scholar put it, “to actually engage in diplomacy with their neighbors to a degree they haven’t.”

It’s remarkable that any realist—or really any serious analyst of Middle Eastern affairs—would make such a statement at this late date. Decades of diplomatic efforts by the US and Israel produced durable peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, and more recently, the Abraham Accords. They also produced the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, but subsequent negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs have been exercises in futility that have been met with rejectionism and violence. And yet the Quincy realists demand that the US punish Israelis by cutting off military aid and joining the condemnation of Israel in international fora.

This makes no sense. The Quincy coterie insists that the United States do nothing to encourage the ouster of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, that it must not punish Iran for exporting terrorism across the Middle East, and that it should not lead an international campaign against China’s mistreatment of its Uyghur minority. These and other countries may be doing terrible things, they say, but it is not America’s business to interfere in the domestic affairs of other states or take action over matters that don’t threaten its core interests.

Except, that is, when it comes to Israel. Only the antipathy felt by the Institute’s scholars toward that tiny American ally explains their moralistic attempts to draw the United States into an intractable conflict, despite the high costs involved.

06/28 Links Pt1: Glick: Debate takeaways for Israel; Phillips: Reality check; Biden’s ‘reformed PA’ marketing strategy; China Is Waging a Proxy War on Israel

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Debate takeaways for Israel

This brings us to the second question. What difference will this make for Israel?

And how would a different Democratic president treat Israel?

In the case of Newsom or Shapiro, in all likelihood, their Israel policy would be a continuation of Biden’s. To the extent that Biden has become more hostile over time, they would continue on that trajectory. This is the case because Biden’s policies aren’t his personal preferences. His pro-Iran, pro-Palestinian policies are those of the Democratic Party’s foreign-policy establishment.

That establishment takes its cues from former President Barack Obama and current U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Every one of Biden’s Middle East advisors served in the Obama administration. Blinken, who owes his position to his longstanding service to Biden—first when Biden was in the Senate and then as vice president—shares Obama’s sympathies for Iran and the Palestinians, in addition to his hostility towards Israel.

If Newsom or Shapiro—or any other Democrat—is selected to serve as party nominee by the party bosses who control the convention, then he will owe his position to the party bosses that put him there, not to voters. They have no independent source of power to draw from if they oppose the policies that Obama’s party establishment expects them to adopt. And so, they can be expected to continue down the road of progressively more anti-Israel policies that Biden is on now.

Since she served as first lady, Michelle Obama showed herself to be even more hostile towards Israel than her husband. After Oct. 7, she ignored pleas from the Israeli government, from Israeli victims, from hostages’ families and from Jewish Democrats to condemn the mass rape of Israeli women by Hamas and the atrocities that the terror group and ordinary Palestinians committed. Former President Obama, for his part, issued a statement after Oct. 7 that focused more on warning Israel not to retaliate in a manner that would harm Palestinians than on supporting Israel in its war for national survival.

The Obamas’ deep-seated hostility towards the Jewish state is exposed not only by their statements but by the company they keep. A week after Hamas’s invasion, The Washington Free Beacon reported that Misha Euceph, a producer of the Obama family’s various podcast series, denied on her social-media accounts that Hamas raped Israeli women and girls. Among other things, she wrote, “The more I’ve been thinking about it, the more I’m realizing—and I think a lot of other people are, too—that these reports and statements about rape and murder of babies are completely unverified, and they actually feed into Islamophobic tropes that we’re not talking about at all.”

The upshot for Israel is that if Biden is replaced, his replacement will become the favorite to win in November. And if that happens, Israel can assume that it will either see a continuation of Biden’s policies or face a Michelle Obama administration whose policies and rhetoric will likely be more unapologetically and openly hostile than anything Israel has experienced to date.

Melanie Phillips: Reality check

The war against Israel, which is being waged simultaneously on seven fronts, is being orchestrated by Iran. A constant source of astonishment has been the concern shown by the Biden administration — while professing support for Israel against Hamas — to protect Iran. When Israel wanted to nip Hezbollah’s attacks in the bud soon after October 7, the US told it not to do so. Even now, the US is telling Israel the same thing. It has done everything possible to hamper and prevent Israel’s attempt to destroy Hamas, Iran’s proxy in Gaza. Even after Iran itself unleashed a hail of missiles against Israel in April, the US forbade the Israelis to attack Iran in response.

This is all part of what many call the Obama Doctrine, being implemented by an administration whose key Middle East officials are Israel-hating Obama retreads — and whose scenario for a new Middle East order, astoundingly, features genocidal and Islamist Iran as an essential counter-force to Israel and Saudi Arabia.

As explained here by Michael Doran and Tony Badran, this was the strategy behind President Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal which would have legitimised a nuclear-armed Iran with only a few years’ delay. Even when American interests have been attacked by Iranian proxies, as has happened dozens of times since October 7, the US has responded with only a limp flick of the wrist. Indeed, America’s supine and even grovelling posture towards the fanatics of Tehran, who have understood that the Biden administration seeks to appease rather than defeat the various forces ranged against the west, undoubtedly helped pave the way for the October 7 pogrom.

Now new intelligence has suggested that Iran has ramped up still further its nuclear weapon development in order to take advantage of American pre-election paralysis. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has reportedly ordered the reactivation of Israeli teams focusing on Iran's nuclear programme. There are reports that this was prompted by concerns from former security officials about Israel’s recent neglect of the issue. That itself is pretty alarming — if true — in what it suggests about the Israeli government. But here’s the eye catching bit as reported by the Israeli news site Walla:
A source familiar with the matter said: “Recently, the penny finally dropped.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared: “All options are on the table — Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Can it really be that, at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour, the Biden administration has finally connected with reality? If so, things must be even more terrifying than anyone had thought.

Last night’s debate will impact the Middle East as well as the US

In the Middle East, the JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal) told Iran that the West was there to be had, with the easing of sanctions allowing the Tehran regime to boost both its terror funding and its nuclear programme.

Which brings us to last night, and the impact not just on the presidential race but on the here and now. The debate will have been watched in Moscow, in Tehran, in Pyongyang and elsewhere and one message will have been heard loud and clear: the US is led by a bumbling fool. Imagine how Hamas and Hezbollah will have reacted. With Iran in control, it was always pretty fanciful to think that US pressure could have much impact on the terror organisations directly. But after last night, the idea that Nasrallah is quaking lest the US be angered by Hezbollah’s increasing attacks on Israel is not so much a sick joke and plain idiotic.

As it is, tensions between Israel and the US have been worryingly open in recent weeks – at the very time when it is most vital that the US is seen as staunch in its support for its key regional ally. Add to that the (now surely impossible to refute) view that the US is as weak and – literally – pathetic as its leader, and the omens for the next few weeks and months are as bad as they have ever been.

Viewed in this context, the immediate issue that arises from last night’s debate is not whether Biden should be president for another term. And it’s not – appalling though the prospect may be – whether it should be Trump. It’s whether Biden should even be president for the remainder of this term.

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.

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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)

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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.

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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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