Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 07, 2024

According to Amnesty, you shouldn't trust anything @Amnesty says

Amnesty Australia has a handy guide to identify disinformation and determine whether information is accurate.

Let's see ow Amnesty as an organization does against its own standards.

How to Fact Check Information when Consuming Content
Tips to fact check when reading content on social media or through the media

Consider potential biases: When assessing a source, be mindful of any biases that could be influencing its content. Review previous posts and articles to get a comprehensive picture on the source.

For years, Amnesty employed a researcher named Saleh HIjazi. His Facebook page featured multiple terrorists as the featured photo. Amnesty kept him on as a researcher on Israel, putting hi in videos and allowing him to write reports. He finally left Amnesty to work for the BDS Movement

Is that biased enough for you?

That's only the tip of the iceberg. For example, Amnesty UK once voted down a resolution condemning antisemitism. It has hosted groups that have supported Palestinian terrorists but turned down Jewish organizations from using its facilities.

I once counted the topics of Amnesty tweets for a month, and its obsession with Israel was pretty clear.

If this isn't bias, what is?

Appeal to sensationalism: Ask yourself when watching videos on social media whether the content describes specific events or facts or whether it is meant to prompt an emotional trigger for the audience. You have to harness critical thinking skills, and question information that may come across or overly sensational.

Here's part of an Amnesty report on the 2014 war:

Raisa Mahmoud Mohammad al-Bakri, 62, was watching the news in her living room. She described how her son Mohammad lost his wife Ibtisam and two of his daughters, Asil and Asma, and how her son Ahmad in turn lost his only son, Kamal: “It was horrible. The walls fell over my body. I was just lying there. The neighbours came and started lifting the rubble and carried me to the ambulance. I got injured in my eye and couldn’t see clearly. My two poor children – one lost his wife and two kids, and the other, after spending 15 years in [an Israeli] prison and finally managing to have his first son, is gone.” Four-year-old Kamal spent 10 hours in an intensive care unit before dying of severe internal bleeding. Another of Mohammad and Ibtisam al-Bakri’s daughters, Hanin, and Ahmad al Bakri’s wife, Soua, were transferred to Turkey for medical treatment due to the severity of their injuries

This is an appeal to emotions. Yet even Amnesty, after 13 paragraphs of similar text about how horrible the attack was, mentions as an aside who the target of the airstrike was: "Although family members denied it, both Ramadan Kamal al-Bakri and Ibrahim al Mashharawi were members of Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades, as was confirmed when, after some weeks, their names appeared on their list of 'martyrs'." One was a high ranking brigadier-general equivalent.

Amnesty was appealing to emotions, and burying the facts.

Evaluate the source: Investigate the credibility of sources, and be cautious of sources with clear bias or a history of spreading false information.

We've already seen that Amnesty itself is not a credible source, and I have dozens of other examples. Here's another one from the Australian Amnesty site.

A video where they pretend to prove Israel is guilty of "apartheid" is filled with lies and half truths. This screenshot is complete lie:

Look at the map: The Jews are in "settlements" but most of the land is "Palestinian land." But it wasn't Arab land. Over 75% were public lands belonging to the government, who was Great Britain.

Of the private land, about 1/3 was owned by Jews and 2/3 owned by Arabs, not 90%.

Clearly. Amnesty cannot be trusted as a source, according to its own standards.

Even worse, Amnesty doesn't evaluate the credibility of sourses themselves.

In a report updated in April, Amnesty wrote: "More than 33,000 Palestinians, at least 14,500 of them children, have been killed over the last six months, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Thousands more are buried under the rubble and presumed dead." Yet the number of children actually counted by the health ministry was half that amount, and this was known as of the time Amnesty last updated that page. It is impossible for both sets of numbers published by the ministry to be true, but Amnesty chooses the one that has no source outside Hamas.

Be mindful of potential propaganda: Remember to critically assess any political affiliations sources may have as this may be reflected in the information they present.

According to OpenSecrets, of the money given by Amnesty members in the US for political campaigns, 94% went to Democrats.

Sounds like they align politically to only one side, way out of proportion of all Americans.

Avoid echo chambers: Don’t limit your exposure to information that aligns solely with your pre-existing views and challenge your own assumptions when diversifying the information and sources you engage with.

I challenged Amnesty when they issued their "Gaza Platform" website. I showed lots of examples of people they claimed were civilians but in fact were terrorists. When someone asked them about it, they responded, without any evidence, that they do not consider me a credible source - even though I linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad websites proving I was right and they were wrong.

I was not the only one to challenge their assertions; The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre also documented every casualty in the 2014 war and counted far more terrorists than Amnesty did. Furthermore, the IDf responded to many of their accusations, and Amnesty never updated their reports with the additional information that showed that ISrael did not do any war crimes.

Sure sounds like Amnesty will only accept facts from their own echo chambers.

So there you have it. If you take Amnesty's advice as to how to determine whether information is accurate, you cannot trust Amnesty 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!

07/06 Links: UNRWA doesn’t assist refugees, it aids and abets terrorism; The Diaspora Tragedy of Philip Roth; Rabbi Linda dupes Cori Bush

From Ian:

The Diaspora Tragedy of Philip Roth

Times have changed over the past half-century since the story of Merry’s destruction of her father’s sense of himself and the country that had granted him such riches. And radically so. Young protesters no longer march against the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam or, at the extremes of the movement, in support of North Vietnam and the Vietcong; today, they march in support of Palestinian liberation and, at the extremes, in support of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and a “globalized intifada.”

“I remember when Jewish kids were doing their homework,” Swede’s father laments. “What happened? What the hell happened to our smart Jewish kids? If, God forbid, their parents are no longer oppressed for a while, they run where they think they can find oppression. Can’t live without it. Once Jews ran away from oppression; now they run away from no-oppression.…They have parents they can’t hate anymore because their parents are good to them, so they hate America instead.”

If American Pastoral were set in 2024 instead of in the 1960s and ’70s, Merry would almost certainly be participating in the Free Palestine movement and mindlessly chanting “Palestine must be free from the river to the sea”—and she, her father, and her grandfather would be gazing at each other across a wide gulf of mutual incomprehension. I can’t presume to know how Roth would portray the 2024 version of Merry Levov, but the odds are very high that he (or more specifically his fictional alter ego Nathan Zuckerman) would have imagined her as a convert not to Jainism, and not to Islam itself—that would be too glib for the Rothian sensibility—but to the pasteurized Islamist radicalism that has infiltrated America’s places of privilege, principally academia, journalism, and the arts.

This is not to say that a 2024 Merry Levov would be an active supporter of Hamas; more likely, she would be chanting slogans inspired by or invented by the Muslim Brotherhood or designed by the KGB to advance the cause of Islamist radicalism in the West without the chanters quite knowing that this was their purpose. What Roth describes in American Pastoral as “the monotonous chant of the indoctrinated, ideologically armored from head to foot” has been an inescapable feature of the current conflict.

What if the Swede back then, or his hypothetical 2024 version, had married a religious fellow Jew and both had raised Merry to be a devout Jew herself, rather than, as she was, a “half Jew”? Would that have changed anything? Would it have made Merry happier, more content, more attached to the eternal and the spiritual and less fixated on temporal conflicts and controversies? Or would it have given her just one more thing to rebel against? There is no way of knowing, in particular because Philip Roth himself was a secular Jew almost devout in his Godlessness and without the ability to provide his characters with satisfactory religious answers.

Even with the distance of many years, the accommodating and ineffectually liberal Swede Levov and his ideologically dogmatic daughter remain paradigmatic figures in the existential journey of American Jewry. The Swede assimilated as well as he knew how, and he became that figure of admiration (and sometimes envy and disdain): the successful Jew who created something useful out of nothing. But “look where it’s got you,” his brother says, during a bitter argument about whether Swede should turn Merry in for her crimes.

UNRWA doesn’t assist refugees, it aids and abets terrorism

Funds that serve terrorism
The rest cooperate with Hamas terrorists. Funds supposed to serve the residents have been used for weapons and ammunition and to establish an anti-Israeli propaganda machine.

The main points of the Hamas charter are as follows.
• The conflict with Israel is a religious conflict between Islam and the “infidel” Jews.
• The entire Land of Israel is waqf land, meaning “Islamic holy land,” which no one has the authority to give up.
• Every Muslim has a personal duty to wage an uncompromising war, jihad, as a central means of destroying the State of Israel.

Numbers of refugees have been artificially increased by the non-reporting of deaths and the false registration of additional people as refugees, aimed at increasing support for the agency over the years.

Bedouins who were wanderers in the area and had no permanent home in Israel were also included in the numbers, but UNRWA has neither improved the lives of the refugees nor rehabilitated them.

Internal UNRWA reports from 1951 and 1960 note that UNRWA was “very flexible” in defining people as “refugees,” to be able to include those who had not even had a home in Israel but only worked for within the territory before the 1948 war was declared by Arab countries on the nascent state.

ISRAELI HOUSING and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, also chair of the Israel Land Authority (ILA), has found a way to dislocate UNRWA from property owned by the Jewish state in response to the organization’s deviation from its contractual obligations, The ILA has demanded that UNRWA immediately vacate buildings and land in Jerusalem and pay tens of millions of shekels owed.

Shockingly, despite evidence of the UNRWA-Hamas-and-Islamic-Jihad terror alliance, countries such as Germany, Japan, France, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and Spain have hastened to renew their funding of UNRWA in Gaza.

Germany was, surprisingly, the first, on the heels of the publication of a UN report stating that Israel had not provided evidence that many UNRWA employees belonged to the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and that at least 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 massacre.

Yoav Zeitoun wrote this week on Ynet: “The IDF recognizes how Hamas has recovered in Gaza City in recent months in terms of governance, which has not only manifested itself militarily. The terrorist organization has even managed to pay the salaries of its operatives and recruit hundreds of new militants, some of whom are now confronting IDF forces...”

Hypocrisy reaches new heights
In February, hypocrisy reached new heights when a senior MP in Norway’s ruling Labor party, and a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee member, Edmund Okrost, announced Norway’s submission of UNRWA for the Nobel Peace Prize for its long-term work in providing essential support to Palestine and the region in general over the past over 70 and particularly in the last three months – even as UNRWA was being investigated for ties to Hamas.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed an Independent Review to investigate UNRWA.

The review reported “a more developed approach to neutrality” than found in other similar UN or NGO entities. France’s former foreign minister Catherine Colonna chaired the inspection committee, submitting its report to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who moved to adopt its recommendations and immediately set a plan in action, called on all stakeholders to actively support UNRWA as a “lifeline” for Palestinian refugees.

Beneath UNRWA headquarters the IDF dug up an 18-m. deep by 700-m. long tunnel, containing an electrical infrastructure shared with Hamas. The tunnel would have enabled raids on additional Israeli targets.

UNRWA Director-General Philip Lazzarini’s comment on this issue was that the organization does not have the “military expertise” to check what is underground.

As proof of UNRWA terrorism, IDF Spokesperson Rr.-Adm. Daniel Hagari published two recordings of UNRWA teachers who infiltrated Israeli territory during the October 7 massacre. In one, an Arabic teacher brags that he has “captured Judaism.”

According to the IDF, more than 450 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Gaza Strip are also UNRWA employees.

It is time to act to close down UNRWA so that the funds contributed by many countries not become the wages of terror, attracting hundreds of new armed terrorists.

Sen. Lindsey Graham: Gazans ‘taught to hate Jews from birth,’ ‘most radicalized population’

Senator Lindsey Graham, while addressing the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that took place on America’s Independence Day, claimed on X, formerly Twitter, that Palestinians born in Gaza are “the most radicalized population on the planet.”

Graham added that in addition to being the “most radicalized,” Gazans are “taught to hate Jews from birth,” and this “will take years to fix.”

Graham further noted that he saw widespread antisemitism in the pro-Palestinian movement, comparing the popular protest chant “from the river to the sea” to the Nazis’ final solution - which planned to see the complete extermination of the Jewish people.

“From the river to the sea” is in reference to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area that encompasses the entire state of Israel.

Many critique this chant as advocating for the creation of a Palestinian state at the expense of Israel's existence.

“The Hamas terrorists are the SS on steroids,” Graham said, while asserting, “I will always support giving Israel the weapons and the space they need to destroy Hamas so there is never another October 7. “

On pro-Palestinian protests, Graham wrote that he supported the right to “peacefully protest” but expressed his apologies to nearby households disrupted from their celebrations by the demonstrations.

The protesters were recorded shouting “Lindsey Graham we’re not done, intifada has just begun.” The chants were met with accompanying drum beats.

“Intifada” is an Arabic word for “uprising” and references the waves of terrorism that targeted Israeli civilians and soldiers from 1987-1993 in the first intifada and in 2000 in the second intifada.

Over 1000 Israelis were killed in the second intifada, and thousands more were wounded, according to Israel’s foreign ministry. Thousands of Palestinians were also killed during the intifadas.

07/05 Links Pt2: Who is Keir Starmer? And the rise of a sectarian Muslim vote in the UK; Antisemitism on the Rise Down Under; IDF are finding stolen Judaica in Gaza

From Ian:

Antisemitism on the Rise Down Under

Throughout its history, Australia has been overwhelmingly good to its Jewish community. From an original group of eight Jews who arrived on the First Fleet in 1788, the community has grown to more than 100,000 today.

“Historically, there was hardly any issue of antisemitism here,” said Yossi Aron, the religious affairs editor of the Australian Jewish News, who has published several books on the history of Australia’s Jewish community.

Significantly, the country welcomed thousands of Holocaust survivors after WWII. Among them was Berysz Aurbach, who sought refuge in Australia in 1947 after witnessing the tragic loss of nearly all his family. Aurbach, now 103, is one of the last remaining survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And, he told me, he has never experienced any antisemitism in Australia. “There are good people in Australia,” he said. “They always want you to be a good citizen. If you are bringing good things to Australia, they leave you alone.”

A quick look at Australia’s Jewish communities shows that they are exceedingly vibrant, with dozens of Jewish schools, cultural organizations, synagogues, and kosher restaurants. Being Jewish in Australia has never been seen as a bar to success, with Australian Jews occupying senior positions in government, including treasurer, attorney general, and governor general.

Since Oct. 7, however, Aussie Jews have been shocked by an explosion of antisemitism, including doxing, boycotts of Jewish businesses, and violent attacks. One of the most troubling incidents occurred when a WhatsApp group dedicated to combating antisemitism in the arts had its information leaked and compiled into a “Jew List.” This spreadsheet was created with the intention of boycotting and harassing Jewish artists.

Although isolated antisemitic incidents are not new here, when Melbourne’s Mount Scopus Memorial College, one of Australia’s largest Jewish day schools, had the graffiti “Jew Die” scrawled on its fence in late May, the incident was so shocking that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese weighed in with a statement on X, noting: “No place for this in Australia or anywhere else.”

“Is this something new?” Aron asked about the new wave of antisemitism in Australia. “Or is this something that was under the covers the whole time? That’s a very difficult question to answer.”

Jeremy Leibler, the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, believes that Australian Jews are experiencing a seismic shift. “I believe that the golden age for global Jewry has likely come to an end,” he said. “In Australia, we have seen a dramatic rise in antisemitism in almost every part of society.”

Leibler, who doubles as a partner at Arnold Bloch Leibler, one of Australia’s most prestigious law firms, recently helped draft a submission to Australia’s government that weighed in on a parliamentary review. His focus? The urgent necessity to overhaul laws about doxing—the intentional online exposure of an individual’s identity, private information, or personal details without their consent—especially considering the disproportionate impact on Jewish individuals in Australia post-Oct. 7.

“I believe that the government announced the review in good faith and intends to make necessary changes so that this sort of behavior is clearly unlawful and real action can be taken to protect the individuals impacted,” Leibler said. “However, at this stage the consultation period is still underway so it is too soon to know where it will land. But I remain optimistic.”

Literary antisemitism is bad and getting worse

Last week the 14,000-member Authors Guild waded into the waters of post-October 7 antisemitism, found that water not to its liking, and hot-tailed it back to the beach.

Which is to say that the Authors Guild’s public statement of June 24 – which many had hoped would be a forceful denunciation of the rapidly spreading wildfire of review-bombing, blacklisting, protest, and cancellation of Jewish writers – was no such thing. Instead, it was an anodyne communication that one could read without thinking it had anything much to do with the Jew-hatred now plaguing the publishing industry.

The word “antisemitism” appears but once in the statement, and Hamas-adjacent readers can take solace that the word is immediately followed by “Islamophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry and discrimination.” So, see, the Authors Guild isn’t especially worried about the impact of the war against Jewish authors. It’s worried about a lot of bad stuff that “chill(s) writers’ freedom of expression.” And the Authors Guild, of which I’m a member, is brave enough to acknowledge that antisemitism fits in there, somewhere.

The inclusion of Islamophobia on the list of dangers facing writers today is particularly rich and gives the game away. Despite what one might imagine after reading the Authors Guild statement, there is no organized campaign to review-bomb Islamic books online, as has happened to Jewish writers including Talia Carner. Her novel, The Boy with the Star Tattoo, which depicts Israel’s early days, was review-bombed [given bad reviews or low ratings to drive down sales) first on TikTok and Instagram, then on the widely read book-review site Goodreads — all before the book came out. Most of the 120 one-star ratings that Carner’s novel received came without explanation. The rest made clear that they opposed Carner’s Zionist background and the publication of a pro-Israel book “while Israel openly commits genocide.”

Carner isn’t alone. Author Gabrielle Zevin’s novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow received the same treatment on Goodreads. So did author Lisa Barr’s Woman on Fire, about a search for Jewish art stolen by the Nazis.

“This is organized harassment,” Carner told me. “This isn’t a good time for the Jewish novel.”

Similarly, no bookstores have canceled signing events for Muslim authors, as happened repeatedly to Jewish author (and “Stranger Things” star) Brett Gelman. At least three bookstores cancelled scheduled book tour dates with Gelman for his debut book, The Terrifying Realm of the Possible: Nearly True Stories, after receiving protests. The stores cited safety concerns, and Gelman reportedly speculates that the stores may not have wanted to associate with a prominent advocate for Israel.

And there are no online blacklists of Muslim writers, while Jewish authors were recently shocked by the very real “Is your fav writer a Zionist?” blacklist, a Google doc that Google admirably took down — after it was viewed by millions of people. The seemingly flimsiest excuse could land an author on the list, such as taking a Birthright trip to Israel, mentioning a concern for Jewish friends, or speaking to a Hadassah meeting (really!).

“What’s happening to Jewish authors gives lie to those who claim they’re not antisemitic, just anti-Zionist,” the American Jewish Committee’s Saba Soomekh told me. “This is a vendetta against any author who’s Jewish.”

Federal court allows action to enforce the Taylor Force Act

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), Stuart and Robbi Force (the parents of Taylor Force), and Sarri Singer (as plaintiffs) filed an action in December 2022 against U.S. President Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Blinken (as defendants) seeking to enforce the Taylor Force Act (22 USC 2378c-1).

The act was named in memory of Taylor Force, 28, a U.S. military veteran who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv in 2016 while on visiting Israel as a graduate student. The Palestinian Authority awarded the terrorist’s family a stipend for his homicidal efforts, under its “pay for slay” program. Singer is an American survivor of a suicide bombing by a Palestinian terrorist of a Jerusalem bus that killed 17 people. The P.A. also makes payments to that terrorist’s family.

The act requires cutting of funding available for assistance for the West Bank and Gaza (outside of three very limited humanitarian exceptions not here at issue) directly benefiting the P.A., as long as it continues the despicable “pay for slay” system. Pursuant to the act, the Trump administration did, in fact, cut aid payments.

Shockingly, the Biden administration restored and even increased funding, in flagrant violation of the act. Under the act, such funding is illegal unless the secretary of state certifies in writing to the appropriate congressional committees that, among other things, the P.A., PLO and any successor or affiliated organizations are taking credible steps to end acts of violence against U.S. and Israeli citizens; have terminated terror payments; and have revoked or invalidated any law or decree providing for the same. However, the secretary was unable so to certify because it would have been flatly untrue.

The Biden administration responded to the action by moving to dismiss the complaint—arguing, among other things, that plaintiffs had no standing to bring the case. While the court dismissed a part of the complaint, it preserved the basic claim, ruling:
(1) Defendants plausibly violated statutory authority; and
(2) Plaintiffs had standing to challenge those alleged violations because they faced an increased risk of harm in traveling to Israel-harm that was “reasonably tied to Defendants and redressable by the relief sought.”

Plaintiffs obtained leave of the court for expedited and limited discovery. The documentary evidence obtained not only showed non-compliance with the Taylor Force Act; it also implicated a likely violation of the US anti-terrorism law (18 USC 2339B).

Then, Oct. 7 occurred, when Hamas committed murders, rapes, kidnappings and atrocities against Americans, Israelis and others, including reportedly murdering 45 Americans and kidnapping 12 Americans (with eight still being held hostage in Gaza, of which only five are said to be alive). Once again, the P.A. rewarded the perpetrators with “pay for slay” payments.

Israeli Radio Stations Boycott Roger Waters’ Music After He Denies Hamas Sexually Abused Victims on Oct. 7

Several Israeli radio stations announced they will no longer play songs by former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters after he denied Hamas terrorists carried out sexual violence against their victims during the Oct. 7 attacks in a recent interview with Piers Morgan, Ynet reported on Thursday.

Waters appeared on the talk show “Piers Morgan Uncensored” on Tuesday and claimed there is “no evidence” that Hamas terrorists sexually assaulted some of its victims on Oct. 7, despite widely corroborated proof to the contrary, confirmation by the United Nations, and first-hand testimonies from former Hamas hostages.

“All the filthy disgusting lies that the Israelis told after Oct. 7 about burning babies and women being raped — no they weren’t,” Waters said.

Morgan fired back, “Actually women were raped. It’s been established by the United Nations. There is extensive evidence of assault and rape.”

However, Waters replied, “You can say anything you want [but] there is no evidence.”

A day after Rogers’ interview with Morgan aired, Hagit Pe’er — the president of NA’AMAT, the largest women’s organization in Israel — urged radio stations in the country to stop broadcasting songs by the singer. “We believe that a reputable and fair-minded radio station should take a stand against the harmful statements made by Mr. Waters,” Pe’er wrote in a letter sent to radio stations on Wednesday. “The appropriate course of action would be to refrain from playing his music until he acknowledges and apologizes for his deceptive and inflammatory remarks.”

07/05 Links Pt1: Biden's State Department Used Data from Anti-Israel Org To Compile 'Report Card' on Israel; America-hating anti-Israel protesters burn US flag on July 4th in NYC

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: A clear message needs to be sent: You can’t hold US citizens hostage no matter what

In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan gained a great deal of traction by stressing the American-hostages issue.

It was a year earlier, during the Carter administration, that the Revolutionary Islamic Government seized power in Iran.

It also seized American hostages.

It was Reagan who saw the opportunity to make the election in part about that.

How dare any country seize Americans and get away with it?

He famously insisted that on Day One of his administration the hostages would be returned.

The mullahs realized they were no longer dealing with a weak American leader and the hostages were duly brought home.

Today we are in a similar situation.

Iran and Russia in particular are in an ugly citizen-bartering phase.

Vladimir Putin has now held an American journalist (Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich) for more than a year.

Russia has invented charges against him and is clearly holding him to try to trade him at some point.

In a little-covered story, Putin’s friends in Iran recently stole two Swedish civilians in order to swap them for an Iranian war criminal held in a Swedish jail.

US citizen Robert Woodland was also recently detained in Russia.

Again most likely for a swap.

But most appalling is the more than 100 hostages currently being held by Iran and Qatar’s proxy army in Gaza: Hamas.

These hostages include at least five Americans.

To the shame of Biden and Harris, these Americans have been utterly abandoned.

Show some force
And here is where Trump can step in.

He should explain that when he is back in charge, he expects all these hostages to be released.

All of them.

And that they better be in the best possible condition. Otherwise Russia, Qatar and Iran are going to pay big time.

Countries like those mentioned do not respect weakness.

They respect force.

When Americans can be seized and held anywhere in the world, it is clear that America has lost that force and that respect.

It is time to get it back.

Biden's State Department Used Data from Anti-Israel Org To Compile 'Report Card' on Jewish State, Internal Emails Show

The Biden administration produced an internal "report card" on Israeli activities in the West Bank based on data from a United Nations organization closely linked to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, according to government emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The report, based on data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), was produced in January 2023, several months after an Israeli election virtually guaranteed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would return to power. At the time, the Biden administration was preparing for diplomatic clashes with the Netanyahu government. Those divisions are now on full display as the United States pressures Israel to preemptively ink a ceasefire deal with Hamas and stop defending itself from Hezbollah militants along its northern border.

An internal State Department email chain reviewed by the Free Beacon shows the creation and dissemination of the report on so-called Israeli settlement growth. U.S. officials described the report as an update from previous data compiled by the Biden administration on Israeli activities in the West Bank.

Prior to Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror strike on Israel, the construction of Jewish homes in contested areas of the West Bank was a central source of tension between the Biden administration and the Israeli government, particularly under Netanyahu. When Netanyahu's conservative governing coalition retook power in 2023, the Biden administration appeared ready to clash with Israel over the issue.

"Our very own [redacted name] updated the open-source report card he produced this time last year," wrote Hady Amr, the Biden administration's special representative for Palestinian affairs. "This draft conveys the average annual rates [of growth], and as you can see, across board."

Amr wrote in the email that he "would be happy [to] repackage / update per suggestions."

OCHA is responsible for funneling money from international governments, including the United States, to "highly biased and politicized NGOs, including a number that are highly active in promoting BDS and lawfare campaigns, and some even engage in blatantly antisemitic activities," according to NGO Monitor, a group that tracks anti-Israel nonprofits. "Some of the NGOs also have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel."

A separate 2016 report by NGO Monitor, one of many published by the group, details how OCHA is a driving force in the United Nation’s campaign to delegitimize Israel.

"Coordinating with some of the most virulent NGOs in the region, OCHA promotes a one-sided narrative of Palestinian victimization and sole Israeli aggression," wrote Anne Herzberg, an NGO Monitor legal adviser. "OCHA’s central role in anti-Israel political warfare is yet another example of the exploitation of human rights, international law, and humanitarian principles via UN bodies to attack the Jewish state."

Figures and information produced by OCHA, the United Nation’s central humanitarian group, have long been identified as misleading, with the organization facing accusations it facilitates "funding to and the dissemination of information from groups involved in political warfare against Israel." OCHA’s information is often circulated by anti-Israel nonprofits to build the case that Jewish construction in the West Bank is displacing Palestinians and hurting the chances of a two-state solution.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan opts for Netanyahu's arrest warrant, cancels Israel trip

Khan personally decided to cancel the visit to the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and the West Bank city of Ramallah, which was due to begin on May 27, two of the sources said.

Court and Israeli officials were due to meet on May 20 in Jerusalem to work out final details of the mission. Khan instead requested warrants that day for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders -- Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh.

A UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that initial discussions had taken place regarding a visit to Gaza by Khan, covering security and transportation.

Flight tickets and meetings between senior-level court and Israeli officials were canceled with just hours of notice, blindsiding some of Khan's own staff, seven sources with direct and indirect knowledge of the decision said.

The US State Department official said that abandoning the May visit broke from the prosecution's common practice of seeking engagement with states under investigation.

Three US sources said, without providing details, that Khan's motive to change course was not clearly explained and the about-face had hurt the court's credibility in Washington.

Khan's office did not directly address those points but said he had spent the three previous years trying to improve dialog with Israel and had not received any information that demonstrated "genuine action" at a domestic level from Israel to address the crimes alleged.

Khan "continues to welcome the opportunity to visit Gaza" and "remains open to engaging with all relevant actors," his office said in an email.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters Hamas had no prior knowledge of Khan's intentions to send a team of investigators into Gaza.

Netanyahu's office and the Israeli Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

Haredi organization in Israel disproves the stereotypes

Yaakov Katz writes in the Jerusalem Post that his car died as he was driving with his wife from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Tuesday night. His insurance company said it would take five hours to send a tow truck.

His wife suggested they call Yedidim, a haredi volunteer organization for situations like this, and 20 minutes later they had a young religious man arrive to help them.

I have plenty to say – and I often do – about the ultra-Orthodox and their refusal to serve in the IDF. But Yedidim – one of the largest volunteer organizations in Israel founded by haredim – shows another aspect of life in Israel. Nothing is black and white. Worth keeping that in mind.

The Yedidim ("Friends") organization is on the scene within minutes for non-emergency assistance, when children or dogs get locked in cars and the key is left inside, when people get stuck in elevators, and when people cannot remove rings from their fingers. During COVID they also assisted with food and medical equipment delivery. It has over 65,000 volunteers from all walks of life helping anyone who needs assistance 24 hours a day, six days a week. People just have to call 1230.

As they say on their (Hebrew-only) website:

Our vision is to reach a situation where there will be at least one volunteer in every building, so we can reach a situation where no person will be stuck for more than a few minutes anywhere in the country.

This is how we will make the State of Israel a better place.

This is the kind of story that people outside Israel simply don't know about, and it shows a side of Israel - and the much vilified haredi community - that is unreported in the media.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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From The Daily Telegraph Australia:

The University of Sydney administration has once again clashed with pro-Palestine activist students and staff, this time over new rules explicitly banning the kind of “occupation” protesters employed at the Camperdown campus for weeks on end.

In an email to students on Thursday, Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott set out a list of changes to the university’s “campus access policy”, including that any activity “using megaphones or amplifiers, erecting structures, projecting words or images onto buildings or other structures, using cooking equipment or heaters not provided by the University, (and) attaching materials, banners or structures to University buildings” would require approval and at least 72 hours’ notice.

Demonstrations can still be held without approval, but organisers must still give three days’ notice, and they “must be held in open spaces and are not permitted inside any building”.

Camping has been banned outright, along with “intimidating behaviour”, “using a megaphone … in close proximity to a person”, “dumping rubbish or other materials” and “storing personal property on University lands without permission”.

“At its core, this policy upholds our commitment to free speech — while recognising we need to be able to manage our environment for the safety and security of all,” Professor Scott wrote. “We continue to support the right to peaceful, orderly protest.”

All of this makes sense, and it protects all students while upholding free speech. So naturally the Israel haters are going crazy:

SRC president Harrison Brennan argued the measures would have a chilling effect not only on pro-Palestine activism, but other campaigns and causes, and would “stifle” other aspects of campus life.
“This is a repulsive full-scale offensive on the right to protest at the University of Sydney,” he said.

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi slammed the move on Friday,.

"What we are seeing here is a despicable attempt by neoliberal, corporate university management to stifle student activism and shut down political expression," she said.

Free speech does not mean the unlimited right for students to take over property, destroy property, threaten others, endanger others, bring outside agitators to campus, block access to areas for people they disagree with, and call for violence. If students don't understand that basic concept, they are clearly taking the wrong classes.

(h/t Jill)

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

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Jewish Voice for Peace rails against proposed laws against people engaged in criminal activity wearing masks - because, they claim, "These laws threaten immunocompromised individuals, particularly immunocompromised people of color."

Yeah, sure.

There have been a number of initiatives in the US to ban wearing masks to hide one's identity during protests. This is in response to videos of criminal activity done by masked people proliferate, notably the man in the New York subway threatening any "Zionists" on the train and the violence outside the Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles by masked antisemites.

Masking is a fundamental part of the modern antisemites' strategy to avoid being prosecuted. The pro-Hamas Within Our Lifetime group says this explicitly in their Rally Toolkit, putting masking along other rules to avoid being identified:

Journalists and photographers should check in with organizers prior to posting any pictures online
Do Not Talk to the Police!
Avoid talking about, recording, or posting anything that could get anyone in legal trouble. If you’re unsure, air on the side of caution and don’t post it.
Wear a mask at all times

Their Rally Toolkit adds, "Cover your face if you do not want to be identified."

The Nation gives another reason for masking:

But JVP pretends to be specifically concerned with its many immunocompromised Palestinians attending rallies:

Immunocompromised people have the right to protest. Our movement includes immunocompromised Palestinians who are fighting back against the murder of their loved ones and immunocompromised Jews who are fighting back against a genocide being committed in their name. Our masks allow us to gather as safely as possible. This mask ban will make legal acts into illegal ones for immunocompromised people. This is discriminatory and ableist.

Of course, every proposed law would carve out exceptions for those who indeed have health issues.

But if health was the reason JVP insists on masks, then why didn't they wear masks in the protests last November?

They showed such disregard for the health of their immunocompromised members!

And why do they allow protesters to wear keffiyehs over their faces, which do literally nothing to stop the spread of disease?

You know who else is against bans on face masks?

White supremacists.

They wear masks for exactly the same reasons as JVP, WOL, SJP and the other antisemites. At least the neo-Nazis they don't pretend it is done for altruistic reasons.

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

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There is an intriguing footnote in the latest UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report for 2023.

The 6 million Palestine refugees under UNRWA’s mandate are in Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. In addition, there are 41,100 Palestinian refugees under UNHCR’s mandate in other countries. This represents a decrease of 63,300 from end-2022 as the estimated number of Palestinian refugees under UNHCR’s mandate in Egypt was revised downwards. UNRWA defines Palestine refugees as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”

This would seem to mean that UNHCR counted 104,400 Palestinian refugees under its remit in 2022, and this was reduced to only 41,100 in 2023.

Apparently, something happened in Egypt. It is unclear if it happened because of a change in Egyptian policy or UNHCR policy.

At first one might guess that Egypt changed their status from official refugees to something else. I reported last week that Egypt does not recognize Palestinians as refugees at all. Yet that was the case before 2023 as well; the Palestinians fleeing Syria to Egypt were never regarded as refugees like the other Syrians were.

Yet this footnote seems to indicate that at least some Palestinians in Egypt were once or are considered refugees by UNHCR.

The last sentence in the footnote seems to be out of place. What does UNRWA's definition have to do with the status of Palestinians outside UNRWA's fields of operations?

Could it be that UNHCR used to consider all Palestinians in Egypt to be "refugees" and since then only consider the ones who are actual refugees, say from Syria, and not the ones who had been there since 1948? The reduction of 63,300 in the number of Palestinian refugees in Egypt roughly corresponds with the number of Palestinians whose ancestors lived in Egypt in 1948.

In its 2010 report, UNHCR said that there were 93,299 Palestinian refugees under its mandate, of whom 12,596 were being assisted by UNHCR.

Whatever the reason, it shows that UNHCR tries to take people out of refugee status, while UNRWA wants the number of refugees it is responsible for to keep growing forever.

(h/t Irene)

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

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07/04 Links Pt2: The jihadi-leftist convergence; Anti-Zionism is antisemitism is anti-Americanism; The BBC busted with terrorist supporters again

From Ian:

Clifford May: The jihadi-leftist convergence

Why would atheist Communists support Islamists who shout “Allahu Akbar!” as they murder and rape?

Part of the answer, I think, is that Israel is seen, with justification, as America’s loyal ally and, beyond that, an outpost of Western values in the Middle East—despite efforts over the years by Israeli leaders to maintain amicable relations with Beijing, including by hiring Chinese firms to (can you guess?) bore Israeli highway tunnels.

In other words, anti-Zionism coincides with Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s broader goal: to diminish America as a serious superpower in a world that will be dominated by Xi’s CCP.

As America goes, so goes the West—and both Islamists and leftists want the West gone or at least made to submit. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was candid, calling the 1979 Islamic Revolution that he led in Iran a fight “against the Western world.”

Now recall that, in 1987, Jesse Jackson led 500 protestors at Stanford University chanting: “Hey hey, ho ho, Western civ has got to go.”

Their complaint, or so they claimed, was that courses on Western civilization implied Western superiority that didn’t comport with “multiculturalism.”

University administrators—compliant then as now—replaced Western civ with courses on “Cultures, Ideas and Values,” and “Western imperialism and colonialism.”

These courses have stressed the ostensible sins of Europe and America, questioning the West’s foundational values of open inquiry, free markets, constitutional democracy and human equality.

Scant attention has been given to the empires of the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa and their abhorrent practices (e.g., the Ottoman and Arab slave trades and Aztec child sacrifice).

Middle East studies departments were transformed into centers of “anti-Orientalist” activism, especially against Israel.

Meanwhile, ignored on most campuses, are the contemporary empire builders in Tehran, Moscow and Beijing.

Are there contradictions between jihadism on the one hand and the ideologies of the CCP and the woke left on the other? Carlos and his acolytes apparently think not.

In Revolutionary Islam, Carlos called on “all revolutionaries, including those of the left, even atheists” to accept the leadership of Islamists because they represent the only “transnational force capable of standing up against the enslavement of nations” given the collapse of the Soviet Union. (China’s relations with Washington were amicable 20 years ago.)

He predicted: “From now on terrorism is going to be more or less a daily part of the landscape of your rotting democracies.”

The antisemitic spring is over

The blind hatred of some Democrats, particularly Arab Americans and Muslims in Michigan, has led them to campaign against Biden because he supports Israel and its right to self-defense. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Their actions could lead to the election of Donald Trump, who is pro-Israel but holds views that are anathema to their communities.

The amount of money spent in the Bowman race was unusual, but all “Squad” members knew they would become targets. Most, including the two regarded as antisemitic—Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilan Omar (D-Minn.)—are in safe seats, aligned demographically with their communities. Cori Bush in Missouri, however, is considered vulnerable and the next incumbent AIPAC hopes to defeat. Bush is facing St. Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell, who, like Latimer, is a moderate. The problem with Bush is not that she is pro-Palestinian; it’s that she is rabidly anti-Israel and pro-terrorist. She and Tlaib, for example, were the only two House members to vote against legislation that prevents members of Hamas and other related terrorist-affiliated groups from coming to the United States. A poll last week showed Bush trailing by one point after having an early double-digit lead.

After months of looking weak and fearful, it is past time for Jews and other supporters of Israel to exercise their muscles. The upcoming elections present opportunities to reinforce bipartisan support for Israel and send a clear message that antisemitism will not be tolerated in our political discourse or policies.

Most of the world would like Israelis to fight their enemies with their hands tied behind their backs. Antisemites here would like to bind our hands. We can’t let them.

Longtime California legislator and power broker Jesse Unruh once quipped, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.” The pro-Israel lobby (millions of non-Jews support Israel, so “Jewish lobby” is a misnomer used by antisemites) should provide as much milk as needed to incentivize politicians to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship. The pro-Arab lobby will attempt to do the same, but it has a significant disadvantage, not a shortage of resources but a lack of public support.

No other group apologizes for using whatever power they possess to advance their interests. In this case, the interests of the pro-Israel community coincide with those of most Americans and the U.S. government. As Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz wrote in his book Chutzpah, “When the ‘Jewish Lobby’ defeats an enemy of Israel or of the Jews, we should proudly proclaim the victory of justice over injustice.”

Our message should be “Antisemites: We’re coming for you!”

Anti-Zionism is antisemitism is anti-Americanism

On the first day in American history, on the evening of July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson – if one might paraphrase his words – declared: Let there be inalienable rights to all mankind.

There was also a first day in modern Israeli history, on the afternoon of May 14, 1948, when David Ben-Gurion – in Israel’s Declaration of Independence modeled on the United States’s – declared that among these inalienable rights is the right of the Jewish people to be in their sovereign homeland.

Both Declarations drew on the same, common heritage of political rights that scholars have traced to the English Bill of Rights and the Book of Deuteronomy. Thus, a philosophical rejection of Israel’s Declaration of Independence and its right to exist is, at the same time, a philosophical rejection of America’s Declaration of Independence and its right to exist. Fundamentally, an attack on Israel is an attack on America.

Some scholars have found that America and Israel’s Declarations of Independence were racist, colonialist documents with a people’s “ancient” claims to their national lands based on fictional history and lies. Yet these Declarations were not meant for their academic analysis. They were written in the passion of the moment by countries and peoples fighting for their survival.

Of course, antisemites do not really care about any of this because they believe that Jews control both America and Israel anyway. Therefore, if I might update Jefferson’s words on America’s Independence Day, I hold this truth to be self-evident, that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is anti-Americanism.

College students use their self-governance in an anti-American way
I AM A Jewish graduate of the higher educational institution that Jefferson founded – the University of Virginia in Charlottesville – where neo-Nazis with tiki torches marched and shouted “Jews will not replace us!” on August 2017.

But not a single individual was ever found guilty of antisemitism. In the civil case Sines v. Kessler that followed, the Jewish plaintiff’s allegations of antisemitism were dismissed. The judge even acknowledged that the KKK Act of 1871, which was charged, protected racial grievances more than antisemitic grievances for white plaintiffs.

On June 28, Jewish students at Columbia University resorted to filing a complaint against pro-Palestinian protesters under the same KKK Act. They are unlikely to succeed because of the result in Sines v. Kessler from Charlottesville. Antisemitism is flourishing everywhere, it seems, and there is no one left to protect us on campus.

No one, that is, but Jefferson. I turn to him in this hour for what I am about to say with utmost seriousness.

Invoking Article III, Section 3, of the United States Constitution, I hereby allege that some college campuses across the United States have committed treason against the United States, by giving “aid and comfort” to its enemies and allowing antisemitism to thrive. To prove this, by law, I will need the testimony of two witnesses.

I call on Jefferson and his devoted friend, James Madison, author of the US Constitution and a fellow, founding board member of the University of Virginia.

Monster Under Gaza Child's Bed Cramped By Hamas Tunnel Shaft (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Monster Under Gaza Child's Bed Cramped By Hamas Tunnel Shaft

Sheja'iyya, July 4 - A nightmarish creature tasked with scaring preschoolers and other small children from beneath the furniture at night complained again today that it cannot perform its nocturnal fright duties because the entrance to an underground passage for Islamist fighters takes up all the space he needs to do proper lurking.

Cujo Al-Wahsh, a six-legged, eight-eyed, segmented, hairy, horned, drooling, eight-foot-tall, carnivorous spawn of Hell, lamented the cramped conditions under which he must operate night after night in the Al-Masri household, where Hamas installed a shaft to its tunnel network right underneath the bed of four-year-old Wafa Masri.

"Even without the shaft there, it's a squeeze at best," the creature explained. "But now it's a workplace safety violation, if Gaza had such a thing. Hamas used child labor to begin with in digging and reinforcing the tunnels, resulting in at least dozens, if not hundreds, of dead kids, which should indicate just how important worker safety is to the powers that be in Gaza."

"If some Hamas guy opens the shaft to come out of the tunnel while I'm lurking there, I'm in big trouble," he noted. "Venomous fangs or no venomous fangs, my employment future in Gaza is toast if i so much as look the wrong way at a Hamas man. To say nothing of making way for men entering the shaft from the outside. I can't do my job under these conditions."

Al-Wahsh has successfully scared little Wafa only four times in the last month, resulting in a negative performance review and the continuation of a sharp decline in his once-powerhouse statistics. "I was tops at my game back in the first decade of the century," he recalled. "Even the 2010's started out on the right foot. But once reconstruction began after the 2014 conflict, and Hamas started placing a tunnel network with access points in every new or rebuilt structure, my work got harder and harder."

Anecdotal reports indicate a general decline in under-the-bed monster-scares across Gaza long before hundreds of thousands of the territory's residents fled their homes ahead of the current fighting. A counterintuitive statistic even points to a slight bump in successful scares in the tent camps that Israel facilitated outside its predefined combat areas, given the lack of tunnel shafts and the relative stability of life in those zones.

Monster officials have reported only one monster casualty amid the current fighting, from a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch that fell short and hit a home in Khan Yunis four months ago.

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

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Read all about it here!

07/04 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Can Israel afford to stand up to America?; Big Lies About Israel; Netanyahu's 4th of July message to the American people

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Can Israel afford to stand up to America?

Against this dire backdrop, Netanyahu is going to America in three weeks’ time to address Congress. Among the many who loathe and distrust him, there is nervousness and criticism that he may make a bad situation even worse by criticizing Biden so close to the presidential election.

There are fears that he may repeat what such people believe was the harmful result he achieved when he addressed Congress in 2015 in an attempt to head off President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Obama outfoxed him by some fancy Beltway footwork and the deal was duly done. Netanyahu’s critics say that he therefore achieved nothing but bad blood with Obama. The same fears are being expressed over the likely effect on Biden of this month’s visit.

But this is to get things back to front. In both cases, Netanyahu decided to address Congress because an already virulently hostile administration posed such a danger to Israel that he could not remain silent.

In 2015, he had a moral duty to lay out for Congress and the American people the dire consequences of Obama’s Iran deal. That warning has been amply borne out. In 2024, Netanyahu has a moral duty to explain to Congress and the American people the dire consequences of the Biden administration’s appeasement of Iran, why Israel is fighting a war for its survival unlike any other since its foundation and that the seven-front war against it is merely the opening shot in Iran’s war against America and the West.

What Netanyahu’s critics fail to acknowledge is that he is a supremely cautious politician. He rarely airs his grievances with the U.S. in public. When he does so, it signifies desperation. It’s because he feels he has no other option.

That’s why he addressed Congress in 2015. It’s why he outed the Biden administration for holding up the delivery of weapons essential to the war effort. And it’s why he’s beating a lonely path back to Congress once again.

His intended audience isn’t just U.S. lawmakers. It isn’t just the American people. It’s also the Arab and Muslim world, which is watching carefully and where the stakes for Israel are very high.

For what inspires aggression and war in the Middle East is above all the perception of weakness. If Israel is seen to be bullied into surrender by the Biden administration, the Arab and Muslim world will smell that weakness. The Arabs may accordingly retreat from their recent historic overtures of friendship or Iran will move in for the kill. It is therefore essential that Israel is seen to be standing up to America.

As the former Israeli diplomat Yoram Ettinger has observed, the State Department has systematically pressured Israel to act against its own security requirements ever since 1948.

And it never learns from experience. The Obama-Biden strategy of appeasement empowered Iran, created the conditions for the Oct. 7 pogrom and is leading the free world to catastrophe.

As Ettinger has said, the question is not how Israel can afford to stand up to America. It’s how can Israel afford not to.

Jonathan Tobin: Reaffirm our belief in the promise of America

Seeing the forces dedicated to tearing down the belief system that underpinned ideas about American exceptionalism that served as the foundation for Jewish acceptance, they now worry about their future on these shores. Liberal writer Franklin Foer spoke for many when he pondered whether “The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending” in a gloomy piece in The Atlantic that mixed realism with partisan point-scoring (which undermined its credibility).

Antisemitism is not merely on the rise; it has become a daily occurrence. These days, left-wing versions of the neo-Nazi “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., back in August 2017 focus on support for Hamas, and demonizing Israel and the Jews. And so, despair about America is understandable. That’s especially true when considering that appeasing the forces behind these despicable provocations and acts of violence, if not open support for them, has a powerful constituency in mainstream politics and the media.

The context of this struggle is one in which contempt for traditional American civic culture is implicit in the left’s new secular religion.

The Times continues its ideological assault on the 1776 paradigm with pre-July 4 articles questioning not just exceptionalism but the whole idea of America being a “city on a hill” that is the last, best hope of mankind. And if that isn’t enough, it also trashed the celebratory aspects of the holiday since the fireworks that John Adams envisioned as an annual event in a letter to his wife Abigail, annoys pets and are too closely associated with gun rights. The liberal elites who run the paper may think that no celebration of newer holidays like Pride month or Juneteenth is too lavish, yet on the Fourth of July, it wants everyone to stop driving trucks, eating meat and supposedly harming nature by firing off a few bottle rockets. That is merely the lighter side of a problem more serious than most of us could have believed a few years ago.

The long march of the progressives through U.S. institutions has led to a situation where tolerance and even permission for antisemitism is a feature and not a bug of this belief system. But as much as Jews have rightly focused on this new seemingly respectable version of antisemitism, it is merely one aspect of a worldview that is just as hostile to traditional notions about American liberty and the core beliefs of Western civilization from which the spirit of 1776 sprang.

American history is replete with failures and open breaches of the principles of the founders—of which the most prominent was the decision to tolerate slavery until a civil war that cost the lives of 750,000 Americans ended the practice. The ideals of the declaration were often honored in their breach, but they remained the aspirational touchstone of the long arc of progress through which liberty eventually expanded to the point where its words have been given full expression.

Nevertheless, if we are to remain locked in the ideological dead-end of woke ideology, not only will that progress unravel amid the racial and ethnic quotas mandated by “equity” that ends the hope of equality and a color-blind society. We will find ourselves living in a nation where Jews are forced to see this as not an exceptional nation but just one more failed attempt at building a home in the Diaspora.

Big Lies About Israel

For months, Israel has refuted libelous claims of famine in Gaza, as international organizations -- especially the UN and the EU, the International Court of Justice and mainstream media alongside NGOs such as Human Rights Watch -- pushed the false, malicious narrative that Israel was causing famine in Gaza and even using it as a "weapon of war." Israel might have saved itself the effort. No one was listening.

In May, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the UN claimed, without a shred of evidence, that there was a "full blown famine" in Gaza.

Now, it turns out, it was all a big lie. There was no famine, there is no famine and Israel has not been using hunger as a "weapon of war." In its report published on June 4, the UN's IPC [Integrated Food Security Phase Classification] concluded that famine was no longer even "plausible" and had no "supporting evidence."

By comparison, more than three million children in Sudan are acutely malnourished, and a quarter of a million more are likely to die in the coming months. By the UN's own admission, the war in Sudan is "the war the world has either forgotten or ignored." The irony of that statement has clearly been lost on the UN, which is probably the main reason that Sudan – and other conflict spots – is ignored: the UN focuses almost all its resources on Israel and Gaza.

The "made-up" famine is just the latest in a long row of fabrications demonizing Israel's military operations in Gaza, which over the last months have been exposed as lies yet have received zero coverage in the media.

In early May, the UN effectively admitted that Hamas's casualty figures were untrustworthy...

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres led the incitement against Israel, as the UN almost always does.

Overall, 18 million people in Sudan face starvation.

The big advantage that anti-Israel groups have in their messaging

Back in 2010, I gave a talk on Hasbara at Yeshiva University. For the talk, I came up with a taxonomy of effective communication:

My theory is that the more involved the audience is in the medium, the more effective the message.

Hasbara is above all meant to explain reality. Some forms are more emotionally involving than others. But the point is never to lie, nor to brainwash. When a pro-Israel rally is held, the centerpiece is the speeches, meant to get points across to the audience. Seeing the horrors of October 7 on video is more gripping than reading about it.

This is where the anti-Israel people have a huge messaging advantage over Zionists.

When they encourage/pressure people to chant their message, that is higher up the hierarchy of communication than I even imagined. The audience becomes part of giving the message, rather than just consuming it.

This goes beyond communication - it is brainwashing. Every study of brainwashing mentions the importance of repetition in making people believe something, even if it is obviously false. Making the targets themselves perform the repetition makes them even more emotionally tied to the message - they will never, ever want to believe that something so important to them that they themselves said it over and over again could be false.

The repetition also is the key factor in the illusory truth effect - the more people hear lies, the more they believe them.

The advantage of anti-Israel propaganda is that they lie. And they have a methodology to not only lie but to brainwash people to believe the lies.

That's something the pro-Israel side cannot do.

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!

For nearly two months, the UN has complained that they cannot safely pick up aid from Kerem Shalom to deliver them to the parts of Gaza that need it.

UNRWA writes this week, "The deteriorating law and order situation is severely hindering humanitarian actors from collecting aid at the Kerem Shalom Crossing for distribution within Gaza."

Yet hundreds of truckfuls of supplies are being safely picked up in Kerem Shalom, and distributed seemingly without major incidents.

COGAT reports 67 trucks were collected from Kerem Shalom on July 3, 199 on July 2, 127 on July 1, 51 on June 30.

Apparently, they were all picked up by the private sector. The shortfall in UN aid has been more than made up by commercial ventures where Gazans import the food and other supplies themselves and do all the organization and logistics of distribution, without the help of the UN or other international NGOs.

Capitalism is succeeding where the humanitarian community is failing.

So why do we need UNRWA and the other agencies to build out and maintain their own capacity for the enormous logistics involved in distributing aid to 1.5 million people? Why not just have them coordinate with, and pay, the Gazans who are willing to take the risks of delivering the aid for those who cannot afford to buy it?

Organizations hire contractors all the time. UNRWA even has a manual on policies on hiring contractors, where one of the conditions is that "the need for the required expert knowledge or specialized skills cannot be reasonably met from within the staff resources of the Agency, "

It sure appears that the ability to pick up and deliver aid from Kerem Shalom is a skill that UNRWA employees do not currently have.

Maybe some of the money that now goes towards teaching Gaza kids that their highest calling is to martyr themselves while trying to murder Jews should be directed into paying actual Gazans who are willing to take on the additional risk of aid delivery.

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!