Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, September 13, 2024

09/13 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Intimidate the Jews Day; The warped and deadly prism of ISM; What could Israel expect from a Harris administration?

From Ian:

How Bernard Lewis Came to America

Today’s podcast focuses on what universities are doing wrong, but it’s also worth thinking about what American universities have done right. Martin Kramer looks into the story of how the great scholar of the Islamic Middle East, Bernard Lewis, came to the U.S., and how that changed his career—and American history.

In the years following the Second World War, many British academics made the transatlantic move, accepting positions at American colleges and universities. It was a case of both push and pull. The war had left British higher education strapped for funds, while American academia was booming, fueled by the federal government and major foundations. The resources of Oxford or London paled in comparison to those of Harvard or Yale.

In 1974, those factors led Princeton University to recruit Lewis from London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, which has since declined into a cesspool of academic anti-Semitism. In the years that followed, he wrote a number of scholarly books, and also wrote profound essays that reached a wider audience:

It was at this desk that he wrote a famous series of Commentary articles that transformed him into a major public intellectual. They included “The Palestinians and the PLO” (1975) and “The Return of Islam” (1976). It was also here that he wrote “The Anti-Zionist Resolution” for Foreign Affairs (1976), and “The Question of Orientalism,” his rejoinder to Edward Said, for the New York Review of Books (1982).

Had Lewis not made the crossing in 1974, his voice might still have been heard in America, but it would have been distant and faint. His decade-plus in that splendid Princeton office transformed him from a British don into an American public intellectual, with a reach extending from network studios to the White House.

Melanie Phillips: Intimidate the Jews Day

How disgusting is this. October is the month when decent people will mark the start of the Hamas-led genocidal assault on southern Israel, when thousands of Arabs from Gaza stormed across the border fence and butchered, raped, beheaded or burnt alive 1200 Israeli women children and men and dragged 250 others into the hellholes of Gaza where a maximum of 100 are thought to remain alive in horrific conditions.

That is what these PSC activists obscenely plan to commemorate by glorifying those savages and grossly defaming an Israel that is still fighting for its life against the war of extermination being waged against it that started on October 7 — a war that the PSC fanatically supports.

Oh — and of course the rescheduled march is on a Shabbat (the Jewish sabbath); these marches often are. So Jews walking to synagogue in central London will again be forced to take action to avoid intimidation and possible physical threat arising from this march, its antisemitic placards and its chants for Israel to be eliminated and its support for Hamas. As they have been forced to do for the last eleven months.

What’s important, however, is the reason why this march is intolerable on any day.

The point here is that, as Rich points out, these “protest” marches and demonstrations are always exercises in sickening intimidation of the Jewish community. Yet for eleven months they have been permitted on the grounds that there is a “right to protest” and these demonstrators are merely exercising that right.

But that’s not so. These are hate marches. Not only are specific crimes being committed on them — such as support for Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation; calls for jihad; calls for the destruction of a foreign country, Israel, “from the river to the sea”; and calls for murderous terrorist violence against Jews in the chant “globalise the intifada!” The very purpose of these hate marches is to terrify Jews, to glorify and incite holy war and to demonstrate Islamist control of British public space.

The reason they have been allowed to continue is partly because politicians and the police fear provoking violence if they are tacked effectively, but mainly because of a reluctance to be seen to challenge the ostensibly sacrosanct right of free speech. But there is no such absolute right. Even the grand-daddy of liberalism, JS Mill, acknowledged that freedom had to be limited if it did harm to others.

The warped and deadly prism of ISM

Who Is Jonathan Pollak?
Pollak was perhaps the most quoted witness to the death of Eygi, providing interviews to many newspapers and broadcast networks. Incredibly, Pollak is also on the staff of the Israeli Haaretz newspaper.

The ISM production team immediately went into action, volunteering interviews, posting a Wikipedia page dedicated to Eygi, providing a graduation photo of her wearing a keffiyeh and releasing videos of her dying moments. The ISM staff followed the Rachel Corrie playbook.

Pollak claimed, “What happened today [Eygi’s death] is no accident. … The shot was taken to kill. … It was an intentional killing … because she was an American citizen.”

President Biden, Vice President Harris and the secretaries of state and defense echoed the ISM’s charge against Israel. Jonathan Pollak, founder of Anarchists Against the Wall, is seen in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, arrested during a protest, Jan. 15, 2020. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

The anarchist admitted that Eygi had arrived in Israel several days earlier and that it was the first protest the inexperienced woman had joined. CBS reporter Elizabeth Palmer asked Pollak, “Essentially, you are asking [volunteers] to be human shields.” Pollak responded firmly, “No! They are participating in the struggle for human liberation.”

Pollak put the shooting in the context of Israel’s “genocide.” He told his own paper, Haaretz, that the soldier who shot the activist “did it because he knows he can get away with it. The context is the escalating violence and genocide in Gaza.”

Pollak is true to his agitprop. In 2010, he also charged that he witnessed Israeli border police firing a tear-gas grenade directly at 21-year-old American student Emily Henochowicz. Unfortunately for him, a video showed that the projectile ricocheted off of a cement barrier before hitting her.

Moreover, Henochowicz suggested in an interview in 2010 that Pollak may have been the catalyst for the border police shooting tear gas at the protesters:

DEMOCRACY NOW: What happened just in the period before the Israeli soldiers began firing their tear-gas canisters?

HENOCHOWICZ: Well, Jonathan Pollak climbed up on this fence and put a Palestinian and Turkish flag up at the checkpoint.

Why ISM is dangerous to volunteers and other living things

The International Solidarity Movement depends on “internationals” serving as human shields. As Pollak told CBS News, “They are not human shields; they are participants in the struggle for human liberation.” (It sounds like something I once saw on a Viet Cong poster.)

Most ISM “volunteers” are in the territories for only several weeks. They are quickly thrown into the front lines, where, as human shields, they become PR assets. They cannot learn the basics of language, the legal rules of civil disobedience, history or the essentials of living in political and military minefields.

The following are ISM’s recommendations to volunteers on how much time to spend “volunteering for peace.” Finding oneself in a West Bank donnybrook is a prescription for trouble.

“Two weeks is the minimum time commitment; longer is much better to ensure consistency, relationship-building, and skills honed and passed on to new volunteers. We suggest a minimum of a three-week stay to better integrate into the work, help with relationship-building, and ensure consistency across our volunteer group, although two weeks is acceptable if necessary.”

Ask Emily, Rachel or Eygi. American citizenship, good intentions and parents’ credit card are no guarantees that you won’t be “pimped out” as a shaheeda martyr.

09/13 Links Pt1: Hamas On The Ropes: A Progress Report; Sinwar pledges to continue war ‘until occupation ends’; Veteran Charged After Shooting Anti-Israel assailant

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Origin Story of the Rafah Crisis

On September 1, 2005, Egypt and Israel concluded an agreement on governing the security of the border area between Egypt and Gaza once IDF troops left as part of the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip. That border area included the Rafah crossing, and that agreement marked the first time Israel had consented to having a third party take responsibility for Palestinian border security.

It got off to a bad start.

As CBS reported less than two weeks later: “as soon as Israel pulled out, border security collapsed. Thousands of Palestinians crossed the border and Egyptian guards appeared helpless.”

Nor was it just security around the crossing that collapsed. Contrary to the popular narrative of American Jews playing a counterproductive role in the peace process, U.S. Jewish donors had bought up thousands of greenhouses and other infrastructure from exiting settlers and then transferred that infrastructure to the Palestinian Authority. And yet: “Palestinians looted dozens of greenhouses, walking off with irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting in a blow to fledgling efforts to reconstruct the Gaza Strip.… In some instances, there was no security and in others, police even joined the looters, witnesses said.”

In other words, anarchy.

Back to the border. From that 2005 report: “On Monday, masked Hamas fighters were seen on the Palestinian side of the border, with some crossing over to the Egyptian side.” One reason the Egyptians didn’t try very hard to control the crossing? Because they wanted to get rid of their own Palestinian residents: “The Egyptians also want to allow Palestinians on the Egyptian side of Rafah to move permanently to the Gaza side to rejoin families, the officials said.”

Got the picture? This is what it looked like when Israel last relinquished the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi corridor along the border.

It is now 19 years later to the day since that CBS story was posted on September 13, 2005. And we are having the same conversation about whether and how Israel should relinquish control of the crossing, what that will mean for Palestinian self-governance, and whether Cairo can be truly counted on to show that when Israel hands over security to anyone else, all hell doesn’t break loose.

We’re having this conversation precisely because history tells us that when Israel hands over security, all hell breaks loose.

Jonathan Schanzer: Hamas On The Ropes: A Progress Report

Despite all this good news—and it is unmistakably good news—four obvious challenges remain before Israel can fully pivot out of Gaza.

First, there is no way the Israeli public will allow for a withdrawal from Gaza without recovering the hostages. Despite calls from the hostage families and the Israeli left to end the war, they know that ending it will not be possible without a ceasefire deal. Hamas and its patrons in Tehran are still not signaling a willingness to ink such a deal. Sinwar and the ayatollahs would prefer to subject Israel to a war of attrition, with Iranian proxies attacking Israel from multiple fronts.

Second, Israel must deal with the Philadelphi Corridor, the thin patch of dirt that runs astride the Gaza-Egypt border. It’s less than ten miles long, but beneath it lie dozens of tunnels that snake into Egypt. The Sinai Peninsula appears to have served as the logistical hub for these subterranean supply lines. Currently, the IDF assesses that none of these tunnels is active. But should Israel fail to tackle the existing problem now, the return of Hamas would be guaranteed. The Israelis must insist upon an underground wall and sensor system similar to the one it has around the Israeli-Gaza border. That was just about the only system that worked on October 7. But the Egyptians have yet to cede that there is a problem, let alone allow for such a system to be built. That means it’s time for Washington to step in and apply pressure. So far, the Biden administration is nowhere to be found.

The third challenge is the low-level insurgency that is expected to continue well after the hard fighting is done. Hamas fighters or wannabes in track suits are sure to come out of the woodwork and target the IDF forces that will remain in Gaza. Those irregulars will need to be dealt with while post-war construction plans are made.

And finally, there is the post-war period. Regardless of who steps in to help fill the administrative void (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, several European countries and the United States are among those rumored to be open to such a role), the IDF will not and cannot allow other forces to handle security in Gaza. In light of the failure to protect the southern communities on 10/7, there is an unwavering determination across the security establishment to stand guard and protect against from future attacks. Indeed, they insist upon it, and they must.

The hope now is that the IDF footprint needed in Gaza will diminish significantly over time. Israelis would welcome the opportunity to begin to put the last eleven months in the rear view. But they all know that this long war is far from over. Iran continues to direct its proxies to attack the Jewish state. More immediately, a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon beckons. It’s unclear when that battle will unfold, but it promises to be far more taxing than the tough and brave slog Israel appears ready to conclude.

Sinwar pledges to continue war ‘until occupation ends’ in reported letter to Nasrallah

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has reportedly conveyed his appreciation to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah for the group’s unwavering support during the ongoing conflict with Israel.

For nearly a year, Iran-backed Hezbollah has been engaging in attacks on Israel along the Lebanese-Israeli border, a conflict that has been unfolding alongside the Gaza war.

The letter, published by the pro-Hezbollah al-Mayadeen, is the first reported communication between the two terror chiefs since Sinwar became Hamas leader in August.

Sinwar’s letter underscores the group’s determination to continue their struggle until “the occupation is defeated and swept away from our land, and our independent state with full sovereignty is established with Jerusalem as its capital.”

In his message his vowed the “blessed convoys of martyrs will increase in strength and power in confronting the Nazi Zionist occupation.”

Sinwar’s letter comes in the wake of the death of Ismail Haniyeh, the former leader of Hamas, who was killed in Tehran in July.

The assassination, widely attributed to Israel, has intensified the resolve of Hamas and its allies. Sinwar thanked Nasrallah for his condolences and emphasised the importance of their continued cooperation.

He reiterated Hamas’s commitment to fighting the “Zionist project” alongside the Iranian-led axis of resistance.

Sinwar has not appeared in public since the October 7 attacks, and is widely thought to be running the war from tunnels beneath Gaza.

The EU's High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy gave a press conference in Beirut yesterday where he again showed that to him, Israel is the source of all evil.

He blamed Hezbollah's and Houthis' unprovoked attacks on Israel and world shipping as all being Israel's fault:

We agreed that the war in Gaza is an horrific tragedy for the Palestinian civilians ....
But it is also a permanent threat for regional stability, and particularly for Lebanon. Across the Blue Line, it triggered the forced displacement of tens of thousands of civilians, who had to flee from their houses – on both sides of the border.

So it is Israeli actions that caused Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israel. This is the logic of the EU.

Throughout his remarks, neither Hezbollah nor Iran nor the Houthis are mentioned once, but Israel is. And when he answered a reporter's question about the possibilities of war, Borrell fully accepted the terrorist claim that they have no choice but to attack Israel and that somehow Hezbollah and Houthi attacks are defending Gaza.

[P]eace in the border between Lebanon and Israel depends also in the peace in West Bank and Gaza. The security of navigation in the Red Sea depends also on how the peace and stability is being reached in the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Borrell is saying that any party can attack Israel anywhere and anytime, and as long as they claim they are doing it for "Palestine" then Israel is responsible for their attacks.

Israel withdrew from Lebanon and the UN certified that i controls no Lebanese land. Hezbollah used the pretext of land that they continue to claim is Lebanese to build up a huge army, pretending it was to "defend Lebanon." Now Hezbollah claims it is defending Gaza,. Both those claims are obvious lies, but the EU officially accepts those lies as truth.

Iran and its proxies want to destroy Israel. They don't give a damn about Palestinians. But they are happy that they have useful idiots like Josep Borrell who are willing to believe their lies that their constant attacks on Israel are for good reasons.

Those reasons change with the seasons. This year they are "defending Gaza." Previously they claimed their attacks were because of "occupation" or "defending Lebanon" or because of Quran burnings or "Jews storming Al Aqsa" or "settler violence" or placing metal detectors in Jerusalem or any of a hundred other excuses they always have to murder Jews.

In the end, Borrell's considers the excuses of the terrorists to attack Jews to be convincing, and he doesn't believe anything the Jews say. .

(h/t Irene)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

In 2022, the BDS Boston Mapping Project was published. It was a database of organizations, predominantly Jewish, financial and police, and purported links between them with the aim to threaten those organizations and their leaders.

As the ADL writes,

The website itself is threatening, calling for the dismantling and disruption of the Boston Jewish community as follows:
Our goal in pursuing this collective mapping was to reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them. Every entity has an address, every network can be disrupted.
The Mapping Project uses names and addresses of Jewish community members and institutions to intimidate the community, with this chilling call to action threatening physical security:
We have shown physical addresses, named officers and leaders, and mapped connections. These entities exist in the physical world and can be disrupted in the physical world. We hope people will use our map to help figure out how to push back effectively.

When US lawmakers called for an investigation into its potential use by violent antisemites, the national BDS movement disavowed any connection with the project.

Now, it is coming back - on a national level.

The "Coalition to Reject Zionist Oppression" is launching this month, and they are planning a number of initiatives to fight "Zionism" - by which, they mean Jews.

The session I highlighted is planned for next Friday, September 20.

They are creating as new blacklist targeting Jews.

And they are quite open about it. Here is their description of the project:

Zionist political institutions: Crowd-sourced database - Launching Sept 20, 2024

Zionist institutions are under-researched political actors, and their role as political actors is often overshadowed by their other identities as Jewish, Christian, or "non-political" organizations. This database maps intersecting people, donors, and projects among Zionist organizations and between Zionist and other political institutions.

It is exactly the same as the antisemitic Boston mapping project - but nationwide.

Any Jewish organizations and their named members who are not explicitly anti-Zionist are considered targets.

This is a threat to disrupt and attack people and institutions because they are Jewish and support a Jewish homeland. It is incitement to violence and an attempt to chill free speech. It is antisemitic and bigoted.

As a crowd-sourced database, anyone can add anything to it - any synagogue, any Jewish student club, any Hebrew language charter school, whatever they want. And then those organizations and members can be easily threatened, doxxed, or swatted.

And this database is being launched next week.

(h/t Andrew P)

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!

Hezbollah and Iran have been in a bind since the assassinations of their respective leaders Fouad Shukr and Ismail Haniyeh at the end of July.

They both promised a huge military response as revenge. But neither of them want an escalation, because they know that Israel can cause far more damage to them than they can to Israel.

For weeks, they both said a massive response was imminent. Finally, on August 25, Hezbollah launched a major attack on Israel that was largely thwarted by pre-emptive Israeli strikes. The attack was a failure and Arab social media lampooned Hezbollah's leader as only managing to kill chickens.

Iran and its Lebanese proxy cannot accept being shamed by Israel. But they cannot attack either. How can they restore the honor they lost?

One answer came yesterday: they claim that the August "Arbaeen Day" operation was a resounding success.

From Hezbollah's mouthpiece Al Mayadeen (English):

European security sources have reported to Al Mayadeen that the recent strikes by the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon - Hezbollah targeting the HQs of Unit 8200 in the Glilot base and the airbase of Ein Shemer have been substantially successful.

According to the sources, the attack, dubbed Operation Arbaeen, has resulted in significant casualties within the Israeli intelligence unit, with fatalities reaching 22 and 74 members reported injured.

If unnamed "European security sources" said so, it must be true!

Iranian-linked media has been trumpeting this obvious lie for the past 12 hours, as it is front page news in Iran's IRNA, the IRGC's Defa, and of course Dearborn.org.

The good news is that this story may indicate that Iran has given up on its planned vengeance operation, pretending that Hezbollah's attack already taught Israel a lesson.

Which appears to show that Israel's own deterrence against Iran and Hezbollah works.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

A Hebrew social media account that calls itself "Temple Mount Activists" posted an animated video showing the Dome of the Rock on fire.

As far as I can tell, the video was created by a tiny group or individual. The X/Twitter account has 550 followers; its Telegram account has 105 subscribers.

They posted this video three times since August, the first two were barely noticed. Only the most recent post has garnered several thousand views.

Another video they created shows a missile destroying the site, while a Jewish man with a cane blithely walks through the video-game type explosions engulfing him.

Practically no one follows this group.. No one ever heard of them. They represent no one. They are probably sincere in wanting Jews to take over the Temple Mount, but they are hardly influential or representative of the Israeli government or Israelis altogether.

But Palestinians and their allies want to paint all Jews as warmongers who desire nothing more than to see the Dome of the Rock destroyed, so this video is getting huge publicity in Arab and other Muslim media, with screaming headlines in Al Jazeera among others.

Who publicized this video more than anyone else? The Palestinian foreign ministry, which issued a press release about it:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates warns against what is being circulated on social media under the name of the "Temple Mount Activists Organization" regarding the bombing of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in preparation for the construction of the alleged temple in the place, under the slogan "speedily in our days", noting that this is not the first time that the so-called "Temple Mount Organizations Union" has incited against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the image of the alleged temple in place of the Dome of the Rock is constantly promoted.

The Ministry views this ongoing incitement with great concern, especially since it is accompanied by the escalation in the storming of the mosque by Jewish extremists and the performance of Talmudic prayers and religious rituals in its courtyards in an unprecedented manner, especially epic prostration, blowing the trumpet, various forms of dancing, raising the Israeli flag, and others....

The Ministry affirms that the failure of the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities towards what our people and Al-Aqsa are being subjected to encourages the extremist Israeli government to escalate its aggression and crimes and target the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Thanks to the people who claim to be offended by the videos, they are being seen by hundreds of thousands of people who would never have known about it otherwise. If they are as concerned about Israelis provoking Muslim feelings, why make it worse?

The videos are provocative, certainly, but things are only provocative if people see them. It is clear that the group or person behind these accounts represents very few people - almost no one openly advocates blowing up the Dome of the Rock. But the Palestinian foreign affairs ministry wants everyone to see these videos that would have sunk in obscurity otherwise - because they are the ones who want a holy war.

They are the ones who want to get Muslims angry enough to want to kill Jews.

The Jordanian truck driver who murdered three Jews at the Allenby Bridge this week was not a member of any militant group. He was brainwashed by constant media lies about how all Jews are evil, and he engineered an attack where he could kill any Jews he could find - and be considered a hero for it. He was so filled with hate from media lies that he willingly sacrificed his life to murder three random Jews, two of them in their 60s.

The media, by publishing lies about Israel, incites violence. This happens not only in Arabic media but in the Western world as well wit the constant association of the word "genocide" with Jews. The thought experiment of going back in time to kill Hitler is, to the brainwashed antisemites, something they csan do something about now, since they are convinced that every single Israeli is murdering Palestinian civilians so killing them first will save lives.

Muslim antisemites have more incentive to spread this video than Israelis do, because their stock in trade is outrage. The more they get their fellow Arabs and Muslims to want to kill Jews, the more successful they consider their campaigns.

We see here that one major source of this incitement to murder Jews is the Palestinian Authority itself..

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!

09/12 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The media war against Israel; Pro-Palestinian faculty band together to politicize academia; Andreas Malm and the green antisemitism

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The media war against Israel

The media’s effect on public attitudes towards Israel, however, is very different indeed. That’s because the Western public, by and large, knows virtually nothing about Israel, the Middle East or Jewish history. On Israel, the public mind is therefore a blank page on which can be imprinted whatever picture the media wishes to paint.

And the picture of Israel that’s been painted over the last few decades—and even more intensely since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led pogrom against southern Israel communities—is a vicious and wildly distorted caricature.

Last week, a high-ranking delegation of former NATO military officers was in Israel on a fact-finding mission to assess the conduct of the Israeli Defense Forces in the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Members of the group subsequently expressed admiration for the way the IDF has been conducting the war in an unprecedentedly challenging combat environment.

Gen. Sir John McColl, the British former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, said: “I came away from the trip satisfied that the IDF’s operations and rules of engagement were rigorous compared to the British Army and our Western allies … Israeli soldiers are fighting in conditions of extraordinary complexity and risk.”

This was a sharp if tacit rebuke to Britain’s Starmer administration, which has announced a partial arms embargo against Israel on the grounds that such weapons “might” be used in a “serious violation” of humanitarian law and that there had been “credible” claims about the mistreatment of detainees.

But what was particularly striking about McColl’s remarks was that he had apparently arrived in Israel predisposed to believe the allegations made against it. He said: “Basing my views about the Israel-Hamas war on U.K. media coverage, I arrived in Israel critical and skeptical of their military operations. … There is balance missing in the reporting of events in Gaza.”

The impression given by the British media for the past 11 months of this war has been that Israel is willfully killing huge numbers of Gaza’s women and children, recklessly bombing hospitals and schools full of displaced people, and preventing humanitarian aid from getting to civilians.

Those claims are the reverse of the truth. Yet a very senior military figure seems to have believed them because this media narrative is omnipresent. Even in newspapers whose editorial line is broadly sympathetic to Israel, the reporting is massively distorted by the promulgation of Hamas propaganda as news reports.

The most egregious serial offender is the BBC, whose global reach and reputation for integrity and trustworthiness make it the most influential media outlet in the world. For decades, it has sanitized Palestinian Arab terrorism and painted Israel falsely as the aggressor in the region. And during the current war in Gaza, its coverage has been overwhelmingly malevolent.

A major study published this week by Trevor Asserson, a British lawyer based in Tel Aviv, laid bare the staggering scale of this betrayal of BBC and journalistic standards.

A dedicated team he set up used AI to crunch four months of war coverage. It identified 1,553 breaches of the BBC’s own guidelines on impartiality and accuracy. It also revealed moderate or strong pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli sentiment in more than 90% of broadcasts on the network’s flagship shows.

Israel was associated with war crimes in BBC reporting 592 times but Hamas (whose entire campaign from Oct. 7 onwards has consisted of war crimes against both Israeli and Gaza civilians) only 98 times.

Worse still—because far more explosive—was the distorted coverage on the BBC Arabic service whose output displayed 90% bias. Most shocking of all, across all its output the network repeatedly used journalists who had shown hostility to Israel, sympathy for Hamas or outright Jew-hatred.

Jonathan Tobin: Democracy suffers when the media can’t be trusted

Journalists fueling antisemitism
The ability of the left to dominate the national conversation undermines the long-held belief that journalists play a key role in the democratic process, by which the policies of any government can be held up to scrutiny and candidates can similarly expect to be held accountable. If mainstream journalists are only doing this to one side of the political divide while giving a pass to the other, especially when already in power, the public is given the impression that what we have is not a free press but a state media that can be expected to toe the party line in the same manner as authoritarian or totalitarian regimes.

The same process applies to the coverage of Israel and antisemitism. It is almost universally expected now that the Jewish state’s efforts to defend itself—even against the barbaric tactics of a genocidal Islamist terrorist group like Hamas and its tyrannical Iranian backers—will always be covered unfairly. In the past, most media bias against Israel was rooted in ignorance, sloppiness and the natural inclination of journalists to always tell a story from the side of the perceived underdog, which, despite the size and power of the forces arrayed against the one small Jewish nation on the planet, is the way the world views the Palestinian Arabs who seek to destroy it.

In recent years, it’s become clear that the problem with the coverage of Israel is more a matter of ideology than a lack of knowledge about the history of the conflict in the Middle East. Just as the left’s stranglehold on college faculties and administrations has created an atmosphere in which most professors and students believe the intersectional lie that Israel is an illegitimate “settler/colonial” state of “white” oppressors, the same is now true of the liberal media, most of whose personnel have already received the same indoctrination.

Andreas Malm and the green antisemitism

“The first thing we said in these early hours consisted not so much of words as of cries of jubilation. Those of us who have lived our lives with and through the question of Palestine could not react in any other way to the scenes of the resistance storming the Erez checkpoint: this maze of concrete towers and pens and surveillance systems, this consummate installation of guns and scans and cameras – certainly the most monstruous monument to the domination of another people I have ever been inside – all of a sudden in the hands of Palestinian fighters who had overpowered the occupation soldiers and torn down their flag. How could we not scream with astonishment and joy? Same with the scenes of Palestinians breaking through the fence and the wall and streaming into the lands from which they had been expelled[1]”.

These words, celebrating the destructive act of Hamas on October 7, 2023, are those of Andreas Malm, a researcher in human ecology at Lund University (Sweden). Andreas Malm, a Swedish citizen, is a favorite author of eco-Marxism and one of the most influential thinkers in political ecology. Let’s be clear: for anyone interested in environmental issues, Malm has become a must-read over the past decade. Malm is a rigorous researcher, one of the most visionary on climate change, one of the most creative, one of those who inspire the younger generation of activists, but also the not-so-young, often Marxist or revolutionary. In particular, he has helped to transform ecological thinking considerably because of his metahistorical and foundational approach to the global fossil economy; this sheds light on the economic responsibility of industries and empires in the destruction of environments[2]. Only, Malm, and a new generation of eco-activists with him, place “Israel”, in a dubious critical gesture, at the heart of climate science and environmentalist critique. In his books, and especially in his public statements after the October 7 massacre, Malm repeatedly describes Palestinians as double victims of the Hebrew state: on the one hand because of the occupation, on the other because of Israel’s role in the climate crisis. Why such sweeping generalizations from an otherwise fastidious researcher?

That the author, a Marxian, belongs to the camp of anti-Zionism whose affects are well identified[3], seems obvious, since the critique of Israel is part of the critique of the hegemony of the global North. But by linking “Zionism” and “the environment” and making Palestine the laboratory of climate resistance, a new field emerges: that of what we might call green anti-Zionism. What was the discursive modality behind this evolution? Here, we look at the argumentation behind it, while wondering whether a certain activist-oriented movement in political ecology isn’t in the process of acclimatizing to the prevailing anti-Israelism. Indeed, we need to grasp the content of Israel’s inclusion within the environmental question, for far from being an isolated event, it is indicative of the powerful extension movements of “anti-Zionism” and its updated form based on renewed paths.

09/12 Links Pt1: Harris' support for Palestinian state rewards terrorism; ICJ refuses SA delay; IDF names three Hamas-UNRWA terrorists killed in Gaza airstrike

From Ian:

Benjamin Weinthal: Harris' support for Palestinian state rewards terrorism, experts warn

Vice President Harris’ endorsement of a Palestinian state during and prior to her debate with former President Trump would further destabilize the Middle East and bring about additional terrorism, according to Israeli and American experts.

During Tuesday's presidential debate on ABC, the Democrat presidential candidate reiterated her support for a two-state solution: "I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates … to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel. But we must have a two-state solution where we can rebuild Gaza, where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve."

The two-state solution means an independent Palestinian state on Israel’s borders that encompasses the West Bank territory (known in Israel by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip. Biden faced intense criticism in February for ignoring the outbreak of Palestinian terrorism in Judea and Samaria while singling out Israeli residents of the region for sanctions.

Vice President Harris speaks during the presidential debate in Philadelphia on Sept. 10, 2024. (Doug Mills/New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, told Fox News Digital, "After Oct. 7th, the two-state became a dead letter. A Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan will destabilize both countries and bring only additional terror and misery."

Friedman, who authored the new book, "One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," added, "Vice President Harris should stop parroting failed theories and trying to force a square peg into a round hole. She should empower Israel to reach a just and workable solution on its own and not interfere in matters where she is neither competent nor well-informed."

In early September, Friedman blasted Biden on Fox News' "Your World" for creating rifts within Israeli society. Kamala Harris Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Vice President Harris at the White House on July 25, 2024. (Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu/via Getty Images)

Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for 24 years as a combat commander and spokesperson, told Fox News Digital, "The so-called two-state solution may have been possible to implement 31 years ago, but four straight Palestinian rejections of Israeli peace offers have made it clear that the current Palestinian leadership does not aspire to end the conflict and achieve peace. Palestinian rejectionism has also eroded the political support for the peace process in Israel, since it has become abundantly clear that the Palestinian leadership does not seek peace."

According to Conricus, "Polling of the Palestinian population in Gaza and Palestinian Authority-controlled areas shows clear popular Palestinian support for Hamas, signaling that the Palestinian population supports the genocidal vision of annihilating Israel through jihad, as demonstrated by Hamas on Oct. 7. Global leaders would do well to listen to the two parties to the conflict to understand how the situation has changed and adapt diplomatic solutions to current possibilities. And whatever the outcome of the Oct. 7 war that Hamas waged against Israel, giving Hamas the ultimate prize of statehood would be devastating for regional stability and peace and for American global standing. Terror must not be awarded with statehood."

Joel Rubin, former deputy assistant secretary of state and Democrat strategist, told Fox News Digital, "The two-state solution is on life support right now, but just because this is a difficult moment to envision a peaceful endgame between Israel and the Palestinians that’s rooted in diplomatic compromise, that does not mean it should not be the goal. After all, Israel fought multiple existential wars with Egypt and then, only years after the Yom Kippur War, concluded a peace deal that has held and provided Israel with deep security along its southern border for more than four decades. That is what a two-state solution is all about: Ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in a manner that provides stability and security for the long haul."

ICJ refuses SA request to delay date to submit evidence of alleged genocide in Gaza

The International Court of Justice in The Hague has refused South Africa's request to postpone the deadline to submit evidence showing the alleged genocide, Israeli media reported on Thursday.

‘State of Palestine’ takes seat in UN General Assembly despite lack of full membership

Palestinians took a seat among member states at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, a new right accorded to the Palestinian Authority’s delegation despite it not being a full member of the body.

In May, an overwhelming majority of the General Assembly asserted that Palestinians deserved full membership, a move that has been blocked by the United States, which along with Israel says recognition of Palestinian statehood must come through a peace agreement.

The General Assembly granted the delegation certain new rights in a resolution, which still excludes it from being able to vote or be a member of the Security Council.

Starting with the 79th General Assembly session, which began Tuesday, the Palestinians can submit proposals and amendments, and sit among member states.

The Palestinian Authority’s envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, took his place on Tuesday afternoon at a table marked “State of Palestine” between Sri Lanka and Sudan.

“This is not merely a procedural matter. This is a historic moment for us,” said Egyptian Ambassador Osama Mahmoud Abdelkhalek Mahmoud.

Just as during the resolution’s adoption, Israel denounced the move.

“Any decision and or action that improves the status of the Palestinians, either in the UN General Assembly or bilaterally, is currently a reward… for terrorism in general and the Hamas terrorists in particular,” said Jonathan Miller, deputy Israel ambassador to the United Nations.

Report: Gaza Not Starving, Just Won't Eat Because Full Of BS (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Gaza City, September 12 - Journalists and observers from international aid organizations revised their longtime dire assessment of the food situation in this war-torn territory today, replacing their characterization of it as "famine" with "actually there's plenty of food but no one has room for it because they're so full of s***."

Representatives of the World Food Programme, Oxfam, and other not-for-profit aid groups confirmed this morning that in fact malnutrition figures for the Gaza Strip have not exceeded pre-war levels in the eleven months since hostilities erupted in earnest last October 7 with a Hamas invasion and massacre in southern Israel. This lack of starvation persists despite alarm bells from the same organizations since October that Israel's blockade of the territory put 2.3 million Gaza residents at risk, with apocalyptic descriptions of the depravations ahead if Israel continued its operations there. Israel did continue its operations, making significant strides toward crushing the Hamas threat, even as the IDF facilitated the entry of hundreds of food and aid trucks per day. The NGOs continued to warn of imminent famine throughout the ensuing months - and have now issued a statement recognizing that the fear of starvation stemmed from Gaza residents abstaining from the food, not for lack of it, but for excess of BS permeating the Gaza ecosystem and their own bodies.

"It turns out Palestinians don't have much room for food because they've already swallowed so much horse***t," explained International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Wata Crock. "We never took that into account when we made our assessments over the last eleven months. It turns out that UNRWA, we at the Red Cross, the European Union, and various individual governments in Europe have been helping to shovel all that s*** down the throats of successive generations of Palestinians, with the largest fecal element the notion that Israel can or will be destroyed and it's better to focus on pursuing that goal than on creating something positive for themselves as refugees always have."

"That doesn't leave much room for food no matter how much is delivered," she noted.

The NGOs assured inquirers that the discovery will not change the way they discuss Gaza. "The facts aren't the point," stated an irritated Amnesty International representative. "You still think we care about facts? We have an agenda, and a narrative that serves that agenda. Now are you going to pick up that spoon full of crap and eat it, or do I have to force it into you?"

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Elder's First Rule of Palestinian Projection still holds up

In 2007, I formulated Elder's First Rule of Arab Projection, saying that whenever Arabs accuse Israel of doing some crime, they are doing that exact crime, usually on a far grander scale than their accusations.

Since then we have the Abraham Accords, so I cannot generalize this to all Arabs, but the rule still applies to Palestinians perfectly.

A quick summary of accusations against Israel since I formulated that rule:

They claim Jews celebrate Palestinian deaths - while they openly cheer every Jewish civilian death.

They claim Israel practices "apartheid" - while they say they will not accept a single Israeli on their land.

They call Israel "Nazi"- while they consider the Nazi-collaborating founder of Palestinian nationalism, the Mufti of Jerusalem, a hero.

They say Israel is trying to turn it into a religious conflict - while they quote the Quran to prove Jews are liars and cheaters.

They claim Israelis are ethnonationalist - while their own constitution defines "Palestine" as exclusively Arab.

They say Israel is the obstacle to peace - while they have rejected every single peace plan.

They claim they want a ceasefire in Gaza - while they fully support Hamas' desire to destroy Israel.

They call Israel a "terror state" - while every Palestinian political party has a "military" (i.e., terrorist) wing.

They claim that Israel is guilty of "genocide" - when polls show Palestinians overwhelmingly support October 7 massacres targeting civilians.

Every single thing they accuse Israelis and Jews of is a projection of what they do or what they aspire to doing.

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The polio vaccine campaign in Gaza shows the UN is closely cooperating with Hamas

Here is a photo of a nurse in Gaza giving the oral polio vaccine to a baby during this week's vaccination campaign.

The poster behind the child includes the logos of UNICEF, UNRWA, the World Health Organization - and the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

Here's another poster inviting the media to cover the polio vaccine campaign showing all four logos more clearly.

The vaccination campaign is certainly important, and in all probability it would not be as successful without UN cooperation with Gaza hospitals that report to the Gaza health ministry. But this shows how deeply embedded Hamas is in every aspect of Gaza, and how the UN and NGOs are completely dependent on doing only what Hamas allows them to do, and how they only have access to data that Hamas allows them to have.

As we have shown numerous times, the Gaza health ministry publishes casualty and injury numbers that come not from their own counts but from Hamas' propaganda "media office." They paper over the differences between the two by saying that some 10,000 deaths have "incomplete data."

This campaign shows again that the UN organizations like WHO and UNICEF depend on Hamas to do anything in Gaza, even today. And Hamas controls all the information they are given.

This explains why the number of deaths from starvation are so out of whack with the estimates expected by NGOs. If Hamas controls all the information - and it does - they can exaggerate the number of families who they claim cannot get food, a critical statistic in determining whether there is a famine.

Gazans are still, by and large, still frightened of Hamas and unwilling to deviate from the official Hamas line when talking to outsiders. This mentality permeates all of Gaza. Hamas prioritizes its propaganda as a crucial part of its military strategy. This basic fact remains almost unmentioned in the media.

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Al Jazeera reports:

Jordan’s Islamist opposition party has topped the country’s parliamentary elections but fell short of securing a majority, according to official election results.

The Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, won 31 out of 138 seats in the Parliament of Jordan, tripling its representation in the House of Representatives, the country’s election commission announced on Wednesday.

As concerning as that is, it downplays the real story: more than half of Jordanians voted for the Muslim Brotherhood aligned party, according to Roya TV (table by Wikipedia):


Party		Votes	%
	Islamic Action Front	464,350	56.24
	Charter Party	93,688	11.35
	National Islamic	87,708	10.62
	Will Party	68,506	8.30
	Progress Party	61,206	7.41
	Blessed Land	50,258	6.09
Total		825,716	100.00

Registered voters/turnout		1,638,351	–
Source: Roya TV^[8]

If you add the votes for the National Islamic party, that means fully two thirds of Jordanian voters - 67% - voted for Islamist parties.

The Islamic Action Front did not receive a majority of seats in the parliament due to other rules that limit certain seats to women and minorities, but if this was a truly representational election, the parliament would now be solidly controlled by pro-Hamas Islamists.

Now, Jordan is not a democracy and the king holds most of the power. Even so, this shows how strong the Islamist parties are in Jordan.

Jordan is only a bullet away from becoming an ISIS/Hamas style hellhole. I do not see any plan from Western democracies to stop something like this from happening.

Israel is the bulwark against the entire region descending into becoming ISIS.

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Here is the question about Israel during the presidential debate Tuesday night:

LINSEY DAVIS: Turning now to the Israel-Hamas war and the hostages who are still being held, Americans among them. Vice President Harris, in December you said, "Israel has a right to defend itself" but you added, "It matters how." Saying international humanitarian law must be respected, Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians. You said that nine months ago. Now an estimated 40,000 Palestinians are dead. Nearly 100 hostages remain. Just last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there's not a deal in the making. President Biden has not been able to break through the stalemate. How would you do it?

The question implies that Israel is not adhering to international humanitarian law. It is, and every expert that visits Israel and checks out the conduct of the IDF testifies to that, including an article published Wednesday in The Times of London.

Beyond that problem, who, exactly, "estimated" 40,000 Palestinians killed? The answer is - Hamas. Not only did Davis use the figure as if it is factual, but she also implied that most or all of those killedwere civilians.

Kamala harris' answer was rehearsed and consistent with how the Democratic Party, the EU and now the UK look at Israel. And it is more problematic than the question was.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, let's understand how we got here. On Oct. 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis. Many of them young people who were simply attending a concert. Women were horribly raped. And so absolutely, I said then, I say now, Israel has a right to defend itself. We would.

So far, so good. But not for long.

And how it does so matters. Because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Children, mothers.

What we know is that this war must end. It must end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a cease-fire deal and we need the hostages out. And so we will continue to work around the clock on that.

Harris didn't say that Hamas must be utterly defeated, or that its leadership must leave Gaza. Any talk about ending the war and leaving Hamas in place is immoral.

Work around the clock also understanding that we must chart a course for a two-state solution. And in that solution, there must be security for the Israeli people in Israel and in equal measure for the Palestinians.

The two state idea is a solution in search of a problem. It wouldn't solve a thing. Palestinians have made it abundantly clear for decades that they consider any territorial gains to be spaces from which they will demand more. Three decades after Oslo, their official logos and schoolbooks still do not recognize Israel.

Talking about a Palestinian state after 10/7 is far worse. It is irresponsible, because the message being given is that terror must be rewarded.

In 2013, the Obama administration presented a framework for peace. Netanyahu accepted it, Abbas rejected it. The US sweetened the deal behind Israel's back, offering a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem - and still Abbas didn't accept it.

What has changed since then? Has the PA shown more flexibility? Has it shown it rejects terror?

Not at all. It still names schools and monuments after terrorists, it still teaches incitement to children, and the vast majority of Palestinians supported the October 7 massacres.

Kamala Harris wants to reward this by adding pressure to Israel to accept a Palestinian state where they can invite Iran or Syria or Turkey to build military bases.

A real leader would say that the two state solution is off the table without significant Palestinian movement towards peace. The Palestinians' embrace of 10/7 must not be rewarded.

But the one thing I will assure you always, I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.

The US policy has been to help Israel defend itself, but it is not keen on Israel winning any wars. A nation that is behind fences and always worried about where the nect attack can come from is not a secure country, no matter how good its defense is.

If Harris was serious about supporting Israel, she would say she supports an Israeli victory - not another detente with terror groups that led to October 7 to begin with.

But we must have a two-state solution where we can rebuild Gaza, where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve.

Palestinians have done nothing to indicate they are ready for real peace with Israel. A Palestinian state with the daily incitement and cheering of terror would not bring peace, but more attacks. We've seen it time and time again - suicide attacks during Oslo, an enthusiastic second intifada, followed by Mahmoud Abbas inciting more violence resulting in car rammings, stabbings, rockets and Islamist militias openly organizing in the West Bank under PA rule.

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