Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, September 15, 2024

09/15 Links: The Falsehoods and Culpable Demonisation Office; Deradicalizing Gaza; How Hamas Uses Brutality to Maintain Power

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Falsehoods and Culpable Demonisation Office

The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, intoned: “Israel’s actions in Gaza continue to lead to immense loss of civilian life, widespread destruction to civilian infrastructure, and immense suffering”.

An American diplomatic official complained to The Times about the “relentlessness and ferocity” of Israel’s war and said it was a “head-scratcher” why Israel thought “this scorched-earth policy” was the best way to fight its enemies.

This was all drivel. If Israel’s war had really been “ferocious” and “scorched- earth”, the population of Gaza would have been decimated. Instead, the IDF has been regularly moving the entire population out of harm’s way — while Hamas has been using those civilians as cannon fodder and human shields.

The only people claiming “immense loss of civilian life” are Hamas, its UN patsies and other fellow-travellers. The number of civilians killed in Gaza according to Hamas statistics is ludicrous, since not one terrorist is acknowledged among the total. Given the number of terrorists whom Israel says it has killed in this war, the ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Gaza is unprecedentedly low and a fraction of the proportion of civilians killed in British and American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course, this hallucinatory anti-Israel derangement is now widespread. But how does one explain its grip amongst officials in government departments that actually deal daily with foreign affairs?

The British foreign service has a history of vicious opposition to the Jewish homeland, going back to the Palestine Mandate in the 1920s. Foreign Office diplomats were entranced by an entirely romantic view of the Arab world combined with an entirely cynical estimation of its value to British interests.

This older “camel corps” has been superseded by a new breed of Israel-hating officials, the “progressive” leftists who subscribe to the brain-dead myth that Israel is a colonialist interloper that has oppressed the “indigenous” Palestinians and deprived them of a state of their own.

Precisely because they specialise in world affairs, western diplomats are the supreme worshippers at the shrine of universalism, the doctrine that fetishises transnational courts where international law has been turned into a weapon of Israel’s destruction.

In addition, the one-time intellectual powerhouse of the Foreign Office has become dismayingly dumbed down. In the London Review of Books in 2016, a despairing letter from a former Foreign Office official lamented that, from 2007 onwards, it had become a “hollowed-out shell”, with “a cult of managerialism that seemed to regard foreign policy as an inconvenient side-issue” — and was now known to the general public only for its travel advice.

It was bad enough under the (mostly) Israel-friendly Conservatives. Now that Israel-bashing Labour is in the government stables, Foreign Office bigotry is free to gallop out of control.

BHL: "I Cannot Let People Say that Israel Is Targeting Civilians, because That Is Wrong"

Bernard-Henri Levy interviewed by Celia Walden
French philosopher, war reporter and documentary-maker Bernard-Henri Levy described the scene at what was left of Kibbutz Kfar Aza in Israel on Oct. 10. "The bodies of the victims had been buried by that point, but there were still pieces of bodies that hadn't been assigned yet. They were stacked in a corner of a vegetable shed that was being used to house unidentified body parts. And that image? There is not a day or a night when I do not see it in my head. It follows me around constantly."

We're speaking on Zoom. For the past year, he has been living in an undisclosed location under very heavy police protection, after intelligence officials discovered that the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had paid an Iranian drug dealer $150,000 to assassinate Levy, who has been critical of the country's leadership.

He says that after Oct. 7, "there's a realization not just that things will never be the same again, but that things were not what we thought they were before....Hours after the attack, there were...actual, veritable explosions of joy. Professors at U.S. universities with huge online followings recorded and broadcast messages of absolute joy. This, when the bodies of the dead had not even all been buried." He points out that even many of those who did offer early support began to fall away within the ensuing weeks and months.

Asked if he still believes Israel's response has been just, he doesn't have to think about it for a second: "Yes. I still don't think the response has been disproportionate." When filming the liberation of Mosul in 2016, he says, "I saw what indiscriminate hits looked like, what the desire to destroy a place from top to toe looks like, and let me tell you: that is not what is happening in Gaza."

He also stands by the assertion that Israel "has done everything to avoid civilian casualties....I've been covering wars for 40 years, and it's the first time in my life that I've ever seen an army open up a corridor every day between 6 a.m. and noon in order to warn civilians that they are going to hit an area where they are. The Israeli army is the first army in the world that I have seen say: 'We're going to hit here - please move'."

"I cannot let people say that the hits are indiscriminate and targeting civilians, because that is wrong. And I cannot allow it to be said that there has been a genocide, because that is wrong."

Deradicalizing Gaza

After World War II, there was no postwar insurgency. After the Nazis and imperial Japanese surrendered, groups of disaffected soldiers did not lead violent campaigns to restore the defeated regimes. The occupations of Germany and Japan were peaceful. Both countries became reliable American allies. Hundreds of thousands of the defeated regimes' supporters - including senior officials, including war criminals - escaped serious punishment, rejoined society, and sometimes gained political influence. And still the peace was kept. How did the populations that had supported and fought for the Axis regimes get moderated?

Politically speaking, ideas can certainly be destroyed, just as they can be weakened, or die peacefully, or be resurrected. Imperialism was destroyed in Japan. Baathism was destroyed in Iraq. Communism died (without war) in Russia. Nazism was destroyed in Germany. Hamas's bellicose Islamism might be destroyed in Gaza, not necessarily because Gazans stop believing, deep down, that Hamas has noble ideals. Rather, because Hamas's ideals are deprived of the instruments of political power - armed militants.

Military losses and urban destruction can improve political cultures. Populations can abandon the aims that motivated them very recently to support aggressive wars and the regimes that start them. Deradicalization begins as civilians are persuaded of the futility and costliness of the aims of those who rule them. The German and Japanese peoples lost their homes, their streets, and their comfort, brought on by their regimes' failed wars. Military defeats showed the Axis projects to be futile. In great measure, the German and Japanese peoples were deradicalized by the war itself.

Since Oct. 7, Israel has undertaken a war of Palestinian regime change and is doing a remarkable job given its political constraints. Hamas's Gaza leadership is hiding or dead. The majority of Hamas battalions have disintegrated into gangs. More than 17,000 fighters have been killed. Israel's current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule - it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace.

A noteworthy obstacle to moderate Palestinian governance is the lack of much precedent for it. For a hundred years, Palestinians have been led either by out-and-out Islamists like Hajj Amin al-Husseini - a wartime guest of the Third Reich - and like Hamas, or by better-marketed militants like Palestinian Authority chiefs Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Palestinian leaders have shared certain broad commitments: to brutalizing their domestic opponents and to terrorizing Jews.

A long-term Israeli military presence will be needed to protect non-Hamas Palestinian leaders after main hostilities calm down. The Palestinians are now suffering as never before for their leaders' viciousness. The leaders themselves are in dire condition, with more killed every week. The Hamas movement looks like a losing, destructive, and pathetic cause. Palestinians know it, more or more each day.

The Emir of Trans-Jordan planned to sell his own land to Jewish settlers in 1933, rescinded offer after Arab threats

The New York Times, January 18, 1933, reported that Emir Abdullah of Trans-Jordan (later to become King Abdullah I) offered to lease 17,500 acres of fertile land in the Jordan Valley to the Jewish National Fund - on the east bank of the Jordan river.

The land was given to the Emir by the British. Abdullah hoped to have the Jews help develop his country economically and he promised to protect them personally.

The antisemitic Mufti of Jerusalem went nuts, and threatened the Emir, scuttling the deal. From JTA, January 26, 1933:

Submitting to the pressure of the Palestine government and Arab leaders, Emir Abdullah today announced the cancellation of the agreement to lease 70,000 dunams of his personal domain for Jewish settlement, the reports of which have been agitating Jewish and Arab circles for the past fortnight.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el Husseini, is believed to have played an important role in bringing about the cancellation of the lease as the Emir’s action follows on the heels of the Grand Mufti’s visit to him in Amman yesterday.

E### Abdullah’s cancellation of the lease is in line with the demands of Arab nationalists in Palestine, Syria, and Iraq, who have threatened him with reprisals. The Istiklal, Arab Independent Party, had threatened to overthrow him unless the agreement with the Jews were rescinded.

The difficult economic situation in Transjordan was the reason given for Emir Abdullah’s lease of his land.

Since the dawn of Zionism, brave Arabs have knows that it makes sense to cooperate with the Jews and that together they can prosper. But the number of Arabs brave enough to deal with the majority of people who are antisemitic is diminishingly small - the Abraham Accords is the example that proves the rule.

When it comes down to it, the same "shame" approach to bully leaders into treating Jews as pariahs is happening today, among members of the so-called "progressive" movement.

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 worthy IDF commander (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

"Every Hebrew mother must know she entrusted the fate of her sons to worthy commanders"

Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter isn’t 10 feet tall or made of steel. He is a man who, if he told you to walk through fire, you’d do it - because he’d go first and show you how it’s done.

Winter became a household name in Israel while serving as the commander of the Givati Reconnaissance Battalion during Operation Protective Edge (2014) when he invoked God before battle in a letter to his soldiers. This is part of what he wrote:

“A great privilege has befallen us to command and serve in the Givati Brigade at this time. History has chosen us to be at the forefront of the struggle against the 'Gazan' terrorist enemy who defies, curses, and reviles the God of Israel’s Armies. We will act together with determination and strength, initiative and strategy, and we will strive to engage with the enemy. I trust you, each and every one of you, that you will act in this spirit, the spirit of Israeli fighters who lead the way for the camp. 'The spirit that is called Givati.'

I lift my eyes to the heavens and call out with you, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.' May the God of Israel grant us success in our ways, as we go forth to fight for your people Israel against the enemy that insults Your name. In the name of the IDF fighters, and particularly the fighters of the brigade and the commanders.

May the scripture be fulfilled in us that is written: 'For the Lord your God is the One who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.' And we say, Amen.

Together, and only together, we will prevail."

The full text of his letter

Certain elements in Israeli society objected vehemently to framing the war as a battle between “the Gazan enemy who reviles the God of Israel’s Armies”. Many of Israel’s elites, including the highest-ranking officers in the IDF, insisted that Israel is not in a religious war, certainly not with all of Gaza, and loudly demanded that God not be made a part of it.

That was the point when the Israeli public began to have an inkling that there is something wrong with the highest levels of the IDF.

Ignoring the uproar, Winter led his men in battle with courage and determination, as he’d done for the last three decades, and returned, reporting of prayers answered in battle.

No wonder the elites of the IDF pushed him out.

In the aftermath of the Hamas invasion, it was shocking to learn that the man widely regarded as an exceptional commander, with an illustrious career, who knows how to win, was considered “unfit” for promotion. The leaders responsible for our security when Gaza invaded, had no position for Winter.

Shocking but perhaps not surprising. Hellenists fear Maccabees. Jewish strength, under the auspices of God, doesn’t mesh with the mindset of those who desire the auspices of America or NATO. Today the divide is most obvious between the field ranks in the IDF, soldiers who witnessed the carnage and are fighting for the honor of sisters defiled, brothers slaughtered, and hostages who must be brought home versus the high-ranking officers, those currently serving and retired officers who have become politicians and news “analysts” – the elites of Israeli society who instinctively adhere to the American Don’t and have convinced themselves that victory isn’t something tangible.

Last week, I was at a conference, in a crowd of people who understand the necessity of victory. We listened to several prominent, intelligent speakers discuss the state of our nation, one year after the invasion. Although Israelis tend to be cynical and rarely get excited about specific individuals when Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter walked into the room there were hushed whispers of anticipation. He came quietly, with no fanfare, and sat, waiting his turn to speak.

When he walked to the podium the crowd broke out into enthusiastic, appreciative applause. So much so that this warrior turned red in embarrassment.

Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter is astonishingly humble. He explained that he never saw the military as a career, for him it was only about service. He wasn’t there for the title, ranks, or glory. He wanted to protect the nation and bring his soldiers home safely.

He proceeded to give a breathtaking speech (that Hebrew speakers can hear here – note some of the applause has been cut out of this clip).

Winter pointed out that as Jews, we have the concept of peace deeply ingrained in us. The word peace appears repeatedly in the prayers said three times a day, every day. It’s the word we use in Hebrew for both hello and goodbye. Someone else pointed out that the blessing after meals ends with a request for God to give us courage and bless us with peace. Courage comes before peace.

And that is what Winter wanted to say - peace is part of our Jewish DNA, so much so that we melt a little when anyone offers peace and yet we must understand that in the Middle East, these offerings are false. There is no peace, only a truce accepted when weak, to allow for time to gain strength and destroy the other party later on. To be safe we must fight.

He spoke about his experiences on October 7th, highlighting the individual heroes who saved the Nation (with no focus on what he did that day). He discussed the concept of responsibility, the necessity for unity to win, and faith that while things look very bleak now, he doesn’t believe that God would keep the Nation of Israel for thousands of years, bring us back to our ancestral homeland, only to allow us to be destroyed.

He says that it doesn’t matter how he was treated by the system. What matters is that now, all the IDF units, the field soldiers, and their direct commanders invoke God before entering Gaza.

He made everyone stronger with his words. We all saw that he means what he says and lives what he believes, and he does it with strength and gentleness, courage and humility.

Afterward, I went to thank him.

I told him: “You said you aren’t used to applause but, you see, we don’t have any other way to thank you.”

He turned red again and said “I know”, trying to avoid more compliments but I hadn’t finished.

“I want to explain what people are thanking you for. You see, we were always told "Every Hebrew mother must know that she has entrusted the fate of her sons to commanders who are worthy of it." (a saying that has been part of the IDF ethos since Ben Gurion). We all thought that that was what we were doing. On October 7th we learned that not all commanders are worthy of that trust and a national ideal was shattered. That hurts a lot. But then there is you.”

Listening quietly and thinking deeply about my words, his eyes filled with tears.

I continued: “You show us that the ideal we always had DOES exist. And you provide a role model so that our sons can know what a commander is supposed to be like. THAT is what we are thanking you for. Thank you.”

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!

Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia spreads absurd anti-Israel libel about an "IDF patch for Greater Israel"

Chas W. Freeman Jr. is a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and an energetic hater of Israel.

I saw in an Arabic website that Freeman claimed that "Ultimately, Israel has a goal not only to empty Palestine of Palestinians, but also to dominate its region." He added that there is a military badge worn by some people in the Israeli Defense Forces "showing Greater Israel , which includes parts of Egypt , northern Saudi Arabia , all of Jordan , Syria, Lebanon, and even the Euphrates in Iraq, that is, parts of Iraq."

I could not find this specific interview, but I saw where Freeman made the claim about the "military badge" on a mailing list on June 19:

He is claiming that IDF soldiers publicly display a map of "greater Israel" showing their goal to conquer all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates, with the Hebrew phrase "The Promised Land of Israel."

Where did he find this photo?

It was first tweeted by anti-Israel journalist Motasem A Dalloul (profile: "Follow me to help me expose #IsraeliCrimes and #GazaGenocide") on June 16. He gave no source as to where he found this. It spread, using a lot of fake accounts, and then was then picked up by a Jordanian site Roya News where it went viral.

There is no evidence of such a patch on sale, or any photos of it before this date. Ryan McBeth, an open source intel analyst, did some research on it and found (among other things) that IDF policy does not allow any unauthorized patches on uniforms. However, I have seen at least one soldier wear a "Moshiach" patch so I don't know how well this is enforced. (And the Moshiach patch, which can be found online, might even be authorized.)

From my own perspective, the fact that the image uses a green-tinged grey scale indicates to me that it was easier for someone to Photoshop a grey scale image - color is much more difficult. The "Greater Israel" patch is also much brighter than the Israeli flag patch,

In short, the only source for this image is highly suspect. No Gazan could have taken that photo and no Israeli source can be found for it. One can be certain that if soldiers were wearing such patches, Haaretz and +972 would be reporting it.

McBeth rates the chances of this being a legitimate image as "highly unlikely" and based on the pattern of social media spreading it in the three days between the initial post and Freeman's post, that it is likely part of a disinformation campaign.

This story is about as credible as the Arab insistence (that Yasir Arafat spread) that the two blue lines on the Israeli flag represent the Nile and the Euphrates.

Freeman did not do any research. He saw the post and immediately assumed it is legitimate.

Because that's how antisemites think - they work backwards from their pre-existing hate to make any "evidence" fit the crime.

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!

Last week the Toronto Blue Jays gave the ceremonial first pitch to 97-year old Holocaust survivor Irene Kurtz. Here's the video, courtesy Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center:

A heartwarming story, right?

Not entirely. Because antisemites started attacking Kurtz online.

And not just the right-wing neo-Nazi types, but self-styled "progressive anti-Zionists."

Absolutely disgusting that they had a Israeli with a state of Israel committing genocide against the Palestinians open up for the Blue Jays

Does she support genocide though?

Well then she should be an expert on the Holocaust Israel is committing now.

A genocide does not justify another genocide. Fuck you Zionists

The resilience to colonize a country, kill off and drive out its inhabitants, institute an apartheid regime and finish it off with a genocide. The Zionist movement is one of the most criminal movements of the last 100 years.

She must've thrown a 6,000,000 miles per hour pitch 😳

hopefully the blue jays lose, and the genocidal state of israel is dismantled like nazi germany 🍾

Disgusting to support a country of r@pists and ped@s

My grandpa had his foreskin turned into a lampshade in the holocaust 😞

People like Irene are still alive today, they live in Palestine and are victims of a genocide by Israel

I understand that one cannot generalize from social media idiots. But the evidence of true antisemitism from people who claim to be "pro-Palestinians" or "anti-Zionist" or "progressive" is so overwhelming, one would think that these people who claim they hate antisemitism along with all types of racism and bigotry would loudly denounce the Jew-hatred from their allies, wouldn't you?

But there is no pushback. No criticism. Only silence.

In this case, the anti-Zionists and the proud antisemites share the same space, post the same bile, and are indistinguishable from each other.

As much as the "progressive" side claims that they are motivated by morality and a genuine concern for human life, their viciousness is easily recognizable as being old-fashioned hatred of Jews. The ceremony wasn't celebrating Israel but a Jewish survivor of genocide. And left-wing antisemites are no less tolerant of anything that makes Jews appear sympathetic than neo-Nazi antisemites are.

The Nazis of the 1930s put their antisemitism in moral terms as well, claiming that Jews must be removed because they were a threat to the purity of the Aryan race. Todays' anti-Zionist arguments are just as meritless - and just as based on hate - as the Nazis were.

And it is getting worse every day.

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!

09/14 Links: What real White House pressure on Hamas would look like; Life Under Iran’s Tyrannical Proxies; As usual, J Street is missing in action

From Ian:

Natan Sharansky: Jews may feel abandoned but good people will step up — as they did for me in the gulag

Having spent nine years in the gulag, I know something about loneliness.

Back then, locked up in a Soviet prison, I was for years denied the company of other human beings.

It was absolutely forbidden for us to communicate with prisoners in other cells, a prohibition we skirted by inventing risky and creative methods to speak to each other, from tapping Morse code on the walls to shouting into our toilets and hoping our voices carried through the pipes.

But despite these draconian measures, I was never really alone: Out there, I knew, were my people and my country, Israel.

I knew there was a great big country, America, where free people lived, and a president, Ronald Reagan, who wasn’t afraid to look at the Soviet Union and call it precisely what it was — an evil empire.

And as long as there were principled people in the world willing to fight for what they believed, I knew that there was no reason for despair.

I am, thank God, a free man now, living happily in the Jewish state of which I dreamed for so long.

And yet, these days, witnessing the very same Western world I once regarded with such admiration cheer for the murderous marauders of Hamas, I — like Israel — feel more lonely than I have felt in a very long time.

My friend, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, captured this feeling eloquently in his new book, which he sadly and wisely called “Israel Alone.”

Like me, Lévy asked himself how it could be that American universities, say, once bastions of the free and unfettered exchange of ideas, are now awash with young men and women who wave the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah and readily repeat antisemitic lies without sense or compassion.

Or how it could be that the United Nations, formed to help curb violence and aggression and promote justice and well-being to all, now watches its employees take part in deadly pogroms against Jews.

Or how it could be that world leaders, themselves facing the challenge of grappling with homicidal Islamism, fail to support Israel as it stands up to the very same benighted forces.

Contemplating these questions and so many more, it’s tempting to feel, well, alone.

It’s tempting to abandon hope and argue that there’s little hope of Western civilization surviving this onslaught.

Seth Mandel: Life Under Iran’s Tyrannical Proxies

Everything in Gaza is touched by Hamas. If aid convoys want their humanitarian aid to get to anyone, they first “must coordinate their efforts with local Hamas leaders.” Hamas has been known to shoot “looters,” but that can apply to any non-Hamas-affiliated Palestinian disbursing aid.

Beyond that, the story notes plainly Hamas’s strategy of firing at Israeli troops from civilian homes, hiding hostages among civilian neighborhoods, freely using “humanitarian” zones in a bid to draw Israeli fire, and pockmarking residential blocks with entrances to terror tunnels inside private homes.

Yes, we already knew that, but the scale of the tunnel system is a reminder that during peacetime, when Hamasniks aren’t using your house as a rocket launching pad, they might commandeer it to drill a tunnel through your kid’s bedroom floor.

“There’s no such thing as being outside residential areas in Gaza,” senior Hamas official Husam Badran told the Times. “These pretexts, primarily made by the Israeli occupation army, are meaningless.”

While there doesn’t seem to be anything in the region quite as miserable as life under Hamas, Lebanese civilians aren’t having much of a picnic these days thanks to Hezbollah. In South Lebanon, during wartime, civilians face many similar challenges from Hezbollah that Gazans do from Hamas: namely, the terror groups’ raison d’etre is to kill and be killed. So they fire in order to draw fire.

But even during lulls in the conflict, parts of the country, including Beirut, appear to be somewhat frozen in place. That is largely because Iran has promised retaliation on Israel for Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s political leader in Tehran this summer. Everyone knows Hezbollah is Iran’s chosen tool to deliver that retaliation, so airlines have been canceling service to and from Beirut, according to reporting from last month in the Times. Five weeks later, we’re still waiting for the retaliation.

Hezbollah has so fully conquered South Lebanon that the Lebanese army apparently won’t allow journalists into the area without approval from “the group.” Many residents have fled from “Hezbollah and their war,” as one civilian put it—a mirror reflection of northern Israel, which has seen the prolonged displacement of entire towns because of Hezbollah and its war.

This is life under the thumb of the “revolutionary liberation” movements that are essentially Iranian colonies living under tyranny not merely supported by Tehran but enabled by the West, sometimes with money and sometimes with the kind of diplomatic cowardice we are witnessing from Washington and from the capitals of Europe, who don’t consider defeating their enemies a particularly high priority at this time.

Democratic terrorism: Jamal Khashoggi's vision of political Islam

Upon his election, Biden proceeded to make Khashoggi a human rights cause célèbre, releasing a CIA report that placed the blame for his murder firmly upon the Saudi monarchy. He repeatedly recalled the affair, including in a 2022 one-on-one meeting in Riyadh with Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), as a glaring example of the dismal Saudi record on human rights and political freedom.

Throughout the prolonged saga, one issue went almost entirely unaddressed in the international media: What ideals did Khashoggi believe in? Was this dissident in a self-imposed exile in the United States for his profound commitment to democracy and civil liberties? Was he a Saudi Alexei Navalny assassinated by ruthless autocrats merely for his love of freedom?

In short: Yes, Khashoggi advocated for democracy in the Middle East, but of a very specific kind.

IN THE months leading up to his death, he was in the process of launching an organization later known as DAWN – Democracy for the Arab World Now, working in close collaboration with Palestinian-American Nihad Awad, executive director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and currently a board member of DAWN.

CAIR is a powerful US Muslim advocacy group long known for its sympathies – and the denial of them – for Global Muslim Brotherhood (GMB) organizations in the West and in Muslim countries, including murky links to terrorists and terror funding that garnered public attention during the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trials and the conviction of CAIR affiliate Ghassan Elashi.

Awad was among the participants in the 1993 Philadelphia Meeting: A Roadmap for Future Muslim Brotherhood Actions in the US – a three-day summit in which ways to sabotage the Oslo Accords and enhance fundraising for Hamas in the US were discussed.

Post-Oct. 7, at a speaking event in Chicago, Awad applauded the Hamas massacre as a paragon of Islamic justice and faith, stating that “The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege – the walls of the concentration camp – on October 7... Yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege... And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense... Gaza transformed many minds around the world, including people who are not Muslim. What kind of faith do these people have? They are thankful, they are not afraid.”

These remarks drew fierce condemnation from the Biden administration and led to Awad’s disinvitation from all his government-related functions, severing ties that had grown dramatically under the Obama administration.

HAMAS IS the Palestinian chapter of the GMB.

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!