Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, November 09, 2024

11/09 Links: Hostage families rally to mark 400 days since Hamas attack; Iran wants war with the United States; Amsterdam Pogrom Is the Quintessence of Anti-Zionism

From Ian:

‘Why is they still in Gaza?’: Protesters in Tel Aviv mark 400 days since October 7

Hundreds gathered outside the IDF’s Tel Aviv headquarters on Saturday evening for the weekly protest demanding a hostage deal, as many of the captives’ families leading the demonstration marked 400 days since their loved ones were abducted.

The crowd appeared slightly larger than in recent weeks. This weekend’s rally on Begin Road was the first since the major one that spontaneously unfolded on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was considered a proponent for a hostage deal.

While weekly protests earlier on in the war attracted thousands, Home Front Command restrictions put in place in September cap such gatherings at 2,000 people.

A massive sign reading “Why are they still in Gaza? 400 days” hung from the pedestrian overpass down to street level, while big white cardboard letters on the street spelled out: “400 days — the shame of Netanyahu.”

Though overtly partisan politics are usually absent from the Begin Street protest, the youth wing of the opposition Yesh Atid party set up an informational stand by the demonstration.

A block away, some 500 people assembled at Hostages Square for the main weekly rally organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

With a band of mothers clad in white, Niva Wenkert, the mother of hostage Omer Wenkert, kicked off the rally with a call to join “Shift 101,” a silent protest group. Demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip outside protest in Tel Aviv, November 9, 2024. (Itai Ron/Flash90)

After Wenkert, actor Lior Ashkenazi, the regular MC at the forum’s rallies, spoke against the government’s politicking at home while the captives have languished in Gaza. He noted that Saturday’s rally fell on the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, drawing a direct line between the Nazi pogrom and Hamas’s actions on October 7, 2023.

Steffen Seibert, Germany’s ambassador to Israel, also spoke at the rally, saying in Hebrew that for some Israeli politicians, “the fate of the hostages is just one of the [war’s] aims, and certainly not the primary one” — a not so subtle shot at members of Netanyahu’s hardline government.

Seibert added that he was speaking “as the representative of Germany and out of responsibility” to hostages with German citizenship. “I must admit that until now, we have failed to bring everyone home. All the talks with those who have influence on Hamas” have failed to materialize.

Naming hostages who have German citizenship or are related to German citizens, Seibert said: “These are Germans, or family members of Germans, and we want them back.”

Families of four pairs of sibling hostages held in Gaza mark 400 days of captivity

Sylvia Cunio doesn’t live in Kibbutz Nir Oz right now, but when she visits, she has only one wish: To go to Gaza and find her two sons who were taken hostage last October 7.

“I was in Nir Oz the other week and I said to my friends, to my family, ‘Let’s go to Gaza, let’s go, let’s go get them,'” she said. “I just want to go to Gaza and bring them out myself.”

The Cunios are part of a distinct circle within the broader group of hostage families — those awaiting the return of two siblings held by Hamas in Gaza.

Many sets of siblings were taken hostage on October 7, but only four pairs are left in the enclave, with their families bereft and anxious about the future of their loved ones: David and Ariel Cunio, Eli and Yossi Sharabi, Iair and Eitan Horn and twins Gali and Ziv Berman.

Sylvia’s sons David Cunio, 34, and Ariel Cunio, 27, were each taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz. David was taken with his wife, Sharon and their three-year-old twins, along with Sharon’s sister Danielle and niece Emilia who were visiting Nir Oz that weekend. Ariel was taken hostage with his girlfriend, Arbel Yehud.

On November 27, sisters Sharon and Danielle and their three young children were all released home to Israel under the week-long truce. David was left behind, injured, rail thin and terrified, as described by his wife, Sharon, who was aghast at the idea of leaving him behind in Gaza.

Ariel and Arbel are also still held in Gaza. Sylvia Cunio, far left, with her husband, Louis, and three of her four sons, Ariel, (third from left), David and Eitan; Ariel and David were taken hostage to Gaza on October 7, 2023 (Courtesy)

“I have hope and that’s the last thing I’ll lose,” Sylvia said. “But I won’t believe they’re coming back until I see them with my own eyes, next to me, and hug them, smell them and cook for them.”

Noa Argamani on Instagram: 'The abandonment continues'

Noa Argamani, who was rescued from Hamas captivity in Operation Arnon, posted an Instagram story marking 400 days since October 7, 2023.

''I don't even know how to describe to you the frustration I experienced while still in Hamas captivity. Another day passes and another day passes amid complete uncertainty wrapped in despair,'' she wrote.

Speaking about of her captivity drawings, she added: "'When will it be my turn to go home?' 'Have they forgotten me? Left me behind?' These are sentences that I would raise on a daily basis. But the most frustrating moment is when another hundred days join the previous hundred; it's the time when I started counting from the beginning again. Although the counting was restarted, the conditions only worsen, and the despair only increases. It is impossible to put aside the fact that for already 400 days there are 101 hostages who are just waiting for someone to come and save them. 400 days and the abandonment continues, 400 days too many.''

Meanwhile, the families of the hostages held a statement this evening at the Begin Gate in Tel Aviv. Einav Tsangauker, the mother of the hostage Matan, said: ''After 400 days, it's time to say clearly, everywhere, and on every channel: We must end the war in Gaza and bring everyone back. Yoav Gallant said this week that conditions are ripe, achievements have been secured, and there is nothing left to do in Gaza. The entire security system says this. Everyone understands that the only way to bring back the hostages is to end the war in Gaza. There is no other way.''

She claimed, ''But Netanyahu refuses to end the war for criminal political considerations. Because of Netanyahu, the hostages are dying in captivity. Because of Netanyahu, soldiers are being killed in a war that has achieved its goals. Instead of ending the war in Gaza, the government promotes Israeli towns in Gaza. Instead of acting according to the national interest, Netanyahu acts according to the interests of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. The people understand this, the people support the deal and ending the war. Every Israeli patriot should demand from Netanyahu: End the war in Gaza and bring back all the hostages. What else is there to do in Gaza besides a hostage deal?''

11/08 Links Pt2: Trump’s election has checkmated Iran; US three men in Iranian plot to assassinate Trump; Qatar To Expel Hamas Leaders

From Ian:

Why America Stopped Winning Wars

Israel, a country of just 10 million with no friendly population on any of its borders, cannot afford to follow America’s example. America might be able to avoid national suicide by correcting its policy errors, because of the great physical distance that separates it from its enemies. Israel’s enemies are right on the border, and Israel has neither a moment nor a square foot to spare.

The events of Oct. 7 demonstrated that Hamas indeed posed and continues to pose a catastrophic threat to Israel’s citizens. If Hezbollah’s forces poised on Israel’s northern border had followed through on its own invasion plans for the Galilee on Oct. 7, for which we now know it was amply prepared, the result might well have been three or four times the scale of mass killings, perhaps precipitating the collapse of Israel. Proportionality, in its true sense, would therefore dictate the annihilation of Hamas in response, to remove an existential threat.

Control of a territory by an extremist movement necessarily means that the majority of the civilian population either actively sustains it or else tacitly accepts its activities.

Yet, in contemporary American military and government understanding, proportionality means that every Israeli action should be examined from the point of view of whether “disproportional harm”—often meaning, any harm—has been inflicted on noncombatants. This is insane in the literal sense, as there is no way for Israel to apply this principle in practice and at the same time destroy Hamas.

The reason why the U.S. managed to spend the extraordinary sum of $2.3 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and other, associated operations, is largely “proportionality.” Careful assessment of what is and is not a proportional attack, or a proportional campaign, is incredibly expensive. It requires the constant collection of a vast amount of detailed intelligence on such subjects as the number of civilians likely to be present in a particular building. In its implementation, proportionality is taken to require the use of guided “smart” low-impact munitions in almost all circumstances, another enormous drain on the budget. Repeated attacks on the same target with expensive munitions often substitute for single attacks with cruder weapons, whose death tolls might be higher—but which will not exhaust America’s financial strength and are more likely to lead to victory. If the Union had spent the Civil War obsessing about the proportionality of its actions instead of annihilating the Confederacy, the war would likely have ended in a stalemate, and the continuation of slavery in the South.

A third and final reason why America stopped winning wars is its misunderstanding of democratization, which is not at all limited to the actions of President George W. Bush, or the ideas of so-called “neoconservatives.” Predictably, relying on democratization as a long-term solution to a foreign threat has proved a misguided and exceptionally expensive approach.

A dangerous regime like Saddam Hussein’s is a proper target for war. Those who are inclined to suggest that Saddam was not dangerous, or no longer dangerous, by 2003, are invited to consider what a vicious dictator like him would have done with Iraq’s vast oil revenue over time. Iran, a very dangerous regime, earns much less money exporting oil than Iraq, partly because it is much simpler to extract and export Iraqi oil. Thus, making sure that Saddam was not left permanently sitting on top of a vast revenue stream to support future aggression was a legitimate military objective.

Imposing democracy on Iraq was not a legitimate military objective, because it could not be reasonably achieved in a limited period of time through force. A society which has existed as a tyranny for decades cannot suddenly be turned into a democracy, especially if the society is not very sophisticated, either technologically or socially, simply by means of military invasion and occupation. It is worth remembering that West Germany had previously been a democracy, however flawed, during the Weimar Republic. It was also an advanced industrial power. Under direct occupation by the Western Allies after a catastrophic military defeat, and with massive Marshall Plan aid, West German society was capable of again sustaining democracy—which was already a familiar form of government. Nothing of the kind was possible in Iraq.

Seeking democracy, or even some substantively democratic form of government, is futile in places like Iraq and Gaza, because democratic governance requires a preexisting institutional and social basis. What should be done, and what America can do, is to rapidly destroy military threats to its national security and economy—as was in fact done in America’s initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. Instead of attempting to police Iraq into the future, America should have then maintained forces in safe areas in close proximity, like Iraqi Kurdistan and Kuwait, to make sure that the old regime could not return to power.

America cannot afford to fight long wars against its enemies, both because of the cost, and because any long campaign inevitably teaches the enemy to adapt and adjust, and thereby become at least partially immune to attack. What the United States should do instead is carry out sudden crushing attacks, which can be repeated without warning. America’s nature as a distant power with a large air force and navy makes this approach ideally suited to its strengths, while avoiding its weaknesses. If you don’t want to suffer the consequences of such an attack, then don’t do things like attack shipping in the Red Sea or take Americans hostage.

For the moment, America has no strategy, no operational approach, not even a clear sense of the tactics it should employ, even in simple situations where America’s interests are clear—like keeping shipping lanes open or keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of an Iranian regime that regularly promises “Death to America.” What America has, in overabundance, are empty soundbites. As long ago as Jan. 17, 2005, President Bush said of Iran’s nuclear program, “I hope we can solve it diplomatically, but I will never take any option off the table.” Two decades later, Vice President Harris says on that same topic, “diplomacy is my preferred path … but all options are on the table.” After two decades of continuing inaction, such rhetoric, on both sides of the aisle, is a portent of further failures to come.

Jonathan Tobin: Will Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy help or hurt Israel?

The stakes involved in Israel’s war against Iran and its proxies are very different. The notion that Ukraine is a valiant democracy fighting for the freedom of the world is a myth. The regime of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not as democratic or free from that nation’s antisemitic past as the foreign-policy establishment claims. By contrast, helping Israel defeat these terrorists who seek to spread chaos and genocide in a region central to American interests because of its oil reserves and strategic placement is vital to U.S. security.

All foreign-policy choices are transactional, but every nation has the duty to consider the interests of its own people first.

The choice of “America First” for the title of Trump’s foreign-policy vision has always been unfortunate since it conjures up the pre-World War II movement led by Charles Lindbergh that was both dedicated to appeasing Nazi Germany and antisemitic. Trump’s “America First” is neither dedicated to appeasing a foreign foe or spreading Jew-hatred. It is, instead, more of a realist policy than anything else. That’s because it involves, as we saw in Trump’s first term, a desire to defeat the Islamist terrorists of ISIS, in addition to an aggressive policy of sanctions and anti-terror special operations against Iran.

There is a difference between having the good judgment to pick and choose your battles based on American interests and a policy of isolationism. The notion that an America not willing to commit itself to conflicts anywhere no matter the circumstances will betray Israel is absurd as well as impractical. And it has yet to be explained how Israel is helped by a situation in which American strategic reserves are drawn down to the breaking point to fund and supply an endless war in Ukraine, rather than expended sparingly until they are needed for more important conflicts. Israel needs a strong American ally, not one mired in a conflict that only saps its strength.

Trump’s version of “America First” has other tangible benefits for Israel. Unlike both Obama and Biden, Trump is not interested in bolstering multilateral organizations like the United Nations that are cesspools of antisemitism and irredeemably hostile to the Jewish state. The president-elect has little use for that world body or any of its constituent agencies that do so much to demonize and harm Israel.

And though Biden bragged about how European leaders were thrilled with the return of the Democrats to power in January 2021, Trump is right to regard their good opinion as having no value. The less connected the United States is to international opinion, and especially that of the governments of Western Europe, the better it is for an Israel that Western Europe has already largely written off.

Some observers are so deranged by Trump’s ascendance that they fail to recognize that defending the interests of U.S. citizens “first” is both moral and a wise policy. Though many anti-Trumpers falsely accuse Trump of antisemitism, the opposite is true since he did more to combat Jew-hatred on campuses than his predecessors, who saw the antisemitic mobs as demonstrating idealism that must be heard, if not fully accepted.

While events and changing circumstances can’t be accounted for when determining the future, Trump’s pro-Israel record and opposition to woke ideology represent a harbinger of smoother sailing for the alliance between the two countries in the next four years. Whether successful or not, “America First” is likely to be a better American foreign policy for Jerusalem than the efforts of Biden and Harris.

Douglas Murray: 10 things Trump can do to clean up Biden’s messes abroad

Israel
Biden talked a strong game on Israel, but his administration was wet and leaky as hell.

In fact, the Biden administration spent more time trying to perform regime change in Jerusalem than it ever did anywhere else.

Now that Biden, Chuck Schumer and that gang are out, this is a good time to reaffirm the alliance.

Israel doesn’t need America to fight its wars for it. But it does need the US as a resolute ally while it finishes off Hamas and Hezbollah.

It also needs America to assert the sort of pressure the Biden-Harris administration never did to get the remaining hostages freed.

Trump has said before that they must be freed before his inauguration. Now is the time to tell Hamas’ regional backers that time is up.

The slogan for freeing the hostages — including the American ones — should never have been “Bring them home.” It should be “Give them back.” Now.

Iran
Which brings me to the single most important thing Trump can do in the Middle East.

The only reason Iran has been able to fight a seven-front war against Israel for the past year is because Biden-Harris turned the money spigots on for the mullahs the minute they came into office.

Before that, the mullahs were crawling to Trump, begging him to lift his crippling sanctions on their country.

Now is the time to slam the sanctions back on. Iran has seen its terror proxies crippled by Israeli military and intelligence in the past year. Now is the time to go for the head of the snake.

The Iranians are threatening another direct strike on Israel from Iranian territory.

In the last exchange, Israel took out the Revolutionary Islamic government’s air defense systems. There might be a reason for that. In the “tit-for-tat” of this part of the war, the next strike from Iran is imminent.

With Trump on the way back, Israel should be confident that its responding counter-strike destroys the mullahs and wipes away their nuclear ambitions once and for all.

Who knows, perhaps the sordid, barbaric Islamic regime in Tehran will finally fall and the Iranian people can finally get their country back.

If so, then perhaps by the end of his next term, Trump will be able to bring Iran into the Abraham Accords.

Now that is something that even the Nobel Committee would have to notice.

Podcast: Mark Dubowitz on the Dangers of a Lame-Duck President

America has just elected a new president, or rather, a new-old president. Donald Trump will be the first American president since Grover Cleveland to be elected to non-consecutive terms. All transitions between presidential administrations have an awkward aspect, felt especially during the months between the election and when the incumbent takes office. This period, when the successor has already been named by the electorate but does not yet have any official power, is when a lame-duck session of Congress meets, and the president himself is called a lame-duck president.

During this period, the president—while retaining all of his constitutional authority—nevertheless tends to diminish in the power hierarchy of Washington. Presidential power is based, to a very large degree, on the possibility of promising something in the future, and lame-duck presidents don’t have a future in which they can fulfill any promises. It can also be a period when, unconstrained by the need to run for office again, a president can put executive orders and other kinds of policies in place without worrying about their political consequences. So it can be a period of troublemaking.

Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), fears that a lame-duck Biden administration might decide to target Israel with executive action in very damaging ways. Dubowitz has spent decades working on financial warfare and sanctions in and out of government, and he is an expert on Iran’s nuclear program.

In order to follow this conversation, there are a couple of things it helps to know. First, in December 2016, during President Obama’s lame-duck period, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334, which conveyed that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem are illegal. The U.S. could have vetoed the resolution, but instead abstained.

The second is Executive Order 14115, which President Biden signed back in February, which gives the State and Treasury Departments authorization to sanction individuals and entities who undermine peace and security in the very areas Security Council Resolution 2334 determined Israelis may not live in. Sanctions have already been levied against some Israelis—some of whom genuinely do undermine peace, and some of whom do not. Dubowitz joins Jonathan Silver to warn of the danger that the president will use the last weeks of his term to take accelerated action under these authorities.

11/08 Links Pt1: Amsterdam shows how bad things are. But this time we have Israel; The Mossad warned of a threat in the Netherlands ahead of the pogrom

From Ian:

Amsterdam ‘Pogrom’: five in hospital, 62 arrested, police say

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated at about 4:30 a.m. local time that he was dispatching two rescue planes to Amsterdam following a “very violent incident against Israeli citizens.”

“The harsh pictures of the assault on our citizens in Amsterdam will not be overlooked,” Netanyahu’s office stated, adding that he “views the horrifying incident with utmost gravity and demands that the Dutch government and security forces take vigorous and swift action against the rioters, and ensure the safety of our citizens.”

Amsterdam police told JNS that “several reports about last night’s events in Amsterdam are circulating on social media.”

“The police have launched a major investigation into multiple violent incidents,” the department told JNS. “So far, it is known that five people have been taken to the hospital and 62 individuals have been arrested.”

“The police are aware of reports regarding a possible hostage situation and missing persons, but currently have no confirmation that this actually took place,” it added. “This aspect is also under investigation.”

The department added that there was to be a noon press conference at Amsterdam City Hall.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry initially said that there has not been contact with three Israelis in Amsterdam. It later said everyone was accounted for.

The Israeli National Security Council stated in Hebrew that Israelis in Amsterdam should remain in their hotel rooms and avoid the street, refrain from wearing visible Jewish or Israeli symbols and notify Dutch police and the Israeli mission about any threat or attack. The council also advised Israelis to return to home, with more planes expected.

Earlier in the day, Maccabi Tel Aviv lost 5-0 to Ajax Amsterdam in a Europa League game. Various reports indicated that Israeli fans were attacked—with some reports of injuries—after leaving the game.

King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands told Israeli President Isaac Herzog that “we failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again,” per an Israeli readout of the call.

Earlier in the day, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof spoke with Herzog and Netanyahu. Schoof wrote that he was “horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens. This is completely unacceptable.”

“The perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted. The situation in Amsterdam is now calm once more,” he wrote.

Amsterdam shows how bad things are. But this time we have Israel

Waking up to the news that Israeli football fans were attacked last night on the streets of Amsterdam I felt sick. Properly, physically sick.

It’s strange, because I’m used to starting my day doom scrolling through Instagram, my feed filled with the latest updates on the plague of antisemitism that’s currently sweeping the globe. But this felt different. And it was.

People are calling it a pogrom. Does that feel extreme? I mean, BH there have been no confirmed deaths yet (although as I write, two Israelis are still unaccounted for). [UPDATE: Everyone has now been accounted for.] There were no rapes. Nothing seems to have been set on fire. I don’t want to give in to the hysteria and add to the distortion of terms such as this, so I’ve looked it up to try and make an informed decision. According to the Holocaust Encyclopaedia: “Pogrom is a Russian word meaning ‘to wreak havoc, to demolish violently’. Historically, the term refers to violent attacks by local non-Jewish populations on Jews in the Russian Empire and in other countries.” I guess I have to agree that, by that definition, it sounds about right. The Board of Deputies concurs. In a statement this morning they said: “Some have likened the situation there to a ‘pogrom’. On the basis of reports we have seen so far, it is hard to disagree.”

The echoes of our past are hard to face – for those of us who know it. Unfortunately, most of the gentile population don’t, so aren’t confronted by the uncanny vision of some of the worst moments of our history repeating in real time. The people and the chants may be different, but the streets and the violence are exactly the same.

One of the elements I’ve found most chilling has been the reports of how the Israeli fans were abandoned by the local authorities. One victim is quoted as saying: “We were all alone. I saw people on the floor, the police didn’t do anything to help us, police cars just drove by and saw it happening and did nothing.” Again, this is disturbingly reminiscent of pogroms’ past. Quoting the definition from the Holocaust Encyclopaedia again, it says: “The perpetrators of pogroms organised locally, sometimes with government and police encouragement.”

Offering an explanation for this, one social media news feed claims that “a large part of the police force in Amsterdam are 2nd-generation migrants from North Africa and the Middle East.” For those who’d like to believe this isn’t the source of the problem (wouldn’t we all), it shared a link to an article in the Jerusalem Post, written just last month, with the headline: Dutch police refuse to guard Jewish sites over 'moral dilemmas,' officers say. The article reports on statements made by Marcel de Weerd and Michel Theeboom, representing the Dutch Jewish Police Network, on anti-Jewish prejudice in the force. “There are colleagues who no longer want to protect Jewish targets or events. They talk about ‘moral dilemmas,’ and I see a tendency emerging to give in to that. That would truly mark the beginning of the end. I’m concerned about that,” Theeboom told Nieuw Israëlisch Weekblad.

The piece goes on: “The officers later spoke with De Telegraaf, where they said that some members of the police expressed they didn’t want to be deployed at the Dutch National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam and refused food and drinks from the venue.” Once again, it seems to be a case of “same same, but different”. As with the pogroms of the 19th century, in Amsterdam in 2024 the people attacking Jews and the authorities who should be protecting them are cut from the same cloth.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The Pogrom in Amsterdam

I well remember when I was reliant on Dutch police protection to ensure that I did not suffer the same fate as my friend Theo van Gogh, who had been stabbed to death by a jihadist in the streets of Amsterdam. One day, one of the agents assigned to my security detail turned out to be of Turkish descent. I became uneasy when he began to criticize me for my work with van Gogh on “Submission,” a film about the treatment of women under Islam. When I expressed my concerns, I was told by his superior officer that it was not up to me who was given the task of protecting me. I was required to learn a new kind of submission—to the dictates of the DEI bureaucracy.

Today, a large part of the police force in Amsterdam is made up of second-generation migrants from North Africa and the Middle East. Since October 7 last year, some officers have already refused to guard Jewish locations such as the Holocaust Museum.

Women and gays in Amsterdam have also felt their world change and shrink. However, it is the Jewish community of Amsterdam who have had to learn to survive in this new environment.

Yesterday night’s pogrom was thus the opposite of a black swan. Such an event was foreseeable long ago. Twenty years ago, I watched as the Dutch authorities caved in to almost every Islamist demand. Muslim students disrupted or walked out of classes on the history of the Holocaust, so the classes were eliminated from their curriculum. Jews and gays were attacked and beaten in the streets of Amsterdam, so—after a series of platitudes about “unacceptable behavior”—the victims were told not to appear so gay or Jewish in future.

More recently, in one of those ironies that would require an Evelyn Waugh to do full justice, the Anne Frank House, a museum established to commemorate the Holocaust, was made to include Islamophobia as many of the hatreds it is now repurposed to combat.

No doubt Amsterdam today can boast the highest share of minorities employed in government and security agencies. But, as a consequence, those agencies cannot guarantee the safety of Jews.

The globalization of the Intifida is progressing rapidly when, in the year 2024, we are called to witness a pogrom in the city of Baruch Spinoza and Anne Frank.

Lebanon's L'Orient Today lists several Trump advisors who are of Lebanese origin - all of them Christian.

Massad Boulos is the billionaire father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany. he has strong connections to Lebanese Christian leaders. He may replace Amos Hochstein as Trump's envoy to broker an agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. He is already scheduled to travel to Beirut.

Walid Phares was a member of Trump's foreign policy team during the presidential campaign in 2016, but did not work in his previous administration. He has been a terrorism and Middle East expert on Fox News since 2007 and on Newsmax since 2022. This week he highlighted the "strong bond between the United States and Israel."

Tom Barrack is a Lebanese American businessman. He argues that the Gaza war is “largely due to Hamas,” which, rather than “building the Singapore of the Middle East over the past 18 years,” has diverted “funds” to “terrorism and warfare aimed at eliminating Israel and killing Jews.”

Darell Issa was a Republican member of the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2019 and was reelected in 2021. Last July, he urged the U.S. Congress to continue supporting the Lebanese Army, emphasizing that it "remains committed to countering any attempts by outside forces — such as Hezbollah, Palestinians, Syrians or others — to exert control over the country."

They all sound like reasonable people.

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!

Irish textbook on religions says only Judaism supports violence

IMPACT-se recently reviewed textbooks from Ireland for anti-Jewish bias.

It found that in general they were good, but there were some problems.

They noted this table from Inspire - Wisdom of the World. Junior Cycle Religious Education. 7th–9th Class. by Michael Purcell & Ailís Travers, (2020), that compared how the five major religions looked upon peace and war.

While they framed Christianity and Islam as always striving for peace, Judaism is the only one that believes in violence and war for "justice."

For the other religions, war is considered a last resort only under extraordinary conditions; in Judaism it is normalized and Jewish teachings promoting peace are ignored.

In a separate section, the book takes pains to say that jihad means primarily "spiritual struggle" for most Muslims:

Compare to how it is defined in Arabic Wikipedia:

Jihad or Jihad in the way of Allah is an Islamic term that means all actions or words that are done to spread Islam, or to repel an enemy targeting Muslims, or to liberate a Muslim land , or to help a Muslim or Muslims in general....

Jihad has levels, some of which are obligatory for every accountable person, and some of which are a communal obligation ... Jihad against the self and jihad against Satan are obligatory for every accountable person, and jihad against the hypocrites , infidels , and the masters of injustice, innovations, and evils is an individual obligation . Jihad against the infidels by hand may be obligatory for every capable person in certain situations. Ibn al-Qayyim said : “ Jihad has four levels: Jihad against the self, jihad against Satan, jihad against the infidels, and jihad against the hypocrites . ”

The book is whitewashing what jihad means to most Muslims.

There are some other inaccuracies in the book not mentioned by IMPACT-se. It says that Jews perform pilgrimage to "the Wailing Wall" which is not the Jewish name for it; it refers to Jesus as living in "Palestine," it says that Jews only go to synagogue once a week, it describes the Ten Commandments in the Judaism section but uses the Christian system for numbering them. There is very little about how Judaism evolved since 70 CE.

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!

Polls that are commissioned by advocacy groups are always skewed. Sometimes subtly, sometimes grossly, but they can never be trusted without a deep dive into their methodology, the specific questions being asked and the wording of the questions.

I already wrote about how CAIR used an absurdly poor methodology to conclude that more American Muslims would vote for Jill Stein than Kamala Harris, something that exit polls showed was not close to true.

J-Street on Thursday issued results of their comprehensive survey of American Jews on how they voted, and found that Jews preferred Kamala Harris by a 71-26 margin, a 45 point margin. But the Fox News exit polls found a 66-32% split, a 34 point margin.

That's a huge difference. What accounts for it?

It comes down to methodology.

Fox News asked people after they voted, "What is your present religion, if any?" and reported on how many people said their religion was Jewish.

The J-Street survey asked the identical question in their survey of American Jews, yet only 76% of them answered "Jewish." The follow-up question for those who answered negatively: "Even though you do

not consider your religion to be Jewish, do you consider yourself Jewish?" and the answer was 100% "yes."

Fox News asked about religion; J-Street asked about what they call themselves.

A similar thing happened in 2020: J-Street found 77%-21% for Biden; news organization exit polls found 68%-30% among Jews. But their definitions of who is Jewish are vastly different.

Notice that J-Street didn't point out that even according to their own methodology, the gap between Jews voting Democrat and Republican this year narrowed by 11 percentage points.

The 26% of self-described Jews who do not consider their religion to be Judaism is an accurate number, according to Pew. But it shows how polls can be skewed by changing the definition of what a Jew is. And it has a huge impact on the answers to other questions as well.

For example, J-Street asked "Thinking about negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to resolve their conflict, do you think the U.S. should act as a fair and even-handed broker between Israelis and Palestinians or do you think the U.S. should side with Israel?" They found 51% do not want the US to side with Israel. If you take away the 26% who do not consider their religion to be Jewish, the numbers would flip in the other direction.

Other polls have consistently found that the stronger the Jews identify with Judaism, the stronger they support Israel. Orthodox Jews overwhelmingly showed support for Trump while exit polls show that atheists were strongly pro-Harris.

The atheists are J-Street's target Jewish audience - people who are Jews in name only.

That is not the only problem with the J-Street survey. Like their previous ones, use loaded questions as well to get the responses they want. Any question that begins with "As you may know..." subtly instructs the person being surveyed with information that is highly selective and possibly wrong. Here's one:

When, in the past several years, have there been any negotiations on that level of detail? The last time Israel and Palestinians negotiated even indirectly together for a final peace agreement was over ten years ago, when the Palestinians rejected the US framework for a potential deal. The question does not mention that the negotiations "fell short" because Palestinians rejected even a John Kerry plan that went beyond what Israel offered. Wouldn't that affect the answers?

As always with J-Street, it offers highly selective "facts" to prompt an answer that they want.

Imagine if a question was prefaced this way:

As you may know, for over 80 years Palestinians have rejected every attempt to support a peaceful two state solution between themselves and a Jewish state, no matter what borders and terms were offered. Bill Clinton and John Kerry's plans for peace were rejected. Meanwhile, surveys show that Palestinians consistently and overwhelmingly support terror attacks against Jews in Israel and the Palestinians even even pay the terrorists salaries. Should Israel be pressured to give more concessions to them in order to create a Palestinian state that could very easily turn into an Iranian proxy like Lebanon and Yemen?

This all brings up a much bigger problem - news organizations blindly report polling data, even from the sketchiest sources, as if they are science. The many ways they can be manipulated are not considered. (I found an egregious example, where an anti-Israel organization that innocuously calls itself "Listen to Wisconsin" made it sound like voters in swing states consider support for Gaza to be a huge issue, when in fact their survey only included people who are already strongly anti-Israel.)

Commissioning polls is an easy way to issue press releases and get in a news cycle. Partisan organizations can manipulate even polls done by solid survey organizations by how they word the questions, how they choose the people being polled and even the order of the questions.

The bottom line is, don't trust a news report of a poll by an organization that has reason to manipulate it.

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11/07 Links Pt2: BHL on protesters: 'I believe they are fascists'; Irish Parliament Passes Motion Accusing Israel of ‘Genocide’ in Gaza; The Confused Kidnappers of Chaim Weizmann’s Statue

From Ian:

'I believe they are fascists': French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy on the Canadian anti-Israel protests

An ad for Israel Alone in the trade publication Shelf Awareness was recently pulled, with editors saying that a pro-Israel book would upset their readers. You’ve taken up many controversial causes, you have faced protests, criticisms and in 2008 you were targeted for assassination by Islamist militants. In terms of opprobrium you’ve faced throughout your life, how does it compare to what faces a Western intellectual who unapologetically champions the cause of Israel?

You put it very well. I’ve seen this kind of incident so much in my life that this is not going to intimidate me. When you’ve spent nearly two years in the Ukrainian trenches, when you’ve filmed Bakhmut or Chasiv Yar under bombardment, when you’ve seen comrades fall just a few metres away, do you really think a miserable little guy like this is going to scare me?

The issue, however, lies with American authors. Especially, the younger authors. Because there is nevertheless an extraordinary climate at play here. Here is a country, two countries in fact — Canada and the United States — that were once homelands for persecuted Jews around the world. Here are two countries that were possible refuges for all threatened Jews worldwide. And now, in these countries, it’s the very name of Israel — and, soon, that of the Jews — that is becoming unpronounceable.

A double bind. The First Amendment: Absolute freedom of speech. Antisemitism: one of these so-called “free” expressions has deadly consequences. This is where we are at. This is the situation of Jews in North America. All communities on the continent have the right to protection. All have the right to guard against provocations. Except one — the Jewish minority.

You have long argued that failure to defeat Vladimir Putin in Ukraine would have dire ramifications for the rest of the democratic West. Do you see Israel’s war with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and others as similarly being a bulwark between the West and illiberalism?

Of course. It’s the same thing. There would never have been the Gaza War if there hadn’t been the war in Ukraine. What I mean is that Iran would never have taken the initiative to unleash the dogs of Hamas if it hadn’t observed our timid response to Putin unleashing his own dogs on Ukraine.

Similarly, if we abandon Israel, if we allow Hamas or Hezbollah to claim victory, if we give them even an inch of victory and credit, then I predict that the year will not end without China invading Taiwan.

There is an axis of authoritarian powers. These are the five revanchist countries, the “five kings,” which I described in my book The Empire and the Five Kings. They form an unlikely alliance, but an alliance nonetheless. They observe each other. They spy on each other. When one scores a point, the second takes over, and the third rushes in and asserts its imperial ambitions. In this very precise sense, we can say that Israel, like Ukraine, is fighting a battle of civilization. The battle for rights. For democracy. The anti-totalitarian and anti-imperialist battle of our time.

Eugene Kontorovich: Anti-Israel actions taken by the Biden Administration in the Wake of Oct. 7th Massacre

Here is a list, in no order, of some of concrete ways the Biden-Harris Administration has undermined Israel and encouraged the Iranian Axis, even in the months after Oct. 7th - and how the Trump Administration can swiftly rectify it. 1) Making BDS government policy by creating a sanctions program aimed at Jews living in Judea and Samaria.

2) Preventing Gazans from fleeing conflict to increase pressure on Israel: the Biden Administration supported the Hamas/Egypt policy of keeping Gazans trapped in Gaza, the only people in the world not allowed to flee a conflict. Biden treated Egypt's border with Gaza like he should have treated America's with Mexico, and vice versa. Asylum seekers to America in any number, to Egypt in no number. Now Trump can flip the script.

3) Biden's "Four No's": By stressing the Iranian axis can pay no territorial price for its aggression ("no reduction in territory"), Biden gave Hamas and Hezbollah an insurance policy, and set the stage for them to threaten Israel again. Trump can make clear that invading neighboring countries is not guaranteed to be an at least break-even proposition.

4) Cancelling Trump's sanctions on the ICC, and then refusing to support bipartisan legislation holding ICC officials accountable after the sought to indict Israeli officials for defending the country from Hamas. Trump understands the ICC is simply the international version of the lawfare that has been directed at him.

5) Undermining the Pompeo Doctrine, which announced that Jews living in Judea & Samaria is not a war crime. Its schizophrenic to have this legal issue toggle with every administration. Now Congress can enshrine this position into law.

6) Protecting the @UN even as it justified Oct. 7th, and allowed one of its agencies, @UNRWA , to become a Hamas front, and @UNIFIL_ to be a defensive screen for Hezbollah. Trump can again defund UNRWA, but also end its immunity to lawsuits for supporting terror, and cancel UNIFL, saving American taxpayers hundreds of millions.

Seth Mandel: The Confused Kidnappers of Chaim Weizmann’s Statue

Although the story that Weizmann was rewarded for his service with the Balfour Declaration isn’t true—his biographer Jehuda Reinharz is adamant and convincing on this count—the connections Weizmann made and the favor he won in the eyes of the government certainly helped his later Zionist pleas find sympathetic ears. The Balfour Declaration was made on Nov. 2, 1917. The Palestine Action stunt at the University of Manchester was in protest of the 107th anniversary of this momentous document.

The chowderheads who kidnapped the busts of Weizmann and Dixon have thus demonstrated two important characteristics of the Western “pro-Palestine” movement.

The first is that, although much of this activism is taking place at universities, its practitioners are not learning anything about their supposed passion project. Any true champion of Palestine ought to be able to tell Chaim Weizmann from Harold Dixon.

The second is that, on top of their general ignorance is a deep loathing of the West and their fellow humans and the freedom they all enjoy. Weizmann was in that display case because he was a hero to Britain. I suppose I wouldn’t be shocked if the men and women of Palestine Action preferred Germany to have won the war, though their real German idols would only emerge a couple years after Weizmann helped save the world.

Recognition of the Weizmann-Dixon partnership is a tribute not to the state of Israel and the survival of the Jewish people but to the survival of the United Kingdom. This knowledge would not likely change Palestine Action’s actions. But it is a reminder that hatred of the Jews is part and parcel of the hatred of Jewish contributions to civilization, very much including freedom, democracy, scientific advancement, and academic institutions such as those taken for granted by masked poseurs who steal statues.

11/07 Links Pt1: Israel dodges a bullet; UN Must Stop Protecting Israel's Terror Foes in Gaza and Lebanon; Scapegoating Israel, white progressive projection: Torres slams Beinart op-ed

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Israel dodges a bullet

The Obama and Biden administrations groveled to Iran, negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal that would have legitimized Iranian nuclear weapons after only a few years’ delay and refused to respond with more than a token slap on the wrist to hundreds of Iranian attacks on American assets.

During the Iranian proxy war against Israel following the Oct. 7 pogrom, Washington has put Israel under enormous pressure to surrender, causing the war to be protracted and Israeli troops to be needlessly killed. For Israel, under the Biden administration, America has indeed become “them against us.”

Liberals invert facts like these because they can never allow anything to upset the narrative that defines them in their own eyes as moral and decent—such as that Israel is the rogue actor in the Middle East, or Trump is a fascist—even though the opposite is the case.

Psychologists have a term for this. They call it “projection,” and it is a mental disorder.

Most liberals who told themselves and the world that Harris was on course for an overwhelming victory refuse to acknowledge any reasonable cause for the public to vote for Trump in such huge numbers, such as the cost of living, crime or a collapse of border controls.

This capacity for self-delusion is what characterizes the modern liberal. They will find any number of excuses to justify their own belief system based on a fantasy universe that requires them to lie to themselves to maintain the illusion.

In this presidential election, the American people once again rose up in protest against an entire elite class to reclaim their nation and its culture from those who would destroy it. This was an astonishing, country-wide insurrection against a decadent cultural establishment.

Nevertheless, some 68 million people voted for a candidate who couldn’t string a coherent sentence together—a failing they refused to acknowledge because they were locked into their cartoonish fantasy world in which they painted her opponent as a menace to humanity.

Before Trump had even claimed victory, some of these were threatening to pull the same rolling coup stunt with which they had hounded him in his first term. Would they have as much traction this time? Will Trump be more or less indisciplined and impulsive as president than he was in his first term?

We don’t know. But for the traumatized people of Israel—still under murderous fire from rocket barrages and yet enduring the venomous hostility of much of the so-called civilized world—the election of Donald Trump has punctured their existential loneliness.

Trump is far from perfect. But at this moment, his election feels like deliverance.

John Podhoretz: Let’s Begin Talking About the Jewish Vote

The initial evidence from last night’s election is that there has been a significant shift in the Jewish vote from previous elections, a delta of anywhere from 10 to 40 percent overall. It’s very hard to quantify such things because Jews are few in number, hard to isolate in larger surveys, and hard to pin down. So, for example, one exit poll I saw showed the Jewish vote for Donald Trump in the low 40s; another at 22; another in the 30s. I’m not linking to them because I don’t trust any of them and don’t want to argue with any of them. So I’m instead going to point to certain counties in the United States where Jews reside in slightly or significantly disproportionate numbers. (As the weeks pass and we get accurate final data precinct by precinct in the United States, we can get a clearer picture of the Jewish vote because we’ll be able to key on concentrated areas.)

But look at what my friend Josh Kraushaar, the editor of Jewish Insider, tweeted: “Wow: Trump carried PASSAIC County, New Jersey. Majority/Hispanic electorate and home to a sizable Orthodox Jewish constituency.” Jews make up about 25 percent of the county’s population and it has been a Democratic stronghold forever. Joe Biden took Passaic in 2020 with 57.5 percent to Trump’s 41 percent. Last night, Trump won it with 50 percent to Harris’s 46.5 percent. That’s a 16 point overall swing in Trump’s favor. We don’t yet know how much of that is attributable to the Jewish vote and how much to changes in the Hispanic vote, but Jews surely played a significant role in this change in the county’s political course.

In Palm Beach County, Florida, there are about 175,000 Jews out of a population of 1.5 million, or about 12 percent. Kamala Harris won this county by .74 percent last night. Biden won it by 13 percent in 2020. Trump’s vote climbed nearly 7 percent while Harris dropped 7 points off Biden’s number. Again, we cannot know what the delta was in the Jewish community, but almost exactly the same type of shift happened in Broward County, where Biden got 64 percent in 2020; the vote shifted 14 percent toward Trump this year. Jews make up about 10 percent of the Broward population.

How about Nassau County, NY? Jews make up close to 20 percent of the population. Trump won Nassau by 5 percent. Biden took it by 10 in 2020.

It will take months to get more precise numbers here by going precinct by precinct and even block by block to quantify this change, but this is now something we are able to do if someone is willing to fork over the cash to make a nationwide study of it.

But make no mistake. The steady work is no longer in the waiting. It is in watching the change.

Caroline Glick: The opportunity of Trump’s victory

To contend with the Palestinian threat, Israel needs to extricate itself completely from the strategic deathtrap of the so-called “two-state solution.” David Friedman, Trump’s first-term ambassador to Israel, recently published “One Jewish State.” Friedman’s book sets out the case for Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. In it, Friedman urges Israel to determine its goal for securing its national rights and security needs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Israel should immediately take Friedman’s advice. Netanyahu, his ministers and advisers must determine a clear strategy for extending Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria and taking permanent military control of Gaza. They must then work with the Trump administration to secure U.S. support for those plans in the framework of a regional peace.

The moral corruption of the U.N. system is nothing new. But since Oct. 7, Israel has recognized that this system, replete with its in-house terror group the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), terror auxiliary force the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and international courts trying Israel for genocide and treating Israel’s leaders and soldiers as war criminals, is itself a mortal threat to the Jewish state.

Broadly speaking, the U.N. system today is a full-blown alliance of the Marxist, post-national left, China and Islamic terrorist groups. Israel obviously cannot contend with this behemoth on its own. Working with the Trump administration and other nation states that are similarly—if less existentially—harmed by the U.N. system, Israel must spearhead an effort to dismantle, divide and permanently weaken the U.N. system and restore the power of nation states to work separately and in alliance with others to secure international peace and prosperity.

Finally, in light of Israel’s experience with the Biden administration’s exploitation of Israel’s strategic dependence on the United States for munitions as a means to undermine Israel’s war effort, Jerusalem needs to end its client-state relationship with Washington. Israel and the United States must cooperate in transforming the U.S.-Israel bond into a true alliance between a global superpower and a regional power.

Trump’s determination to decrease America’s foreign aid budgets, and his doctrine of supporting allies to enable them to defend themselves as the surest way to decrease America’s need to fight wars, fully aligns his position with Israel’s strategic requirements. Israel should move quickly to forge a new defense relationship with America that would end U.S. military assistance over a 10-year period. During that period, the relationship would shift from supplier-client to a strategic partnership geared toward weapons systems development. To end its vulnerability, Israel should maintain and expand its efforts to rebuild its domestic arms industries with the goal of being fully capable of producing all the munitions it requires to win its wars and preserve post-war peace by the end of Trump’s term. This transformation of U.S.-Israel ties will enable the alliance to survive and thrive over time, to the great benefit of both countries.

In his congratulatory message to Trump on Wednesday morning, Netanyahu wrote, “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”

This is absolutely true. And by firing Gallant, Netanyahu has facilitated the rebuilding of Israel’s alliance with America on firmer footing than ever before. By working together to achieve common goals, Israel and the United States, under Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, can secure the peace of the Middle East and their nations’ separate and common interests in the international arena, to the benefit of the world as a whole.

Hezbollah Fans Upset At Wrong Side Involving Mosques In Fight (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Beirut, November 7 - Supporters of the Iran-backed Shiite militia exercising political control of Lebanon and forcing the country into armed conflict with Israel railed again today against the Jewish State for deploying munitions in or against Muslim houses of worship, arguing that only one party is permitted to violate the sanctity of such sites for military purposes, while the other, Jewish one must refrain from acting against any military personnel, materiel, or facilities there.

Hezbollah advocates issued further criticism today of IDF operations to destroy structures in southern Lebanon that form part of Hezbollah's military infrastructure. They called the demolitions, which targeted all structures regardless of their pre-conflict use, a violation of the sanctity of the mosques, in which Hezbollah should be permitted to continue locating their positions, tunnel entrances, weapons caches, and other resources.

"The Zionist Entity continues to violate everything sacred by involving mosques in the fighting," declared Mustafa Massiqr of the city's Dahiyeh neighborhood, a Hezbollah stronghold. "Islamic houses of worship are strictly reserved for prayer, study, some community activities, and serving as missile-launching sites or assembly points for our brave fighters."

"The world must condemn the Zionists, but it is only their American backers who make this possible!" charged Massiqr. "This phenomenon, of foreign bankrolling and arming of a malign entity in the region, is illegitimate and must be stopped," added the enthusiastic supporter of Iran bankrolling, arming, and training Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah, and various Iraqi militias for its own hegemonic ends.

Human rights organizations and international humanitarian organizations echoed Massiqr's position. "Israel has demonstrated again and again its disregard for the hors de combat status of houses of worship," stated former director of Human Rights Watch Ken Roth. "As if the allegation that someone else had made such a facility a military site can justify atrocities. We saw it in Gaza, as well: Israel thinks armed groups supposedly taking up position in a hospital makes that hospital a legitimate military target. As if we apply such provisions to Israel. Everyone knows we don't."

UNIFIL troops similarly noted that Hezbollah's buildup around the UN peacekeeping force's positions deserved no comment or criticism, whereas Israel's attempts to get the UNIFIL troops out of the way in order to target Hezbollah positions was inexcusable. "Outrageous," declared the head of the Irish unit. "Israel can't just do what its enemies do."

That phenomenon parallels the one in which only Israeli retaliatory action attracts characterization as "escalation."

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AIPAC tweeted yesterday that 318 of its endorsed candidates won their elections so far, and since then tweeted about four more candidates whose results showed they won, making it 322.

An anti-AIPAC organization shows 327 Congressional candidates endorsed by AIPAC. I cannot find a full list of AIPAC endorsees for Senate; in March I found an article listing about ten. If AIPAC endorsed between 10 and 20 candidates in the 34 Senate races, and add the 322 endorsed for Congress, that would mean that between 93% and 96% of their candidates won.

AIPAC endorses pro-Israel candidates on both the Democratic and Republican sides. Contrary to how the media portrays AIPAC as being against progressive candidates, I count 34 of their candidates self-describing as progressive.

By any measure, AIPAC has done extremely well this year, including in the primaries, with both its Democratic and Republican candidates.

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Dayton Beach shop sells all the terrorist headbands and flags you could ever want

Yesterday, people wearing Hamas headbands were protesting in Manhattan.

Where can wannabe terrorist fans of Hamas or other antisemitic groups get their stuff?

From Dayton Beach based 3SJShop! You can find Hamas, Hezbollah, PFLP, Houthi products and many more!

But just because that logo says "Damn the Jews" doesn't mean that the shop promotes terror, they say. They are against terror!

At 3SJShop.com, we adamantly reject and denounce terrorism, Nazism, Fascism, and any other dictatorial or destructive ideologies. Our commitment to these principles is reflected in the meticulous craftsmanship of our products. Every patch, piece of militaria, and item of regalia is proudly handmade in the USA using 100% American materials.

These items cater to a diverse audience including historians, collectors, educators, archivists, and re-enactors, serving as invaluable tools for historical exploration and understanding.

Our mission is to provide high-quality replicas that serve as historical artifacts and pieces of art, reflecting our dedication to craftsmanship and authenticity....Our items are designed for collectors, reenactors, and those with a historical interest, not for promoting or supporting any specific ideology.

See? They don't intend to promote terrorism - their stickers and patches, are meant for historians who love to collect reproductions made in Florida!

Of course, when their products are used for promoting terrorism, 3SJShop is quite proud:

And even though they really, really care about historical research, they don't have any Nazi products which would fit under the same category.

I don't think that they are doing anything illegal, but they clearly support terror and attract terrorist supporters are their major customer base.

With all the anti-Israel protests over the past year, it looks like business is booming.

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The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a final pre-election poll on November 1 showing a slight lead for Green Party candidate Jill Stein over Kamala Harris among registers American Muslim voters.

This virtual tie between Harris and Stein was seen in their earlier polls as well.

This story was published in numerous media outlets.

So how did Muslims end up voting? It wasn't anything close to the poll.

According to the Fox News exit polls, among Muslims, Harris got 63% compared to Trump's 32%, with all others at 4%.

According to AP's exit polls, 61% of Muslims voted for Harris and 30% for Trump. Stein could not have gotten more than 9%.

Why did CAIR get it so completely wrong?

CAIR described their polling methodology in their August survey:

Who is Molitical Consulting? CAIR says that its president is Mohammed (Mo) Maraqa.

The LLC has no Internet presence. It has not done any surveys besides for CAIR that I can find.

Jihad Watch looked at Mo Maraqa in September and found that he was the head of three other shady companies, all of which have no Internet presence. One is "American Third Pillar Charities, " another is "Jasmine LLC." The third is called, no kidding, "ISIS Research Group."

The address for all of them is an apartment house in Washington DC.

Maraqa was a panelist at Arabcon in Dearborn in September at an Election Strategy Session - along with Linda Sarsour. He also led a session called "Empowering American Voters to Advocate for Palestinian Human Rights."

Maraqa is also involved with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and Molitico jointly created an initiative called "Arab.Vote" with the ADC and CAIR.

From everything we can see, Molitico is a one person operation whose polling techniques are provably unreliable, yet its only member is prominent in the Arab community. Maraqa's creation of multiple organizations, and his claims of being involved with several more, indicate that he is a scammer.

But are CAIR and the ADC in on the scams? Is it possible that CAIR hired a polling firm without any track record whose address is an residential apartment? Or did they choose a company of someone they knew and not care at all about accuracy?

Even if we assume that the poll itself is what Molitico says it is, it is inherently a bad poll. Molitico says the survey was done via SMS messages to tens of thousands of Muslim voters. It only received 1,500 responses. Which means that the poll is worthless - only people who want to respond are counted, and people who respond to SMS polls do not represent the electorate at all. It is a self-selecting sample, and any pollster worth their salt would never create such a poorly designed poll.

But a poll like that could be done by a single person, as opposed to legitimate polls that require teams of people.

Today, at 10 AM, CAIR will announce their own exit poll and analysis. Almost certainly, Mo Maraqa is the one behind the exit polls. It will be interesting to see what happens.

UPDATE: The live video of the exit poll analysis seems to have been scrapped. As of 10:15, it cannot be found on the Facebook site they pointed to.

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