Sunday, December 01, 2024

  • Sunday, December 01, 2024
  • Elder of Ziyon


The Executive Council of Australian Jewry issued a report on antisemitic incidents since October 2023.

It is horrifying.

Here are some examples of physical assaults on Jews, as Jews, over the year:

• Physical assault of a 44-year-old Jewish man in a public park by three males; who asked if he supported Israel, then threatened “I’ll kill you!”; he was hit to the ground, and three men repeatedly punched and kicked him, including multiple punches to the head, called him a “Jew dog” and other slurs; he sustained two black eyes, concussion and four fractures to his spine, and was hospitalised for four days, Arncliffe, Sydney (28 Oct. 2023).

• Physical assault and verbal abuse of an identifiably Jewish boy who was called a “dirty Jew” and slapped in the face by a group of youths at Bounce, in Osborne Park, Perth (29 Oct. 2023).

• Male exited a 7/11 store and started physically attacking a Jewish man outside, with punches while screaming “dirty rotten Jew cunt” at the Jewish man and others on the street, and made multiple threats to kill the Jewish man, some witnesses intervened and pushed the male away, St Kilda, Melbourne (8 Nov. 2023).

• A Jewish man was hit by a large rock and injured, requiring medical treatment, by an anti-Israel protester across the road from a synagogue, Caulfield, Melbourne (10 Nov.2023).

• A group of 10-15 males shouted “Fuck the Jews” at several Jews, then threw shoes at them, and spat at them, St Kilda, Melbourne (6 Jan. 2024).

• The occupants of a vehicle threw eggs at a group of identifiable Jews walking home from Shabbat dinner, Balaclava, Melbourne (19 Jan. 2024).

• Verbal abuse and harassment and physical assault of a Jewish student in Year 10, by a student in his class who told the Jewish student to “Go back to the gas chambers”, said “Heil Hitler” in his face, performed a Nazi salute in class, cheered during a video when it stated that Hitler sent Jews to the gas chambers, used Hitler and swastika symbols on Google classroom, and shoved the Jewish student; Sydney (5 Feb. 2024).

• Physical abuse of a 77-year-old Jewish woman who was spat on, threatened and kicked multiple times, by protesters opposing a rally to counter antisemitism, outside Victorian Parliament House, Melbourne (19 May 2024).

• The passenger of a vehicle yelled "Israel" at an identifiable Jew, then threw a can of Red Bull towards him, St Kilda, Melbourne (3 Aug. 2024).

• A male in a group of 8 to 10 teenage males yelled "Fucking Jews!" at two Jews, then one of the males approached one of the Jews and punched him in the face, Caulfield, Melbourne (1 Sep. 2024).
And some graffiti:






This is only the tip of the iceberg. Yet these incidents have not been nearly as publicized as those in Europe and the US.

(h/t Jill)






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!

 

 

By Daled Amos


Going through old articles, I came across this:
The conflict also mobilized anti-Israel views around the world. Turkey and other forces opposing Israel consulted with Iran about a full-court diplomatic press against the Jewish state. Gangs of men in New York, California, London and across Europe attacked Jews and synagogues, threatening to “rape” Jewish women. Rabbis were attacked.

The unprecedented outpouring of far-right Palestinian nationalist hooligans driving around in convoys searching for Jews to attack in the US and Europe was a new phenomenon caused by this conflict.
Obviously, this is not something new.
But this article is talking about May 10-21, 2021, known as Operation Guardian of the Walls.

The ADL reported at the time that "outside of the [Middle East] region, there was a surge of antisemitic incidents targeting Jewish communities and individuals in the United States and around the world."




The ADL reported a 75% increase in antisemitic incidents, many blaming American Jews for the actions taken by Israel. There were approximately 200 anti-Israel rallies across the US. Many of the rallies were peaceful, but some speakers, signs, and chants used language that attacked Jews and Zionists.
o  May 23 (Redondo Beach, CA): A synagogue received an antisemitic and harassing email from an unknown sender who wrote: "Die fucking jew cockroaches! Israel = racism, apartheid, genocide."
o  May 22 (New York, NY): A Jewish man wearing a Star of David necklace was punched by a man who allegedly asked him, “What is that around your neck, does that make you a fucking Zionist?"
o  May 22 (Brooklyn, NY): Three men allegedly drove around Borough Park harassing and assaulting Jewish individuals, including teenagers. They yelled antisemitic slurs as well as, "Free Palestine." The men also kicked a synagogue's doors and broke a car mirror.
o  May 20 (New York, NY): A Jewish man was beaten by a group of anti-Israel protestors in Times Square. In another incident, anti-Zionist protestors shouted, "Fucking Zionists" and threw fireworks at passersby, injuring one, in midtown Manhattan's Diamond District, which is home to many Jewish-owned businesses.
o  May 18 (Los Angeles, CA): A group of Jewish diners at a kosher restaurant were allegedly assaulted by a group of individuals. The attackers reportedly arrived in cars carrying Palestinian flags and yelled antisemitic slurs.
o  May 18 (Bal Harbour, FL): A Jewish family was walking home from synagogue when they were harassed by a group of individuals in a car who allegedly yelled, “Free Palestine!” “F**k the Jews!” “Die Jew!”
During the 2014 conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, dangerous incidents occurred in a similar context: attempts to breach synagogues while worshippers were inside; Molotov cocktails and other projectiles thrown at synagogues; and unprovoked assaults on Jews on the street with expressed linkage to the conflict. Jewish communities remember these incidents and worry about similar attacks.
The ADL mentions 2014, but not Operation Black Belt in 2019. In its 2019 report, the ADL reports that
Antisemitic Incidents Hit All-Time High in 2019, but does not mention the operation or of November, when the operation took place.

Once again, “Death to Jews!” and “Jews to the gas!” are heard in Europe. Once again, Jewish communities around the world are paying for the perceived “sins” of Israel.
Going a step further, the 2014 ADL report notes that in response to antisemitic incidents during Operation Cast Lead during December 2008-2009:
As Israel defends her citizens from Hamas’ missiles, Jews around the world have also come under attack. Jews have been beaten on the street. Synagogues have been fire-bombed. “Jews to the gas” has been chanted at anti-Israel demonstrations. Newspapers in the Arab world and in Latin America have published pieces making blatant comparisons between Israel and the Nazis’ perpetration of the Holocaust.
The point is that public attacks on Jews in the streets today is not something new, nor should it have been unexpected. But we are seeing a change in degree as well as in kind. The groundwork has been laid for those taking advantage.

The ADL reported that during the one month between October 7 and November 7, 2023, there were 832 antisemitic incidents, including assault (30), vandalism (170), and harassment (632) in the US--an average of almost 28 incidents each day. That is a 316% increase over the 200 incidents during the same time in 2022. 

But now there are rallies showing admiration for the Hamas terrorists. Anti-Israel activists are coming out publicly in support of Hamas without fear of consequences. 

This is not an issue of spontaneous attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions. Nor is it just a problem of these attacks becoming more intense and widespread. And the protests are more public and in-your-face as we saw during the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Screen grab of YouTube video

Now there are groups behind the protests, orchestrating for maximum effect. They are taking advantage of a phenomenon that has existed for many years. In the process, they go beyond free speech and deliberately disrupt both the US and Europe.

In the US, the Biden administration has not confronted the situation. One would like to think that the Trump administration will be more active in dealing both with antisemitism in general as well as with the threat to society in general. 




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!

 

 

  • Sunday, December 01, 2024
  • Elder of Ziyon


Over the weekend, President Joe Biden was seen having purchased a book by professor Rashid Khalidi called " "The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017" 

Khalidi has been called the most significant Palestinian intellectual of his generation, the successor to Edward Said, and the preeminent living historian of Palestine. He recently retired as a professor at Columbia University. This year he was a leader of the anti-Israel protests there.

Khalidi is not a good historian. He is a propagandist. I've pointed out his lies many times in the past.

The very title of his book is sophisticated propaganda. Khalidi, like most anti-Israel activists, frames the conflict as something that is a century old, a conflict that was started by Jews and Western colonialists against the native Palestinian Arabs. His response to October 7 is saying that the Jews started the war, not the peaceful Palestinians.

By coincidence, this weekend also saw Haaretz publish a lengthy interview with Khalidi where he emphasized that very point: "You have to pretend that history started on October 7 or on June 7, 1967, or on May 15, 1948. But that's not the way history works." 

To Khalidi, history begins with the Balfour Declaration. But, as he says, that's not the way history works.

At the end of the interview, Khalidi unloads the biggest lie in the anti-Israel propaganda arsenal:

What do you wish Israelis understood better about the conflict?
"They need to understand something that's very hard for them to grasp: how the Palestinians and the rest of the world see the situation. It's seen from the beginning as an attempt to create a Jewish state in an Arab country. This is not some innocent bunch of refugees arriving in their ancestral homeland and suddenly being attacked by wild men and women. They arrive and do things that generate everything that follows; their very arrival and the structures with which they arrive create the conflict.
"Was there ever a Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine in the 18th century, 17th century, 19th century, 15th century, 12th century? No. This is not a conflict that's been going on from time immemorial. You have to put that self-justifying version of history aside.
Khalidi is not ignorant. He is a liar. He knows as well as anyone that the Arabs and Muslims of Palestine treated the Jews horribly before Zionism. he just doesn't want you to know that.

I have catalogued a number of examples from primary sources in the 19th century and before the Balfour Declaration - the sort of thing a historian is supposed to do and that Khalidi refuses to do when the facts do not support his propaganda. Here is a summary of several examples I put together last year:

The Jews at Jerusalem, (I speak even of European Jews) are liable to be stopped by the lowest of the country, who, if he pleases, may demand money of them as a right due to the mussulman ; and this extortion may be practised on the same poor Jew over and over again in the space of ten minutes.

The Jews are fond of frequenting the tombs of their forefathers, especially on particular days, to read their prayers of remembrance of the dead. Here advantage is taken of them again. They are rudely accosted and pilfered, and if resistance is made, they are beat almost to death, and this not by common highwaymen or Bedouin Arabs, but by men they may have been in the habit of seeing and talking with every day. 

The book "Stirring Times: Or, Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856" by James Finn, British consul to Jerusalem, describes the financial extortion Muslims practiced on Jews:
In times gone by these native Jews had their full share of suffering from the general tyrannical conduct of the Moslems, and, having no resources for maintenance in the Holy Land, they were sustained, though barely, by contributions from synagogues all over the world. This mode of supply being understood by the Moslems, they were subjected to exactions and plunder on its account from generation to generation (individuals among them, however, holding occasionally lucrative offices for a tune). This oppression proved one of the causes which have entailed on the community a frightful incubus of debt, the payment of interest on which is a heavy charge upon the income derived from abroad.

…Notwithstanding these glimpses of honorary distinction the Jews are humiliated by the payment, through the Chief Rabbi, of pensions to Moslem local exactors, for instance the sum of 300£. a year to the Effendi whose house adjoins the ' wailing place,' or fragment of the western wall of the Temple enclosure, for permission to pray there; 100£. a year to the villagers of Siloam for not disturbing the graves on the slope of the Mount of Olives ; 50£ a year to the Ta'amra Arabs for not injuring the Sepulchre of Rachel near Bethlehem, and about 10£ a year to Sheikh Abu Gosh for not molesting their people on the high road to Jaffa...

From Remarks on the present condition and future prospects of the Jews in Palestine, by Arthur George Harper Hollingsworth, 1852:

This Jewish population is poor beyond any adequate word ; it is degraded in its social and political condition, to a state of misery, so great, that it possesses no rights. It can shew no wealth even if possessed of it, because to display riches would secure robbery from the Mahometan population, the Turkish officials, or the Bedouin Arab. ... He creeps along that soil, where his forefathers proudly strode in the fulness of a wonderful prosperity, as an alien, an outcast, a creature less than a dog, and below the oppressed Christian beggar in his own ancestral plains and cities. No harvest ripens for his hand, for he cannot tell whether he will be permitted to gather it. Land occupied by a Jew is exposed to robbery and waste. A most peevish jealousy exists against the landed prosperity, or commercial wealth, or trading advancement of the Jew. Hindrances exist to the settlement of a British Christian in that country, but a thousand petty obstructions are created to prevent the establishment of a Jew on waste land, or to the purchase and rental of land by a Jew. “

...What security exists, that a Jewish  emigrant settling in Palestine, could receive a fair remuneration for his capital and labour? None whatever. He might toil, but his harvests would be reaped by others; the Arab robber can rush in and carry off his flocks and herds. If he appeals for redress to the nearest Pasha, the taint of his Jewish blood fills the air, and darkens the brows of his oppressors ; if he turns to his neighbour Christian, he encounters prejudice and spite ; if he claims a Turkish guard, he is insolently repulsed and scorned. 

,,,Now, how is this poor, despised, and powerless child of Abraham to obtain redress, or make his voice heard at the Sublime Porte? The more numerous the cases of oppression, (and they are many), the more clamorous their appeals for justice, the more unwillingly will the government of the Sultan,—partly from inherent and increasing weakness, partly from disinclination,—act on the side of the Jew. They despise them as an execrated race ; they hate them as the literal descendants of the original possessors of the country. ...

From "Sir Moses Montefiore's Report to the Board of Deputies of British Jews," 1867:

On Saturday, April 14th [1866], after the morning service, I took a walk round the garden, and was much pleased with the improvement of the place since my last visit to Jerusalem.

I regret, however, not being able to report the same of the land at Jaffa, which has been unfortunately let to persons who, being unable to resist the threatened attacks of the neighboring Arabs, deserted the place altogether. The consequence is, that the houses are completely demolished and the trees destroyed.

From the book The Rob Roy on the Jordan, Nile, Red sea, & Gennesareth, published in 1870 by John MacGregor:


From Narrative of a Modern Pilgrimage Through Palestine on Horseback, and with Tents By Alfred Charles Smith, 1871:

The Jews at Jerusalem were singularly forbearing with strangers, and—considering their general antipathy to all Gentiles—were almost civil and obliging. This unnatural good-will might perhaps be due in part to my escort, the well-known Yakoob ; perhaps, too, in part to their own despised condition, for, scarcely tolerated and often persecuted as they are by their Muslim rulers, they dare not show an illiberal spirit, or display any tokens of religious hostility or rancour through fear of retaliation

I list other examples of attacks on Jews, including pogroms, here.

The American Jewish Yearbook of 1914-1915 describes all these incidents in Palestine:

August. Bedouins attack colony of Rehobot, killing one colonist and wounding several others. --Rehobot vineyards penetrated by villagers from Zernuka, who kill Jewish student.

November. At colony of Kinneret two Jewish watchmen murdered by Arabs.

December. Near Tiberias, two colonists killed and several injured by Arabs.

January. At Hebron, Jewish storekeepers are boycotted by Mohammedan women.

April. Minister of Interior removes Governor of Tiberias on complaint of Chief Rabbi of his laxity in protecting the Jews against Arab attacks.

May. Minister of Interior orders officiais in Palestine to repress all anti-Jewish manifestations.—Chief Rabbi waits on Minister of Interior and reads to him two violent articles in Arab journal Palestineand warns him that any disorders that might result therefrom would create bad impression abroad.
Many more listed here, including in 1911: September 23: Arabs assault about sixty worshippers at religious service on Rosh Hashanah at Wailing Wall.

Khalidi cannot be ignorant of these facts. He just doesn't want you to know them. 

Indeed, as I showed here, 19th century Palestinian Arabs started respecting Jews only when world powers started showing interest in the region by placing Jews under their protection. When the Jews of Jerusalem and elsewhere had no legal recourse before the mid-1800s, the Arabs mercilessly abused them - extorting, stealing, beating them, and even murdering them with impunity. Only when the Jews gained some political power and outside powers pressured the Muslim Ottoman Empire to punish their attackers did the Arabs start to back off and even some started treating some Jews with respect. 

In short, the Arabs respected Jewish power. But they never, ever, respected Jews, in any century.

In the wake of October 7, Khalidi's book that Biden purchased went back to the top of the New York Times bestseller lists for 39 weeks. The liars like Khalidi have spent decades honing their arguments. Even though anyone with access to Google Books and 19th century newspaper archives can demonstrate that these people are lying, the media and most academics simply do not want to see their heroes exposed as the liars they are. 





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!

 

 

  • Sunday, December 01, 2024
  • Elder of Ziyon
Before 2023, it was widely assumed that any full scale war between Israel and Hezbollah would result in massive casualties in Israel and destruction of critical infrastructure/

Hezbollah's late leader Hassan Nasrallah himself threatened that it would attack ammonium nitrate storage in Haifa that would kill tens of thousands; Israel's Dimona nuclear facilities intended to cause massive radiation poisoning, and said several times that its missiles could reach all of Israel down to Eilat. Any war with Israel that involved Iran and Hezbollah, Nasrallah said, would end in Israel being wiped out.


I say to this enemy, if you go to war against Lebanon, you also will be returned to the Stone Age. Your civilian airports, military airports, air force bases, power plants, the water [desalination] plants, central communication centers, refineries and the reactor in Dimona… Can the enemy calculate how many precise missiles Hezbollah needs to hit all those targets…? Even if you activate the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Patriots and intercept some of the missiles, [will you know] how many such missiles are necessary?

Even discounting that rhetoric, Western experts also expected that Hezbollah's tenfold increase in rockets and missiles since the 2006 war and increased military capabilities would cause massive casualties and damage in Israel as The Atlantic Council analysis in 2020 said, "On Israel's side, one can expect unprecedented damage to the home front, heavy tolls in blood and treasure, and a predictable political crisis following the national trauma" from a war with Hezbollah.

Nothing like that happened. And it is because of Israel's brilliance in intelligence, its unprecedented effectiveness in wiping out all of Hezbollah's leadership no matter where they hid, and destroying its command and communications structure.

Major A. (29), head of the C2 section at the IDF Air Force’s operational headquarters, provided rare insights into the IDF’s efforts to disrupt Hezbollah. These operations thwarted massive rocket barrages aimed at Israeli civilians and disrupted coordinated attacks on IDF ground troops.

“An organization like Hezbollah is comparable to a human body,” Major A., a combat navigator, explained. “It has a brain—senior commanders—and nerves for communication. Our mission in the C2 division is to disrupt this network. We targeted everything from Nasrallah to mid-level commanders.”

The Air Force’s C2 division is responsible for intelligence collection, planning, and precision strikes on Hezbollah’s leadership and operational units. 
One operation, “Blind Spot,” targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in late September, disrupting its ability to manage activities. Subsequent strikes, such as “Moonlight,” targeted underground command centers thought invulnerable, severely impacting Hezbollah’s operational continuity.

“We achieved significant breakthroughs by targeting underground assets and leadership structures,” Major A. said. “This severely diminished Hezbollah’s ability to coordinate against our operations.”

The strikes also undermined Hezbollah's morale. “They couldn’t execute large-scale operations, and their leaders were being eliminated,” Officer G., a C2 planning officer, explained. “Our operations left a lasting impact on their capabilities and morale.”

As IDF ground forces advanced, Hezbollah struggled to regroup or organize large-scale attacks due to the loss of command centers and leaders. “We impaired Hezbollah’s ability to function as a military force,” the C2 commander said. “Local units were left to fend for themselves.”

Reflecting on the operations, Officer G. noted: “After the first wave of strikes, Hezbollah operatives avoided communication devices for fear of being tracked. This chaos rendered them unable to coordinate, further fracturing their organization.”
Nobody predicted that the IDF would, or could, do what it did. Taking out both the enemy's entire leadership and its control systems that had been specifically built to survive any attack is unprecedented. 

Hezbollah's promises of a massive attack on Israel in case of another war simply could not happen because Israel crippled Hezbollah in ways that it could not recover from while fighting. Certainly communities in the North suffered greatly, but when the war escalated in September, Hezbollah's capabilities were severelydeminished.

Which makes Hezbollah's current leader Naim Qassem's claim that Hezbollah won the war so comical. Unlike 2006, this is not a draw: Israel did damage to Hezbollah that no one thought was possible, with minimal civilian casualties considering Hezbollah's use of human shields. 




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!

 

 

Saturday, November 30, 2024

From Ian:

Biden spotted with book that accuses Israel of settler-colonialism, apartheid
US President Joe Biden was spotted leaving a bookstore in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Friday with a copy of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, by Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi.

The purchase occurred during a holiday visit with his family as the nation kicked off the Black Friday shopping season following Thanksgiving. Photos of the outing have circulated all over X/Twitter and international media outlets.

It is unclear if Biden purchased the book or if it was handed to him. Multiple media outlets, including Fox News and The New York Post, have reached out to the White House for comment, but so far, there has been no response.

The Post also asked Khalidi about his reaction to the president holding his book.

“I do not speak to the Post (or the Times, for that matter), so this is not for publication, but my reaction is that this is four years too late,” Khalidi told the newspaper, which clarified that it did not offer or agree to any terms conditioning that response as off the record.

Khalidi’s book, first published in 2020, presents a controversial perspective on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The historian, known for his outspoken critique of Israeli policies, describes Palestine’s modern history as “a colonial war waged against the indigenous population by various parties to force them to relinquish their homeland.” His framing has drawn both praise and criticism for its sharp departure from traditional narratives.

The book highlights key moments such as the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1948 establishment of Israel – referred to as “the destruction of Palestine” – Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the “endless, futile peace process.”

Khalidi has previously criticized former president Donald Trump’s policies, such as relocating the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, calling them discriminatory toward Palestinians.

“Conflicts between settlers and indigenous peoples have ended in only three ways,” Khalidi writes, likening Israel’s policies to historical settler-colonial conflicts in North America, Algeria, and South Africa.

The historian also discusses moments of Palestinian resistance and terrorism. He praises the First Intifada as “an extraordinary example of popular resistance against oppression.”

Still, he labels the Second Intifada (2000-05) “a major failure” that contributed to the construction of Israel’s security barrier. Khalidi predicts that “popular resistance will continue to rise,” framing the Palestinian struggle as an enduring battle against colonialism.

Since the October 7 Hamas attacks and the resulting war, he has intensified his criticism of Israel. In recent interviews, the author accused Israel of conducting “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, stating: “It is completely unclear what Israel’s political objective is. They are conducting ethnic cleansing, pushing the population of northern Gaza into the southern part of the Strip. But their political goal is entirely unclear to me.”


Friday, November 29, 2024

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Codification of Anti-Jewish Hiring Policies
There’s a case of apparent employment discrimination at UCLA that should put to rest once and for all the spurious idea that the current campus battles are about mere “free speech.”

For over a year now we’ve been subjected to the whinging of the “pro-Palestine” crowds who are physically harassing Jews on campus while claiming their speech rights are infringed upon any time their actions bring a whiff of consequences. But aside from the violence deployed against Jews, there’s been evidence of professional discrimination—at state-funded institutions, no less.

The latest and most illuminating example comes from UCLA, where a newly filed complaint alleges that the college Cultural Affairs Commission has in place a policy of anti-Jewish bias in its hiring process. Bella Brannon, editor of the Jewish student newspaper Ha’am, filed the petition with the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) Judicial Board earlier this week.

The crux of the allegation is that Alicia Verdugo, head of the Cultural Affairs Commission, told staffers not to hire Jewish applicants. Specifically, she told subordinates, “please do your research when you look at applicants” because “lots of zionists (sic) are applying.” However, the directive was not Israel-specific; applicants were being rejected after having identified themselves as Jews unrelated to anything regarding Israel or the war in Gaza. Finally, staffers were told that at an upcoming retreat a “no hire list”—that is, an anti-Jewish blacklist—would be shared.

According to Ha’am, “every student who indicated their Jewish identity in their applications for Cultural Affairs Commissioner (CAC) staff was rejected.” One rejected applicant, for example, answered a question on the application about an issue of importance by noting that “as a Jewish student at UCLA, it is imperative that I have the right to express my identity.” Another rejected applicant had mentioned Judaism when asked about attendance at the staff retreat, explaining that they are Sabbath observant.

A CAC hiring document obtained by Ha’am allegedly says: “We reserve the right to remove any staff member who dispels antiBlackness, colorism, racism, white supremacy, zionism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, misogyny, ableism, and any/all other hateful/bigoted ideologies.”

Although “dispels” is obviously the wrong word there, the intent is clear. As is the fact that “Zionism” is listed as disqualifying but “anti-Semitism” is not.
Ivy League Holocaust professor charges Israel with genocide
Omer Bartov, Brown University’s Samuel Pisar professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, called Israel’s ongoing Gaza military campaign a “genocide operation” in a Nov. 11 podcast “Gaza and the Question of Genocide.”

Addressing Georgetown University’s Saudi-supported Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), Bartov, an Israeli Holocaust historian, failed miserably to substantiate his outrageous accusation. The irony that a scholar of such reputation and subject specialty would make such egregiously false claims was not lost on Bartov’s hosts, who surely invited him knowing that his stance would be useful in their propaganda war against Israel.

As ACMCU’s reliably anti-Israel director Nader Hashemi moderated, Bartov discussed Israeli policies in the post-Oct. 7, 2023 context. He said the barbarous Hamas jihadist assault upon Israel “should be classified as a war crime and as a crime against humanity.”

“Potentially, if you want to connect it to the Hamas Charter of 1988, you could also describe it as a genocidal act. I am less strong on that,” he added, even though the events of Oct. 7 clearly reflected Hamas’s longstanding genocidal intentions.

Bartov’s slander of Israel’s self-defense response as genocidal rested upon the hackneyed trope of civilian collateral damage. “In order to save the lives of [Israeli] soldiers when you’re moving into a heavily built-up area,” air and artillery strikes precede Israeli advances into Gaza, he said. Thus, Israeli military leaders “order the population to leave for its own safety, and then you assume that the population left even if many people don’t leave,” perhaps, for example, “because they’re sick.”
NGOs calling for Israeli arms embargo are dangerous and hypocritical
This international policy stampede is orchestrated through powerful NGO campaigns. “Respected” groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Oxfam with anti-Israel biases have been relentless in their efforts to cut off military funding, halt arms sales and undermine Israel’s defense systems, including the Iron Dome, which protects civilians from lethal rockets, missiles and UAVs. The NGOs have filed lawsuits, staged protests and exerted immense pressure on governments to cease military aid.

In November 2023, for example, just weeks after the brutal Hamas atrocities in southern Israel, Human Rights Watch demanded that Israel’s allies—the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany—suspend military assistance, repeating entirely false allegations of war crimes. In December, the organization called for an immediate halt to arms transfers from the United Kingdom to Israel, followed in February by a statement accusing Israel of crimes against humanity and urging the U.S. government to impose sanctions.

As the lobbying intensified, the Dutch Court of Appeal ruled that the Netherlands must cease the transfer of U.S.-owned F-35 components to Israel, a legal milestone brought about by a lawsuit led by Oxfam and other NGOs. By June, Amnesty was actively pursuing legal measures to stop arms exports to Israel, while Oxfam was lobbying for “all available measures” to block military sales. Over the summer, these coordinated efforts culminated in multiple legal actions across Europe, highlighting the systematic NGO push to isolate Israel militarily.

This isn’t advocacy for peace; it’s a concerted attempt to leave Israel defenseless.

This time last year, NGOs, including two linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, filed a federal lawsuit against the Biden administration in an attempt to force a comprehensive arms embargo against Israel. Although the lawsuit failed, the question is whether the outgoing Biden administration will adopt a wider policy of arms embargoes against Israel. Additionally, it remains to be seen if and how President-elect Donald Trump will counter ongoing NGO-led efforts aimed at weakening U.S. support for Israel’s security.

If these NGOs succeed, whether by lawsuit or lobbying, they and leaders that supported them or were swayed by them in their decision-making will be responsible for crippling Israel’s security infrastructure and emboldening Iran and its proxies. The NGOs’ vision is one where Israel is exposed to the very real and ongoing threats at its borders, a danger that could spread unchecked across the region if not stopped.

The inconsistencies in the NGO community’s selective stance become even more apparent when considering the human toll of their actions. They disregard the rights and lives of Israeli civilians who depend on defense systems to shield them from constant threats.

In their quest to impose sanctions against Israel, these NGOs are contributing to a situation that could lead to more, not less, bloodshed.

Instead of embracing their hypocrisy, responsible governments should be holding NGOs accountable. Those working with them, including government and private donors, must demand transparency, reject double standards and foster a dialogue that does not automatically demonize Israel, including the role of terrorism and the need to defend against it, in the Middle East. Only then can these groups be credited with promoting a vision where all civilians can live free from violence.
From Ian:

Tony Badran: Obama Plays a Dead Man’s Hand in Lebanon, and Wins
Barely three weeks ago, Barack Obama’s legacy was in tatters. His party was roundly defeated in the election, after he personally engineered the defenestration of his doddering former vice president from the Oval Office. Instead of greeting the sight of Obama emerging from the shadows with relief, Americans reacted with horror. His handpicked candidate was trounced, while the Party he directed lost both houses of Congress. The Iran deal, which he once saw as his ticket to Mount Rushmore, would be consigned to the dustbin of history by self-proclaimed master dealmaker Donald Trump.

And yet, two months before the end of his lengthy shadow presidency, and faced with the final undoing of his signature legacy project in the Middle East, Obama went all in—and won big. By forcing Israel to accept a deal with Hezbollah that will formalize America’s role as the terror group’s protector, Obama will have locked in a key piece of his decade-old policy of leveraging American power to secure both Iran’s continuing regional influence and its direct control over Israel’s borders.

After nearly two months of operating in Lebanon, the Israeli cabinet agreed on Tuesday to the cease-fire deal brokered by President Joe Biden’s special envoy, Amos Hochstein. The details of the deal are, for the most part, as irrelevant as they are meaningless. In essence, they represent a return to the Oct. 6, 2023, status quo ante. Namely, that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) will again deploy in south Lebanon, and again pretend to “implement UNSCR 1701”—the meaningless 2006 U.N. resolution which supposedly prevents Hezbollah’s rearmament and the reconstruction of its infrastructure south of the Litani River. To prop up this threadbare charade, the U.S. will now up its annual taxpayer subsidization of Hezbollah’s base—reportedly by at least another $400 million—to account for the enlargement of the LAF with new, U.S.-subsidized recruits. With these additions, U.S. taxpayer funding for Hezbollahland will now sit at around a $1 billion a year.

The relevant parts of the agreement have to do with the formalization of the U.S. role in Lebanon—a process that began with Hochstein’s maritime deal in 2022—as an arbiter between Israel and Hezbollah, increasing America’s direct management of the Lebanese special province and of Israel’s defense policy. The vehicle for this role that the deal introduces is the creation of a so-called monitoring committee headed by the U.S., which will be represented presumably by a CENTCOM officer.

In other words, the U.S. is now responsible for handling Israel’s complaints about the myriad violations of 1701 that will doubtlessly be forthcoming as Hezbollah’s forces and supporters stream back into their villages on Israel’s northern border. And since the U.S. underwrites the LAF, in which it has been heavily invested for two decades, the Americans will be inclined to cover for the LAF’s collusion with Hezbollah—in the process becoming directly complicit for the aid that the LAF will give to its symbiotic terrorist partner. The lawyerly language that Team Obama planted in the side letter they gave Israel, as well as the text of the agreement itself, make it plain that the U.S. will now restrict Israeli actions, certainly in the parts of the country north of the Litani. As a senior administration official told its Israeli stenographer Barak Ravid, “There are restrictions on the military activity that Israel can carry out. It is impossible to sign a ceasefire agreement if Israel can shoot afterwards whatever it wants in Lebanon and whenever it wants.”

Instead, as Hochstein told Al Jazeera, “The United States will send diplomats and military personnel to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, whose mission will be to work with the Lebanese Armed Forces and Lebanese authorities.” And if Israel has a complaint, it will need to notify the U.S., and share intelligence with it in the context of the monitoring committee, so that the CENTCOM officer can then relay those concerns to the LAF, which has long operated in partnership with Hezbollah’s forces, and whose political sponsors in Beirut are dominated by the Iranian-run militia.

In other words, the agreement affirms that Israel is a province that lacks full sovereignty, especially when it comes to its defense policy in territory where Washington has decided to partner with Iran and establish a joint protectorate dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
Ruthie Blum: Bibi’s latest challenge
According to a survey conducted by Direct Polls for Israel’s Channel 14, the Israeli public is split down the middle on the Lebanon ceasefire agreement that went into effect on Wednesday at 4 a.m. What’s notable in this case is that the division doesn’t run along party or ideological lines.

In fact, the newly minted deal—stipulating that Israel has 60 days to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, during which time the Lebanese Armed Forces will deploy to the southern border and Hezbollah will retreat northward of the Litani River—has been met with harsh criticism by both supporters and detractors of the government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Chief among the latter are members of the “anybody but Bibi” protest movement, most of whom claim to consider Netanyahu a greater threat to national security than Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the head of the snake, Iran. Since they oppose every policy that he puts forth, their knee-jerk anger was to be expected.

The former category includes residents of northern Israel: evacuees forced for the past 14 months to live in temporary lodgings; and others, slightly farther south of the Lebanon border, who’ve remained under constant rocket, missile and drone fire.

Rather than welcoming the prospect of a truce enabling them to return home or stop running for shelter with every air-raid siren, these people are furious. Not trusting Hezbollah to honor an arrangement that it didn’t actually sign, nor believing that the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL will guarantee the phony peace, they feel that Netanyahu capitulated to foreign pressure before finishing the job.

His explanation for the move—from the Knesset podium and subsequently in a video message—may have assuaged some of their fears. It also possibly helped them understand the timing of his decision. Nevertheless, they remain wary and out of sorts.

Champions of the ceasefire are also a mixed bunch, with pundits and part of the populace who disagree with one another on various other issues viewing the maneuver as strategically clever. This disparate group seems to be growing with each additional clarification by Netanyahu and the coalition partners who gave him the green light.

In an effort to persuade skeptics—especially after Hezbollah violated the terms of the deal within hours of its implementation—Netanyahu sat down on Thursday evening for a lengthy, one-on-one interview with Channel 14’s Yaakov Bardugo.

Bardugo is a right-wing journalist whose natural inclination would be and was to disapprove of such a ceasefire. After all, on paper, it’s almost identical to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, the farcical 2006 document that ended the Second War in Lebanon against Hezbollah.
Clifford D May: Another week of attacks on Israel
For more than a year, Israel has been fighting a brutal multifront war against Iran’s rulers and their terrorist proxies: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shia militias in Syria and Iraq.

Last week, Israel was also attacked by enemies in New York, Washington and The Hague. Although these were not kinetic battles, they did damage.

First attack: On Nov. 20, 14 members of the U.N. Security Council voted in favor of a resolution that did not call on Hamas to release its hostages, Americans among them, as a precondition for a ceasefire in Gaza.

President Joe Biden, credit where it’s due, instructed his envoy at the United Nations to veto the resolution. Allowing the resolution to pass, said Ambassador Robert Wood, would have “sent a dangerous message to Hamas.”

Which raises this question: Do the leaders of France, Britain, Japan and South Korea who voted with Beijing and Moscow not understand the message they just sent to Americans at a time of rising isolationism?

And if American diplomats tried but were unable to persuade America’s allies to stand with the United States, how likely is it that they will prevail when negotiating with the envoys of Beijing, Moscow, and their buddies in Tehran and Pyongyang?

Second attack: Also on Nov. 20: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) led what The Nation, a far-left journal, called a “bold new effort to block arms sales to Israel.”

He and 18 other senators, all Democrats or self-styled independents, apparently would prefer that Hamas survive the war it launched against Israel with its invasion and barbaric pogrom on Oct. 7, 2023. And they clearly don’t regard liberating the hostages as an urgent concern.

Sanders’ resolutions to limit munitions sales to an ally defending itself from genocidal enemies failed. But Mother Jones, another far-left journal, noted that the vote “shows Dems are shifting.” Hard to disagree.

The third attack: On Nov. 21, Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Khan also issued a warrant for Mohammed Deif, the head of the military wing of Hamas in Gaza. However, since Deif was “martyred” in July, I doubt his lawyers will put him on the stand.

Khan has not just politicized international law; he’s weaponized it to defame and blood libel the only surviving and thriving Jewish community remaining in the Middle East.

To achieve that, he violated both international law and the rules of his court.
  • Friday, November 29, 2024
  • Elder of Ziyon
Antisemitic conspiracy theories (disguised as "anti-Zionist") are nothing new.

Here's the headline of the Falastin newspaper the day after the UN partition vote on November 29, 1947:


It says "Arab Palestine was sold yesterday for ill-gotten money paid by Jews."

Jaffa-based Ad-Difaa sounded a similar note:


The partition was decided in America, but it will not be implemented in Palestine. ...The selfishness of countries and their interests make them subject to pressure from the Zionists. 
...The status of the United Nations has never gone so low as  when it considered the partition plan. On its stage, it was revealed: bad bias, rude pressure and vile bribery....
The United Nations has wounded itself by buying and selling itself in the market.
Obviously, it is Jewish money that forces the world to bend to Zionist wishes. 

Israel-hating Arabs and Muslim countries would never do that. Why waste money when threats of violence gain the same benefit for free?



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

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  • Friday, November 29, 2024
  • Elder of Ziyon

Guest post by Jerry Schwartz

 

I recently took a three-week trip to the United States from Israel to visit family and friends.  At each visit they pounced on me for information about the situation in Israel.  Even though they all follow current events in the American media, the news they were getting about the war between Israel and Hamas left them bewildered.

This is not surprising.  A recent research article published in the journal Israel Affairs studied the coverage of this war by the New York Times. The findings were damning, among them “misquoting Israeli leaders, employing questionable journalists..., misleading repeated errors, inadequate corrections, significant omissions, and poor editorial supervision.”  The authors concluded that “the Times pretends nothing has changed, but its newsroom has radically changed and does not uphold the same standards it once did.  This misleads many readers who still believe they are receiving broad well-founded views, as well as accurate and impartial information.”

So widespread has distorted reporting on Israel in Western media become that watchdog organizations have sprung up to counter it.  Two long-established examples are CAMERA and Honest Reporting.


Such reporting also tends to cause perplexity among visitors to Israel whose positive impressions clash with the negativity so widely portrayed in the media.  One such visitor was Professor Cherryl Smith.  In her book Framing Israel she defines and illustrates six patterns of distortion in coverage of Israel in mainstream media and campus discourse, and for each pattern gives the necessary basic historical background.  Once you learn to identify them, the distortions will no longer leave you perplexed as you read the Washington Post or other major western media outlets, but will seem transparent and even unprofessional.

Chapters 1 and 2 lay out the impetus for writing the book.  Chapters 3 and 4 are more academic and explain the theoretical underpinning of the method of rhetorical frames.  Chapters 5 through 10 develop the six rhetorical patterns.  The book is written in a personal, narrative style, and is engaging, not so abstruse as to make it challenging yet at a level that satisfies intelligent readers.

It’s a great book for incoming Jewish college freshmen to read and discuss during the summer preceding their first semester.  They will be much better prepared to see through and resist the anti-Israel indoctrination and activism they are about to confront from their professors and fellow students.

Like my family and friends, I have always been a staunch supporter of Israel, and like them, I trusted NPR and the New York Times, except that their reporting about Israel almost always got my hackles up--until I read this book when it was first published four years ago.  Since then I’ve been relying on other, more trustworthy sources for news and analysis about Israel.

The Israel-Hamas war has seen, and continues to see, egregiously distorted reporting.  Rereading Framing Israel now, I find its unique way of deconstructing distorted media coverage of Israel–to our great dismay–more relevant than ever.





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!

 

 

  • Friday, November 29, 2024
  • Elder of Ziyon


Angry fans greeted the Turkish Beşiktaş football team on their arrival back from a defeat against the Maccabi Tel Aviv team in Hungary. But they weren't protesting specifically about the loss to the Zionists; they were protesting how poorly the team has bene playing altogether.

But one part of the match caused the Turkish fans to be very upset.

After scoring a goal, Gabi Kanikovski pointed to the Israeli flag on his uniform, looked up at the sky,  and gave a salute.



Deputy Chairman of the opposition CHP Republican Peoples Party Ali Mahir Başarır called for the UEFA to ban Kanikovski from football, calling the salute a "crime against humanity" and "immoral."

Others noted that Turkey was penalized when all the players on their national team gave a coordinated salute after a goal in 2020, and Turkish player Merih Demiral received a two-game suspension for displaying a "grey wolf" sign after a goal in July. (The "grey wolf" sign  is associated with a fascist group.)

The Turks are saying that if Turkey is penalized, certainly Israel should be for a hand gesture.

They are not remotely comparable.  Kanikovski's salute was not political. And you can see it for yourself.

Why was he saluting the sky?  The reason is that Kanikovski was not saluting the IDF but two of his friends that had fallen in the Gaza war, childhood friend Shauli Gringlick and Yaron Chitiz. He even named his own son after Shauli. 

Don't expect any Turkish media to report that.



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!

 

 

  • Friday, November 29, 2024
  • Elder of Ziyon
Things are turning horrific in England for Jews.

Here are some incidents reported just the past week:
A 14-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jewish girl from Stamford Hill in London, was rushed to the hospital with serious head and facial injuries after being brutally attacked in what is believed to be an antisemitic incident. Her condition is reported as critical, according to local Jewish organization Shomrim.

The attack occurred when a man threw several glass bottles from his balcony at a group of ultra-Orthodox girls who were walking home from school. One of the girls was struck by a bottle and severely injured, and transported by ambulance to the Royal London Hospital.
______________
JFS pupils have spoken of their horror after their school bus was pelted with rocks and rubbish by teenagers from another school who shouted “f*ck Israel” at them.

Two of the buses used by the school were attacked by a group of around ten teenagers from another school as they made a stop in Edgware, north London.

Four teenagers also jumped onto one of the buses, swore at the JFS children and filmed them before getting out and throwing things at the bus.

______________

 Leaflets with the writing “every Zionist needs to leave Britain or be slaughtered” were found spread around the streets of Hendon, a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in north London.

The threatening message was written in Hebrew, and the leaflet also stated in English “Zionist Free Zone.” It also read “Ha, made you pick up litter you zianazi freak.”

______________
A King’s College London academic used a Hamas propaganda document to encourage her students to sympathise with the terror group, the JC can reveal.

Dr Rana Baker, a lecturer on Middle Eastern history,  led a seminar earlier this year in which she handed out the Hamas text titled “Our Narrative: Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” and suggested students think about the terrorist organisation as a “liberation” movement.

She also remarked on the “collaboration between Zionists and Nazis” and the “deployment of the Holocaust as a justification to build an exclusive Jewish state”.

______________ 

Several BBC staff members quit the journalists' union after being told to wear the colors of the Palestinian flag, Jewish News reported on Wednesday.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) reportedly sent messages asking workers to “wear something red, green, black or a Palestinian keffiyeh.”

This directive is part of a Day of Action for Palestine, an event calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

_____________

A Merseyside councillor who joked that complaints of antisemitism in Labour should be labelled “Jew process” rather than “due process” gave antisemitism training to the Green Party.

 _______________

The restaurant critic Jay Rayner left the Observer because “there are antisemites on the [Guardian] staff” and the editor, Kath Viner, “likes to deny it,” he wrote on a private Facebook post seen by the JC.

In the post, Rayner wrote: “I'm not sorry to be leaving Guardian newspapers. For years now being Jewish, however non-observant, and working for the company has been uncomfortable, at times excruciating.

"Viner likes to deny it but there are antisemites on the daily's staff and she has not had the courage to face them down. For years now I have made a point of sending her a back channel email each time the Guardian has published another outrage. It will be a joy to know that I'm not a part of that anymore.”




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!

 

 

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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