Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 23, 2024

Why the Holiday of Holidays in Haifa is a problem (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

In December Haifa celebrates the "holiday of holidays", a festival marking Hannukah, Christmas, and the Muslim holiday Eid Al-Adha. A celebration of multiculturalism, Jews, Muslims, and Christians living together peacefully.

The historic German quarter with the Bahai Temple at the top of the road is decorated with beautiful lights and filled with vendors selling food, Santa hats, balloons, and various little toys.

(Bahai is another religion. Their world center is located in Haifa)

Israelis like having a sliver of European Christmas environment here at home. The lights are pretty and a reason to celebrate is wonderful - particularly in a country filled with difficulties, pain, and grief.

Holiday of Holidays in Haifa 2024

The thing is that in Israel there is what you see on the surface and the layer of meaning underneath.

I don't enjoy the “Holiday of Holidays” as much as most people do because, while I too love the pretty lights, I can't ignore the layer underneath.

This festival is a good thing in that it brings tourism to Haifa. That's good for businesses. But whose businesses? And what message is being conveyed in this celebration?

The entire premise of the festival is based on a distortion of truth. Hannukah and Christmas come more or less at the same time every year. Eid Al-Adha coincides with the Jewish and Christian holidays approximately once every 33 years due to the shifting cycles of the Islamic calendar relative to the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars.

Celebrating the holidays as if they come together is a reflection of the Jewish hope that the different religions can come together, joyously. It's a reflection of an ideal (a fantasy), not a reflection of reality.

Just like Israelis who lived in the communities near Gaza believed that the Gazans they employed were the forerunners of peace between our nations, believing that their cooperation was the only reality, never dreaming that there was another layer underneath. They employed Gazans in their homes, providing them with salaries much higher than they could dream of attaining in Gaza. They invited them to eat with their families and supported them when they had personal problems – driving their sick children to Israeli hospitals, staying with them for the duration of the hospital stay to serve as a liaison with the system and make sure they didn’t feel alone. The Israelis saw genuine friendship and collaboration between human beings.

They never imagined that those same Gazans would be the ones to provide the Hamas invaders with maps and lists of who lived in which house, if there was a gun in the house, a dog and anything worth stealing. The Israelis never imagined that the people they invited into their homes would be the ones to tell the invaders who to slaughter first, describing habits and schedules to make it easier to achieve that goal.

It's incredibly dangerous to address reality as what we wish it was, rather than as it really is.

The lights are pretty and, although I am Jewish, I recognize Christmas as a positive holiday – not the consumerism of what Christmas has become for many, the religious idea of hope and salvation for every individual is inspirational and beneficial to society. The thing that most people abroad don’t realize is that the Christians in Israel are mostly Arabs and Arab culture is stronger than Christian values. The other Christians are escapees from the Soviet Union, using some Jewish ancestor as their ticket to a better life. It is legitimate for any human being to strive to improve their circumstances. At the same time, while these are often educated people who can contribute to the economy, their lack of connection to Israel as the homeland of the Jews is a problem.

(Yes, there are many Russian and Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, who are both Jewish and Zionists and have done much for the country. I am not referring to them)

The “Holiday of Holidays” does not display Hanukah on the same level as the Christian or Muslim holiday. There are no symbols to represent the Maccabees and there is very little in the decorations that represents the miracle of light. There is nothing in the atmosphere that conveys the Jewish triumph over the greatest army in the world and regaining of sovereignty in their land – the miracle of those days that has become super relevant to us, in this day.

The symbols and atmosphere of Christmas dominate but the culture that is felt is Arab – the vendors who benefit from the business, the style, and the food. The Arab business owners are Israelis, their presentation is successful and the food is delicious.

So what is wrong?

On the external level – absolutely nothing. Business is good. Success is good. Everyone loves a party and good food.

On the underlying layer, there are two problems – cultural domination and a lack of Jewish pride.

There is no such thing as a vacuum and when we don’t fill the atmosphere with the spirit of our celebration, inviting others to attend and benefit from the light of our miracles, of course, others will step in and fill the void. When we don’t tell our story of course others, who never stopped telling stories, will insist that we have no story.

It is lovely to celebrate with other people and enjoy their holidays. The problem is where is our holiday? Why aren’t we telling our story? Why aren’t we inviting others to join our celebration?

The lights are pretty but I can’t completely enjoy them when I feel I am staring into the void where Jewish identity, pride and joy is supposed to be.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Honest Reporting writes:

Over its 17-year reign in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has sought to manipulate the way that local Palestinians and foreign journalists report on hostilities with the IDF, seeking to control the narrative and sway the minds of uninformed audiences around the world.

Through Hamas’ issuance of constricting media guidelines in 2014 and 2022, its use of violence against opposition journalists, the recently unearthed evidence of collaboration by certain Palestinian freelancers with the terror group, and its propaganda campaigns focused on influencing mainstream media outlets, it is clear that any news emerging from Gaza must be treated with a critical eye and not taken at face value.

One way to see this is by looking at Syria.

The Washington Post writes about how the Syrian Assad regime secret police were everywhere and people had to speak in code because of fear of being betrayed by informants.

For decades, Syrians passed down a warning from one generation to the next: “The walls have ears.” In cafes, taxis and markets — even in their own living rooms — most could not speak freely, fearing they might be overheard by Bashar al-Assad’s mukhabarat, or secret police. To maintain its grip, the Assad regime planted fear, its roots spreading into every aspect of civilian life. Street cleaners, garbage collectors, balloon sellers, colleagues — anyone could be an informant.

The article describes the fear that Syrians felt in expressing their true feelings because of the potential consequences of imprisonment, torture or death.

Great story, right? Journalism at its finest, right?

But this has been happening for decades. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled the country. Any mainstream media reporter could have talked to Syrian refugees in Europe and written this story years ago.

And few of them did, as far as I can tell. (There were rare exceptions.)

When people live in such an environment, everything they say is self-censored. They know that if their statements make it back to the government, they can suffer severe consequences.

This has been what Gaza is like since 2007. Hamas' state security may not be as professional or as extensive as Assad's, but the fear and self-censorship is the same.

Gazans know that there is one acceptable narrative that they can say out loud. And they play their role well. The reporters and NGO workers who interview them know the game - either they are Hamas sympathizers who the people will not tell the truth to, or they are fellow suspects who could be tortured if they publish something not to Hamas' liking.

Why aren't these articles being written before the autocratic regimes fall? Why are we not seeing articles about Gaza and the fear that Gazans still have for even the weakened Hamas?

Because journalists aren't the brave Fourth Estate they project themselves to be to the world. They are cowards. Or they are on the side of the Assads and the Deifs, playing their role in the cognitive war.

Either way, they are not dedicated to telling the truth. They are happily doing the work of the regimes they are covering, and covering for.

News consumers and the people who read NGO reports are being lied to. The reporters know it, and the interviewees know it. The only people who don't know it are the people who still trust the media and NGOs to be honest sources of information.

Lying has been a key component of the current Gaza war from the start, as pat of Hamas' strategy. If journalists don't mention that in every article quoting Hamas or interviewing Gazans, that puts them on Hamas' side.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

A five song Chanukah album of computer-generated music that I created today in wildly disparate styles

Every year I present one or two new Chanukah music videos for each night of the holiday. I thought to try out the online resources for creating music from scratch.

The results are pretty much just as good as the original Chanukah songs (not song parodies) I've been listening to.

Not that they are excellent, but the lyrics are appropriate and the speed of creating these songs is amazing.

Here are five songs in various styles I asked AI to create. I did not change any lyrics. (I quickly turned them into videos with one picture each but I haven't looked at AI generated video yet.)

A Chanukah song in the style of 1940s and 1950s singers like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby:

Dreidel song, contemporary pop, female vocalist.

1970s rock song about latkes.

Rap about the Maccabees.

Broadway musical about dreidel gambling.

This is a little frightening but also an opportunity.

The songs are generic, because I didn't ask for anything specific outside the topic. But I could ask for a song to fit a storyline plot, and presumably I can change parts of a song in various ways (probably with the paid versions.) Meaning, instead of looking at AI as a threat, look at it as a creative partner that saves a lot of time.

For the near future, creating prompts is a science in itself, much like crafting a good Google search is a skill. The AIs mess up plenty (I asked a different one to create a children's song about a snow-golem that protects Jewish children from antisemites but it got everything terribly wrong.)

And also AI should up the game of creative professionals. When computer chess started getting as good as top grandmasters, the humans started learning new chess techniques from the machines and it made them better themselves. When everyone can create their own songs, then the songwriters must create songs the AIs cannot - at least not yet.

I use chat AI as a collaborator on the blog - asking it questions about finer points of international law, for example, and learning from it as if I have a (flawed) expert always around that I can argue and discuss things with.

Ai is here, and it is getting better very quickly. It brings great challenges, but also great opportunities. Hopefully next year's Chanukah music videos will become much better, by working with AI.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Here is the beginning of a Washington Post article about the fighting between the Palestinian Authority and terrorists in Jenin.

JENIN, West Bank — The black-clad militants of Jenin refugee camp raced through sewage-filled alleyways to dodge gunfire echoing all around. “Quickly,” a Palestinian fighter urged as they weaved through a network of armed patrols and improvised barricades. “Watch out,” another warned at a juncture where an improvised explosive was being set.

The action witnessed by Washington Post reporters on Monday could have been the response to an Israeli military raid on this northern West Bank city, the epicenter of a new generation of Palestinian militancy.

But for the past two weeks, the militants of Jenin have been locked in a rare, open battle with an internal foe: the Palestinian Authority.

There is no way that reporters would go into an area with bullets flying and terrorists planting IEDs without being actively protected by those terrorists. Which means that the terrorists trust them not to say anything negative and not to reveal anything about them that could compromise their security.

And indeed the reporters - apparently Sufian Taha and Heidi Levine - show sympathy towards the terrorists as defenders of the city and of "Palestine."

Militants and camp residents gathered at the other end. Women, many dressed conservatively in black, and cheering children waved Palestinian flags. They wore face masks. The sting of tear gas lingered.

“We hope that the security forces leave the camp, because it’s forbidden to shed blood,” said Kifah Al Amouri. Both her children were fighters, she said; one was killed by Israel soldiers.

The militants, she said, were “defending their country.”

Allowing supporters of a vicious terror group to say that "it's forbidden to shed blood" without pointing out the hundreds of Israelis murdered by that group's bombs, guns and knives is not reporting. It is pandering to be able to keep access for the next story.

(h/t Avi)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The same Hamas that claims so many women and children killed also makes up stories about killing IDF soldiers

One aspect of the war that most Western reports don't mention is that Hamas keeps telling Palestinians that they are winning an imaginary war - and the Palestinians are thrilled to hear it.

Hamas claims that last Thursday, one of its fighters managed to stab an Israeli officer and three soldiers to death, and seized their weapons in Jabalia.

Then, on Saturday, a nearly identical operation was reported: again, a brave Hamas fighter stabbed three IDF soldiers to death in Jabalia, Afterwards, Hamas' Qassam Brigades claimed that "they threw a number of Zionist-made hand grenades at a gathering of soldiers next to an armored personnel carrier, killing and wounding them in the middle of the camp."

Some accounts elaborate that the stabber dressed himself up as a soldier and then blew himself up along with six "Zionists."

None of this happened.

Every fallen soldier is listed in various sites, and as of this writing there have been no deaths in Gaza since December 17 when two soldiers died in a building collapse.

But Hamas' claims are greeted ecstatically by clueless fans of theirs. These tales "inspire" Palestinian social media activists to wax poetic about these fighters, with no bullets left, who then launch themselves armed with only knives to kill Jewish soldiers.

Like Maha Abu Alhaj, who wrote on Facebook:

This authentic mujahid has established proof for all the weak in the nation of Muhammad. Did he empty his weapon into the soldiers of his enemy and not have a single bullet left, so he drew his knife? Did he see his comrades martyred and lose their weapons and he was left alone in that battle, so he decided to fight it with his pure hands? Did he see the angels of the Most Merciful supporting him as he pounced on 4 armed Zionists, killing them and seizing their weapons? Did he despair of victory for his nation after 440 days of fighting and siege, so he followed the path of Anas and Al-Baraa? Did he see the heroes of Jabalia surrendering? Did he see those people being defeated? No, by God, O soldiers of God, are the victorious ones.

If there is one thing Hamas has learned in this war, it is that it an lie with impunity. Palestinians will believe whatever they say, and the West will believe the things they want to believe and ignore the rest - never considering that they are all lies, not just some of them.

Everything Hamas says can be assumed to be false unless there is independent evidence that it is true. Everything the IDF says can be assumed to be true unless there is independent evidence contradicting it. The media treats each exactly the opposite of how they should be treated, and Jews are treated as presumptive liars while rapists and murderers are treated as legitimate.

And that is the subtle antisemitism that is pervasive, and obvious, every day.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

12/22 Links: Bibi: The Inside Story of Israel’s Victory; Defunding UNRWA is not enough; Erin Molan: I Support Israel Because I "See Right from Wrong"

From Ian:

Why Israel Can Count on Us

Bernard-Henri Lévy’s Israel Alone contains much truth, but its title is fundamentally false. And this means that as insightful and eloquent as the author of this volume often is about the threats Israel faces, his thesis reveals that there is much about the world, and the Jewish place within it, that he does not understand. And for Jews to embrace this book is to countenance a calumny against some of the best friends Israel has in the world.

Lévy, a French-Jewish philosopher and public intellectual, begins Israel Alone by telling us how shocked he was by the events of October 7 and movingly describes how he visited Israel immediately after. His pain is evident as he decries the use of the word "context" utilized in defenses of Israel’s enemies, in statements that were "sung in unison by France’s politicians, the editorialists of the global South, and, in the United States, by the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania." In fact, he asserts, "Israel was defending itself. Struck in the heart, Israel was attempting to neutralize the Nazis that had drawn its blood precisely to ensure that they could never do it again."

All this is laudable. Israel is indeed at war against a Nazi-like evil, and many in European parliaments and palaces around the world have turned against Israel—as they have in the past. But is Israel, as the book’s title claims, truly alone? Are there not prominent political figures that have stood with the Jewish state? Lévy’s reply is that figures such as Donald Trump or Viktor Orban are unworthy of a Jewish embrace. "No accord is possible, no historic compromise is conceivable, with ‘friends’ such as these. The Jews are therefore alone."

Yet whatever one’s views of Orban, or the once and future president of the United States, it remains clear that millions of regular Americans also stand with Israel. The exit polls of the recent election reflect that almost two thirds of voters advocate American support of the Jewish state, with half of those voters contending that the current administration has not supported the country enough. If these polls are even close to being correct, this would mean that at least many tens of millions of Americans harbor an affection for Israel.

What this means is that in fact, the exact opposite of Lévy’s contention is the case: Israel is less alone than it has ever been. In a certain sense, this is more historically wondrous than the rise of modern Israel itself. For consider: The Jews have had sovereign states before, first in the biblical period, and later during the reign of the Maccabees. Throughout these periods, one may have seen a world leader that reflected an affection for Jews. Hiram, king of Tyre, was an ally of David’s; Cyrus of Persia allowed for the Jewish return to Jerusalem; Julius Caesar was grateful for Judean support and bestowed special liberties on Jerusalem for as long as he led Rome.

Islamism still haunts us

As for Christmas markets, a cherished institution in Germany and increasingly a target of Islamist killers, a 15-year-old was sent to youth custody for four years in June for his plan to attack a market in Leverkusen. Earlier this month, a 37-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker was arrested on suspicion of planning a massacre at a Christmas market in Augsburg, and three young suspected Islamists were arrested, the police seizing knives and an assault rifle, for their plot to attack a market in Frankfurt or Mannheim.

That’s just Germany. 2024 was a grotesquely successful year for Islamist terror on the European continent at large. Tajik gunmen backed by ISIS-K, the ISIS franchise operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan, slaughtered 145 people and injured more than 500 at the Crocus City Hall near Moscow. It was the deadliest terror attack on Russian soil since 2004. If it wasn’t for a tip-off from US intelligence, similar horrors could have been inflicted on Vienna in August, where two teenagers, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, were planning to bomb and slash their way through a Taylor Swift concert.

Massacring concert-goers. Mowing down families at Christmas markets. Slashing at people’s necks as they gather together in their city centre. This is a barbarous war on our very way of life, waged by death cults and their sadistic fanboys. And yet Europe’s rulers have come to treat such attacks as akin to natural disasters – as awful, tragic, oh-so-sad things that just happen from time to time.

They seem to have convinced themselves that confronting the Islamist threat too forcefully risks whipping up anti-Muslim hatred, as if the majority are a pogrom in waiting, or risks ‘alienating’ European Muslims, as if they are all terrorist sympathisers. In their supposed efforts to quell bigotry, the elites reveal their own.

The horror in Magdeburg is a reminder that barbarism comes in many different packages. But as we head into 2025, we cannot lose sight of where the primary threat lies. We must refuse to be cowed by Islamist terror – and we must refuse to be condescended to by an establishment that would rather see us as the problem.

An obscene irony: Talk of arresting Netanyahu at Auschwitz

Nearly five years ago, as preparations were underway to hold a major event in Jerusalem on January 20, 2020, marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, dozens of world leaders were slated to attend. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, however, announced he would not participate because he would not be allowed to speak at the event.

Instead, keynote speeches were to be delivered by then-US Vice President Mike Pence, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

For Duda, the decision to exclude him from speaking was more than a diplomatic slight—it was, he argued, “a distortion of the historical truth,” denying him the chance to honor Polish citizens who perished in the Holocaust.

This sensitivity to “historical truth” raises questions about how Duda might view a potential scenario unfolding today: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being unable to travel to Poland and Auschwitz for an event marking the 80th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation on January 27 because Poland has stated it would honor an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for his arrest on alleged war crimes stemming from the October 7 war.

Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Władysław Bartoszewski, told a Polish newspaper on Friday that Netanyahu would indeed be arrested if he came to the ceremony. Think of that: Poland, upon whose soil millions of Jews were killed, would detain the leader of the Jewish state for taking actions to protect the country from those seeking to destroy it. And this is based on an arrest warrant issued by a court that lacks jurisdiction over Israel.

Talk about a distortion of truth — both past and present.

Auschwitz stands as the ultimate symbol of antisemitism, where 1.1 million people were murdered, a million of them Jews. To arrest Netanyahu under an ICC warrant—a move widely viewed in Israel as antisemitic due to its double standards and bias—would send an unconscionable message. For Poland to enforce such a decree, especially at a memorial event for history’s greatest crime of Jew-hatred, is almost unfathomable.

The moral bankruptcy here would be staggering.

(A guest post.)

The rule of law is the bedrock of modern democratic civilization.

Alexander Hamilton once said “The instruments by which [government] must act are either the authority of the laws or force. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty" Tully No. III, [28 August 1794]

I was previously under the impression that the legal system carried some weight, both in international arenas, and certainly within the US. Recent events seem to illustrate how thin the veneer of civilization really is. Fifteen hundred American criminals were pardoned in one day, Venezuelan drug gangs have poured in through porous borders, governments fall under the control of terrorists, and journalists continue to report on the chaos using neutral language that sounds a lot like ChatGPT.

In his recent comments about Syria, Vladimir Putin stated "... we are on the side of international law and for the sovereignty of all countries, while respecting their territorial integrity, meaning Syria."

This quote ought to give us a good chuckle, in light of Putin's abysmal track record of invading other countries, including Ukraine, Georgia, and Estonia. Even Sweden and Finland are preparing for a Russian invasion:

But before we start throwing stones in glass houses, the US Department of State has some explaining to do:

"US dropping terrorism bounty on Syrian leader after first diplomatic visit since 2012"

The article quotes directly from the Department of State press briefing on 12/20/2024:

"QUESTION: Okay. All right, I’ll go with the second one, is: How do you – can you explain the dynamic of removing the $10 million bounty on somebody who’s wanted by the FBI list? Is this a good thing for other people on this list, encourage them to disengage from terrorism? Or is it only applicable to Syria?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY LEAF: So this is a decision, a policy decision, that was made in the interests of and consonant with and aligned with the fact that we are beginning a discussion with HTS. So, if I’m sitting with the HTS leader and having a lengthy, detailed discussion about a whole series of interested – or interests of the U.S., interests of Syria, maybe interests of the region, suffice to say it’s a little incoherent then to have a bounty on the guy’s head. Otherwise, I should ask the FBI to come in and, like, arrest him or something. So, I’m being facetious, but you know what I mean. We have a set of issues that we would like to discuss with HTS over time, and it is strictly pertaining to Syria and to the circumstances that we see before us. So no, it has no bearing on any other person."

Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf seems to argue that since she is ignoring US law by sitting with a wanted terrorist, and not arresting him, she is somehow prevented from obeying the law, since that would contradict what she is actually doing. In other words, since she can do no wrong, whatever she is doing must be right. Ms. Leaf may one day face a Senate hearing for these statements. I would caution her to refrain from using the cliche defense of "it depends on the context."

In this era of bizarre contradictions and inverted logic, contrast the above events with the arrest warrant for Netanyahu, issued by the International Criminal Court in the Hague (ICC). Charged with a preposterous allegation of a war crime, without hard evidence, and without any attempt at a judicial hearing, the Prime Minister of a democratic country is suddenly a wanted criminal.

"Netanyahu will be arrested if he comes to Auschwitz memorial, Polish government confirms - report"

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/benjamin-netanyahu/article-834302

Other countries have also indicated they would arrest Netanyahu, given the opportunity:

Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Lithuania, Canada, Ireland, South Africa, Turkey, Jordan, Norway, and of course Sweden, have all professed their unwavering loyalty to the Rome Statute.

Now consider international law as it pertains to diplomatic immunity:

Article 29 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 stipulates:

The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving State shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person, freedom or dignity.

It is doubtful that Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani within the terrorist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, is legally entitled to the immunity afforded to a diplomatic agent. After all, just because you can topple a government does not automatically mean you represent the government.

Conversely, Benjamin Netanyahu , as a democratically elected Prime Minister, most certainly qualifies as a diplomat, and does receive full immunity under the Vienna Convention.

Is the ICC aware of this convention? Are the above listed countries aware of it? Will US relations with these countries continue as before? Should they? Are there any adults at the ICC, the UN, or the Department of State? Will international law make a comeback on 1/20/2025, or do we now live in a "post-legal world?"

[This is a controversial issue in the legal community, a clear contradiction between the ICC and the Vienna Convention. In the cases that it has happened that a leader with a warrant visited another country, even in cases that the national court ruled that he should be arrested, there have been no arrests, which strongly seems to indicate that state practice - which largely determines practical international law - has so far ruled against respecting the ICC. But, as we've seen so many times, when it comes to Israel the laws are interpreted differently.- EoZ]

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Hamas gets funded by the West, and no one wants to talk about it

Eyal Ofer writes an important tweet:

In Israel, there is a complete lack of understanding regarding how Hamas funds itself.
I still hear nonsense like "Iran provides 70% of Hamas' funding" (as Yaron Blum claimed two days ago on Oded Ben Ami's show) or people who believe that money is smuggled into Gaza via Rafah and accumulates there. It's the opposite: Hamas is looking for ways to get the significant sums it earns inside Gaza out of Gaza.

Just last week, in several interviews and articles, I mentioned how, due to a unique coincidence, we discovered that 10% of the employees of the WCK organization are Hamas operatives.

An organization introduced into Gaza just this year by Israel already employs 62 Hamas members (out of 584 workers hired this year alone).

From my past experience, I can assure you that additional significant percentages of its employees are relatives of Hamas members.

Hamas operates like a mafia and a clan-based enterprise: one brother is in the military wing, another in the police force, they ensure the sister works for UNRWA, a non-combat-profile cousin becomes a driver for an aid organization, an uncle gets a government position, another cousin is a "journalist" for Al Jazeera, and the grandmother is added to the list of welfare recipients.

What people here still fail to grasp is how much the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to fund Hamas. This has been going on for years.

Even when there were times of open conflict between them and Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) stopped salaries (which led to the Qatari suitcases of cash), the PA still indirectly funded Hamas.

Here’s an example of European money being funneled not even to the PA but to a semi-governmental urban development fund.
It’s only $3 million (total grant is $9 million for this "Green Gaza" project), but there are many more similar projects. Hundreds of them.

This fund issued a tender for (I’m not joking) “consultation services—social activities for a green Gaza and climate change prevention.”

What are the chances that Hamas' regime in Gaza will manage to place its members or their relatives among the beneficiaries of this Belgian grant?

In my opinion: 100%. Long live the "green" climate in Gaza.

Thank you to the Belgian government for your contribution. Multiply this story by 200, and you'll see how Hamas is funded.

Not just by Iran (in extreme cases, Iran provides 5%-10% of Hamas' funding).
The vast majority of Hamas' funding comes from its ability to funnel money that the world sends to the PA (and other Gaza charitable causes) and Gaza for its own purposes.

Indeed, there have been plenty of Western initiatives pouring money into Gaza, and no one bats an eye.

NGO Monitor examined 17 grants from European NGOs in 2022 that totaled €18.7 million.

A glance at the EU External Action webpage shows other initiatives that include Gaza, like the some €60 million to the Palestinian Cash Transfer Programme that gives cash assistance to some 108,000 poor families in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, the cash doubtless goes primarily to families with connections to Hamas.

The European Joint Strategy in support of Palestine 2021-2024 mentions lots of things about Gaza, but not a word about avoiding Hamas from taking the funding.

Their report on previous initiatives shows that money goes into Gaza, but they have no metrics on whether the money is doing what it is supposed to do. So for example the EU pours money into combatting gender based violence, but it says, data "was not collected in a systematic way and data from Gaza is not available." So that is money that went down the drain - and to Hamas.

They also throw money in Gaza at "climate change policy" and in helping Palestinian youth including Gaza. They have programs to promote democracy in Gaza, to improve the judicial system, to unify the administrative systems of the West Bank and Gaza, to improve local governance - the list goes on and on, and it is obvious to all that the EU was throwing money Gaza for programs that have zero chance of making any difference under Hamas rule.

Does anyone seriously think that money going to combat climate change in Gaza goes anywhere but to line Hamas' pockets?

I cannot verify Ofer's claims that the vast majority of Hamas' funding comes from these Western projects. The IDF probably could, now that they have access to Hamas computers in Gaza. But now that we know how Hamas views all Gaza civilians as having no purpose except to die to protect terrorists, there is no doubt that the bulk of funding meant to help Gaza governance and health and welfare ended up going to Hamas or Hamas-linked families.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

By Daled Amos

The world was horrified when it learned of the Hamas massacre. Palestinian terrorists invaded Israel, massacring over 1,200 men, women, and children, while taking hundreds hostage. World leaders condemned the murders and kidnappings.

But not everyone did. Some defended it.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, Students for Justice in Palestine "hailed and defended" the massacre, and "some, like the SJP chapter at Columbia University, have published social media posts that openly support acts of terror against Israel." The ADL points out that:

many of the organization’s campus chapters have explicitly endorsed the actions of Hamas and their armed attacks on Israeli civilians and voiced an increasingly radical call for confronting and “dismantling” Zionism on U.S. college campuses.

The Democratic Socialists of America were no less enthusiastic in their defense of Hamas. The ADL writes that the DSA, Salt Lake City Chapter:

published a “Statement on Palestinian Liberation” on October 7, expressing their “unwavering solidarity with the people of Palestine in their decades long fight for national liberation” and urging Americans “to stand up against settler-colonial, Zionist apartheid.” The statement proclaimed the group’s full support for the attack on Israeli civilians, writing that “it is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice.”

The day after the attack, The Times of Israel reported how quickly anti-Israel groups jumped to endorse the massacre:

In New York, the pro-Palestinian groups Within Our Lifetime, Samidoun, Decolonize This Place, Al-Awda and others announced rallies on Sunday in Times Square and on Monday at the Israeli consulate “to defend the heroic Palestinian resistance.”

WOL enthusiastically said that “supporting Palestinian liberation is supporting whatever means necessary it takes to get there. Freedom has only ever been achieved through resistance.”

Just three days after the massacre, The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee came out with a statement defending Hamas. The statement declared that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” and excused the murders on the basis that “today’s events did not occur in a vacuum.”

The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, also equivocated, in his remarks to the UN Security Council three weeks later, that "it is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum."

While radical anti-Israel groups did not hesitate to come out in support of the Palestinian terrorists and the atrocities that they committed, it did not take long for others to hedge on their condemnations and assign responsibility to Israel.

It is shocking to see how uninhibited anti-Israel groups were to excuse the attacks, and how others--whom we might have expected better of--were quick to fall in line with the message of the ongoing pro-Palestinian riots that defended the mass murders.

The question arises: just how far will some go to defend murder, outside of the events in the Middle East?

It sounds like a ridiculous question, especially in the context of Western values. Still, you have to wonder, especially when Americans came out in defense of the recent murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Luigi Mangione was charged with first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism in Thompson’s death.

As shocking as Brian Thompson's murder is, the reaction to it is even more unnerving.

According to Emerson College Polling, 68% of voters said the murder was unacceptable, while 17% found the action acceptable. Digging deeper, the poll found:

“While 68% of voters overall reject the killer’s actions, younger voters and Democrats are more split — 41% of voters aged 18-29 find the killer’s actions acceptable (24% somewhat acceptable and 17% completely acceptable), while 40% find them unacceptable; 22% of Democrats find them acceptable, while 59% find them unacceptable, this compares to 12% of Republicans and 16% of independents who find the actions acceptable, underscoring shifting societal attitudes among the youngest electorate and within party lines,” Kimball said.

Of those in the 18-29 year old age group, 41% found Thompson's murder acceptable to some degree. To a large extent, these are the people protesting on college campuses and on the streets in defense of Hamas terrorists.

Social media was full of posts approving the murder. Alex Goldenberg, a senior adviser for The Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers noted that “the surge of social media posts praising and glorifying the killing of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson is deeply concerning." But, according to Goldenberg, some people online went beyond approval:

“We’ve identified highly engaged posts circulating the names of other healthcare CEOs and others celebrating the shooter. The framing of this incident as some opening blow in a class war and not a brutal murder is especially alarming.”

The justification given for the murder was that insurance companies are primarily interested in making a profit, even if Americans are killed by denying them coverage.

Politicians and public figures chimed in.

“And people wonder why we want these executives dead,” Taylor Lorenz, a former New York Times and Washington Post journalist, wrote on Bluesky a few hours after the CEO, Brian Thompson, 50, was gunned down in Manhattan by a man with a silenced pistol. After a backlash, Lorenz later posted, “no, that doesn’t mean people should murder them.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren chimed in:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in interviews this week that the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was wrong but also served as a "warning" of sorts that "you can only push people so far."

"We'll say it over and over," Warren said on MSNBC. "Violence is never the answer. This guy [Luigi Mangione] gets a trial who's allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth[care], but you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands."

And so did AOC:

“This is not to say that an act of violence is justified, but I think for anyone who is confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them,” the congresswoman told CBS News’ Jaala Brown on Thursday.

...AOC’s comments drew a slew of backlash from those who are fed up with those excusing the cold-blooded murder, lovers of the accused killer, Luigi Mangione, and posters across the Big Apple warning other CEOs that they’re next on the hit list.

And sure enough, if you do a search, you will find responses that echo the Secretary General's excuse for Hamas, applied now on social media to Luigi Mangione:

o This act of violence did not occur in a vacuum. UnitedHealth Group, and its subsidiary UnitedHealthcare, are corporate behemoths on a scale the world has never seen.

o You are trying to simplify it because it makes the situation easier in your head if you think of it in black and white, but as always, it did not happen in a vacuum.

o It doesn’t mean that I endorse the assassination of Brian Thompson; it means that I empathize with John Quincy Archibald [reference to movie John Q.]. This murder didn’t happen in a vacuum.

o Many people see Luigi Mangione as a hero because they understand, consciously or not, the fundamental violence of the system in which we live. Luigi didn’t act in a vacuum; his actions were born of desperation, anger, and a sense of moral reckoning.

The point is that this attitude, this support for murder as acceptable, may be part of a trend.

Remember when Representative Maxine Waters egged people on to violence against people associated with the Trump Administration:

I have no sympathy for these people that are in this administration who know it’s wrong for what they’re doing on so many fronts. They tend to not want to confront this president or even leave, but they know what they’re doing is wrong. I want to tell you, these members of his cabinet who remain and try to defend him, they won’t be able to go to a restaurant, they won’t be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store. The people are going to turn on them.

They’re going to protest. They’re absolutely going to harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president, ‘No, I can’t hang with you.’

At the time, Legal Insurrection pointed out that Americans were responding to Waters and her call:

o  DC Socialist Group Chases DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Out of a Restaurant Shouting, “Shame!”
o  “Justice-minded” Website Doxes Sr. White House Advisor Stephen Miller
o  #TheResistance crosses another line, confronts DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at home
o  Sarah Sanders Kicked Out of Virginia Restaurant Because She Works For Trump
o  Florida AG Pam Bondi Accosted By Protestors At Tampa Movie Theater

Those incidents, and the provocations, have ceased. But with Trump starting his second term and the continued anti-Israel protests, there is no way to know if "moral indignation" will be used to excuse more violence.

As Erich Fromm wrote:

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

I ask for donations only a few times a year, usually at the beginning of every new season. As I look at my last post asking for donations in September, it is astonishing how different the atmosphere is.

In those three months, Israel crushed Hezbollah, de-linked the war in the north from the one in the south, attacked Iran with an unmistakable message that they could do much more, sent another message to the Houthis but also a signal that things could get much worse for them, and forced Hamas to beg for a cease fire when previously they had demanded a surrender. Syria fell in large part due to Israel's actions, and Iran's malign influence has shrunk significantly.

Israel has defied the world in two important ways. One was by not knuckling under to pressure to end the fighting prematurely before its military goals were met. The other, no less important, has been to prove that Israel knows better than the world how things work in the Middle East.

Time and time again, the dire predictions of the international community - Israel taking Rafah would be a bloodbath, Israel could not defeat Hezbollah without suffering thousands of Israeli casualties, an attack on Iran would result in a massive retaliation that would dwarf the Gaza war - were proven wrong.

Not all is wonderful. The hostages are still imprisoned, global antisemitism is at the worst levels seen since World War II, the "genocide" blood libel has gained mainstream acceptance and new threats are arising. But the vibe has shifted and winning is a lot better than being seen as being in a quagmire.

For over twenty years, I have been here, with news and analysis, to help you make sense of what is going on. In every post I try to give you information you would not see anywhere else. I show context, historical parallels, and new ways of thinking about Israel and the Jewish world. My posts reveal details that other miss, and also show the big picture that many others overlook.

My social media presence continues to grow, with about 125,000 followers across all platforms, the bulk being on X. It is not unusual for my posts to have thousands of views and hundreds of "likes."

I released my long-awaited book of my best cartoons. It has received great reviews.

One problem I need to fix is that my mailing list provider (MadMimi) went out of business and I need to find a replacement. This is only one of my expenses. In order to serve you, I also subscribe to a number of online news sources. There are also expenses associated with maintaining this site and my other accounts.

Beyond that, while I don't give as much as I'd like, I do send payments to my regular columnists PreOccupied Territory, Varda Meyers Epstein, and Daled Amos, not to mention Ian, who posts twice daily the best news summary of anyone on the Internet, bar none. I also appreciate the others who contribute occasionally to the blog like Andrew Pessin, Real Jerusalem Streets, Forest Rain and others.

It has been a year that swings wildly between frightening and exhilarating. I am not chasing followers with clickbait or with wild predictions that never come true. I only aim to give you the facts so you can see behind the veil of anti-Israel and antisemitic lies that permeates the media, the "human rights" community, and the international community.

Please help me continue in this important mission.

To donate with PayPal you can click here or you can subscribe and donate monthly with this form.

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Let's help make 2025 be a year of peace and enlightenment.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

While antisemitic incidents in Canada are soaring, "Jewish" anti-Zionist group doesn't say a word

In Canada over the past year, and especially recent months, attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions have reached epidemic levels.

Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal was firebombed - twice.

Antisemitic graffiti was found multiple times at Toronto mass transit sites.

More antisemitic graffiti was scrawled in Jewish neighborhoods of Toronto including a synagogue..

Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary School in York was hit by gunfire three separate times.

Someone set fire to the front doors of the Schara Tzedeck Synagogue in Vancouver.

Montreal’s Belz Yeshiva Ketana was shot at.

And these are only a few of the incidents.

But Canada's version of "Jewish Voice for Peace," an anti-Zionist but purportedly Jewish organization called "Independent Jewish Voices," is almost completely silent.

I can find only one mention of one incident - and that didn't condemn it, but warned against anyone jumping to conclusions that the people who smashed windows in a Fredericton synagogue were anti-Israel.

Meanwhile, in that same town, a Jewish Israeli teen was assaulted mercilessly by a Muslim student at her school over "Gaza" - on video, witnessed by several students who didn't lift a finger to help - and it took two weeks for police to make an arrest. Of course, IJV didn't say a word of protest for that or the dozens of other antisemitic incidents that made headlines in Canada over the past year.

IJV claims to be against antisemitism. Its silence proves otherwise. When the attackers have even the slightest chance of being anti-Israel, then they condone those attacks with their silence.

There is nothing Jewish about IJV. They, like similar groups in the US, UK and Australia, just use their supposed Judaism as a means to make hating proud Jews socially acceptable.

If there is still a "pintele yid" inside anyone who considers IJV to be their home, hopefully they will realize they are being used a mere props for an organization that supports antisemites.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)