Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
cartoon of the day, ElderToons, humor, memes
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Tuesday, December 24, 2024Elder of Ziyon
We housewives must take an attempt to free our kitchens from European customs which are not applicable to Palestine. We should wholeheartedly stand in favour of healthy Palestine cooking. We should foster these ideas not merely because we are compelled to do so, but because we realize that this will help us more than anything else in becoming acclimatised to our old-new homeland. Once we learn how to take advantage of the natural products of Palestine and in addition utilize our knowledge of European cooking we will bring about great changes in our method of cooking and will be able to vary our dishes — an important detail, often underestimated.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Tuesday, December 24, 2024Elder of ZiyonReading the Advent narratives of Luke and Matthew anew, in their original context, changes so much about how we see the true story of resistance, abusive rulers and systems of oppression, and God coming to earth. In Luke, Rome and Caesar loom, and young Mary's strength and resolve shine brightly as we begin to truly understand what it meant for her to live in the tumultuous Galilee region. In Matthew, through Joseph's point of view, we see the brutality of Herod's rule and how the complexities of empire weighed heavily on the Holy Family. We bear witness to the economic hardship of Nazareth, Bethlehem, and the many villages in between--concerns about daily bread, crushing debt, land loss, and dispossession that ring a familiar echo to our modern ears. Throughout her explorations, Nikondeha features the stories of modern-day Palestinians, centering their voices to help us meet an Advent recognizable for today.
In 1967, Christians in Judea and Samaria were 6% of the population. In 1997 they constituted 1.5% of the total Palestinian population, in 2007 – 1.2%, and in 2017 – 1%.In Bethlehem, Christians frequently face violence and intimidation, and are left defenseless. A member of the Protestant clergy explained: “Christians feel unprotected due to the failure of the PA police to intervene on their behalf in confrontations with Muslims.”In 1950, Bethlehem and the surrounding villages were 86% Christian. By 2017, Bethlehem’s Christian population had dwindled to 10%.
While Palestinian Christians don’t face systematic, large-scale persecution, conversations with local Christians behind closed doors reveal discrimination is, in fact, present.Conducting research in the West Bank this past summer, I spent considerable time with Christian families around Bethlehem. One evening as I was eating dinner with a family, a mosque right outside their home broadcasted verses from the Hadith. Shortly after the recitation ended, the father of my host family remarked, “They just cursed the Christians.” While they explained this did not happen every day, I was shocked to discover that Palestinian Christians, living in what used to be a Christian-majority town in the West Bank, are forced to listen to curses hurled at them from loudspeakers.
Whoever dares to publicly scorn or curse any of the prophets, he / she shall be punished by imprisonment from one to three years.Whoever publicly violates fasting in the month of Ramadan, he / she shall bepunished by imprisonment up to one month or a fine up to twenty five dinars (JD25).Whoever with the intention of hurting the feelings of any person and of insulting the religion of any person or with the knowledge that the feelings of any person are likely to be hurt thereby... he/she shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not to exceed three months or by a fine not to exceed twenty dinars (JD20).Whoever commits one of the following acts, he / she shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not to exceed three months or a fine not to exceed twenty dinars (JD20):1. Publishes any print, writing, picture or effigy calculated or tending to outrage the religious feelings or belief of other persons , or;2. Utters in a public place and in the hearing of another person any word or sound calculated or tending to outrage the religious feelings or belief of such person.
Added to this is the institutional persecution committed by PA police against Christians. As one member of the Protestant clergy under the PA explained: “Christians feel unprotected due to the failure of the PA police to intervene on their behalf in confrontations with Muslims.” When subjected to harassment and worse by Muslim extremists, Palestinian Christians usually opt not to report incidents to the PA police. According to Shafik, a Protestant clergyman, many are too scared to discuss their accounts, feeling it is dangerous since it may provoke further persecution, regarding the PA police as hostile. Sana Razi Nashash from Beit Jala recalls being harassed by a man in the street. The next day, on her way to file a complaint with the police, she saw the perpetrator wearing a PA police uniform. Needless to say, she did not bother filing the complaint.Christian Palestinians also face significant bias when seeking justice in local courts. Discrimination within the legal system leaves them vulnerable to exploitation, perpetuating their marginalization. Christians encounter obstacles in accessing justice for crimes committed against them, leading to a culture of impunity. This lack of legal recourse discourages reporting of abuses and perpetuates victimization. Christian women are especially vulnerable to legal discrimination.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Tuesday, December 24, 2024Elder of Ziyon.jpg)
The third point articulated by Imam Khamenei regarding regional developments addressed the psychological and propaganda warfare against Iran, with claims of losing proxy forces within the region.Emphasizing that the Islamic Republic does not have proxies, he stated, “Yemen, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the PIJ are fighting because they have faith, and the power of faith has brought them to the Resistance field.”The Leader of the Islamic Revolution underscored that if the Islamic Republic ever wishes to take action, it will not need proxy forces. “Faithful and honorable men in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and, God willing, soon in Syria, are fighting against oppression and the crimes of the imposed Zionist regime. The Islamic Republic is also fighting, and by God's will, we will remove this regime from the region,” he added.
This is obviously a lie. The IRGC "advises" those groups and tells them what to do. Qassem Soleimani, the late leader of the Quds Force which oversees the relationship with these proxies, took credit for the IRGC's contiguous takeover of areas in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran:
The IRGC has expanded the resistance in terms of both quantity and quality. It has expanded the resistance from a geographical territory of 2,000 square kilometers in southern Lebanon to a territory of half a million square kilometers.
...America and the Zionist regime concentrate their efforts on stopping this qualitative expansion. The second point is that the IRGC has created territorial continuity for [the different parts] of the resistance. It has connected Iran to Iraq, Iraq to Syria, and Syria to Lebanon.
Iran's IRGC directs their actions. That's pretty much the definition of them being proxies.
The reason Khamenei has publicly maintained this fiction that there are no proxies is because he doesn't want Israel to cut off the head of the octopus but to waste time with the tentacles. He knows that Iran's ability to directly attack Israel, while dangerous, is not nearly as lethal as Israel's response could be.
His denial of proxies, and claims that Iran can attack Israel directly without proxies, is bravado - and the clearest indication that he is very scared of an attack by Israel. He has been solemnly promising a massive response to the Israeli airstrikes from late October but nothing has happened, and the only reason is fear of what would happen next.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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By 2023, anti-Zionism and antisemitism had become synonymous, particularly in academia, the former having become the new “honorable antisemitism.”Footnote14 Though both parties made room for bigots who did not like Jews, the big story that was being missed by too many, notably American Jews, was the growing antisemitic anti-Zionism on the left. One reason was its relative rarity in the US until quite recently: “Up to the tenure of President Barack Obama,” observes the Italian-Israeli journalist Fiamma Nirenstein, “left-leaning American Jews and Democrats were not anti-Israeli like the European left.”Footnote15Part of the Western Left is now a clear and present danger to Jews and the West
The situation worsened with breathtaking rapidity. By 2020, she detected “a new reality in which one is not a Democrat if one does not criticize Israel and will be criticized oneself for not criticizing it.” Psychologically and ideologically unprepared for being ostracized by fellow progressives, most Jews chose inertia. They simply hadn’t seen all this coming.
Nor, indeed, had most Americans. Little did they know that even before October 7, the same neo-Marxist cancer that had infected Western academic institutions and the establishment media also engulfed the publishing industry. Politically incorrect (read: not leftist) and Jewish-authored book proposals were being rejected at a more rapid pace than ever.
Writer, scholar, and publisher Adam Bellow told Tablet’s editor-at-large Liel Leibovitz that his harrowing experiences in mainstream publishing have left him deeply pessimistic.Footnote16 Classics are not reprinted, and potentially brilliant works fail to see the light of day. The loss is incalculable. Since the publishing industry keeps alive the treasures of our common heritage, its atrophy and politicization bode ill for the entire culture.
The fate of democracy, after all, is intertwined with its culture, specifically its books. As the great sociologist Irving Louis Horowitz, Hannah Arendt Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University and founder of Transaction Publishers in 1962, wrote shortly before his death in 2012: “Publishing flourishes best in a democratic society … . [It] also enhances democracy when decisions are made on the basis of literary merit rather than top-down legislation.” But it is a precarious balance. He worried deeply about “the delicate interaction between publishing and politics.”Footnote17 For when politically motivated censorship creeps into editorial decisions, democracy is in peril.
He knew the history. The son of poor Jewish immigrants from a Russian shtetl growing up in Harlem during the 1930s, the notoriously outspoken Horowitz would have vigorously denounced the unprecedented rise of antisemitism among publishers today. For his part, at Transaction and in his own writings, he was devoted to the preservation of Judaism. He considered it indispensable to civilization, arguing that erasing the first People of the Book from human memory amounts to humanity’s intellectual and spiritual suicide. For while a civilization that cancels the Jews might somehow survive, without liberty it is doomed.
Back in 1969, he had warned that “for the [classical] liberal society, the attitude toward Jews has become a test case of whether liberalism is possible. Insofar as Nazism, Communism, or any totalistic system is unqualifiedly victorious, Judaism will be finished.” So, too, will adherents of other faiths. “Judaism has become, perhaps against its own theological predilections, a cardinal expression of liberalism.”Footnote18
His words resonate even more powerfully today. The Jew, declared Horowitz, has historically been the one who provides “global society with an operational set of liberal values and who in turn fares best in a global society that has a vested, legitimated interest in precisely fostering open-ended values for its own thoroughly non-Jewish reasons.”Footnote19
“Revelation” seems to be a singularly apt word with which to describe what happened on October 7. The biblical root of this English word reflects the Hebrew hitgalut, meaning “to uncover something that was hidden.” In America, this was due either to the wishful thinking that enemies can be appeased if shown goodwill, or to willful ignorance and ideological myopia—often, all of the above. These all-too-human predilections, so prevalent among Western European elites, were also shared by some Israelis—until that fateful day in October. Then November 5, 2024, proved that most Americans also experienced a profound revelation. That may well be the right word to express its spiritual significance. But it is its Greek counterpart, apokalupsis, that captures the full drama. As history has demonstrated, apocalypses tend to have monumental consequences.
Didier Fassin’s orations at Princeton, like Judith Butler’s article ‘The Compass of Mourning’, continue a tradition of the American left that was initiated by Susan Sontag, who in response to accusations that Bin Laden’s terrorists were cowardly, defended their aggression, calling it the consequence of ‘specific American alliances and actions’.[lv] In Sontag’s eyes, America itself was guilty, just as Israel was, according to Butler, and French journalists in Fassin’s perspective. Until recently, it seemed that there were limits to blaming the victim. This all changed though with the left’s reaction to the rapes committed by Palestinians on 7 October.Two former sr. US officials from Biden, Trump admins call for return of hostages in joint op-ed
The first pointer was a photograph of a dead woman, taken the day after the attack on Route 232, a country road near Gaza. The victim was wearing a black dress and she had a charred face.[lvi] Gal Abdush had attended the Nova Festival, and it turned out that she had been raped and then shot. The last message she sent to her family was ‘You don’t understand.’
A two-month investigation by journalists from the New York Times, making use of GPS data from the mobile phones of over 150 people, as well as interviews with victims, therapists and soldiers, revealed that this was not an isolated rape, but ‘part of a broader pattern’.[lvii] A report released by the UN in March stated that ‘there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery’, against both women and men, ‘including rape and gang rape,’ and that there was ‘clear and convincing information’ concerning ‘rape and sexualised torture’ of hostages.’[lviii]
How did the left react to these findings? More or less like the Catholic Church did to the Kielce Pogrom of 1946: violence was condemned per se, but without going into specifics. Voices that were usually forthright, such as Human Rights Watch, #MeToo and Amnesty International, chose to remain silent, and it took the UN’s organisation for women’s rights eight months to express its concern.[lix] The film Bearing Witness, which was made by Israelis using clips of drastic scenes, as well as Sheryl Sandberg documentary, [lx] was received with incredulity, and one of the more sensitive journalists who watched it claimed that he had been unnecessarily traumatised. A hundred and forty American feminist scholars, including Angela Davis, an iconic figure during the Vietnam War, spoke out against the manipulation of sexual violence (1800 people from other countries signed this letter too[lxi]), and one of them claimed that the descriptions of the rapes were not trustworthy, as they were extremely fetishistic – as if that was not the case with normal rape. The slogans ‘Believe Women’ and ‘Silence is Violence’ had suddenly ceased to be valid.
Judith Butler reacted to the whole situation like a typical 1950s policeman who had been confronted with claims of rape – she demanded proof. This led Israeli sociologist and feminist Eva Illouz to comment: ‘Judith Butler built their career off of challenging notions of objectivity, essence, and reality. Judith Butler was able to circulate a letter supporting someone accused of harassment without evidence [this concerns Avital Ronell, a professor at New York University, who was suspended after a PhD student accused her of harrassment in 2017[lxii]]. But now, they seem (for the time being) to have changed their mind. (…) They declare that were this evidence provided, they would “deplore” these rapes. The indecency of Butler’s words desecrates the blessed memory of those women who were tortured, raped, shot, or stabbed and disqualify them from being considered a feminist.’[lxiii]
Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a historian from The New School in New York, theorises that the left’s negation of the rapes is connected with the failure of the previously described anti-discrimination programmes in the US: here too the problem hinges on the unacceptable whiteness of the victims.[lxiv] In the past, sexual violence against white women was a tool used by racists to carry out lynchings, yet today’s defenders of Hamas compare the terrorists[lxv] to Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old who was murdered in 1955 in Mississippi because he whistled at a white married woman.[lxvi] However, the problem is that these two events are fundamentally different, and we, weakened by relativism à la Judith Butler, have ever fewer tools to illuminate this difference. The dehumanisation of an antisemite
Will left-wing antisemitism become a new fashion, which will ultimately enable the progressive elite to fraternise with the masses? It cannot be ruled out, all the more so given that it is supported by a historical mechanism that has led us by the nose for a couple of thousand years. In keeping with the best definition of antisemitism that I know, proposed by David Nirenberg in his book Anti-Judaism (2015), antisemitism does not depend on one or other way of thinking about Jews, but on thinking ‘by means of Jews.’
Since ancient times, various cultures, including religions such as Christianity and Islam, have defined themselves via opposition to how they viewed Judaism. This had nothing to do with what Judaism was, and everything to do with wanting to avoid the evil which it was perceived to be.
In the age of piety, Israel was a blasphemer and an unbeliever. When secularism became fashionable, Jews were loathed as ‘dark reactionaries’. Under capitalism, they were persecuted as communists, and under communism, as capitalist exploiters. Nationalist movements were not indifferent to them either, labelling them cosmopolitans, whereas ebbing nationalism allows Jews to be stigmatised as crazed chauvinists.
We can also observe the functioning of these principles in today’s world. In a time when human rights are so highly valued, Israel has once again been cast as the villain, and we unstintingly strive to convince ourselves that we are on the right side.
Day after day, progressive newspapers – The New York Times, Gazeta Wyborcza or Oko Press – exacerbate the crisis in the Middle East, by contrasting omnipotent Israel with Palestinians who are deprived of agency. Hamas and Hezbollah are not dehumanised by Jews, who, even if they hate them, have to deal with the everyday, life-and-death consequences of their actions – but by those who treat them like non-human factors, like an element, or a natural disaster, things which cannot be asked to take responsibility for themselves.
For left-wing politics today, support for the Palestinian cause has become as important as anti-capitalism, vegetarianism, opposition to coal mining and support for the right to abortion. The left craves a simple way of looking at the world, and it needs some groups which it can hate with impunity, and others which it can bombard with love.
Jews do not need the left, for in spite of what antisemites say about them, they are a collective of anti-victims: following the greatest catastrophe in history, they took advantage of a historical opportunity to build a collective life. That is why we will never forgive them for what we did to them.
Two former senior American officials from both the Trump and Biden administrations wrote a joint op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that called for the return of the hostages held by Hamas, specifically the seven American citizens held hostage.
Robert C. O'Brien served as national security advisor under President-elect Donald Trump's first administration, and Tom Nides is the former US ambassador to Israel, who served in President Joe Biden's administration.
O'Brien and Nides wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "Excluding 9/11, this [October 7] was the largest single-day attack on American citizens by a foreign terror organization since the 1980s."
They condemned Hamas's use of hostages as bargaining chips and human shields and condemned the murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin at the hands of Hamas terrorists before the IDF could reach him.
The two officials wrote in the op-ed, "We, like the presidents we served, don't always agree on how to serve them. But we are united in our belief that the seven US hostages still in Gaza, along with the other 93 hostages, must come home now."
They spoke of both Biden and his team's work to make a deal happen and Trump's statements that say there will be "hell to pay" if they are not returned before he returns to office. Senior officials urge hostage deal
Nides and O'Brien also wrote of the timing of a deal in The Wall Street Journal after several of Iran's proxies, including Hezbollah and Hamas, had been weakened, and Assad's regime topped in Syria.
"All parties to these negotiations must know that any agreement must include the immediate release of the American Seven. They aren’t a bargaining chip. They are our fellow citizens with names and family members who await them with unbearable pain. This Hanukkah and Christmas, these families will be forced again to sit at their holiday dinner with an empty chair at the table."
"Hamas and their backers must hear the message loud and clear: Release the Americans in the first phase of the deal. All of them. Release the American Seven and remember their names at your holiday celebrations this week: Edan Alexander, Itay Chen, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Gadi Haggai, Judi Weinstein Haggai, Omer Neutra, and Keith Siegel."
In a special cabinet meeting marking the first year since the Palestinian invasion on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a draft decision to his ministers to rename the war, which until then had been dubbed “The Iron Swords War” by the Israel Defense Forces, the War of Tkuma. Tkuma is one of those Hebrew words that taps the ancient chords of Jewish memory. Its literal translation in English is “rebirth” or “resurrection.”When Turkey becomes Iran
Netanyahu’s draft decision passed unanimously.
Why did he pick that name? Why resurrection? What had we died from?
On the surface, it could simply refer to the 1,200 Israelis who were murdered on Oct. 7. Israel arose from the ashes of that one-day Holocaust to destroy the enemy who perpetrated it.
But there is a deeper meaning to tkuma that speaks to the cause of that day. The deeper meaning refers to the spiritual or ideological disposition of the nation of Israel. What lay dead in the ashes on Oct. 7 wasn’t only the men, women and children killed that day, but a 50-year doctrine of dependence.
The day Hamas led the Palestinians of Gaza on their orgy of mass murder, torture, rape and abduction, the Israel they entered was marking not only the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War but the 50th anniversary of Israeli strategic dependence on the United States. Similarly, they entered an Israel that had recently entered its 32nd year of dependence on the Palestinians.
In the days and months that followed that invasion, as Israelis recovered from the initial shock, the delusions that had directed Israel’s strategic policies for two generations were exposed for what they were. The first that fell by the wayside was the delusion that Israel could peacefully coexist with a group of people who defined themselves by their collective goal of annihilating the Jewish people.
That idea had already been discarded by 65% of Israelis when Oct. 7 rolled around. But even though a mere 35% of Israelis still supported Palestinian statehood on that Black Shabbat, Israel’s national policy was still to enable Hamas to run a terror state in Gaza and for the Palestinian Authority to run terrorist enclaves in Judea and Samaria.
The reason that was the case was America.
In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the United States saved Israel from destruction by airlifting desperately needed weapons to the IDF after initial supplies were all but exhausted. In the years that followed that war, Israel’s security brass gradually embraced strategic dependence as their guiding light. For these generals, whose dominance in the ranks increased over the decades, national independence and strategic freedom were dangerous concepts.
They didn’t believe that the indomitable will of the Jewish people, the courage of IDF soldiers, the ingenuity of Israeli scientists and the power of the Israeli economy (not to mention the God of Israel) were the forces working to procure Israel’s survival. Over time, they came to believe that it was the largesse of the U.S. State Department, coupled with America’s foreign and defense policy establishment, that secured the existence of the Jewish state. As they saw it, if Israel didn’t subordinate its strategic policies to U.S. preferences, it would endanger its very existence.
The strategic dependence on America that Israeli generals and their cohorts in the media developed and cultivated began as a psychological side effect of their near failure to save Israel in October 1973. But over time, it became apparent that their doctrine of dependence served the ideological and political interests of the Israeli left. And once that became clear, their psychological dependence was presented as responsible strategic wisdom.
Ironically, there was a time in the last century when Israel enjoyed the friendship of both Turkey and Iran. Both nations were moderate, pro-Western states resisting the attempts of radical clerics to impose religious rule.Is Moscow losing its hold on the Middle East?
But in 1979, Iran fell to the Ayatollahs, who transformed it into a radical Islamic republic. In recent months, Iran has faced repeated failures in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. These external setbacks are compounded by ongoing domestic failures in governance and the economy, fueling sharp criticism on the Iranian street. Disillusionment with the regime has led many to believe that its downfall is inevitable, though it may take months or even years.
While Iran seems to be counting down to the end of the Ayatollahs' rule, Turkey is moving in the opposite direction, increasingly Islamized. Bernard Lewis's observation from years ago—that "Iran will become Turkey, and Turkey will become Iran"—appears to be coming true, with one country moderating and the other transforming into a backward, radical Islamic republic.
It is too early to determine whether Turkey will achieve its grandiose aspirations in Syria and the Middle East. Even before that, it remains to be seen whether al-Julani can solidify his rule in Syria and turn it into an Islamic theocracy.
What is certain is that al-Julani's rise to prominence in Damascus under Turkey's sponsorship has created tension in many Arab states, foremost among them Jordan. While Israel fears the spillover of terror from Syria, Jordan worries about the infiltration of radical Islamic revolutionary ideas into its already fragile society.
Israel, along with Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf states, is closely monitoring the situation and exploring avenues for cooperation to address this new border threat. Yet, it is important to remember that this challenge pales in comparison to the threat Iran still poses—a threat that remains as significant as ever.
The rise of a new Syrian regime could push the country closer to the West or result in efforts to curb Russian influence, jeopardizing Moscow’s regional sway. Although Russia has historically allied with the Assad family, it may now be forced to negotiate with the rebels to preserve its interests.
Western analysts argue that warm-water ports are a cornerstone of Russian foreign policy aimed at competing with NATO and the United States. The primary concern is that vacating these bases could create a power vacuum that could potentially be filled by Western or even Chinese forces, further diminishing Russia’s ability to safeguard its interests.
Logistically, the Khmeimim and Tartus bases have been crucial for transporting goods and arms to Africa, particularly to nations like Libya, Mali, Niger and Sudan. Abandoning these facilities could compel Russia to find alternative infrastructure, increasing costs and complicating its influence in Africa.
Amid its prolonged war in Ukraine, which has resulted in more than 200,000 Russian military casualties in the last two years, any withdrawal from Syria could be perceived as a retreat from global influence. While Russia’s military remains the world’s second-largest with 1.5 million troops, Moscow is acutely aware of the demographic and strategic toll of its ongoing conflicts. A retreat from Syria could reinforce perceptions of Russia as a declining power on the international stage. President Vladimir Putin is likely to make every effort to extend his country’s presence in the Middle East to safeguard its critical interests.
Anonymous sources in Moscow, Europe and the Middle East confirm ongoing negotiations to maintain operations at Tartus and Khmeimim. Russian officials claim to have “unofficial understandings” with the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham regarding continued access to these strategic facilities.
Nevertheless, reports indicate that Russia is withdrawing at least 400 troops from the Damascus area in coordination with Syria’s new authorities. The implications of this withdrawal extend beyond military presence, potentially affecting Russia’s security, economic and strategic interests in the Middle East, Africa and even Southern Europe.
Aware of these risks, Russia appears determined to prolong its military presence in Syria. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has described the bases as subjects of “serious discussion” with Syria’s new leadership, emphasizing that all necessary precautions are being taken to secure Russia’s interests.
Should an agreement with the new regime prove elusive, a full withdrawal could reshape the global balance of power, diminishing Moscow’s influence in the Middle East and beyond for years to come.
Monday, December 23, 2024Elder of ZiyonForest Rain, OpinionIn 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.
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| 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.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Monday, December 23, 2024Elder of Ziyon
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.
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.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Monday, December 23, 2024Elder of Ziyon|
"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Monday, December 23, 2024Elder of Ziyon.jpg)
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.
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.”
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Monday, December 23, 2024Elder of Ziyon
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.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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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.Islamism still haunts us
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.
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.An obscene irony: Talk of arresting Netanyahu at Auschwitz
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.
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.
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