Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Palestinian Arabs made up the first "Jews killed JFK" conspiracy theory only three days after he was assassinated

Over the past two days, the US released thousands of documents related (sometimes very tenuously) to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Immediately, antisemites tried to find ways that somehow those documents implicated Israel or Jews. For example, a 1954 letter that indicated that there was a secret channel of communication between Israeli intelligence and the CIA has been trumpeted as proving...I have no idea, but whatever it is, the Jews must have been up to no good.

I found a letter that was previously released that directly accused Israel of the assassination.

Sent on November 25, 1963, only three days after the shooting, the letter says JFK's murder was a "carefully plotted Zionist criminal conspiracy:"

The late President was likelу to win the coming Presidency elections without supplicating the Zionist sympathy or seeking the Jews votes. Aware of the fact that their influence and power in the United States are based upon the Jews votes, the Zionists murdered the courageous President who was about to destroy that legend of theirs. His assassination is a warning to the rest of the honorable leaders.

According to James Bamford, in his book Body of Lies, this was intercepted by the US as a cable from a delegation of Palestinians at the UN to somewhere in the Middle East. It seems likely to have been written by Ahmed Shukeiri, the Saudi UN representative who was to become the first leader of the PLO the following year. He appears to have been sending this letter to leaders in Cairo or Syria to suggest that they send condolences but also to plant the seed that the Jews were behind the plot.

Other secret US memos mention that Syrian media immediately started spreading the same rumor.

Egyptian as well:

This is the nature of conspiracy theories - the theories are created first, and only afterwards is evidence sought and cherry picked.

There is now a cottage industry blaming Jews for the death of JFK, with hundreds of videos and articles that try mightily to make their case. But the first ones on record to do this are the Palestinian Arabs at the UN in 1963, with no evidence whatsoever. Here is the proof, in black and white.

---

After I wrote this, I see that an Egyptian newspaper is posting the context-less letter from Palestinians as proof of the Jewish conspiracy to kill JFK.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Hamas web of lies and the media's complicity (including the @NYTimes)

The New York Times has an article on the casualties from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza this week, "Tallying the Dead Once Again: Photos and Videos From the Gaza Strikes."

A photo caption says, without any caveat, "More than 400 Gazans were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday."

The article has lots of gruesome scenes of bodies.

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say that the real casualty count was half of what Hamas authorities say - 200 dead, including dozens of women and children. If you want, consider that the actual casualty count was 120.

Would any reporters know that Hamas is lying?

The photos would be the same. The videos would be the same. No one is counting individual bodies, and no one really could.

If Israel was targeting Hamas leaders -and they clearly were, since many major leaders were killed - then one would expect that their families would be killed as well, which would include children and female relatives.

How would reporters know this as they film scenes of death? How would they know that the Hamas ministries are lying and that the targets were all legitimate and legal?

They wouldn't. And Hamas knows this.

There are no independent sources for Gaza casualties. It is only Hamas. And Hamas prioritizes its propaganda campaign more than even its military campaign.

Photos of the dead seem to support Hamas' narrative of 400 killed, but in fact they don't. They are emotional manipulation but they do not support the actual claims. (I've seen one unverified claim that some of the children's bodies may even have been pulled out of refrigeration in morgues. I have no idea if it is true but is it really too disgusting for Hamas to do that?)

It isn't as if the Ministry of Health's spokespeople haven't lied before. They have, many times.

They have lied about the number of casualties in specific incidents like the Al Ahli hospital where they claimed over 400 killed when there were only a few dozen from an Islamic Jihad rocket. In this case the Hamas health ministry overstated the deaths by at least 400%.

They did the same with the October 13, 2023 Salah al Deen road incident, where they claimed 70 civilians were killed by an Israeli airstrike when reporters could only find 12 bodies almost certainly killed by a Hamas IED. Here the health ministry exaggerated the deaths by over 500%.

Why would anyone believe them today when they claim 436 dead? How could reporters surveying the gruesome scenes know whether it supports Hamas claims?

They lied when they claimed 70% of the casualties were women and children which was statistically impossible given their own detailed casualty lists.

They lied when they ludicrously claimed Israel of waging germ warfare.

They lied when they claimed Israel had weapons that vaporize Gazans over a radius of 200 meters leaving no trace.

I'm not even talking about the Hamas media office, or Hamas civil service, with their own laughable lies about 14,000 missing under the rubble or how Hamas destroyed hundreds of Israeli tanks or how Hamas fighters killed multiple IDF soldiers with nothing more than knives.

The New York Times and other media have shown no interest or curiosity when these officials say things that are medically, scientifically and statistically impossible. But when they say that Israel killed exactly 436 people of whom 94 are women and 183 are children, this is believed without any question.

Hamas knows which information it has total control over. It uses that control to create stories that are false on multiple levels.

Hamas lies. It is part of its strategy. There are countless examples. Reporters and NGOs simply ignore the most sensational obvious lies (except for Al Jazeera, which reports them religiously) and then give credibility to the lies that aren't so easy to disprove.

No wonder people don't trust the media. They have shown consistently that they cannot be trusted.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

100 years ago, the first ship with the Zionist flag sailed

From The Miami Herald, March 13, 1925:

That flag was indeed very similar to the Israeli flag today, as Wikipedia shows:

There were huge crowds also in Palestine to greet the ship, as the New York Times reported then, including Arabs.

Many of the passengers on the ship went to attend the dedication ceremony of Hebrew University of Jerusalem on April 1.

Unfortunately, American Palestine Lines did not last long. It only sailed twice to Israel and back and lost a great deal of money.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

03/19 Links Pt2: The Jews, not Palestinians, were the ones who suffered ethnic cleansing; Who Are the Shadowy Figures Defending Mahmoud Khalil?

From Ian:

Lyn Julius: The Jews, not Palestinians, were the ones who suffered ethnic cleansing

Seventy-five years ago this month, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law permitting Jews to leave the country provided that they forfeited their citizenship. In March 1951, Law 5, passed in urgent session, froze the property of Iraqi Jews stripped of their citizenship.

Dozens more anti-Jewish laws were passed. Law 12 set up a Secretariat to manage confiscated Jewish property. From 1951-56, several decrees were passed, seizing, managing, disposing of and liquidating Jewish property. These decrees piled the pressure onto Jews still living in Iraq.

A recent report by Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) valued the lost assets and property of Iraqi Jews at $34 billion at today’s prices.

Back in 1949, little did the Iraqi government realize that almost the entire community would register to go. The departing Jews were issued with a laissez-passer document as they boarded the airlift to Israel. It was effectively an expulsion order.

Expecting at most an exodus of 14,000 Jews, the regime did not imagine that Iraq would be emptied of them. But Jews had been so desperate to flee the country that they were risking heavy prison sentences in order to illegally cross the border into Iran. Iraq was hemorrhaging 1,000 Jews a month – and their money.

The regime had declared war on Israel, introduced draconian emergency laws against its own Jewish citizens, persecuted Zionists and communists, banned Jews from higher education, jobs and travel, and had executed Iraq’s wealthiest and best-connected non-Zionist Jew, Shafiq Ades, on trumped-up spying charges. Most worrying of all, in the febrile atmosphere of the time, the Jews feared a second Farhud, the massacre of 1941 that had claimed almost 200 Jewish lives.

President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Gazans be moved out has been greeted with a chorus of disapproval, not least from well-meaning liberal Jews. But it is forgotten that transfer is not a new idea – and that it has only ever been applied to Jews.

Don’t talk to us about Nazis

From the celebrations of the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust that began before the blood of those slaughtered on October 7 had begun to dry, to the calls for a new and even worse Holocaust, to the assaults on Jews and pogroms at synagogues, Jews in America have been subject to a repeat of 1930s Germany, with a repeat of 1940s Germany constantly being threatened.

And yet the supposed enemies of Nazism and fascism, who suddenly found their voice now that the orange man is back, have either been silent in the face of the real Nazis or defended the rights of the Nazis to terrorize Jews.

-If you were silent when a class on Israel at Columbia University was forced to be held underground in what the professor teaching the course jokingly called a “bunker,” don’t talk to us about Nazis now.

-If you were silent when a Chabad campus rabbi told Jewish students to stay away from campus for their own safety, don’t talk to us about Nazis now.

-If you were silent in the face of constant calls for genocide against the Jews such as “From the River to the Sea, Palestine is Arab” or calls for the murder of 12 million Jews, twice the number murdered during the Holocaust, don’t talk to us about Nazis now.

-If you were silent when synagogues in New Jersey and California were subjected to pogroms from people who want to finish what the Nazis started, don’t talk to us about Nazis now.

-If you cheered when your leaders said that the real Nazis “have a point” or that those motivated by nothing more than murderous hatred for Jews are “showing exactly what the human emotion should be,” don’t talk to us about Nazis now.

-If you ignore the copies of Mein Kampf found in home after home after home of Hamas members in Gaza and pretend that Hamas is a mere “liberation movement,” don’t talk to us about Nazis now.

The only way anyone who supports Hamas, a genocidal, Hitler-worshipping death cult that seeks global domination for the jihadists, could be more Nazi-like is for them actually to be working in the death camps in the 1940s.

Cracking down on anti-Jewish violence, holding universities accountable for failing to protect Jewish students, and supporting Israel against those who seek to annihilate it, are the most anti-Nazi acts possible, including deporting open Hamas supporters like Mahmoud Khalil as the Trump Administration now seeks to do.

If you can’t see that, don’t talk to us about Nazis now or ever.

‘Erasive’ antisemitism

Today, to be a “Zionist” means you recognize and celebrate the Jewish people’s connection to one another—and the Jewish people’s deep-rooted tie to the land of Israel. It means you believe that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in some borders in their ancestral homeland.

To be a Zionist does not mean that you have no criticism of Israel’s policies. You can criticize the Israeli government and still be a Zionist.

At this point, I should also make clear that not all Jews are Zionists. Just as not all Jews are Sabbath observers.

Jews define their identity in many different ways.

The existence of Jews who do not observe the Sabbath, however, does not change the fact that if you were to ask a Jew who incorporates some level of Shabbat observance into their life why they do it, they would tell you that the Sabbath observance is a core component of what it means to them to be Jewish. Similarly, the fact that some Jews don’t define their identity as including Zionism does not negate the fact that for most Jews, recognition of the Jews’ history as a people indigenous to the Land of Israel is an integral component of how they define their Jewish identity.

One does not have to be a Sabbath observer, to recognize discrimination of a Sabbath observer. Similarly, one does not have to be a Zionist to recognize the discrimination of Zionists.

To demand that a Jew shed their Zionism as the price of admission is comparable to demanding that a Catholic disavow the Vatican or a Muslim shed their connection to Mecca. It’s discriminatory, biased and immoral. And yet today—on college campuses and beyond—the vilification, demonization and shunning of “Zionists” is becoming normalized.

What is worse is that at the same time, the Jewish people’s identity as a people and the Jewish people’s history in the land of Israel is being erased and denied. There is now a term for this. It’s called “Erasive Antisemitism.”

Take, for example, the “Zine” circulated by Students for Justice in Palestine last semester at Boston University. Under the title “What is Zionism” it says: “We do not accept the term ‘Jewish people’ in any form whatsoever … .” And then it goes on to say: “For us, there is only one Jew (like all Jews know there is only one GOD), and that is a religious Jew.”

Since when does SJP have the right to define Jewish identity? Since when is it acceptable to tell Jews that they must disavow their people’s history and heritage and define themselves as only a religion?

Believe it or not, this is not a new phenomenon.

It has happened before. In Europe, when Jews were offered emancipation and equal rights for the first time. In 1789, when the French National Assembly debated whether the French Declaration of the Rights of Man should apply to Jews, Count of Clermont Tonnerre said, “The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals.” The Jews of France were told that if they did not abandon their sense of Jewish peoplehood and pledged allegiance only to France, they would be expelled. With a choice like that, many Jews complied. They announced: “France is our Zion!”

The situation was repeated seven years later in 1796 before the Dutch Parliament. There, they debated how they could give Dutch citizenship to a Jew if he felt connected to Jews in England, France or Germany. One of the Dutch parliamentarians proposed that the Jews take an oath that began: “I, so-and-so, declare that I do not belong to any other people, nor any part of a people, but solely and only to the people of the Netherlands.”

Accusing Jews of dual loyalty is another ancient antisemitic trope. Jews throughout time have proven over and over again to be patriotic, loyal citizens of the countries in which they live while still celebrating their Jewish heritage.

Indeed, the child of the couple whose wedding Benjamin Rush attended proves just that point. The son of Rachel Phillips and Michael Levy was the American naval hero Uriah Levy. He was a U.S. Navy commodore and the first Jewish person to hold that rank. He admired Thomas Jefferson and the founding father’s ideals of religious liberty, so much so that in 1834, Levy purchased Jefferson’s estate at Monticello, which had fallen into a state of disrepair. Levy spent his own money to restore and preserve Monticello. He buried his mother there and then bequeathed the estate to the American people. That is how the couple that Rush saw standing under the Jewish marriage canopy 238 years ago helped preserve an important piece of American history for future generations.

My challenge to you today is to respond to differences the way that the founder of Dickinson College, Benjamin Rush, responded to differences when he was invited to his first Jewish wedding. Embrace the difference with curiosity and positive enthusiasm. Learn not only about each other’s customs, traditions, history and heritage; spend some time learning more about your own.

Don’t shun, silence and exclude others. Instead, listen, share and engage. Be proud of who you are without putting other people down. Because if you are able to do that, you will create a community here that is truly a safe, welcoming space for all. And then, you will be able to build together the better society that our country so desperately needs.

03/19 Links Pt1: Arab plan for Gaza ignores Palestinians’ failed quest to destroy Israel; Hamas calls for global siege on US, Israeli embassies, Iran reveals

From Ian:

Arab plan for Gaza ignores Palestinians’ failed quest to destroy Israel

In short, the Arab plan for Gaza is an insult to the intelligence of U.S. and Israeli administrations. Both will dismiss this proposal out of hand and proceed bearing in mind the Palestinians’ genocidal ambitions.

Any reconstruction plan must address Hamas’s culpability and defeat. At a minimum, Arab leaders must acknowledge the basic facts of Gaza’s plight: It is Hamas that started and continued this war, not Israel. Most of Gaza has been reduced to rubble. The Hamas remnant alone can end this war—and more deaths of its people—if they want to, by freeing the remaining hostages, disarming and surrendering. Instead, the Arab proposal embarrasses itself by not mentioning Hamas once, nor the savage Oct. 7 attack. The closest the Arab plan comes to acknowledging Hamas is a paragraph that understatedly notes, “The issue of multiple armed Palestinian factions remains challenging.” Did the Arab diplomats think no one would notice these shameful omissions?

The cause of the war was not the Palestinians’ lack of an independent state. The Arab proposal argues that the war is “undeniable evidence of the need to redouble efforts to achieve a just settlement that preserves the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to an independent state … .” If anything, the war provides undeniable evidence that the Palestinians should not have a country of their own. The Palestinians had de facto independence in Gaza since 2005, when Israel fully withdrew from the enclave. Not one Israeli civilian or soldier was left. The Palestinians could have turned Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East years before Trump envisioned it. Instead, they turned it into a terrorist base to attack Israel. In short, this war happened precisely because the Palestinians did have an independent state.

Hamas didn’t attack Israel because they wanted a two-state solution. They attacked because the terror group seeks a single Palestinian Arab state encompassing all of Israel, governed under strict Islamic Sharia law. For Hamas and many Palestinians, the conflict with Israel is religious, not political. They believe that no infidels (non-Muslims) can control an inch of what they view as Muslim land. No wonder the Palestinians have rejected every offer of a two-state solution since the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan.

Preventing emigration from Gaza tortures the Palestinians and perpetuates the conflict. The Arab plan is a recommitment to the decades-old Arab practice of using the Palestinians as pawns against Israel. The Arabs have historically wanted Palestinians to exercise their “right of return,” flooding Israel with Palestinian Arabs, eliminating Israel’s Jewish majority and therefore the Jewish state itself. The Arab plan calls for Palestinians in Gaza to remain perpetual refugees in what is now a wasteland, rather than seek a better life elsewhere. The main reason the Arabs opposed Trump’s plan initially is that it would allow Palestinians to leave Gaza, which would end their perpetual refugee status and prevent their exploitation as fodder to die fighting Israel.

The Arab proposal for Gaza’s reconstruction is a recipe for continuing a cycle of disaster: Hamas attacks Israel, Israel defends itself, Gaza is devastated, the “international community” pours billions of dollars into rebuilding the enclave, Hamas uses this aid to rebuild its terrorist infrastructure and attack Israel anew. Rinse and repeat.

The United States, Israel and all Western allies would be best served by opposing the Arab plan because it fails to address the root cause of Gaza’s destruction, let alone the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in general, which is the obsessive determination of Palestinians to eliminate Israel and the Jewish people.

JPost Editorial: The world must finally recognize Hamas's tactics as manipulation

Israel won't let Hamas make the rules
Israel has no obligation to allow Hamas to dictate the battlefield. The era in which Hamas could launch attacks, retreat under the cover of a ceasefire, and then reemerge stronger must come to an end. With the backing of its allies, Israel must continue to pressure Hamas until it is no longer capable of threatening its citizens.

Hamas’s dwindling list of allies should serve as a warning to its leadership. Iran, often its most vocal supporter, has strategically distanced itself, wary of the consequences of its continued sponsorship of regional terrorism. “If Tehran is not careful, it will wake up to find all its proxies have had their wings clipped – then they become a liability instead of an asset,” Seth J. Frantzman of The Jerusalem Post wrote on Tuesday.

The Houthis and Hezbollah, once eager to join the fight, now find themselves constrained by their own battles and US military pressure. Hamas stands increasingly isolated, yet it remains committed to a strategy that will only bring more destruction to Gaza and suffering to its own people.

Where the new strikes go is still up in the air. Israel has a lot of choices. Israel’s actions in Gaza have received support from the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the Arab nations have supported an Egyptian rehabilitation plan for Gaza. But those states are also dealing with other problems.

“There are the US strikes on the Houthis as well as Syria’s tensions with Hezbollah in Lebanon,” Frantzman explained on Tuesday.

Israel’s objective is clear: ensure that Hamas can no longer function as an organized terrorist entity. This requires sustained military pressure, strategic strikes, and a refusal to engage in futile negotiations that only serve to prolong Hamas’ grip on power. The world must recognize Hamas’ tactics for what they are – a desperate attempt to stall, deceive, and survive at the expense of peace.

Israel has no obligation to play along.

Seth Frantzman: Hamas calls for global siege on US, Israeli embassies, Iran reveals

Hamas is now seeking “immediate pressure on both the [Israeli] regime and its key ally, the United States, to halt the ongoing military onslaught.”

The terror group said that “the fascist occupation government has resumed its barbaric aggression and genocide war against our people in Gaza, violating all human norms, values, and divine laws during the holy month of Ramadan.”

Hamas had been seeking a Ramadan ceasefire and hoped that it could stall talks with Israel throughout March while not releasing hostages. Israel gave Hamas two weeks of this ceasefire without anything in return before resuming airstrikes.

The terror group now wants to try to mobilize activists abroad to put pressure on the US and Israel. “The statement also encouraged demonstrators to raise Palestinian flags and mobilize resources in support of, what it underlined was, the legitimate rights of Palestinians to freedom, independence, and an end to a simultaneous stifling blockade that the regime was enforcing against the coastal sliver,” Press TV said.

Iran’s state media, IRNA, said that in New York, “thousands of people have taken to the streets of Manhattan, New York City, protesting against the renewed Israeli air campaign against Gaza and the United States’ support for it.”

This appears to be part of the Hamas global campaign. “Protesters on Tuesday marched through Times Square while holding up signs and chanting slogans against the war and in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” IRNA claimed.

Disclaimer: Family stories vary according to the teller and also change over time. This story is based on memories my mother shared with me. I have likely embellished it greatly with my imagination. Any inaccuracies belong solely to me.

It was hard for Haiman Kopelman, my great grandfather, to leave Vashilishok. He was not only leaving the city he called home, but his widowed mother, his as yet unmarried sister, and a wife and two young sons. But that was the way of things. You got out if you could—even if you did it one at a time--and sent for the others when you’d made enough money to pay their way.

Haiman was actually the second Kopelman to leave Vashilishok. His brother Max got out first, and settled in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, some 30 miles away from Pittsburgh. That’s no doubt the reason Haiman decided to hang his hat in New Kensington, a hop, skip, and a jump from his big brother Max, only ten miles away. New Ken is a river town, situated alongside the Allegheny River, making it prime territory for someone with a hankering to become a real live American peddler.

Perhaps “hankering” is a little strong. Let’s just say the plan was this: Haim would peddle goods until he’d made enough to bring over Anna and the boys; Ellis, who would one day become my grandfather, and Nathan. It took a long while for Haiman, more scholar than businessman, to earn their fare, and Anna was getting impatient, but at last there was enough to purchase their passage.

Haiman was jubilant (or maybe not—I wasn’t there) at the thought of being reunited with his wife and two small children. But then his mother wrote that his sister Topazelda—or however it’s spelled--not that it matters, because once she came to the Goldena Medina, she became “Tillie”—was getting married, and there was nothing for her nedunya (dowry). Oy! What to do?

Do you see where this is going? Haiman sent Anna’s ticket money to his mom in Vashilishok so his sister Topazelda—or however it’s spelled—could be married in style—whatever that meant in Vashilishok.

Anna was not a happy camper, or so I’m told.

I picture her tight-lipped, and then finally, resolved: if Haiman wouldn’t buy the tickets, then by cracky—or some Yiddish approximation thereof—she would.

Unlike Haiman, Anna had a knack for business. She opened a leather findings shop, and soon had enough coinage to get herself and the boys on a boat. In fact, Anna did so well with her little business that she had gorgeous velvet suits made for the boys—their father shouldn’t be ashamed when he sees them for the first time in so long.

In actual fact, Haiman blanched when he saw the two boys in their painstakingly hand-crafted velvet suits, or so I’m told. To Haiman, the boys looked like total greeners, right off the boat. Which they were.

I wouldn’t say Haiman was ashamed—though again, I wasn’t there—but he certainly was embarrassed. Which is why, after that first tender reunion—again I wasn’t there, but I certainly hope it was tender—Haiman went out and bought the boys “fifty-cent cotton wash suits,” as my mother called them, cheap, factory-produced, washable suits. Because HEL-LO-O. That’s what normal people wore in America at the turn of the 20^th century, and not some Eastern European velvet bloomer weirdness—I am imagining lace collars here. (I pray not, but again, I wasn’t there.)

One night, Anna, who was a feminist but just didn’t know it or care, approached Haiman as he was compiling a list of items he needed to restock his wares. Anna’s hand dipped into her pocket and brought out a wad of cash (I’m calling it a wad, but who knows?). “Buy double,” she said.

But she wasn't done.

With her cool business head, Anna had saved up not only enough for the tickets and the velvet suits, but also a house. Anna took the $500 she’d put aside for this purpose, and scouted out a two-story home with a big front window. There she put Haiman’s new (doubled) inventory, and the four of them would live upstairs. Thus was born Kopelman’s, a department store.

Haiman and Anna Kopelman

To cut a long story short, the business grew, and as was the custom in those days, Haiman went back to Vashilishok to show he’d done well, to come bearing gifts and make his mother kvell. However, there was a catch. Haiman was now clean-shaven, no longer the bearded young man he’d been when he left his scholarly life in Lithuania. It wasn’t the thing to have a beard in America.

But oy! His mother. If she were to see him beardless, she’d plotz! Not to worry. Haiman had an idea. He’d go to Vashilishok, sure, but first he’d go to Palestine, and visit Anna’s family. Two of her brothers lived there in Jerusalem. One of them had many children. He’d bring everyone gifts and have a nice visit. Meanwhile, he’d be growing his beard. Natch?

Engagement photo of Anna's brother Nachum Shlomo Yanowsky and Chaya Devorah Shick, Jerusalem

Chaya Devorah and Nachum Shlomo in later years

The visit was pleasant.* His beard now suitably long, Haiman traveled on to Lithuania, gave his mother nachas, and then, instead of going straight back to America, he decided he’d take a little side trip to Egypt. There he’d see the pyramids! The Sphinx! “Haiman Kopelman, world traveler!” How cool is that?

There was just one little hitch, it was 1914, and right as Great Grandpa Haiman Kopelman arrived in Egypt, World War I broke out. Egypt was a nice place to visit, but Haiman wanted to get home and while Egypt wasn’t yet involved in the war effort, there were no passenger ships going to America.

This was a problem, not that Haiman knew anything about it. After Haiman left for his world journey, Anna discovered she was pregnant. She meant to surprise him with the news on his return. Indeed it was a surprise.

Because by the time Haiman arrived, so had Anna’s twins, the last of their progeny. It had taken nine months for him to return. Which is why they were twins of course. Nine months for Anna and nine for Haiman’s journey, so of course, two babies.

Which, I was given to understand, was some sort of family joke, though I dunno. It’s kind of strange as joke material, since only one of the twins survived. Maybe Ricky Gervais could do something with that. Or maybe I’m underestimating Haiman and Anna. Maybe when they told it, it was ROFL.

But I digress. This entire story, in fact, was a digression. The story is merely a backdrop for a prized family photo. In the photo is Great Grandpa Haiman, still with his neat little beard, on camelback. In fact, I have named this photo, “Grandpa on a camel.”

The man on the little white donkey beside him is, however, a mystery. Haiman said his fellow traveler was Professor Eliot, the president of Harvard. They spent a long time together, Haiman and Professor Eliot, stuck there as they both were by the exigencies of war. After the two separately managed to get home to America, Eliot sent my great grandpa a signed copy of a complete set of Shakespeare. I do not know who has the set or where it is. I have not seen it. I do not even know if it exists or ever did.

But I tried really hard to find out something about the mysterious Professor Eliot of Harvard. I like to imagine him in deep conversation with my Jewish great grandfather, a former yeshiva bochur from Vashilishok whose mother tongue was Yiddish, and who perhaps had a bit of an accent. (I don’t know that. I wasn’t there. It’s just how it plays out in my mind.)

My correspondence with the librarians at Harvard unfortunately yielded no useful answers as to the identity of the man on the donkey. There was no one who matched, really—there was always something that didn’t fit the picture, and those librarians really tried.

Well, who knows? Maybe “Professor Eliot, president of Harvard” lied to Haiman and had this totally other life and occupation. Maybe he was a vagrant.

No not that. His clothes are too nice. But whatever. Beggar or thief or president of Harvard, the complete set of Shakespeare was certainly a nice touch. Even if I’m not 100% sure it exists or ever did.

*More about that visit another time.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

"BBC Verify" doesn't verify anything that exonerates Israel

From BBC Verify:

The UN says that one of its workers has been killed and others injured after a compound in Gaza was damaged on Wednesday, adding that the circumstances of the incident remain unclear.

The Palestinian territory's Hamas-run health ministry blamed an Israeli strike and said five critically injured foreign workers had arrived in hospital. Israel's military denied striking the UN compound in Deir al-Balah.

The UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) said an "explosive ordnance was dropped or fired" at the building, which was in an "isolated" location.

It added there was no confirmation on the nature of the incident or the type of artillery used.

UNOPS executive director Jorge Moreira da Silva described the incident as "not an accident" and added that "UN personnel and its premises must be protected by all sides".

Footage verified by the BBC showed injured people - two still wearing blue UN flak jackets - arriving at a hospital in an ambulance and a UN car.

While the BBC briefly mentioned Israel's denial, it does not go beyond that, quoting multiple UN sources as saying that it was definitely artillery or another purposeful strike that could only have come from Israel.

What the BBC didn't think was worth mentioning was that all of the UN workers - one of whom died - were members of the UN Mine Action Service, information that had been available to the BBC three hours before publication.

You can see their logos on their shirts.

When Israel denies striking an area, they aren't known to lie. If they struck it they would say that there was a legitimate target or that there was an accident, but they wouldn't deny it.

In this case, the IDF said, “Contrary to reports, the IDF did not attack a UN compound in Deir al-Balah. The IDF calls on media outlets to exercise caution with unverified reports.”

We know that Hamas has placed thousands of explosives in buildings and roads. I predicted in January that innocents will die from these IEDs - and Hamas will blame Israel.

These UN deminers were almost certainly injured by an IED. Their jobs plus Israel's denial of any activity in the area almost guarantee it.

Of course, the BBC will choose to believe whatever makes Israel look bad. If that means not reporting on information that would add doubt to their narrative, that is what they will do.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Indiana elementary school exhibit said “The Children of Israel has always been a difficult nation”

The Smoky Row Elementary School in Carmel, Indiana held an "International Festival" on March 7 where children can display information about their cultural heritage in booths for everyone to see.

One booth included things like “The Children of Israel has always been a difficult nation” and “The Jews plotted to crucify Issa (Jesus).”

The local Jewish community complained and the school district apologized.

But how could any teacher have allowed this display to begin with?

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

David Skrbina was a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Michigan, Dearborn from 2003 to 2018 and more recently at the University of Helsinki. While he was in Dearborn he was an active supporter of BDS, writing op-eds and being interviewed as a leading BDS campaigner on campus.

His personal webpage has a statement written soon after the October 7 attacks, saying,

STATEMENT ON PALESTINE (1 Nov 2023)

I call on all people of conscience to stand with Palestine, and against the criminal Jewish state. I call on everyone to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel -- permanently. Through their criminal actions, they have forfeited their right to exist.

Recall the words of Martin Heidegger: "planetary master criminals" (in Trawny, Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy; 2015: 33)

That Heidegger quote is curious. Most people believe that his writings about "planetary master criminals" refers to Jews. He elsewhere wrote about “the basis for the peculiar predetermination of Jewry [Judenschaft] for planetary criminality," which aligns with Skrbina's emphasis on the "criminal Jewish state."

This suggests that Skrbina's hate for Israel is not political but antisemitic. Now we now that is true.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reveals that Skrbina had another persona, "Thomas Dalton PhD.," who is an infamous and prolific neo-Nazi antisemitic author and Holocaust denier. The ADL describes him:

Thomas Dalton, likely a pseudonym, is an author with numerous Holocaust denial works. ...He has emerged as an unbridled antisemite and Holocaust denier, including by suggesting that “Jews caused World War Two.” He refutes that there was a master plan to murder Jews and claims only 500,000 died at the hands of the Nazis.

His books include The Jewish Hand in the World Wars and Debating the Holocaust, and he has edited and/or provided introductions and commentary for numerous editions of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and other antisemitic works. He is a frequent contributor to antisemitic and Holocaust denial publications such as The Barnes Review and the Occidental Observer.

While appearing on the antisemitic Keith Barrett podcast in December, Skrbina accidentally logged in as Dalton, and Barrett noted this and even joked about it, noting that he saw Daltons' profile with Skrbina's photo.

Skrbina denies that he is Dalton:

It has come to my attention that I have been subjected to yet another slanderous personal attack by a malicious Jewish special-interest group. This is not the first time; ever since I have been defending the call for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) from Israel, beginning back in 2003, Jewish groups have found it convenient to target me personally, in an attempt at intimidation. Sadly for them, it has never worked. And as I have heightened my critiques since the attack on Gaza, so too have my critics. Now they attempt to connect my name to vile anti-Semitic writings, to white supremacy, and to Holocaust denial. These are absurd. My areas of expertise are in philosophy, history of philosophy, environmental ethics, and philosophy of technology; these have no bearing on the claimed subjects, nor do I have any special expertise in such areas.

The denial is comical when you look at the facts.

Articles on Dalton's website - including a Holocaust denial article - show in their metadata that they were written by Skrbina.

Skrbina claims he has no expertise on the subjects that "Dalton" writes about, yet somehow he reviewed and praised Dalton's antisemitic books. He wrote on another antisemitic site a rave review of his own The Jewish Hand in World Wars that leaves no doubt at to Skrbina's own antisemitism even outside his Dalton persona:

[T]hough TBR and author Thomas Dalton will be called anti-Semites for even daring to discuss it—there is no better subject to explore than the Jewish role in history and whether or not the claims that they have manipulated nations into many devastating wars have any basis of fact at all.

This is precisely what Dalton has done in his thought-provoking new book, The Jewish Hand in the World Wars

No other author has been able to compile, in such concise and clear terms, all key elements of this story. As such, Dalton’s book provides us with an invaluable resource, one overflowing with lessons for the present.

The book begins with some context from ancient times. Literally for millennia, Jews have for some reason—deserved or not—been viewed as troublemakers, agitators and scoundrels. It is highly revealing that nearly every ancient reference to the Jews is negative.

...We can well understand why Seneca called them “an accursed race,” and why Tacitus described them as “a disease” and “the basest of peoples.” The story continues with extremely critical remarks by the likes of Aquinas, Luther, Paul-Henri d’Holbach, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Hegel and Johann Fichte. Dalton proves his point: Jews have a very long reputation for belligerence, hostility, maliciousness, and warmongering.

...As Hitler and the NSDAP rose to power in Germany in the 1930s, Jews worldwide began to agitate against him. These included Bolshevik Jews in the Soviet Union, Jews in the United Kingdom and France, and FDR’s Jewish advisors. The second half of Dalton’s book focuses specifically on the Jewish American role and World War II, presenting a clear and logical argument based on six points:

the extensive Jewish role in the Roosevelt administration;
that the majority Christian U.S. public was solidly isolationist;
that prominent Jews did see war as a benefit to their interests;
that FDR acted surreptitiously on behalf of war;
that the Jewish-dominated U.S. media constantly pushed for war; and
that the U.S. ultimately entered the war under false pretenses.

Dalton presents an impressive sequence of statistics, quotations, and authoritative references that defend all these points.

If Skrbina says he has no expertise on the topic, why would he review and promote an otherwise obscure book by "Dalton"?

Here is a major BDS proponent who has been outed as a neo-Nazi. On campus, he pretends to be pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, yet his hatred of Jews is undeniable even in his own writings, let alone the ravings of "Thomas Dalton PhD."

Scratch the surface of most such defenders of Palestinian rights and you will find antisemites. Most of them are not as explicitly Nazi as Skrbina but in the end, as we see in Skrbina's own words, there is precious little difference between "progressive" and "far right wing" antisemitism.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

During the ceasefire, the PFLP started admitting that it had lost a lot of fighters

During the previous phase of the Gaza war, Hamas made it clear that no one was to admit that any of the casualties were members of terror groups. The media and even Gazans on social media were told never to identify the names of fighters, because the media portrayal of only showing civilian victims was as important as the fighting itself.

The PFLP and its Abu Mustafa Brigades didn't need to be told this. They knew the rules quite well; they learned propaganda techniques from the master of the Soviet Union.

In their Telegram channel, the PFLP only started publishing the names of their "martyrs" from the war earlier this month.

Here are some of the ones they are now celebrating - in Arabic only, of course.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

03/18 Links Pt2: The Moral Asymmetry Between Israel and Its Enemies; UK parliament report to combat Oct. 7 denial; Google buys Israeli Wiz in record $32bn deal

From Ian:

Something has changed

Despite tremendous costs on the individual level, Israelis know they are here to stay in the Middle East.

Sitting here in Israel, I ask myself if this is the same Middle East it was before Oct. 7, 2023. Yes, the war that was waged on Israel on seven fronts continues into its 17th month, and at least 59 hostages are still not home with many no longer alive.

However, something else has changed.

Although still a threat, Hezbollah has been severely neutered. The Israeli Air Force sent a squadron of F-151 planes on Sept. 27, dropping more than 80 bombs. The body of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s commander-in-chief, was found lying in the rubble the next day. Also eliminated by the Israeli forces were Ali Karaki, commander of Hezbollah’s southern front, and Abbas Niforoushan, deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The real display of Israel’s power came a few weeks earlier on Sept. 17-18 as part of the Israeli operation of blowing up thousands of Hezbollah-owned beepers and pagers. This secret maneuver eliminated Ibrahim Aqil, the commander-in-chief of Hezbollah’s unique elite unit, the Radwan Force.

The Israel Defense Forces have entered and removed dozens of meters of underground tunnels in Southern Lebanon—many lying under children’s bedrooms, replete with RPGs, Kalashnikovs, missile launchers, grenades and explosives.

There is still a threat from Hezbollah, but they are now a mere shadow of the fighting force they once were.

Seth Mandel: The Moral Asymmetry Between Israel and Its Enemies

A commission of inquiry led by the renowned historian Andrew Roberts has now produced the most comprehensive report on the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks. Every kibbutz, town, city, and music festival victimized by thousands of Gazan infiltrators has its own entry in the report. That level of detail, along with the authors’ inclusion of the relevant recent history and background of the conflict, makes it to date the best guide to what we know about the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history.

The report, by the Oct. 7 Parliamentary Commission in the U.K., can and should be read in full here. And while it is difficult to summarize a report of this size, it’s worth paying special attention to the way the commission deals with one category of both victim and perpetrator: the civilian.

As Israel renews its strikes on Hamas in Gaza, the usual suspects in the press and on social media are dutifully and knowingly relaying made-up numbers and demographics of Palestinian casualties. The reason they do this becomes clear when one reads the commission’s report: The intentional Palestinian targeting of Israeli civilians for the most heinous of crimes, in many cases by Palestinian civilians, has convinced Gazans and their advocates that the only way to obscure the moral asymmetry between the two sides is to overwhelm the public with large-sounding numbers in the hopes that people forget the details.

There is also an element of psychological projection: The Palestinian perpetrators of 10/7 are guilty of that which they accuse Israel of doing.

Take, for example, the Hamas advocates’ obsession with painting the Jews as baby-killers. While it makes for difficult reading, it’s important to understand the lengths to which the enemies of Israel are willing to go. The youngest victim of 10/7, the report notes, was a mere 14 hours old. The report’s account of the death of baby Naama Abu Rashed:

“At 05:30 on 7 October, her mother woke up with labour pains in her ninth month of pregnancy. Her husband Tarafi drove towards Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheba and drove through Magen Junction where 10 terrorists were waiting across 2 vehicles. They fired at them with a machine gun and the mother was shot in the stomach. The car was also hit, forcing them to stop at Patish Junction to change a tire when they were shot at again. Upon arrival at the hospital, doctors were forced to carry out an emergency delivery. They discovered that a bullet had hit Naama’s leg and while she was born alive, she succumbed to her wounds at around 22:00 that evening. Her mother survived.”

Nine-month-old Mila Cohen, of Kibbutz Be’eri, was shot and killed in her mother’s arms. Eighteen minors lost both parents on that day. Several other minors had lost one parent and seen the other taken hostage. In total, 870 people, including 250 children, lost at least one parent.

Youngest Oct 7 victim was just 14 hours old when her mother was shot in the womb

The youngest victim of the Oct 7 massacre was just 14 hours old, a UK parliamentary report has found.

The study also disclosed the existence of another Briton who died in the attack, bringing the total number of UK citizens killed to 18.

Lord Roberts, the historian who has presided over the report, said its purpose was to produce a definitive account of the Hamas attacks to “counter pernicious” attempts at denying or minimising the atrocities.

The report’s main findings – corroborating studies that have come out of Israel – found that planning by Hamas had begun in 2018, five years before the massacre, and that 7,000 militants had taken part in a “co-ordinated assault” launched from Gaza on 55 separate locations in Israel.

The British casualties of October 7th
Saturday 7th October 2023 - 06:29am Hamas approaches border

Radio transmission by Sgt. Roni Eshel at Nahal Oz Base states that Hamas attackers are approaching the fence, marking the beginning of the land invasion.

7:00am First British Israeli casualties
Three-quarters of attendees from the Psyduck music festival leave the grounds, 16 of whom are killed along the highways. One is Dor Hannan Shafir, a British-Israeli-Irish civilian.

Terrorists reach the Yiftach Outpost in the northern Gazan Envelope. British Israeli soldier Nathanel Young is killed.

7:20am British Israeli Bernard Cowan is killed
Cowan is shot dead in his home by terrorists in Kibbutz Sufa.

7:30am Israelis flee the Nova Music Festival
Traffic congestion leaving the Nova Music festival forces festival goers to abandon their vehicles, as gunfire draws closer. Many flee east over farmland, but those who flee west, back to the festival site, are largely killed. British Israeli Jake Marlowe who was working as a security guard at the festival is killed when Hamas terrorists enter the site.

7:55am Hamas attacks civilians in bomb shelters
On Route 232, the Re’im bomb shelters are attacked. British Israeli Aner Shapira is in Re’im West shelter and killed by a grenade thrown into the shelter.

8:10am British Israeli Police officer is killed
British Israeli Police officer, MST Sgt Devorah Abraham is stationed in the forward command post at the Nova Festival to expedite departure of attendees. She is killed when Hamas enter the festival grounds.

8:30am First British-Israeli hostage is kidnapped
At approximately this time, British-Israeli Nadav Poppelwell is taken hostage, and his brother Roi, also a British citizen, is killed. Nadav is killed in captivity in Gaza.

8:30am Hamas attacks homes in Kibbuzt Be’eri
Terrorists go house to house in Kibbuzt Be’eri; two of their victims are British Israeli citizens, Rotem Kaderon, and Yonatan Rapoport.

9:00am British citizen murdered
Danny Darlington is killed in Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he was visiting a friend.

10:24am British Israeli kidnapped
British Israeli, Emily Damari, sends her last WhatsApp message to her brothers before being taken hostage. (Kfar Aza). At approximately 10:45-11:00 her car is seen driving out the back gate of the Kibbutz, taking hostages to the Gaza Strip (Kfar Aza)

12:30pm British Israeli family murdered
The last time family and friends hear from British Israeli Lianne Sharabi, who is then killed in Kibbutz Be’eri, alongside her two British Israeli daughters, Yahel and Noya. Their father Eli is taken hostage to Gaza.

12:54pm British-Israelis killed in standoff
Pessi Cohen’s home in Kibbutz Be’eri is infiltrated. The house is then used by Hamas as a location to bring hostages, resulting in a stand-off with the IDF. It ends in a battle where all but two of the hostages are killed, including British-Israeli twins Liel and Yannai Hetzroni.

4:00pm British-Israeli soldier is killed
Approximate time of death of British Israeli soldier Yosef Guedalia, who is rescuing civilians from Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

Sunday 8th October 2023 - 5:00am
British-Israeli IDF Major dies during rescue
British Israeli Benjamin Trakeniski, an off-duty major in the IDF armoured corps, who is killed rescuing wounded residents of Kibbutz Be’eri.

03/18 Links Pt1: Israeli Strikes in Gaza Take Out 4 Senior Hamas Terrorists, Palestinian Islamic Jihad Spokesman; The UN has become a mouthpiece for terrorist apologists

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Striking when the iron’s cold

“Operation Strength and Sword,” the airstrikes in the Gaza Strip launched at 2:15 a.m. on Tuesday, didn’t only come as a shock to Hamas. Israelis, too, were taken aback, since they went to bed on Monday night preparing for a very different battle in the morning. The internecine kind.

Yes, the protest movement declared that it would be escalating its activities. Not that it ever ceased staging rallies against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for, well, just about everything.

For months, its focus has been his failure—for ostensibly personal and political reasons—to “bring all the hostages home now.” And Tuesday marked the 11th day of a more specific demonstration, this one titled the “Kirya Envelope.”

The name is a play on the term for the Gaza-border communities. It refers to the surrounding of Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, where the security cabinet usually meets.

But the hostage crisis wasn’t the impetus for some 100 protest leaders to jump to attention. No, their latest excuse was Netanyahu’s decision to fire Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Ronen Bar.

Never mind that he was the key figure responsible for not predicting and preventing the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023. Forget that he even admitted as much shortly after the deadly Hamas invasion.

The fact that he’s been serving since then as a hindrance to Netanyahu’s pursuit of the war goals is good enough for the “anybody but Bibi” crowd to be on his side. And for Histadrut labor federation chairman Arnon Bar-David to threaten to “grind the economy to a halt.”

Nothing invigorates this otherwise disparate gang of virtue-signalers like gearing up to shut the country down. It’s a motley crew that includes an illustrious list of former political and military officials whose loathing for Netanyahu is only surpassed by their envy of him.

Hamas gathered forces during ceasefire for attempted invasion into Israel

The Israeli security cabinet convened an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss a culmination of alerts over the past few weeks that indicate that Hamas has been making preparations for another invasion into Israeli territory, N12 reported.

Separately, Defense Minister Israel Katz reiterated these concerns in a meeting with the Otef Israel Forum, a group primarily composed of residents from the Gaza border region, on Tuesday morning,

"There are constant preparations being made by Hamas for an invasion [into Israel], similar to October 7," Katz said in the meeting.

"We must strike them and completely finish the job through both offense and defense," Katz added. "This is the goal that drives me."

According to the report, security forces have identified a sharp increase in Hamas's efforts to carry out attacks against the IDF in Gaza, potentially indicating a desire to prepare for an incursion into Israel.

Hamas issued a statement later on Tuesday claiming, "The occupation’s claims that the resistance had made preparations to attack its troops are baseless and false pretexts to justify its return to the war and escalation of its bloody aggression."

Similarly, the IDF has struck Hamas terrorists numerous times over the past few weeks, as they used the ceasefire to move around Gaza and attempt to plant explosives near IDF soldiers.

Hamas published a statement on Tuesday saying that Israel's allegations regarding Hamas's preparations to launch an attack on IDF forces "are baseless and merely flimsy pretexts to justify its return to war and escalation of its bloody aggression."

Israel, however, has publicly said that the ongoing strikes in Gaza are not related to fears of an impending attack but are instead in response to Hamas's unwillingness to release the hostages and refusal to advance talks.