Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 09, 2025

09/09 Links Pt2: If ‘Palestine’ is born in blood, the world will reap the whirlwind; Tunisia denies Gaza flotilla claims of ‘drone attack’; Memorial for 68 IDF soldiers who fell in 2014 Gaza war

From Ian:

Dalia Ziada: If ‘Palestine’ is born in blood, the world will reap the whirlwind

Every day seems to bring a new, deluded world leader pushing a flawed framework on the Middle East, a region they do not understand. These leaders endorse recognition of a Palestinian state without any peace negotiations with Israel, which is effectively a reward for Hamas carrying out the atrocities of Oct. 7.

Countries worldwide, even unexpected ones like Japan, Canada and Australia, continue to say they may conditionally recognize such a state in the near future. But do they realize what they are endorsing?

Recently, Germany reversed its pledge to recognize a Palestinian state in the immediate future, as it came to realize what a dangerous precedent was being enacted.

Almost two years ago, I was forced to flee my homeland of Egypt at the hands of the radical Islamists, the same chauvinist fanatics who once vowed to “sabotage Western civilization from within.” As a liberal Muslim scholar of the Middle East, who cherishes the values of classical liberal democracy, and who owes the United States my education, my professional growth, and, most recently, my very life, I feel an obligation to sound the alarm against the Muslim Brotherhood and its most dangerous offshoot: Hamas.

Hamas, the Palestinian faction of the Muslim Brotherhood—designated by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist Organization—has run Gaza with an iron fist after it violently seized control from the rival Fatah party in June 2007 following a series of armed clashes. It was the mastermind behind and key perpetrator of the barbaric Oct. 7 massacre in Israel in 2023.

Hamas leaders purposefully exposed innocent civilians in Gaza to war so they could use their blood to gain legitimacy for their acts of terrorism, as well as win the sympathy and approval of the international community.

These facts are crucial to recall as several world leaders, under the deception of the Gaza war narrative cleverly crafted by Hamas’s propaganda machine in Qatar, seek to reward terrorism with the premature recognition of a Palestinian state.

Such a move will not bring the peace we all wish for. It will only serve to entrench Hamas, empower the Islamic Republic of Iran, deepen the region’s most chronic geopolitical conflicts and strip the Palestinians of the only real hope they deserve: a future free from Hamas’s tyranny.

Born in blood, this offer will give rise to more blood. The particular rotten proposal being offered would end the prospects for any final settlement short of violence because it essentially demands that Israel sign its own death warrant.

Western nations push for ‘Palestine’ at UN, Israeli experts urge strong response

A coalition of countries led by France—including the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, Australia and Portugal—are preparing to formally recognize a Palestinian state at the 80th United Nations General Assembly (Sept. 9–23) in New York.

Israeli legal experts warn the move will intensify political tensions surrounding the already fraught Israel-Palestinian conflict. They recommend Israel act decisively, urging it to make clear to its allies that any attempt to impose “foreign diktats” will come at a price.

Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights attorney, CEO of the International Legal Forum and senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security, and Anne Herzberg, legal adviser at NGO Monitor, spoke with JNS about the implications of the planned recognitions.

Both agreed that Israel cannot afford to remain passive in the face of what they view as unilateral and destructive moves.

“Israel must make clear to other countries, as they have already, that they will not sit idly by in the face of unilateral recognitions of a Palestinian state,” said Ostrovsky, noting that Israel did well to reject French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent request to visit Israel, and to revoke visas for Australian representatives in Ramallah.

“These countries cannot expect it to be ‘business as usual’ as long as they conduct such actions,” Ostrovsky told JNS, adding that the Palestinian Authority, “which has been spearheading these initiatives,” must also be the subject of “punitive measures.”

He suggested holding its tax revenue and ceasing security collaboration. “You will also likely see some elements of the Israeli government calling for application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria as a response,” he said.

J Street declares war on Israel

J Street’s portrayal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as “messianic extremists” is not just inflammatory—it’s anti-democratic. Israel is a vibrant democracy, and its citizens choose its leaders. To vilify an elected government and call for punitive measures against it is to reject the legitimacy of Israeli democracy itself.

J Street’s rhetoric drives a wedge between American Jews and Israelis, sowing division at a time when unity is most needed. Ben-Ami’s organization seeks to rip apart the longstanding bipartisan support for Israel in Congress and shepherd the Democratic Party into the anti-Israel radical camp.

J Street claims to be guided by Jewish ethics, invoking the principle “do not treat others as we would not want to be treated ourselves.” Yet it fails to apply this principle to Hamas, a terrorist organization that targets civilians, uses human shields, and openly calls for Israel’s destruction. By focusing its ire almost exclusively on Israel, J Street creates a false moral equivalence between a democratic state defending itself and a terrorist regime bent on annihilation.

J Street’s vision of peace—one that hinges on pressuring Israel into concessions while ignoring Palestinian murder, incitement, corruption, and rejectionism—is a fantasy, one rejected by Israel’s citizens. Real peace requires mutual recognition, security guarantees, and an end to terrorism. By calling for restrictions on Israel’s ability to defend itself, J Street empowers those who seek to destroy it. That is not peace advocacy; it is sabotage.

Ben-Ami may claim J Street supports Israel, but its actions tell a different story. By lobbying to cut off military aid, demonizing Israel’s leadership, and promoting a one-sided narrative, it has positioned itself not as a partner for peace but as an adversary. In doing so, J Street has declared war—not on violence or extremism, but on Israel itself.

09/09 Links Pt1: IDF targets Hamas terrorists in Doha, Qatar; A message to Western leaders: Palestinians don't want peace, they want dead Jews

From Ian:

Israel shatters Hamas’s Doha sanctuary

In one dramatic strike, Israel has upended the rules of the game. Hours after Hamas proudly claimed responsibility for the bus bombing that killed six Israelis in Jerusalem on Sunday, Israeli Air Force F-15s and F-35s delivered justice not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, but in the capital of Qatar, Doha, the gilded refuge of Hamas’s leadership.

For years, Qatar has bankrolled Hamas, sending suitcases stuffed with cash to fund the terror tunnels of Gaza and offering sanctuary to its commanders. While Hamas paraded its hatred of Jews openly, Qatar perfected the art of taqiyya—the calculated deception of pretending to mediate peace while hosting, protecting, and enabling jihad.

Its state-funded propaganda arm, Al Jazeera, has done more than any Arab army to delegitimize Israel, promoting the libel of “genocide” and building an entire front of psychological warfare against the Jewish state.

That sanctuary is now rubble. Reports indicate that much of Hamas’s top brass—Khalil al-Hayya, Zaher Jabarin, Musa Abu Marzouk, Husam Badran, Muhammad Ismail Darwish and perhaps even Khaled Mashaal—were killed in the strike. These were not minor figures. They were Yahya Sinwar’s heirs, masterminds of Oct. 7, 2023, and the men who used the hostages as human bargaining chips.

The consequences are enormous. The hostage deal Hamas’s Doha-based leaders sought to manipulate may be dead, but so is their leverage. Israel has again demonstrated its doctrine: what happened once will not be allowed to happen again.

Just as it confronted Gaza’s warlords, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s nuclear adventurism, Jerusalem has shown it will strike wherever necessary, even at the heart of an oil-rich emirate that fancied itself untouchable.

The United States, which controls the skies over Qatar thanks to its massive airbase there, is reported to have coordinated closely with Israel.

If so, this marks a profound shift. Washington may finally be tiring of Qatar’s duplicity—its role as Hamas’s patron, its alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood and its obstruction of peace initiatives, including U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to conclude the war before the midterms. The Saudis, who loathe Qatar, will see this as an opening to push forward a regional realignment under the Abraham Accords.

A message to Western leaders: Palestinians don't want peace, they want dead Jews - comment

Two weeks ago, official PA TV urged its citizens to "Kill Jews one by one." On Monday, two people did just that.

As The Jerusalem Post's editorial rightly stated last night, this is the same Palestinian Authority, which seeks international recognition as the legitimate government of a future Palestinian state but which has consistently failed to unequivocally condemn terror attacks. The same PA, which cannot even govern the West Bank effectively without Israeli security coordination, now demands control over Gaza as well.

Palestinian statehood
And yet the international community - Canada, France, the UK, to name a few - have all announced their plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly this month.

"As blood is spilled on Jerusalem’s streets, the international community rushes toward a predetermined outcome that ignores these harsh realities," the editorial added.

Anyone who thinks the Palestinians deserve a state, or that such a state would miraculously be 'peace-loving and neighborly,’ is either living in la la land, or is masking their desire for dead Jews behind an obsequious façade of diplomatic intent.

As Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein said on Monday, “Not only has Abbas refused to specifically condemn these murderers, his intact Fatah charter still calls for the ‘armed struggle’ against Israeli Jews and the Jewish ‘demolition’ of the Jewish State.”

In Starmer's July 29 speech about his intent to recognize a Palestinian state, he said that such a state "is not in the gift of any neighbour and is also essential to the long-term security of Israel."

On what planet would such a state have any conceivable benefit to Israel's security?

Following their meeting on Monday, Starmer praised Abbas's "commitment to reform of the Palestinian Authority." Having served 20 years of his four-year term, Abbas has had ample opportunity to reform the Palestinian Authority. Has he? No.

And yet he successfully swanned into the UK - the once paragon of democracy - and convinced the country's feckless leader of his desire for peace, reform, and rainbows.

But over here in Israel, the irony is spectacularly unfunny; six Israelis were murdered in cold blood while commuting.

Yaakov Pinto, 25; Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Pash; Rabbi Israel Matzner, 28; Rabbi Yosef David, 43; Sarah Mendelson, 60; and Rabbi Mordechai Steintzag, 79.

Whole words. Whole lives. Loved ones, families, dreams, and hopes.

The gifting of a state to violent, jihadist people who glorify terror against Jews is the greatest form of gaslighting. It's saying, 'kill Jews and we will grant you legitimacy.' It is saying 'dead Jews don't matter.'

The world has sacrificed Jewish lives in the pursuit of the 'greater good.'

But it is clear to me at least that no 'good' will come from giving Palestinians a state while they still view martyrdom-through-murder as their greatest achievement.

Israel must be forceful in taking out Hamas, ex-soldier says

Richard Kemp is a retired soldier, but he still talks like one in active service.

Speaking to a crowd of attentive listeners at the Toronto home of former Canadian Senator Linda Frum this week, Kemp foretold Israel’s precision strikes in Qatar, just hours before they happened.

“One pressure point is Qatar,” said Kemp, who knows a thing or two about war, having served in many for the United Kingdom. “Qatar hasn’t been exploited yet — to undermine Hamas.”

Qatar is the puny oil-rich Arab nation that, among other things, hosts and funds Hamas. Directly or indirectly, Qatar has funded al-Qaida, Syria’s al-Nusra Front, ISIS, and their philosophical nexus, the Muslim Brotherhood. It has supplied Hamas, in particular, with tens of millions to fund its terror war against Israel and the West.

(Oh, and Qatar is sponsoring and funding seven films at the Toronto International Film Festival, which recently attracted some negative headlines for its hastily recanted decision to cancel a documentary about an Israeli family on the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre. That was produced by, you know, a Jew. But we digress.)

While Kemp does not explicitly advocate for Israel to take out Hamas targets in Qatar — as they attempted to do on Monday night — he says that Israel must take forceful steps if it is to win its war against Hamas. “It’s all simply a question of destroying Hamas,” he says. Something that he says is inevitable, in the near or long term.

“And,” he adds,” please don’t think I don’t have sympathy for the Palestinian people. I don’t want to see the suffering of innocent children or women or the elderly. But I believe Israel must defeat Hamas.”

Here is Mahmoud Abbas' supposed "condemnation" of the terror attack in Jerusalem yesterday:

Palestinian Presidency reaffirms rejection of civilian targeting and all forms of violence

The Palestinian Presidency reiterated its firm stance rejecting and condemning any targeting of Palestinian and Israeli civilians, and denounced all forms of violence and terrorism, regardless of their source.

The Presidency stressed that security and stability in the region cannot be achieved without ending the occupation, halting acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip, and stopping colonist terrorism across the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem.

It emphasized that the Palestinian people's attainment of their legitimate rights to an independent and sovereign state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the achievement of security and peace for all, is what will end the cycle of violence in the region.

This came in the wake of today's events in occupied Jerusalem.

It was a general rejection of targeting civilians. But he didn't specifically condemn the attack. He spent more time condemning Israel than the terrorists, whom he didn't mention. He blamed Israel for any attacks on it. He took no responsibility for the terrorists that cam from areas under his complete control.

It wasn't a condemnation. it was an excuse to push his political agenda.

Now, here's how he sounds when he really condemns something:

President Abbas condemns Israeli attack on brotherly State of Qatar

President Mahmoud Abbas today condemned the brutal Israeli attack on the brotherly State of Qatar.

The President stated that the brutal Israeli attack on Qatar constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and an escalation that threatens regional security and stability.

The President emphasized the importance of an immediate halt to this escalation, warning that its continuation would have repercussions not only on the region but on the entire world.

President Abbas affirmed that the solution lies in a just and comprehensive peace for the Palestinian cause.

Hmmm. He didn't seem so upset over the murder of six Jews, did he?

No mention there of "brutality" or "escalation" of "violation" or "regional security" or "repercussions." Israel targeting his own enemies who are themselves mass murderers is much worse than his people targeting ordinary Jews.

This is the morality of the Palestinian Authority.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

From Israel Hayom:

Israel notified both the US and Qatari authorities before carrying out an airstrike on the Hamas headquarters in Doha in an attempt to eliminate senior leaders of the terrorist organization, Israel Hayom has learned. The notification was given in line with a commitment made by Jerusalem to Washington and Doha, a pledge that has been reaffirmed several times during the war. Alongside the advance notice, it is highly likely that the US also gave its approval for the strike.

Huh? Israel told Doha about an upcoming attack so they could tell Hamas leaders to get out?

Unless this was communicated seconds before the attack, I simply do not understand.

Hamas claims that none of its leadership was killed. It can easily be a lie, but why would Israel give Qatar a chance to warn Hamas?

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President Emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism, writes in Haaretz:

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, is charming, attractive, bright and a natural politician. Energetic, enormously talented and only thirty-three years old, in the Democratic primary he ran a brilliant campaign.

Is Mamdani too good to be true? Unfortunately, he is.

Despite his many virtues, this attractive, articulate man, with the popular touch and Trumpian feel for politics, is a virulent, relentless anti-Zionist.

There is a huge difference between Greek-style virtues and Jewish-style values. Yoffie is dazzled by the former and seems uninterested in the latter.

In Greek thought, aretē means excellence - personal charm, beauty, eloquence, or skill - and these virtues have become considered moral in themselves in Western thought.

Look at Yoffie's list of Mamdani's virtues - he is charming, attractive, bright, energetic. These correspond to Aristotelian personal virtues like rhetorical skill, aesthetic grace and friendship.

But virtues aren't values. Values are reflected in what a person does, not in personality traits. Values transform reality towards the good; virtues are window dressing.

Awful people can have charisma. Greek virtues like courage, intelligence and eloquence can be used for moral or immoral purposes.

Jewish ethics knows this. While Maimonides discusses Aristotelian virtues in detail, he positions them as a prerequisite to getting close to God and to do mitzvot properly - they are a means, not an end.

A better article would have examined Mamdani's claimed values. Mamdani says he wants to help the poor and oppressed, yet his implementation of such programs is classically socialist. He wants to redistribute wealth, dividing New Yorkers into "oppressed" and "oppressors," and fostering hate instead of unity. Socialists like Mamdani promulgate a simplistic view of the world that sound attractive but are unjust.

We know from history that Jews end up always being categorized and stereotyped as the oppressors, not the oppressed, in socialist circles.

Yet Yoffie doesn't even engage in that discussion of the shortcomings of Mamdani's intended policies and how they are likely to affect Jews. He doesn't even consider what Mamdani would do to the economy and safety of the city as a whole. Instead, he praises virtues as if they are values on their own. He correctly calls Mamdani an Israel-hater, but that is only the beginning of the objections to his policies, even for Jewish liberals.

When people cannot distinguish between virtues and values, they lose all perspective of morality. For a rabbi to do this so enthusiastically shows that Jews themselves need to relearn the basics of Jewish values and how to act according to them.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

British antisemites are overwhelmingly from the Left

British Leftists are now far more likely to admit to classic antisemitic attitudes than those on the Right, according to a new YouGov poll.

There used to be an interesting anomaly in polling about antisemitism. Since Leftists regard themselves as being against all forms of bigotry, it was much harder to get them to answer questions that were clearly meant to measure blatant antisemitic attitudes because they wouldn't want to admit bigotry. One poll from 2021 managed to figure out how to measure double standards against Jews and found that antisemitism was correlated with higher education levels - the exact opposite of the conventional wisdom.

This new poll shows that the reluctance of the Left to express classic antisemitic attitudes is disappearing. They are now more willing to openly endorse classic antisemitic stereotypes.

Researchers used these six questions as indicators of classic antisemitic attitudes, three framed positively and three negatively:

Can Jews be trusted just as much as other British people in business?

Are Jews just as loyal to Britain as other British people?

Are you just as open to having Jewish friends as you are to having friends from other sections of British society?

Compared to other groups, do Jews have too much power in the media?

Do Jews talk about the Holocaust just to further their political agenda?

Do Jews chase money more than other people do?

There are also six questions about Israel, but for determining antisemitism, these questions were the guide.

21% of people in Britain answered the antisemitic way on at least four of these questions, double the number in 2021.

But the political leanings of the antisemites is really the story here:

The only two political groups that exceeded the 21% general adult antisemitic numbers were voters for the Green Party (44%) and Labour (25%.)

When you factor in that many leftist antisemites still would not want to be considered antisemitic, chances are the real numbers are even worse!

Yes, right-wing antisemitism is a real problem - no one denies it. Bu tright-wing antisemitism in Britain tends to be fringe and extremist, while Left-wing antisemitism is seeping into the mainstream, reshaping political culture itself.

Other findings:

Among Green Party voters, 15 per cent believe that the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct 7 2023 was justified, higher than any other major party’s voters.

29 per cent of Labour voters believe that Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media.

This is proof positive that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are two sides of the same coin. For years, the Left has been insisting that they aren't antisemitic at all - but this poll proves otherwise.

The threat to Jews in England comes from the Left more than from the Right.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

09/08 Links Pt2: Our house is on fire, and the cavalry isn’t coming; The slow death of the genocide lie; Albanese Sued Over Legal Campaign Against Pro-Israel NGO's

From Ian:

Our house is on fire, and the cavalry isn’t coming

The failure of the Jewish establishment—the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Jewish Community Relations Councils and Jewish Federations—to protect and defend the Jewish community against the decades-long build-up and the current surge of hatred in the United States has become a subject of public concern and analysis. The organizations that have claimed to speak for us and guard us against antisemitism have proven unwilling or unable to meet the challenge.

The Jewish Leadership Project, along with others across the country, for years has sought to persuade, pressure, and, when necessary, shame establishment leaders into prioritizing the defense of our community. We believed that if they could be made to see the growing danger with clarity, they would recalibrate and lead. But they have not, even after the explosion of antisemitism following the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, and even as their supposed progressive allies turned on us.

Our leaders have refused to pivot. I believe that they will not and cannot.

Many resist this conclusion. It is far easier to cling to the hope that our old structures still work—that the powerful organizations of the past can still deliver security and stability. Abandoning that means accepting that the responsibility to protect our families and future now rests on us all. And the sooner we face this truth, the better.

But first, the community needs to understand why the Jewish establishment won’t change. Effective leadership of any enterprise requires a sober recognition of errors and a concerted effort to analyze why the leadership’s assumptions failed and the courage to chart a new course. It is human nature to resist acknowledging catastrophic mistakes, especially when you have raised hundreds of millions of dollars promoting yourselves as the most competent to do the work. Jewish leaders fear that when the enormity of their errors becomes broadly known, their community support might collapse, their (often) lucrative jobs will be at risk, and they will feel public shame.

Leadership is about knowing the territory so you can develop effective paths forward. Jewish leaders, however, have failed to grasp the obvious tectonic shifts in the American political culture. They assumed—and then placed all our bets on—the notion that classical liberalism, which had for so long protected Jews, would endure.

But classical liberalism—with its respect for pluralism, civil rights and the rule of law—has been eclipsed by a radical progressivism that paints Jews as privileged “white oppressors” and portrays Israel as the world’s villain. Even as it gained ascendancy, Jewish organizations deluded themselves by assuming that woke ideology was an exuberance of youth when it was, in fact, brilliantly organized, paid for and operated by nations like Russia, China and Qatar, and wealthy antisemites; and supported by the social justice-NGO complex. It’s not going to fade.

Brendan O'Neill: The slow death of the genocide lie

Most damning of all is the actual content of the resolution. It is about as far from judicious analysis as you can get. The opening paragraph says Israel ‘has killed more than 59,000 adults and children’ in Gaza. It is a flagrant abandonment of a scholar’s prime duty – to pursue truth – to talk about the dead in Gaza without mentioning that a very significant percentage of them are Hamas fighters. The resolution accuses Israel of carrying out ‘deliberate attacks’ on ‘hospitals, homes, commercial buildings’. Again, Hamas is invisibilised – no mention is made of the hard-proven fact that Hamas operates in such buildings. It is a profound inversion of truth to accuse Israel of turning civilian infrastructure into warzones when it was Hamas that did that.

Perhaps ‘the experts’ neglected to mention that many of the dead are Hamas militants because to do so would be to admit this is war. Not a new holocaust, but war. War between an army of anti-Semites and the democratic state they so savagely attacked on 7 October 2023. It is a lie of omission to erase the Jew-hating militia from the tragic story of Gaza. When inconvenient facts are buried to stitch someone up in a court of law, we call it a miscarriage of justice. So what should we call this travesty of a resolution?

Also last week, the alternative experts at the Scholars for Truth About Genocide made a highly convincing case that what’s happening in Gaza is war. The IAGS, they said, failed to mention one simple fact: that this tragedy would end ‘if Hamas were to release all the hostages… and lay down their weapons’. To leave out such info is an outrage, they said, because it wilfully obscures the truth that Israel’s intention in Gaza is not to destroy the Palestinian people but to secure the return of its own people and fortify its territory against further attacks from the neo-fascists of Hamas. These are war aims, not plans for extermination, and so they are casually, cynically redacted by the ‘genocide’ obsessives.

Two alternative experts, writing in the Jerusalem Post, have reminded us of another truth overlooked by the IAGS – that Israel has ‘facilitated a large volume of humanitarian assistance’ for Gaza. It has ‘helped [to] vaccinate children in Gaza’ as well as delivering medical equipment and fuel for hospitals. People can debate, if they like, whether Israel has done this stuff well or not. But the idea that a ‘genocidal’ state would try to attend to the food and health needs of the people it is genociding is so absurd that it deserves nothing but the most savage ridicule.

The events of last week confirmed that misinformation is the rotten soil in which the genocide lie has taken root. Will it die off now? Not right away. Too many people now accrue their thin sense of virtue through propagating this nonsense so that they might pose as warriors ‘on the right side of history’. Indeed, falsely accusing the Jewish nation of genocide is fast becoming the most conformist cry of the cultural establishment, so much so that they will unceremoniously cast you out as a ‘denier’ if you dare to demur from their ideological loathing for the Jewish nation that they have the gall to doll up as ‘scholarship’ or ‘activism’. But the lie has certainly taken a beating. The truth is crying out for a fair hearing. Let’s listen.

UK Foreign Office: Israel not committing genocide in Gaza

David Lammy has said an assessment carried out by the Foreign Office has concluded Israel’s actions in Gaza did not constitute “genocide.”

The former Foreign Secretary wrote to the chair of the International Development Committee last week when he was still in the post.

He said:”“As per the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide occurs only where there is specific ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group’. The government has not concluded that Israel is acting with that intent.”

Committee chair Sarah Champion had written to Lammy repeating claims that the UK’s policy of continuing to supply parts for F-35 fighter jets that have indirectly been sent to Israel was aiding genocide in Gaza.

The Times reports that Lammy said the government had “carefully considered” the question of genocide.

While it could not conclude Israel was guilty of this, he described the war in Gaza as “utterly appalling” and added far too many women and children had been killed.

09/08 Links Pt1: At least six murdered in Jerusalem terror shooting, 21 wounded; The West’s Bloody Bargain: Paying Abbas to Kill Jews; Four IDF troops killed in northern Gaza

From Ian:

At least six murdered in Jerusalem terror shooting, 21 wounded

At least six people were murdered and dozens were wounded after terrorists opened fire on civilians at Ramot Junction in the Israeli capital of Jerusalem on Monday morning.

Yaakov Pinto, 25, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Pash, Israel Mentzer, 28, and Yosef David, 43, were identified as four of those killed in the attack.

Pinto immigrated from Spain and was recently married. Pash taught at a Jerusalem yeshiva. Mentzer and David were residents of the Ramot neighborhood.

Two additional wounded people were later declared dead, including Sarah Mendelson, 60, and Rabbi Mordechai Steinsteg, 79, who had been brought to Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

At least 21 were wounded at the scene and were transported to three different medical centers, including Shaare Zedek and Hadassah-University Medical Centers at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus. Upwards of 26 individuals at the scene were treated for anxiety.

The terrorists boarded the Line 62 bus in Jerusalem, which operates across the city, and began shooting at passengers.

In response to the attack, a soldier and several civilians at the bus stop engaged the attackers and returned fire. The terrorists were killed at the scene. The terrorists were in their twenties, from towns on the outskirts of Ramallah, El-Kubeiba, and Katanna. Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas praised the attack.

Additionally, the Shin Bet arrested an east Jerusalem resident on suspicion of driving the terrorists to the bus station.

Security forces have encircled several villages outside of Ramallah to reinforce defensive efforts along the West Bank border. They are conducting interrogations and searches in the area.

The IDF dispatched four companies to the scene and to the Ramallah area as part of the manhunt for accomplices.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conducted a situation assessment with the heads of the security establishment following the attack and arrived at the scene, along with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The West’s Bloody Bargain: Paying Abbas to Kill Jews

October 7: Terror Live-Streamed
Let’s not whitewash who they’re dealing with. Hamas isn’t a misunderstood resistance group. These are the men who butchered 1,200 Israelis and foreigners on October 7, raping, burning, and looting their way through southern Israel while shouting “Allahu Akbar” like they were playing a championship match. They phoned their parents to brag about body counts, live-streamed murders on their victims’ own accounts, and turned mass rape into a TikTok highlight reel. For Palestinians, they became instant gods. For the rest of us, they are the devil with Wi-Fi.

And yet Western governments, so refined, so civilized, so endlessly smug about “human rights”, are preparing to reward this death cult. Let’s be clear: Hamas isn’t only sworn to exterminate Jews. Their founding charter, drafted under the Muslim Brotherhood, openly calls for the annihilation of Christians, secular Muslims, and anyone who refuses submission to Islam, globally, not just in the Middle East. That’s who Europe, Canada, and Australia want to crown with legitimacy.

Demographics Don’t Lie
And maybe that’s the point. Look at the demographic math. Europe’s native birthrates are plummeting, while Islamist communities in London, Paris, and Berlin are out-breeding their hosts at a rate of four to one. Gulf states like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the literal cradle of Islam, wouldn’t touch these Islamist migrants, but Europe rolled out the red carpet.

Afghan radicals, Pakistani Islamists, men steeped in values utterly incompatible with the Judeo-Christian principles that once built the West, these are the populations Western leaders import by the millions. At this rate, Sharia law in Europe isn’t a paranoid fantasy; it’s a pending policy shift. Why wait until the Muslim majority arrives? Macron and Starmer seem content to start rehearsals now.

The Hypocrisy of Western Leaders
Not one of these leaders, Starmer, Macron, Carney, Albanese, has had the decency to mention Palestinian terrorism in their declarations of support for Abbas’s would-be state. Apparently, “human rights” now includes the right to incentivize murder.

And here’s the irony: by handing Abbas the prestige of statehood, these leaders aren’t just endangering Israel. They’re setting fire to their own backyards. Every Islamist radical in London, Paris, Sydney, or Toronto will see this for what it is: Western approval of murder as political currency. If it’s legitimate in Jerusalem, why not in Birmingham, Marseille, or Montreal? After all, if the Palestinian Authority can pay terrorists in Gaza, what’s to stop them from paying “martyrs” abroad once the cash starts flowing from UN-approved aid pipelines?

Already Funding Murder
Western taxpayers are already underwriting this blood money. Billions in aid to the PA vanish into Swiss accounts, Hamas tunnels, and yes, Pay-to-Slay salaries. Recognition of a Palestinian state simply formalizes the arrangement: you kill Jews, we’ll pay your family. Europe cuts the check, Abbas hands it out. Congratulations, Western liberal democracies, your foreign policy has officially become a terror-financing operation.

The Coming Farce
Nothing anyone writes, not me, not you, not a thousand editorials, will stop what’s coming at the UN General Assembly later this month. The world is about to rubber-stamp the creation of a “state” that is defined by its obsession with killing Jews. Let’s drop the diplomatic niceties. This is not about peace, not about two states, not about justice.

It is about the West giving formal approval to a political culture that treats Jewish blood as currency.

Call it what it is: a diplomatic endorsement of murder. Or, to put it in terms even Abbas would understand, a promotion in the Pay-to-Slay program.

Ruthie Blum: To jihadists, ‘never again’ means ‘again and again and again’

When Hamas invaded southern Israel and committed the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust, one might have expected a transnational realization that this was a manifestation of the same jihadism responsible for 9/11—and that different, often rival, Islamist groups, have a shared goal. Since the perpetrators of all such assaults are open about this aim, it shouldn’t be difficult to grasp.

Alas, 10/7—proportionately 12 times the toll of 9/11—had the opposite effect. Instead of constituting a wakeup call to the West, it unleashed the kind of antisemitism not witnessed since the rise of the Third Reich.

Worse, it opened the floodgates of Jew-hatred in the United States, of all places—from the halls of Harvard to the pages of mainstream publications and beyond. The phenomenon isn’t merely disgusting; it’s self-defeating.

As the late British historian Paul Johnson wrote in Commentary magazine in 2005, “[Antisemitism] is an intellectual disease, a disease of the mind, extremely infectious and massively destructive.”

Furthermore, he stated, “In the whole of history, it is hard to point to a single occasion when a wave of antisemitism was provoked by a real Jewish threat (as opposed to an imaginary one).”

Nor, he added, is it “confined to weak, feeble or commonplace intellects; … its carriers have included men and women of otherwise powerful and subtle thoughts. Like all mental diseases, it is damaging to reason and sometimes fatal.”

Well, it’s certainly fatal for Jews—though in the process, it eats away at societies that succumb to it. The same goes for jihadism. Once it takes hold in the countries that its adherents seek to subjugate, it metastasizes.

This is particularly true in the West, where there is a dangerously low birthrate—other than among immigrants—as well as vociferous fellow travelers whose influence far outweighs their numbers. These are the useful idiots whose progressive politics and behavior are antithetical to the jihadist ideology they abet, whether out of ignorance or malice.

The latest excuse for ganging up on Israel and the Jews is the war against Hamas and subsequent/simultaneous battles with additional Iranian proxies, as well as with the Islamic Republic itself. The moral vertigo on the part of people who will be next in line if the jihadists have their way is astounding.

If not for the current administration in Washington, the only real relevant player in the international arena, Israel would be forced to face its mortal enemies, and counter the gaslighting by its ostensible friends, on its own.

Thankfully, U.S. President Donald Trump understands that the Jewish state, the “small Satan,” is on the front lines not only of the war against the “great Satan,” America, but against all the Judeo-Christian values that both hold dear. It’s precisely why he’s urging Israel to get on with the business of winning it already.

Ahead of this pair of interconnected anniversaries, it behooves us to stop bemoaning the hollowness of the post-Holocaust slogan “never again,” and remember Hamas’s vow, endorsed by jihadists everywhere, to repeat the abominations of Oct. 7 “again and again and again.”

Think about all of the crimes that Israel is accused of - apartheid, genocide, racism, infanticide, starvation as a weapon - all of it.

Now imagine what would happen if the people making these accusations thought of Jews as decent people - people who perhaps make mistakes but who do the best they can given the extraordinary circumstances they find themselves in.

Poof! All the accusations go away.

Because if you give Jews the same benefit of the doubt you give, say, Europeans - or Qataris, or Palestinians - you would consider that there are other factors in play, like Hamas' war strategy of maximizing civilian deaths (why are there extensive tunnels in Gaza but no bomb shelters again?) Or that the Jews live in a world where at any moment a Palestinian terrorist might pop up and start shooting or exploding a bomb belt. Or that Jews consider themselves a family, and even one death is one too many and something must be done to ensure it doesn't happen again.

There are explanations for every "proof" of Israeli evil that fit the facts much, much better than assumptions of "Jewish supremacy" or "anti-Palestinian racism." They aren't difficult to find - they are published in Zionist media daily.

But the "anti-Zionist" crowd doesn't want to think that Jews are decent human beings - and they don't want the world to consider that idea, either. So they not only ignore all counter-evidence, but they do everything they can to ridicule or ignore the many proofs that they have their facts wrong. And they want to make sure that you never compare Israeli actions with those of anyone else who have ever been in remotely similar circumstances.

If you think of Jews as normal human beings, everything looks different - and that's why "anti-Zionists" don't want you to think of Jews as human.

Anti-Zionism only works if Jews are cast as uniquely evil. Treat Jews as human, and the entire edifice collapses.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

By Daled Amos

Last weekend brought another strike in the propaganda war against Israel—this time from an association of genocide scholars accusing Israel of the ultimate crime.

On August 31, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) passed a three-page resolution condemning Israel for genocide:

Recognising that, since the horrific Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023, which itself constitutes international crimes, the government of Israel has engaged in systematic and widespread crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, including indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure (hospitals, homes, commercial buildings, etc.) of Gaza, which, according to official UN estimates, at the date of this resolution, has killed more than 59,000 adults and children in Gaza;

The media ran with it. The Washington Post declared: Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, Leading Scholars’ Association Says The Guardian proclaimed Israel committing genocide in Gaza, world’s top scholars on the crime say, and the BBC echoed the same line with Israel committing genocide in Gaza, world's leading experts say. ABC News featured IAGS president Melanie O’Brien, who proudly claimed that 90% of those voting supported the resolution.

Elder of Ziyon was among the first to expose the resolution's flaws. (The "Genocide Scholars" Who Cannot Define Genocide). He noted IAGS's lack of scholarship:

o IAGS offered no original, independent analysis of its own. Instead, they "outsourced their scholarship on the very subject that they claim to own."

o They did no fact-checking, accepting Hamas's number for casualties at face value, even though the number does not distinguish between terrorists and civilians.
o They gave no recognition to serious scholars from the other side of the issue who dismissed the genocide allegations.

Meanwhile, the only IAGS brief addressing Hamas’s own genocidal attack, Hamas's Genocidal Violence by Sara E. Brown, came with a disclaimer: “The views expressed herein are the authors’ alone and do not represent the views of IAGS.” Apparently, condemning Hamas required distance—unlike condemning Israel.

Then came a bombshell. Writing in The Forward (In the rush to vilify Israel, genocide scholars ignored the truth), Sara Brown revealed how the resolution was rammed through: of 500 members, only 129 voted. Just 108 supported it. That’s 28% of the membership—barely meeting the group’s minimal quorum of 20% plus one.

Compare these lackluster numbers with O'Brien's public boast:

This resolution declaring what is happening in Gaza as genocide passed by an overwhelming majority far beyond the two thirds majority required. Our membership is global. We also have members who are from survivor communities, so this is a really representative opinion of people who work as experts in the field of genocide studies.

The @GenocideStudies president claims a resolution that Israel is committing genocide "passed by an overwhelming majority" and is a "really representative opinion" of experts.

It's not. Only 28% of the membership actually voted.

Melanie O'Brien, your resolution is a sham. pic.twitter.com/LL33WH6HcV
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 2, 2025

Really? Twenty-eight percent of members voted. That’s not overwhelming—that’s embarrassing. No wonder The Guardian needed to hedge their article with the sub-headline: "International Association of Genocide Scholars resolution backed by 86% of members who voted."

Brown also exposed the secrecy: no transparency, no debate, no town hall. Leadership even refused to name the resolution’s authors. Meanwhile, IAGS amplified headlines suggesting a massive consensus. This wasn’t scholarship; it was spin. The deliberate blockage of criticism is just one more indication of the lack of real scholarship and professionalism plaguing IAGS.

Why such sloppy work? Maybe because IAGS isn’t just scholars. As Jewish Insider notes, anyone can join—artists, activists, “others interested in genocide.” In other words: not exactly a panel of legal experts.

This is why the resolution contains a blatant error on international law:

Acknowledging that the International Court of Justice found in three provisional measures order in the case of South Africa v. Israel — January, March, and May 2024 — that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide in its attack in Gaza and ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement of genocide and to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza;

The president of the ICJ has already publicly debunked that claim:

[The ICJ] did not decide--and this is something where I'm correcting what's often said in the media--it didn't decide that the claim of genocide was plausible. It did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide, but the shorthand that often appears, which is that there's a plausible case of genocide, isn't what the court decided.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars wants the world to believe its resolution reflects a united, scholarly consensus. It doesn’t. The vote was driven by a small, activist minority relying on Hamas-supplied numbers and misrepresenting international law. When an academic body trades rigor for politics, it doesn’t just fail—it erodes trust in the entire field.

And the backlash has already begun. Scholars for Truth about Genocide issued a public letter condemning IAGS and demanding a retraction of what they call a “resolution accusing Israel of genocide amid a clear misapplication of law and history.”

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The "Israeli settlers swim while Palestinians are thirsty" trope

Al Jazeera has an article quoting Ha-Makom, a left-wing Israeli site, saying that Israeli settlers are taking water from Palestinians in various ways.

I have no idea how bad the problem really is. My guess is that in at least some places they are stopping the illegal theft of water in unrecognized Arab communities in Area C, which I had once seen myself. And springs that the article refers to are probably disputed. There may indeed be some abuses.

But the Al Jazeera headline says "Palestinians in the West Bank bathe with bottled water, while Israelis fill swimming pools."

This is an old trope. The water sources for Palestinians and Israelis are separate. The amounts of water allocated are under an existing agreement.

But Palestinians have swimming pools as well. Palestine Guide lists 74 pools and water parks.

Where are the articles about how heartless Palestinians in Nablus, Ramallah and Jericho are swimming while their neighbors are parched?

Nah, that meme won't fly. Only Jews are that evil.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

"Doctors Against Genocide" is a Muslim organization created in November 2023 by a Michigan doctor who calls for murder of Zionists

On November 6, 2023, the Internet domain "Doctors Against Genocide" was registered.

That's less than one month after October 7.

The "genocide" libel was always there, and just waiting for an excuse to crawl out from under a rock.

This specific organization is interesting. Its address is the office of a Nidal Jboor, MD, in Dearborn Heights, MI, and I cannot find any other doctor who is named as a member.

Jboor speaks at anti-Israel events. Just last week he said that US and Israeli politicians must be killed: “We all know who they are, whether they are in Israel, Tel Aviv, in Washington, in Germany, in Europe. They need to be locked up. They need to be taken out. They need to be neutralized to save children, to save humanity,”

Yes, this "doctor against genocide" advocates mass murder in the name of human rights.

"Doctors Against Genocide" claims to be against all genocides, but of course it only has Israel in its sights.

And it has an allergy to the truth, claiming that over 300,000 were killed in Gaza, for example.

The same statement refers to a "medical definition of genocide." Imagine my surprise to learn that this "definition" was created by....Doctors Against Genocide itself! No doctors' names attached to this "definition," of course. It was made up just for Israel.

The organization managed to get tax-exempt status quite quickly, by March 2024. Before that it accepted donations through a different Muslim organization, JET-PAC, which "seeks to build a strong American Muslim political infrastructure and increase our community’s influence and engagement."

It seems to be very easy for anyone to create an anti-Israel "charity." Even people who advocate murder.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

09/07 Links: Trump promises Gaza deal ‘very soon,’; With friends like these pushing to dismantle Trump's Middle East peace deal, who needs enemies?; One-fifth of British population antisemitic

From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: With friends like these pushing to dismantle Trump's Middle East peace deal, who needs enemies?

America’s so-called allies – Britain, France, Canada, Australia and others – are about to stab President Donald Trump in the back. The goal is to lay waste to the president’s signature foreign policy success – the Abraham Accords.

The Abraham Accords denied violent Palestinian rejectionists a veto over the normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel. Now Palestinians and their band of useful idiots have launched a coup. The scheme opens by overthrowing the fundamental principle of a negotiated settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict. United Arab Emirates officials have speciously started blaming Israel for the Accords’ demise.

The staging ground for this "Et tu, Brute?" moment is the United Nations. French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sept. 3, 2025, that he, and his Saudi counterpart, have called upon world leaders to assemble at the United Nations in New York City on Sept. 22 and endorse this agenda. Formally, the substance has been committed to paper in what they are outlandishly calling "The New York Declaration."

Trump and Macron
This means that by the time President Trump addresses the General Assembly on the following day, he will have been reduced to the guy with the broom bringing up the rear. His hopes and plans for peace in the Middle East will have already been rejected by virtually every head of state or government in attendance.

The New York Declaration first appeared at the conclusion of a confab, chaired by the French and the Saudis, at the U.N. in July of this year. The United States and Israel stayed away. The vast majority of states ignored State Department pleas to do the same.

The document weighs in at 30 pages of anti-Israel venom and attacks on American foreign affairs. It twists the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023 – when more than 1,400 Jews (and others in Israel) were murdered, raped, tortured and kidnapped – into a political win for Palestinians.

US vetoes anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution Video
Here are just some of the Declaration’s extraordinarily dangerous demands:
A "State of Palestine" before "mutual recognition" of the Jewish state.
A Palestinian "right of return" that would flood Israel with millions of Palestinians from the river to the sea – thus ending the Jewish state.
A fully armed Palestinian state (called a "one state, one gun policy") and an indefensible Jewish state.
An arms embargo on Israel ("ceasing the provision or transfer of Arms") cutting off the country’s ability to defend itself.
A global pogrom to arrest and prosecute Israelis in national and international courts the world over.

Abandoning the hostages and rewarding the kidnappers by conditioning their release on Israel freeing convicted Palestinian criminals and fully withdrawing from Gaza.

And here is what the Declaration does not mention: Jews. Judaism. The Jewish state. Antisemitism – the actual driver of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Even Jerusalem is only discussed in terms of Islamic and Christian rights. Jewish history is nowhere.

The Declaration represents multilateral bullying at its worst. But the United States is not powerless.

US-backed Gaza aid group slams Doctors Without Borders, accuses it of spreading 'false' claims

Following unrelenting criticism from the United Nations, the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is once again being targeted by NGOs, even as it delivered its 155 millionth meal to Gazans on Saturday.

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, has launched ads criticizing GHF. Meta’s Ad Library shows that in August it ran several Facebook ads targeting the foundation. One ad read, "This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing." Another said, "In MSF’s 54 years, rarely have we seen such levels of systemized violence."

Both allegations are taken from an Aug. 6 article on MSF’s website in which General Director Raquel Ayora describes accounts received from patients reportedly injured around GHF sites. Ayora says aid seekers claimed to have witnessed "children shot in the chest while reaching for food. People crushed or suffocated in stampedes. Entire crowds gunned down at distribution points."

GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay called MSF's accusations, "false and disgraceful," saying that it is "amplifying a disinformation campaign orchestrated by the Hamas-linked Gaza Health Ministry. They know better. By repeating these lies, they’re not aiding civilians, they’re aiding Hamas."

"No civilians have ever been shot at any of our distribution sites," Fay told Fox News Digital.

Fay said, "Nearly every day, Nasser Hospital issues false reports to the media of civilians killed near our sites, based solely on testimony from others. Not a single MSF doctor has ever witnessed an incident near our sites. Any conflict between Israel and Hamas, sometimes several kilometers away, the Gaza Health Ministry falsely links to GHF."

In response to questions about whether MSF employees have witnessed injuries or deaths at GHF sites firsthand, a spokesperson told Fox News Digital that, "MSF has documented the impacts of violence and chaos at GHF sites in Gaza, based on firsthand accounts of our personnel and patients at two clinical sites, as well as a body of medical data."

MSF declined to respond to questions about how much money it has spent on ads targeting GHF, or whether it has advocated for medical care for Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.

The MSF spokesperson added, "For the past 22 months, humanitarian organizations working in Gaza and the West Bank have consistently faced baseless and inaccurate smear campaigns."

Though there is growing outcry about purported violence near GHF sites, reporting from the United Nations indicates that there were twice as many deaths surrounding humanitarian aid convoys (576) as there were deaths around GHF sites (259) between July 21 and Aug. 18.

Ben-Dror Yemini: As Pro-Palestinian Flotilla Heads to Gaza, Israel Should Counter by Sending Survivors, Hostage Families and Border Residents

Greetings to all those sailing on the flotilla to Gaza. We are convinced that if you truly knew the reality, the honest among you would join protests against the Islamo-Nazism that threatens you just as much as it threatens us. Hamas broadcasts have aired explicit calls "to kill all Jews and Christians to the last one."

On Hamas's children's television programs, they repeatedly teach - sometimes through a Mickey Mouse lookalike - that their ultimate vision is "the extermination of all Jews." Israel is not committing genocide; Israel is trying to prevent the genocide Hamas openly declares.

Fathi Hammad, a senior Hamas leader, admitted: "We use women and children as human shields." Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's former leader, said: "We need the blood of women, children and the elderly." These are Hamas's stated policies. Israel regrets deeply that civilians are harmed - but they are harmed because of Hamas, not Israel.

Hamas and other jihadist groups represent Islamist imperialism that murders primarily Muslims who refuse to submit to its rule. Their vision is to impose strict sharia-based laws, which allow the total erasure of basic human rights. They themselves say, "raise the flag of Islam over the Vatican" while destroying Christianity and Christians worldwide. Is that truly the cause you want to help?

Survivors of the Nova music festival massacre, residents from Gaza border communities, families of hostages, and freed hostages should board Israeli boats to meet the flotilla, armed with their personal stories.

Muslims crying "Islamophobia on TV shows" - but they have to go back 19 years to find a supposed example

Back in the 1980s, the TV comedy Barney Miller had an episode where Hasidic Jews rioted and trashed a police station to protest not enough protection.

It was based on a real incident from 1978 when Jews in Boro Park rioted at a police station there.

The episode was hardly complimentary to the Jews. But it was a real situation and I didn't think of it as antisemitic at all. As far as I know, no Jewish groups protested the episode.

Muslims don't seem so charitable. They are convinced that every TV show that doesn't show Muslims in a positive light is creating hate.

A Muslim organization called the Institute for Social Policy ad Understanding (ISPU) mounts surveys and research that is meant to advocate for equal rights for Muslims, but for special rights. They recently issued a report on media bias:

The objective of the current study is to understand the impact of positive and negative portrayals of Muslims in entertainment television. Specifically, we examined the effects of exposure to depictions of Muslims in television shows on people’s support for policies that are broadly undemocratic or specifically anti Muslim, attitudes toward Muslims, and perceptions of Muslims.

The research team ran an experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to watch either a positive or negative depiction of Muslims in entertainment media to assess effects on support for various policies, intergroup attitudes toward, and perceptions of Muslims.

An episode of 9-1-1: Lone Star (season 1, episode 3) was selected for the positive depiction of Muslims. The episode featured a Muslim woman firefighter who helps save a man trapped in a grain silo and interacts with colleagues and community members to whom she describes her connection to faith and reasoning for wearing hijab. An episode of Criminal Minds (season 2, episode 10) was selected for the negative depiction of Muslims. The episode featured FBI profilers discussing Islam as violent and focuses on a Muslim suspect who is portrayed as being resistant to the FBI profilers and trying to radicalize other prisoners toward militant jihad.

It is unsurprising that people who are exposed to positive messaging end up being more sympathetic in an immediate interview and those who are exposed to negative messaging do the opposite.

What is interesting is that in order to find an appropriate "anti-Muslim" TV episode, they had to go back to 2006, when the "Criminal Minds" episode was aired.

Keep in mind that this was only five years after 9/11.

Discussing jihadists on a TV crime show is hardly inappropriate in that (or any other) time - it is a real problem. And from what I can tell, the episode did not generalize the jihadists to all Muslims, and the main investigator told the terrorist " You have perverted your faith to justify killing millions of people."

Should TV reflect the truth, or should it bend over backwards to not offend? The Barney Miller episode was respectful but truthful, and the Criminal Minds episode seems to have been the same way (with the stakes much higher.)

Nevertheless, the fact that the ISPU study couldn't find a more contemporary example of negative portrayal of Muslims on mainstream American TV shows that there is no problem at all. Not that they would admit that - they don't. The entire study implies that negative portrayals of Muslims are prevalent on TV and needs to be fixed.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)