Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Abbas tells Sisi, "Thanks for helping keep Palestinians in misery 💗"

From the official Palestinian Wafa news agency:

President Mahmoud Abbas has expressed deep appreciation for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's firm stance reaffirming Egypt’s rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

In a message sent to President el-Sisi, President Abbas stated, "We deeply appreciate Egypt’s steadfast position, which you reaffirmed today—rejecting the displacement of our people from Gaza, standing against injustice toward the Palestinian people, and upholding Egypt’s historic and unwavering support for the Palestinian cause."

He emphasized that these words hold great significance for the Palestinian people and align with international law, reinforcing their determination to remain on their land and resist any attempts to uproot them.

President Abbas concluded his message by wishing President el-Sisi good health and happiness, while expressing hope for continued progress and prosperity for Egypt, its government, and its people.

Abbas had joined Egypt's and Jordan's rejection of Gazans fleeing to safety during the height of the war. In fact, he declared that Palestinians from Gaza would be barred from entering even the Palestinian Authority controlled areas in the West Bank - not even leaving "Palestine!"

Then, as now, these Arab leaders pretend that their principled stands to ignore the hundreds of thousands of Gazans who desperately want to leave is support for their "human rights."

If we assume that about 20,000 civilians were killed in Gaza, that would be 1% of the population. If Egypt, Jordan and the PA had taken in, say, 200,000 refugees from Gaza in late 2023/early 2024, that would have saved about 2,000 lives.

No articles in The Lancet are going through those statistics.

I'm still waiting for a single human rights group or official that says that Gazans who want to leave Gaza should have that right. Just one.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

01/29 Links Pt2: The dark descent into Holocaust erasure; Trump Executive Order To Deport Anti-Semitic Student Visa Holders; Peter Beinart justifies Hamas

From Ian:

Nicole Lampert: Don’t mention the Jews

This removal of Jews from Holocaust Memorial Day has long been the plan of that weird marriage of the far left and Islamists. For too many leftists, Jews have never been good enough victims for their compassion. They certainly don’t want to remind people that anti-Semitism, the creed they so often march alongside with, is dangerous. Instead, they like to paint Jews as oppressors – or genocidal maniacs. So they have to hide the fact that Jews were the ones attacked in the most heinous and deliberate genocide in history.

There is another reason for removing Jews from the memory of the Holocaust. It’s a way of undermining the necessity of Israel’s existence – a state that had to come into being because the world closed its doors to Jews, despite knowing they were being slaughtered.

Parts of the left really do seem keen on taking the focus of Holocaust Memorial Day away from Jewish suffering. In 2011, Jeremy Corbyn was among a group of mainly Labour politicians who supported a parliamentary motion to rename Holocaust Memorial Day, saying instead it should be called ‘Genocide Memorial Day – Never Again for Anyone’. This was despite the fact it already did officially remember later genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

It is telling that, a few weeks ago, the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) wrote to 460 town halls and educational centres around the UK asking them to boycott this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day because apparently it wouldn’t be inclusive enough (the organisers failed to categorise the war in Gaza as a genocide). In truth, the IHRC hardly needed to go to all that trouble. The message of Holocaust Memorial Day has become so watered down that it is an act of bravery to even mention who the victims of the Holocaust were – especially after Hamas’s pogrom in Israel on 7 October 2023.

One London Jewish councillor tells me that, having organised Holocaust Memorial Day events in the past, since the 7 October attacks she hasn’t been allowed ‘near’ it at the council. ‘I think lots of councils think erasing Jews from their events is “playing it safe”’, she tells me.

I’m ashamed to say that some Jewish organisations have let activists and politicians do this. They’ve let them water down the Holocaust because, otherwise, no one will talk about it at all.

What does that tell you about all those who drearily intone ‘Never Again’ with their crocodile tears about some anonymous horror? If they meant it, they would talk about what must never happen again. They would talk about Jews and anti-Semitism.

All the while, anti-Semitism is surging. As a Jewish person who writes about this stuff, sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the fear, the angst, the terror of people writing to me about the anti-Semitism they have faced.

You’ve seen the weekly images of ‘pro-Palestine’ protesters marching with swastikas, chanting blood libels, calling for another genocide of the Jews. You’ve seen how our political class has done nothing to challenge any of it. You’ve seen how news channels repeat Hamas propaganda. You’ve seen how anti-Semitism has been normalised, even as public figures slap themselves on the back because they lit a candle on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Not one Jewish person who I know has felt entirely safe in the UK since 7 October. Never Again has become a hollow slogan, and not one of our cowardly leaders is prepared to call that out.

The dark descent into Holocaust erasure

More worrying, however, is the ongoing attempt to draw comparisons between the Holocaust and the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. To compare the systematic murder of 6 million Jews to Israel’s war on Hamas is not only absurd but deeply offensive to survivors and the wider Jewish community.

Many in the community will have seen the Irish President Michael Higgins address a Holocaust Memorial Day event which he was asked not to attend by members of Ireland’s Jewish community. While it was not a surprise that he used his speech to reference the conflict in Gaza, it was shocking to see Jewish members of the audience thrown out of the room for objecting.

Only recently, Ireland adopted the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which states that equating the State of Israel to Nazi Germany is antisemitic. Higgins’ hijacking of Holocaust Memorial Day makes one wonder why they did.

Even more disgracefully, the Islamic Human Rights Commission called for boycotts of Holocaust Memorial Day events this year unless they included a reference to Gaza. Those who call to boycott Holocaust Memorial Day events, unless they are inverted to associate modern-day Jews with their persecutors, are the clearest example of why we must keep the memory of the Holocaust alive.

This Holocaust Memorial Day I had the privilege of hearing Janine Webber’s testimony at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration event.

Unfortunately, as Holocaust survivors grow older, first-hand survivor accounts are becoming less easily available. Initiatives like the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Ambassador Programme and Testimony 360 do vital work to advance Holocaust education.

I also support the construction of a new Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Westminster, which will enshrine Holocaust remembrance at the heart of our democracy. In a world of rising antisemitism, where people seek to abuse the memory of the Holocaust, this is more important than ever.

JPost Editorial: Cheapening the Holocaust: Irish president’s remarks equate Nazi and Gaza conflicts

Higgins has had no qualms about calling Israel’s war to remove Hamas from power in Gaza and free the hostages a “genocide,” but he could only muster calling the Nazi extermination attempt of the Jews “an attempted genocide.”

His statements spurred a protest by some members of the audience, with video footage showing at least one attendee being dragged away by security.

What does any of that have to do with International Holocaust Remembrance Day? There is a time and place to hurl criticism of Israel and its policies, but it’s not on a solemn day that honors those slaughtered by the Nazis and those who survived.

At Monday’s main ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, where roughly 1.1 million Jews were murdered, only 50 survivors were expected to be present – down from 300 a decade ago and 1,000 a decade before that.

The focus should be entirely on them – now more than ever.

Incidents of global antisemitism have spiked to unprecedented post-World War II levels, and public figures like Elon Musk are quoted telling supporters of the rising far-Right German political party Alternative for Germany that “there is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.”

Clearly, the lessons the world needed to learn from the Holocaust are getting muddied and faded the further we move from the actual events that took place. As the survivors die, and along with them their first-hand accounts of the horrors perpetrated against the Jews, the easier it will be for people like Higgins to diminish their magnitude and use them for cheap political gain.

Abe Greenwald: The Self-Defeated ‘Resistance’

Via Commentary Magazine Newsletter, sign up here. And the very fact of the pro-Hamas movement goes a long way in explaining why there’s no anti-Trump resistance this time around. The people who made up the resistance at the start of the first Trump presidency are the same people who show up at every radical protest, whatever the nominal purpose. The Women’s March is Black Lives Matter is Free Palestine. And when each cause has its moment in the spotlight, it deprives the others of fuel. What’s more, as each one winds down, it’s revealed as a failure in one way or another. There’s no resistance because America’s radical protesters are grievance dilletantes and literal losers.

As early as 2018, the leaders of the half-million strong Women’s March were exposed as anti-Semites with links to Islamists and the Nation of Islam (which, in itself, makes it clear that every radical protest campaign is the same as the next). The bad press, ugliness, and infighting eventually sundered the movement. It’s now rebranded as the People’s March and is one-tenth the size of its predecessor.

Black Lives Matter, alternately, can claim a win—which turned into a ruinous loss. After the killing of George Floyd in 2020, the calls by BLM and adjacent parties to defund the police were heeded to varying degrees by several cities including New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Then violent crime shot through the roof, and defunding became toxic. Moreover, a number of BLM leaders were revealed to have gotten rich off the back of the movement, which enabled them to buy suburban mansions while cities went down the drain.

And what do the pro-Hamasniks have to show for their 15 months of chaos and violence? Those geniuses turned on the administration that was trying play nice with them. In denying Democrats their vote, they helped Trump win Michigan. And while they managed to make life very unpleasant for American Jews, Israel pulverized Hamas (and other enemies). His first week in office, the president whom the anti-Israel mob helped elect announced that he was lifting the Biden administration’s hold on delivering 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.

As I noted in a previous newsletter, the pro-Hamas movement will continue to die down as Israel continues to win. By then, there will be another cause behind which the same wandering malcontents will rally. And they’ll lose again. They can’t resist.

01/29 Links Pt1: It isn't a hostage 'deal,' it's extortion of Israeli souls; Sydney police uncover cache of explosives, intended target was a synagogue

From Ian:

Michal Cotler-Wunsh: It isn't a hostage 'deal,' it's extortion of Israeli souls

Anyone with a heart was moved beyond words at the return home of Emily, Romi, and Doron. Every parent, child, sibling, and friend could almost taste their mothers’ embraces.

The script could not have been imagined by anyone when Emily raised her three remaining fingers, signaling life, resiliency, and hope.

The thing is that for the heartless, genocidal Hamas barbarians who stole Emily, Romi, and Doron from their beds on October 7, 2023, human tragedy is the strategy.

For them and for the murderous Islamic regime in Iran, of which they are proxies, every parent, child, sibling, and friend is a human shield or sacrifice on the altar of genocidal intent to destroy civilization and build an alternate reality on its rubble.

The thing is that internationally created and funded institutions and agencies in whose “civilian shelters” Emily, Romi, and Doron and other hostages were held have been hijacked and weaponized to sow fear, despair, and distrust that collapse the foundations of democracies.

"Human rights industry"
The thing is that the “human rights” industry that was entrusted to protect the hostages is inverted to “justify” mutilation, burning people alive, rape, murder, and their abduction – as “resistance.”

Their release was not the result of “negotiations” that enable making “a deal.” It is the result of multitiered extortion, resulting from decades of appeasement and cemented in 16 months of false moral equivalence – by Western countries, international institutions, terror-supporting campus mobs, and legacy media spewing lies provided by genocidal proxies and their supporting regimes; extortion that will be compounded with every passing day and “stage” of “the deal,” feeding the beast and emboldening genocidal proxies of murderous regimes to continue dictating equations and conduct in this and other contexts.

For more than 10 years, we have warned that appeasement and enabling genocidal terrorists to dictate conduct and equations, even as they trample law and morality, out of the false hope that they’ll “play nice,” will only whet the appetite of terror proxies and their supporting regimes.

In an unbelievable turn of events, proving once again that reality far exceeds the imagination, even as we waited to see Romi, Doron, and Emily embraced by their no less heroic mothers, we buried deceased soldier Oron Shaul, held by the same genocidal Hamas barbarians for 10.5 years in standing violation of law and morality – enabled by international silence, indifference, false moral equivalency, and impunity from the very organizations, institutions, and countries mandated and entrusted to hold them accountable and uphold foundational principles equally and consistently.

Standing by Oron’s grave, I understood the meaning of the term “case and cause,” which I have pled for 10.5 years – in the UN, in the State Department, in the Knesset, and every Friday, in Israel’s Gaza border area at the Black Arrow Memorial, desecrated following the October 7 massacre.

His was indeed a case – which, alongside deceased soldier Hadar Goldin, killed and abducted by Hamas shortly after a 2014 internationally brokered “humanitarian ceasefire” took effect; alongside Avera Mengistu and Hisham a-Sayed, who, unwell, wandered into Gaza in 2014, was our 10.5-year cause – that predicted, and should have prevented, the emboldening of genocidal barbarians with silence, false moral equivalence, and impunity. It was an international failure that fueled the confidence of genocidal proxies and their supporting regimes in Iran, Qatar, and Turkey that rockets, missiles, murder, rape, and the abduction of hundreds on October 7 would be met by continued international silence, false moral equivalency, and impunity, enabling the extortion of Israel.

That we are in the midst of an extortion fiasco and not “a deal” is made clear by the tsunami of antisemitism around the world that continues to rage in Australia, Canada, Germany, and the US, after the alleged sought-after “ceasefire.”

The explosion of unhinged antisemitism, the world’s oldest hatred, should sound sirens for all who cherish humanity and freedom.

That this lethal hate, which has mutated by latching on to the organizing idea of each era – religion, science, and the secular “religion” of human rights – was unleashed in response to the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust should have been met with urgency and clarity.

Instead, the inability to unequivocally condemn regressive barbarism in the name of “progress” signaled “legitimacy” for a multifront war openly intent on committing the genocide of Jews and annihilating Israel, the Jew among the nations.

Jonathan Sacerdoti: There is no justice in the Gaza hostage deal

What makes this deal even more grotesque is the context in which it is taking place. These terrorists are not being released for good behaviour or remorse. On the contrary, their release is a ransom payment to Hamas, extracted in exchange for hostages abducted during the 7 October massacre. Many express continued pride in their murderous actions. The message this sends is chilling: terrorism pays.

This week, Salim Hajjeh was released. A senior Hamas member, he was serving 16 life sentences for his involvement in the suicide bombing on Haifa’s bus line 16 in 2011. In that attack, 15 people were murdered, and 40 were injured. Hajjeh was a member of the Hamas cell in Nablus, which was also responsible for the infamous bombings at the Sbarro restaurant and the Dolphinarium.

Bilal Abu Ghanem, set for release in the coming weeks, expressed regret during his trial – not for the lives he took, but for not killing more Jews. Meanwhile, among the women released, four of them attempted murder, one successfully, thereby shattering the illusion that female prisoners are somehow less dangerous. Even the non-murderous women are far from innocent: Ayat Mahfouz, for instance, was imprisoned for carrying and manufacturing knives and daggers, intended for use in terror attacks. The Western media’s romanticised portrayal of these women as victims ignores the severity of their crimes.

How would British citizens react if, tomorrow, the government announced the release of Ahmed Hassan, the Parsons Green bomber, as part of a deal with Isis? How would the families of their victims feel if the murderers were welcomed back as heroes in their communities, feted by political leaders, and given financial rewards for their ‘sacrifices’, all the while filmed for emotional reports on Sky News and the BBC?

This is precisely what is happening in Israel. Many of the released terrorists will return to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, or even abroad, where they will resume their roles in terrorist organisations. Others will be celebrated as martyrs and given monthly stipends funded by foreign aid. This deal does not bring justice; it perpetuates a cycle of violence, rewarding those who use kidnapping and murder as tools of political blackmail in a way which we in Britain and the West would never accept for ourselves.

Israel faces an impossible choice: leave the hostages in Gaza to suffer or pay the ransom in the form of releasing these repulsive terrorists. For the hostages and their families, the joy of reunion is accompanied by the bitter knowledge that others will now pay the price for their freedom.

There is no justice here – only the harrowing logic of ruthless terrorism. This is not a deal that brings peace or reconciliation. It is a deal that ensures the cycle of bloodshed will continue, as the released terrorists return to their ranks, emboldened by the success of their comrades. It is a deal born of desperation, paid for in blood with the currency of injustice.

Most Hamas terrorists were drugged, completely inhumane, rescued hostage says

"The hostages today are suffering from prolonged hunger," released hostage Luis Har said in an interview with Maariv.

"Hamas takes all the aid," he continued. "I was there; I know what delaying the deals means. Every day increases fear, danger, and suffering. We must not wait, and we must not delay because every passing day increases the concern that, in the end, there will be no one left to bring back."

Har, who was abducted on October 7 from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, was later freed in a daring military operation in Rafah in February 2024. In his interview, he described the terrifying moments of his abduction, his prolonged captivity in the home of a Hamas operative in southern Gaza, and his eventual rescue and return to Israel. Violent abduction

"The terrorists burst into our safe room; there were five of us there," Har recounted. "We started shouting, 'Don't shoot! Don't shoot!' They yelled in Arabic and dragged us out violently. Those with hair were pulled by their hair; the others, like me, who are bald, were pulled by their clothes and pushed. On the way out, I looked around and saw the entire house filled with terrorists shouting, banging on the furniture with their weapons, shooting, and smashing glass. The living room, kitchen, and rooms were packed with them."

A scene of chaos outside
Har described the devastation he saw outside. "I saw other homes that had also been broken into. All the doors were open, and the yards were empty and silent. It seemed like they had already taken all the residents of the kibbutz captive. Someone had stolen a bicycle and tied a child’s small tractor to it. There were many women and teenagers looting houses, running in all directions, and trying to enter homes along with the terrorists. It looked like a surreal movie."

The captives were led through a breach in the kibbutz’s fence to waiting vehicles. "A white Toyota screeched to a halt and quickly loaded us in amidst shouts and urgency," he said.

Har noted the terror in Mia [Leimberg], a fellow captive: "Mia was in shock, utterly terrified. She was holding the dog and not speaking. But we spoke in Spanish among ourselves. We said, 'Let’s pretend we don’t understand Hebrew or Arabic to minimize contact with the terrorists.'

The car was filled with weapons—mortars, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades)—and we were sitting on top of them. Above us were five terrorists, shooting upwards and shouting 'Allahu Akbar.'

They trampled us as if we were rags."

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

The night before the first three women hostages were released, Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the nation. Attempting to placate a nation appalled at the prospect of another terrorist release, the prime minister made a promise [emphasis added]. “We have established that terrorists who have killed will not be released to Judea and Samaria; they will be expelled to the Gaza Strip or abroad, and we also decided in the cabinet on a very significant reinforcement of our forces in Judea and Samaria to protect our citizens,” said Bibi.

Because we have been lied to before, we didn’t really believe this declaration. But it didn’t much matter. The only difference between a terrorist who has killed and one who hasn’t, is that in the first instance, the victims died, and in the second, they lived. That is why the distinction isn’t much comfort to the 5,700 or so Jewish residents of Beit El. Of the first 200 terrorists released in this deal, 114 of them were sent to Ramallah, adjacent to Beit El.

One woman in my town of Efrat heard that a further 22 terrorists “who have not killed” were released to Hebron, quite close to us. I asked how she knows this, since everything about the mass terrorist release has been cloaked in mystery. It turns out her son’s friend is serving there. He said he would have been safer in Gaza.

In truth, there is a general air of despondency here. Many assume that what we hear about the terrorist release is not true, or at least not the whole truth, because so little information filters down to the common man that it makes us suspicious. Others are more pragmatic. “I'm not sure it's a ‘lie’ as much as politics and hands tied and deals behind the scenes,” says Chani Ugowitz of Efrat.

Be that as it may, the lack of information has created an air of distrust. Victim families directly affected by the release have yet to be contacted by the government. Those of us who live in close proximity to locations where terrorists will now roam free, have not been briefed.

“This is a crazy complicated situation. I am so against this "deal"/ blackmail but know so many people that are going with it because they feel we had no choice. We tried the other way and it didn't work. I don't know. Makes me mad, scared, and sad,” says Ugowitz.

“It’s incredibly painful,” said another Efrat friend, Rachel Schwartz, “Statistically, half of those will do another terror attack. 170 out of 200 hundred that were released had life sentences. Varda, it is so incredibly painful. I can’t stand it.”

I had heard the same figure regarding terrorist recidivism. But it seems this figure has been updated. Lt. Col. (res.) Attorney Morris Hirsch formerly of the Military Prosecutor’s Office, writes that [emphasis added], “[As] part of the cabinet discussion going into approving the deal, the head of the Shin Bet noted that 82% of those released in the Shalit deal returned to terrorism.”

In the frightening Hebrew-language article, Without you knowing: This is how Israeli terrorists will be released back to the country, Hirsch shares a further, little known but profoundly disturbing fact, “The list of terrorists who will be released as part of the deal includes no less than 73 terrorists who hold Israeli citizenship or residency. This means they will be released back to the country.”

“Of that list, 21 terrorists are serving life sentences – that is, murderers. Of these, eight terrorists are to be released to Israel (within the 1949 armistice lines), while the rest are to be deported, although at this stage it is not clear where,” writes Hirsch. “Five of the eight are affiliated with Hamas and the rest with Fatah. All eight were arrested between 2001 and 2003, during the terror attacks initiated by the PA, starting in September 2000.”

All in all, of the 73 Israeli terrorists to be released from prison, 45 will be released into Israel, writes Hirsch, “while the remaining 28 terrorists will be deported abroad, either temporarily (3 terrorists) or permanently (25 terrorists).”

We may not know nearly enough about the terms of this deal but one thing seems certain, exactly none of the terrorists slated for release will be deported to America. President Trump wants Americans to feel safe. He doesn’t want any more innocents killed, people like Jocelyn Nungary and Riley Laken. So Mr. Trump is having these criminal elements deported. He doesn’t want them in his country.

“And there they are deporting murderers and criminals,” said Chani Ugowitz of the new administration, “while forcing us to take them to our streets with our children.

“I've gotten very harsh in my views since the war and I don't like it but I don't like how the other side has pushed me to think in an "us or them" mentality. There is no partner on the other side of the negotiation table so it becomes blackmail on their end and force on ours.”

Then too, what does it say about Israel that we’re freeing murderers into the wind? Whatever it was that was held over Bibi’s head to agree to this deal, it’s hard to hear that it was worth letting these murderers roam loose. Why would anyone even ask us to do so?

“How depressing that monsters like these are the price of getting innocent Israelis freed from the Hamas underworld,” remarked Arnold Roth, father of 15-year-old terror victim Malki Roth, murdered in a pizzeria. “and that there's no one so monstrous that Israel would keep him or her in prison if the blackmail demands were perceived as warranting an even more painful surrender.”

Meantime, outside of Israel, Jews are giving Trump's Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff multiple ovations (!) for forcing Israel into accepting Biden’s May horrific deal. Yet he managed to get not a single American hostage released.

What then, was the point?

I wonder if President Trump is aware that among the terrorists released or slated for release in this deal, are many who were convicted of murdering Americans. JD Vance begged us Israeli Americans to vote for Trump, and we did. Now we wonder at the betrayal of American Israeli victims of terror whose murderers we were leaned on to release.

Why was Israel pressed into this deal now, when we were ahead of the game, when we were winning, when we were no longer between a rock and a hard place because it was no longer Joe Biden threatening us, slow-walking arms, and supplying the enemy with cash dollars? Trump had won and could now push Hamas into releasing the captives with just a few threatening words. Why then force Israel to release murderers from Israeli jails into the wild?

Will we ever know why we were compelled by Trump to sign a bad deal months after it had been rejected? Or why not one American hostage has yet been released since this ceasefire was implemented. As of this writing, Keith Siegel is not to be released in this latest batch of hostages, and we know he is fast fading. Emily Damari was so worried about Siegel that she offered to switch places and let him go first. Hamas refused.

Keith Siegel, an dual American citizen held captive in Gaza

So we watch as no Americans are released, but the murderers of Americans like Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava, who were blown up in the Hillel Café on the night before what would have been Nava’s wedding are going free in this “deal.”

Dr. David Applebaum, Nava Applebaum, murdered at the Hillel Cafe in Jerusalem

Member of the cell that killed them, released or about to be.

The same is true of the murderer of American citizen Asher Palmer and his baby son Yonatan, who were on their way to spend Shabbat with their family when their murderer stoned their car with boulders.

Asher and Yonatan Palmer, murdered when their car was stoned while driving to family for Shabbat

On the list of terrorists demanded by Hamas

Ditto the murderer of Tuvia Yanai Weissman, an American killed by a child terrorist in 2016 while shopping at a supermarket.

Out or about to be out and free as birds.

It was that last name that grabbed at my throat, as I finished scanning a new list of the terrorists to be released, this time in English, from Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). It was just before Shabbat, and I had to shut down my computer, but I remembered that one. I never could get Tuvia Yanai Weissman out of my mind, because of the photo that circulated of him with his young wife and infant son. He had such a beautiful baby face, and his wife’s face was so full of joy and light. How awful to lose her young husband with whom she was clearly smitten. I mentioned Tuvia at the Shabbat table, and my youngest son told me that Weissman’s wife is his friend’s sister.

Tuvia Yanai Weissman, a dual American citizen, murdered in a supermarket.

Every Israeli has multiple connections to multiple terror victims. Connections upon connections upon connections. That’s the way it is.

Ari Fuld, dual American citizen, murdered while talking to his wife on the phone

I wonder: does President Trump feel a connection to the American victims whose murderers are now being set free in this deal we were compelled by his man Witkoff, to sign?

Why don’t we hear President Trump threatening Hamas if they don’t release Keith Siegel, now?

Why don’t we hear Witkoff saying to Hamas, “No. You can’t have the terrorists who killed American citizens. You can’t have the murderers of Americans Marla Bennett and Ben Blustein, exchange students killed in the Hebrew University Cafeteria,” or “No. You can’t have the terrorist who killed American citizen Ari Fuld while he was standing outside a supermarket talking on the phone with his wife,” or “No. You can’t have the murderers of David and Nava Applebaum, or the murderers of Asher and Yonatan Palmer. You can’t have the murderers of Tuvia Yanai Weissman.”

Ben Blustein, American exchange student

Marla Bennett, American exchange student, who along with Ben was murdered in the Frank Sinatra cafeteria on the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus campus

Instead, we hear none of this. We hear people say things like, “What if it were your family members being held in Gaza?” as if those of us who feel as I do, that this “deal” is a horrible, unjust, and dangerous thing, are heartless.

But two things can be true at once. We are joyous at the release of each hostage, and sick at the release of murderers of loved ones we tracked down, caught, and jailed. Where is the justice for the victims?

How do you think their families feel?

And how would you feel if you lived in Beit El, and 114 murderers had just been released next door to your home?

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

I've been pointing out the antisemitic underpinnings of the media coverage of the Gaza war. The media, UN and NGOs has consistently accepted the Hamas narrative lies - their casualty numbers, most victims are women and children, starvation, genocide, indiscriminate bombings, blocking aid - while every piece of evidence offered by Israel countering the lies has been dismissed or questioned. Proof that Gaza officials blatantly lie is ignored.

The lie that Jews are inherently deceitful is not new. Here's an example from the mid-18th century.

At the time, there was a huge debate in Britain about the "Jew Bill," the Jewish Naturalization Act of 1753, which would allow foreign born Jews to become naturalized citizens without being forced to take a Christian oath. It would not, however, allow Jews to vote or hold political office.

The antisemites of the day brought forth lots of antisemitic tropes to support their opposition to the bill. This essay was the lead article of the Gloucester Journal, July 31, 1753. :

LET a Cause be ever so bad, where there is Money to pay, there will not be wanting Advocates to plead. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that we have Writers who would gloss over the Jewish Act, endeavour to persuade us out of our Senses, and make us believe that the Jews are the best Sort of People in the World, and that wherever they come they are a National Blessing.

Much has been said about their vast Knowledge in Mercantile Affairs, as if our Commerce was in a great measure depending upon their superior Abilities. Yet the Truth is, their Commerce is but a Trifle, their Knowledge is chiefly in the Stocks, and their Arts of Merchandize are exerted principally in Exchange-alley. That the Nation gets Riches by them has been confidently asserted; that they acquire great Riches by the Nation has been sufficiently demonstrated. All that has been said in their Favour has been only by begging Questions: Let us, therefore, lay down some certain Rule for Argument; let us establish some uncontroverted Principle to reason upon, by which we may judge, Whether the Jews are, or not, in a political Light, a Benefit to the British Nation?

We will, therefore, advance this one short, but unerring, Rule, "That no Set of People whatever can be of real Service to any Community, who are notorious for acting upon dishonest Principles and contrary to Conscience."

The short Question, then, is, Whether the Jews are, in general, a People who act upon honest Principles, or not? If not, they cannot, even in a political Light, be of Service to any State. But, to judge impartially, let us consider what it is that chiefly makes Men act honestly and according to Conscience, and whether the Jews are possessed of that Principle, or not.

Everyone will acknowledge that it is not in the Power of human Laws to bind the Hearts of Men; they may, indeed, compel their outward Compliance to such Things as they enact, but Men may be very bad, and very detrimental to Society, without directly and openly infringing their Laws, because those, who are restrained from dishonest Actions only out of the Fear of Punishment from human Laws, will be ever studying to elude, and may in many Things escape, the Justice of them. It is, therefore, the Laws of God only, the Laws of Him who knows the human Heart, and the Belief of a future State of Rewards and Punishments, that can thoroughly influence the Hearts of Men to act uprightly. Now, as the Jews deny the Word of God, and disbelieve a Resurrection! they are not possessed of that chief Principle which obliges Men to act honestly and according to Conscience. Therefore, to set the bad Consequences of their Want of Conscience to those among whom they live in a clear Light, let us consider the Manner by which all of them, both Rich and Poor, maintain themselves.
—Do the Jews grow rich by trafficking abroad, and exporting the Commodities of this Country, as has been asserted? No. It is a known Truth that they export but very little. How, then, have the Rich Ones got all their Wealth? By State-jobs, Lotteries, and other iniquitous Arts of Exchange-alley!
—How do the Poor Jews get their Bread? Do any of them plough the Land or Sea? No.
—How, then, do they get their Living? By peddling about, and cheating the Public with bad and counterfeit Commodities!
—Since, then, the Rich Ones get their Money by the Arts of the Alley, and the Poor Ones live by imposing bad Wares upon the Public, Can they be said to act upon honest Principles and according to Conscience? Or, Can the Nation be really benefited by such a People?

As to our Most Holy Religion, (though it is certainly very wrong, and contrary to the True Christian Doctrine, to persecute any People on account of their Religious Principles, yet) it can never be right to encourage Infidelity so far as to incorporate the Blasphemers and Crucifiers of Christ.
—It has, indeed, been said, by those who have wrote in favour of the Jews, “That the Ruler of Heaven and Earth may have guided the Hearts of our Superiors in making this Act to naturalize them; and that it may probably be a Step towards their Conversion to the Christian Faith.”
—As to who or what guided the Hearts of our Rulers to make this Act, it may not, perhaps, be so proper to explain, though not at all difficult to guess: But to think to convert the Jews to the Belief of the Prophecies in Sacred Scripture by endeavouring to prove them to be false is certainly one of the refined Strokes of our Modern Politics.

Jews, by rejecting Christianity, prove that they cannot be trusted. QED.

The Jew Bill passed, and then months later was rescinded. Jews could not become full British citizens with equal rights until more than a century later, in 1858.

The slur of Jews as deceivers is as ingrained in the Christian world as it is in the Muslim world, where Jews are framed as breaking covenants. Today's supposedly enlightened, modern thinkers believe that they are beyond such prejudices, but the Gaza war proves otherwise. Most people believe what they want to and find justifications afterwards, and that is the dynamic at play in today's news media and human rights groups, more than willing to believe and repeat antisemitic lies while statements from Jews are automatically suspect.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

How to make Israel look like a country of religious nationalist fanatics, @Haaretzcom style

Haaretz writes:

Israel Has Bigger Share of 'Religious Nationalists' Than Any Other High-income Country

Judy Maltz Jan 28, 2025 7:00 pm IST

Religion plays a far more important role in national identity in Israel than it does in other developed countries, according to a global survey published on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.

Israel was the only high-income country surveyed in which at least a third of the respondents said that following the predominant religion – Judaism, in this case – was a very important element of national identity. Fewer than a quarter of the respondents in the other high-income countries agreed with this statement.

Three dozen countries participated in the survey, which found that people who live in middle-income countries are more likely to be "religious nationalists" than people who live in high-income countries. Still, religious nationalists did not account for the majority of the population in any of the countries surveyed.

For the purpose of the survey, people were classified as religious nationalists if they identified with their country's historically predominant religion and took a strongly religious position on a number of questions related to the role of religion in national identity and government. The findings are based on nationally representative surveys of nearly 55,000 adults conducted between January and May of last year.

Everything Maltz writes is technically correct - and highly misleading.

First of all, Jews are both a people and a religion, so when Israelis say that being Jewish is a very important part of national identity, they interpret the question quite differently than people of most other religions.

But beyond that, the survey does not distinguish between countries that are officially associated with a religion and those where most citizens happen to belong to a religion. Israel is the only high income country surveyed that associates itself with a religion, but there are many other such countries that were not part of the survey: Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Brunei, Qatar and the UAE, and officially Christian countries like Liechtenstein, Monaco and Malta. Without including those countries, any conclusions about Israel is at best a half-truth.

Indeed, those polled in Muslim countries (including upper-middle income Muslim countries like Malaysia and Turkey) tended to be much more likely to say that Islam was a critical part of their national identity than Israelis did, and one can presume that this would be the case with high-income Muslim countries as well.

When you compare Israel to other countries that define themselves religiously, it has a much lower percentage of people who answer this question affirmatively.

Now, let's look at the headline. The first paragraphs of the article imply that more than one third of Israelis are "religious nationalists." But Pew's definition of that term is much more restrictive - something Haaretz buries further down - and the percentage of Israelis who fit that definition is only 9% (compared to 6% in the US.) This is hardly the country of religious fanatics that Haaretz wants its readers to believe.

That's a lot of missing context to promote a narrative of Israel as being uniquely religious-nationalistic fanatic.

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

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UN accredited NGO has been accusing Israel of inflicting a "holocaust" on Palestinians since at least 2008

The International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD) is a non-governmental organization in special consultative status with the UN. It issues reports every year or so to the UN that is filled with pure Jew-hatred.

It routinely compares Israeli Jews to Nazis. For example, this submission to the UN from August 2008:

Have Jews everywhere forgotten the terrors of the Holocaust to such an extent, as to allow Israel to pursue, and inflict one on the Palestinian people?

...Unseen, and most times, unheard, because of the great Israeli lobby that would accuse us, vilify us, of anti-Semitism if we did report the grave violations. Let us, once and for all, catch on to this game plan, because for all that it is, it is simply just: an old and abused attempt at utilizing the feeling of guilt amongst some to inflict another holocaust on innocent Palestinians and to deny access to the present truths.

To those of us, to whom much has been given, much is expected! The present day Holocaust of the Palestinian people, their dignity, and their struggle for freedom will not be cancelled, as the Jewish Holocaust was not, from history. Basic humanity impels us to make a stand, to shout from the roof-tops- NOT AGAIN, NO MORE!

EAFORD accused Israel of inflicting a "holocaust" on Palestinians even the first Gaza war with Hamas, making direct comparisons between the Jewish Israelis and the Nazis.

And it repeated this blood libel in other submissions. For example, in 2014: "It is appalling that Israel, after the tragic Holocaust history of the Jews in Europe, has turned the Jewish legacy from a victim of the Nazi racist ideology into a victimizer."

Its embracing of antisemitic tropes goes back even further. In 1986, EAFORD gave their highest honor to the crackpot Paul Findlay's book on the Israel lobby, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby. (The entire book is on the EAFORD site.)

The UN gave EAFORD an award as a "peace messenger" the following year.

A look at EAFORD's history explains its antisemitism.

EAFORD was launched during the International Symposium on Zionism and Racism held in Tripoli, Libya in 1976, under the auspices of that human rights paragon the Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi is widely believed to have bankrolled EAFORD, which moved to Geneva. The NGO soon became accredited to the UN and gave a pretense of caring about other topics than Israel, but every submission it makes to the UN is condemning Israel.

EAFORD was also heavily involved in the infamously antisemitic Durban UN conference in 2001.

Who funds EAFORD nowadays?

Officially, the UN must receive reports on the funding of the NGOs it supports. EAFORD says on its website, "In compliance with the requirements applied to all non-governmental organizations with Consultative Status, EAFORD submits regular reports to the ECOSOC Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations regarding the sources of its funding."

I asked both EAFORD and ECOSOC for copies of these reports, and they ignored my queries.

This is just a small example of how anti-Israel NGOs end up gaining respect and prestige even when their origins and continuing work show that they are the ones who support discrimination and bigotry while pretending to fight against them.

EAFORD is an antisemitic organization by any sane definition of antisemitism. The UN's elevating EAFORD shows that the UN is no better.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

01/28 Links Pt2: The Holocaust Cannot Be Hijacked to Describe Other Conflicts; The religious mania of Owen Jones; What the Irish President Should Have Said about His Country and the Shoah

From Ian:

Elisha Wiesel: Will We Continue Giving Moral Credibility to Voices Who Say Israel Is the Villain for Refusing to Die?

Auschwitz was liberated 80 years ago Monday. The world told itself they were doing all they could - even as the railroad tracks to Auschwitz were not bombed; as the St. Louis ship, full of Jewish refugees, was turned back from Florida to Europe; as Britain froze European Jewish immigration to the British Mandate for Palestine, preventing the escape of hundreds of thousands who could have been saved.

It is hard to look evil in the face. To see the jihadists in Gaza fire rifles in the air as 90 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for three Israeli women. One of the terrorists set to be released by Israel is Abu Warda, who was responsible for killing 45 civilians in the 1996 bus bombings in Jerusalem. Does he occupy the same moral universe as these women?

It is easier to believe that this militant mob wants their own state than to hear, really hear, what they shout: that their mission is the eradication of Israel. Americans must not forgive Hamas. We must confront evil when and where we see it.

Will we continue explaining away the images of non-uniformed Palestinian civilians celebrating - and actively aiding Hamas - in the Oct. 7 attacks? Will we continue confusing the concepts of perpetrator and victim? Will we continue giving moral credibility to voices who say that the tiny nation of Israel is the villain for refusing to die?

Seth Mandel: Food for Thought for the Anti-Zionists

Perhaps one reason this type of vandalism has so few defenders even among progressives is because they like to claim that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism—and the accusations of food appropriation demolish that ridiculous fiction like almost no other argument.

Israel is the name of a geographic location; if you are upset about Israelis eating or making a particular kind of food it is because you actually object to Jews eating or making that food. The fact that a person in one region of the world would be eating the same food as his neighbor across the street is unremarkable. But when one of those two people is a Jew, it becomes fodder for the fever swamps.

You will not find, for example, vandalism by Syrian activists against Palestinian-identified shops for making a version of a dish in, say, Nablus even though the dish predates Palestinian Arab nationalism. Which is why my Syrian Jewish friends, as they cook their centuries-old family recipes, don’t whine about Palestinians also cooking a similar Syrian dish while putting a slightly modern twist on it and calling it Palestinian. You’d have to be insane to do something like that.

Easily my favorite such controversy, however, is the recurring one over couscous. Pro-Palestinian activists get particularly upset over seeing dishes labeled “Israeli couscous.” Columbia’s anti-Zionist professor Joseph Massad claims he once stomped out of a New York restaurant after seeing it on the menu.

A more recent example comes from Yale. Last year, students posted pictures from the dining hall purportedly showing that Israeli couscous suddenly had the “Israeli” part removed. Things had gotten so tense on campus that the school, it turned out, had decided to remove regional or cultural labels from the dishes they served. But then “Israeli couscous” reappeared. Yale explained to JTA: “In this case, Israeli Couscous is indeed an actual ingredient and is explicitly listed on the ingredient list. Considering it is the main ingredient, it is appropriate to remain in the title, and we will correct this oversight.”

The reason for this is that Israeli couscous isn’t couscous at all, and Israelis never tried to pass it off as such. It’s a relic of Israel’s early days when food manufacturers were pushed to make a grain product that was cheaper than rice. It looked like couscous but wasn’t. Israelis didn’t call it couscous. They called couscous, couscous. They didn’t call it Israeli couscous either. It acquired that name later to differentiate it in stores from couscous.

Which is to say: when something is labeled “Israeli couscous” it is not to “steal” couscous but to announce that it isn’t couscous.

This is indicative of the larger point: There are no winners in the food wars, because merely participating in this stuff makes you sound like a lunatic. Objections to Israeli food are thus helpful only because they identify people who have way bigger problems than ill-formed opinions on geopolitics.

Yisrael Medad: ‘Shofar’s call to ‘rehabilitate’ Zionism

Shofar, an interdisciplinary journal of Jewish studies whose editors are committed “to publishing a diversity of beliefs, ideas and opinions,” is a project of cooperation with Purdue University. The academic institution was beset, as were many campuses, last year with pro-Palestine rallies and demonstrations, and even set up a “Liberation Zone,” although it would seem none for any Israeli hostages. I have no information that those events had a direct influence on the publication of an issue dedicated to anti-Zionism, but it exists.

Shaul Magid of Dartmouth College led that Shofar special issue, which was devoted to “Zionism and Its Jewish Critics.” He claimed that “while some scholars argue that the concept [of Zionism] has biblical origins, most acknowledge that it is a modern Jewish iteration of Western European nationalism that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century.” Who are these “most” scholars who champion perverse purposeful ignorance? What is their academic weight? Are these the instructors properly suited to lecture university students, Jewish and non-Jewish?

Magid and fellow travelers would have us believe that the many dozens of Torah commandments, hundreds of verses of Tanach, thousands of Midrashic, Talmudic and Second Temple literature pieces, as well as thousands of rabbinic dicta and responsa spanning some 2,500 years of Jewish core religion, culture and ritual revolving around Zion, Jerusalem, the Land of Israel and a Jew’s obligations to the same are to be erased and ignored. Similarly, the constant presence of Jews residing in the Land of Israel—immigrating and traveling to it, and sending charitable dollars to those living there all during the 1,800 years of our Exile, not to mention the Return to Zion during the sixth-century BCE—is to be disregarded.

In a follow-up response, Lior Sternfeld of Penn State University addresses the topic of “Settler Colonialism, From the River to the Sea, and the Israeli Case After October 7.” He intends “to offer a way to unpack some of the volatile concepts often used to analyze the Israel-Palestine conflict.” Nevertheless, he promptly engages in a volatile position and, as if objectively, observes that “well-meaning scholars and activists have sought to rehabilitate the concept of Zionism.”

And what is the need for that? Sternfeld knows and suggests that “Zionism, at least in its twenty-first-century form, negates the very existence of Palestinian identity and Palestinian nationalism. As such, the peaceful existence of the two peoples, enjoying freedom, independence, and self-determination, could never be achieved.” All the fault of the Jews. Sorry, the Zionists. For what is Zionism if not, according to Sternfeld, “settler-colonialism”?