Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 31, 2025

01/31 Links Pt2: Hamas Has Nothing But Contempt For Its Defenders; Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome; I Went to Israel and Witnessed the UNTHINKABLE! | NFL Icon Nick Lowery Speaks Out

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome

The suggestion that Netanyahu has prevented peace with the Palestinian Arabs is risible. As is by now overwhelmingly obvious to all who are not blinded by prejudice, the Palestinian Arabs remain implacably committed to wiping Israel from the map, as they always have been.

In a conspicuous display of amnesia, Davis and Prashker omit the fact—so inconvenient to their Netanyahu-bashing—that the Palestinian Arabs have rejected numerous offers of a state of their own and chosen instead to renew their war of extermination against the Jewish homeland.

David and Prashkar write: “Isolated by war and collective trauma, many Israelis struggle to come to terms with how far we have traveled from our foundational values.”

This bears precious little relation to a country that, devastated by trauma and collective grief, believes in itself because it affirms the enduring values of the Jewish people—a country whose heroic young soldiers have galvanized and inspired it by their blazing love of and admiration for the nation they are defending.

But, of course, the people whose discomfort Davis and Prashkar are really talking about are Jews of the Diaspora who “struggle to process or acknowledge the shifts threatening the Israel they cherish as a source of pride and identity.”

These shifts, they claim, have been such that it was “currently more acceptable in widening circles for a government minister to advocate ‘voluntary emigration’ and the resettlement of Gaza than it is for an opposition leader to assert that secure peace with the Palestinians is in Israel’s strategic interests.”

Since they wrote this, U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested that Jordan, Egypt and other countries might be “persuaded” to take in more than 1 million Gazan Arabs who want to leave. The reason for that suggestion is precisely the impossibility of envisaging a “secure peace” ever coming from Gazans who have been brainwashed from birth to slaughter Jews and steal their land.

Having internalized many of the lies told about Israel, far too many Diaspora Jews, unfortunately, “struggle to process or acknowledge” the fact that their assumed British or American identity relegates their Jewish identity to a marginal add-on now being used against them by people they so unwisely assumed regarded them as one of their own.

It’s perfectly possible to dislike Netanyahu and believe he should step down, and yet recognize the realities of Palestinian rejectionism and the enduring attempt to destroy Israel. Blaming the prime minister for this and for resurgent antisemitism is beyond perverse. It resembles the obsessional demonization of the newly installed American president known as Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Blaming Netanyahu for the Western war against the Jews is a pathological displacement exercise by people who refuse to acknowledge what is in front of their eyes. It’s easier to scapegoat Netanyahu on the assumption that if you get rid of him, then you get rid of the problem.

Of course, it’s entirely legitimate to criticize Netanyahu or his government’s policies. But accusing him of betraying Zionism and Israel’s foundational values is not just criticism. It’s Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome on steroids.

Seth Mandel: Hamas Has Nothing But Contempt For Its Defenders

Let’s be clear, then, on exactly what was happening through the war: Israel was constantly moving large amounts of civilians out of harms way while Hamas was scheming to put those same civilians in grave danger. Hundreds of thousands, we are told, were moved into the humanitarian zone. That is many times the 25,000 or so civilian deaths in Gaza caused by the war. In Mawasi, we now know, Israel was able to save most but not all of the displaced Gazans from Deif’s attempt to get them killed.

Now that hostilities have paused, Hamas is taking stock of what it has and what it has lost. It has lost Deif, but it has gained a bunch of useful idiots for whom it has nothing but contempt. Hamas was very happy to have its advocates repeat its propaganda like caged parrots, of course. And it appreciates the ability to direct foreign media with a wave of its hand. But that very process assures that it will not have much respect for those doing its bidding.

Hamas is much more self-aware than some people seem to think. It knows how evil it is. It knows how unworthy of moral support it is. It knows that it represents man’s inhumanity to man. It knows that every word out of the mouths of its propagandists is a lie. Hamas needs its Western supporters to trust it, but it would never be so foolish as to believe what it says.

For the past 15 months, Hamas has been leading its supporters and its fans and every anti-Zionist with a public profile out on a limb. Now it has sawed off that limb. Watch as all these fools learn absolutely nothing for the next round.

Seth Mandel: Trump’s New Executive Order on Anti-Semitism

Unequal treatment under the law has been at the center of this entire controversy. Jewish students’ civil rights under Title VI have been violated at will on campuses that accept federal funds or are themselves public institutions.

Speaking of Title VI, the executive order begins by referencing an order Trump signed in 2019, the purpose of which was to ensure those civil-rights protections were applied to Jewish students on campus. That’s why there isn’t all that much that’s new about the recent order: The administration is trying to foreclose avenues of noncompliance that schools have been using, with the blessing of the previous administration, to violate Jewish rights.

Institutions seemingly don’t know how to protect Jews’ civil rights, so Trump is spelling it out for them. Elsewhere in the new order, the president suggests the attorney general should make use of a statute known as the “conspiracy against rights” prohibition. This post-Civil War law was designed to address white supremacist groups preventing black Americans from exercising their political rights. (Trump himself was charged under the statute in one of his Jan. 6-related cases.)

In fact, the masked “globalize the intifada” mobs are quite natural heirs to the Ku Klux Klan, and laws enacted to curb their power are a logical source of ideas for those who actually want to crack down on the post-Oct. 7 goon squads using violence or intimidation to negate the constitutional rights of Jewish students.

The Trump administration is making it very simple for those who want to fight anti-Semitism within existing law. We’re about to find out which institutions oppose the very idea of equal enforcement of the law.

01/31 Links Pt1: Gaza must reject terror of Hamas for war to end; Ofer Kalderon, Keith Siegel and Yarden Bibas to be released Saturday; GOP Bill Recognizing West Bank as ‘Judea and Samaria’

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Gaza must reject terror of Hamas for war to end

Is there a chance that this population that so enjoys terrorizing Jewish girls could suddenly become a lovely, pluralistic group of people? I’d say not.

The best postwar plans that anyone has been able to come up with seem to include the Palestinians being allowed to start all over again in Gaza. Which means the same thing happening again and again.

It will take many years to rebuild Gaza, whoever is there. It will take years not just because of the devastation — which I have seen with my own eyes — but because to even start to rebuild the Gaza Strip, you would have to fill in the hundreds of miles of tunnels that Hamas used Western taxpayer money to construct all these years. There isn’t an area in Gaza that hasn’t got a tunnel system underneath it, built by Hamas to move around and store weapons in.

How long will it take to remove all the bombs and boobytraps that Hamas has stockpiled in Gaza? How long will it be before anyone could be persuaded to put money into the area?

And in the meantime, where should the population go?

Trump has floated the idea that the Gazans could go to Egypt or Jordan. But I would like to extend that offer. Why not offer them to Ireland, Canada, Pakistan, and all those other countries that profess to care so much for the Palestinians? If they want these terrorist supporters so much, why shouldn’t Dublin, Toronto and Islamabad benefit from their presence? I’m sure the Palestinians will help these countries boom. In their own traditional ways.

Perhaps at some point, they could return to Gaza when they have learned how to govern themselves or be governed by someone else.

But here’s the thing: The citizens of Gaza mainly supported Hamas when Hamas started a war to annihilate Israel. And while Hamas has mostly lost — it has not yet lost completely.

Yet it must lose — completely. And if that means that they are no longer allowed to live in their enclave of terror, then so be it. There is no law of war that says you are allowed to keep waging wars, keep losing them, and then be allowed to do it all over again.

In fact, if you start a war that you then lose, you usually also lose all or most of the territory you started it from. That is not only right, but the only language that these terrorists and their masters understand.

And isn´t it just the best possible rider that all those losers on American college campuses who supported Hamas might now have their student visas withdrawn and so see the consequences of their actions first-hand, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

It’ll be a learning curve and a life lesson.

The lesson being that there are consequences to backing the losers. And for being them.

Danny Cohen: The released Palestinian prisoners are not hostages – they are terrorists

It is impossible to imagine what the Israeli hostages have been through since the October 7 attacks. Yet even on their release their suffering has been cruelly exploited.

The release of the hostages has become a sickening ritual, carefully choreographed by the terrorists of Hamas as a shameless propaganda spectacle.

Last week, when four female hostages were released, Hamas forced the women to wear ill-fitting army uniforms and made them wave and smile from a specially-constructed stage. They were made to thank their captors, terrorists who had taken them from their beds, exploited and imprisoned them. With a final flourish of mocking cruelty, the women were presented with goodie bags of farewell gifts and certificates of captivity. It was simply grotesque.

The hostage exchange that followed a few days later took on a greater edge of menace and danger. 29-year-old Arbel Yehud was forced to make her way through baying Palestinian crowds before reaching safety. Alongside her, 80 year-old Gadi Moses somehow composed himself with unthinkable dignity before the hate mob.

Hamas wants these ugly scenes to be projected around the world, to reach us all via our TV screens and phones. They intend to project power, control and the promise of future terrorist violence. Their masked fighters strut and brandish guns for the cameras to warn they are ready to inflict genocidal terror attacks again if they are given the chance.

You could argue that all media organisations providing live coverage of the hostage releases are giving a platform to terror. Yet this is perhaps unavoidable in our era of rolling news.

What is unforgivable is the false equivalence made by so many news’ organisations – including the BBC – between Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. This has distorted the story in a manner that will have delighted Hamas.

News outlets across the globe have repeatedly referred to the Palestinians to be released as “hostages”. They have equated the victims of a terrorist attack with violent murderers who seek to kill civilians and erase Israel from the map.

Brendan O'Neill: Why are ‘anti-racists’ silent about Arbel Yehud’s terrible ordeal?

Here’s my question, though: why didn’t today’s events shake the Western conscience too? Where’s our wrath at the sight of a Jewish woman being mobbed by Jew-hating men just three days after Holocaust Memorial Day?

The left’s usual craven excuse-making for Hamas’s seizing of hostages – where they point out that some of the hostages are serving members of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) – doesn’t work in this case. Ms Yehud is a civilian. She was kidnapped because she is a Jew. She was jeered at by a crush of irate men today because she is a Jew. And yet you will search in vain for condemnation of this modern-day Jew-shaming from the West’s so-called progressives.

Where are our anti-racists? Where are those people who will brand you an ‘Islamophobe’ if you so much as scuff a page of the Koran or a ‘fascist’ if you criticise mass immigration? We live in an era in which tabloid criticism of Meghan Markle is denounced as lunatic white supremacy while the mobbing of a Jew by members of a terror group founded to kill Jews is shrugged off as normal.

Where are our feminists? Where are those well-paid columnists who write pained screeds about how sexist it is for the waiter to give the bill to their boyfriend rather than to them, yet who seemingly have nothing to say about the public tormenting of a woman whose only ‘crime’ is her Jewishness? Where are those feminist crusaders who spent last year demanding access to the men-only Garrick Club so that they might quaff wine with princes, judges and thespians? They really have nothing to say about a member of their sex who was forced for 16 months to break bread with the men who slaughtered a thousand of her co-religionists?

It isn’t the behaviour of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that is shocking. Of course these armies of anti-Semites and misogynists will gleefully persecute a Jewish woman. What’s shocking is the indifference of the West’s intellectuals. Too many of them failed to make a full-throated condemnation of the atrocities of 7 October, and now too many look the other way as a Jewish woman is made into a spectacle of hate and derision. This should worry us all, for if our cultural elites will turn a blind eye to this, they’ll turn a blind eye to anything.

From Reuters:

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tells Al Jazeera that launching a military attack on Iranian nuclear sites would be “one of the biggest historical mistakes the US could make.”

Araghchi says Tehran will respond “immediately and decisively” if its nuclear sites are attacked, which will lead to “all-out war in the region.”

Remember, Iran warned that it will mount a massive attack on Israel since the end of October.

Also remember that Israel's October attack did indeed destroy an Iranian nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin.

So where's World War III?

About 90% of Iranian air defense systems are warnings of huge consequences for attacking. When you understand that these regular threats are meant to dissuade - which is a lot cheaper than a decent air defense system - you can understand why Iran says this stuff regularly.

Just like they claim that Israel's dismantling of Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria's fall didn't hurt it at all.

One day, reporters will be able to tell the difference between frightened bluster and real threats.

Not that Iran would do nothing. They could attack US facilities in Arab countries; they could enhance the Hothi style blocking of US ships in the area, they can generally make themselves a nuisance. But Iran wants war a lot less than the US does, because they know that a war means the end of the mullah's regime.

Which is as strong a reason to attack as targeting Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

A writer and author named Mustafa Cemal Tomar just completed a series of four articles describing why Jews are so powerful. It is essentially an update of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, concentrating on economic issues but touching on all aspects of evil Jewish world domination.

Excerpts:

The Jews, whose total number does not even reach 50 million, directly and indirectly rule over approximately 8 billion people in the world other than themselves. In addition to their own companies, they dominate the economy through the families they have chosen and somehow bought in other countries. Since they are an organized minority, they manage to eliminate their other competitors by protecting each other or by promoting the people they choose in the public eye. They do this mostly through the influence of dominating the capital market and the means of production.

Another method used by this evil global mind is to manipulate people and countries easily because they control basic necessities. The vast majority of energy companies operating in the world today belong to Jews. Similarly, pharmaceutical companies and medical companies operating in the health sector are mostly in the hands of these companies or their local subcontractors. The lion's share in the marketing of agricultural and animal products, especially seeds, belongs to these global companies or their local subcontractors. Most of the companies operating in the arms industry and technology fields belong to them.

Another major factor in the Jews' dominance in the world is that they know human nature very well, exploit their weaknesses to corrupt societies, do their own PR due to their dominance in the media, and present themselves as standard-setters. Throughout history, Jews have been exiled from the lands of various countries for centuries because they have betrayed almost all communities. In the Middle Ages, especially in Europe, the professions a Jew could engage in, the amount of property they could own, and even the amount of chickens they could own were limited and limited. Since most states did not trust them, they were not accepted into civil service.

For this reason, Jews mostly lived in large cities with a cosmopolitan structure in order to hide themselves by engaging in trade. Rather than owning land and houses out of fear of being deported, they collected movable, movable capital such as gold and precious metals and became rich in this way, and with the development of capitalism, they dominated the means of production and capital markets. While doing all this, they were always in the back of the stage instead of the front, and although the extras changed, they always wrote the script themselves. The hand that regulates the market, which Adam Smith called the “invisible hand,” is actually the hand of the Jews most of the time.

This evil mind, which monitors countries and continues to make money even from the money supply of countries, does not stop at just monitoring countries. Starting in the 1960s, they also introduced electronic and card payment systems to the market. In this way, those who generally monitor the trade status of states now also manage to see the spending tendencies of individual people and develop policies accordingly. ...In this way, they come one step closer to controlling humanity. Today, 85% of the electronic payment systems such as Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay operating globally in the world are directly in their hands. Jewish capital, primarily Rockefeller, is behind the cashless society movement. In this way, they can see where people are, where they spend their money, the spending trends of societies and individuals, and who they donate to.

Today, 97% of technology companies and mainstream media, and almost all of social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are monopolized by these international companies. Search engines such as Google and video sharing sites such as Youtube are also in their hands. For this reason, all those who speak out, write articles, share videos and visuals contrary to their own projects are censored and either not shown at all or are prevented from becoming popular and relegated to lower ranks and hidden from people's eyes.

The evil mind, which used to control what humanity did through spending and detect their weaknesses in the past, today uses the information system to monitor people 24 hours a day with tools such as mobile phones and social media, and can access even their most private information. Despite being the richest in the world, having the means of production and everything they want, the globalist evil mind, which is insatiable, is not satisfied with what they have today and is trying to take control of people's private lives. They are trying to corrupt humanity and the world with the belief in the chosen people, and they are playing a kind of god (God forbid) in their own way.

Although they have achieved great success for now, there is still hope for humanity. However, it is obvious that we are in a very dangerous environment. Our country and humanity are literally at the last exit before the bridge. Either we will unite against them and disrupt these games or we will completely fall under their domination and perish.

I's be happy if Jews had only one tenth of the unity and power than the antisemites think they do.

We've seen many times how the world ignores Arab antisemitism, assuming that it is normal and therefore not noteworthy. The huge amount of Jew-hatred in mainstream Turkish media shows that this isn't an Arab exception - it is a Muslim exception that even extends to NATO countries.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Egypt creates a staged "popular" demonstration at Rafah border: "We don't want Gazans here!"

Yesterday, hundreds of Egyptians gathered at the Rafah border crossing to protest Donald Trump's plan to allow Gazans to enter Egypt if they want to.

Video and photos from the scene show that this was staged by the Egyptian government, and hardly the spontaneous popular demonstration Arabic media is pretending it was.

But even their chants indicated that their concern wasn't Palestinian steadfastness but the sanctity of Egypt's borders: ""With our bodies standing, we protect our borders from displacement. The Egyptian people are a great people. No, no to displacement."

It is clear that the Egyptian government and other political parties were behind the rallies. First of all, just look at all the professionally printed banners that feature Egypt's president:

Furthermore, they arrived in Rafah on chartered buses. Given Egypt's economy, there is no way the people who attended paid for the privilege to go to Rafah.

The demonstrations are a means to spook Americans that if somehow some Palestinians would enter Egypt it would destabilize the region.

After all, everyone is afraid of the mythical "Arab street." The impression they want to give is that Trump may be able to bully President Sisi but he cannot control the masses!

So they control the masses.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

On Thursday, Hamas admitted Qassam Brigades leader Muhammad Deif had been killed during the war.

This comes after months of denials. When Israel announced that Deif and other Hamas leaders were the target for ran airstrike in July, Hamas called these “false allegations” intended to “cover up the scale of the horrific massacre.” Deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Khalil al-Hayya, told Al Jazeera that Deif had heard Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that he was the target and laughed at it. Even as late as November, Hamas denied a report from Asharq al-Awsat saying Deif had been killed in that airstrike.

Now Hamas admits the truth. Everyone knows Hamas was lying for over six months and the IDF, which only confirmed Deif's death in early August, was telling the truth.

This has happened hundreds of times over the years. But the mainstream media still stubbornly pretends that both Israeli and terrorist claims have equal weight; that a masked Abu Obeida is as credible as an entire professional army that is under constant scrutiny. One which, it should be emphasized, admits mistakes when they happen, which should only add to its credibility when it denies others' accusations.

Knowing that Deif was indeed killed on July 13, and that Hamas lied about it, what does that mean for the coverage of the July airstrike?

Media at the time took the Gaza Health Ministry statement that 90 were killed in the strike as unvarnished truth, as the Washington Post headline shows.

But the only source for this is the Hamas run health ministry. At the time, the Palestinian Red Crescent society said they recovered 23 bodies. The health ministry counts bodies that arrive at hospitals. Perhaps some bodies were transported using other means, but there are no such claims. How could the health ministry have concluded 90 deaths if only 23 bodies were brought to hospitals?

Israel didn't just claim that they killed Deif in the airstrike. They said that they killed a number of senior Hamas officials, including the commander of the Hamas Khan Younis brigade, Rafa Salama, whose death Hamas also now admits.

This means that the IDF was also telling the truth that Hamas was hiding among civilians in the main humanitarian zone of Al Mawasi. Top Hamas commanders used the hundreds of thousands of civilians in the camp as human shields, which Hamas also consistently denies. If Deif and Salama was there, they were using the camp as a Hamas military headquarters. It can be presumed that Deif and Salama were not alone in their meeting in the middle of the camp, and if 23 were killed, a good proportion of them were Hamas members.

The story of an unprovoked massacre at the camp is now debunked. Yet the coverage of Hamas now admitting Deif's death does not mention the obvious: that this proves that the IDF strikes were fully legal under international law and Hamas cynically used its own people as human shields. The media is not admitting that its reporting from the camp did not admit that there were legitimate targets there, and that it skewed journalism to damn Israel.

Hamas just admitted that its senior members use the people it governed as human shields. That is the story that we are not seeing the media mention today.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

01/30 Links Pt2: The Gaza-Auschwitz Comparison Is a Moral Failure; Hillel Neuer: The Most Hated Man at the UN; Protecting the ICC; Letting Palestinians Leave Gaza

From Ian:

The Gaza-Auschwitz Comparison Is a Moral Failure

The banner proclaiming “Palestine: the victory of the oppressed people over Nazi Zionism,” was prominently displayed behind Hamas terrorists as they forced hostage Naama Levy — whose pants were bloodied at the time of her capture — to smile in an army uniform. The goal of this image is clear: to “Nazify” Israel, whitewash Hamas’ crimes, and invert the roles of victims and oppressors. This is the essence of the Iran-backed terror group’s propaganda.

This is not merely an act of cruelty and humiliation; it is a calculated political message, designed to invert historical roles: Israel as the modern-day Third Reich, and Zionism as its ideology.

But Hamas is not alone in spreading this message. It is part of a long-standing antisemitic propaganda campaign that has gained renewed traction far beyond Gaza.

On American college campuses, in activist circles, and across social media, this rhetoric finds eager amplifiers: “Israelis are Nazis,” “Israel is genocide,” “Hamas is resistance.” Pseudo-human rights organizations, pseudo-anti-racists, and pseudo-feminists echo these slogans. At the same time, these voices remain disturbingly silent about the mass rapes, murders, and kidnappings carried out by Hamas on October 7. Their hypocrisy speaks volumes about their supposed commitment to justice and human rights.

These comparisons are not simply misguided or exaggerated; they have a double-edged effect. On one hand, they trivialize the Nazi atrocities by equating them with a contemporary conflict, tragic as it may be, that differs fundamentally in purpose and scope. On the other, they invert historical roles, casting Jews — victims of an unparalleled genocide — as today’s oppressors. This shift doesn’t necessarily deny the Holocaust outright, but distorts its meaning, drains it of its uniqueness, and repurposes it as a malleable ideological tool. The result is an assault on memory itself — on its ability to prevent the resurgence of hatred and, most urgently, the rising antisemitism witnessed since October 7, 2023.

The accusations of genocide directed at Israel are not new. They trace back to Yasser Arafat and Soviet propaganda in the 1970s, gaining momentum with each flare-up in Gaza. These claims rely on a deliberate distortion of historical facts. The Holocaust was a systematic and industrialized campaign of extermination, carried out in secrecy to annihilate an entire people. Gaza, despite its immense suffering and devastation, is the scene of a conflict between a terrorist group and a sovereign military — not an extermination effort. Comparing Gaza to Auschwitz distorts history and reduces the Holocaust to a vague, manipulable idea, undermining its status as a universal moral anchor.

This confusion does more than undermine the past; it undermines the present. The legal mechanisms designed to prevent genocide lose their potency when misused in this way. Raphaël Lemkin, who coined the term “genocide,” emphasized its specificity: the deliberate, systematic destruction of a group. By conflating the horrors of asymmetrical warfare with organized genocide, we blur the critical distinction between war and extermination. This misapplication of language is not just a semantic issue; it is a moral failure.

The issue doesn’t end with hashtags or protest slogans. It reaches the highest levels of political discourse. In 2014, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Israel of “surpassing the Nazis in its barbarity” during Operation Protective Edge. In 2022, Mahmoud Abbas claimed Israel had committed “fifty holocausts,” and made these remarks in Berlin — the very city where the Holocaust was meticulously planned.

Fifty Years of Using International Law Against Israel: A Social Justice Narrative Takeover

The year 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which declared that Zionism is a form of racism. Nonbinding UN resolutions fuel international court lawfare against Israel, which has only increased following Hamas's October 7, 2023, massacre. The result has been the endowment of moral and political legitimacy to terrorist aggressors, negating the fundamental values of the international system.

A collection of UN resolutions made Palestinian political violence a legitimate form of political expression. UN resolutions provide justification, reinforcement, and prestige for Palestinian terrorism - including that of Hamas. Both sides now "equal," the UN began using the terminology "a cycle of violence" when referring to IDF clashes with terrorists.

The politicized international courts are conducive to the "narrative" approach that reinterprets history and disregards a legal, adjudicated examination of evidence, favoring social justice. The "critical justice" reinterpretation of law views facts through the lens of corrective narratives. Therefore, terms such as "occupation," "invasion," and "blockade" are not interpreted conventionally, but in a way that will afford "social justice."

Alternatively, direct efforts to remold definitions are employed: on December 11, 2024, Ireland requested that the UN broaden its definition of "genocide," so that Israel would be found guilty in the ICJ case.

Israel has become the "canary in the coal mine" at the UN - an indigenous people in their ancestral homeland uniquely targeted for "colonialism." The democratic majority rule principle has been usurped to compel the now outnumbered West to subvert the UN's original vision.

Behind the Mask of ‘Pro-Peace’ Groups in Israel

Rula Daood and Alon-Lee Green, the Israeli national directors of the Standing Together movement, were included in the Time 100 Next list for 2024 due to their extensive pacifist activities, such as the national campaign “The North Demands Peace – Deal Now.” As part of this campaign, the organization’s activists hung billboards in northern Israel with the statement “The North Demands Peace” in Arabic and Hebrew. Ironically, or perhaps tragically, one of the billboards placed at the Maxim intersection in Haifa was near a site damaged by a Hezbollah rocket last October. This area also witnessed the horrific terror suicide bombing at Maxim restaurant, co-owned by Arabs and Jews, in 2003, which killed 21 Jews and Arabs and injured 51 others.

The push for a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah for a ceasefire at any cost, without restrictions or the possibility of Israeli action for violations, indicates a lack of security awareness among Standing Together activists. Last November, northern residents, local authorities, and community forums expressed firm opposition to the proposed ceasefire agreement with Lebanon, fearing future violations by Hezbollah and the potential for a terrible massacre. This fear was reinforced when an IDF spokesman revealed Hezbollah’s plans to conquer the Galilee. Although the ceasefire was eventually signed, Hezbollah violated it within five days.

Besides calling for a ceasefire in the north, Standing Together does not address the circumstances that led to the Sword of Iron war. While they importantly call for the return of hostages to Israel, they mislead the public by claiming that “the government and media in Israel are ignoring war crimes in Gaza and claiming everything is fine.” They assert that Israel is waging a war of extermination in Gaza and that “we must not get used to killing and starving innocent Palestinians in Gaza, hundreds of rocket launches daily, or abandoning cities in the north and south.”

At a demonstration, one of the national directors held signs showing Israeli and Palestinian death tolls since the war’s beginning, citing 44,249 Palestinian deaths without specifying how many were Hamas terrorists. This figure, from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, is unsupported. According to UN data from last May, a third of those killed in Gaza were women and children. A University of Pennsylvania expert’s study suggests the ratio of killed militants to civilians is around 1:1, according to the UN’s assessment. The ratio in urban combat zones around the world is 1:9, meaning nine civilians killed for every combatant killed — and that Israel is doing far more than any other military to avoid and reduce civilian deaths.

Regarding claims of starvation in Gaza, COGAT has facilitated the entry of over a million tons of aid on 57,545 trucks since the war began. From January to July 2024, the average daily food consumption in Gaza was about 3,004 calories per person, compared to 3,540 in Europe and North America, and 2,600 in African countries. Standing Together fails to blame Hamas for systematically stealing humanitarian aid from the residents of Gaza.

01/30 Links Pt1: Hostages Arbel Yehud, Agam Berger and Gadi Mozes free after 482 days; You’re Lucky To Survive Being Freed By Hamas; The wickedness perpetrated by Hamas can never be undone

From Ian:

Bassem Eid: The wickedness perpetrated by Hamas can never be undone

Why would anyone, even terrorist operatives, behave with such abject cruelty toward their fellow human beings? To understand this, one must understand Hamas’s ideology of hate. Its founding charter commits to the annihilation of the State of Israel and for it to be replaced with an Islamic theocracy under Sharia law. These are not just words on a page. Hamas-controlled Gaza has a deeply antisemitic media and education environment, in which even children’s programming and school textbooks are full of misinformation about the alleged perfidy of Jews and calls for their annihilation.

It’s not only the traumatized hostages and the Hamas-ruled Gazans who have been irreversibly damaged by the terrorist group’s reign of terror. The day after Oct. 7, Israel was attacked by the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah as a Hamas ally, inaugurating a brutal war in Israel’s north that displaced tens of thousands in both countries. Attacks on Israel continue from other terrorist factions armed by Hamas’s sponsor, Iran, notably the Houthis, who have led an assault on global shipping through the Red Sea. (The Houthi flag bears the unsubtle slogan “Death to the USA, Death to Israel, Curse the Jews, Victory to Islam.”) The ferocious war on Israel has also launched a global surge in antisemitism, with nearly half of adults worldwide now reporting antisemitic views. These trends have derailed efforts toward peace, including the near-signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

All of this is to say that even if all of the hostages were to return home tomorrow, nothing would go back to the way it was. Rape is often a trauma with lifelong impacts; just consider the effects of nearly a year and a half of captivity and unrelenting abuse. Nor will the Gazan population, which has been under Hamas rule since 2007, quickly unlearn the lessons of control by a brutal genocidal regime that uses hospitals, schools, mosques and churches as military sites. Beginning to undo the damage requires one clear and straightforward prerequisite: Like the Nazis before them, there is no just compromise with Hamas that leaves them in power.

They must be unseated, everywhere they hold sway, for the monstrous scars they left behind even to begin to heal.

Seth Mandel: You’re Lucky To Survive Being Freed By Hamas

Ah, the Red Cross! Willing participants in the psychotic torment of hostages. Although the Red Cross was unbothered by its role in a public torture passion play, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stepped in. The Palestinian murderers and terrorists being released in return for innocent Israeli hostages could sit on their bus a bit longer, Netanyahu decreed, until he could get assurances that the demonic scenes in Gaza would not be repeated.

To be clear: The process of dragging hostages through the crowds is not just morally abominable; it is legitimately dangerous. You are lucky to survive being freed by these psychopaths. And for the Red Cross to stand there and accede to this is beyond disqualifying.

To watch these scenes, in other words, is to watch the full range of human complicity in unspeakable crimes, and experience the full range of emotions that comes with it.

When the relief finally arrives, then, it’s almost overwhelming. The hostages finally cross from the death cult to the land of the living, the land of their forefathers, of God. The homes waiting to host them in Eretz Israel will feed them and protect them rather than abuse them and hold them against their will. They are transferred from the Red Cross into the hands of medical professionals who will treat them and heal them instead of pretending they don’t exist. The guns and uniforms around them are now their own.

And the drones, too. It was announced earlier today that the terrorist who kidnapped Naama Levy, one of the hostages released this past weekend, had been killed in a targeted IDF strike four months ago. This information had been kept under wraps until Levy was free, for her own safety.

Future hostage releases will probably look different from what we saw today. They will seem humane. Let us not forget that such humanity had to be demanded.

Hostages Arbel Yehud, Agam Berger and Gadi Mozes free after 482 days

Three Israelis and five Thais were redeemed from terrorist captivity in the Gaza Strip on Thursday as part of Hamas’s truce with Jerusalem, 482 days after they were taken captive during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

Israeli civilians Arbel Yehud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80, were handed over by Hamas to representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday afternoon in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

Mozes was taken from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz alongside his wife, Margalit, who was one of the first captives released in the 2023 truce.

The five released Thais—all foreign workers who were taken hostage during the Oct. 7 cross-border assault—were named by the Israel Defense Forces as Thaenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakhan, Sriaoun Watchara, Saethao Bannawat and Rumnao Surasak.

“According to information provided by the Red Cross, seven hostages, including an Israeli male and female hostage and five foreign nationals, were handed over to it and are making their way to the IDF and [Israel Security Agency] forces in the Gaza Strip,” the military confirmed.

The army subsequently confirmed that the seven returnees have “now crossed the border into Israeli territory with IDF and ISA forces.”

Leftists Hoping Barriers To Kahanist Candidates Better Than Barriers With Gaza (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Leftists Hoping Barriers To Kahanist Candidates Better Than Barriers With Gaza

Tel Aviv, January 30 - Voters and politicians concerned about the sharp rise in popularity since October 7, 2023 for the policies and rhetoric of a party banned in the 1980's over its advocacy of transferring hostile Arabs out of areas that threaten Israeli communities continued to express their anxieties this week regarding the robustness of the protective measures intended to maintain that ban, given the failures before and on October 7 of other protective measures intended to keep murderous Palestinians out of Israel - failures that led directly to the surging popularity of that banned party's positions.

The Central Elections Committee barred Rabbi Meir Kahane's "Kach" Party from 1988 parliamentary elections over the group's racism. Though Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990, his followers continued to advocate for removal of Arabs - on either side of the 1949 Armistice Lines - who refuse to accept Israel. Some followers resorted to violence, resulting in a legal ban on the existence of their groups in the 1990's. However, now that the State's defense mechanisms proved inadequate to keep 6,000 Gaza Palestinians from invading southern Israel on Simḥat Torah 2023 on a murder, rape, pillage, torture, looting, vandalism, and kidnapping spree that left 1200 dead, political opponents of Kahane's spiritual heirs worry that the State's defenses against Kahanist parties will prove similarly inadequate, and that would be even worse.

"We must avert unprecedented disaster, but I can only hope the protective measures are robust enough," acknowledged MK Yair Golan of The Democrats Party. "We all trusted the measures we had in place on October 7, though. And look what happened."

"It's not even like it as a bunch of right-wingers or settlers who got killed or hurt," he continued. "That would be bad, yes, mainly because it would generate sympathy for them among voters, but not as bad as it in fact turned out to be: the victims were mainly people who would vote for me and my political allies! Those are precious few, and we can't afford to lose any and fall below the electoral threshold again. Especially since the right-wingers outbreed us by a significant margin. But if the anti-Kahane safeguards fail as well? We're in for REAL trouble."

His colleague Meirav Michaeli elaborated. "We can tolerate when right-wing Jews get harmed, because they deserve it," she explained. "But if Arabs have to suffer? Inconceivable. What is the Jewish State for, if not to sacrifice Jewish lives for Arab security?"

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NYT says universities already curb antisemitism, so no need for more safeguards for Jews on campus. Jewish students disagree, but who cares what they think?

Here is the original headline in a New York Times article today (since changed):

The headline's implication is that there is no need for an executive order protecting Jews on campus, since universities already did the work.

Problem solved!

The headline now reads, "Trump Order Pushes Universities to ‘Monitor’ Protesters on Student Visas," someone must have noticed that the headline downplayed Jew-hatred on campus. Or maybe the New York Times realized that this headline did not work too well with another story that came out today.

The ADL and Hillel International released a survey today of college students that found:

* 83.2% of Jewish college students surveyed have experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism since the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.

*More than a quarter (27.3%) of Jewish students surveyed said they had observed antisemitic activity by faculty.

* 66.2% of Jewish and 60.1% of non-Jewish student were not confident in their university’s ability to prevent antisemitic incidents.

* Less than half (49.6%) of Jewish students reported feeling “very” or “extremely” comfortable with others on campus knowing their Jewish identity and only 26.7% felt comfortable with others on campus knowing their views of Israel.

* An overwhelming majority of students (92.5%) who had reported witnessing or experiencing an incident of antisemitism on campus did not report the incident to campus authorities.

Even worse, Jews report that other students try to gaslight and "goysplain" them by saying that what they are experiencing isn't antisemitism.

[N]early a third (32%) of Jewish students surveyed said that they had been told by non-Jews what is or is not antisemitism. Nearly half (49.5%) of non-Jewish students surveyed at least somewhat agreed with the idea that Jews weaponize antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel, while a similar proportion (44.2%) at agreed with the statement that Israelis intend to cause as much suffering to Palestinians as possible. Endorsement of such statements was associated with statistically significant decreases in perceived anti-Jewish hostility on campus, underscoring the point that higher levels of antisemitic attitudes on campus perpetuate a gaslighting effect wherein the problem of anti-Jewish prejudice on campus is consistently minimized.

Is this what Jewish privilege looks like?

Is this what the New York Times thinks is an adequate response to campus antisemitism?

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The Media's Post-Gaza-War Propaganda Campaign Against Israel Is Already Under Way (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

The cease-fire is holding, Israeli hostages are being exchanged for Palestinian terrorists, and the stage is being set for further Israeli compromises.

What could go wrong?

Typical of the media agenda leading up to the cease-fire is the sloppy media narrative as per The Washington Post:

The conflict started when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others hostage. The Israeli military responded with a brutal campaign that destroyed much of Gaza and killed at least 47,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.

...in which:

o  Hamas terrorists are described as "Hamas-led fighters
o  The massacre is described merely as an attack, with no modifier
o While the Israeli retaliation is described with an added adjective as a brutal campaign
o  At least 47,000 were killed -- despite analyses that dispute that number
o  The Gaza Health Ministry is quoted, without mentioning it is controlled by Hamas
o  The claim that the majority of those dead are "women and children" without mentioning contrary views
o  No mention of what age range defines "children"
o  No mention of the Hamas rockets landing in Gaza or how many Gazans killed by those rockets

Now, the media is framing the appropriate cease-fire narrative for their audiences. All this time, the media has carefully eschewed labeling Hamas as terrorists. This is hardly the time to describe the agreement as swapping of hostages for terrorists. Instead, we have descriptions along the lines of The New York Times:

Mere "prisoners"?

In the second paragraph, they clarify:

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, crowds of Palestinians held aloft the returning prisoners, many of whom had been jailed for deadly militant attacks against Israelis

Give The New York Times credit for at least admitting that the attacks were deadly. But many of them were guilty of "deadly attacks"?

Honest Reporting points out that actually the vast majority of the first batch of "prisoners" -- 83% -- were guilty of violent and deadly offenses.

But the New York Times "admission" of deadly attacks does not stop them from gushing:

"One of the largest prisoner exchanges" -- a prime example of New York Times evenhandedness, equating hostages with terrorists, "some" of whom are serving life sentences, without any specifics as to why.

Speaking about that exchange, it is noteworthy that Hamas violated the agreement during the second exchange. As The Washington Post noted:

Israel said Saturday that Hamas had violated the deal, which required it to release all living civilian women first. Israel had expected that Arbel Yehud, a 29-year-old civilian who was abducted with her boyfriend from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, would be among those in the Saturday release. [the article is reposted on msn.com]

JNS therefore duly noted that Israel took measures to ensure that Hamas would follow through by releasing Israeli hostage Arbel Yehud as agreed:

But CNN's sloppily constructed headline could not be bothered with the facts:

The headline paints Israel in the worst possible light. It is not until the eighth paragraph that CNN deigns to inform us:

Israel has been pushing for the release of Arbel Yehud, 29, who was kidnapped from her home in kibbutz Nir Oz. Israel says she is a civilian and should have been released Saturday.

Not only does CNN bury this important detail, but they also make it seem that Israel is inconveniencing the hapless Hamas terrorist leaders by "pushing" for the release.

In case you are wondering just how many cease-fire violations is Hamas guilty of violating...

According to Haaretz, Hamas is guilty of 3 violations:

The first, current phase of the deal was intended to be the simplest of the deal's proposed three phases. Both Hamas and Israel are thought to be committed to the so-called humanitarian part of the phase, but obstacles thrown up by both sides have threatened to stop the deal before it even began.

Hamas failed to submit to Israel the names of the hostages to be released in time, didn't release the civilian hostage Arbel Yehoud as promised and delayed issuing the list specifying which of the hostages designated for release are still alive. Israel, for its part, delayed allowing displaced residents of northern Gaza to return to their homes in response.

The 3 Hamas violations are:

o Failing to submit to Israel the names of the hostages to be released in time
o Not releasing the civilian hostage Arbel Yehoud as promised
o Delaying issuing the list specifying which of the hostages designated for release are still alive

But wait! Israel also placed an obstacle preventing the smooth proceeding of the cease-fire. According to Haaretz, Israel put an obstacle in the way of the cease-fire by insisting on the release of a kidnapped hostage as per the agreement.

In their haste to be "fair" and find something to pin on Israel, Haaretz claims that "obstacles thrown up by both sides have threatened to stop the deal before it even began," But the one "obstacle" by Israel clearly happened after the cease-fire began.

Now the campaign to erase Hamas responsibility for the war begins, as CNN tells us that this is not Hamas's war at all:

After 16 months of war, we were inundated by the media agenda to reframe the Hamas massacre itself and the war that Israel had to wage to protect itself.

Now, we should prepare for the media's coverup of the cease-fire as well.

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Today there are lots of articles in the press about how awful it is that Israel has banned UNRWA from operating on its territory, because of its history of pro-terrorist activities and its own employees participating in and celebrating October 7.

The articles complain how UNRWA is essential to getting aid to Gaza, as the other UN organizations in the area (WHO, WFP, UNOPS) are deemed inadequate.

If we take that assumption at face value, then why can't UNRWA operate out of Egypt? You know, the Arab country bordering Gaza?

UNRWA has an interesting and mostly unknown history in Egypt. When UNRWA was established, it attempted to have a presence not only in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria but also in Egypt, Libya and Iraq, as potential places for Palestinian refugees to go.

Egypt cooperated with UNRWA, but didn't allow it to work in Egypt proper. It insisted that all Palestinian refugees to move to Gaza, then under Egyptian control. Within Egypt proper, it gave no residential rights to Palestinians. (Over the years, this support varied; Nasser allowed Palestinians to attend Egyptian universities, for example, but these rights were given and taken away periodically over the years, and have steadily decreased.)

The reasons given are familiar: Egypt pretended to do this for the Palestinians' own sake, so as not to compromise their "right of return." But in fact, this gave Palestinians in Egypt a protection gap - Egypt does not allow UNRWA to operate on its territory but also did not recognize the Palestinians as refugees eligible for UNHCR protection. Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Egypt who did not move to Gaza were left to fend for themselves without access to education, medicine or any government services.

In 1965, the Arab League signed the Casablanca protocol where they promised to give residential rights to Palestinians. Egypt was one of the countries that ignored this agreement that it signed.

The protection gap for Palestinians and only Palestinians exists today in Egypt with the tens of thousands of Gazans who managed to escape in the first months of the war by paying large bribes to Egyptian officials. As their six month visas have expired, they have no recourse for protection - and a large reason for this is because Egypt does not allow UNRWA to operate on its territory.

Israel actually dismissed UNRWA once before, in 1952, when it said that UNRWA was not needed to support refugees from the war who were fully Israeli citizens and eligible for normal Israeli social benefits. The contrast with Egypt couldn't be clearer.

The offices that Israel is closing today are in east Jerusalem that they inherited in 1967. These are just offices; if Egypt would allow, UNRWA could relocate by renting office space in Cairo or El Arish and coordinate all aid to Gaza from there.

But Egypt does not allow that. And no reporters seem to be curious as to why that is.

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