Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 30, 2021

12/30 Links Pt2: Remembering the Heroes; The Passion of the Antisemites; Damning new evidence undermines BBC’s Oxford Street racist slur claim; Israel approaches 9.5 million residents on eve of 2022

From Ian:

Keep calm and call someone, it’s urgent

When the BBC – one of the world’s most revered and esteemed news institutions – insists that something is so and stands by it so rigidly despite massive outcry, it can make anyone doubt themselves. There’s gaslighting and then there’s industrial-scale gaslighting of the kind that has a half a billion audience numbers, multi-billion-pound revenue and 22,000+ staff and the cultural cache of, well, being the BBC.

Despite this, members of our humble complement of staff and Honorary Officers who didn’t speak Hebrew, nevertheless put their trust in me. We published a video where I re-enact the utterance of the Hebrew phrase to make it clear to people what they are hearing and how well it fits precisely in line with the more distorted phrase from the viral footage. Many of those who had doubts said to us they were now more convinced that it was indeed Hebrew. Those who do speak Hebrew got it immediately. There was still nothing but the sound of crickets from the BBC.

We then published our open letter to the BBC top brass even copying in Department of Culture, Media and Sport Minister Nadine Dorries – not something we do lightly. The crickets were now chirping so loudly they should have a slot at The Proms. We eventually received a formal acknowledgement but then weeks went by before we received the same canned response that hundreds of other complainants will eventually have received as well. The Beeb was not backing down and the crickets were being booked for Jools Holland’s Hootenanny. While other communal organisations and leaders were raising their own complaints, we knew that we needed to escalate.

For the next step to be taken, we knew we would need something more authoritative than “trust us, we asked some Hebrews”. We also knew that it was imperative to get the absolute best quality source footage we could. Our friends at the Jewish Chronicle helped us get in contact with the person who took the footage on the bus. They were distraught by the way the BBC was reporting the story and were happy to help. After various technical and Covid hurdles we were able to secure direct access to the original file.

To verify the authenticity, we did so with the help of OSINT specialists at DigFind. We commissioned them to authenticate the file extraction, preserve the metadata, and verify that there was no tampering with the footage. The team at DigFind also brought in specialist support from D3 Forensics – experts in digital forensics who could clean up the audio, isolate the disputed segment, apply the necessary filters to make it as clear and audible as possible and together with DigFind analyse what they can hear in the audio. DigFind/D3 Forensics were commissioned with no prejudice as to any desired outcome other than to ascertain the truth. And they found it. The truth was that the BBC accused a Jewish man calling out for help in Hebrew of instead uttering a racist remark.

Damning new evidence undermines BBC’s Oxford Street racist slur claim

THE JC can reveal damning new evidence which appears to undermine the BBC’s claim that an anti-Muslim slur was uttered by a victim of the antisemitic Chanukah bus attack on Oxford Street.

The Charedi students whose panicked voices can be heard in a video clip of the attack have categorically rejected the BBC’s allegation that they used any racist phrase whatsoever.

And a dossier of exhaustive analysis by forensic audio experts and a distinguished, independent linguist, commissioned by the Board of Deputies, appears to confirm their testimony.

The revelations heap further pressure on the BBC to justify its claims to the Jewish youngsters. So far it has refused to apologise, causing outrage.

Rabbi Schneur Glitzenshtein, who organised the bus trip, told the JC that he had personally spoken to those whose voices are heard in the video. “All they were doing was trying to protect each other,” he said. “That insult did not happen.”

Separately, the Board of Deputies commissioned digital experts DigFind and D3 Forensics, who used audio technology to slow down and clean up the recording so that each syllable of the phrase in dispute could be heard.

Professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann, Chair of Linguistics and Endangered Languages as the University of Adelaide inSouth Australia, one of the most senior experts in his field, then studied the tape.

The Professor, who is fluent in 13 languages, including Hebrew, and is a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, established that the “slur” was actually a Hebrew phrase, “Tikrah lemishu,ze dachuf” meaning: “Call someone, it is urgent.”

Independent Reports commissioned by Board of Deputies conclusively prove BBC error in antisemitic incident story

In a piece for this week’s Jewish Chronicle, Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl has described the BBC’s “misreporting” as “a colossal error”, which “has added insult to injury in accusing victims of antisemitism of being guilty of bigotry themselves…But what takes this from an egregious failure to something far more sinister is the BBC’s behaviour when confronted with its mistake. Instead of admitting it was wrong, it has doubled and tripled down.” The President also states that the corporation’s behaviour “raises serious questions about deep-seated biases within the BBC towards Israelis, and indeed towards Jews in general.”

In her article, the President also notes that “it should not have been left to us, a Jewish communal organisation, to commission an independent report to prove this point. The BBC should have done this itself, rather than apparently conducting an internal investigation and finding no wrongdoing. To us, this apparent attempt to mark its own homework is reminiscent of the behavioural pattern the corporation has displayed amidst past scandals. Once again, instead of approaching a potential error with an open mind, its default response appears to be to circle the wagons and deny everything. This is clearly a calamitous approach to retaining the public’s trust.” She has called for the BBC at the very least to apologise publicly to the victims of the Oxford Street attack, and has referred to a meeting the Board of Deputies will be holding with the BBC Director General and other Senior Executives in January, which will include “a full and frank discussion of this issue.”

Further information on the Board of Deputies’ process for conclusively proving the BBC’s inaccuracy can be found in this article written by the Board of Deputies’ Digital Communications Officer, Adam Ma’anit.

Independent Reports commissioned by BoD conclusively prove BBC error in antisemitic incident story

From Iran's Tasnim news agency:

The spokesperson for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the Zionist regime and the global arrogance have been terrified by the power of the axis of resistance.
The process of downfall of the Zionist regime has reached its most intense part over the past 70 years, General Ramezan Sharif said at a cultural meeting on Tuesday.

He said the global arrogance and the Zionists have become so frightened of the power of resistance axis that they assassinated senior Iranian commander Lt. General Qassem Soleimani.

The spokesman also noted that the blood of martyrs and the resistance of people have frustrated the Zionists and the enemies of Islam.

From looking at recent Iranian headline, it sure looks like they are the ones who are terrified. Not of a war - but of Israeli normalization with Arab countries:

PressTV: "Report: Jewish-American group visits Saudi Arabia to advance Israeli normalization"

Tasnim: "Iran Urges OIC’s Action against Normalization of Israel Ties"

IQNA: "Experts Discuss Reasons behind Normalization with Zionist Regime"

Mehr: "Iran envoy warns of danger of ties normalizing with Zionists"

ABNA: "Normalization into effect: First Zionist ambassador to Bahrain hands King Hamad credentials"

They had more coverage of the last story than Israeli media did.

Israel's Muslim enemies could always count on the unity of the 'umma in opposing Israel. That was their main source of power. That has fallen apart, and this is truly frightening Iran.

Couple Feeling Pressure To Have Same Loud, Shallow Wedding As Everyone Else (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

party Hod HaSharon, December 30 - A woman and her fiancé acknowledged this afternoon that while the two of them much prefer an intimate, wholesome celebration to accompany their upcoming nuptials, their social circle and the industry surrounding the production of their affair have aroused a sense of shame in failing to throw the gaudiest affair they can afford and then some, lest anyone get the wrongheaded idea that the event marks the start of a bedrock institution of any stable society and family instead of merely an excuse to get drunk and grope the waitstaff.

Shenhav Katz, 28, and Lior Zakenn, 30, confessed their misgivings Thursday about the wedding they plan for this coming March. The couple announced their engagement over the summer and set about making arrangements, discovering along the way that they shared a simple sensibility in celebratory occasions: small family gatherings in someone's home, rather than lavish catered affairs. Knowing that a wedding calls for more elaborate fare and a wider circle of invitees, Katz and Zakenn agreed on a wedding hall in this Tel Aviv suburb, while establishing that they intend to keep the music, boozing, and consequent shenanigans to a minimum. Disappointed, even horrified, reactions from relatives and friends in the meantime, however, have given the couple pause.

"'You mean you're not going to wear the flashiest, sexiest, most expensive gown?!' I swear, that was the first response I got," recalled Katz, who plans to wear a conservative, heirloom dress that once belonged to a beloved great-great aunt, a Holocaust survivor. "It's almost as if people think this is about partying down, which of course is an important element, but that there's no more than token space for tradition, commitment, or basic dignity."

"My friends' first reaction was to ask about the bachelor party," added Zakenn. "Where did they get that from? I've never been the boozing type, and when I do go to parties I'm all about the food and the conversation. Shenhav and I met through volunteer work in the community. I know my various friends' weddings were... festive, I guess you'd call it, but that's not my thing. But now they've given us this sense that unless we do as they did, blowing tens of thousands of shekels on a big-name DJ, flowing alcohol, kitschy party favors, an interminable slide show that everyone secretly hates, and a million other superficial things, we've deprived ourselves, or them, or something, and we're not really married? I have no idea what's happened here."

12/30 Links Pt1: Mansour Abbas crossed the Rubicon, more need to follow; The Beginning of the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict?; UN inquiry comes with new independent façade, same anti-Israel bias

From Ian:

Mansour Abbas crossed the Rubicon, more need to follow

This conflict will not end until the rejectionists accept defeat and recognize the legitimacy and permanency of the Jewish State. Let’s not forget that this is the same Abbas who once said: “Since 1948, when all of the land of Palestine was occupied by the Zionist movement gangs, and this state was established, our people have been expelled from our land.”

However, this Abbas is no more because he has accepted that this worldview will not be victorious. It has been defeated.

Mansour Abbas has demonstrated that this can be achieved in a peaceful manner in a way that benefits both the Israeli Arab community and wider Israeli society.

Nevertheless, for the process that Abbas mentions to succeed and win the battle for hearts and minds in the Arab community against those like Salah, Israeli society, especially its leaders, have to embrace it. They have to show that there is a significant carrot for those who follow Abbas and reject Salah.

The defeat of Salah, and those who have slammed Abbas, like senior Palestinian Authority officials, is not just a victory for the Ra’am leader and his followers, but for all of Israel.

Hopefully, Mansour Abbas represents a large public, and support for him grows. There is no doubt that as this public grows, so will the rejectionism by the forces that oppose recognition and cooperation.

At the same time as embracing Abbas, Israeli leaders should increase the pressure on his and our opponents. There has to be a clear message to rejectionists that it will not be rewarded. Those like Raed Salah should be sitting in jail for more than a year and five months for incitement to violence. Inciting Palestinian leaders should not receive gifts in the form of the construction of 1,000 housing units in Area C of Judea and Samaria, and financial assistance.

Abbas has shown through act and deed that, as far as he is concerned, the conflict is over, the Jewish State will be preserved. We must understand the path that Abbas has taken, and ensure that more Arabs, on both sides of the Green Line, understand that the conflict is over and violent rejectionism will be defeated. This will then be a win for all.

INSS: The Beginning of the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict?

In its familiar format, the Arab-Israeli conflict is fading away and we are now witnessing the beginning of the end. This is not the dream of peace that was promised by the Oslo process. It is possible that the threats to Israel have actually increased because of the actions of Iran. It certainly does not signal the end of the conflict with the Palestinians.

What is new is Israel's success in breaking the pan-Arab front against it, and in convincing the majority of the Arab countries to effectively acknowledge in their policy that a strong Israel is an essential condition for their survival. Violence and instability in the region remain as they were, but the axis of struggle is not between Israel and "the Arabs"; it is between an Arab-Israeli coalition, on the one hand, and Iran's Islamic Revolution and Erdogan's Turkey, on the other.

Most of the Arab states are unwilling to go to war against Israel, contribute concrete and significant national assets to the struggle against it, or refrain from cooperation with Israel on matters of importance to them. These positive trends depend predominantly on the image of Israel's power in the Arab environment.

UN inquiry comes with new independent façade, same anti-Israel bias

The notorious United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, also known as the Goldstone Report, accused both the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian terrorists of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in the Gaza War of 2008-09. Only two years later did the report’s namesake, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, publicly retract the report’s accusations that it was Israeli government policy to deliberately target citizens. The damage had been done, though.

Then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in early 2010 of a “Goldstone effect,” ranking it alongside Iran’s nuclear program and the rocket arsenals of Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorists among the three main threats facing Israel, due to the headlines it generated and its use in public discourse.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Mission to the U.N. in Geneva confirmed to JNS that Israel will not cooperate or collaborate with the new commission.

According to the spokesperson, the commission’s first report will be submitted to UNHRC in June, before a summary is turned over to the U.N. General Assembly next December. While neither the UNHRC nor the General Assembly can produce a binding resolution with the force of law, the General Assembly could make recommendations that would require another body, such as the U.N. Security Council or, more critically, the International Criminal Court, to act.

But, unlike other U.N. Commissions of Inquiry, this one won’t end after six or nine months or even a year. It is set to carry on in perpetuity.

“The Inquisition lasted hundreds of years. This inquiry might, as well,” said Neuer.

Once Again, the UN Treats Israel Like the Most Evil Country on Earth

While tens of millions of poor souls are dying and starving under brutal regimes in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Congo and Somalia, among others, the UN decided last Thursday that only one country merits an open-ended investigation - Israel. What did the world's only Jewish state do this time? Last May, Israel decided it didn't want to see thousands of its citizens - Jews and non-Jews alike - perish at the hands of Hamas terror rockets. Israel's defense of its people triggered the UN's Human Rights Council, which voted to investigate Israel for possible "war crimes."

The way the UN treats Israel significantly worse than the most murderous and evil regimes on earth is itself a crime. Not only does it undermine the UN's credibility, it adds fuel to Jew-haters everywhere.

A video surfaced this week showing a group of Belgian Beerschot football supporters singing anti-Jewish slogans such as 'Sieg Heil. Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas."

The Antwerp police have launched an investigation into the video, Het Nieuwsblad reports .

The chants were done before a game between Beerschot and Anderlecht on Monday. Anderlecht is considered to be a "Jewish" team by soccer hooligans.

Fittingly, Anderlecht won the game, 7-0. Their Israeli starter Lior Refaelov scored one of the goals.

Beerschot has the worst record in their league.

Which just goes to prove, antisemites tend to be losers.

Here's the video.

How not to treat an enemy (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

How Not to Treat an Enemy

News item:

Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Wednesday that Israel would implement a series of measures intended to prop up the indebted Palestinian Authority and ease Palestinians’ daily life. …

Israel will provide the PA with a NIS 100 million loan ($32.2 million) on tax revenues Israel collects on Ramallah’s behalf, in an attempt to reduce the PA’s spiraling deficit. Ramallah, the PA’s seat of government, has seen dwindling foreign aid for years, and almost none from its biggest backers in 2021. …

According to another Israel official, Gantz told Abbas that a series of economic measures are being weighed, including lowering fees for purchasing fuel and a pilot program to allow shipping containers to enter the West Bank from Jordan via Allenby Bridge.

Such steps “would likely add hundreds of millions of shekels to the Palestinian Authority on an annual basis,” said Gantz, according to the official. …

Gantz and Abbas, in their Tuesday meeting, also discussed legalizing more Palestinian construction in the West Bank.

As you probably know, the Knesset passed a law in 2018 that requires Israel to deduct a sum equivalent to the amount that the PA pays to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons and to the families of “martyrs” from tax revenues collected on behalf of the PA. This loan and an even larger one (500 million NIS) given to the PA in August partially neutralizes the law. It’s hard to see how Israel can complain about the Biden Administration circumventing its own law against the PA’s “pay to slay” program, when her government does the same thing.

The article I’ve quoted from above does not mention anything that the PA will do for Israel in return. Will they end “pay for slay?” If they had wanted to, they could have done so long ago and would not need to accept “loans” (which I am prepared to eat my hat if they repay). But the leaders of the PA, from Mahmoud Abbas on down, have consistently said that if there is only one penny left in their treasury, it will go to the prisoners.

What about incitement of terrorism? The PA actually committed to end incitement, back in the days of Yasser Arafat. Of course, as you probably know, they never did this, continuing to honor terrorists in their schools and media, and to name sporting events after them. PA officials claim regularly that Israel is planning to destroy or defile the al-Aqsa mosque, creating riots and inspiring terrorism. Incitement continued after the 500 million shekel “loan” in August, and there is no indication that it will stop now.

Improving the daily life of the Palestinians by fattening the PA is a joke, as any resident of the PA will tell you. The last thing they do with their resources is to help their citizens (except for a few “connected” ones).

So why is Israel giving cash and other concessions to the PA? The stated reason is that it is necessary to strengthen the PA; if it collapses, the territories are expected to fall into the hands of Hamas, which would turn it into a launching platform for rockets next door to Tel Aviv.

One might think that the best solution to that problem would be to weaken Hamas, rather than strengthening the PA. But our government is also concerned about protecting Hamas, which, if it collapsed, might be replaced by worse organizations, like Palestinian Islamic Jihad or even ISIS. So Israel permits the introduction of millions of dollars from Qatar in order to prop up Hamas.

There is something very wrong here. The PA and Hamas tell us in no uncertain terms that they want us to disappear. They do so in language as bad or worse than that of the Nazis. And they try to kill our citizens, with rockets and knives and bullets. Our response is to try to restrain them from killing us (doing the least collateral damage possible), and pay them. Has this ever been the way a nation successfully defended itself against its enemies?

This is also the way we deal with Hezbollah. Yes, we attack shipments of advanced weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria; but some get through on the ground, by air, and by sea. Little by little Hezbollah builds up its deterrent against us.

I am naïve, I am told. I don’t understand the realities of the complex situation. We need to gain time so that we can deal with Iran. The US and Europe will punish us if we act aggressively. The status quo, in which we buy a small, manageable amount of terrorism, is actually the best situation we can hope for. And so on.

We are giving in to extortion: from the PA and Hamas, but also from the anti-Israel regimes in the US and Europe. We are taking the easy course, which results in a slow degredation of our strategic position, against Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran. Our defensive, protective, strategy, which includes antimissile systems, physical barriers, interdiction of weapons shipments, as well as payments to our local enemies, is a strategy for buying time and avoiding confrontation. But it does not permanently weaken our enemies; indeed, it preserves them.

Are we waiting for some external event to come along and reverse the decline of our strategic position? Maybe a revolution in Iran? I wouldn’t hold my breath. A miracle is always welcome, but counting on one is a poor strategy. If things continue as they are now, a point will be reached when our enemies feel that they are in a position to prevail, and at that point will trigger open conflict. This was the essence of the plan described by Yasser Arafat in 1974, and it has only changed in detail since then.

There is also the psychological damage from this policy. For example, what is the message sent to the PA, when we pay them for quiet and they return antisemitic incitement against us? Does it not justify their behavior, in their minds and in the minds of their supporters around the world? The propaganda campaigns paint us as oppressors, land thieves, people who don’t belong here. Payments are construed as compensation, reparations to our victims.

A better strategy is an aggressive policy to weaken and destroy our enemies, one at a time if possible. It would be much more convenient to deal with Hezbollah if we didn’t have to worry about Hamas opening a second front; and similarly with the PA. And it goes without saying that Iran depends on Hezbollah to deter us from striking their nuclear project.

So why are we trying to avoid conflict with all of them? And why are we strengthening them?

I just found this 1936 book, The Yellow Spot, which documents in detail the beginnings of Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany, with lots of photos and facsimiles from Nazi media.

The terror in reading this book is in the knowledge that the horrific facts recounted here in mind-numbing detail - the pogroms, the arrests, the anti-Jewish laws, the ordinary Germans enthusiastically joining the hate - were only the opening act to what was to come. All of the events in this book occurred from 1933-35, more than three years prior to Kristallnacht.

The echoes to today's modern antisemitism are striking.

Just like BDS, the Nazi media had their own "cancel culture," taking photos of Germans - especially women - shopping in Jewish-owned stores and publishing them to shame them.

The German call to boycott Jewish businesses sounds a lot like the "BDS call" to boycott Israel:

We ask you, German men and women, to fall in with this boycott. Do not buy in Jewish shops and department stores ! Do not go to Jewish lawyers ! Avoid Jewish physicians ! Show the Jews that they cannot drag Germany’s honour into the mire without being punished for it ! Whoever does not comply with this demand proves himself thereby on the side of Germany’s enemies !

There are hundreds of examples of official and semi-official antisemitism. Just like the UN today says that everything Israel does is a war crime, the trade journal of the National Socialist hairdressers wrote: “A German hairdresser who enjoys ridding Jews of their bristles commits a crime against the community.”

Like the Arabs who find Jews acting like normal people are being "provocative" and saying that their attacks on Jews are the Jews' fault, we see Goebbels in 1934 saying that Jews who aren't "provocative" won't be hurt but those who insist on acting like German citizens will be justifiably attacked:

We have been very lenient with the Jews. But if they think that therefore they can still be allowed on German stages, offering art to the German people; if they think that they can still sneak into editorial offices, writing for German newspapers ; if they still strut across the Kurfiirstendamm as though nothing had happened, they might take these words as a final warning. Jewry can rest assured that we will leave them alone as long as they retire quietly and modestly behind their four walls, as long as they are not provocative, and do not affront the German people with the claim to be treated as equals. If the Jews do not listen to this warning, they will have themselves to blame for anything that happens to them.

The Nazis' propaganda wasn't only against Jews, but against "Judah"as a nation. Again, the parallels between them and the anti-Israel propaganda in Arab media are obvious.

Judah has striven to harm the German people but has given it a blessing. On Saturday, 1st April, at 10 a.m., there begins the German people’s defence against the universal criminal, the Jew. There starts a fight such as has never been dared before throughout all the centuries. Judah has asked for the fight, it shall have it ! It shall have it until it recognises that the Germany of the Brown battalions is no Germany of cowardice and surrender. Judah shall have the fight until the victory is ours! (Volkischer Beobachter, March 31, 1933)

Iranian media sounds exactly like this today.

The parallels to today's antisemitism continue. Compare this photo from Der Sturmer in 1934 to Roger Waters' inflatable pig in concert:

Compare the Nazi mistranslations of the Talmud with that of celebrated poet Alice Walker:

Der Sturmer:

This Jew (his name and address follow) belongs to the alien race that believes itself able to carry on its race defilement with impunity just as before. He is acting according to the Talmudic principles of his race. Jewesses are too good for his vileness. Accordingly he runs after non-Jewesses. Non-Jewesses are, according to the Talmud, to be regarded as cattle ; the Jew can, therefore, defile and ruin them with an easy conscience...“ A non-Jewish girl may be defiled as soon as she is three years and one day old.”

Alice Walker, in her poem, "It Is Our (Frightful) Duty To Study The Talmud:"

Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews, and not only

That, but to enjoy it?

Are three year old (and a day) girls eligible for marriage and intercourse?

Are young boys fair game for rape?

Must even the best of the Goyim (us, again) be killed?

Pause a moment and think what this could mean

Or already has meant

In our own lifetime.

You may find that as the cattle

We have begun to feel we are

We have an ancient history of oppression

Of which most of us have not been even vaguely

Aware. You will find that we, Goyim, sub-humans, animals

-The Palestinians of Gaza

The most obvious representatives of us

At the present time – are a cruel example of what may be done

With impunity, and without conscience,

By a Chosen people,

To the vast majority of the people

On the planet

Who were not Chosen.

Antisemitic poems in Der Sturmer sound a lot like the hypnotizing anti-Israel "from the river to the sea" rhymes we hear at anti-Israel rallies:

Jewish hands are red with Christian gore,

We demand Jewish blood and more !

The people hope one day to see a time

When shooting the last Jew will be no crime !

The Nazis carefully prepared things so that Jews literally cannot defend themselves. And that is exactly what the modern antisemites are doing with Israel, accusing it of false war crimes and false apartheid, changing international law itself to put the Jewish state in a corner, twisting anything Israeli Jews to be immoral or to be covering up for immorality, setting up UN commissions whose only purpose is to justify the eventual ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East and to call it a moral imperative. They know Jews can defend themselves militarily now, so they are using other means to try to destroy it, but the goal is the same.

Both the Nazis in this book and the modern antisemites are preparing the world to celebrate a future genocide.

Here is the entire book. It is the most frightening thing you will read this year.

A few weeks ago, the Washington Free Beacon published the dossier that Israel allegedly shared with the EU and US as proof that the six "civil society organizations" Israel banned were terror groups.

According to reports, the dossier didn't impress the EU countries, and they are not going to stop working with the six groups.

The groups are Al-Haq, Addameer, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Union of Palestinian Women Committees, and the Bisan Center for Research and Development.

The main evidence in the dossier are the testimonies of Said Abedat and Amru Hamudeh, both of whom worked for another PFLP-linked NGO, the Union of Health Committees. Their evidence about the six NGOs is often secondhand and hearsay, although they identified some PFLP members in the six groups.

EU officials responded by saying that the six NGOs had their books audited by major accounting firms and that Israel's evidence was not strong enough.

I can understand how the other governments would not be convinced by the dossier that the NGOs are fronts for terror, or that they direct funds to terror activities. For those accusations, the evidence that has gone public is not that strong.

But the actual links to the PFLP from these groups is undeniable.

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees, as well as the previously banned Union of Health Committees, were all founded by the PFLP. A 1993 report written for USAID says this explicitly:

As the second largest faction of the PLO, but with perhaps the most disciplined and energetic membership, the PFLP has built a potent institutional foundation throughout the West Bank and Gaza during the past decade. The strength of the PFLP's institutions is its capable, decentralized grassroots presence. Its principal institutions are in the fields of agriculture, health, labor, and the women's movement.

The PFLP's agricultural extension services are provided by the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), based in Bayt Hanina. The UAWC was founded in 1986, and expanded rapidly during the Intifada. ... During 1992 UAWC was involved in about 30 different projects in the West Bank and Gaza, including support for various cooperatives, the building of greenhouses for vegetable production, animal husbandry projects, and land reclamation services.

The PFLP's health care network is coordinated by the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC).....Of its 38 clinics some, like the Polyclinic in Bayt Sahur, are first rate facilities. Others are more makeshift operations. As a significant provider of health care during the Intifada, the UHWC has an extended network of supporters and volunteers throughout the West Bank. Of all the factionalized health care committees, the UHWC has the greatest presence in the Gaza Strip.

The PFLP's women's committee, the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees (UPWC), is perhaps the weakest of the three leftist women's unions, but is certainly more active than its Fatah counterpart.

So two of the six NGOs, plus a third that was previously banned, don't just have links to the PFLP - they were started by the PFLP terror group.

The links between the PFLP and the other NGOs are not much less compelling.

One of the founders of Addameer, Abdul-Latif Ghaith, is a PFLP operative. It's former vice chair, Khalida Jarrar, was the head of the PFLP in the West Bank.

NGO-Monitor lists many more PFLP members who have worked for Addameer.

Al-Haq's director, Shawan Jabarin, has represented the PFLP in public forums.

Nassar Ibrahim, a previous president of DCI-P, is the former editor of El Hadaf– the PFLP’s weekly publication. Many more employees at DCI-P have been linked to the PFLP.

Ubai Aboudi, Bisan’s Executive Director, also has links to the PFLP and in 2005 he "was part of a cell that “planned to perpetrate a terrorist attack at the IDF Armored Corps Museum at Latrun, using two suicide terrorists and a car bomb.”

Maybe there isn't enough public proof to find that these NGOs are funding terror directly, but the links between the groups are documented and can be independently verified based on voluminous information that NGO-Monitor has.

There is absolutely no doubt that these groups have ties to the PFLP terror group.

Also, given that at least some of these groups are considered to be "human rights" organizations, you will never find a statement by them that disagrees with the PFLP's political platform - which includes attacking and killing Jews. ("armed struggle.")

It's one thing to agree with Israel that these organizations are terrorist. But no one can seriously doubt that the organizations themselves are linked to the PFLP on multiple levels.

Can you imagine the EU funding an Al Qaeda hospital? An ISIS women's group? An Islamic Jihad charity? Even if their audits come out clean?

Of course not. If you deal with someone with links to a terror group, you are giving legitimacy to that terror group - even if the person or NGO has no direct ties to terror.

Why are these EU countries and major international human rights groups so anxious to support these terror linked groups?

Because the PFLP is a socialist organization! The Human Rights Watch/Amnesty/Oxfam crowd are all ideological brothers with the PFLP! I noted that HRW used to regard the PFLP as a terror group, but over the years HRW changed its opinion from a murderous terror group to a respected socialist political party..

This might be the reason that the backlash over this story has been so loud. The six Palestinian NGOs share the socialist values of the PFLP, some of the EU and most global NGOs. To much of the Left, they are the "good guys," and their terror history is ignored or - secretly celebrated.

12/29 Links Pt2: The Eternal Life of Blood Libels Against the Jews; In practice, ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ boils down to leftist dogma, including hatred of Israel

From Ian:

Phyllis Chesler: The Eternal Life of Blood Libels Against the Jews

Men fought and, for a variety of reasons, the Jews won. The numbers involved were small. There were, according to Tauber, "about 120 (Jewish) attackers and 70-80 (Arab) defenders. Arabs were "killed, not massacred." But they lost. The Arab village fought alone with no reinforcements and no support from neighboring Arab villages. Most of the Arabs who were killed in Deir Yassin were combatants, men of fighting age, not women, children, or the elderly as has been alleged.

However, the shame of losing was impossible for the Arabs to bear. What drove the Arabs out of Deir Yassin and almost everywhere else, was eerily similar to what many Arab/Palestinians do today. They embed themselves and their weapons among their women, children, and elderly. They surround themselves with vulnerable human shields, and then when Israel targets terrorist launching sites and infrastructure, claim that it viciously sought out women and children.

Such deceptiveness is true in Gaza in the 21st century.

But in April 1948, the Arab/Palestinians spread rumors of a terrible, truly ghastly massacre in Deir Yassin, one that never took place—and, they alleged, wildly, and falsely, that rapes had also taken place which, in Tauber's view is what led to the mass Arab exodus. Tauber writes:

"The impact of Deir Yassin went far beyond Jerusalem and the surrounding villages and spread all over Palestine, causing fear and driving people to leave. A woman from Safad related hearing of the rapes and killings in Deir Yassin. Another refugee woman attributed the flight from Haifa to the fear of what the Jews were going to do to women, as they heard that women and girls were raped in Deir Yassin and the bellies of pregnant women and girls were slashed."

Slashing pregnant bellies characterizes Christian pogroms and Muslim farhuds against Jews; it is not something that Jews have done.

However, in 1948, according to Tauber, Husayn Fakhri al-Khalidi, secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, insisted that "25 pregnant women, 50 breast feeding mothers and 60 other girls and women were slaughtered like sheep" in Deir Yassin. A native of the city "wrote to an acquaintance in Egypt that the Jews used axes in Tiberias and Deir Yassin to chop off hands and legs of men and children and did 'awful things' to women."

Once again, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, and Cossacks do this to Jews in pogroms and farhuds. Jews have not been known to do so.

In 1948, Israeli intelligence analyzed the causes for Palestinian flight and found that such false rumors and exaggerated beliefs were a "decisive accelerating factor" in the Arab exodus.

Israel did not exile the Arabs. Only Arab rumors, Big Lies, did. They provoked shame in a shame-and-honor culture and it worked.

Tauber's work has yet to be reviewed in all the venues that have welcomed the belief in this alleged massacre. Either his work on Deir Yassin will not be widely reviewed or it will be savaged. I hope that I'm wrong.

I am hardly a scholar in this area, but it seems to me that the myth of this alleged massacre may have functioned just as the 20th century Al-Dura myth has in our current century. The entire world wanted to believe that Israelis would purposely, wantonly, and viciously kill an Arab child, sheltering in his father's arms. It did not happen.

And yet, blood libels against the Jews never quit, they seem to live on forever.

Melanie Phillips: The airbrushed feet of clay Desmond Tutu did some great things. But he had a monstrous side too

All this is terrible and depressing. More terrible still, though, is the silence with which Tutu’s bigotry against the Jewish people has been received.

Despite its scale, it has simply been ignored by all who have continued to lionise Tutu as a moral beacon for the world. Dershowitz first assembled his forensic charge sheet against Tutu almost eleven years ago.

And yet, after his death CNN called him “the voice of justice;” the Associated Press said he was a “moral conscience;” the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “a towering global figure for peace and inspiration to generations across the world;” the Economist said he was “the best kind of troublemaker;” and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, called him “a healer and apostle of peace”.

Not one of these or any of the innumerable others whose similar tributes have poured forth in an unstoppable geyser of hero-worship uttered a single word about his antisemitism.

Maybe they just didn’t know? Maybe they did know but allowed his South African legacy to erase it from their minds as just too complicated and contradictory to process? Or maybe they think that Israel deserves what Tutu said about it and that the Jews really aren’t worth bothering about? That antisemitism is so marginal it just doesn’t matter — and the Jews should simply shut up about it?

Whatever the reason, this near-universal airbrushing of Tutu’s bigotry as he is all but canonised as a modern saint throws into the sharpest relief the devastating moral confusion of our era.

New York Times Seizes on Tutu Death to Push Israel-Apartheid Narrative

It’s not just the “critics” increasingly describing Israel as an apartheid state; it’s the Times itself. Back in 2020, when the paper started in with it, I wrote, “It’s unusual to see the “apartheidlike” accusation in the Times’ own voice in a news article.” I wrote then, “It shows how far the Times has traveled on the issue: Back in 2007, when former President Jimmy Carter published his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, a Times review justifiably faulted Carter for ‘the word ‘apartheid’ in the title, with its false echo of the racist policies of the old South Africa.’”

I wrote then that the Times’ own op-ed columnist, Bret Stephens, had written, “the comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa is unfair to the former and an insult to the victims of the latter.” Even the Times’ Nicholas Kristof, who has been sharply critical of Israel, wrote in May 2021, “Personally, I’m wary of the term apartheid because there are significant differences from ancien régime South Africa.”

But as the latest examples show, plenty of Times editors aren’t as wary as Kristof is about tossing the term about. In October 2021, a Times book review “in brief” column covering three books about Israel mentioned apartheid twice. And Peter Beinart pushed the Israel apartheid parallel in a July 2020 New York Times podcast and in a Times opinion article published that same month.

I can understand the temptation by Israel’s critics to argue the South African case rather than the Israeli case. South Africa was a clear-cut example of settler colonialist racism. Israel is different in many ways. While Israel could do better at integrating Arab citizens, there’s no legal discrimination of the sort there was in South Africa. Arabs serve in the Israeli parliament, attend Israeli universities, and are doctors in Israeli hospitals. West Bank Arabs are a different story — some of them aspire to their own Palestinian state and in some cases have pursued it violently, so differential treatment of them is based on security considerations and in some cases is aimed at preserving an option of a two-state solution or at least limited self-rule. Also, Jews have lived in the land of Israel for thousands of years, considerably longer than Afrikaners lived in South Africa.

David Singer: Christian leaders in Jerusalem playing anti-Semitic political games

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem (Christian Leaders) request (read the letter by clicking the link) for an urgent dialogue with “Israel, Palestine and Jordan” on protecting the Christian community in Jerusalem and the integrity of the Christian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem – is an anti-Israel political ploy that should be rejected by Israel.

The requested dialogue is clearly against Israel’s national interest for the following reasons:
- The Christian Leaders acknowledged that threats to Christians were not limited to Jerusalem only - but extended to Christians throughout the Holy Land without mentioning that most of this is in the Palestinian Authority areas:

“Throughout the Holy Land Christians have become the target of frequent and sustained attacks by fringe radical groups. Since 2012 there have been countless incidents of physical and verbal assaults against priests and other clergy, attacks on Christian churches, with holy sites regularly vandalized and desecrated, and ongoing intimidation of local Christians who simply seek to worship freely and go about their daily lives. These tactics are being used by such radical groups in a systematic attempt to drive the Christian community out of Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land.”

- Inviting “Palestine and Jordan” to participate in a dialogue solely on Jerusalem was a blatant attempt by these Christian Leaders to undermine Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem by replacing Israel as the sole Authority responsible for ensuring the security and safety of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

- Israel’s Christian community actually grew by 1.4 percent in 2020 and now numbers some 182,000 people

Certainly Israel should meet with these Christian Leaders to address and allay their concerns in relation to threats to the Christian community in Jerusalem.

Iran, and the nuclear deal it never signed, pose an existential threat to the Jews of Israel. But the Jews aren’t the only people who would die if Iran were to nuke the Jewish State. Millions of Arabs would die as well. Why does no one—not even the Arabs—speak of or write about this? Shouldn’t they be calling on Iran not to attack because of the possibility that many Arabs and Muslims might also be killed?

“It's worrying that no one raises the issue,” says Khaled Abu Toameh, distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute. “It's because they would love to see Iran attack and destroy Israel.”

Nonetheless, the Arabs have long been seen as hapless victims, expendable in the war against the Jews. It is a sad fact that many of those who fled Israel on the eve of the War of Independence, never received citizenship from their host countries. For almost 74 years, they and their descendants have been kept stateless by design. They do not enjoy the rights that average citizens take for granted. They are, instead, considered eternal refugees, until such time as the State of Israel falls, and the ~~Jews~~ Zionists take their leave, at last

But the Arabs are more than just simple pawns or helpless bystanders. They are an active part of the “resistance.” Unwilling to recognize Israel as a legitimate state within any borders that anyone can name, they are generally happy to engage in acts of terror to prove their commitment to being rid of the ~~Jews~~ Zionists, once and for all.

Until now, Iran hasn’t been a part of that conversation at all. Even the official Arab media is silent. As such, we only can guess their feelings on what an Iranian attack on Israel would mean to them. “Some would not even mind if an Iranian attack on Israel meant killing a large number of Arabs in the process,” says Abu Toameh. “For many, this would be an ‘honorable’ death for a ‘sacred and noble’ cause.”

If this attitude of the Arab man-on-the-street, it fits right in with attempts by the EU and US to resurrect the Iran “deal.” On this issue they share common ground. The EU and US are happy to abandon Israel to Iran to buy some time. Arabs, on the other hand, are thrilled to die to bring down Israel. Thus we have a match made in heaven.

Understanding this means seeing the JCPOA for what it really is. The parties do not speak of putting a stop to the nuclear ambitions of the Ayatollah, because they cannot: no one can. Instead, they speak of a delay. They pretend that a cash infusion to the tune of a $90 million bailout will somehow put a crimp in weapons production. But it is obvious that this is a completely nonsensical idea. More money to the nuclear machine only means more bombs, made faster. And we already know that Iran cheats in its quest to get the bomb. Constantly. Therefore, there must be something more in play.

That something more is Israel, or rather its elimination.

To know this, we have only to look at who is against the deal and who is for it. Israel has protested the deal all along. To Israel, the deal is no deal. It is a death sentence. Duh.

The same could be said of the Gulf States. In fact, the Abraham Accords are predicated in part, upon a mutual fear of Iran. The parties to the accords know what Iran wants. Iran wants to rule the world. Nuclear weapons can get them what they need to make that happen.

The EU and the US are not stupid. All of this is known to them. But they think they are buying time with this offering of Jews on the sacrificial (Persian) altar. And they don’t care who dies along the way.

As such, all of us, including the EU and the US, understand exactly why Israel and the Gulf States are afraid of Iran. To an outsider, what is likely more difficult to understand is why the Arabs of Israel, the PA, and Gaza, living so close in proximity to Jewish Israelis, are not. In some cases, the Arabs are working with Iran. Hamas, for example, works with Iran. Islamic Jihad works with Iran. So do others.

It makes little sense to outsiders. Unless you are hip to the local lingo. Then you understand exactly how the stars align.

In the local lingo of “occupation,” all forms of “resistance” are “legitimate.” In this twisted context, “resistance” means “Arab terror.” Tweet about the murder of a Jewish victim, and watch the bots come out of the woodwork. They will tell you that the murder is justified, that the killing of a ~~Jew~~ Zionist is a “legitimate form of resistance.”

“Resistance” of this sort is not only deemed legitimate, but celebrated. In Arab villages, sweets are distributed after terror attacks.

توزيع الحلوى في خانيونس جنوب قطاع غزة ابتهاجاً بـ #عملية_سلفيت البطولية صباح اليوم . pic.twitter.com/IXWxCNYUyi
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) March 17, 2019

When a terrorist dies while attempting to murder Jews, he becomes a martyr, his family the forever recipients of a monthly stipend.

The message: we live only to rid the world of Jews—we live only to die.

If we strain to understand the psyche of the regular Arab Joe on the street, how are we to understand the ease with which the world throws him under the bus? Again, it’s all about the ~~Jews~~ Zionists. On campuses or the internet, excuses are made for monstrous behavior even when it kills children in a pizzeria or a woman out for a jog in the forest.

Nonprofits distribute explainers, feeding the public its lines in the “occupation” narrative. When Arabs die while eliminating the Jews, they turn into heroes in the blink of an eye. Jews say kaddish for Arabs who murder other Jews on a Sabbath’s Eve, when little ones hover in the dark in a closet, listening while Abba is killed.

Interesting, they're mourning quite a few Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas' al-Qassam Brigades militants. Basem Issa - Gaza Brigade Commander. Sameh Mamlouk - Commander of the Missile Unit Northern Brigade. Abu al-Ata's brother, Mohammad al-Ata. https://t.co/6Op8CoWJYZ
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) May 28, 2021

One might say that all is fair in love and in ridding the Middle East of ~~Jews~~ Zionists. Because Jews, who have thousands of years of history in their indigenous territory, are supposed to give way to others, right or wrong. This, we are told, is social justice.

Killing Israeli soldiers is a legitimate form of resistance, or so we are told. This premise, once accepted, is followed by the corollary that all Israelis: men, women, and children, are soldiers, as all of them are “occupiers” who live within the borders of a land the world wants to cleanse of all its Jews, once and for all.

It is now become the norm to believe a narrative of moral untruths: that the indigenous Jewish people are “occupiers” and that murdering them wherever you find them is “legitimate resistance.” All of this is well-absorbed and well-echoed by those who wish to believe these things: the brainwashed, the academics in position to mold young minds, and the far-left Jew who just wants to be liked by others.

Meet Mai Afana, who drove a car into Israeli soldiers and then tried to stab them. She was killed while she was carrying out a terrorist attack.⁰⁰Rep. Tlaib, demonizing Israel and excusing terrorism will only lead to more conflict. Stop the lies. Stop the hate. Work for peace. https://t.co/W1mo4ftCMz
— AIPAC (@AIPAC) August 31, 2021

For the Arabs who live in and around Israel, there is pride in the fantasy of sacrificing one’s life as a form of resistance. This fantasy is encouraged by their leadership, who cheers them on to die. The local populace, in some ways, sees itself as being alive only for the purpose of dying so that more Jews may die. Is it any wonder that they are willing to die in a nuclear war, at the hands of Iran, for the purpose of eliminating the Jewish State?

The EU and the US want to buy time and stay live, while the local Arabs want only to die. For those on the outside looking in, it seems like a match made in heaven. But it’s not. It’s closer to a pact with the devil. That being the case, they should really put a stop to this stuff before the Big Guy makes His move.

A Christmas message op-ed on Palestinian news site Amad by Dr. Mustafa Youssef Al-Ledawi proves, for the umpteenth time, that Palestinian anti-Zionism and antisemitism are the same thing.

Christians celebrate in the whole world, in these blessed days of every year, Christmas, and their eyes aspire to occupied Palestine, the blessed land where he was born and grew up where Jesus peace be upon him.

In these blessed days, Christians ask God in the highest, the joy among people, and they seek from Him peace on Earth peace, in an eternal and eternal message, that they are people of love and peace, and followers of a noble prophet who preceded our Messenger Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace by years, and preach him with knowledge and certainty, so congratulations to the Christians on the night of Christmas, full of goodness, abundant in giving, full of justice and peace.

But the land of Christ Jesus son of Mary, peace be upon them both, is a lawless, occupier, usurped by a rogue gang of old enemies of Christ, who envied and betrayed him, and conspired against him and wanted to kill him, and prepared for his crucifixion, had it not been for God Almighty’s care for him that saved him from their evils...

The land of Christ, peace be upon him, appeals to the world on Christmas Day from the oppression of the Jews and the oppression of the Children of Israel, who are corrupting the land, killing people, uprooting trees, destroying stones, plundering the land from its owners, and building settlements and colonies over it, until the cities of Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit almost Sahour is joined to the city of Jerusalem, due to the large number of settlement belts that surrounded it and attached it to what it called the Greater City of Jerusalem, which is the holy city that embraces the Church of the Holy Sepulcher... that the Jews have been desecrating and expelling the worshipers from, and today they are trying to distort it, strip it of its endowments, deprive it of its land, and restrict its followers.

Merry Christmas to all, except for the usurping, villainous, prophet-killing Jews!