Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 17, 2022

03/17 Links Pt1: Why All Jews Understand Ukraine; UN Sec.Gen. Guterres fiddles while Ukraine burns; Biden's priority is appeasing Iran, not helping Ukraine

From Ian:

Why All Jews Understand Ukraine

For Putin, there is no Ukraine. There is no Ukrainian language, history, or culture — no independence or right of self-determination. There is no democracy, no nation, and no people. For Putin, there is only Russia.

The Jewish people know what this means, just as they understand what “from the river to the sea” means. Putin’s call — like the call of Palestinian terror groups — is the rallying cry of conquest masquerading as social justice, an affront to the norms of civilized society. It denies the humanity of people who want nothing more than the freedom to live, work, and worship in peace and in freedom, secure in their homeland and in their dignity.

The Jewish people understand the horrors of a war inflicted by a diabolical adversary who wants to drive them from their homes and their homeland. The indiscriminate rocket attacks and shelling of populated civilian areas in Ukraine is something that the people of Israel experience almost daily — and they saw it on a similar scale just last May when Hamas attacked Israel. The specter of unprovoked violence is something that Jews live with every day, be it in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, or New York City, or Colleyville, Texas.

Jews understand what it means to be attacked by much larger neighbors, who demand that you give up your land, your identity, and your democratic ideals. They understand the brutality of oppression, and the frustration of a people, like the Ukrainians, who need ammunition, “not a ride.”

The Jewish people understand why Putin’s illegal war of aggression is called the moral test of our time. Compromise in the face of terrorism does not restore humanity, it erodes it. It is the ultimate abdication of our shared responsibility for the preservation of civilized society. There is no compromise with Putin, just as there is no compromise with rogue states like Iran or North Korea, or with terrorist groups like Hamas or the PFLP. Compromise means victory for them, and victory for them means the end of us.

We all understand Ukraine, because, ultimately, we are all Ukraine. We strive for a better tomorrow, for ourselves and our families, and we recognize that to attain this future, our liberty and our values must be preserved, no matter the cost.

A dictator must always have enemies, at home and abroad, to seem powerful and to scapegoat his failings. After exiling, jailing, and killing them all, more must be invented, and endless purge. https://t.co/EjI77RYrv8
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) March 17, 2022

Douglas Murray: The West has rediscovered its purpose

Over recent days I have been reflecting on War and Peace. Or Special Operation and Peace as it must now be known in Russia, unless you want to spend 15 years in prison. And I am reminded once again of how utterly unpredictable war always is. On this occasion almost every-thing that people imagined just a couple of weeks back has been completely inverted.

In no particular order the list includes the following. A few weeks ago Vladimir Putin looked like a strongman. Today he looks like a weak and deluded leader. A few weeks ago Volodymyr Zelensky looked like an ex-comedian who might soon be out of his depth, if not his country. Today he looks like a remarkable wartime leader and an actual strong man. A few weeks back the Russian military seemed vast and unassailable. Today it looks corrupted, inept and surprisingly vulnerable.

In February the EU was riven and dis-united. Today it has rarely been more unified. Last month people still pondered the three-decade-old question ‘Whither Nato?’ Today the purpose of the alliance has rarely looked more obvious. Countries like Sweden which thought the second world war a murky conflict in which it was impossible to pick sides have started arming the Ukrainians. And even Switzerland has banned dodgy Russian oligarchs from accessing the country’s historically moral and transparent banking system.

On it goes. Poland has been transformed from a European pariah into a humanitarian superpower. Most astounding of all, Nato countries which spent decades freeloading off US defence budgets have suddenly stepped up. Germany just doubled its defence budget almost overnight.

So aside from the tide of bloodshed in Ukraine and economic misery inside Russia, the most striking thing about this conflict is that it seems to have overturned every recently held presumption. And, as in Tolstoy, it remains unclear exactly how this happened. Certainly it has not been due to any special leadership from the world’s hyperpower, led as it is by a president in cognitive decline and a vice president who talks as though she has, since childhood, never been in cognitive ascent. Still the West appears to have gelled for once, united by a common horror of seeing the type of land war Europe hoped to have left behind.

In such a moment, one might hope that there could be a certain ceasefire in the more minor conflicts that have riven the West of late. As at the start of the pandemic, is it too much to hope for that the war in Ukraine will provoke a permanent gear-change?

David Singer: UN Sec.Gen. Guterres fiddles while Ukraine burns

It is incomprehensible that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has held its Fifth Consultation on Our Common Agenda (Fifth Consultation) on 10 March at the same time as 2.597 million Ukrainians, men, women and children, have been forced to flee their country which is being reduced to rubble following Russia’s invasion on 24 February.

Our Common Agenda is an 85 page Report prepared by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in 2021 following the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations when:

“Member States agreed that our challenges are interconnected, across borders and all other divides. These challenges can only be addressed by an equally interconnected response, through reinvigorated multilateralism and the United Nations at the centre of our efforts. Member States asked me to report back with recommendations to advance our common agenda. This report is my response.”

This utopian talkfest discussing Guterres’ personal ego trip into fantasyland should have been postponed – using the precious time gained to formulate and recommend concrete action that can be taken by the UNGA against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - which mandates the UNGA.

Remember?

“to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace”

The UNGA and its Secretary-General are living in a dream world - whilst the real world is drifting dangerously towards World War III as US President Joe Biden warned on 12 March.

1840 British newspapers: Hamantashen were made with Christian blood, with three sides to ridicule the Trinity

In reaction to the infamous 1840 Damascus blood libel, at least two British newspapers published an antisemitic article that pretends to confirm that Jews indeed have many rituals involving murdering Christians and consuming Christian blood.

The Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Advertiser (July 2) and The Northern Liberator (July 4) both published, without comment, a lengthy antisemitic blood libel as if it was simple truth. (The Liberator claimed the text came from The Times of London. but I could not find that anywhere.)

The specific accusations of that essay don't only concentrate on the Passover blood libel. According to this account, every Jewish holiday and event is dedicated somehow to consuming Christian blood, from the eve of Tisha B'Av to the day of one's marriage and one's death.

It is the most lurid description of the blood libel I have ever seen.

Here is what it says about Purim:

According to the Newcastle Journal a few days later, this essay was written by a Moldavian Jewish convert to Christianity in 1803.

Most newspapers at the time were sympathetic to the Jews suffering from persecution in Damascus because of the blood libel, but these two (at least) incited hate against Jews.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Read all about it here!

Algeria warns of evil Zionist avocados taking over Morocco!

Last year, Israeli agriculture and produce exporter Mehadrin struck an agreement with a Moroccan company to grow and market avocados in Morocco.

Now, the Algeria Press Service has described how terrible that is. Itreports on "agricultural normalization" in Morocco "that ignores the dire repercussions of such a project on the kingdom's water resources and on the lives of the local population."

Moroccan observers see the avocado fruit production project in Morocco, which is supervised by a subsidiary of the Zionist entity, as a "real danger" to the country's water resources, especially since the drought phenomenon is currently threatening the Kingdom.

They also denounce this project, which falls within the framework of normalization with the Zionist entity, and whose investment value is about 9 million dollars, to produce 10,000 tons of avocados annually, within the framework of an agreement signed in April 2021 between an Israeli company and a Moroccan agricultural company.

For his part, the Moroccan journalist writer, Younes Miskin, confirmed, in comments posted on social media, that the investment of the Zionist entity in the agricultural sector in Morocco, including avocado cultivation, "is another crime against Moroccans."

He strongly denounced this project and its repercussions on water resources and the local population, whose livelihood is mainly based on agriculture.

He explained, in this regard, that "the avocado fruit is one of the fruits that consume the most water, as the need of one kilogram of this fruit ranges between 500 and 1,000 liters of water."

Israel is known for its technology to allow crops to grow with much less water than has been traditionally used.

So, are these critics (and the article had more of them) worried about water usage in Morocco, or about "normalization" with Israel?

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Read all about it here!

Iran claimed that its missile attack on sites in Erbil, Iran on Sunday were aimed at an Israeli "strategic center" that does not seem to exist.

Since then, Iraqi and Kurdish officials have been angry at Iran.

The Iraqi Council of Representatives is holding a session today to discuss the attack. A delegation from the Iraqi parliament visited the bombed sites earlier this week, and Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed said, "The attack was carried out with guided missiles which is of high concern. This is a violation and goes against friendly and neighborly relations. We will open the path for anyone from the international community, Iraq, and the Arab League to investigate the incident and find the truth behind it."

Iraqi President Mustafa al-Kadhimi also visited the bombed sites this week.

The Kurdistan Regional Government refuted the accusations that there are any Israeli bases there and also called for fact-finding missions to prove that the missiles civilian properties and that there are no Israeli bases anywhere in the Kurdistan Region.

Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani and Shia top cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr agreed to form a committee to investigate the Iranian claims as well. Al Sadr demanded an official complaint be sent to Iran for violating Iraq’s sovereignty.

Kurdish Iraqi leaders have repeatedly visited Israel over the decades and local politicians have openly demanded Iraq normalise ties with the Jewish state, which itself backed a 2017 controversial independence referendum in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

Iraq has remained implacably anti-Israel while the semi-autonomous Kurdish region has been much friendlier towards the Jewish state, with some prominent Kurds saying that Iraq should normalize relations with Israel.

Iran is very concerned about the Arab countries that have joined the Abraham Accords, and its media attacks the UAE and Bahrain constantly over that issue.

Could this gross violation of Iraqi sovereignty help push Iraq in the direction of Israel? Big things can start with small incidents, and these missiles were an attack on Iraqi honor. If Iran is the enemy, then Israel becomes - something other than the enemy.

The Iraqi reaction is something that needs to be followed.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Read all about it here!

Photoshop by Judah Rosenthal

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The negotiations between Iran and the West are free to continue after the hiccup caused by a Russian demand for a “right to free and full trade, economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation.” Either the Russians got what they wanted, or they decided to accept something less; but in any event, the rush to sign an agreement that lifts sanctions on Iran is on again.

I think it’s safe to say that everybody – Americans, Iranians, Russians, Europeans, and certainly Israelis – knows that this agreement presents only a minor impediment (if any) to the deployment of nuclear weapons by Iran. In fact, it is a get out of jail free card for the violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty of which Iran is guilty. It is primarily a device to lift virtually all sanctions on Iran – even those that are not related to nuclear weapons – and provide an immediate windfall of tens of billions of dollars to Iran, and only secondarily a limitation on nuclear weapons development.

Numerous Israeli officials from Prime Ministers to IDF Chiefs of Staff have sat down with the Americans and explained and documented why the agreement will not prevent or significantly slow Iran’s progress toward a weapon, and how the injection of cash into Iran’s struggling economy will be used to finance weapons development, proxy warfare against Israel and the Gulf states, and terrorism around the world – including the US. What isn’t clear about “death to America,” they asked?

The Americans listened politely, but did not change direction.

It’s obvious why the Iranians are anxious to make a deal, but what the US gets out of it is not certain. Yes, President Joe Biden can reverse a Trump policy, accuse the Republicans of failure, and declare “peace in our time” while waving the new, even worse, version of Obama’s JCPOA. But I think that the main motivation is to continue a policy, going back to the 1970s, to reverse the outcome of the 1967 war.

This policy was initially justified by the “realist” argument that American alignment with Israel was counterproductive, given the larger populations of her enemies, and their possession of critical resources. Later, after 9/11, it became fashionable to believe that US support for Israel was one of the causes of terrorism against the US (after all, Osama bin Laden said so), and that Syria and Iran could be bought off from supporting the insurgency in Iraq by forcing Israel to surrender the Golan Heights and create a Palestinian state in Judea/Samaria.

With the advent of President Barack Obama, the anti-Israel policy took another turn. Obama sees the Jewish state through a postcolonialist lens. He really does believe that Israel is a settler-colonialist oppressor of indigenous Palestinians, and accepts the Palestinian narrative of dispossession. He pays lip service to Israel’s right to exist, but adoption of his policies would quickly lead to her replacement by an Arab state. His heart is with the Palestinians, whom he sees as representatives of a black and brown third world, oppressed by “white, European” Israelis.

Biden’s policymakers are either former Obama Administration officials, or others with even more radically anti-Israel views. His administration tries to avoid the kind of direct confrontation that Obama seemed to enjoy, but its policies are no better. And one of the goals of the Iran deal is to weaken Israel, make her more dependent on the US for protection against an increasingly powerful Iran, and thus make it possible to continue the process of reducing Israel to her indefensible pre-1967 borders. And it isn’t unlikely that many of those involved would be happy to see the Jewish state gone entirely.

The immediate consequence of the implementation of a new Iran deal would very likely be regional war. There are two possibilities: either Iran will develop its conventional forces and those of its proxies (with or without a nuclear umbrella) to the point that the regime feels confident to unleash them against Israel; or Israel will find its nuclear red lines crossed and preemptively attack Iran. In either case, there would be – at least – involvement of Israel, Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority. Intervention by outside powers like Russia and the US is possible. Civilian casualties on all sides would be in the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. The possibility that nuclear weapons will be used can’t be discounted.

Bret Stephens wrote that the invasion of Ukraine was facilitated by years of Western appeasement, and slaps on the wrist for Putin and other bad actors. After he was allowed to invade Crimea, Georgia, and Eastern Ukraine; after Syria was allowed to use chemical weapons on her own people and China to crush Hong Kong’s autonomy, asks Stephens, why should Putin think he wouldn’t get away with invading Ukraine?

Iran, too, has learned that only Israel is prepared to oppose its increasing aggression against its neighbors. Europe seems to have allowed the benefits of profitable trade with Iran to distract her from being in missile range of a revolutionary Islamic republic with nuclear weapons. The US seems to see no problem with a nuclear-armed Shiite caliphate stretching all the way to the Mediterranean, and controlling all the oil and gas in the Middle East. Why shouldn’t it continue to make agreements and violate them?

But suppose that Trump’s Maximum Pressure campaign had been continued under Biden (or a reelected Trump). Suppose that it had been expanded to a full-on international boycott of everything Iranian, like has been done to (the much stronger) Russia in the past few weeks. Suppose this were combined with a campaign of sabotage, cyberattacks, assistance to local dissidents, and pinpoint military operations – and then the regime were presented with an ultimatum, not an offer of appeasement. Would it have worked? I think so. It might even have been possible to topple the regime.

Is it too late now? I’m not sure. More importantly, though, there is no will in the West to do it, and certainly no desire on the part of the Biden Administration, “led” by its senile gasbag and actually directed by unknown forces.

There is very little that Israel can do to affect the behavior of the Western appeasers, just as Czechoslovakia had no options in 1938. What’s left is to prepare for the war that will certainly follow; to develop plans – I prefer preemption – to make it as short and decisive as possible. The worst possible approach, which I fear appeals to our government, is to try to obtain guarantees from the Americans that they will act in some way to protect us.

Just ask Ukraine how good their word is!

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Read all about it here!

Jokes of the Six Day War

During the Six Day War, this division of Arabs is making its way across the burning desert sands towards Israel, when the Arab commander, bouncing along in his jeep, spots an aged Israeli on top a distant sand dune.

The commander drops his binoculars and shouts orders to a foot soldier to run up ahead and kill the infidel Israeli.

The soldier sprints ahead of theadvancing troops, and soon disappears over the sand dune.

The general stops the troops and waits to see what happens.

Nothing happens.

The commander sends a whole platoon of soldiers to investigate.

All twelve Arabs disappear over the sand dune, never to be seen again.

The now-slightly-anxious commander dispatches 3 tanks to find out just what in the heck is going on, and they disappear over the dune, too.

Sweat pours down the commander's forehead as he orders his entiredivision to overrun the solitary Israeli behind the sand dune.

But just then, the first soldier reappears on the distant sand dune and cups his hands to his lips. ” Go back!” he shouts. ” Go back!

It's hopeless there's TWO of them!”

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Time Magazine called the Six Day War a "blintzkreig."

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After the war, Nasser complained that it was an unfair fight. "They have 2 million Jews - and we don't have any!"

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It's a few days after the end of the Six Day War between the Arabs and the Israelis, and Golda Meir is giving a press conference.

Asked how such a small country as Israel could beat such large neighbors, she replies, "Well, boys, it's like this. We called up all the doctors, and we called up all the dentists, and we called up all the lawyers, and we gave them all a gun each and put them in the front line."

"And when we yelled "CHARGE".. BOY !! Do they know how to Charge!"

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How many gears on an Egyptian tank? Five: one forward, four reverse. Why the forward gear? In case it gets attacked from behind.

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(This is an American joke)

During the war, an Israeli and Egyptian tank sollided. The egyptian jumped out and yelled "I surrender!" The Jew jumped out and yelled, "Whiplash!"

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03/16 Links Pt2: Why anti-Zionists lie and exaggerate about Israel; State Dept. Hire Who Ran UN Terrorist Textbook Program Also Spoke at Anti-Israel Conference

From Ian:

Gil Troy: Why anti-Zionists lie and exaggerate about Israel

Radicals used the horrific George Floyd murder in 2020 to popularize the Deadly Exchange libel blaming IDF training for police brutality – as if American racists need Israeli coaching to hate. Now, Bash Israel Firsters tweeting “War in Ukraine = Continued violent takeover of the West Bank,” link two random events, trying to hijack the world’s justifiable disgust with Vladimir Putin – to dump on Israel.

Writers who make their careers demonizing Israel embrace this libelous idiocy. In The Guardian, Peter Beinart argued that if “remaking borders by force violates a core principle of international law,” America must undo “Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war.” Straining to compare Israel with Russia, Beinart prefers twistory to history, ignoring the inconvenient facts that Syria repeatedly bombarded Israel from the Golan and never respected Israel’s right to exist – I somehow missed Ukraine’s bombing and anti-Russian delegitimization campaign.

In a harsher screed, “Justifications for Destroying a People,” Beinart equated the “arguments Russia’s government deploys to dehumanize Ukrainians” with “the ones Israel’s government uses to dehumanize Palestinians.” Targeting that evil, right-wing maniac Yair Lapid, who dared to suggest, as Gazans tried swarming Israel in 2018, that “the Hamas charter repeatedly calls for the genocide of the Jews, and these riots were another element in Hamas’s attempts to destroy the State of Israel,” Beinart declared: “Baselessly accusing a people of committing genocide creates the pretext for horrendous violence.” Such twistory, in the rush to demonize Israel, overlooks decades of Palestinian terrorism stirred by Palestinians’ “Death to the Jews” (not just Israel) rhetoric.

These obsessive attacks weave antisemitism into anti-Zionism, as the Jewish state becomes the despised, scapegoated collective Jew, the all-purpose lightning rod attracting so many different bolts of hatred. These smears prove that Jews can be guilty of Jew-hatred when they collaborate in the Jew-haters’ dirty work. They prove how plastic Jew-hating Zionophobia is, as the haters keep adapting it to changing headlines. And they prove Natan Sharansky’s analysis that demonizing and delegitimizing Israel, holding it to double standards, sinks from criticizing Israel into traditional cesspools of Jew-hatred.

In this topsy-turvy context, I admire Paul O’Brien’s honesty. This Amnesty International official said Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state.” He dismissed scientific polls showing that 80% of American Jews support Israel – because those aren’t the elitist progressives he hobnobs with. “I actually don’t believe that to be true,” O’Brien proclaimed. Why? “I believe my gut tells me” that instead of a Jewish state, American Jews want “a safe Jewish space.”

Ruthie Blum: A free lunch for Amnesty's antisemitism

Sure, as long as the antisemitism and accompanying physical attacks on Jews don't emanate from left-wing and pro-Palestinian sources (which, of course, they do). Indeed, during Operation Guardian of the Walls last May, while Israel defended itself from barrages of Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets from Gaza, as well as from bloody riots in eastern Jerusalem and Arab-populated cities elsewhere in the country, Jews around the United States and Europe were being pummeled in broad daylight.

The disingenuousness on display during O'Brien's talk was in tough competition with his organization's lies. His assertion that one of the goals of the Amnesty report was to "collectively change the conversation" on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which "needs to start, first and foremost, with the Jewish community," is a perfect example.

As Jewish Insider revealed, he cast aspersions on a 2020 Ruderman Family Foundation survey showing that "eight in 10 Jewish Americans identify as 'pro-Israel,' and two-thirds feel emotionally 'attached' or 'very attached' to the Jewish state."

He had the nerve to say, "I actually don't believe that to be true. I believe my gut tell[ing] me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there's a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people, can call home."

Where this so-called "safe Jewish space" is concerned, he said, "I think they can be convinced over time that the key to sustainability is to adhere to what I see as core Jewish values, which are to be principled and fair and just in creating that space."

Finally, the anti-Zionist educating Jews about "core Jewish values" insisted that "the right of the people to self-determination and to be protected is without a doubt something that we believe in, and I personally believe that. [But] we are opposed to the idea – and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate – that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people."

It's not surprising that O'Brien exhibited the very antisemitism that he was denying. Amnesty International does that on a regular basis.

But his audience, made up of "enlightened" Democrats, welcomed him as a speaker. The point is that nothing Israel can do – other than totally succumb to its own progressives and Palestinian lobbyists – will remove the "wedge" that the left inserted with gusto.

Open Letter to My Fellow Progressive Jews: Amnesty Wants to Tokenize You

And finally: Do you think it is appropriate to attempt to weaponize my Jewish identity against my Jewish community, or convince me to participate in the delegitimization of the world’s only Jewish state, especially if you don’t have expansive answers to each of the above questions?

I also want to remind my fellow progressive Jews that standing up for yourself and your people does not mean you must be silent on the plight of the Palestinians. We can—we must—fight for their sovereignty and self-determination with the same fervor that we fight for our own. This is not a binary—except to the extent that organizations like Amnesty work so hard to try to make it one.

For 2000 years pre-1948, Jews were violently denied self-determination everywhere we lived. Jews, and the international community, supported Israel as a Jewish democracy knowing that, in the context of a world order defined by nation-states, it was the only way to ensure Jewish self-determination. Without Israel, without sovereignty, Jews would be plunged back into a state of total systemic powerlessness, our self-determination and our communal security ripped away. Mr. O’Brien and Amnesty need to know that despite their self-declared conviction in “Jewish self-determination,” that without supporting the sovereign existence of the Jewish state, this phrase is nothing more than an empty platitude.

So to my fellow progressive Jews who have felt this squeeze before, and to those who will feel it in the future, please know: Your Jewish community stands with you. Truth, righteousness and liberation for all are not and cannot be exclusive to any people, but they are core values of your people. You can believe in, and fight for, the Jewish future without abandoning your dreams of the same free, sovereign, self-determined future for the Palestinian people. In fact, recognizing the humanity and the inalienable rights of both peoples is the only way for progress to ever occur. And anyone who tells you otherwise is perpetuating anti-Jewish blind spots, biases and bigotries that will harm us all.

The other day I read that some yokel named “Paul O’Brien” thinks Israel shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state. Which is interesting, because I’ve never heard of the guy, so who cares what he thinks? Personally, I think that people who think that Israel shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state, shouldn’t exist.

Paul O’Brien is apparently some sort of an icon for the hard, Jew-hating left as head of Amnesty International USA—even if no one else has ever heard of him. (I certainly haven’t.) He’s probably getting much more attention than he should at the moment, especially from Jews, regarding his response when told of a survey in which most American Jews said they identify as pro-Israel:

“I believe my gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there’s a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home.”

O’Brien’s “gut” didn’t tell him these things at all. Paul O’Brien, however, thinks that if he tells Jews that his gut tells him something, they will listen and believe him. Which is funny, because Paul O’Brien is a nonentity, a flash in the pan, a dumb little twit.

Paul O’Brien knows that Israel is not about having a safe space and it’s not about having something Jews can “call” home. It’s about a very particular piece of real estate and we don’t “call” it home. It actually IS home. And has been for thousands of years.

We think that’s pretty darned “sustainable.” Unlike Paul O’Brien. People like O’Brien—conniving, ugly-hearted people like O’Brien and Haman—have come and gone throughout the centuries. But guess what? The Jews are still here. Even though that grinds your gut, Paul O’Brien.

Paul O’Brien thinks he can cajole Jews into thinking that Israel is superfluous to them by warning them off and threatening them. When O’Brien tells Jews what they really need is a safe, sustainable place, what he’s telling them is that Israel never really belonged to them. According to O’Brien, the Jews only created Israel to be safe, but their presence in the land is not “sustainable,” which means they will never be safe if they try to stay in Israel. Because what Paul O’Brien really wants is to get the Jews the hell out of Israel so he can flood it with fake Arab refugees. Because hey, “Those nasty JEWS.”

He doesn’t even try hide it, Paul O’Brien. “I think they can be convinced over time that the key to sustainability is to adhere to what I see as core Jewish values which are to be principled and fair and just in creating that space.”

Aye yay yay. Everything “I” Paul O’Brien. Or should I say RABBI Paul O’Brien, since he clearly knows so much more than your average Chaim Yankel about core Jewish values. But no. Jews see what he did there.

By saying that Jewish values are to be “principled and fair and just,” O’Brien is saying that Jews are not being principled, fair, or just, in creating our “space,” meaning the Jewish State, which—as it happens, Paul O’Brien—was created on Jewish indigenous soil. We didn’t create or invent our history in the land or our religious imperative to live there. As Balfour and the League of Nations, as people who have actually read the bible, well knew.

In fact, I am sure that Paul O’Brien himself is familiar with the bible, and knows the truth. Israel has always belonged to the Jews. But in O’Brien’s Jew-hating little mind, Jews are an unprincipled lot, and so unfair in having created a Jewish State of Israel on Jewish land that Arabs want. That’s just not just, says “Paul O’Brien,” who insists on goy-splaining to us that we are going against our own religious principles, by insisting on living on land coveted by others, POC who only lately tried to claim it as their own.

What we have here in O’Brien’s statement is not a treatise on Jewish values, but a threat (emphasis added):

“I think they can be convinced over time that the key to sustainability is to adhere to what I see as core Jewish values which are to be principled and fair and just in creating that space.”

What Paul O’Brien did here was to say that the Jews will never be safe in Israel, that our presence there is unsustainable. O’Brien as much as said, “If you want to stay alive, you better do what I, Paul O’Brien say, and get the hell out of Israel.”

In case you haven’t, AS A JEW, absorbed his meaning, O’Brien is happy break it all down for you (emphasis added):

[Israel] shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state, [though Amnesty] takes no political views on any question, including the right of the State of Israel to survive.

In other words, Israel has no right to exist, but Amnesty will cover its butt by saying it has no particular view on whether or not Israel has a right to survive. Which kind of means Amnesty doesn’t think Israel has the right to survive. Which is pretty much a green light for Arab terrorists to do what terrorists do: kill Jews in order to remove them permanently from the Land of Israel—land that has always belonged to the Jewish people.

Look at it like this. You go to the Riviera for a month's vacation. You come back and strangers are in your house. But it’s your house. They don’t get to stay there, even if they’ve unpacked and settled in—lived there for an entire month. Their presence in your home is and remains actually illegal. It’s breaking and entering.

Of course, the Jews were not in the Riviera on vacation. We were expelled from our home. Numerous times. By foreigners who covet our land, having created new religions built on Jewish scripture that repaint reality and distort the truth: that Israel belongs to the Jews. That God gave the land to the Jews, and commands them to live there.

O’Brien however, not content with denying the Jews’ rightful presence in the land, and Jewish land rights, says Jews may have a right to self-determination, but not in Israel, where Jews, according to O’Brien, have no right to be. “The right of the people to self-determination and to be protected is without a doubt something that we believe in, and I personally believe that. We are opposed to the idea — and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate — that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people.”

O’Brien thinks all peoples have the right to self-govern, including Jews. It’s just that the Jews should not be in Israel, which should, in his opinion, not be Jewish. (Personally, I think Paul O’Brien shouldn’t be Irish. But what do I know?)

What Paul O’Brien needs to know is that the Jews aren’t going anywhere, and this time, the enemy will not vanquish us, no matter how much O’Brien would like them to off those effing Jews. We’ve built a powerful army to protect us from outsiders trying to take our land from us once again, outsiders who resort to violence against civilians, much as the Russians have done with Ukraine and to Ukrainians.

The Jews did not leave their home to vacation in the Riviera for a month. We were forced out of our land by strangers, and left to wander the inhospitable world. The truth is, there is no “safe space” for Jews. Even Israel is not safe for Jews. People like O’Brien and the organization he represents, ensure and perpetuate this truth and this lack of Jewish safety.

But O’Brien cannot pull the wool over our eyes. His false assurances are false. And anyway, we will never be convinced that our presence in Israel is somehow unprincipled, unjust, or unfair. We will never be convinced that Jerusalem is not ours. We will never be convinced that some random people can have our holy land. Because our ancient prayers and commandments tell us all day long that Israel is ours and we need to be there, no matter what.

No matter that “In each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us.”

O’Brien perhaps forgot the next bit of that verse: “And the Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hands,” as He did when we were enslaved in Egypt, as He did when Haman attempted the genocide of the Jewish people in Persia, as He did when the Greeks came into the land and outlawed the practice of Judaism.

O’Brien may have forgotten, but the Jews did not. We didn’t forget any of the times that Jews were attacked and forced to wander from place to place. We didn’t forget being expelled from our land, and returning again and again. We daily spoke of our return to the land, numerous times a day in our prayers, prayers that are in our ancient tongue, which we always retained.

The connection was never severed. And O’Brien will one day grow old and die and he will be gone. But the Jewish connection to the Land, and the Jewish presence in the Land, will continue. Whether O’Brien and his ilk, and the false claimants to the Land, like it or not.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Morality propaganda: Ukrainian refugees, Israel, and money (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

Over the years I have learned to smell propaganda. Being an Israeli means being under constant attack – both overt and covert. We are threatened with physical violence, terrorism, and war. We are also threatened by more sophisticated and elegant methods such as lawfare (using the court system as a weapon of war) and media manipulation, propaganda designed to wage war in the court of public opinion.

News is supposed to report facts. Opinion and feelings are in the eyes of the beholder and have their place. Propaganda is different in that it deliberately presents partial facts, rumors, half-truths, or lies as if they were news, as if they were facts, to win the war of public opinion.

Propaganda designed to delegitimize Israel and even destroy her from within is a billion-dollar business. The BDS movement to organizations like “Breaking the Silence” and the New Israel Fund are just a few examples. Foreign organizations and governments have and are meddling in Israeli internal affairs in countless ways (If you don’t know about this please read Catch the Jew by Tuvia Tenenbaum and take a look at the Terrorists in Suits report).

Now, the eyes of the world are turned to Ukraine, and yet, in this war that has nothing to do with Israel or Jews, somehow Israel, Jews, and the Holocaust, are in the limelight. Why?

Russian and Ukrainian leadership have both invoked Holocaust comparisons to elicit sympathy for their cause and to prod Israel into supporting them. That’s propaganda.

Although Israel has already sent enormous amounts of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, we are told that we aren’t doing enough to help.

Although Israel has gone to extraordinary measures to rescue Jewish Ukrainians, non-Jewish Ukrainians who fall under the category of the “Right of Return” and embraced Ukrainians with no connection to anything Jewish or Israeli we are accused of heartlessness and told that we should open our doors to all Ukrainians, with no stipulations and no limits. The Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel has deemed our immigration policy unacceptable and has sued the Israeli court system in order to force our elected government to change policy.

That’s lawfare.

Israel is under attack and most people don’t even seem to notice.

You might ask, who is attacking Israel? Why? The real question is, why not? There are many individuals and institutions who are motivated to attack Israel and the war in Ukraine provides a perfect “let no crisis go to waste” opportunity.
The world is changing. It is again acceptable to openly express Jew-hate. There is a global trend towards socialism and collectivism, against individualism, free speech, and anything that reflects national pride. Israel is the last hold-out of Judeo-Christian values and independent thinking in a time when many are promoting dependency and victimhood. Many desire the destruction of Israel but it can’t be countered if people don’t even realize what is happening.

It is easy to tell you are under attack when the violence is physical. When morality propaganda is turned against you it is more difficult.

For Jews in particular, morality propaganda is like kryptonite, devastating in its effectiveness.

Suddenly, from every direction, we are told what is moral and that, to belong to the correct team, to be on “the right side of history” we must behave according to the definition proposed of what is moral. The arguments are designed to trigger emotions, not thinking, to push us into doing what feels right rather than what is in our best interest.

Morality propaganda appeals to the most basic human desires. We want to feel that we are good people. We want to belong to the right team.

Jewish empathy and the drive to make things better, to minimize suffering, is deeply ingrained in every fiber of our being. We know it is our job to be a “light unto the nations” and model what is good and right. On Passover, we are directed to “remember that once we were slaves in Egypt.” Jews have been banished from their homes so many times, over so many centuries that the displacement caused in WW2 is only a more recent horror among many. We know what it’s like to be refugees, with no home and no place to turn to. How can we not have sympathy for other refugees? Jewish empathy has driven Jews to participate in the US Civil Rights movement and in countless charities around the world, striving to make the world better for others.

Jews and especially Israelis are not cowed by violence. We know how to fight back in the legal arena. Being told that we are not kind enough, not supportive enough, that we must not allow what was done to us to be done to others knocks the air out of us.

We must be kind. We must act. We must remember. We must not allow what was done to us to be done to others. But is that what is happening?

The easiest way to determine where the truth ends and morality propaganda begins is to follow the money.

Spontaneous, grass-roots demonstrations don’t come with pre-printed, professionally designed signs. That takes organizations and funding.

Especially not branded signs.

I was unfamiliar with the logo on the signs in this image of a “spontaneous” demonstration in demanding Israel bring Ukrainian non-Jewish refugees so I looked them up. On their website it says: Zazim is an independent movement, brought together by shared values of human rights, combatting the occupation and racism, and social and environmental justice… On their who funds us page it says: We are an independent organization that does not receive any funds from governments, political parties or corporations. Further down that same page it says: The rest of our budget comes from private foundations - the New Israel Fund and affiliated donors as well as the Rockefeller Foundation

Jews and Arabs against the “occupation.” New Israel Fund. That explains a lot.

And then there is this series of very expensive billboards that suddenly appeared in the center of the country in prominent locations. Each depicts a “refugee” crying out to a specific politician “Why are you deporting me?!” In a brilliant marketing move, the different posters are directed to the leading politicians in the government, both on the right and the left. This supports the idea that this is a cry for morality rather than an agenda driven campaign.

The slogan used is: “A Jew doesn’t deport a refugee.” The wording makes it obvious that the people in question are not Jews and yet the appeal is towards the morality of Jews. The slogan comes from the Disengagement from Gaza when Jews pleaded with the government to not rip them from their homes “A Jew doesn’t deport a Jew.” The choice of this slogan is both a cynical perversion of the original message and an assumption that the useful idiots are too stupid to remember.

I really don’t like being manipulated.

The organization that is credited for this campaign is the “Forum for the Absorption of Ukrainian Refugees.” Absorption as in immigration, not providing temporary shelter. Where did this forum suddenly appear from, overnight? They have a web page to gather leads and active social media platforms. They swiftly gathered the activist celebrities on their side and are pushing this agenda on every platform available.

Interestingly, I didn’t see any mention of who funds them. It does say that they have offices in a central location in Tel Aviv. Again – money. Lots of it.

The genius of this morality campaign frightens me. The use of empathy and Jewish values to undermine the foundation of the Jewish State is diabolical.

The Israeli public is generally very logical and reasonable. When surveyed about their opinion on how to handle the non-Jewish refugee question their answers were:

25% Only those eligible under the Law of Return should be allowed in
24% Adhere to the cap the government decided on [5000 people]
24% Increase the amount the government determined [in other words, have some limit but allow more]

13% Let in everyone, with no limitations

In other words, there is a public consensus that a limitation is necessary, it’s only a question of where to draw the line.

It is a tiny minority that is making all the noise, participating, amplifying the morality campaign, and pressuring our politicians to remake policy into an image of a New Israel – a country that might have Jewish citizens but isn’t a Jewish State.

When Amnesty declared that the Jewish State should not exist, many, including friends of Israel abroad, immediately denounced this unacceptable stance. When organizations and even foreign governments declare that the Jewish State has no right to determine that immigrants should be Jewish or at least connected to Israel, few see the problem with that.

After all, we all want to be moral, don’t we?

03/16 Links Pt1: Zelensky invokes 9/11, Pearl Harbor in plea to US Congress for no-fly zone; The False Narrative of Israeli Neutrality in Russia’s Ukraine Invasion

From Ian:

Eli Lake: The World Has Changed and We Must Change Along With It

Zelensky’s bravery in the face of overwhelming odds has proved a reminder that great peril can produce great leaders. America is in desperate need of such leadership today. Our country has been mired in self-doubt. We have forgotten who we are. The nationalist right and the socialist left don’t agree on much, but they both regard America’s recent wars as moral abominations and the country’s economic realities as marks of an irredeemable corruption. Who are we to judge or intervene, when we have tortured prisoners and droned wedding parties? Who are we to promote equality when we have income inequality?

It’s time for both parties to soundly reject this myopic politics. American global leadership is the only way that weaker democracies can survive. It is the only chance for long-term peace. And for all the ugly chapters in American history, our enemies have done and are doing and will do worse. We remain a beacon of hope for all people who struggle for freedom, whether we know it or not.

Rejecting the recent myopia and division requires some faith in the American people as well. The campaign against “disinformation”—much of it based in the idea that stupid Americans were wildly susceptible to Russian manipulation—has resulted in pointless censorship. We should not make that mistake again. Consider that all of Russia’s propaganda and bribery in Europe, aimed at weakening the continent’s resolve during a war like this, has failed miserably. Putin’s menace and Zelensky’s heroism galvanized Europeans and their leaders to impose unprecedented sanctions on Russia and reinvestment in their militaries in record time. There is no need to ban Russian state propaganda from the Internet. Moscow’s lies are self-discrediting.

This moment should also stir the Republican Party to take a hard look at its future. Donald Trump is too enamored with strong men to carry on America’s tradition of fighting tyranny. He views their amorality as a new kind of realism. Republicans have every reason to look higher.

And so, too, does Joe Biden. He is the leader of the free world—but he seems be more concerned about his position as the leader of a domestic political party whose elites have spent the past two years embracing the idea that America was born in evil and is awash in racist sin even now. He has greeted the challenge from Putin with resolve, but he has also defaulted to a strangely passive notion that Putin will fail in his goals because “freedom” will somehow triumph over “tyranny.” That’s not how it works. Tyranny must be resisted and boxed in as a precondition for freedom’s eventual victory. It will not happen on its own. It never does, and it never will.

If Biden cannot find a way to greet this moment by saying unambiguously that we are the good guys, that our cause is just, and that we are engaged in a titanic struggle with evil regimes that believe that the only way they can rise is if we fall, history will dub him a dominated weakling.

We must prepare for the long struggle ahead. The world has changed. We must change along with it.

Putin’s American Apologists

On the left, the Democratic Socialists of America—once a fringe group but that now boasts in its ranks four members of the U.S. House of Representatives (Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman) as well as dozens of state legislators and many local officials—issued a statement on January 31 in response to Russia’s massing its army on Ukraine’s borders. It began:

Following months of increased tensions and a sensationalist Western media blitz drumming up conflict in the Donbas, the US government is responding to the situation in Ukraine through the familiar guise of threats of sweeping sanctions, provision of military aid, and increased military deployment to the region. [DSA] opposes this ongoing US brinkmanship, which only further escalates the crisis, and reaffirms our previous statement saying no to NATO and its imperialist expansionism and disastrous interventions across the world.

Nowhere did the document attempt to explain what had caused the sudden “increased tensions,” or so much as mention the Russian forces. It called instead on the U.S. “to reverse its ongoing militarization of the region.”

When the Russians attacked, DSA issued a new statement, which did indeed condemn the invasion while opposing any “coercive measures… economic or military” to counter it. In contrast to the UN General Assembly, which voted almost unanimously to “demand” the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces, DSA merely “urge[d]” this. It went on to “reaffirm our call for the USA to withdraw from NATO, and to end the imperialist expansionism that set the stage for this conflict,” and it declared “solidarity with…antiwar protestors in both countries [Russia and Ukraine],” although it did not explain where the latter had been sighted.

Others on the left were less flagrant but also assigned more blame to Washington than Moscow. Noam Chomsky, in a lengthy interview in the online journal Truthout, explained:
The crisis has been brewing for 25 years as the US contemptuously rejected Russian security concerns, in particular their clear red lines: Georgia and especially Ukraine. There is good reason to believe that this tragedy could have been avoided.

Now, he said, focus must turn to the future. He warned, “repeatedly, [America’s] reaction has been to reach for the six-gun rather than the olive branch.” But the superior wisdom of a gentler approach, he explained, had been taught to him personally during his wartime travels to North Vietnam by representatives of the Viet Cong, a group whose penchant for gentleness was lost on less acute observers than Chomsky. Moreover, he added, “like it or not, the choices are now reduced to an ugly outcome that rewards rather than punishes Putin for the act of aggression—or the strong possibility of terminal war.” In short, our only sure path to avoid nuclear Armageddon is one that “rewards” Putin.

Lee Smith: Biden Blames the Jews for His Ukraine Policy

Even with Moscow supporting Assad’s war on their border, the Israelis stood publicly with Ukraine. Shortly after Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Israel voted at the U.N. in defense of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Soon, Russian forces would move toward Israel’s border with its 2015 escalation in Syria, a move celebrated at the time by U.S. officials but in no way welcomed by the Israelis.

In public, Obama’s aides claimed Russia would help rid the world of ISIS and other terror groups, but that’s not why Putin dispatched his forces at the request of Iranian terror commander Qassem Soleimani. The Russians were there to support Iran. And that’s what Obama wanted, too. What was the point, after all, of legalizing Iran’s industrial-scale nuclear program, if the Iranian regime was going to lose its war in Syria? Iran had to win, which meant Putin had to help. The government of then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understood that for the first time in half a century, Jerusalem would not have Washington’s support if it wound up in a shooting war with Moscow.

Accordingly, the Israelis worked out a modus vivendi with Putin, a “deconfliction” mechanism by which Israel was permitted in certain circumstances to attack Syrian and Iranian forces, including Hezbollah. But should the Israelis get it into their heads to conduct air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, they’d have hell to pay on their border. Putin supplied the deterrence that protected the only foreign policy goal that really mattered to Obama. With Putin in Syria, Israel could only go so far.

Yet even then, in December 2016, Israel again took Kyiv’s side at the U.N. in a vote on the human rights situation in Crimea.

How did Vice President Biden show his appreciation for Israel’s principled stance against Putin’s war in Europe? Less than a week later, he strong-armed the Ukrainian president to vote for Security Council Resolution 2334, finding that Israel was in occupation of Palestinian land—which according to the resolution included historical Jewish holy sites. The Ukrainians asked to abstain, but Biden said no. Kyiv then asked for a delay. There was a large and influential Jewish community in Ukraine with family ties to Israel. And after all, what would the optics be of turning against Jerusalem just days after the Israelis had stood with Ukraine? That was not good enough for Biden. So the Ukrainians joined the other powers the Obama team had corralled into voting against Israel.

The Biden administration’s moves against Israel over Ukraine are part of a ghoulish puppet show. Yes, the administration will sanction the Russian economy until it bleeds—at the same time that the nuclear deal with Iran gives Russia a cash-rich client eager to buy Russian arms. And why not? From the perspective of the Obama-Biden faction, Russia is hardly the main problem. That distinction is reserved for Israel.

Everything you need to know about antisemitism you can learn in the Book of Esther

Antisemitism hasn't changed in its fundamental form for thousands of years.

Here is the base text of all antisemitism, from Esther 3:

Some time afterward, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite; he advanced him and seated him higher than any of his fellow officials.

All the king’s courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king’s order concerning him; but Mordecai would not kneel or bow low. Then the king’s courtiers who were in the palace gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you disobey the king’s order?”
When they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai’s resolve would prevail; for he had explained to them that he was a Jew.
When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel or bow low to him, Haman was filled with rage. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone; having been told who Mordecai’s people were, Haman plotted to do away with all the Jews, Mordecai’s people, throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

In the first month, that is, the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, pur—which means “the lot”—was cast before Haman concerning every day and every month, [until it fell on] the twelfth month, that is, the month of Adar.

Haman then said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them. If it please Your Majesty, let an edict be drawn for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the stewards for deposit in the royal treasury.”

Thereupon the king removed his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the foe of the Jews. And the king said, “The money and the people are yours to do with as you see fit.”

The king's courtiers are essentially the media of the day. They see something happening and - pretending to be only interested in transparency - try to stir things up so they have something to talk about and feel important. They tell Haman - at the equivalent of a press conference - hey, check out that Jew who is not bowing to you! What are you going to do about it?

Haman didn't notice it himself. He's the Grand Vizier, after all. But he cannot ignore an affront to his honor once it is pointed out. People will make fun of him. And, then as now, honor is supreme.

But Haman, like all antisemites in history, generalizes one Jew to the entire nation. He must wipe them all out. It is an obsession.

Haman knows how irrational it is. So when he presents his plan to the King, he cannot possibly say he hates Jews because of one Jew who doesn't bow. He needs to find an excuse where getting rid of the entire Jewish nation is the moral thing to do. It has no right to exist. And that bogus reason is treated as if it is truth, even though the actual hatred always precedes the justification given afterwards.

Haman makes up lies about the Jewish people. He makes them sound like they are different from other people, that they ignore laws. Kind of like how today's self-appointed arbiters of morality falsely say that Israel is violating international law when defending itself.

He implies that these different people could conspire against the Kingdom.

Compare Haman's accusations against the Jews with this description in an 1826 newspaper (it was published in America but appears to have been republished from elsewhere, perhaps England.)

The king really doesn't care that much about Jewish lives. If Haman says there's smoke, there must be fire, and it is not worth the time to find out if there is another side to the story. After all, Haman is a respected member of the human rights community - he wouldn't lie.

And Jews cannot rely on others to protect them.

But Haman wants to make sure that the king is on his side, so he literally tries to bribe him. The king might not take the bribe but he is honored at the offer. Just as today's antisemites are honored as brave souls who speak truth to power - once they join that side, they cannot change their mind no matter what the facts are. They are tied to their original opinions and they are lauded for it.

Notice that Mordechai realizes the psychological power of the bribe offer as well in the next chapter.

Nothing changes.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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The Jerusalem Post writes about a talk US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides gave to Americans for Peace Now, where he agreed wholeheartedly with that left-wing group's agenda of being against Jews living across the Green Line.

"We can't do stupid things that impede us for a two-state solution. We can't have the Israelis doing settlement growth in east Jerusalem or the West Bank," Nides told the left-wing Americans for Peace Now during a virtual event on Tuesday.

"I'm a bit of a nag on this, including the idea of settlement growth, which infuriates me, when they do things, just infuriates the situation, both in east Jerusalem and the West Bank," he continued.

The US ambassador explained that he has to pick and choose his battles. He had however, he said, fought to prevent the advancement of a 3,500 apartment unit project in an area of the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement known as E1.

The Right has spoken of the project's importance in expanding Ma'aleh Adumim and ensuring the preservation of a Jewish corridor around Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority and the international community have argued that it would make a future Palestinian state unviable.

Construction of E1 would be a "disaster," Nides said. "I went full board on E1…It is a very important area which if [built] could cut off any possibility of a capital for the Palestinians," he added.

The idea that any Palestinian state must have its capital in Jerusalem is completely artificial. It is a demand that was created for one purpose only: to deny Jews access to their holiest places.

When Arabs and Muslims controlled Jerusalem during the Ottoman era, it was not considered important to them. You would be hard pressed to find any Islamic artwork or poetry extolling the city before the 20th century. Only when Zionism made political gains did the Mufti start to create the twin myths about the centrality of Jerusalem to Muslims and how it needed to be defended against by Jewish desire to destroy Al Aqsa.

Those two ideas are intertwined. And they remain so.

From 1948-1967, Jordan didn't attach any importance to Jerusalem. There was little growth and little investment in infrastructure on the Arab side, while the Jewish side more than doubled in population.

The 1964 PLO Charter does not mention Jerusalem once. Neither does the 1968 PLO Charter.

As with the Mufti, Yasir Arafat only started to emphasize Jerusalem years later, during the 1970s, as a means to inflame Arab passions against Jews. It was a theme created to unify the fractured Christian and Muslim Palestinian terrorist groups by concentrating on "liberating Jerusalem" from Jewish control - a theme that both groups could get behind.

Nowadays, every single mention of a Palestinian state by Abbas and Shtayyeh reflexively include "with Jerusalem as its capital." Yet Jerusalem was never the capital of any Muslim or Arab nation. It is an artificial demand meant to incite hate and to take away the Jewishness from the Jewish state.

And the West has bought this lie that a Palestinian state must include Jerusalem without any skepticism.

Why, exactly, must a Palestinian state have Jerusalem as its capital? What, exactly, stops it from having its capital in Ramallah or Gaza City? After all, Ramallah and Gaza City are the current Palestinian seats of government. There is absolutely no objective reason that Jerusalem must be included in a Palestinian state, let alone that it must be its capital. Somehow, ovcr 190 other states manage to exist without Jerusalem as their capital.

The Palestinian obsession with Jerusalem, today as well as in the 1920s, is based on taking it away from Jews and not on any historic or legal ties to the city.

Moreover, why is the West insisting that a unified Jerusalem be split up again? Who in their right mind thinks that Jerusalem would be more peaceful if Jews are again restricted from visiting their holiest spots, all of which are claimed by the Palestinians as being exclusively theirs? Jerusalem, under Jewish rule, is more diverse and tolerant of all religions than it has ever been in history.

Insisting on giving Arabs control over the most sensitive areas, the way they had between 1949-1967, is a recipe for war, not peace. If you want real peace, take Jerusalem off the table and tell the Palestinians, frankly, that peace and splitting Jerusalem is not compatible and they can choose one or the other.

The world has been scammed by the "Jerusalem is Palestinian" lie. Very few have the bravery to say this out loud.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Read all about it here!

Chief Iran negotiator really doesn't care much if Israel gets nuked - he's hated Israel since 1980

Gabriel Noronha served as Special Advisor for Iran in the U.S. Department of State Department from 2019-2020. He wrote in Tablet last week a damning description of what is happening behind the scenes during the Iran nuclear negotiations, specifically how lead negotiator Robert Malley is recklessly allowing Iran to get everything it wants:

Anyone seeking to gauge the imminent outcome of the international talks over Iran’s nuclear program being held in Vienna should take a look at reports from late January that three top U.S. diplomats had quit—largely in protest over the direction set by U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley, who serves as the U.S. government’s chief negotiator.

Having served for two years in former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Iran Action Group, I knew that this development was tantamount to a public cry for an intervention. Such resignations—not of conservative dissenters, but of career staff and President Joe Biden’s own political appointees—should have been cause for Biden or Secretary Antony Blinken to recall Malley and investigate. Their failure to do so is a sign either of a troubling lack of attention to the talks, or else the possibility that Malley—who served in the same capacity under President Barack Obama when the first Iran deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was originally negotiated and signed—has been given a free hand to negotiate whatever he wants, as long as he gets Iran to sign.

Evidence for the latter view can be gleaned from the fact that Blinken has reneged on his pledge that his Iran negotiating team would have “a diversity of views.” Instead, he has let Malley continue to concede issue after issue in Vienna. Multiple career officials view these capitulations as so detrimental to U.S. national security that they contacted me requesting that I rapidly share details of these concessions with Congress and the public in an effort to stop them.

In 1980, when he was a freshman at Yale, Robert Malley wrote an anti-Zionist screed that veers into antisemitic territory, titled, "Examining the myth and reality of Zionism."

My claim is that any human being who opposed the Nazi era in Europe - and who did so not only because Jews were being massacred but mainly because people were being massacred - can only, if he wants to be consistent, support the Palestinians in their struggle for a homeland and a state.

In this one paragraph Malley "all lives mattered" the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

No, this is not to say that one must automatically support Palestinian terrorism - which one might do one the basis that it was their sole means of making their cause publicized - but simply that any sense of justice calls for a recognition of Palestinian rights.

...
There is also a lot to be said about the Israeli treatment of Arabs - shameful on the part of a people who suffered more than any other from the injustices and horrors of racism. And the fact must be faced that the resort to violence by the Palestinians is the inevitable corollary of the violence done to them. How can one rationally expect it to cease unless the moral and physical violence of the state of Israel also cease?...

Who then is today being treated as an inferior race? Who, I cannot resist asking, are the Jews of the Jews?

Malley trafficked in Holocaust inversion and justification for terrorism. It is clear that he has a problem with Israel's existence.

It is true that Malley wrote this in 1980, as a freshman, and freshmen are usually idiots. But has he shown any indication in the ensuing 42 years that he changed his mind one iota about Israel? In 2008, Marty Peretz wrote in The New Republic that Malley "is a rabid hater of Israel. No question about it," even though he was a negotiator between Israel and Palestinians during the Clinton administration.

Since Israel is the one and only country that Iran would consider dropping a nuclear bomb on, Malley's apparent antipathy towards Israel makes him a uniquely poor negotiator.

(h/t Andrew)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Read all about it here!