Thursday, June 23, 2022




From JTA:

A US federal appeals court upheld an Arkansas state law requiring all public contractors to promise they won’t boycott Israel in a Wednesday ruling, overturning an earlier decision that had said the contract violates the First Amendment.

The ruling by the St. Louis-based US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was a major victory for pro-Israel activists who have pushed around 30 states to adopt so-called “anti-BDS” laws — intended to strike back against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement targeting Israel — in recent years. The plaintiffs say they plan to appeal to the US Supreme Court, a process that could result in a nationwide showdown over the constitutionality of all anti-boycott laws.

It was the first time a federal appeals court ruled in favor of laws forbidding public contractors from being involved in any Israel boycott movements.

Such laws have been heavily opposed by civil liberties groups and press freedom advocates, who say they violate free speech. Federal courts have previously ruled that similar anti-boycott state laws in Georgia, Arizona, Kansas and Texas are unconstitutional.

But the Eighth Circuit, minus one dissenting judge, found that an anti-boycott contract provision does not infringe on the signer’s free speech rights because it “does not require them to publicly endorse or disseminate a message.” Instead, the court said, the clause requests “compliance” with a financial regulation — which the court says is a form of “noncommunicative” speech not protected by the First Amendment. 
The case that was brought up is a perfect example of why anti-boycott laws have nothing to do with free speech. 

A state-funded school, the Pulaski Technical College of the University of Arizona, stopped advertising in the alt-weekly Arkansas Times unless the paper signed the anti-BDS pledge. The newspaper sued, saying that this impeded its rights to free speech. (It seems to me that suing to force the school to spend money on advertising in the paper is a bit more of a violation of free speech than refusing to advertise is, but I'm no lawyer....)


[T]he certification requirement here is markedly different from other compelled speech cases. Although it requires contractors to agree to a contract provision they would otherwise not include, it does not require them to publicly endorse or disseminate a message. ....We are not aware of any cases where a court has held that a certification requirement concerning unprotected, nondiscriminatory conduct is unconstitutionally compelled speech. A factual disclosure of this kind, aimed at verifying compliance with unexpressive conduct-based regulations, is not the kind of compelled speech prohibited by the First Amendment.
The newspaper was not being asked to adopt a pro-Israel editorial position - which would be an obvious violation of free speech. They could have a banner headline telling readers to boycott Israel. 

The irony is that the law is meant to uphold equal treatment for Israel. The only people who want to discriminate are those who want to single out Israel for boycott. Such a law would be unnecessary without people singling out Israeli Jews (and only Jews) as objects of attack. 

Boycotting Israeli businesses as a policy is as immoral and reprehensible as boycotting businesses that are owned by people of color or women. Individuals can choose who they will or will not do business with, but a state has every right not to do business with those who pro-actively discriminate against companies owned by those with a specific national origin.



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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Jezebel had an article recently about Palestinian female prisoners and how awful their lives supposedly are behind bars. 

Written by Wafa Aludaini, a Gaza activist, the entire article praises these prisoners as it describes their supposed plight. And they are all wonderful people:

Far from the eye of international media, 32 Palestinian women are currently political prisoners languishing in Israeli occupation prisons, according to Addameer, a Palestinian NGO that monitors the treatment of Palestinian prisoners and offers legal support. Behind the walls of Hasharon and Damon in Israel wait mothers, students, journalists, teachers.

Oh, they also happen to be terrorists.

The article never describes the crimes that put them in prison to begin with. They are innocent lambs, all 32 of them.

There is one exception, which shows how little Jezebel cares about fact checking- the story of Israa Jaabis:

On October 11, 2015, Israa was transporting some household items to her new home near her place of work in Jerusalem. On that fateful day, she was carrying a gas cylinder in the car, according to her sister Mona Jaabis. As she headed down the road towards an Israeli checkpoint, the gas canister burst into flames. The car’s airbag activated, causing an explosion. Israa ran out of the car, calling for help from the Israeli police manning the checkpoint. But the police summoned more security, and asked Israa to enter the burning car, causing her to suffer severe burns that have greatly affected her mobility. She was arrested and given an 11-year sentence for attempted murder; Israeli authorities claimed she intended to explode the car. No evidence was presented, and she vehemently denied the charges. 
Here's what really happened:
On Oct. 11, 2015, Israa Jaabis, 31, was en route to her home in Jerusalem, about 500 meters away from the A-Zaim checkpoint in Jerusalem's eastern suburbs on the road from Ma'aleh Adumim. Stopped by a police office for suspicious driving, she exited the vehicle.

"The driver then shouted 'Allah Hu Akbar'  and detonated an explosive device," a police spokeswoman said. The rigged cooking gas cylinder inside the car caused the vehicle to burst into flames.

Security forces found hand-written notes in her possession that contained messages of support for "martyrs," a euphemism for those killed in the commission of a terrorist act.
Her cousin was involved in a tractor attack the year before.

The police officer who stopped her was burned by the explosion. 

These women are terrorists and Wafa Aludaini knows it. This is a propaganda piece. Aludaini's Twitter feed includes conspiracy theories that have no basis, like Israel is planning to build a synagogue on Al Aqsa or that Israel shoots "acid bullets" to further hurt the people they shoot. 

She is so extreme that she bragged three times that she was tweeting to support Al Aqsa with one hand while taking care of her sick child with her other:

holding my son who is feverish,while still tweeting 4Al Aqsa.2prove tha AlAqsa is no less precious 2me than my son #SaveAlaqsa

nursing my son,who is feverish and tweeting for Al Aqsa in the same time, Alaqsa is no less precious to me than my son #SaveAlAqsa

nursing my son &tweeting 4Al Aqsa in thsametime,2prove tha AlAqsa is noless precious 2me than myson #Alaqsamosque
Anyone who thinks that tweeting is equally important to caring for a sick child is despicable. Her tweets aren't "saving Al Aqsa." This is demonstrative garbage to make her feel righteous while ignoring her kid.

And the idiots at Jezebel eat this stuff up.



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

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Wednesday, June 22, 2022

From Ian:

The BDS Mapping Project targets every Jew in the US
Alarm bells recently went off among American Jews when Boston BDS, a shadowy group that has no identified members, published a detailed, interactive Mapping Project report online.

The report is a roadmap to anti-Jewish violence: The Mapping Project brazenly and openly maps and promotes “dismantling” and “disrupting” long lists of Boston-area Jewish institutions across the political spectrum, synagogues throughout Massachusetts, staff members, Jewish family foundations, schools and numerous other entities that allegedly have some sort of connection, past or present, real or imagined, to American Jews, Judaism, Jewish charities, Jewish education, Jewish donors or Israel.

Congressman Seth Moulton (D-MA) aptly called the Mapping Project a dangerous “antisemitic enemies list with a map attached.” The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) sent a detailed letter to the US attorney-general and FBI director, urging them to investigate, monitor and where appropriate, prosecute the Mapping Project and other groups, such as Within Our Lifetime (WOL), which are mapping, promoting and inciting violence against American Jews and Jewish organizations.

WOL mapped and threatened Jewish organizations in New York City, and calls for “globalizing the Intifada” – meaning, expanding to the United States and the rest of the world the horror of the Intifada terror wars, in which Arab terrorists murdered or maimed 10,000 Jews in Israel.

Notably, the Mapping Project’s targets include hostile-to-Israel groups, such as J Street – whose many anti-Israel activities include promoting anti-Israel UN resolutions. Jewish foundations that give donations to hostile-to-Israel groups were also targeted.

Ironically, the Mapping Project is even targeting the left-wing Jewish group New Israel Fund (NIF), which funded the initial Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) target list. That target list is the foundation for the BDS movement’s antisemitic economic warfare campaigns.


Norway’s new labeling policy is a double standard against Jews
The EU regulation is not a decision that Norway, a non-EU member, is obliged to follow, and a number of EU countries have chosen not to take the decision into account. It is strange that the Center Party, which is so opposed to EU policy in Norway, has agreed to introduce one of the most grotesque EU decisions from recent years.

Norway’s Foreign Ministry claims that “Norway considers the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories to be contrary to international law.” If international law is applied fairly, there is no basis for saying that the settlements are illegal. Facts show that the Israeli settlements are not the biggest obstacle to peace either, as the Israeli residential and agricultural areas in Judea and Samaria cover only 2.7 percent of the area.

“The settlements are not the whole and not the main cause of the conflict – of course, they are not. Nor can you say that if they were moved, you would have peace without a more comprehensive agreement – you would not…” said John Kerry, President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, in 2016. If Norwegian and other European leaders had echoed this sentiment, they would have contributed to peace. Now, with this double standard labeling, they are just fueling the conflict further.

The Palestinian leadership, according to the still-valid 1995 Interim Agreement (also known as Oslo 2), agreed to Israel’s continued presence in Judea and Samaria pending final status negotiations, without any restrictions on either party in planning, zoning, or building homes and communities, showing that the allegations that Israel’s presence in the area is illegal have no legal basis.

So, let’s put the right label on Norway’s new policy: This is a double standard directed only at Jews living in places the government in Oslo does not like to see them live and thrive.
Where Was the Media When an Independent Investigation Found Amnesty Int’l to Be ‘Institutionally Racist’?
When Amnesty International issued its libelous anti-Israel report in February, falsely charging the country with maintaining a “cruel system of apartheid” since its creation in 1948, media were all too eager to parrot the NGO’s assertions. In the months following the publication of “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians. Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity,” major English-language news outlets produced over 30 articles giving credence to an organization that has peddled terms like “Jewish domination” and accused the only Jewish state of being “racist.”

According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, claiming that Israel’s existence is a racist endeavor can constitute antisemitism.

However, despite criticism by many Jewish organizations, CNN, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and others continue to provide Amnesty with ample room to claim that its crusade against Israel is not motivated at least in part by Judeophobia.

Earlier this month, the group’s secretary-general, Agnès Callamard, went so far as to accuse Jews and Israelis of “weaponizing antisemitism.” Yet such gaslighting did not generate headlines in any of the widely-read new publications.

And now these same outlets have effectively buried an independent inquiry concluding that Amnesty’s UK branch, at least in part responsible for the contents of the ‘apartheid report,’ has an “institutional racism” problem within its ranks.

Why are journalists reluctant to subject Amnesty’s human rights credentials to scrutiny?

Naftaly Yeffet, also known as Jachnun Supremacist or @JachnunEmpire, is one of a select group of pro-Israel advocates using their skills in their free time, to fight against the lies about Israel. Some of us share important content about Israel that regular people might otherwise not see. Others write blogs, covering what the media will not, at least not with any objectivity. Then there are those on Twitter, who hunt and expose anti-Israel propaganda and attitudes for what they are. Naftaly Yeffet, a resident of Toronto and a dual citizen of Canada and Israel, would be in this latter category.

Photos are a primary vehicle for antisemites to spread lies about Israel. Images work because they have emotional impact. A tweeted photo of an Iraqi soldier holding a gun to the head of an elderly Kuwaiti woman in a jalabiya, for example, can be presented as cruel IDF soldier about to shoot old woman from the Dheisheh refugee camp. Yeffet, a former IDF combat soldier, finds the haters and their photos, and uncovers them both for what they are.  The format Yeffet has settled upon is tweeting their photos alongside the originals, captioned “shot” and “chaser.”

There is a whole underworld of haters out there, who will use any means toward their work of driving the Jews into the sea. Poisoning minds is one step in that direction. Picture, if you will, a hater at his work, late at night, sorting through images on the ‘net wondering which one to pick to advance his narrative of evil. Imagine him setting out to lie, knowing that his hate has no basis, it just is, and knowing too, that the Jews are innocent of the “crimes” he recites.

Yeffet then, is his exact opposite. He is a hero for truth, using his free time and his skills, to do good in the world. We all do what we can for our people and for Israel. This is how Naftaly Yeffet does it:

Varda Epstein: How did you find that tweet with the Israeli flag? Do you follow his account? What made you look closer at the photo?

Naftaly Yeffet: I don’t follow the account. I can across it because someone I followed wound up quote tweeting it but missing the part about the flags. The flags stood out right away to be honest, the two stripes especially made me look closer and saw the faint image of the Magen David.

Varda Epstein: Do you follow other, similar accounts? How can you stand to read their lies??

Naftaly Yeffet: I do follow accounts that I don’t necessarily agree with (mainly news accounts like Quds News Network and Shehab agency as an example) which you can find some really vile responses on occasion, but usually in Arabic. Some of the stuff I see is so ridiculous though, you can’t help but laugh. I’ve served in the IDF, so seeing virulent hatred and rhetoric isn’t new to me, never mind what I saw on campus in Toronto, Canada when I went to university after my service. And I’ve been combatting this rhetoric online for a few years on this app [Twitter, V.E.].

I’ve been blocked by the Free Gaza movement (the ones who organized those headline-making flotillas) on here after they claimed security cam footage of a priest being stabbed in Bethlehem was fake, then proceeded to call my mom an evangelical Christian (she’s Jewish). I’ve had Hadi Nasrallah claim I’m just a convert Arab from Yemen (along with all Yemeni Jews). At this point I just laugh it off because I hope that any sensible person coming across their rhetoric will see how absolutely bonkers their opinions are.

Varda Epstein: Are there other people keeping tabs on this stuff along with you?

Naftaly Yeffet: Yes I’m in a few group chats where we exchange ideas and share info.

Varda Epstein: Do you get any response from the haters when you catch them out like this, spreading lies?

Naftaly Yeffet: Most of the responses I get are either mockery or to be blocked, which is why I’ve shifted to taking screenshots and sharing those, over directly quote tweeting the account.

“It’s our people on the line.”

Varda Epstein: Do you think it has any effect, this work? Do you change minds?

Naftaly Yeffet: I’ve had someone from Kuwait, and even a Palestinian who lives in Jordan, reach out and say how much they appreciate seeing someone who actually knows their history, sharing information. I’m a two-stater and not a fanatic, but I won’t sugarcoat the facts and I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading through old UN archives (the personal testimonies to UNSCOP are really eye opening). I’m not necessarily looking to change someone’s mind directly or achieve any sort of credit, what I do isn’t a job, I share what I can on my free time as it’s our people on the line and even if someone comes across a discussion and winds up with a different perspective out of it that’s a win.

Varda Epstein Do you happen to have other examples of tweets or photos or items you exposed as lies or distortions?

And this one got me blocked by the notorious “Syrian girl.” Varda Epstein: Someone has to be doing this stuff intentionally, right? And then I guess others help them disseminate what they find. But first comes some guy cooking up lies, deliberately.

Naftaly Yeffet: The other side is definitely well organized. One thing they do much better than us (in my personal opinion) is support one another irrespective of political or ideological differences. Meanwhile our side seems to be, in general, much more fractured. We’ve always been an argumentative people though, so I guess it’s just something we have to find a way to push through. The beauty is that push comes to shove we will wind up having each other’s backs, and I still believe that. Just it has to mean someone’s life is on the line (see all the physical wars we won when our efforts were combined versus how we’re essentially still playing catch-up in the social media aspect.)

Varda Epstein: Can you tell us a bit about your background?

Naftaly Yeffet: Sure I don’t mind.

My paternal grandparents fled Yemen in the early 1930s, my father being born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as a result, while they were on their way to Israel (then the British Mandate). They settled in Tel Aviv and opened up one of the first falafel shops in the city.

My maternal grandfather was the only member of his family to survive after the Nazis invaded Poland. When he went back after the war to find out if any of his family remained he was recognized by their old neighbor and told him, in detail, how his family was rounded up and shot in the street. His father (my great grandfather) was the head rabbi of Darachow, a small town that is currently part of Ukraine and had approximately 100 Jews living there before the Nazi invasion. My mother was born in Poland a few years after the war ended, and her family wound up immigrating to Israel in 1957. They lived in a ma’abara [refugee absorption camp] for 2 years, in a tin shack in Kiryat Gat, before they finally were able to move into an apartment there.

Varda Epstein: Are you in Israel? Is your family still there?

Naftaly Yeffet: I’m a dual Canadian and Israeli citizen. I was a paratrooper in the IDF, and am in the process of moving back to Israel (hopefully within the next few years). I have plenty of family still in Israel. The only family I have in Canada are my mother and half-sister from my mother’s first marriage.



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Next month, for the first time, the Maccabiah Games - a sort of Jewish Olympics - will be held in Jerusalem, along with Haifa and Netanya. 

Even though the Games have been held in Jerusalem before (2001, 2013, 2017), Israel haters are trying to frame this is a new horrible Judaization of Jerusalem.

Palestinian news site Daf interviews an "expert" to describe how awful this is:

In this regard, Jerusalem researcher Fakhri Abu Diab says that this Judaization event will be attended by 10,000 Jewish athletes from 60 countries around the world.

In his interview with Safa Agency, he explained that this marathon differs from the previous flag marches because the last marches were attended by settlers from inside historical Palestine only.

He added, "According to the path and plan specified by the occupation municipality, this march or marathon will not enter the Islamic Quarter and the Old City in order to avoid the anger and reaction of the Jerusalemites and to convey a message to the Jewish arrivals that Jerusalem lives in peace and security."
You get that? When Jews march through Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, it is "provocative" and meant to insult local Arabs. But when Jews avoid marching through Arab neighborhoods, it is because they are lying schemer who want to give a false impression of the city.

In short, no matter what Israel does, it is doing it to hurt Arabs.

Which is what this "expert" goes on to say:

Abu Diab asserts that the aim of this event is purely political but with a sports cover, and it is an attempt to march new flags with the aim of demonstrating Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and raising the Israeli flag.

The researcher considers that the occupation clearly uses culture for political and Judaizing purposes.

And he continues, that the occupation municipality claims that the aim of the event is to revive the tourism industry and benefit the economy, but in its essence it is a Judaization work to promote the Israeli narrative that Jerusalem lives in security, peace and stability and an attempt to bring more Jews in from the world.

Abu Diab expects this event to create an angry reaction and confrontations. "Because any Israeli provocative action must be followed by a reaction from the Jerusalemites."

Just a call for violence, in a mainstream (non-Islamist) news site, to disrupt a sporting event. Nothing to see here. 

The Maccabiah Games have been going on since 1932. This year some 10,000 athletes are expected, making it the third largest sporting event in the world. 





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: The fatal contradictions of Biden's Middle East trip
If the administration was really committed to stopping Iran, then it would be increasing its efforts to expand former President Donald Trump's Abraham Accords to other Arab and Islamic countries to shore up a regional alliance against Tehran.

Hopes that the Saudis will swap their under-the-table alliance with Israel for a full-fledged normalization are probably misplaced. As the self-styled guardians of the Muslim holy places, the odds that the Saudi regime – whose legitimacy is rooted in its own peculiar brand of religious extremism – would ever fully embrace the Jewish state are slim and none. But as they did in 2020 when the Trump foreign-policy team made the first real breakthrough for peace in a generation, their acquiescence to other countries normalizing relations with Israel is key.

But Biden's disinterest in widening the circle of peace is painfully obvious. His priority is keeping Israel and the Saudis from taking any actions that will undermine his hopes of a new deal with Iran, which means that it would be extremely foolish for either Jerusalem or Riyadh to place much trust in any assurances the president offers to them.

That is a painful dilemma because as much as the Saudis can flirt with trying to come to some sort of arrangement with Iran and its terrorist proxies, that isn't a viable option since Tehran will never be satisfied until the Saud dynasty and its allies are overthrown. Nor can Israel look elsewhere for help. Both an isolated Russia and a China bent on expanding its own malign influence in the Middle East are bad actors that have no real sympathy or common interests with the Jewish state.

So, while the Israelis and the Saudis combine to present an Iran still seeking regional hegemony as well as nuclear status with a formidable foe, having the United States led by a president that cannot be relied upon to oppose the deadliest threat to stability in the region creates a problem to which there is no obvious solution.

Nor can Americans feel good about an administration that, for all of its high-flown talk about standing by allies when it speaks of Ukraine, still seems intent on discarding its real friends in the Middle East. Expecting Israel and the Saudis to have America's back while also attempting to betray them by embracing Iran is a contradiction that may lead to yet another Biden disaster, which may be even more costly than the ones he has already blundered into.
Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs to Biden: Shut Down Iran's 'Expansionist Project'
Ahead of Biden's visit, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, in a clear message to the US administration and other Western powers, affirmed that any nuclear agreement or future negotiations with Iran must address the Iranians' "destabilizing behavior in the region, their support for terrorist militias, and their missile program."

"Western countries prefer to talk about upcoming measures, preparing us for their failure to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the truth is that we are in a race against time, and it is still possible to force Iran to abandon its secret plans to acquire nuclear weapons. The problem is that the entire international community does not seem serious and resolute in dealing with this issue and deterring Iran." — Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, founder and chairman of the Gulf Research Center, alanba.com.kw, June 14, 2022.

Iran thinks with the "mentality of an empire" and that is why it is continuing its efforts to extend its control to several Arab countries. — Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, alanba.com.kw, June 14, 2022

Washington's Arab allies have repeatedly warned that the US against complacency with the Iranian threat, "specifically after the instructions of the administration of former President Barack Obama to build a partnership with the Tehran regime under the roof of the nuclear agreement that contributed to Iran's pervasiveness, and gave it free rein, allowing it to increase its hostile activities against the countries of the region without being held accountable for the consequences of its reckless policies." — Khaled Al-Yemany, former foreign minister of Yemen, independentarabia.com, January 26, 2022.

[T]he Arab countries have always preferred dialogue with Iran, but this was seen by the mullahs as a sign of weakness. — Khaled Al-Yemany, independentarabia.com, January 26, 2022.

Tehran is using negotiation diplomacy to achieve more military gains and develop its arsenal in the nuclear and missile fields and missile technology," he said. "The reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirm that Iran is far from the commitments it made in the nuclear agreement, and it is progressing to build a nuclear bomb. A nuclear Iran, its expansionist project that destabilizes regional and international security and stability will be more ferocious and its ambitions will transcend all borders, and it must be deterred before it is too late." — Khaled Al-Yemany, independentarabia.com, January 26, 2022.

[T]he Arab and Western media have remained silent about the Iranian people's protests against the corruption of the regime, which spent its wealth to destroy four Arab countries (Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq). — Abdul Jalil Al-Saeid, Syrian author, al-ain.com, June 7, 2022.

The Arabs are saying that they expect the Biden administration to reverse its stance on the mullahs and act in accordance with reality: that Tehran poses a catastrophic threat to America's allies – all of its allies, Arab and Israeli alike – in the Middle East.


Russia Still a Threat Even if Putin Dies, Says Renowned Holocaust Investigator Now Probing War Crimes in Ukraine
Russia will continue to pose a deadly threat to Ukraine even if current President Vladimir Putin dies, according to the French Catholic priest who built an international reputation documenting the mass slaughter of the country’s Jewish community during the Holocaust.

In a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday with the Pravda Ukraine news outlet, Fr. Patrick Desbois, who is actively documenting Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians, argued that the Russian threat would outlast Putin, the principal architect of the invasion of Ukraine in late February.

“You have to understand that even if Putin dies, they will still be deadly,” Desbois said. “It is your great misfortune that you have such neighbors.”

The founder of Yahad-In Unum, a French NGO dedicated to researching what he calls the “Holocaust by bullets,” Desbois has devoted much of his career to investigating the mass graves of Jews murdered by Nazi mobile killing squads across occupied eastern Europe. In an interview with The Algemeiner in March, Desbois — who has assembled a team of investigators in Ukraine — emphasized that the responsibility for war crimes during the current conflict was not Putin’s alone.

“Remember that the excuse of the people on the ground is always that they were just obeying orders,” he said.

In his latest interview, Desbois also expressed pessimism about the prospects of Putin ever facing trial for war crimes.
Caroline Glick: The U.S. and NATO are losing catastrophically in Ukraine | Mideast News Hour
In this week’s episode of "Middle East News Hour," Caroline Glick is joined by David Goldman from Asia Times and the Claremont Institute to discuss why the United States and NATO are the real losers of the Ukraine war. They look at:
- The situation on the ground
- U.S. options for managing the war going forward
- The global economic implications of the Western sanctions on Russia
- What this all means for Israel
From Israel21c:
More than 300 Arab and Jewish Israeli children recently joined forces to create a sustainable garden at the Al-Hayat School in the Arab town of Kfar Qassem in central Israel. The Kfar Qassem kids were joined in the project by children from the nearby Jewish community of Kfar Saba.

The “Green Roofs” project, under the auspices of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, was funded by USAID.

For several months leading up to the planting of vegetables, spices, perennials and hydroponic plants, the seventh-graders learned about sustainability, environmental responsibility, climate crisis and consumer culture.

The program also served to connect the two neighboring communities, create understanding among the youth and encourage activism to promote coexistence.

The shared garden, which is open to the public, “deepens the connection between Kfar Qassem and Kfar Saba residents even further,” says Kfar Qassem Mayor Adel Badir.

Countering the negative images in the media, the mayor said the garden “symbolizes both cooperation and shared existence.”
This isn't the image of Israel in most Arab media (although a couple of websites did cover this story.)  More often, you see stories like this from Hizb Ut-Tahrir:


And Western media seems to prefer the latter narrative over the former.




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

As we've seen, all of the "investigations" of Shireen Abu Akleh's death that blame the IDF hinge on a single piece of evidence: audio analysis of the bullet sounds on different videos to determine the  distance from the shooter to the camera. 

Every single analysis makes the same wrong assumption: that the estimates by the experts consulted has some wiggle room that would allow the IDF to be within the range of the source of the gunfire.

Every investigation noted that the IDF was outside the range of what they had asked their experts to determine.  Every one fudges the data from the experts to indict the IDF. Crucially, not one of them went back to these experts and asked whether their calculations could possibly support the IDF shooting Abu Akleh.

Here is a short lesson of the physics and assumptions made by the experts to calculate the distances.

The guns used by both sides shoot bullets much faster than the speed of sound. Objects that travel faster than the speed of sound create a shockwave (in the case of aircraft, a sonic boom) that can be heard by those near the path of the object. This is an illustration of a shockwave for something traveling 1.4 times the speed of sound:



Most bullets travel significantly faster than the speed of sound. Here's a photo of the shockwave from a bullet.


The easiest way to picture this is to think about the wake of a speedboat on a lake.  The faster the bullet, the narrower the "wake." When the wake passes by one's ear or a microphone, you hear a clap sound. If the bullet is not shot in the general direction of the ear or microphone, no shockwave sound is heard at all.

The muzzle of the gun also produces a sound when the bullet is fired, the "bang." That bang travels at exactly the speed of sound from the gun, at the same speed in all directions. 

By measuring the difference in time between the "clap" and the "bang," we can calculate the distance of the gun.

Everyone agrees that Abu Akleh was killed by a 5.56mm bullet. Everyone agrees that both the IDF and militants in Jenin use weapons (M4s and M16s) that use those bullets. 

To determine the distance of the gun to the microphone, we need to know a few things:

* The speed of sound.
* The speed of the bullet between source and where the sounds are heard.
* The time gap between the sound of the shockwave to the sound of the gunfire.

Assuming that the listener/microphone is reasonably close to the bullet path, this gives a very good approximation of the distance. 

We know the speed of sound at various temperatures. 

We know the time gap from the videos - between roughly 295 ms and 310 ms.  Here are the last two gunshots from the first set of gunshots from audio analysis tool Audacity:


The speed of the bullet is variable, depending on the gun type. And keep in mind that since bullets sllow down, we want to know the average bullet speed at that distance for this calculation, not the muzzle speed which is always faster. This chart shows the speed for 5.56 mm bullets using various types of guns at various distances.  


The speed at 100 yards would be roughly the average speed of the bullet that traveled a total of 200 yards/meters, so it is a good approximation. Also, the slowdown slope over distance is pretty linear so we can take a good guess that an M16 with a muzzle speed of 960 m/s would have an average speed of about 880 m/s over 200 meters, and an M4 with a muzzle speed of 905 m/s would have an average speed of 824 m/s. 

This is the data that was used to determine the distance of the shooter to the microphones, with each investigation using somewhat different assumptions on bullet speed - but all of them came out with a range of between 155 meters and 195 meters for the distance to the gun from the microphone.

Rob Maher, one of the experts consulted by Bellingcat, CNN and the New York Times, emailed me the formula and his assumptions of the range from the CNN article, so you can do this yourself with a spreadsheet:

Measured time-of-arrival difference between shock wave and muzzle blast:  Time_D

  Speed of sound:  c

  Bullet average speed:  V

  Distance of firearm to target:  D


      Time_D = D/c - D/V  = D*{(1/c) - (1/V)}


  Solving for D, we get


      D = Time_D / {(1/c) - (1/V)}


So with Time_D = 0.306, c= 347, and V= 762, we get D = 195 meters.

Or with Time_D = 0.306, c= 347, and V= 884, we get D = 175 meters.


As we've shown, the IDF was most definitely outside those ranges.  (This modified NYT graphic uses yards and a more generous range.)



The experts chose the most expansive ranges they could to account for all the variables, and even then, the IDF is well outside the possible range.

Which means that the IDF couldn't have fired the shots that killed Shireen Abu Akleh - unless they moved within range when no one was looking, or there was a hurricane level wind gust going south at the moment of the gunfire, or if the IDF uses a gun with a much slower bullet velocity than of any known gun that uses 5.56mm bullets.

To be very accurate, we also need to know:

* The temperature
* The wind speed
* The distance from the ear/microphone to the path of the bullet. The further away they are, the longer it takes the shockwave passing by to hit the listener, and that makes the calculations a bit more complicated.

Those factors cannot possibly explain the discrepancy between the ranges calculated by the experts and the IDF position.* (see update) Yet not one of these analyses bothered going back to the experts and asked them if there was some other X factor that could explain the discrepancies.

One other important fact: You will notice that there is quite a difference between the time gaps of the two gunshots I placed in my graphic above - 295 ms and 306 ms. Assuming that the source of the gunfire is the same position (which is reasonable), this indicates that the shooter was not shooting each bullet with the same trajectory. If he was shooting wildly, and the direction of the bullets changed by a degree or two, that would explain such a discrepancy - the distance from the shockwave to the camera would change if the bullets were being sprayed across a larger area, and that would easily account for such a discrepancy in gunfire from the same gun.

Dr. Maher was nice enough to illustrate this for me as well:




Such a wild shooting pattern would be far more likely from Jenin terrorists than from the professional soldiers of the IDF, in my opinion. (Indeed, we saw bullets sprayed on the tree, on Abu Akleh and Ali Samoudi, in a radius that is far larger than that of a trained shooter aiming at a target.)

(I had also asked Dr, Maher if a bullet stopped by a tree or person would have a different time gap, but the answer is no - the shockwave "wake" would continue on to the microphone exactly the same way even if the bullet stopped somewhat short. If it stopped too short, there would be no shockwave sound at all.)

The media didn't ask the experts whether there was any factor that could account for the IDF shooting Abu Akleh at this distance. They didn't ask about the discrepancies between the audio gaps. They were trying to fit the data to their preconceived verdict that the IDF fired the weapons.

The liberal elements in the media often disparage the more right-wing media as not believing in science. This is science. And all the supposedly objective media - Bellingcat, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and AP - literally ignored the science and fudged the data to make it appear that the IDF was in the range indicated by the audio forensics.  

It wasn't.

Every one of these media outlets tried to hide the science that would exonerate the IDF according to their own experts.That is a scandal. 

UPDATE: Rootclaim tweets that the distance from the mic to the bullet may indeed put the IDF guns in range.

 the calculation doesn’t account for the distance from the arriving bullet to the microphone. 
The bullets are known to have hit the journalists and a tree that were 10-15 meters from the camera. That means 30-45 milliseconds should be added to the 300-310 ms delay measured in the soundtrack. 
This chart shows the distance to the shooter, as a function of the average bullet velocity. The blue line is the erroneous calculation and the red line shows the corrected distance (using 10m correction).Image
Most rifles used by both sides are around the 800 m/s range (after deceleration in air), meaning an increase of ~20 meters, to a range of ~200 meters, which better matches the IDF’s location. 
We publish this specific finding ahead of our full analysis as it is widely used in public discourse, causing confusion. However, we generally advise against using a single piece of evidence as a “smoking gun”, since they rarely are (as demonstrated here…). 
Only a detailed probabilistic inference, using all evidence, and accounting for all possible sources of error, can provide a reliable assessment of a hypothesis’ likelihood. We’ll be publishing our full analysis soon. 
The math here is a little beyond me, but I had asked Dr. Maher about this specifically. Here are excerpts of his response on how to calculate the distance when the mic is further away:

If more precise geometry is to be used, you might choose to take into account the Mach angle of the bullet’s shock wave near the microphone.  If the bullet has slowed to, say, some velocity between 690-790 meters per second as it reached the area of the microphone, the Mach angle is then somewhere between 26 and 30 degrees.  Here is a plan view sketch of what I am referring to.



If you have a good prediction of the bullet’s speed and its trajectory, AND if you assume the bullet passed by without striking anything before passing the microphone, you could use the time of the shock wave arrival to back-track where the bullet was at various times before and after the shock wave arrival.  I haven’t done any of that work in this case because of all of the unknowns about speeds, trajectories, and positions. In other words, I assumed the microphone was sufficiently close to the bullet’s trajectory that the shock wave propagation time to the microphone was negligible.

10-15 meters is not negligible, but there are still a lot of unknowns that make the calculations difficult.

And more recently he wrote something that indicates that Rootclaim's numbers may be in the right ballpark:

My sketch below is intended to show a simple plan view, with the firearm at the left and the bullet traveling to the right.  The black circles labeled 1 and 2 are indicating possible microphone locations.  We don’t actually know the microphone location relative to the bullet path.  The circular arcs are depicting the path of the muzzle blast sound moving outward from the gun.  The red lines are depicting the ballistic shock wave of the bullet at two different moments.

 



 

Assuming the two microphone positions are roughly the same distance from the firearm, the time-of-arrival of the muzzle blast at each position will be essentially the same.  However, the arrival of the ballistic shock wave will be different at the two positions.

The arrival of the shock wave at position 1 will be essentially the time it takes the supersonic bullet to travel from the gun to position X, which is essentially position 1.

The ballistic shock wave arrival at position 2, however, will be delayed because the timing consists of the time required for the bullet to travel to position X-Δ, plus the time it takes the shock wave to travel at the speed of sound from X-Δ to position 2.

For example, if I imagine a scenario which X is 180 meters from the gun, the average bullet velocity is 884 m/s, and the two possible microphone positions 1 and 2 are separated by 5 meters, then Δ=2.9 meters, the distance from X- Δ to position 2 is about 5.8 meters, and so the delay between the shock wave and the muzzle blast is about 321 milliseconds at position 1, but 308 milliseconds at position 2.  Since we don’t actually know the relative position of the microphone and the bullet’s trajectory, we have over 10 milliseconds of uncertainty due to the 5 meters uncertainty of trajectory difference.  If we do the same scenario but with an average bullet velocity of 762 m/s, the shock wave-muzzle blast delay is 289 ms at position 1 and 276 ms at position 2 (13 ms difference).

Keep in mind that a bullet that was shot a few meters over the heads of the individuals making the recording has this same sort of timing adjustment. 

I hope this helps give an idea of why there is uncertainty in the analysis, and why I tried to be very clear with all of the reporters and with you about the need to combine this acoustic  evaluation with physical evidence, witness accounts, and all the rest.

I was a bit overconfident in my analysis above, assuming that the distance to the mic was not great enough to affect the calculations mush. It appears I was wrong, and that there is a significant additional uncertainty to the distance calculations. I believe that the angle of the bullets to the target relative to the microphone would also be a factor - a bullet from the southeast would pass somewhat closer to the mic to the north.

If Rootclaim's numbers are correct, and up to 20 meters can be added to the calculations, then rifles with slower bullets could barely include the IDF position. Al Jazeera identified the IDF guns as M4s which do have a slower muzzle speed than M16s. 




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Remember Nizar Banat? 

He's the critic who publicly called the Palestinian Authority corrupt and organized protests against Mahmoud Abbas.

Last June 24, at 3:30 AM,  he was arrested by PA security services. By 6:30 AM, he was dead.

The PA pretended to be shocked at his death and arrested a bunch of people after the international community expressed displeasure at an obvious assassination. 

And now, according to reports, the supposed murderers will be set free on bail.

Felesteen reports that according to sources, the military court of the PA in Ramallah decided to release on bail 14 defendants in the case of the assassination of Nizar Banat. 

The sources stated that the decision to release the accused was based on the decision of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. 

The defendants are being released on condition that their movement be restricted. And if they happen to disappear towards Jordan, well, these things happen. 

Especially when you work in a government as corrupt as the PA is, under the dictatorship of Mahmoud Abbas.




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

From Ian:

Fred Maroun: Guilty Until Proven Innocent–and then STILL Guilty
We may never know how Abu Akleh was killed, but we do know one thing: when there is an opportunity to make accusations against Israel, the pro-Palestinian media is quick to judge Israel guilty without any proof, and some of the international media follows far too willingly. The death of Abu Akleh, which occurred in Jenin in the West Bank, reminds me of another accusation against Israel: the so-called Jenin massacre.

A battle took place in Jenin in the first few days of April 2002 during the Second Intifada after Israeli soldiers entered Jenin, as part of Operation Defensive Shield, in search for terrorists who were responsible for several terrorist attacks. Palestinian sources quickly claimed that a massacre had occurred, and Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and some international news outlets repeated the accusation without any proof.

The claim of a Jenin massacre has since then been widely discredited. As was written in the Washington Post on May 3, 2002, “The “Jenin massacre” is more than a fiction. It is a hoax.” But in the pro-Palestinian media, the lie endures. The Middle East Monitor repeated the accusation as recently as April 2020. Al Jazeera repeated the accusation in April 2018.

In an ideal world, the tactic of making blatantly false accusations should never work because people should be able to see through them, but the tactic works because too many people see what they want to see. The enduring lie by Donald Trump that he won the 2020 US presidential election is a great example; over 40 percent of Americans still believe it.

Lies work (more or less), but what have they achieved for the Palestinians? Nothing. Lies cannot build a state any more than Palestinian terrorism can.

In the end, in terms of the Palestinian goal of self-determination, however Shireen Abu Akleh was killed is of no significant importance. If it is determined that an Israeli soldier acted improperly, that soldier will be punished, but whether that happens or not, the reasons why the Palestinians do not have their own state will remain the same. The pro-Palestinian media, which Abu Akleh was part of, will continue to ignore those reasons, and they will continue to report dishonestly on the conflict.
David Collier: This is not an article about Shireen Abu Akleh
Yesterday, the NYT published the findings of its investigation into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. They found that an Israeli soldier probably fired the shot that killed her. Last month I wrote an article about the rancid CNN investigation into the same incident which even disgracefully claimed Israel shot her deliberately. The Washington Post also ran an investigation into the killing. So did Bellingcat.

All of the basic truths remain the same. None of these reports have included a forensic analysis of the actual bullet that killed the journalist. Why? Because the Palestinians do not want this to take place.

For now, the Palestinians are milking a perfect scenario. Everyone is blaming Israel anyway, and the story is dragging out month after month. Eventually, if the Palestinians are confident an Israeli soldier did fire the shot, they may even produce the bullet for inspection – thus ‘proving’ Israel did it and creating a whole new round of ‘we were right’ stories in the international media. Of course, if the Palestinians have any doubt at all over what really happened, they wouldn’t dare risk the fall-out.

An Israeli soldier may have shot her. These things can and do happen in areas of conflict. That isn’t the point. The issue remains that Israel cannot know for sure, so is being held hostage by Palestinians who benefit from the very information void that they have created.

On the one side we have major media outlets scrambling to produce endless reports about the killing, on the other Jews are left able to do nothing but point to the weaknesses in all these investigations.

Jews are always left fighting a desperate corner, rather than pointing out the blatant discrimination that placed them there.

Because this is not an article about Shireen Abu Akleh. The real question is why are we seeing an endless stream of pointless dead-end investigations into this incident? This irrational obsession that surrounds her death is rooted in exceptionalism, discrimination, blatant bias and antisemitism. To highlight this I just want you to meet some people you probably have never – and will never – hear about:
JPost Editorial: Israel must release the Shireen Abu Akleh probe findings
At the same time, Israel’s determination of how the veteran American Palestinian journalist was killed in Jenin on May 11 is also pending – despite the publication by key media outlets of some extremely damaging reports.

Even though the official postmortem report by the Palestinian Authority said it could not determine who shot the fatal bullet, The Washington Post, CNN and The Associated Press published the results of their own probes, finding that Abu Akleh was killed by an IDF bullet – with some even suggesting that she had been deliberately shot by Israeli troops.

Although the IDF squarely rejected these allegations, we are still awaiting the results of the military investigation ordered by Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi. “There is one thing that can be determined with certainty: no IDF soldier deliberately fired at a journalist,” Kohavi stated. “We investigated this. That is the conclusion and there is no other.”

In response to The Washington Post report, the IDF said it would “continue to responsibly investigate the incident in order to get to the truth of this tragic event. The bullet is vital to reaching a conclusion as to the source of the fire that killed Abu Akleh, and it is an important source for reaching an evidence-based conclusion. The Palestinians continue to refuse the IDF’s offer to conduct a joint forensic examination of the bullet, with American representation.”

We urge the IDF and the Israel Police to publish the results of all their investigations into Abu Akleh’s death and her funeral as soon as possible. Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and people around the world need to know the truth – whatever it is.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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