Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 27, 2022

The Proto-Protocols of Jewish Domination, 1868

The New Arab, which is considered one of the saner Arab publication, starts off a Sunday article with this:

The Jewish Rabbi Rijkorner said at a secret meeting held by the Jews in Prague, in 1869: “If gold is the primary force, then the press is the secondary force, but the second does not work without the first, and we must, by means of gold, seize the press, and when we seize them, we strive to destroy family life, morals, religion and virtue."

In extreme antisemitic circles, there is a story circulating of a Rabbi Reichorn who supposedly made a speech describing hw the Jews will take over the world - decades before the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The New Arab article is based on that lie.

This wholly fictional speech was published in 1921 in antisemitic French magazine La Vieille France It claimed to have copied this speech from the book La Russie Juive.

Here are the supposed Protocols of 1869:

1. Every hundred years, We, the Sages of Israel, have been accustomed to meet in Sanhedrin in order to examine our progress towards the domination of the world which Jehovah has promised us, and our conquests over the enemy, Christianity.

2. This year, united over the tomb of our reverend Simeon ben-Ihuda, we can state with pride that the past century has brought us very near to our goal, and that this goal will be very soon attained.

3. Gold always has been and always will be the irresistible power. Handled by expert hands it will always be the most useful lever for those who possess it, and the object of envy for those who do not. With gold we can buy the most rebellious consciences, can fix the rate of all values, the current prices of all products, can subsidize all State loans, and thereafter hold the states at our mercy.

4. Already the principal banks, the exchanges of the entire world, the credits of all governments, are in our hands.

5. The other great power is THE PRESS. By repeating without cessation certain ideas, the Press succeeds in the end in having them accepted as actualities. The Theatre renders us analogous services. Everywhere the Press and the Theatre obey our orders.

6. By the ceaseless praise of DEMOCRATIC RULE we shall divide the Christians into political parties, we shall destroy the unity of their nations, we shall sow discord everywhere. Reduced to impotence, they will bow before the LAW of OUR BANK, always united, and always devoted to our Cause.

7. We shall force the Christians into wars by exploiting their pride and their stupidity. They will massacre each other, and clear the ground for us to put our people into.

8. The possession of the land has always brought influence and power. In the name of social Justice and Equality we shall parcel out the great estates; we shall give the fragments to the peasants who covet them with all their powers, and who will soon be in debt to us by the expense of cultivating them.
Our capital will make us their masters. We in our turn shall become the great proprietors, and the possession of the land will assure the power to us.

9. Let us try to replace the circulation of gold with paper money; our chests will absorb the gold, and we shall regulate the value of the paper which will make us masters of all the positions.

10. We count among us plenty of orators capable of feigning enthusiasm and of persuading mobs. We shall spread them among the people to announce changes which should secure the happiness of the human race. By gold and by flattery we shall gain the proletariat which will charge itself with annihilating Christian capitalism. We shall promise workmen salaries of which they have never dared to dream, but we shall also raise the price of necessities so that our profits will be greater still.

11. In this manner we shall prepare Revolutions which the Christians will make themselves, and of which we shall reap the fruit.

12. By our mockeries and our attacks upon them we shall make their priests ridiculous then odious, and their religion as ridiculous and as odious as their clergy. Then we shall be masters of their souls. For our pious attachment to our own religion, to our own worship, will prove the superiority of our religion and the superiority of our souls.

13. We have established our own men in all important positions. We must endeavor to provide the Goyim with lawyers and doctors; the lawyers are au courant with all interests; doctors, once in the house, become confessors and directors of consciences.

14. But above all let us monopolize Education. By this means we spread ideas that are useful to us, and shape the children's brains as suits us.

15. If one of our people should unhappily fall into the hands of justice amongst the Christians, we must rush to help him; find as many witnesses as he needs to save him from his judges, until we become judges ourselves.

16. The monarchs of the Christian world, swollen with ambition and vanity, surround themselves with luxury and with numerous armies. We shall furnish them with all the money their folly demands, and so shall keep them in leash.

17. Let us take care not to hinder the marriage of our men with Christian girls, for through them we shall get our foot into the most closely locked circles. If our daughters marry Goyim they will be no less useful, for the children of a Jewish mother are ours. Let us foster the idea of free love, that we may destroy among Christian women attachment to the principles and practices of their religion.

18. For ages past the sons of Israel, despised and persecuted, have been working to open up a path to power. They are hitting the mark. They control the economic life of the accursed Christians; their influence preponderates over politics and over manners.

19. At the wished for hour, fixed in advance, we shall let loose the Revolution, which by ruining all classes of Christianity, will definitely enslave the Christian to US. Thus will be accomplished the promise of God made to His people.

The text is actually derived from a chapter of an 1868 novel by Hermann Goedsche called "Biarritz." After he died, antisemites turned the fictional chapter into a leaflet purported to be true.

The chapter includes an entire scene of representatives of the Twelve Tribes each meeting in a cemetery in Prague and each reciting a protocol. The New Arab version quotes from this novel, not from the "protocols" listed above. There seem to have been some major changes between the novel and the 19 protocols listed above.

And mainstream Arab media still embraces this antisemitic libel.

Strangely, this French text published during the Nazi era in France is in an online Museums of Paris collection today, without mentioning its antisemitic nature.

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!

It isn't just one bullet that is missing

While the world is falling over itself to declare Israel guilty for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, no one seems to be talking about how careless and negligent the Palestinian Authority has been in its "investigation."

I've watched lots of videos from the spot where Abu Akleh was killed in Jenin, but I have not seen one that shows the Palestinian police.

Think about every crime scene you have ever seen, in person or on TV. Reporters and residents are kept away, while the police try to preserve the scene, tag and photograph the position of all the bullets, and do everything a proper forensics unit does.

But in Jenin on May 11, there was no hint of police.

Here is where she was killed, not long thereafter, before the tree turned into a full fledged memorial.

Where is the caution tape?

More importantly, the audio shows that there were at least a dozen bullets seemingly from the same source. The PA has one of them - the one that hit Shireen. Where are the rest of them? Any one of them could show that the IDF had fired in that direction - why doesn't anyone seem to have them?

Either the Palestinian police - funded by the West - is spectacularly incompetent, or they are hiding important data from the public.

The people who are investigating using open-source tools don't seem to be bothered by the fact that there is so little information being shared from the supposed side of the victim.

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!

06/26 Links: Negev Summit to become permanent forum; PA honors 3 murderers of Jews from 1929; A ray of hope amid rampant antisemitism

From Ian:

Negev Summit to become permanent forum

Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz will travel to Bahrain on Monday to meet with representatives of foreign ministries of countries that participated in the Negev Summit that took place in Israel last March.

The summit, which was hosted by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, brought together Israeli and Arab leaders and was attended by the United Arab Emirates' Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Bahrain's Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Morocco's Nasser Bourita, Egypt's Sameh Shoukry and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Twitter that in March, the states decided the summit would become a permanent forum, "an ongoing process based on six working groups": food and water security, energy, health, education and tolerance, tourism, and regional security.

It said the goal of Monday's meeting was to "determine the working groups' process" and "serve as a milestone ahead of the US President's expected visit to the Middle East."

President Joe Biden is expected to visit Israel, and later Saudi Arabia, in mid-July.

Are Jews the New Nazis?

The internet is awash with claims that Jews are like Nazis. This comes through insinuation or is explicitly stated. Some say Israelis are behaving like the Nazis today. Others, (invariably the same people), say Jews collaborated with Hitler in the past.

This is the first of two articles available for subscribers. The second article addresses the claim that Hitler and Jewish Zionists collaborated in the 1930s. Today’s article deals with the assertion that present day Israel is behaving the same way towards Palestinians as the Nazis did towards Jews.

Let’s jump straight to the conclusion and work from there: it’s a load of bollocks. Comparing Jews to Nazis in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict is a way for stupid people to feel like they’ve had a smart idea. They think the poetic twist of the abused becoming the abuser is a cute thought and that the irony of this role-reversal somehow equals truth. But being proud of a cool story you tell yourself and looking to be praised for your pop-psychology doesn’t mean you’ve actually arrived at the truth.

The most basic understanding of history and the most cursory insight into the present disproves the premise. Nazis tried to exterminate every Jew on the planet for racist reasons. Israel-Palestine is not a racial conflict but a land dispute. Israel has continuously sought peace with its neighbours. If Palestinians also sought peace the conflict would end. But they don’t. None the less, Israel continues to sue for peace because its aspiration is a Middle East in which all people - including Palestinians - can live. This doesn’t quite tally with the Nazis, whose aspiration was a world in which all Jews were dead. Wanting to shake hands with your neighbours and wanting to bury your neighbours are two entirely different things.

It’s worth noting that the global Jewish population still hasn’t returned to its pre-Holocaust numbers. By contrast the Palestinian population has boomed. That’s because there is no ethnic cleansing or genocide being committed by Israel. Israel has the power to wipe out every Palestinian tomorrow if it wanted to - but it does not. Having the power to act - but not doing so - reveals once again that Israel’s intent towards Palestinians is not Nazi-like or genocidal.

I am a Jewish Crimson Editor, and I See the Writing on the Wall…of Resistance

“Zionism is Racism, Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, Apartheid.”

On April 29, the Crimson Editorial Board, of which I am an associate editor, published a Staff Editorial that embraced these claims, which were plastered onto the Palestinian Student Committee’s “Wall of Resistance” at the time. The Board “proudly” endorsed the associated Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, while rendering the display a “colorful” and “spirited” emblem of “passion.” The article made no mention of the fact that BDS student activism has been tied to antisemitic exclusion and violence on college campuses.

Having missed the meeting where the Board shifted its stance on BDS, I’ve spent an embarrassing number of hours puzzling over the decision, attempting to make sense of the Board’s reasoning. Yet the more I read the Staff Editorial, the more muddled its logic seemed to become. The Board, seemingly seduced by the “colorful” Wall of Resistance, directs virtually no attention to any concrete or balanced exploration of the conflict, instead evading it by stating that we “can’t nuance away” Palestinians’ lived realities. And eventually, after having evaded all precision and nuance, it blindly accepts BDS’s flawed, factually misleading mission.

And now, BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti has authored a Crimson letter to the editor that repeats a host of deceptive anti-Zionist talking points, recycling references to what others have dubbed “Jewish supremacy” while highlighting reports that characterize the Israeli-Palestinian relationship as a racial dispute. These declarations aren’t just wildly distorted; they’re dangerous. They paint a reductive portrait of the Jewish state, demonizing the nation and delegitimizing its very existence. But they are also provocative, evoking emotion, and are cloaked with a blanket of resonant humanitarian claims. For unknowing onlookers with a taste for justice, that seems to be all that matters.

This slick dynamic, I’ve come to realize, captures the essence — and the dangerous “artistry” — of the broader BDS movement.

It is my intuition that Zionism is not what the Editorial Board — or most people backing an anti-Zionist agenda in the name of justice — believes they are rejecting, or likening to racism and cruelty. Instead, they are rejecting a false projection of Zionism — one that has been carefully constructed by movements like BDS, whose entire narrative is founded upon a hefty hijacking of Jewish identity and history.

BDS’s official website explicitly writes that Israel’s origins can be found within a “racist ideology” of European colonialism, which it then ties to the Zionist movement. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not rooted in a racial struggle, nor in an ideology of superiority or hate. On the contrary, Zionism was born in 1896 as a movement of liberation, of freedom, and of resisting unfair power imbalances during a period in which Jews across Europe were persecuted — barred from government assemblies, attacked in the press, and excluded from business dealings, hotels, social circles, and clubs.

UNRWA held a pledging conference in New York starting on Thursday. While it managed to get an additional $160 million in funding, it says it is still $100 million short of its needs.

At his opening remarks, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini inadvertently described UNRWA's exact problem:

UNRWA cannot be compared to any other UN humanitarian agency.

You have mandated UNRWA to provide government-like services. But we do not have the fiscal and financial tools of a government.

Yet no one is asking why a humanitarian agency is performing government-like functions? Palestinians live under governments in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria - why don't those governments do their jobs and provide medical, educational and housing aid to these faux refugees who have lived under these governments' rule far longer than the Syrian and other real refugees that they do take care of?

The US representative speech highlights the problem:

[The] United States reiterates our support to UNRWA and urges other donors to provide robust, reliable funding to help address the Agency’s long-term sustainability.

UNRWA was always meant to be a temporary agency. Its plans should be to dismantle itself over time, and move the responsibility for the Palestinian "refugees" to where they belong - with their host governments. It shouldn't have long-term sustainability - it should have a strategy to eliminate itself.

The Palestinian Director of the Authority (302) for the Defense of Refugee Rights, Ali Huwaidi, noted that the Arab world did not pledge anything at this conference:

We noticed in the pledges conference that no Arab country contributed any additional amount to what it provided at the beginning of 2022, and there is a Qatari, Kuwaiti and Saudi regression, and it is known that the UAE stopped its support completely in February 2022, although the Arab countries are obligated to pay 7.8 percent of the general budget.

They know that UNRWA is part of the problem, not part of the solution. UNRWA exists to keep a culture of permanent victimhood and hate, and to give Palestinians false hope that one day they will "return" to a country they have never seen and destroy Israel demographically. This justifies treating them like garbage in the meanwhile.

UNRWA should work with the host countries to redirect its budget towards having its responsibilities transitioned to real governments. There is no reason Palestinians who are nearly all Jordanian citizens should live in "refugee"camps. There is no reason Palestinians in Lebanon should have no rights to even buy land or hold many jobs in the land they have lived in for over 70 years. There is no reason Palestinians in the areas of British Mandate Palestine should be considered "refugees." There is no reason the very definition of "Palestine refugee" should not be the same as that of every other refugee. There is no reason why descendants of refugees should automatically inherit that designation.

The reason UNRWA has failed is because for decades UNRWA has not tried to solve the original refugee problem - they exist to perpetuate it, and to justify perpetuating it.

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!

WSJ: Israel met with Arabs including Qataris, Saudis on defending against Iranian threat

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The U.S. convened a secret meeting of top military officials from Israel and Arab countries in March to explore how they could coordinate against Iran’s growing missile and drone capabilities, according to officials from the U.S. and the region.

The previously undisclosed talks, which were held at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, marked the first time that such a range of ranking Israeli and Arab officers have met under U.S. military auspices to discuss how to defend against a common threat.

The meeting brought together the top military officers from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan and came as Israel and its neighbors are in the early stage of discussing potential military cooperation, the officials said.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain also sent officers to the meeting. The U.S. was represented by Gen. Frank McKenzie, then the head of the U.S. Central Command.

The talks were enabled by several changes, including common fears of Iran, improved political ties signaled by the Abraham Accords and the Trump administration’s decision in January 2021 to expand Central Command’s area of coverage to include Israel.

Another factor driving expanding military cooperation has been Arab countries’ desire for access to Israeli air defense technology and weapons at a time when the U.S. is shifting its military priorities toward countering China and Russia.

After initially distancing itself from the Abraham Accords, the Biden administration belatedly started to embrace them and now to expand them to include other Arab countries.

Recall that there was another meeting in March in Sharm el-Sheikh, between the leaders of Israel, Egypt and the UAE, on March 22.

The date of the military meeting is not known, but General McKenzie gave a hint about it in a media briefing from Centcom Headquarters in Tampa, Florida on March 16.

"Iran's ballistic missile threat has continued to advance and expand with greater ranges and accuracy," he said, adding that land attack cruise missiles and small unmanned aerial vehicles also are part of that threat.

Partner nation air defense systems in the region far outnumber those that the U.S. has there, he said. Air defense systems, including high-end ones like the Patriot system, are used by the Gulf States and others.

"The task in the theater is really how do you knit those together so that you create more than a simple sum of the component parts," he said.

"By doing so, you create a common operational picture, so everybody sees the same thing. Everybody gets early warnings; everybody can be prepared to react very quickly to a potential Iranian attack. That's where the future in this theater is," he said.

Iranian ballistic missile threats have provided some opportunities for the United States to advance regional cooperation in the area of air defense, he said.

"Centcom is focused on operationalizing the Abraham Accords as we brought Israel into our area of operations, and missile defense is one area of cooperation that all our partners understand," he said.

The focus, according to the now-retired general, was to facilitate communication between all regional states so everyone can share early warnings of Iranian attacks. This has the advantage, he hinted, of Israel being able to cooperate with Arab countries that it has not made peace with by not requiring any physical presence of Israelis in Arab countries or vice versa.

Such cooperation is still in very early stages, but the Trump decision to incorporate Israel into Centcom is paying off in closer military cooperation between all Arab states and Israel, via the US.

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!

A week ago, the Iraqi parliament unanimously passed a law criminalising any form of normalisation with Israel. The law threatens the death penalty or life imprisonment for anyone calling for normalisation.

The law says that any Iraq who visits Israel will be sentenced to life imprisonment, and those who establish any political, economic, or cultural relations with Israel institutions, even through social media, will be sentenced to death.

An analysis in The New Arab - which is very anti-Israel - indicates that Iraq might suffer from this law if it enforces it, which it might not do:

The new anti-normalisation law could also be weaponised against Sunni Arab dissidents, warned Tallha Abdulrazaq, an expert in Middle Eastern strategic and security affairs, in an interview with The New Arab.

“I’m a British-Iraqi and in my academic work I engage sometimes with Israeli academics, policymakers, and even lawmakers on occasion…I’m exactly the kind of target whom they’d like to sweep up in this sort of thing because I’m a dissident of the political process and I’m a Sunni. There’s a political aspect and a sectarian aspect to this…So, if you have any interactions with an Israeli entity, they can target you with this law.” He added that “this is going to have a chilling effect on academics abroad and people who work in the media.”

This legislation could also have negative implications for Iraq’s economy and foreign investment climate. Depending on the extent to which authorities enforce this law, investors might worry more about the potential risks of doing business in Iraq on top of concerns surrounding the country’s overall state of insecurity.

There could be “possible obstacles to foreign direct investment in Iraq by companies that feel constrained by their own policies or the laws in their home countries that would penalise anything that looks like cooperating in a boycott of Israel,” according to analysts Yerevan Saeed and Hussein Ibish.

Yet, Abdulrazaq believes that this law will not be weaponised against foreign corporations with links to Israel given Iraq’s current economic problems.

“The Iraqi economy is in absolute shambles…They need these foreign companies [and] foreign direct investment…This is more for popular consumption. It’s not meant as a stick meant to beat foreign companies with. They need them for their economy…If these guys were to leave, then that’s it for Iraq. There’d be almost nothing there for them. Even in terms of their oil sales, it’s not enough. It’s not enough to sustain Iraq itself. They will not chasing any foreign corporations any time soon.”

The initial consensus is that this law is simply a means to unite Iraqis with anti-Israel rhetoric, a time honored tradition in the Arab world that is quickly losing its effectiveness. There seems little appetite to have Iraq allow foreign investors to be chased away because they also have ties to Israel, which was the Arab League position for decades.

(h/t JW)

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!

06/25 Links: Under the Biden, Iran Sanctions are Violated with Impunity; Sudan: The Genocide No One Talks About; Iran vows to press ahead with nuclear development until West ends ‘illegal behavior’

From Ian:

Under the Biden Administration's Watch, Iran Sanctions are Violated with Impunity

The Biden administration's weak leadership -- to hold accountable those who are violating Iran sanctions -- is likely a critical reason the Iranian regime is flamboyantly ignoring the US and forging ahead -- soon, most likely, to become a nuclear state.

Presumably to take even further advantage of the Biden administration's weak leadership, the Iranian regime is also signing long-term agreements with its oil clients to permanently insulate its economy from the US sanctions.

The ruling mullahs are now producing more oil and selling it at levels close to the pre-sanctions era to countries such as China, which desperately needs more oil, while the Biden administration has cut off US oil exploration.

One of its terms [of the deal recently signed between China and Iran] is that China will invest nearly $400 billion in Iran's oil, gas and petrochemicals industries. In return, China will have priority to bid on any new project in Iran that is linked to these sectors. China will also receive a 12% discount and can delay payments by up to two years. China will also be able to pay in any currency it chooses. It is also estimated that, in total, China will receive discounts of nearly 32%.

The Biden administration must impose drastic economic sanctions on Iran's energy and financial sectors: that would threaten the ruling clerics' hold on power, forcing the leadership to recalculate its priorities. The US must hold those who violate the sanctions strictly accountable, and make clear to the ruling mullahs that if they continue advancing their nuclear program, military options are on the table.

Pierre Rehov: Sudan: The Genocide No One Talks About

Civilian institutions are concerned that Sudan's new puppet government is simply a cover for the return of Bashir and that, although he is in prison, he is behind every development in the Sudanese government.

This, apparently, is also the conviction of El Nur. He notes with distress that the massacres organized by the Janjaweed and the Rapid Intervention Forces have not seen any let up. Daily peaceful demonstrations in Khartoum and the rest of the country are interrupted by the police and state militias, who fire live ammunition at the crowds, while raids are conducted throughout Sudan. Homes are burned. Villagers are forced into the desert without food or water. Summary executions take place. Women and children are crushed by cars. Students are mown down by bullets.

To this day, although the American government has scrupulously honored its part of the agreement, the Sudanese authorities have been careful not to respect the slightest paragraph.

In northern Sudan, mercenaries from the Wagner Group, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, have, with the apparent complicity of the regime, taken over the main gold mines of Al-Ibediyya. Day and night, extracting this gold is carried out by "free" Sudanese whose symbolic salary is close to slavery. Where does this gold go? No one is sure, but reportedly it could be feeding the coffers of Moscow and perhaps those of its ally, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran.

Last month, the Biden administration suspended all aid to Sudan, including that linked to its normalization agreement with Israel, and informed Jerusalem that no support should be given to the Khartoum government until there are democratic elections.

Bennett: I won't rule out sitting under Netanyahu in future

The 24th Knesset may disperse as early as Monday evening, exactly a week after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s dramatic announcement to that effect.

While there are still a number of parliamentary hurdles to clear, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked said on Friday that the negotiations to form an alternate government led by opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu had been exhausted, leaving elections as the only remaining option.

Bennett’s political future is unclear. He met with his longtime political partner Shaked on Friday for the first time since Monday’s announcement, which he made while she was on an official visit to Morocco. The two are set to meet again on Sunday, presumably to discuss their political future.

In interviews on all three major television news outlets aired on Saturday evening, Bennett said that he would not announce his plans for the future until the Knesset officially disperses, but that his decision will be based on whether his remaining in politics would or would not contribute to healing the schism between Israel’s different sectors.

06/24 Links Pt2: Whatever Happened to the ‘Pro-Jewish’ Left?; The moral clarity of Nikki Haley; Google honors the life of Anne Frank with diary doodles

From Ian:

Whatever Happened to the ‘Pro-Jewish’ Left?

The disengagement from Jewish life by some on the left is neither novel nor especially surprising. After all, there’s a long history of Jews identified with the far left who have rejected religion and feeling responsible for the Jewish people. But the masses of American Jews who identified with political liberalism thought differently. They saw no tension between their commitments to aid fellow Jews while also supporting non-sectarian causes. Nor did they indict their religion as the source of human failings. Twentieth century Jewish liberals often were leaders of federations of Jewish philanthropy, defense organizations, social service agencies, and Jewish educational and religious institutions. During the 1960s, baby boomers seeking to make their mark on American Jewish life were committed to anti-war protests and the Civil Rights movement, as well as labor unions—even as they marched to free Soviet Jewry and defend the embattled State of Israel. While in our time it is not uncommon for Jewish progressives to ridicule efforts to ensure “Jewish continuity,” youthful activists in the early 1970s critiqued Jewish organizations for investing too little in Jewish education and too much in Jewish health care facilities that no longer served a primarily Jewish clientele. In that era, too, the Jewish left produced the Havurah fellowships, the turn to neo-Hasidism, significant aliyah to Israel, Jewish feminism, and mass demonstrations in support of Jewish causes. Undoubtedly, some on today’s Jewish left passionately share similar Jewish commitments. But the data we have cited point to the indifference of many Jewish liberals today—particularly younger adults—to most forms of Jewish particularism, religious life, and positive identification with Israel as a Jewish state.

How might this situation change in the direction of greater involvement by political liberals in Jewish life? It’s possible that American society, including political liberals, will re-embrace religious commitment and a more positive approach to cultural heritage. The pendulum may swing back: Americans may come to place more value on association, cooperative work, and volunteering. Just as trends in the wider society have pushed liberal Jews in the past to distance themselves from their religious and collective needs, a broader shift in attitudes may make Jewish particularism more attractive. Not least, rising levels of antisemitism may accelerate these changes.

There also are possibilities for some rebalancing of priorities within the American Jewish community. Reform, we expect, would have to come from inside the camp of Jewish liberals. Sobered by findings such as those we report, liberal-minded leaders may take up the challenge of rebuffing ideas and influencers undermining participation in Jewish religious and communal activities. In all likelihood, only highly respected and credible liberals committed to Jewish life—and there still are tens of thousands of them—have a reasonable chance to reverse the Jewish commitment gap we have highlighted. They are best-positioned to make the case to their ideological allies for the compatibility of liberalism with active participation in Jewish communal and religious endeavors and reject those aspects of left-leaning thinking inimical to Jewish life.

Why ‘Pro-Israel’ Is No Longer Enough

Speaking to a group at last month’s Israeli conservatism conference, former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman was asked how best to “sell Zionism” in America.

Before delving into his reasoning, the former ambassador answered that “selling Zionism” first requires “selling Judaism.” Friedman correctly maintains that Zionism rooted in the belief that Israel exists as a Jewish state will inevitably unite the “political left, right, and center.” Friedman argues that Jews must stop trying to appease antisemites by “bifurcating Zionism and Judaism.”

Decades ago, being raised in a pro-Israel household, taking a Birthright trip, and living within a Jewish community protected against the anti-Israel hostility that a young Jewish student might encounter on campus. But today, US Jews are being peddled a brand of popularized universalism that often demonizes Israel. As a result, the repackaged antisemitism, which partners a hatred of Israel with progressive causes, is neglected and, increasingly, is bolstered by some in the Jewish community.

Moreover, an affinity for Israel based on expressed parental support does not advance the Israel literacy required to combat contemporary antisemitism, or give Jewish students the critical thinking tools necessary to counter anti-Israel propaganda spouted at them on campus.

With an attachment to Jewish peoplehood already weakened, the crucial work of organizations like Birthright Israel and StandWithUs are not strong enough to teach young Jews the truth about what is happening in Israel and “Palestine.”

Most will already be exposed to social media postings decrying Israeli “apartheid,” and media lies falsely accusing Israel of war crimes. In California, as part of the K-12 ethnic studies curriculum, students may have previously completed coursework affirming that Israel is a “settler state” founded on “genocide.”

Accruing the resiliency and knowledge to combat anti-Zionism will inevitably raise critical and, at times, uncomfortable questions.

Melanie Phillips: The moral clarity of Nikki Haley

The challenge facing western leaders therefore could not be more momentous. But could any leader meet it? Is it actually possible to stop America’s slide into cultural fragmentation and global impotence?

When asked this question in London, Haley said America simply couldn’t afford to fail. And her own approach showed how, if this desperate task has any chance of succeeding, the west can stop itself from plunging off the edge of the cultural cliff.

The only way is through leadership that exhibits the kind of moral clarity she was expressing. For the reason that evil currently has the upper hand in the world is the absence of leaders prepared to make it clear that they simply won’t stand for attacks on their society at home or on the free world abroad.

What is so astounding isn’t just the appeasement of the west’s enemies abroad. It is also that that, at home, the lunacies of critical race theory and intersectionality have gained such traction in the universities, schools, companies and even the armed forces. It’s all part of the same dismal story — a wholesale absence of western spine.

What makes the timidity of western politicians all the more frustrating is the demonstrable public hunger for such leadership, and the rewards that it brings.

In America, this was demonstrated by last year’s stunning election victory in Virginia of Governor Glenn Youngkin, who gained office in a hitherto solidly Democratic state by emphasising parental rights to make decisions about their children's education with the slogan, “parents matter”.

And in Israel, the Trump administration’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem not only did not produce the eruption of violence so adamantly predicted by the US State Department and hosts of other faint-hearts, but ushered in the revolutionary Abraham Accords between Israel and the Gulf states.

One thing above all is required at present from the leaders of the west. It’s moral courage. Whoever displays that deserves to win the highest office. It is essential that whoever fails to display it does not.

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!

The media completely ignores the corruption inherent in the PLO and PA

On Thursday, Mahmoud Abbas led a meeting of the PLO Executive Committee, for which he has been the chairman since 2004.

Here is what the meeting looked like as they prayed to open the session:

Sixteen older white men, almost all Muslim.

Hanan Ashrawi, a Christian woman, was a member of this committee but she resigned in 2020 - partially because all the decisions were being made by old men.

Keep in mind that the Palestinian Authority (or, as they call it, the "State of Palestine") reports to the PLO. This non-elected organization is what really makes the decisions, not the PA. So for example, in 2009 the PLO Executive Committee - headed by Abbas - voted to allow Abbas to remain the president of the PA indefinitely, even in the absence of elections. This power also allowed Abbas to dissolve the High Court and replace it with his own appointees, and to sideline the legislative branch of the government when Hamas won those elections.

This is dictatorial power, and the Western media just shrugs - or pretends that the PA is a democracy because it sometime stages meaningless elections.

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!

06/24 Links Pt1: Exposed: UN Teachers Call to Murder Jews; Senate Shoots Down Biden’s Anti-Semitic Ambassador Pick; Inaugural Emirates Airline Flight to Tel Aviv Takes Off From Dubai

From Ian:

UN Watch: Exposed: UN Teachers Call to Murder Jews

As the U.S. and other Western states gather today at the United Nations in the presence of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to pledge funding for the UN agency that runs schools and social services for Palestinians, a watchdog group urged democracies to stop funding hundreds of UNRWA teachers and other employees who call to murder Jews.

UN Watch today exposed antisemitism and incitement to terrorism propagated recently by 10 UNRWA teachers and other employees. This is in addition to more than 100 UNRWA educators and staff previously exposed published by the non-governmental organization UN Watch, an independent human rights monitoring group based in Geneva.

The latest 10 UNRWA teachers and other staffers to be exposed are:
1. Nihaya Awad, Computer Teacher at UNRWA West Bank, Praises Hamas
2. Abu Muhammad Fathi Bahar, UNRWA Lebanon Employee, Promotes Violence
3. Elham Mansour (Teacher, UNRWA Lebanon), Incites Killing Israelis and Jews
4. Hana’a Daoud (Teacher, UNRWA Jordan), Advocates Killing Jews
5. Sameer Abo Ayyash (Social Worker, UNRWA Jordan), Admires Taliban
6. Majed Zaben (Teacher, UNRWA Jordan), Incites Against Israel
7. Adel Torbani (Math Teacher, UNRWA Jordan), Rejects Israel’s Right to Exist and Posts Antisemitism
8. Qusai Mansi (Employee, UNRWA Jordan), Equates Zionists with Nazis
9. Rula Om Mo’awia (Teacher, UNRWA Jordan), Incites Against Israel
10. Muneera Abu Hadeel (Midwife, UNRWA West Bank), Portrays Israel as Thieving Dog

As documented above, UN Watch has uncovered 20 new cases of virulent incitement committed by 10 UNRWA teachers and other staff, in violation of the agency’s own rules and stated values of zero tolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism.

UN Watch submitted the findings today to EU foreign affairs commissioner Joseph Borell, and U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, whose governments are among the top funders of UNRWA, and to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini.

UN Watch is calling on the agency’s major funders—including the U.S., Germany, the UK and the European Union—to ensure that none of their combined $1.2 billion of donations to UNRWA will fund teachers of hate, and to hold the agency accountable to its own standards and commitments.

As revealed by UN Watch today, UNRWA staff stationed in the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan are publicly inciting antisemitism and terrorism.

Report: UNRWA educators promote antisemitism online

Israel’s UN Envoy Demands Accountability After Report Exposes New Cases of Antisemitism at Palestinian Refugee Agency

Israel’s envoy to the United Nations launched a fresh attack on Thursday upon UNRWA, the refugee agency solely dedicated to the Palestinians that was charged in a recent independent report with inciting antisemitism.

“Not only does UNRWA not help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it causes enormous damage, incites hatred and terrorism and perpetuates the conflict, all under the auspices of the UN, which buries its head in the sand and refuses to see reality,” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said in a statement on Thursday.

Erdan cited a report published by the UN Watch NGO, that documented over 120 UNRWA educators and staff promoting violence and antisemitism on social media. Titled “UNRWA’s Teachers of Hate,” the report also discovered 20 new cases of “virulent UNRWA staff incitement which violate the agency’s rules and stated values of zero tolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism.”

One May 2022 Facebook post by an UNRWA teacher in Lebanon, Elham Mansour, declared: “By Allah, anyone who can kill and slaughter any Zionist and Israeli criminal, and doesn’t do so, doesn’t deserve to live. Kill them and pursue them everywhere, they are the greatest enemy….All Israel deserves is death.” Another post by Mansour, addressed to “filthy Zionists,” urged Palestinians to “slaughter each and every one of you and toss you into the garbage heaps, because you are filthy, you contaminate any land you are in.”

According to UN Watch, UNRWA’s budget last year included $338 million from the United States, $177 million from Germany, $118 million from the European Commission.

#UN: Disgraced Human Rights Council in Geneva. Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, Malcolm Hoenlein @Conf_of_pres @mhoenlein1 https://t.co/hCwhgnmQXY via @Audioboom #UN
— John Batchelor (@batchelorshow) June 24, 2022

Underfunding UNRWA will lead to its collapse, agency head warns

It's not enough to renew the mandate, Lazzarini said, UN nations must also provide the funds to execute it. Eventually, he said, failure to do so would "push the Agency towards financial collapse."

"For years, we managed the chronic underfunding through internal measures such as cost control, austerity and zero-growth budgets," Lazzarini said.

"Today, we have depleted our financial reserves and reached the limits of cost control and austerity measures," he explained, adding that, "austerity now affects the quality of the services."

"We are not in a position anymore to adopt austerity and cost control measures of the size of the funding gap," he said.

A funding failure now would put at risk the education of half-a-million girls and boys as well as the primary health care for close to 2 million people, Lazzarini explained.

"To illustrate austerity, think of 50 children in one classroom, double shifts within schools, or a medical visit where a doctor spends less than 3 minutes with a patient," Lazzarini said.

The pace of donations, he said, cannot keep up with the needs of a growing population.

This is not a new problem
UNRWA has long been in financial distress, but the situation has become more acute in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war.

"The situation in Ukraine has exacerbated the noticeable increase in food and commodity prices, seriously affecting the household economy of Palestine refugees," Lazzarini said.

Poverty rates have reached 80% in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza with "too many Palestine refugees report living with one meal a day," Lazzarini said.

"I have appealed to all donors to ensure that Palestine refugees are not a collateral of the events in Ukraine," he said.

When Gaza suffers from environmental catastrophes, Israel is blamed because it supposedly blocks lifesaving infrastructure from being set up.

Yet this year, Gaza's beaches have re-opened after being closed due to tons of sewage being dumped into the sea.

AFP reports:

Palestinians in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip are rediscovering the pleasures of the Mediterranean Sea, after authorities declared the end of a long period of hazardous marine pollution.

Marine pollution has worsened in recent years in Gaza, where insufficient wastewater solutions have turned the Mediterranean into a dump.

The problem has been further exacerbated by the dilapidated infrastructure of the impoverished and overcrowded enclave.

[S]ix months ago, a German-funded plant began operating in central Gaza, and now treats 60,000 cubic metres (more than 2 million cubic feet) of wastewater per day, which is half the enclave's sewage, according to Mohammed Masleh, an official at Gaza's environment ministry.

This is just the first phase of the project, and eventually, the plant could treat all wastewater in the territory.

The quality of marine water in Gaza has already improved significantly.

Now, according to samples collected by Gazan authorities, two-thirds of the enclave's beaches are suitable for swimming, said Masleh.

How can this be? Isn't there still a blockade where Israel is depriving Gaza of basic necessities needed for living?

Could it be that Israel never blocked materials for treating wastewater to begin with, and the problems came because the PA and Hamas didn't prioritize the quality of life of the people they are responsible for?

According to Reliefweb, once Israel approved the project, it took only four years to build this sewage treatment plant.

The media blames Israel for everything wrong in Gaza and remains strangely silent about Palestinian dysfunction and petty conflicts between the PA and Hamas that are the real root of the majority of Gaza's problems.

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!

The UN "investigation" into Abu Akleh's death is even more ridiculous than the others

The UN High Commissioner of Human Rights pretended to investigate the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, and it came to its pre-ordained conclusion with a minimum of pretense that it was being objective.

In accordance with our global human rights monitoring methodology, our Office inspected photo, video and audio material, visited the scene, consulted experts, reviewed official communications and interviewed witnesses.

As with the other faux investigations, they never seriously considered that there were any Palestinian militants around, even though they were pointed out at the time.

The most obvious proof that the UN did not do any sort of serious investigation comes from this laughable lie:

At around 06h30, as four of the journalists turned into the street leading to the camp, wearing bulletproof helmets and flak jackets with “PRESS” markings, several single, seemingly well-aimed bullets were fired towards them from the direction of the Israeli Security Forces.

There are between 12 and 18 sounds of bullets audible on the videos of the scene. One hit Abu Akleh. One grazed the shoulder of Ali Samoudi. Three hit a tree. No one seems too interested in what happened to the rest of them - there has not been a word about the PA investigating it, and the scene was never closed off for any sort of investigation. (People visited the site immediately and created a shrine to Shireen with no interference from the Palestinian police, and indeed I have not seen a single photo of the Palestinian police at the site at all. Compare to any shooting scene in any other place in the world.)

So how, exactly, were these bullets "well-aimed"? Any shooter who hits a tree more often than a target would not be considered exactly a competent shot.

However, if you look at how Jenin terrorists shoot their weapons , their barely aiming at their targets (as this May 13 video below shows), it is far more consistent with the shooting pattern towards the journalists.

The words "well-aimed" for volleys of bullets that are anything but proves, as if we needed any more proof, that the UN "investigation" is a sham.

Which is why it is not at all surprising that the UN doesn't even mention that the PA is refusing to allow the bullet that killed Shireen be analyzed by anyone else. They don't mention it at all. If they really wanted a thorough investigation, they would demand the bullet be handed over to a competent authority.

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 Jewish News (UK):

Anti-occupation group Na’amod have claimed they are opening a “conversation on anti-Palestinian racism” within the UK Jewish community after publishing a series of testimonies that are alleged to shed light on the scale of the problem.

So what are examples of the "anti-Palestinian racism" that they are so horrified at? The article lists:

Among a series of 18 personal testimonies from young members of the community, is a claim that a peaceful pro-Palestine protest at Bristol University was disrupted by a group of students hailing from north west London who “stormed the peaceful protest, sporting large Israeli flags as they frantically ran through the crowds of protestors.”

Holding an Israeli flag is racist? I'm not sure of when this happened, but perhaps it was this incident, which shows who the racists are:

However, the protest attracted a degree of controversy from fellow students. One group of Zionist Jewish students objected to the protest and stood by the marchers holding an Israeli flag. They reported that marchers shouted at them saying, ‘you are murderers’.

Second-year Languages student, Talia Rack said, ‘No side is blameless but it didn’t feel appropriate to counter-protest this march on Nakba day, in light of what happened on Monday in Gaza’.

So holding an Israeli flag is racist, but holding Palestinian flags and calling British Jews "murderers" is perfectly fine!

Another example of so-called Jewish racism:

A further testimony includes a claim that pointing out the appalling treatment of LGBTQ+ people in Gaza by Hamas to people holding “Queers For Palestine” banners is “a deeply racist idea — and one that often goes unchallenged in our community.”

Telling "Queers for Palestine" that they would be murdered by Hamas is a "deeply racist idea"?

There were two other examples given that were so vague as to be meaningless:

Another account suggests there are “overt examples of anti-Palestinian racism in the wider British Jewish Community” including “the occasional outbursts of certain members of the Board of Deputies to come face to face with naked bigotry.”

Other examples detail alleged racist responses to the Palestinians, while another testimony from former JFS pupil “Josh” says teaching around Israel at the school meant that “Palestinians were only referenced as an obstacle, a safety threat and a thorn in the side of Jewish freedom and safety.”

This is a list of people being offended at any point of view not their own - but there is not a single example of racism, by any definition.

Meanwhile, in Bristol, the openminded pro-Palestinian crowd routinely burns Israeli flags. Imagine how racist that would be if Zionists did that to Palestinian flags in Bristol!

Maybe the report will have more examples, but from what we see so far, the only thing this proves is that British pro-Palestinian Jews call anyone who disagrees with them "racist" - and they act worse than their supposed tormentors.

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!

06/23 Links Pt2: Promotion of Apartheid Rhetoric and BDS at the UNHRC 50th Session; The Botched Hit That Sparked the First Lebanon War; Human Rights NGOs: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Promotion of Apartheid Rhetoric and BDS at the UNHRC 50th Session

The 50th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), held in June 2022, perpetuated the bias and hypocrisy that has come to define the UNHRC specifically and the United Nations in general. NGO Monitor was present, speaking before the Council and documenting the false accusations made by self-proclaimed human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Several statements made during the session by NGO officials, many of which receive large portions of their funding from European governments, promoted the apartheid canard and advocated for BDS.

Item 2: Commission of Inquiry
In May 2021, the UNHRC established a permanent Commission of Inquiry (COI) tasked to “investigate” crimes allegedly committed by Israel since April 13, 2021. Fuelled by disinformation provided by NGOs, the COI is yet another UN body marred by secrecy and tainted by conflicts of interest, whose objective is to target Israel and disseminate false and antisemitic narratives about the conflict.

On June 14, the COI presented its first report to the UNHRC, perpetuating outright falsehoods and relying on information provided by terror-linked and anti-Israel NGOs.

During the debate, the Commissioners, who were appointed despite conflicts of interest and prejudicial backgrounds, made statements illustrating these biases. Navi Pillay, Chair of the COI, used her opening remarks to call for boycotting the State of Israel, claiming that the COI “will carefully assess the responsibilities of third states along with that of private and other actors in the continued violations and abuses of human rights law, and violations of international humanitarian law in Palestine and Israel. This includes, but is not limited to, the transfer of arms…” to Israel.

Commissioner Chris Sidoti attacked those who raised the concern of antisemitism, calling their statements an “outrage,” denigrating the IHRA definition internationally- recognized consensus definition of antisemitism, and accusing pro-Israel NGOs of being agents of the Israeli government: Even the definition of antisemitism promoted by the government of Israel and its GONGOs (government sponsored non-governmental organizations) acknowledges that criticism of Israel, similar to that leveled against any other country, cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” Rather than engage with Jewish and Israeli groups who expressed concern of antisemitism to try and understand, Sidoti instead belittled them, stating that “accusations of antisemitism are thrown around like rice at a wedding. That legitimizes antisemitism. Trivializes antisemitism. Defiles the memory of the 6 million victims of the Shoah.”

The third Commissioner, Miloon Kothari, drew false equivalencies between Russia/Ukraine and Israel. Kothari addressed the alleged “double standards,” affirming that “The question needs to be asked why in the case of Ukraine the international community is rightly appalled in the face of aggression and occupation and has correctly moved to act swiftly and forcefully to ensure compliance with international law, while in the case of Israel and Palestine there has been inaction for decades. Are these glaring double standards? The answer has to be yes.”

It’s Time to Stop the UN Human Rights Council’s Downward Spiral

In this backwards reality – where the world’s worst abusers of human rights hold the power at the UNHRC – it comes as no surprise when a monstrous amount of time, effort, and money is spent in an endless, coordinated effort to condemn a single country – the Jew in the room – rather than allow attention to be drawn to their own regimes’ crimes.

This strategy works quite well for the human rights abusers, with the UNHRC funneling significant resources into attacking Israel. Israel has had more resolutions condemning it than all other countries in the world combined, more Commissioners of Inquiry (COI) into its actions, and it is the only country with an entire regular debate on the Council’s agenda dedicated to it. Nowhere near this level of scrutiny is placed on countries actively committing genocide, such as China.

In its latest endeavour, the UNHRC has embarked on an unprecedented journey prompted by the 2021 Gaza war and led by China, Venezuela, and Russia (while it was still a member of the Council) to investigate Israel – and only Israel –for alleged crimes committed for the entirety of the conflict, its “root causes,” and in perpetuity. With such an outrageously broad mandate, which omits mention of any Palestinian terror groups, comes an outrageous budget, provided by the UNHRC’s donor states, including Canada, which contributed $4.5 million to the UNHRC in 2022.

The COI is led by actors who hold well-documented anti-Israel biases, a choice that contravenes the UN’s own guideline that Commissioners have a “proven record of independence and impartiality.” It is no surprise that, in its first report to the UNHRC published on June 7, the COI’s focus was disproportionately on Israel, mentioning it 157 times, while mentioning Hamas – despite its targeting of Israeli civilians with over 4,000 rockets – just three times. During the presentation of the report to the UNHRC, Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay further emphasized alleged crimes committed by Israel while minimizing the role of Palestinian terrorist organizations, with Syria intervening to accuse Israel of committing “war crimes” and Russia to note it would be a suitable partner to facilitate peace negotiations.

Something must be done to stop the UNHRC’s downward spiral. The answer is not incremental votes by the UN General Assembly to kick members off the Council, with the red line being outright invasion and war crimes. Democracies, including Canada and its allies, should use the leverage they have – diplomatic pressure, public statements, and, if necessary, withholding funds – to ensure that the UNHRC operates as it was intended: as a Council of the world’s human rights role models who act for the benefit of all populations. As the great rabbinic sage, Hillel the Elder, said, “if not now, when?”

UNRWA's Teachers of Hate: Hillel Neuer on i24 TV News

UN Watch's Hillel Neuer on i24 News.

Background: As the U.S. and other Western states gather today at the United Nations in the presence of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to pledge funding for the UN agency that runs schools and social services for Palestinians, a watchdog group urged them to stop funding hundreds of UNRWA teachers and other employees who call to murder Jews.

Over 120 UNRWA educators and staff have been found to promote violence and antisemitism on social media, according to the latest report in a series published by the non-governmental organization UN Watch, an independent human rights monitoring group based in Geneva.

Entitled “UNRWA’s Teachers of Hate,” today’s report uncovers 20 new cases of virulent UNRWA staff incitement which violate the agency’s rules and stated values of zero tolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism. June 23, 2022

Elliot Abrams: Human Rights NGOs: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

But the very large size of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch raises several problems, starting with the threat to the “pluralism” that Thomas Melia mentioned and the “democratic gap” that van Boven said NGOs might fill. When two gigantic NGOs dominate the field, their voices can drown out those of many other, far smaller organizations. What’s more, NGOs and their leadership are not immune from harboring prejudices and political biases.

Both organizations have been deeply critical of Israel and have attracted accusations of bias against that country. In February 2022, Amnesty issued a report entitled “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity.” The UK foreign ministry rejected the use of this terminology, and the German foreign ministry said "We reject expressions like apartheid or a one-sided focusing of criticism on Israel.” The spokesman for the U.S. State Department said "I reject the view that Israel's actions constitute apartheid….we must ensure there isn't a double standard being applied."

The attitude of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International toward Israel presents at least two problems. The first is simply the merits of the argument: are these two organizations biased against Israel, engaging in “one-sided focusing of criticism on Israel?” What other biases might they have, with respect to particular countries or on particular issues? Are they playing some matters down and playing others up in ways that would be controversial if fully understood outside the organization?

That the U.S., U.K., and German governments felt compelled to respond to the Amnesty report is a measure of Amnesty’s influence and of the attention that its reports receive—far more than is typical for the scores of NGOs active on Middle East or human rights/democracy issues. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty also have a considerable ability to affect press coverage and the views of other NGOs, setting the agenda for debate for the media and campuses as well as for foreign ministries.

Moreover, when two such NGOs dominate the field, questions may arise as to their own internal “democratic gap.” Such large and rich organizations report to no one, nor of course are they democratically run internally. Their top officials theoretically report to boards of trustees, but the boards are themselves self-perpetuating and independent from any oversight. The very independence of NGOs, one of their greatest strengths, can become an issue when two organizations so dominate the field.

The ancient question Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? or "Who will guard the guards themselves?" arises here—and is difficult to answer. Others in the field of democracy promotion may be reluctant to criticize such powerful players—in part because anyone in the field may think he or she might one day seek employment as part of their large (and at the top very well-paid) staffs, and in part because they do not wish to tangle with organizations having such influence.

NGOs are critical participants in promoting democracy and human rights around the world. They play roles that cannot be filled by governments, and their many and varied voices provide perspectives and information that would otherwise be unavailable. The dominance of the two largest organizations is at the same time worth careful attention, especially given how controversial have been some of their activities. The independence of NGOs is invaluable, but the issues of oversight, governance, and bias at the two largest NGOs, which dominate the field globally, cannot be overlooked.