Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 01, 2022

Yes, @NYTimes, photographs can mislead. And you have published lots of them yourself.

The New York Times has an interesting article about the revelation that Herman Heukels, who took most of the famous photographs of Jews getting ready to be transported from Amsterdam to work or death camps, was a Nazi.

With this knowledge, we now understand that he intended to demean the Jews whose photos he was taking. He didn't take any photos of the police rounding them up, for example.

In some images, the Jews' dignity shine through anyway.

But this changes the interpretation of the photos.

Janina Struk, author of the 2005 book “Photographing the Holocaust: Interpretations of the Evidence,” said that in the postwar period, photos taken by bystanders, perpetrators and victims were “all kind of mixed together,” and hardly anyone asked who had shot the photos or for what purposes.

In recent years, she added, there has been a greater emphasis on contextualizing the images, explaining how they were made, so that viewers have a better understanding of what they’re looking at — and so people can make better ethical choices about how to present them.

I wish the New York Times cared this much about the context of photos from Gaza taken by modern antisemites.

Here are two photos from last year's war in Gaza that are obviously staged, as I pointed out then:

The New York Times also hires freelance photographers in Gaza who have every incentive to show Israel in a bad light and ignore Hamas war crimes like shooting rockets from populated areas. The NYT is highlighting obviously staged photos as well, like this one, with a bassinet that somehow landed right side up, meters away from the demolished building that supposedly housed it - and without a speck of dust on it. The photographer was also amazingly lucky to find a photogenic, sad boy who just happened to be walking right in front of it, but to the side, so we could see both.

Or this one, where elderly women climbed over dangerous rubble where they could fall and break their hips so they could sit (one on a convenient plastic chair) and look sad in this supposedly candid shot:

Seeing the beach in the background, this airstrike may have been at the Shati camp, where Israel said Hamas leaders were meeting - but the New York Times won't mention that.

Context is everything. Photographers stage their photos and direct the subjects as actors when they won't get caught. They gather ahead of time in likely trouble spots but ensure that the other dozens of photographers crowding around are never in the shot. They choose the ones that tell the story they want to tell and don't submit the ones that contradict them. The freelancers provide the background information that is believed implicitly by the editors.

Is there any moral difference between publishing context-free photos from people who hated Jews in the 1940s and those from people who hate Jews today?

The last paragraph of the article about the Nazi photos is the best summary of the topic, and one that fair media would be attuned to if they cared about context and objectivity.

Struk added, “We need to move away from the idea that a photograph is just a window on the world. It isn’t. It’s a very edited version of what the photographer chose to photograph.”

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!

Israel provides more electricity to Gaza than you think - but Egypt has been providing more fuel

The monthly UN OCHA report on Gaza for July has been released, and they added some graphics I hadn't seen before.

This one shows that Israel provides Gaza with no less than ten separate electricity feeds, three of which are split off in Gaza itself. Israel provides far more electricity to Gaza than the Gaza power plant does,

But I was surprised to see that even though Israel has built large pipelines to securely transfer fuel to Gaza at Kerem Shalom, the Hamas government prefers to obtain most of its fuel from Egypt. Industrial fuel is exclusively from Israel but everything else is mostly from Egyptian sources.

Egyptian fuel imports:

Israeli fuel imports:

My guess is that Egyptian fuel is cheaper, and perhaps Hamas can more easily tax and redirect the Egyptian fuel for their own purposes.

However, in May and June, Israeli exports of cooking gas went much higher while Egyptian exports plummeted. Apparently, the cost of Egyptian cooking gas soared (some blame Hamas, Hamas blames new regulations) and it seems Israeli gas became more affordable by contrast. Gazans were very angry at Hamas when someone published the raw costs of cooking gas from Egypt and the Gaza costs were double that amount.

As usual, what we see in the media is only a tiny portion of what open sources can tell us, and the open sources are only a tiny portion of what is really going on. So-called experts are working with very limited information yet they confidently tell everyone else their analyses as if it is based on all the information - and it never is.

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!

08/01 Links Pt1: The UN Human Rights Council's "Commission of Inquiry" Goes Openly Antisemitic; Why Economic Carrots Won't Appease Iran

From Ian:

Prof. Anne Bayefsky: The UN Human Rights Council's "Commission of Inquiry" Goes Openly Antisemitic

In May 2021, after an 11-day conflict between Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and Israelis, the UN established a "Commission of Inquiry" on Israel with a permanent "ongoing" mandate to ferret out "systematic discrimination and repression."

Three well-known biased actors were appointed as members of the inquiry who could be counted on to manufacture a guilty verdict: Navi Pillay as chair (former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), Miloon Kothari (a former UN "expert"), and Chris Sidoti (a close associate of a top Palestinian organization and of Israel-bashing NGOs).

While UN rules specifically require that UN human rights "experts" are independent, impartial, and objective, each one was on record promoting the libel of apartheid and crimes against humanity regarding Israel and a proven anti-Israel zealot. In June 2022, the inquiry members presented their first report, which concluded that the actions of "Jewish Israelis" were the "root cause" of the conflict.

On July 25, 2022, an interview with commission member Miloon Kothari appeared on the anti-Israel website Mondoweiss where, referring to Israel, he said: "I would go so far as to raise the question as why are they even a member of the United Nations." He referred to social media reaction to the inquiry controlled by "the Jewish lobby."

Human Rights Council President Federico Villegas of Argentina called Kothari's remarks "unfortunate" and said they "could reasonably be interpreted as the stigmatization of the Jewish people." He suggested Kothari "consider the possibility" of "publicly clarifying" his comments. In a letter to Villegas, Israel's Prime Minister Yair Lapid wrote, "The fight against antisemitism cannot be waged with words alone. It requires action. This is the time for action; it is time to disband the Commission. This Commission does not just endorse antisemitism - it fuels it."

The Biden administration has officially and repeatedly objected to the UN "inquiry." On June 29, the House Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment prohibiting the use of any American funds for the inquiry. Defunding would be entirely consistent with current American legislation prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars for other anti-Israel UN bodies.

JPost Editorial: UN bias toward Israel does nothing to achieve peace

The comments by the UN’s Miloon Kothari last week were shocking but not surprising. Kothari is on a three-member panel appointed by the UN last year to conduct an unprecedented open-ended war-crimes probe against Israel. Along with Kothari, the panel comprises chairwoman Navi Pillay, a former UN high commissioner for Human Rights, who in the past has supported calls to boycott and sanction Israel, and Australian legal expert Chris Sidoti, who has also made disturbing remarks recently.

The “UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem, and in Israel” was initially approved in May 2021 by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council. It followed in the wake of the 11-day war that started when Hamas in Gaza launched thousands of rockets on Israel, starting with Jerusalem, and Israel in response launched Operation Guardian of the Walls.

The creation of the commission of inquiry (COI) to investigate Israel – and not Hamas – in perpetuity, is itself shameful. That the panel is composed of three people known to have voiced negative views about Israel, the subject of their investigation, compounds the problems. Nothing the commission or its members have done or said in the meantime even partially mitigates concerns of the built-in bias against Israel. Sidoti rejected criticism when the first report was published in June saying some Jews were throwing around accusations of antisemitism “like rice at a wedding.”

Last week, however, Kothari raised the rhetoric and did away with the last vestiges of pretense of impartiality. Upset by criticism of the COI, including by some governments, Kothari said in an interview with the Mondoweiss website: “We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by – whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs – a lot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us.” The Indian lawyer, in addition, said “I would go as far as to raise the question of why Israel is even a member of the United Nations.”

Kothari’s comments combine the abhorrent but frequently heard antisemitic tropes of Jewish control of the media backed by Jewish money. For good measure, he also clearly questions Israel’s right to exist along with its membership in the 193-member United Nations.

Sign Our Petition: Help End UN-Backed Hate Campaign Against Israel and the Jewish People (with VIDEO)

On July 25, a UN expert tasked with investigating the Jewish state told an anti-Israel website that the “Jewish lobby” controls social media.

“We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by — whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs… A lot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us,” Miloon Kothari said in an interview with Mondoweiss’ David Kattenburg. A long-time pro-Palestinian activist, Kattenburg once asserted that “the Nazis would have been impressed” with what he described as the Israeli “terrorist apartheid regime.”

Miloon Kothari is one of three members of the controversial ‘UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel’ (COI), which is currently carrying out an unprecedented open-ended probe into Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, set up following 2021’s 11-day Hamas-initiated conflict.

The COI’s first 18-page report, published on June 7 of this year, charged the government in Jerusalem with everything from “gender-based violence” to hindering “Palestinian democratic processes.”

At the time, leading news organizations were all too eager to parrot the UN’s slanted conclusions. Yet these same outlets have refused to univocally condemn the antisemitic tropes in Kothari’s most recent statements, even as they fall within the widely-adopted IHRA working definition of antisemitism.

Over the past months, the media have also failed to note that the commission’s head, Navi Pillay, has expressed support for the BDS movement, which according to its leaders is meant to put an end to the Jewish state. Pillay has furthermore advocated for the blacklisting of companies that do business with Jewish communities located over the Green Line, and went on record as saying that Israel has “enforced segregation on racial lines.”

Similarly, mainstream journalists did not report that COI member Chris Sidoti on June 14 at the UN Human Rights Council downplayed modern-day Judeophobia, claiming that some Jews throw around “accusations of antisemitism” like “rice at a wedding.” Before his stint at the UN, Sidoti worked closely with Palestinian NGOs for over 15 years.

Notably, Pillay defended Kothari’s anti-Jewish remarks in a letter to UN Human Rights Council President Federico Villegas, falsely asserting that the quotes about the “Jewish lobby” were taken out of context.

Indonesian books on Jews are uniformly filled with hate

An Iranian news agency said that the Indonesian International Book Fair was being held in Jakarta this week. As far as I could tell, it is being held in November.

Either way, since Indonesia is the largest Muslim country, I was curious as to what their books say about Jews.

A cursory look at the top search results for books in Indonesian about Jews shows nothing but pure antisemitism.

History of Judaism's blurb includes:

What kind of events happened until today we witness how Jews dominate almost all aspects of life? The dominance that makes them act as they please; seized the land of the Muslims by force, houses were demolished with barbarism, children, women and the elderly were brutally killed, their possessions greedily robbed. What's worse, they don't even feel ashamed or guilty, instead they become proud and arrogant. Before the end of the world, a great war will occur between the Muslims and the Jews. This book will be very helpful in providing knowledge and understanding about the religion so we understand who is really the enemy and who is the friend.

Jewish Red Reports Throughout History:

Lots of rottenness, cunning, tyranny, and all the crimes committed by the Jews, all have been described in the Qur'an. Where the Qur'an shows us about the opposition of the Jews to the Prophets, their denial of the Apostles, their defilement of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, and much more.

Alhamdulillah, this book unpacks and explains the Jewish red report cards, which are explained in 30 chapters throughout history, based on the Qur'anic sources which are explained clearly and are easy to understand. I hope this book is useful.

There is an entire book that is the transcript of a 2006 interview between a pastor and a fake Jew who called himself "Rabbi Abe Finkelstein" who "admits" that Jews made up the Holocaust and kill Christian children for Passover matzoh. This is a popular audio on American antisemitic sites today.

The Zamzam Illustrated Encyclopedia of Judaism Book of Religion by Dr. Tariq As-Suwaidan is described this way: "The Jews always instill hatred and hostility towards the Muslims, both openly and hidden. Thus, understanding the causes of hostilities, their history, and the methods they use requires in-depth and careful research; includes history, creed, system, and all things related to Judaism. So we will be alert and know where their strengths and weaknesses are. Furthermore, we will be able to deal with them by focusing attacks on those weaknesses. Because, how can we be able to face an enemy that we do not know? ...So, this book is very important and deserves to be owned by every Muslim in order to know the true nature of the enemy.

These are the first four books I found. The next one, another encyclopedia, looked like a somewhat more objective history but it still claims that Freemasons and Lions Clubs are Jewish organizations and Jews killed all the prophets.

This is what a quarter of a billion Muslims are being taught about Jews, today.

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!

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid wrote an excellent letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in response to the statements by one of the members of the Commission of Inquiry, Miloon Kothari, that were antisemitic, claiming that the "Jewish lobby" controlled social media.

Significantly, Lapid's letter does not only call out the antisemitism of that statement. It also points out that Kothari's suggestion that Israel does not belong in the United Nations altogether is also an example of antisemitism - according to the words of Antonio Guterres himself!

But more than that, he points out that the commission itself was biased from the start, and its reaction to this episode only solidifies how biased it is.

As is often the case, the Prime Minister's Office stupidly did not release the letter in a way that is could be easily copied and pasted - it only released a photograph of the letter. This is simply unforgivable. The basics of public relations are ignored and only people who make a great effort to view the letter and quote it can do so.

So I am reproducing it here.

Your Excellency,

I am writing to you to demand the immediate removal of all three members of the COI tasked with investigating Israel, and the disbanding of the Commission. The COI has been fundamentally tainted by the publicly expressed prejudices of its leadership, who do not meet the basic standards of neutrality, independence and impartiality required by the United Nations.

In a recent interview (July 25th), one of the commissioners, Mr. Miloon Kothari, made several outrageous comments, including some which are clearly antisemitic.

During the interview, Mr. Kothari said, “We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by- whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs, a lot of money is being thrown in to try to discredit us.” He further questioned Israel’s right to exist as an equal member of the community of nations, in an unacceptable and cynical attempt to discredit the very legitimacy of the one and only Jewish state. He stated, “I would go as far as to raise the question as why they are even a member of the United Nations.”

These antisemitic remarks are a stain on the entire United Nations and are not befitting of a person with such a position of responsibility. As such, they were firmly condemned by representatives of the United States, France, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Austria, the European Union and others.

Instead of taking a moral stance and repudiating these comments, Ms. Navi Pillay, who chairs the COI, chose to defend and excuse them, in a public letter sent to the President of the Human Rights Council on July 28th. She doubled down on the Commission’s support for Mr. Kothari’s comments. Pillay’s claim that the comments were taken out of context are false and were even rejected by the President of the UN Human Rights Council. I urge you to listen to Mr. Kothari’s interview and judge for yourself.

I recall your principled comments at a New York conference in 2017, that “a modern form of antisemitism is the denial of the right of the State of Israel to exist.” Furthermore, you pledged to take a stand “in the front line of the struggle against antisemitism, and to make sure the United Nations is able to take all possible actions for antisemitism to be condemned, and if possible, eradicated from the face of the earth.” You stressed that "Israel needs to be treated as any other state, with exactly the same rules."

Excellency, I call on you today to honor your word in this egregious case, to set the record straight. This cannot stand. Slurs about a “Jewish lobby” that acts to “control” the media, are reminiscent of the darkest days of modern history.

The fundamentally flawed nature of the COI has been widely discussed, and a group of 22 nations, led by the United States, issued a joint statement during the June HRC session expressing their deep concern about this. This latest shameful episode is a further example of its flawed and biased nature.

The fight against antisemitism cannot be waged with words alone, it requires action. This is the time for action; it is time to disband the Commission. From Mr. Kothari’s outrageous slurs to Ms. Pillay’s defense of the indefensible, this Commission does not just endorse antisemitism — it fuels it.

I therefore ask you to take all necessary measures to bring about the immediate resignation of Ms. Pillay and the other commissioners, and the disbanding of the Commission.

Sincerely,
Yair Lapid

I cannot find the full text of Antonio Gutteres' 2017 speech to the World Jewish Congress where he said “a modern form of antisemitism is the denial of the right of the State of Israel to exist.” Arguably, the more important statement was where he said "Israel needs to be treated as any other state, with exactly the same rules." This commission, by its very existence and the fact that it is the only open-ended commission in UN history, violates that rule and is prima facie evidence of the UN's inherent antisemitism.

Gutteres has also said, “You can be absolutely sure, as secretary-general of the United Nations, I will be in the front line of the struggle against antisemitism, and to make sure the United Nations is able to to take all possible actions for antisemitism to be condemned, and if possible, eradicated from the face of the earth.”

It is past time to turn these words into action.

If the fight against antisemitism is to have any meaning at all, this commission of inquiry must be disbanded. But there is no procedural method to accomplish that - antisemitism is baked into the UN and in its rules allowing something like this to begin with. All we have left is to expose the hypocrisy of a commission that is supposedly meant to advance human rights when the UN's leader has said, explicitly, that "Antisemitism threatens all people’s human rights. It is a menace to democratic values, to social peace and stability. "

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!

Abdel Wahab El-Messiri is an Egyptian academic who is more famed in the Arab world for writing an eight-volume "Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism."

Ever since the Abraham Accords, a quote from him from decades ago has been making the rounds of op-ed writers, most recently this past weekend.

About twenty years ago, he wrote, "From now on we will find Jews in Muslim clothes, the functional Jew, a Muslim who prays with us in the mosque, but he plays the same role as the Jewish general, and therefore this phenomenon must be analyzed so that many of us do not turn into Jews without realizing."

Notice that he doesn't say "Zionist" but "Jew," showing that even the biggest supposed expert on Judaism in the Arab world saw no distinction between the two - the Jew was a danger to Islam.

And now, to these pundits, the worst thing about the Abraham Accords is not the Arab turning into a Zionist - but the Muslim turning into a Jew.

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!

Palestinian leaders again say that paying terrorists is their highest priority

Israeli media announced that Israel is deducting 600 million shekels from the tax revenues that it pays the Palestinian Authority because that is the amount that the PA pays terrorists in prison and their families this year.

As usual, the Palestinian leadership said that paying terrorists is sacred and nothing Israel does will stop them from making those payments.

Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a press statement, "The Palestinian leadership, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, affirms its categorical rejection of this dangerous decision."

He stressed that the decision "will not lead to any result, because the rights of our heroic prisoners will not be affected, no matter what the pressures."

Abu Rudeineh added, "We will not accept a single penny reduction of the money of the heroes of the Palestinian people who carried the banner of freedom, for the sake of Jerusalem and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state."

The world media rarely reports that the top priority of Palestinian leaders is payments to terrorists.

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!

07/31 Links: How Norway and EU Are Undermining the Oslo Accords; The way is being paved for the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine plan

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: How Norway and EU Are Undermining the Oslo Accords

Norway and EU member states have restored funding to six Palestinian civil society organizations designated by Israel as terror-supporting organizations, thereby rejecting evidence submitted by Israel that such organizations are linked to the universally outlawed terror organization: “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”

Funding terror contravenes international counter-terrorism conventions and resolutions to which Norway and the EU are party that criminalize funding terror. It also undermines distinct counter-terror provisions in the 1993-1995 Oslo Accords between the Palestinians and Israel and is incompatible with their active involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

This decision to restore funding to terror-supporting NGOs is particularly serious in light of Norway’s and the EU’s special status both as witness to the Oslo Accords, but more so in light of Norway’s active involvement as the principal facilitator, mediator, host, and patron of the accords.

Contrary to its special status as witness, sponsor, and facilitator of the Oslo Accords, Norway has consistently conducted a one-sided, partisan policy aimed at prejudging the issues that are still to be negotiated between the parties, such as the issue of Jerusalem and the permanent status of the territories.

Facilitating international funding for supporting and encouraging Palestinian terror, including providing funds for salaries and benefits of terrorists serving prison sentences, is the antithesis of any genuine international action to promote human rights, peace, and stability in the Middle East.

David Singer: The way is being paved for the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine plan

It would appear that back channel negotiations have been going on since the release of the Saudi plan on 8 June to refine it to reflect - with more precision - the starting positions of Jordan, Israel and the PLO in any negotiations.

Those agreed starting positions include:
The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine will be ruled by Jordan’s current Hashemite ruler King Abdullah – which Hashemite dynasty has ruled Jordan for the last 100 years.

The right of return to Israel by Palestinian Arab refugees will not be pursued. Instead The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine will integrate those refugees within its borders

The borders of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will include
-Jordan with its current borders
-The Gaza Strip
A-reas of the 'West Bank' inhabited by Palestinian Arabs and bordering Jordan that are contiguous and not divided into islands
-The retention by Israel of the Jordan Valley and other areas of the 'West Bank' such as Oslo-designated Area C, where all the Jews in the region live, will be resolved in the negotiations

Neither the Arabs nor the Muslims will seek to expel Israel from Jerusalem. However it remains as a bargaining chip in the hands of the Palestinian Arabs in securing any agreement and giving the Holy Places in Jerusalem a special status.

Any agreement will need to be ratified by a free popular referendum by Arab voter constituencies consisting of all Jordanians and residents of the 'West Bank' and Gaza Strip and those who are stateless such as the residents of the refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. Palestinian Arabs who are settled in other countries and who enjoy full citizenship will have no vote.

The rationale for creating The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine is based on the fact that Jordanians and Palestinians are Sunni Arabs from the same region and integrating them will not cause any ethnic or sectarian fault lines in the long run.

Jordan has received a flurry of visits from Mohammed Bin Salman, PLO Leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israel’s President Herzog, since the Saudi Plan was published.

Lapid’s visit now when he is only caretaker Prime Minister is highly significant. It could indicate the commencement of negotiations is supported by the majority of Israel’s political parties even though nothing can go forward until after the next government is formed post November elections.

And then - let the negotiations begin.

League of Nations Mandate Centenary

This is a recording of a UKLFI Charitable Trust webinar marking the League of Nations Mandate Centenary. It took place on 21 July 2022, and features a special introduction by the President of the State of Israel, H.E. Isaac Herzog and a talk by Professor Steven Zipperstein. Jonathan Turner is the chairman.

The Mandate for Palestine was adopted by the Council of the League of Nations (the forerunner of today’s United Nations) in London on 24 July 1922. It mandated the British Government to put into effect the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917.

The Mandate explicitly recognised the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that territory. It transformed the unilateral declaration of the British government into an instrument of international law and provided the legal basis for Britain’s administration of Western Palestine until 1948. Its impact on the development of the Jewish national home into the modern State of Israel cannot be denied, and the rights and obligations set out in its provisions arguably remain relevant today.

A Palestinian leather goods and embroidery shop in Ramallah, named "Rahala" ("nomad,") insists that American, British and French customers grovel and apologize before they are allowed to purchase any items:

This won't hurt their sales. On the contrary. Their products are meant to appeal to exactly the kinds of people who would happily grovel for the privilege of purchasing these items.

A Chicago Tribune article last year featuring Noora Jebreal, an American importer from the shop, says:

But more than pretty pieces, the products have a political meaning.

Holding up a pink slipper with black crossover threading resembling a wire fence, Imad says in Arabic, “I made this shoe in 1999, and it’s called ‘prison,’” during a March Instagram Live interview with Jebreal. The slipper represents the open-air prison that many Palestinians and humanitarians feel Gaza has become.

Of course, in 1999 Gaza was not under blockade and the Oslo process was in full swing, but why should a reporter bother to check the facts from people who are clearly pushing a political message?

One other part of the article struck me, and it is a small but telling example of how the media is willing and eager to allow Palestinian lies to become part of the record.

The Rahalah workers, according to Jebreal, couldn’t take things to the post to get mailed from Bethlehem to Tel Aviv during the height of the pandemic.

“What was once a 15-minute car ride is now a 45-minute car ride (for his transporters from Ramallah to Bethlehem),” she said. “And you know gas is more expensive out there too because Israel has sanctions on that for Palestinians. And then you have to pay the actual shipping from Israel to the states.”

I had never heard of "gasoline sanctions" on Palestinians before, so I looked up current fuel prices on gasoline in the Palestinian territories and in Israel.

According to Numbeo, the average price for gasoline in the Palestinian territories is ILS 6.55 per liter, while in Israel it is ILS 6.97. (That's $7.74 per gallon.)

Yes, gas is cheaper for Palestinians than for Israelis.

But the actual facts are too good to check. After all, the media is filled with stories about how Israel oppresses Palestinians, so of course it sounds right that Israel would tax fuel for them, too. And why would such a nice young woman lie? So her lie gets published, unedited, by a major American newspaper, and the goal of demonizing Israel with cumulative lies - which is the entire point of this store - is achieved.

Palestinian propaganda has won yet again.

And as this article shows, it is cumulative - when one lie gets accepted, then it becomes easier for the next lie to be accepted as well, since no one bothered to fact check the first one. Eventually you create an entire narrative based on lies that are so entrenched that the media doesn't bother to begin to unravel them, and simply publishes them without checking.

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!

Yesterday, IfNotNow published a "havdalah service" for people who were campaigning for Andy Levin in Michigan - "Jews for Andy."

Havdalah is meant to separate the Sabbath from the weekday, but for these people, it was done in broad daylight, which is something we have seen anti-Israel groups do before.

This was also done in a "Jews for Rashida" "Passover seder" held in 2020 where the entire idea of a seder was subverted and perverted for political ends.

In this case, though, IfNotNow tried to pre-empt any criticism with this tweet:

To all the trolls ready to dunk on a Havdalah ceremony while there’s still light out — you’re just telling on yourself when you police others’ Jewish practices.

There’s no right or wrong way to be Jewish.

It didn't work out for them. As of this writing, this tweet has been "ratioed" 3-1, one of the relatively rare cases where far more people comment negatively to a tweet than click on "Like." My comment was, "So I can light a Christmas tree and call it a Chanukah menorah? I can have a Yom Kippur feast and call it a fast? I can replace a shofar with a kazoo?"

Yet the tweet says a great deal about the Israel haters who claim Jewish legitimacy and their relationship with Judaism.

To these "progressives," anyone can declare themselves to be anything and this must be respected because it is "their truth." But that cheapens and ultimately makes worthless the religion they claim to respect. If there are no rules, then being Jewish means nothing. It is as absurd as saying that there is no right or wrong way to be a vegan, or no right or wrong way to play soccer, or no right or wrong color of a stoplight to decide to go.

But Judaism isn't completely worthless to these "progressives." To them, it is a prop - declare themselves Jewish, do something that vaguely resembles a Jewish tradition, tie it to a political cause and then discard it.

This isn't "pick and choose" Judaism. This is claiming that Judaism simply has no value or meaning except for selfish political reasons.

And if you proclaim that Judaism has no intrinsic value, then you are an antisemite.

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!

Al Aqsa preacher again pretends that there is no archaeological proof of Jews in Jerusalem

From Al Watan Voice:

Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, confirmed that the occupation has been excavating and digging in Al-Aqsa Mosque since 1967, but he did not find a single stone related to the ancient Hebrew Jewish history.

In press statements, Sabri stressed that what the occupation found are Roman and Islamic monuments from the Umayyad, Abbasid, Mamluk and Turkish eras.

This is a constant theme in Palestinian media.

The absurdity is almost beyond belief. The entire Marwani Mosque, the underground mosque on the Temple Mount that was excavated by the Waqf, is built in the area of what is known as "Solomon's Stables" but were built during the Herodian era. The retaining walls of the Temple have been dug to the their foundations and are well-dated.

The entire City of David archaeological park, the numerous ritual baths that are right outside the Temple Mount, the bullae that have been found...the list is endless.

This stone, discovered next to the Temple Mount after 1967 by archaeologist Benjamin Mazar, says - in Hebrew - "To the Place of Trumpeting:'

This stone was a Greek-language warning to non-Jews not to enter the Temple grounds:

No stranger is to enter within the balustrade around the Temple and enclosure. Whoever is caught will be himself responsible for his ensuing death.

Partial remains of a similar Greek language warning were also found.

Coins of the Bar Kochba revolt included diagrams of the Temple.

There are new findings every year, including the stunning Herodian tiles found in the Temple Mount Sifting Project, which has also found First Temple-era finds and many Hebrew inscriptions.

The desire to erase Jewish history is simple bigotry.

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!

07/30 Links: The Holocaust was not just another genocide; Financial Giant Says Any Company Working in ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’ Violates Human Rights

From Ian:

The Holocaust was not just another genocide

It is the ideological diversity of modern antisemitism that makes identifying and countering it exceedingly difficult. Its home in the far left has added to its mainstreaming, making tackling some manifestations politically unfashionable.

Assaults on Jews have come from all directions. In 2018, in the largest attack on the Jewish community in US history, neo-Nazi Robert Bowers killed 11 people in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, pro-Palestine marches in London saw the Israeli flag burned and dragged behind a car to loud cheers, not to mention the abuse shouted at Jews through megaphones.

And this year, British citizen Malik Faisal Akram held four hostages inside a Texan synagogue for 10 hours demanding the release of Islamist terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, who is suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda and was convicted of trying to kill US officers while in prison in Afghanistan.

Three antisemitic attacks, three differing ideologies.

For me, it was the experience of leading classes in schools about conspiracy theories and, in particular, 9/11, that opened my eyes to how all these strains of antisemitism have infected British education. In 2016, after I had delivered training to sixth-form students, a teacher let me know his concerns about the session. He felt we should be more open to “evidence” that 9/11 was organised by Jews.

I am sure that this school, as with all British schools, teaches the Holocaust. I am equally certain that the teacher who pulled me to one side did not realise that he was engaging in a perspective that underpinned Nazi thinking and drives modern-day antisemitism. Many teachers know what far-right, Nazi-style antisemitism looks like, but when Israel is blamed for nefarious power, corruption and murdering Palestinians, identifying antisemitism and why it is a problem is often lost. Rather than being historic, antisemitism is on a steep and terrifying incline. I recently authored a report into antisemitism in schools, reported in the JC earlier this month. It showed a 173 per cent rise in antisemitic incidences over a five-year period, and a 29 per cent increase between 2020 and 2021 alone.

Our schools have a distinct lack of resources when it comes to modern-day hostility towards Jews. Only 3.4 per cent of schools have a policy in place that specifically handles safeguarding students against antisemitism.

Look at the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s website and you see material on several genocides: Rwanda, Srebrenica, the Holocaust. The message is that we are never free from the risk of genocide. But education about the generalities of prejudice will never be enough. We must also teach our children — and those entrusted with protecting them — about the nature and hallmarks of modern antisemitism. Sadly, little is taught about the persistent threat posed to the Jewish community today.

Learning about the Holocaust is invaluable but we must avoid being all revved up with nowhere to go. How would the level of antisemitism in the country be affected if every Holocaust lesson was concluded with an understanding of modern antisemitism and the present threat? Would we see a more concerted effort to tackle antisemitism if we could identify it better, knowing that the threat did not end with Hitler? I am sure we would.

Nothing in history compares to the Holocaust - opinion

Which brings us to the Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This museum was founded by Dr. James Cameron, after visiting Yad Vashem some years ago. In his words, Cameron says he “admired how Jews value their history, teaching their children and other groups about it, which gives Jewish communities strength and hope.” He wanted blacks to similarly learn about their own trials and tribulations, from the 1600s until today. The museum’s galleries examine the roots of slavery, the civil rights movement and the infamous Jim Crow laws, and also features a memorial to the victims of lynching.

America, as we all know, is currently brimming with attention to the black cause. Black Lives Matter and other advocacy groups are widespread; movies and television give special consideration to black actors; many sports figures wear slogans of black pride, and even a new national holiday – Juneteenth, celebrating the final emancipation of American blacks – was recently added officially to the American calendar.

There is absolutely no question that blacks have suffered tremendously in America and other countries. Stolen from their homes, brutalized and stripped of all human rights for centuries, more than 12 million slaves were shipped under the most horrible conditions out of Africa, the vast majority to the Americas. Even when the law theoretically protected them – the 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery in 1865 – discrimination, vilification and persecution continued unabated.

It would be difficult to minimize the tragedy the blacks have endured and, in some ways, are still enduring. In the “hierarchy of suffering,” there are surely some similarities between the history of the blacks and that of the Jews during the Shoah. Slave labor, denial of basic necessities, no protection under the law and pervasive prejudice are common to both. But to label the black experience a Holocaust?! That clearly crosses a line. Nothing in human history can be compared to what the Jewish people encountered in the Holocaust.

There have been genocides and massacres and widespread murders of various communities throughout history – the names and numbers, sadly, are simply too many to list. But never before did a regime like the Nazis engage in a worldwide effort to systematically wipe out an entire people wherever they might be found – from Oswiecim to Oslo – in the cruelest fashion imaginable. To use the name “Holocaust” to refer to anything other than the war against the Jews from 1933 to 1945 is to subvert history and insult the memory of the many millions who were murdered.

Thank God, there is a fourth event in our historic journey that brings us full circle. We have repudiated the counsel of the spies and once again entered the Land of Israel, this time never to depart. Let us hope that the term “Holocaust” will never again be used – by Jews or any other people – and that racism of all types will be eradicated.

Melanie Phillips: Critics of this act of communal myopia will not be silenced

What was truly appalling was Dorfman’s spiteful, and what I believe to be utterly groundless, claim about the objectors’ motives, and his implication, from my interpretation of his words, that any Jew opposing the project was a traitor to the Jewish people.

The objectors have in fact raised important issues. Not only would the structure’s 23 tall, bronze fins spoil this small green oasis, but in addition Lord Carlile, the government’s former counter-terrorism reviewer, said siting the memorial there would constitute a security threat.

Even more importantly, objectors noted that the project would equate Holocaust victims with “the victims of subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur”. In other words, it would relativise, and thus diminish, the extermination of the Jews.

Baroness Deech said further that Holocaust memorials were increasingly used to promote “a self-congratulatory and sometimes self-exculpatory image of the country that erects them”.

Like other memorials, this one would fail to record how, during the Holocaust, the British government blocked the entry into Palestine of desperate European Jews in flagrant repudiation of the British Mandate to settle Jews there, thus facilitating their extermination.

Deech said: “The more the national Holocaust Remembrance Day events are packed out, the more the calls for sanctions on Israel that would result in her destruction, and the more the Holocaust is turned against the Jews.”

Deech thus articulated a vital insight into the deep limitations of Holocaust memorialising. For Dorfman to imply that Carlile and Deech were not only talking “nonsense” but that this was particularly reprehensible because they were Jews, was as obtuse as it was pernicious.

07/29 Links Pt2: Inside the Anne Frank Trust: how the charity lost its way; NBA’s Enes Kanter in Israel to Run Jerusalem Basketball Camp With ‘Jewish Jordan’ Tamir Goodman

From Ian:

As the Holocaust raged, US newspapers buried reports on Hitler’s Final Solution

On June 29, 1942, the Chicago Daily Tribune devoted one paragraph to Germany’s “Final Solution” in Europe:

“The British section of the World Jewish Congress estimated today that more than 1,000,000 Jews have been killed or have died as the result of ill treatment in countries dominated by Germany,” read an Associated Press brief on page six.

Like other US newspapers that summer, the Daily Tribune allocated a bare minimum of inches to reporting on the annihilation of Europe’s Jews. Literally burying the story, dailies placed news of the slaughter away from their front pages — and usually mixed in among other news briefs.

“If the news in June 1942 about 1 million Jews being slaughtered was considered sufficiently credible to publish, then according to conventional editorial standards, it should have been treated as front-page news or something close to it,” said Rafael Medoff, author of the book “America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History,” published this year.

Like the Chicago Daily Tribune, The Los Angeles Times published the “1 million killed” Associated Press brief at the end of June. However, the milestone in Germany’s “Final Solution” was placed on page three, underneath a story about British soldiers taken captive by Germany: “Nazis Kill Million Jews, Says Survey.”

By this point in the Holocaust — the summer of 1942 — the American Joint Distribution Committee had issued a report, based on local sources, about the massacre at Babyn Yar (Grandmother’s Ravine) outside Kyiv. In graphic detail, the report described how the earth moved for days after the execution, even with the mass grave of 33,771 victims covered by several feet of sand.

“In the spring of 1942, as the reports of mass murder multiplied and many additional details were relayed to the Free World by reliable sources, a new and disturbing picture began to emerge,” wrote Medoff, who directs the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.

“But instead of questioning Roosevelt administration officials about the emerging genocide, journalists usually avoided the subject altogether,” Medoff told The Times of Israel, adding that many reporters and public officials believed reports of the slaughter were exaggerated.

This September, PBS International will air “The US and the Holocaust,” a three-part series directed by Ken Burns. Voice actors in the documentary include Hope Davis, Werner Herzog and Meryl Streep. In addition to then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the series will depict broadcaster Dorothy Thompson, a notable exception to the rule regarding American media coverage of Nazi Germany.

“Few American journalists ever questioned president Roosevelt or his senior aides about their no-rescue policy during the Holocaust,” said Medoff. “That was both an abdication of their responsibility as journalists and a moral tragedy.”

Jewish History Soundbites: Jewish Saviors of the Holocaust Part I: Monsieur & the Belgian Orphans

Jewish History Soundbites is proud to launch a special series entitled ‘Jewish Saviors of the Holocaust’. It will explore the narratives of Jews under Nazi occupation risking their lives to save others during the Holocaust. Each unique profile will explore another story, angle and individual (or group of individuals) who though their own lives were at risk still did everything in their power to save others.

The series opens with the story of Yona Tiefenbrunner, known to the orphans he saves as ‘Monsieur’. Born in Germany, he arrived as a refugee in Belgium shortly before the war’s outbreak. He initially opened an orphanage at his own expense in order to assist German Jewish refugee children. With the Nazi occupation of Belgium and the subsequent deportations in 1942, his Brussels orphanage emerged as an island of rescue, as the Nazis miraculously allowed the orphanage to operate and spare the children from deportation to the east. Maintaining a semblance of normalcy under increasingly challenging conditions, Yona managed to care for the orphans' physical and religious welfare until liberation. Following the war, the orphanage relocated to Antwerp and cared for children survivors until its closing in 1960.

Jewish History Soundbites: Jewish Saviors of the Holocaust Part II: From a Tunnel in Novogrudok to the Bielski Partisans

On the night of September 26, 1943 232 Jews escaped through a tunnel from the Novogrudok Ghetto. Nearly 170 survived, primarily by joining the Bielski partisans who operated nearby in the Naliboki forest. This was likely the greatest escape in Nazi occupied Europe throughout the entire war and Holocaust.

The tenacity and courage of the last Jews of the Novogrudok ghetto to dig a 250 meter tunnel leading to the forest, combined with the capability of joining Tuvia Bielski and his partisans, facilitated one of the most astounding stories of Jewish survival during the Holocaust. Tuvia Bielski famously said that he prioritizes saving lives over killing Germans. The result was that his partisan unit was a family camp which saved over 1,200 Jews, among them the escapees of the Novogrudok tunnel.

Jewish History Soundbites: Jewish Saviors of the Holocaust Part III: The Sobibor Revolt

Within the framework of Operation Reinhard, the Nazi extermination of Polish Jewry, the SS built three death camps in Eastern Poland - Belzec, Treblinka & Sobibor. The latter was the smallest of the three, and a quarter of a million primarily Polish and Dutch Jews were killed in its gas chambers during its year and a half of existence. It was at Sobibor that on October 14, 1943 a great prisoner escape took place. Led by the son of a Polish rabbi named Leon Feldhendler & a Soviet Jewish Red Army officer named Sasha Pechersky, these two unlikely leaders joined together to formulate a plan to save not just themselves but to give all of the 600 inmates at Sobibor an equal chance to escape.

The revolt killed several SS officers, 300 Jewish prisoners made it to the forest and nearly 50 survived the war. As they broke for the fences, Pechersky demanded that anyone who survive should tell the world what went on in Sobibor.

From their website:

Operation Benjamin is devoted to preserving the memories of American-Jewish soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice while defending the cause of freedom during World War II. Our aim is to locate Jewish personnel at American military cemeteries all over the world who, for various reasons, were buried under markers incorrectly representing their religion and heritage. Our mission is to correct these mistakes and provide, these many decades later, comfort to the families of the fallen. We work quietly and with dignity, without any cost to the families involved.

100 years ago, some wanted the graves of all World War I fallen soldiers to have a consistent marker - a cross. The Jewish Welfare Board jumped into action to keep the Stars of David that were being used for known Jewish soldiers.

In 1923, JTA reported that Jewish graves were still marked with Stars of David, at least in France:

Graves of American soldiers of the Jewish faith in the national American cemeteries in France are being photographed for the fallen soldiers’ relatives in the United States to see where their dead have been laid to rest.

The work is carried on under the auspices of the Jewish Welfare Board in the United States. The Jewish graves are distinctive, the headstones being surmounted by the Shield of David.

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!

07/29 Links Pt1: UN Official Running Investigation Into Israel Defends Colleague Who Said Jewish Lobby Controls Social Media; Children in Houston sing religious anthem associated with Iranian regime

From Ian:

UN Official Running Investigation Into Israel Defends Colleague Who Said Jewish Lobby Controls Social Media

The United Nations official in charge of an investigation into Israel is standing by a colleague who came under fire this week for claiming social media platforms are controlled by a "Jewish lobby."

Navi Pillay, chairwoman of the U.N. investigation into alleged Israeli human rights crimes, says her colleague, Miloon Kothari, is being unfairly accused of anti-Semitism after he stated in an interview this week that social media are controlled by an all-powerful "Jewish lobby" that throws around "a lot of money."

Pillay defended the remarks, saying in a letter sent Thursday to the president of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which helms the Israel investigation, that Kothari was "deliberately misquoted." A copy of the letter, which was written after the UNHRC's president raised concerns about the comments, was provided to the Washington Free Beacon by U.N. officials.

Kothari was "deliberately misquoted to imply that ‘social media' was controlled by the Jewish lobby," Pillay says in the letter, though she does not specify how Kothari was misquoted. Pillay also said that those critical of Kothari's comments are attempting to discredit the U.N. investigation into Israel, which has been dogged by accusations it is biased and fueled by animosity toward the Jewish state.

"The commission takes great exception to personal attacks against individual commissioners appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Such attacks have been continuously directed against all three commissioners throughout our tenure, and it is to this that Commissioner Kothari was making reference," Pillay wrote.

Kothari in an interview with the anti-Zionist website Mondoweiss said the "Jewish lobby" is behind social media efforts attempting to discredit the ongoing probe into Israel.

"We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by whether it's the Jewish lobby or it's the specific [nonprofit groups]," Kothari said. "A lot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us."

Kothari also questioned Israel's membership in the United Nations.

"I would go as far as to raise the question of why [Israel is] even a member of the United Nations," he said. "The Israeli government does not respect its own obligations as a U.N. member state. They, in fact, consistently, either directly or through the United States, try to undermine U.N. mechanisms."

Kothari's comments were labeled anti-Semitic by pro-Israel groups, the Free Beacon reported on Wednesday.

Important thread on Navi Pillay's extreme bias, and her failed attempts to deny it: https://t.co/A4XVfGjJ8a
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) July 29, 2022

Navi Pillay: "I can't tell you who the lobby is..."

TONY EASTLEY: The Federal Government will soon have to make up its mind on whether to attend a controversial United Nations conference on racism next month. Already the US, Israel, Canada and Italy have announced they will boycott the forum in Geneva.

The first conference, held in Durban in 2001, ended up with the US and Israel walking out, upset over the behaviour and anti-Semitic statements of some delegates. While the final declaration at the Durban conference condemned anti-Semitism, it wasn't enough to calm the waters, then and now.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay spoke to me from Geneva this morning. I asked what she thought about the calls for a boycott of the Geneva conference.

NAVI PILLAY: The original conference was marred by abusive or hurtful remarks against Israel, but in a small section of the NGO parallel forum. But it seems that those who have been hurt have continued this kind of fear that there will be a repetition of the anti-Semitic behaviour.

Now I can assure all Australians this is not a repetition of the Durban conference and we need Australia's voice here.

Pretty big slap-down! @FVillegasARG, President of @UN_HRC, responds to Commission of Inquiry Chair Pillay, slamming Kothari’s antisemitic comments (“the Jewish lobby”) and demanding clarification, while reiterating requirement of impartiality of Commission members. pic.twitter.com/YtTPfgK2nc
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 29, 2022

“Possibly poorly chosen words?”

This is UN Special Rapporteur for Palestinians. Her colleague Kothari flat-out claimed “the Jewish lobby” controls the media.

I guess like him, @FranceskAlbs too is a Jew hater to the core? Must be pre-requisite of a @UN_HRC appointment! https://t.co/wm5rFAK4jG
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 29, 2022