Monday, October 31, 2022

We have seen that surveys over the past few years have found that between 3%-6%  of American Jews identify themselves as "generally not pro-Israel," a much more general term than "anti-Zionist" which has not been asked as a question of American Jews.

This means that the percentage of American Jews who actively identify as anti-Zionist (a much higher bar than "generally not pro-Israel") is diminishingly small - certainly less than than 6% but probably far less than that number, perhaps as low as 1-2%.

Yet anti-Israel Jews like to present themselves as a large minority with huge influence in the Jewish community. The strenuously argue that they are not fringe, but mainstream - even though they have little evidence of it. 

What I'm about to say is definitely comparing apples and oranges, but the comparison is still worthwhile.

In the four most recent Israeli Knesset elections, between 12% and 28% of Israeli Arabs voted for Jewish Zionist parties. 

In the last election, 5.2% of the Arab vote went to Likud, and 3.2%  to Yisrael Beiteinu. The rest were divided up between Meretz (3.8%) and a remaining 8% divided among other Jewish parties.

In the North, about 25% of Arab voters voted for Jewish parties; in the Jerusalem areas, it was more than one third.




 
If Arabs have it so bad in Israel, why are so many voting for Jewish Zionist parties?

The Arab vote for Jewish Zionist parties is definitely not fringe. However, it is a phenomenon that is simply not reported in stories about Israel. You would be forgiven for assuming that they are a tiny, anomalous minority.

Other polls show that more than half of Israeli Arabs consider themselves "proud citizens" of the state. (I have not seen a poll on how many identify as Zionist.)

Meanwhile, the Jewish anti-Zionists - who really are fringe compared to American Jewry as a whole - gain a great deal of media attention, as if they have far more adherents than they really do.

As is often the case, media coverage does not reflect the truth, but wishful thinking to make reality closer to what they want it to be.




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!

 

 

Sunday, October 30, 2022

The New York Times today has an article, "How the Hasidic Jewish Community Became a Political Force in New York."

It mentions the 1991 Crown Heights pogrom, but it describes it in ridiculously evenhanded terms that don't reflect reality:

The Hasidic community began to carefully build relationships with elected officials, starting in the 1950s, when Rabbi Teitelbaum found common ground with Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr.

A pivotal moment came in 1991 when the Crown Heights riots shook the city.

The violence and chaos was almost unimaginable. Overnight, Brooklyn streets had turned into combat zones, pitting groups of Hasidic Jews against mostly Black men — some holding longstanding grudges over what they saw as the Hasidic community receiving preferential treatment from the police and the city. Racial and antisemitic epithets filled the air alongside hurled rocks and bottles.

So I looked up the original coverage by the New York Times of the rioting, and this very close to what their original article, on August 21, 1991, had claimed:

Hasidim and blacks clashed in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn through the day and into the night yesterday as the two communities, separately and bitterly, each mourned a member killed, one in a traffic accident on Monday night and the other stabbed in the racial melee that followed.

Bottles, rocks and ethnic slurs were hurled as hundreds of police officers struggled to separate the screaming, taunting groups near the headquarters of the Lubavitcher sect, at 770 Eastern Parkway.

Yet the article went on to mention a number of outrages by the Black community - and not one from the Hasidim.

The very next paragraph summarized it:

As darkness fell, about 500 blacks, mostly young teen-agers, gathered at the intersection of President Street and Utica Avenue, where the accident had occurred and where the dead child had lived. They set afire at least three vehicles, one a police car, hurled rocks at houses owned by Jews and looted a sneaker store. Five reporters and photographers were beaten, two by police officers and three by black protesters. 

Not one example of  racial epithet was given. (There apparently were groups of Hasidim that threw bottles and rocks back at black youths who were attempting to hurt them.)

The other New York media was not so circumspect. Newsday's celebrated columnist, Jimmy Breslin, was nearly lynched from a cab, and not from Hasidim:



"And up in the higher echelons of journalism, some moron starts talking about balanced coverage."

Exactly. Covering a story like this as if there is "balance" between a murderous mob and a mostly peaceful group of Jews, between a tragic car accident and the purposeful murder of a Jew,  is not balanced journalism - it is irresponsible pandering to avoid appearing to be racist. 

And it is just as outrageous in 2022 as it was in 1991. 

But, hey. maybe they thought that the angry blacks were merely anti-Zionist:






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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

From Ian:

Will US-Russia policy give Iran the bomb and kill the Abraham Accords?
The Biden administration has been pursuing a reckless policy toward Russia that has far-reaching implications that threaten American, European and Israeli security; emboldens Iran; and undermines opportunities for expanding the Abraham Accords. That is a foreign policy trifecta disaster.

Everyone understands President Joe Biden's reluctance to do anything that Russia might interpret as sufficiently threatening to escalate the conflict to war with the US He is calibrating the weapons supply by providing some weapons to defend itself and go on the offensive. He still stubbornly refuses to supply aircraft or long-range weapons that would allow Ukraine to hit targets in Russia. We have helped prevent Russia from overrunning the country but not enough to expel the invaders completely. The problem is that the fear of President Vladimir Putin using nuclear weapons is reinforcing their deterrent value to other nations, notably Iran.

Why would anyone expect Iran to give up its nuclear ambition now? Even before the war in Ukraine, Iran was encouraged by the success of North Korea in holding the West at bay and keenly aware of the fates of the nukeless Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi.

Even with a bomb, or several, Iran does not pose the same danger as Russia with its nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads and ICBMs that can reach the US Still, a regime that has expressed a willingness to use nuclear weapons, has missiles that can reach Israel and Europe, and wants to develop an ICBM is a menace. Iran need not use nukes in a first strike, the mere possession of them will deter any potential attacker. Iran can use nuclear blackmail against its neighbors and make it infinitely riskier for Israel to take on Hezbollah. Anyone who thinks the Iranian would play by the same MAD (mutual assured destruction) rules as the Russians doesn't know anything about the rulers and their theology.

The Iranians understand why the US would not attack Russia but based on the way we cut and run from Afghanistan, and failed to respond to their provocations, the mullahs see Biden as weak. Furthermore, with our attention focused on Russia-Ukraine and, secondarily, on China, they have little reason to fear any American use of force to prevent their intensifying march toward nuclearization. The administration would likely be even angrier at any Israeli strike that could lead to a conflagration in the Middle East and distract from the focus on the big two.

Still, how can Biden stand by and do nothing as the Iranians provide Russia with drones to attack Ukraine? Israel has responded to Iran setting up factories and deploying forces in Syria. Is there nothing the US can do to prevent Iran's weapons delivery to Russia? A bill introduced in Congress will do nothing but impose yet more useless sanctions.
Caroline Glick: Jewish sovereignty is on the ballot
Most of Israel’s commentators insist that Tuesday’s Knesset elections—the fifth in fewer than four years—are about the same thing the last four were about: Benjamin Netanyahu. If you vote for Netanyahu’s Likud Party, or for the other three parties in his right-religious bloc, then you are for Netanyahu. If you vote for caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, or for any of the members of his left-Arab bloc, then you are against Netanyahu. Nothing else is up for grabs.

The notion that politics in Israel can be boiled down to whether a person loves or hates Netanyahu was never true, at least for voters. Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, Gideon Sa’ar and their colleagues in the Yamina and New Hope parties who bolted the right and formed the current left-Arab government are rightly viewed as having betrayed their voters. Last May they put their hatred and envy of Netanyahu above their professed ideology and their voters to oust their camp from power and give Israel its first post-Zionist government.

Today, there is no “Never Bibi” right. Bennett isn’t running. Shaked is about to be wiped out at the polls. Sa’ar has joined Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s leftist National Unity Party.

Life in Israel has also moved on from where it stood in May 2021. Back then, it was still credible to call Netanyahu—whose corruption trial was in its opening stages—a crook. But in the intervening 18 months, the prosecution’s case against Netanyahu has completely disintegrated.

So too, the left-Arab bloc has shown it is incompetent to lead the country. Netanyahu gave his successors a country with a fast-growing economy, even as the global economy was sunk in deep recession following the Covid-19 lockdowns. Today, the economy is on a sharp downward trajectory. Inflation is galloping forward with no end in sight. And the middle class is straining to keep itself above water as prices outstrip wages.

Then there is Israel’s international and regional position. When Netanyahu was sent into the political wilderness a year and a half ago, Israel was at the pinnacle of its regional power and global stature.
Final polls before Nov. 1 elections show Netanyahu’s bloc just shy of parliamentary majority
Three separate final polls prior to Israel’s Nov. 1 elections showed opposition leader and Likud Party head Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing/religious bloc standing one seat shy of a parliamentary majority.

Polls by Channel 12, Channel 13 and the Kan public broadcaster all predicted the Netanyahu-led bloc securing 60 mandates, one short of a majority in the 120-member Knesset.

The surveys all found Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s current coalition partners together garnering 56 seats, with the Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al faction forecast to receive four mandates.

Lapid is on record stating that he would not sit with Hadash-Ta’al in a future government.

Israel’s election laws ban the publication of polls in the immediate days before the vote.

More specifically, the surveys showed the Likud winning 30-31 seats, which would make it the largest party in the next Knesset. Lapid’s Yesh Atid looks set to garner 24-27 mandates, while Religious Zionism was predicted to be the third largest party with 14-15 seats.

Israelis will head to the ballot box on Tuesday for the country’s fifth national vote in less than four years.


There is one overarching rule that both the antisemitic Right and Left share: everything is always the Jews' fault.

A truly absurd example can be seen in an article in The Intercept today, accusing Israel of "weed apartheid" because Palestinians under Palestinian Authority rule have different laws than Israelis under Israeli rule.

Really.

In the dusty occupied hills west of the Jordan River, segregation shapes the smoking experience of Palestinians as much as every other aspect of Palestinian life. For Israelis, the police’s relaxed attitude toward weed carries over to the occupied West Bank. Rather than face military justice, Israelis living in Jewish West Bank settlements are protected by an entire legal system built on inequities so rife that it has contributed to Israel being accused of the crime of running an “apartheid” system.

The disparity in treatment for Palestinians and Israelis when it comes to cannabis constitutes a facet of this system that might be called weed apartheid. A Palestinian and Israeli breaking the same law in the same place in the West Bank, for instance, will be dealt with by different security forces and processed in different legal systems.
This is of course not true. A Palestinian in Area C lighting up with an Israeli will not have to worry about going to Palestinian jail, because Israel is responsible for security there. Writer Jesse Rosenfeld spends a lot of time fudging the truth, by comparing Palestinian laws in Areas A and B with Israeli laws - both military and civil - in Area C.

The deception given in this article is remarkable. It emphasizes that Israeli citizens in the West Bank are subject to Israeli civil laws while Palestinian non-citizens are subject to military law - a mainstay of the "apartheid" charge that ignores that every country on Earth treats citizens and non-citizens differently.

But when it talks about draconian anti-pot laws for Palestinians, it suddenly pivots to Palestinian laws, not Israeli laws. You have to carefully parse the article to see how deceptive it is. For example, the article makes clear that Israeli military law doesn't give a damn about Palestinian pot use unless they are major dealers, smuggling drugs to Israel. But Palestinian laws are much harsher for minor offenses.

And The Intercept blames Israel for that!

To show how this analysis is ultimately antisemitic, let's pretend that Israel does what the article pretends it wants. 

If Israel applies the exact same laws to Palestinians in the territories as to Israeli citizens, and therefore cannot be accused of "weed apartheid," that would mean that Israel is annexing the entire West Bank. This is the very definition of annexation - applying the same laws to a new area.

No matter what Israel does, short of national suicide, Israel is oppressing Palestinians!

Nowhere in this article is there any criticism of the Palestinian Authority for their anti-marijuana laws and strict enforcement. Somehow, this is all Israel's fault. Just as the Left blames Israel for Palestinian men beating their wives, every dysfunctional part of Palestinian society is ultimately blamed on the Jews. 

Because to these bigots, Palestinian Arabs are not mature enough to be responsible for their own actions. 

UPDATE: I hadn't noticed it first, but the "Jewish Israelis" in the headline is another way to know that The Intercept is functionally antisemitic. 

Because "Muslim Israelis" and "Christian Israelis" have exactly the same laws as "Jewish Israelis."



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 maritime border agreement (indirectly) signed between Lebanon and Israel last week is not really a final agreement, according to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

In a speech he gave last night, Nasrallah showed a map of the various positions and said that there was still an area of about 2.5 square kilometers - demarcated by a line of buoys that Israel had insisted would be their border - that are still claimed as Lebanese by Hezbollah. 

He still claims the additional 876 square kilometers "liberated" as a great victory, but says that the total should be closer to 879 square kilometers.


This is practically the same tack that Hezbollah too after the UN drew the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon. Even though Israel withdrew behind that line, Hezbollah still claims small areas that the agreement gave to the Israeli side, and uses that as justification for maintaining a huge arsenal of weapons and rockets.

Not only that, but Nasrallah, in his speech, encouraged the Lebanese to pressure their government to re-assert their rights to Line 29, the current maximal position they made up during the negotiations that has no legal basis. He says if Lebanon decides that Line 29 really is the border, then Hezbollah will "struggle" to achieve that.


Nasrallah also claims that Lebanon  - meaning Hezbollah - was on the verge of declaring war against Israel when it was about to start working in the Karish field that is within the Line 29 area, and that this threat is what forced Israel to back down and accept the Lebanese position.

In short, while Hezbollah is happy about the agreement, it does not accept the agreement. This was predictable. The agreement might allow Israel to freely work on the Karish field for now, but to pretend that the maritime border issue with Lebanon has been peacefully resolved when the most powerful army in Lebanon insists that it hasn't is foolhardy.





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!

 

 




There was a heinous terror attack on Saturday night, as a Jewish man and his son went to go shopping at an Arab-owned convenience store. A terrorist shot at them, killing the father and injuring others, and he then shot and seriously injured the medic who came to help the injured.

Here the terrorist is seen being mowed down by an Israeli security guard and then shot dead by another.



A dead Jew is cause for celebration for the Arabs of Hebron. Sweets were handed out, fireworks were shot in the air and cars went out for an impromptu parade.





Terror apologists love to say that Palestinians aren't antisemitic - they are merely exercising the right to "defend themselves. " 

Killing civilians isn't "defense." Celebrating the death of Jewish civilians is pure hate. 

And no one can credibly deny that these celebrations are antisemitism - a hate that the world tolerates from Palestinians.




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!

 

 


Saturday, October 29, 2022

From Ian:

Biden Admin Probed Over ‘Illegal Efforts to Undermine Israeli Sovereignty Over Jerusalem’
A legal advocacy group says the Biden administration is violating U.S. law by funneling more than half-a-billion dollars to the Palestinian government and is demanding the administration release a slew of internal documents that the group believes will reveal an illegal effort "to undermine Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem," according to a copy of the Freedom of Information Act request provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

America First Legal, a group of conservative lawyers and activists, hit the State Department this week with a FOIA request that instructs it to furnish a slew of internal documents about U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority, which was frozen under former president Donald Trump but resumed when President Joe Biden took office.

The legal group suspects that a portion of this taxpayer aid is being used to support Palestinian-led projects in Jerusalem that could undermine Israel’s control of its capital city. The Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, but the Biden administration, while formally upholding the policy, has moved to open a Palestinian Affairs unit in the city, fueling concerns that the consulate is working with the Palestinian government to erode Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.

The Biden administration’s funding may also violate a bipartisan U.S. law that prevents taxpayer funds from reaching the Palestinian government until it ends a terrorist payment program known as "pay-to-slay," in which imprisoned militants and their families receive stipends. The Free Beacon reported earlier this month on a non-public State Department report to Congress that determined the Palestinian government is still paying terrorists, even as U.S. aid dollars flow.

"Make no mistake—the purpose here, contrary to U.S. law, is creating facts on the ground to undermine Israel’s borders and sovereignty and to reverse the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city," Reed D. Rubinstein, America First Legal’s senior counselor and director of oversight, said in a statement. "The Biden administration is pumping hundreds of millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars into ‘projects’ that directly benefit both the corrupt Palestinian Authority and the terrorist Hamas dictatorship."

The organization’s FOIA centers on a State Department fact sheet from March that outlined projects run by the United States’ Palestinian Affairs Unit, which was opened to increase diplomacy with the Palestinian government. The State Department says this office is responsible for partnering "with Palestinian and American organizations to support projects in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza [Strip] that increase exchange between our two peoples and advance shared goals on topics such as education, entrepreneurship, environmental protection, English language learning, science and technology, art and culture, gender equality, human rights, and democracy, among others."

These programs also include "university linkage projects connecting American and Palestinian universities directly for exchange and collaboration for students and faculty," according to the State Department.
US Democrats Oppose Israel’s Admission to Visa Waiver Program
A group of 20 Democratic members of Congress called on the Biden administration this week to oppose Israel’s membership in the US Visa Waiver Program, Haaretz reported Friday.

The program would waive the current onerous requirements faced by Israelis when they want to visit the United States and would instead automatically authorize 90-day visits for business or tourism purposes.

But Representative Don Beyer sent a letter Thursday – signed together with 19 other Democrats – telling Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “It is clear that Israel cannot and should not be admitted into the visa waiver program under the status quo.”

Israel has been negotiating with the United States over this issue for more than a year.

Israel Among Candidates Being ‘Considered’ for US Visa-Waiver Status
Last month Knesset lawmakers voted to approve the first reading of a bill that would allow Israel to join the program. Under the bill, sponsored by the Justice Ministry, passenger data gathered by airlines during the reservation process are coded into a “passenger name record” (PNR) which would then be transferred to a national center to be set up at the Israel Tax Authority – and is a condition set by the US for Israel’s entry into the visa waiver program.

Last month Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Alice Lugo said Israel “does not currently meet all [program] designation requirements, including extending reciprocal visa-free travel privileges to all US citizens and nationals.”

Lugo was referring to Israeli security personnel at Ben Gurion International Airport who pay close attention to Palestinian Authority Arabs who hold US citizenship and others, particularly so-called “peace activists” and supporters of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Ben Cohen: What the Kanye West scandal can teach the UN
The Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan offered a telling quip during a debate last week at the international body concerning the latest report of its Commission of Inquiry into Israel and its apparently irredeemable offenses against international law. (The fact that the commission’s formal name is “The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel” itself suggests that its conclusions are hardly likely to be favorable, let alone neutral, towards the Jewish state.)

Referencing the viscerally anti-Zionist and often anti-Semitic utterances of the commission’s members—the canard the Israel is an “apartheid” state, the assertion that Israel shouldn’t be permitted to participate in the U.N. system—Erdan told the assembled delegates that “maybe the U.N. could learn from Adidas when it comes to hiring blatant anti-Semites!”

That, of course, was a reference to the decision of the sportswear company to sever ties with Kanye (“Ye”) West over the rappers’ revolting anti-Semitic comments. But Erdan didn’t have to cite Adidas alone; Foot Locker, Gap, Balenciaga, Def Jam and a host of other companies in the music, sports and fashion spaces have all cut links with West because of his hateful outbursts, while an unauthorized visit to the headquarters of Skechers in Los Angeles last Thursday resulted in him being escorted out of the building. “We condemn his recent divisive remarks and do not tolerate anti-Semitism or any other form of hate speech,” declared a gratifyingly clear statement from the footwear manufacturer, adding for good measure that “we again stress that West showed up unannounced and uninvited.”

In the space of a fortnight, West’s image has shifted from that of a hip-hop artist and fashion mogul with eccentric, often unpalatable opinions to an out-and-out racist and bigot who dresses models in “White Lives Matter” shirts, ostentatiously celebrates his violently anti-Semitic views and flirts with neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology. In the process, West has lost all of the sponsorships mentioned above and many more on top, at one point piteously crying out that he had netted a loss of $2 billion in one day. One can only hope that particular claim is true.

The contrast between the speed with which the private sector moved to condemn West’s anti-Semitism and the stubborn persistence of outdated, unhelpful and anti-Semitic notions about Israel at the U.N. is frankly painful to observe. And it compels us to ask why it is that established multinational companies with thousands of employees are nonetheless nimble enough to call out anti-Semitism in a timely manner, while the governments gathered at the U.N. building in Manhattan either enthusiastically endorse or turn a wearily blind eye towards that body’s long-established, hard-wired hostility towards the world’s only Jewish state.

Friday, October 28, 2022

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: The painful truth about media bias: Some journalists lie
It also contributes to a situation in which people on both sides of the political aisle ignore arguments from their opponents, and—as another Times article pointed out—leads to Democrats and Republicans thinking that democracy is in peril. They just disagree about who is at fault.

There are lots of reasons for this landscape. But to deny the responsibility of the media, and the way so many journalists lie for partisan reasons, is not only to fly in the face of the facts; it exhibits a failure to understand how and why our politics and our society are so broken.

This atmosphere helps explain, at least in part, the rise of anti-Semitism and how it is being tolerated on both ends of the political spectrum. It reflects an over-the-top partisanship in a society in which few are willing to condemn political allies, even when they are guilty of blatant hate-speech.

The same pattern applies to coverage of Israel and the Middle East. Though ignorance of the history of the region might seem to be at the root of the slant—since many editors and reporters simply don’t know, for instance, that peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs might have been possible had the latter not consistently rejected any and all compromises throughout the century of the conflict—even relatively recent events are often ignored, buttressing a narrative about oppression of the Palestinians.

Furthermore, many reporters, influenced by Palestinian propaganda and anti-Semitic talking points, deliberately distort the way the conflict is depicted. This helps create fertile ground for prejudice. It also paves the way for developments like the recent U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry report, which traffics in blatant anti-Semitism and falsely accuses Israel of being an “apartheid state.”

The consequences, both in the United States and abroad, of a broken media that can’t be trusted do not merely affect the world of journalism. When members of the press lie to advance a cause, they are not simply spreading misinformation; they are also creating an environment in which democracy fails and anti-Semitism advances.
Mark Regev: Israel, the Suez Crisis and accusations of colonialist collusion
Even before the arrival of the new Soviet arms, Egypt had turned Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat into a white elephant by blockading the Straits of Tiran to shipping to and from Israel. At the same time, the Egyptian military was orchestrating repeated Palestinian Fedayeen terror attacks, all while beefing up its threatening presence in northern Sinai. Israel felt it had to preempt before Soviet weapons dramatically changed the balance of power.

For London and Paris, the Suez War was an unmitigated disaster. The US opposed their attack, viewing it as anachronistic colonial-type gunboat diplomacy, detrimental to western interests in the Cold War. Washington unabashedly compelled France and Britain to withdraw – applying harsh economic pressure that threatened the solvency of its European allies.

The British and French, who earlier in the century had carved up the Middle East into respective spheres of influence, were now exposed as second-rate world powers. Their Suez defeat was the harbinger of the loss of French Algeria and the demise of Britain’s leadership role in the region, which was transferred to the Americans. In the end, it was not Nasser who was forced from office, but Eden and Mollet.

For Israel, the 1956 military victory failed to advance peace, or, in the absence of Arab recognition, any changes to the territorial status-quo: Washington insisted on a full pullback to the 1949 lines.

Nonetheless, the war lifted the blockade of Eilat, and Israeli deterrence was enhanced, inaugurating a decade of relative quiet on the southern frontier.

In addition, Israel’s adept handling of American demands in the months following the crisis led to an improvement in US-Israel ties. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1956 had been critical of Israel’s behavior, in 1960 became the first American leader to host an Israeli prime minister, Ben-Gurion, at the White House.

If there was a downside for Israel, it was foreseen during the cabinet deliberations on the authorization of the offensive. The ministers from the left-wing Ahdut Haavoda (Unity of Labor) party expressed concern about Israel’s “unholy” collaboration with European colonial powers (though they still voted, together with Ben-Gurion’s Mapai ministers, for the attack).

Soviet premier Nikolai Bulganin pressed this theme in an angry letter to Ben-Gurion dated November 5, 1956, charging that Israel had acted “as a tool of foreign imperialist powers.”

Israel was born in a struggle against British colonialism and should have enjoyed a natural affinity from countries that had similarly battled European empires for their freedom. But the Sinai Campaign injured Israel’s standing among the growing number of newly independent African and Asian nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, where Nasser remained a hero.

Regrettably, the 1956 depiction of Israel as a colonialist power has had remarkable longevity. Some seven decades later, this erroneous accusation is still being actively propagated by those seeking to undermine Israel’s legitimacy – just ask Jewish students studying at Western universities.
David Collier: Twitter silences me (twice) (again) – siding with the antisemites And then there is the Scottish scam
But it doesn’t end there. I received a second simultaneous suspension. Now this – even more than the first- is patently absurd. I recently exposed a fundraising scam in Scotland – and I wrote a tweet to publish the article. That tweet apparently also broke the rules for ‘hateful conduct’:

Trying my hardest I fail to understand just what could possibly be wrong with this one. An antisemite did create a partnership with a scammer in Gaza who does have family links to both Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They are currently taking £1000s from people in Scotland and their campaigns are getting increasingly absurd. Each of my points is factually accuate and thanks to this expose I believe Police Scotland have now got involved.

But as it stands, I have been no-platformed again – for doing nothing but fighting antisemitism. And again, it is easy to find the malicious intent and coordination behind those reporting me:

Twitter and minority groups
This is undoubtedly malicious. It is also clearly coordinated. And above all it is a blatant attempt from Islamists and the hard left – to have me completely silenced. The question therefore becomes – why does Twitter – who can protect me from this – *CHOOSE* to side with them and silence my voice?

Is it numbers? Jews are always outnumbered. If Twitter by default sides with the majority then Twitter actively helps bully minority groups. For the Jewish people – the quintessential minority group – this is really bad news.

Twitter also refuses to grant me the basic cover it could provide – (by giving my account a blue tick). Twitter is actively paving the way for antisemites to attack Jews who fight antisemitism and refusing to give them protection they can easily give. Haven’t they kind of got this all the wrong way round?

For now – I am appealing the suspensions. If you do not know me already – I will always fight my corner because I am speaking up for Jews everywhere. This refusal to back down so easily means I cannot currently post this on Twitter. If you have an account – please help me share it there.
The PLO tweeted:


As with everything else in Palestinian history, look beneath the surface and find antisemitism.

The Catholic Advance wrote about this conference:


Moslems and Christians - but no Jews. The Palestinians claim that Jews at the time were an equal minority but Jews were not invited to supposedly Palestinian nationalist conferences.

And notice that the resolutions are ultimately about attacking the Zionist community, not about promoting Palestinian nationalism. 

Also notice:


The Catholic Advance, as we will see later, clearly didn't think that Jews have any business living in Palestine. The Jewish Agency allowed women to vote way before 1929, but they  don't count.

The Women's Congress was scheduled right before the All-Palestine Arab Congress, which featured this:


"All the natives of Palestine, irrespective of creed" - except for Jews.

That's pretty much the definition of antisemitism right there (and one that this Catholic newspaper embraced.)





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

From Ian:

UN Watch: Rebuttal of Pillay Commission’s Report to UNGA
In response to the October 2022 report to the UN General Assembly by the Pillay Commission of Inquiry on Israel, UN Watch published the following rebuttal, prepared by UN Watch Legal Advisor Dina Rovner.

The fundamental failure of the report is that, contrary to its mandate to examine all sides in the conflict, the report examines and condemns only Israel. This follows the same completely one-sided format of the Pillay Commission’s June report to the Human Rights Council. The report is not the product of an objective and impartial examination of all sides, but an adversarial charge sheet where Israel is painted as the only actor and the only guilty party. This latest report underscores how the Pillay Commission of Inquiry (COI) is a travesty of justice. Accordingly, UN Watch calls for the termination of the COI, and has drafted this resolution and petition to commence the process.

Key Points
1. The Commission blames only Israel for the impasse in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and the lack of implementation of the two-state solution, pointing exclusively to the “occupation” and “settlements,” ignoring the Palestinian’ rejection of Israeli peace offers, including the 2000 proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the 2008 offer by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The report ignores Palestinian terrorism and incitement. It completely disregards Israel’s willingness to dismantle settlements for the sake of peace, as it did in 2005 in Gaza and in 1979 in Sinai. For example:
- In paragraph 19, the report disregards Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza in which it unilaterally withdrew 8,500 Israelis from that territory, claiming “that Israel continues to occupy the territory…”
- In paragraph 51, the report expressly states that the “expansion of the settlements and related infrastructure actively contributes to the entrenchment of the occupation and makes the ‘two-state solution’ an increasingly unviable option.” This disregards Israel’s proven willingness to dismantle settlements for the sake of peace.
- Paragraph 54 blames “The extensive human rights violations and abuses, along with violations of international humanitarian law noted in these reports” directly on the “Israeli occupation,” but fails to mention murderous Palestinian incitement and terrorist attacks against Israelis.
- In the recommendations section, the report makes demands only of Israel. In paragraph 91, it calls only on Israel to “comply fully with international law and end without delay its 55 years of occupation of the Palestinian and Syrian territories,” directly implying that Israeli settlements are the only obstacle to peace, absolving the Palestinians of any responsibility.
- Likewise in paragraph 93, the report recommends to the General Assembly to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice “on the legal consequences of Israel’s continued refusal to end its occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory… and “ to respect the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” indicating the Commission’s view that Israel is legally obliged to unilaterally end the occupation, while the Palestinians bear no responsibility whatsoever to cease incitement and terrorism or to participate in negotiations to end the conflict.
UN Commission of Inquiry says it will investigate ‘apartheid’ charges against Israel
The controversial, open-ended United Nations Commission of Inquiry into alleged human rights abuses by Israel and the Palestinians said Thursday it will investigate charges of “apartheid” against Israel. Thus far, the commission’s two reports, including one presented to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, has focused almost solely on Israel, furthering concerns about the one-sided nature of the inquiry and biases among its three members.

The commission’s latest report calls on the U.N. Security Council to force an end to Israel’s “permanent occupation,” and urges U.N. member states to prosecute Israeli officials.

At a press conference with the three commission members on Thursday, JNS asked COI chairwoman Navi Pillay how, given her past rhetoric about Israel, including her declaring it an apartheid state and her advocacy for BDS, she could conceivably pitch her commission as being impartial, which is required for U.N. fact-finding missions. JNS cited her signature on a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden three weeks before Pillay’s appointment to the COI, calling for the White House to punish Israel.

“Well, it’s all news to me that I have done all this. I have signed no petition or made no statement,” said Pillay. When JNS countered that the letter and her statements are all on record and documented, Pillay replied that she would “like to see it. I’ve never seen it. You know, because then maybe somebody has used my name, I want to know. I recall one statement I made in South Africa because the press were there and they asked me about BDS, for instance. And I said that that was a strategy that worked in South Africa.”

She accused her critics of “twisting” her words into a campaign for BDS, and said her investigation is all based on international law. She and fellow COI member Miloon Kothari, who earlier this summer apologized for anti-Semitic comments, lobbed blame on Israel for not cooperating with the investigation.


"Pro-Israel Orgs Respond to ‘Oxymoron’ Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry"
As the United Nations prepared to hear the results of the Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry, which many are calling a demonization of the Jewish state, the parents of a 5-year-old boy who died during a Hamas bombing told their story to the media gathered outside the U.N. building in New York.

“Have you ever broken a promise you made to your child?” asked Asaf Avigal. “Have you ever had to bury your own child because you didn’t keep your promise? In my case, that’s exactly what happened.”

Avigal’s son, Ido, was hiding with his family in a safe room when he was hit and killed by shrapnel from a Hamas rocket in May 2021.

A day before Ido was “killed, murdered by Hamas,” Avigal said that his young son was terrified of the endless rockets and siren. “He asked me, ‘Daddy, what would happen if we couldn’t get to the shelter in time when the rockets came?’ I answered, ‘As long as you are with me you are safe.’ That was the broken promise I made to my child. My greatest wish is that you will be able to protect your kids and families.’”

The U.N. Human Rights Council created the “Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel” in spring of 2021 after Hamas sent more than 4,000 t rockets raining down on Israeli towns and cities, leading to the Israel Defense Forces’ Operation Guardian of the Walls. The COI was conducted by three individuals—Navi Pillay, Miloon Kathari and Chris Sidoti—each of whom had previously demonstrated anti-Israel bias. The COI has no end date for its investigation and its research goes back decades to the founding of the State of Israel.

Noting that the final COI report, doesn’t mention Hamas or terrorism, yet vilifies Israel, Avigal said, “Apparently, not the rights of all humans are protected there.”

Ido’s mother, Shani, recounted the moment when the rocket crashed into the building next to them sending shrapnel crashing into their safe room. “Ido was hit in the head, chest and belly … I was severely injured by shrapnel.

“I tried to save my little boy,” she said. “I stepped over burning shards and glass and ran to my neighbors, but they didn’t hear me because they were in their own bomb shelter. I called the police and said my son and I are dying.”
Ambulances aiding victims of Elad terror attack

There is one thing missing in all the media coverage of IDF operations in the West Bank.

Why they are there.

For years, the IDF rarely entered Area A. The Palestinian Authority took responsibility for security there, and they generally cooperated with Israel in rooting out terrorists - who were enemies of the PA as well. The system wasn't perfect, but it mostly worked, to everyone's benefit.

But earlier this year there was a wave of terror attacks in Israel:

March 22: Doris Yahbas (49), Laura Yitzhak 43), Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky and Menahem Yehezkel, (67) were killed and two more were injured during a stabbing and vehicle-ramming attack  in Beersheba.

March 27: Yezen Falah and Shirel Abukarat, two Border Police officers, were shot dead by two terrorists.

March 29: Amir Khoury (32), Ya’akov Shalom (36), Avishai Yehezkel (29), Victor Sorokopot (38), and Dimitri Mitrik (23) were killed during a series of drive-by shootings in Bnei Brak. 

April 7: Tomer Morad (28), Eytam Magini (27), and Barak Lufan (35) were shot dead at a downtown Tel Aviv bar , seven others were wounded and hospitalized. 

April 29: Two Palestinian terrorists murdered Vyacheslav Golev (23), a security guard, at the entrance to Ariel.

May 5: Boaz Gol (49), Yonatan Havakuk (44), and Oren Ben Yitfah (35) were killed in a terrorist attack in Elad.

Most (if not all) of the terrorists came from the West Bank. Israel could not sit back and wait for more attacks, so it went on the offensive to break up the terror cells that were planning these attacks.

That's why the IDF is there. 

This is not ancient history. It is 5 to 7 months ago. 

How many news reports mention the terror spree that sparked this current escalation? 

When people's attention spans are limited to one-minute videos and 240 character tweets, the media isn't going to bother to give any context. Easier to pretend that Israel attacks Palestinians for no apparent reason, and they are locked into a never ending conflict that has no history. And the media doesn't mention the basic fact that these IDF operations are meant to root out terrorists that the PA could not - or now, refuse to - do themselves.

This helps the terrorists. When they attack Israeli civilians, they know that the world will forget the attacks - but not Israel's responses, which are framed as constant and never-ending. The impression given to those who are only casual consumers of news is that Israel is virtually always the aggressor, and therefore always at fault. And then the occasional fatal Palestinian terror attack is the response to Israeli aggression, not the other way around.

Israel doesn't want anything to do with Area A. It has been forced to react to terrorism, to bring the battle to the terrorists and away from Israeli civilians. And for the most part it has worked - there have been no fatal attacks on civilians in months. 

But the Israeli lives saved by these operations are definitely not something the media will mention. 

In the realm of public relations, terrorists cannot lose as long as the media panders to the lowest common denominator of news consumer who they assume cannot understand context that requires more than two explanatory sentences. 






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Two Palestinian Authority security services members were killed this morning near the Huwara checkpoint as they shot at the soldiers there.

Whenever incidents like this happen, before a terror group takes responsibility, Palestinian media (and even other terror groups) first respond by claiming that the IDF shot innocent civilians in cold blood.

Islamic Jihad called it a "cold blooded execution."

PA prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh called it "a heinous field execution committed by the occupation forces."

Then as more information started coming out that they were involved in an attack, the tenor of the responses changed.

The PFLP was cautious, saying they"were martyred in a new crime committed by the occupation" but implying that they were attacking at the time by  saying "our people's response to the occupation and its aggression and the escalation of resistance against it proves the determination of our people to continue the confrontation until freedom and victory are achieved."

Then the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades took explicit credit for the attempted attack, saying they shot at the IDF soldiers at point-blank range at 1:05 AM, a "zero-distance clash with the Zionist enemy at the Hawara checkpoint in the city of Nablus, and that all the usurpers and settler herds are targets of the battalion fighters, and that the battle is open with this usurper occupation."

So now the responses change from "innocent victims" to "heroic martyrs."

Hamas praised '"the two martyrs of the armed clash with the Zionist occupation forces."

The narrative changed on a dime.

Note that two members of the Palestinian Authority security forces were also terrorists for the Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Either Mahmoud Abbas is too weak to enforce that his own security forces are not terrorists, or he supports it.  Either way, negotiating with him for peace is impossible. 





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!

 

 

I've seen bias from the UN before, but I don't recall ever seeing a document that looks like it was written by a hardened Israel hater. 

The reports usually at least pretend to be unbiased. Not this one.

Francesca Albanese, UN "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967," issued a report in September that apparently was just made public. The summary gives a flavor of how crazily biased it is.

One of her goals in this report, in the inevitable path to soon officially calling Israel an apartheid state, Albanese accuses Israel of "settler colonialism" without going into any arguments why, just footnoting lots of equally biased papers. 


Throughout the report, Albanese fully accepts the Palestinian narrative as true and doesn't even mention any Israeli counter-claims. The reader sees only one side of the argument, and is not even informed that perhaps Israel has its own arguments. Albanese doesn't want to acknowledge even the possibility that Jews have a right to their own state. 

Her one-sidedness is quite deliberate. She describes the Palestinian right to self-determination this way:
The right to self-determination is an “inalienable right” of the Palestinian people, as affirmed by the General Assembly. The origins of Palestinians’ right to self-determination can be traced back more than a century, preceding the first codification in the Charter of the United Nations. The people of Palestine (Muslims, Christians and Jews), like other peoples in the Levant, also had their right to self-determination recognized under the Covenant of the League of Nations of 1919. Article 22 of the Covenant stipulated that “Class A” mandates (Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Trans-Jordan and Syria) would enjoy provisional independence “until such time as they are able to stand alone”. The “wishes” of the local communities were to be “a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory”. 
But she doesn't mention the Mandate for Palestine which specifically says that Jews have the right to self-determination - and no one else!
The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion. 
This is lying by omission. Albanese knows the contents of the Mandate document - but wants to hide it from those reading this propaganda.  And it happens over and over again.

She offers a brief history of the region where Jews are the only people who ever do anything wrong:
The culmination of centuries of antisemitism and persecution of Jews in Europe in the genocidal horror of the Holocaust strengthened support for political Zionism. This movement saw Palestine as the land to realize a “State for the Jews” through settlement and colonization. However, in that land a native Palestinian Arab population had resided for millennia. In 1947, the United Nations resolved to reconcile the separate claims to the land of the indigenous Palestinian people and the largely European Jewish settlers and refugees from Europe, by recommending the partitioning of British Mandate Palestine into an “Arab State” and a “Jewish State”. Soon after, the creation of the State of Israel in most of the territory of Mandate Palestine was accompanied by massacres and the mass expulsion, wholesale denationalization and dispossession of most of the Arabs of Palestine. They continue to be deprived of their right to self-determination, together with their descendants, the refugees further displaced in 1967 and other non-refugee Palestinians. 

She doesn't once mention that Jews have historical ties to Israel. She doesn't mention the attacks by Arabs on Jews in Palestine decades before 1948. She doesn't mention that the Arabs rejected partition. She doesn't mention that the Arabs attacked the Jews. She doesn't mention that the territories annexed by Jordan ethnically cleansed  every single Jew.

It would take weeks to show the depth of Albanese's dishonesty, but here is just one paragraph of many:
The transformation of the Gaza Strip into a heavily populated, impoverished enclave controlled by Israel through a suffocating sea, land and air blockade, is part and parcel of that same settler-colonial design. The containment of the colonial population into heavily controlled reserves is at the core of the settler-colonial goal to ensure the demographic supremacy and prevent Palestinian self-determination. 
How do these assumptions fit in with the fact that Israel forcibly removed every Jew from Gaza in 2005? Was that part of the plan too? And did Israel plan for Hamas to take over Gaza so it could have an excuse for blockading it? 

This is not just re-writing history. This is Soviet-level propaganda.





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Thursday, October 27, 2022

From Ian:

Marking 4 years since Tree of Life massacre, Biden rues ‘ugly rise’ of antisemitism
US President Joe Biden led memorial messages and vows to combat antisemitism on Thursday, marking four years since a gunman shot dead eleven Jewish worshipers and injured seven others at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

“A quiet Shabbat morning was shattered by gunfire and hate, and a place of sanctuary became a place of carnage,” Biden said in a statement.

“As we grieve this deadliest act of antisemitism in American history, we stand with the community of Squirrel Hill — and Jewish communities across America and around the world — in resolving to combat antisemitism and hate in all of its forms,” he said.

“This is especially true as we witness an ugly increase in antisemitism in America.”

Listing action the administration has taken to confront antisemitism, Biden noted the appointment of Holocaust expert Deborah Lipstadt as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, an ambassador-level role.

He also cited the largest-ever increase in funding for security for synagogues and other religious institutes, and other actions announced last month at the United We Stand Summit.

“The rabbis teach that ‘what comes from the heart, enters the heart,'” Biden said, citing the eleventh Century Rabbi Moses ibn Ezra.

“On this difficult day, our hearts are with the families of the victims, the survivors, and all those impacted by the Tree of Life shooting. May their memories be a blessing, and may we continue to bridge the gap between the world we see and the future we seek.”


US Antisemitism Envoy: France ‘Ground Zero’ for European Antisemitism
France has become the epicenter of 21st century antisemitism in Europe — a phenomena which is now beginning to replicate in other countries around the world, the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism has warned.

“I think that in many ways France has proven to be ‘Ground Zero’ for European antisemitism, in part because of the large Muslim population,” the envoy, Deborah Lipstadt, told a panel hosted by the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) and the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Paris on Monday. “If we’d been having this conversation 15 years ago, I would have said France is a unique situation – sadly, it’s not unique anymore.”

In her remarks, which follow a week-long trip to Belgium and France to meet with EU officials on combating antisemitism, Lipstadt cited some of the deadly antisemitic and terrorist attacks that have plagued France over the last twenty years, among them the 2006 kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi, a young cellphone salesman, by an antisemitic gang known as “The Barbarians”, as well as the 2012 and 2015 respective gun attacks on a Jewish school in Toulouse and a kosher supermarket in Paris.

Other incidents included the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish woman who was beaten and thrown to her death from the third-floor window of her Paris apartment by her neighbor, Kobili Traore, during a frenzied antisemitic assault. French Jews were outraged in April 2021 when the country’s highest court upheld an earlier decision that Traore could not be held criminally responsible for Halimi’s death because his intake of marijuana on the night of the killing had rendered him temporarily insane.

Lipstadt warned the evolution of antisemitism which once limited to France had now spread to other countries, including the United States. “I think that in many respects, France emulates what we’ve seen in other places, because it’s not just Islamist extremist antisemitism, it’s also from the right and from the left,” she said.

Lipstadt also noted that the convergence of antisemitic criticism of Israel from the fringes of both right and left wing ideologies is occuring not only in France, but in the US and UK as well.
Last year, during the May 2021 fighting in Gaza, an IAF missile destroyed an apartment in Gaza City, killing a mother and two of her children - Rima Telbani(31), Zeid(4) and Maryam(2).

Israel was blamed for targeting civilians. The New York Times published a  photo of the children

Today, another victim of that attack succumbed to his wounds. His name is Muhammad Ouda Yousef Al-Telbani.



In fact, in the building at the same time were two other senior Hamas terrorists who were killed - who were not mentioned by PCHR.

Which means that the building was almost certainly a command and control center - and the cute Telbani kids were human shields for Hamas, including for their father. 

That changes the story a bit, doesn't 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!

 

 

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