Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Sweden's Jewish community condemns Quran burning incident

"Those who burn books will in the end burn people," Jewish and Muslim communities in Sweden have warned, quoting famous German Jewish author Heinrich Heine following recent burnings of the Muslim holy book, the Quran.

In a reference to book burnings in Nazi Germany, the Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities and the AMANAH Muslim Jewish Partnership of Trust said in a joint statement on Wednesday that book burning often indicates the beginning of the normalization of hatred towards a group in society.

"Historically against Jews, now against Muslims," said the statement, warning that racists and extremists are once again "allowed to abuse democracy and Freedom of Speech in order to normalize hate against one of the religious minorities in Sweden, by burning Quran."

Drawing attention to the intensified attacks on Jewish and Muslim people in the country, they expressed concern.

There are two strange things about this story.

One is that, while there is certainly plenty of right-wing antisemitism in Sweden, a great deal of it is fueled by the immigrant Muslim community there. I hope that behind the scenes of Jewish-Muslim cooperation against hate, the Jewish community is not sweeping Muslim antisemitism under the rug.

The other is that I cannot find this story in any Swedish media. In fact, the only place it is being reported is Turkey. I have no idea why.

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 Authority trying to spin today's fighting as new "Jenin Massacre"

In April 2002, Israel mounted a major military operation in Jenin that resulted in a pitched battle where 23 IDF soldiers and 52 Palestinians, mostly terrorists, were killed.

But Palestinians and their supporters claimed that between 400-500 Palestinians had been killed - and for weeks, the world's media believed them with no skepticism, and assumed that Israeli denials were lies. There were wide reports of a "massacre." An Amnesty International "forensics expert" visited the camp and said "I must say that the evidence before us at the moment doesn't lead us to believe that the allegations are anything other than truthful and that therefore there are large numbers of civilian dead underneath these bulldozed and bombed ruins that we see."

Months later, the UN and human rights groups grudgingly admitted that there was no massacre.

Yet even though the PA had lied so egregiously, they paid no price. The media continued to report their lies as fact and to regard Israeli denials as lies.

The Palestinian Authority has learned that lesson well.

Today, the IDF entered Jenin again, to stop an Islamic Jihad cell that was planning an imminent attack. As of this writing, it appears that the IDF killed eight terrorists and one civilian.

And like in 2002, the Palestinian Authority and media are again calling it a "massacre."

Palestinian Presidential Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said Israeli government is committing a massacre in Jenin and its refugee camp, amidst international silence.

He added that the international silence is what encourages the occupation government to commit massacres against Palestinian people before the eyes of the world.

PA prime minister Shtayyeh "called on the United Nations and all international human rights organizations to intervene urgently to provide protection for Palestinian people and stop the bloodshed of children, youth and women."

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the United States to "intervene immediately" against what they called the "Israeli killing machine."

The Jenin-based armed groups freely admit that they attacked IDF troops and even brag that they scored direct hits but that contradicts the favored narrative of Palestinians as innocent victims, so international media doesn't bother quoting them.

Just as in 2002, Palestinians are making ludicrous allegations, including that the IDF directly shot an ambulance.

The PA's health minister claimed "the occupation stormed Jenin Governmental Hospital, and deliberately fired tear gas canisters at the children's department in the hospital" (some tear gas seems to have wafted in.) She also claimed the IDF shot bullets at the children's ward. She called these "war crimes."

Sure, in the middle of fighting highly armed Islamic Jihad terrorists, the IDF decided to break into a hospital and shoot bullets and tear gas canisters at the pediatric ward. Makes perfect sense.

The PA called a general strike, and declared three days of mourning for the terrorists.

The Palestinians are hoping that the media and NGOs will believe them implicitly. And they have every incentive to lie, because the media never reports that they have a history of lying to manipulate the media.

The Palestinians have nothing to lose with their lies.

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!

On Wednesday, Muhammad Ali Abd Musa Muhammad Ali, 16, was killed after aiming a (fake) gun at IDF soldiers in Shuafat.

Hamas said that he was a member.

That is the fifth Palestinian child soldier killed this year - fully 25% of all the Palestinian militants killed by Israel this year have been children.

All of them were claimed as members of terror groups.

These include:

1/2 Fuad Mohammad ‘Aabed, 17 (Hamas)

1/3 Adam Essam Ayyad, 15 (PFLP)

1/5 Amer Abu Zeitoun, 16 (Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades)

1/16 Amro Khaled Al-Khumour, 14 (PFLP)

1/25 Muhammad Ali Abd Musa Muhammad Ali, 16 (Hamas)

These kids are being groomed to be cannon fodder. Some of them wrote notes to their families, meaning that they intended to be killed.

I have not seen one word from "human rights groups." about Palestinian child soldiers this year. Nothing from UNICEF. Nothing from Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. Nothing from the EU. Nothing from the State Department. Nothing in the Western media.

And each "child" is promoted as an innocent victim by those who want to destroy Israel,with no fact checking.

The child soldiers is a scandal. The lack of information about them in the West (indeed, the fact that the media has not once mentioned that nearly every Palestinian killed was participating in fighting at the time) is perhaps an even greater scandal.

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!

01/25 Links Pt2: Woke ‘ESG’ investors guilty of anti-Semitism as they target Israel; Harvard Deserves Kenneth Roth — the Master of Human Wrongs; Senate Republican Blocks Biden Pick of Soros BDS Activist

From Ian:

Cary Nelson and Michael Saenger: When Discourse about Israel Becomes Antisemitic: A Guide for the Perplexed

Cary Nelson and Michael Saenger argue for understanding antisemitic anti-Zionism as ‘a prejudice with definable characteristics’ and of the need for ‘a standard that can help us identify antisemitic bias in articles, books and public statements about the Jewish state.’ In bringing specificity to the broad guidelines of the IHRA definition, Nelson and Saenger provide much-needed clarity by offering a comprehensive list of examples of the types of statement about Israel which cross the line from legitimate criticism to antisemitism.

Any nation can and should be criticised, both by those who live within its borders and those who do not.[1] But heated debates for years have raged over whether and when attacks on Israeli history and national policy actually falsify that history or so misrepresent Israeli policies that they cross a line from reasoned political critique to demonisation and antisemitism. This debate sometimes takes binary form, with some acting as if no criticism of Israel is ever antisemitic, and others behaving as if all criticism of Israel is antisemitic (though the latter belief has waned in public forums). We believe matters can be clarified by supplementing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) influential list of general examples of extreme anti-Zionism with more specific examples of current accusations.

One example of the debate’s binary character is represented by the circulation of the term “whataboutism.” It often serves to dismiss any attempt to contextualise criticism of Israel with comparisons to other countries. On the one hand, “whataboutism” is used to invalidate legitimate complaints about Israeli policy by referencing other, harsher regimes. On the other hand, “whataboutism” is also used to invalidate any comparisons between Israel and other countries, even though such comparisons are normal and necessary practice for international political science.

We need a standard that can help us identify antisemitic bias in articles, books and public statements about the Jewish state. While such a metric will never be perfect or offer definitive guidance, it can demonstrate that antisemitic anti-Zionism is a prejudice with definable characteristics linked to specific arguments. In what follows, we identify common forms of antisemitic bias featured in discussions of Israel. Like the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, we define bias against Jews not as an animus in individual psyches, but rather as the effect of distinct conceptual distortions.

While the examples dealing with Israel are the most contested feature of the IHRA working definition, that document is primarily designed to identify resulting antisemitism in the wider world, whereas we target the perception of Israel itself. IHRA is focused in part on how biased characterisations of Israel are weaponised against Jews worldwide, whereas we limit ourselves to addressing the claims and strategies embodied in hostile characterisations of Israel.

StandWithUs: Northwest Regional Manager of StandWithUs’ H.S Department, John Michael Graves, at Snohomish County

StandWithUs commends Snohomish County, Washington Councilman Nate Nehring and the other councilmembers for voting (5-0) to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism for county agencies on January 18, 2023. Snohomish is the first in the state to take such a strong stand against antisemitism.

John Michael Graves, Northwest Regional Manager of StandWithUs’ High School Department, spoke courageously in front of councilmembers, stating, “Each of the students I educate have a similar story to tell. Antisemitism is happening today and its perpetrators are becoming emboldened at a rate unseen in decades.” Click HERE to read the StandWithUs press release, and HERE to read the press coverage in the Lynwood Times

Richard Goldberg: Woke ‘ESG’ investors guilty of anti-Semitism as they target Israel

Israel boycotters have a new home for waging economic war against the world’s only Jewish state: environmental, social and governance ratings. Federal and state officials should respond by demanding transparency for investors, enforcing existing anti-boycott laws and preventing retirement funds from being weaponized for anti-Semitic purposes.

Take the case of Motorola Solutions, a global leader in two-way-radio systems and command-center software for first responders. Headquartered in Chicago, the company boasts it strives to reduce carbon emissions and increase its workforce diversity. In almost every category, Motorola Solutions looks to be a model ESG-compliant— read “progressive” — corporate citizen.

Yet despite its low overall risk profile, Yahoo! Finance warns ESG-minded investors that Motorola Solutions carries a “significant controversy level” twice as large as its peer average. What it doesn’t disclose is the supposed controversy surrounds the company’s sales of counterterrorism equipment to Israel to stop suicide bombers from blowing up restaurants and buses.

For that level of detail, investors need to subscribe to the data’s source: Morningstar, a company just blocks from Motorola Solutions in downtown Chicago.

The financial-research giant, best known for its mutual-fund and 529-accounts reviews, expanded its ESG work in 2020 by acquiring Sustainalytics, a Dutch ESG-ratings firm.

But Morningstar’s due-diligence team either overlooked or ignored one red flag: years-long accusations Sustainalytics negatively rates Israel-connected companies in alignment with the global campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state.

Morningstar Sustainalytics mars dozens of Israeli companies, including the country’s leading banks and cellphone providers, with significant controversy ratings merely for providing services to Jews living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

Fighting back against the thuggish ‘ESG’ woke agenda

There’s no such thing as blue money or red money. Only the green stuff will pay bills.

On Friday, North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell became the latest of officials from nearly half the states across the country — including Florida, Texas, Kentucky, Missouri, Arizona and West Virginia — to protest Wall Street’s blue investment strategy, called ESG.

What is ESG? E stands for environment, S for social justice and G for corporate governance. ESG funds invest in companies that oppose fossil fuels, push for unionization and stress racial and gender equity over merit in hiring and board selection.

That’s a partial definition because at least a dozen rating firms tag companies with an ESG score, often based on subjective and somewhat secret criteria, even including a company’s stance on abortion rights.

State officials are pulling billions of dollars out of Wall Street asset managers like BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, citing ESG’s lousy returns and strong-arming of corporations that don’t bow to the left-wing agenda.

Pay attention to these officials’ warnings, because ESG is also hurting small investors. In fact, even if you don’t invest at all but you pay taxes, ESG puts you at risk. You’ll be on the hook when states invested in ESG funds incur losses and have to come to taxpayers for more money. New York City taxpayers, beware.

Folwell calls ESG “wacktivism,” warning that “a focus on ESG is not a focus on returns.”

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!

In yesterday's State Department briefing there was this exchange between Said Arikat and spokesperson Ned Price:

Q: The Arab press and the Israeli press are both reporting that Israel is planning a – like a – to accelerate the demolishing of – the demolition of Palestinian homes in Area C and in other areas. Do you have a comment on that?

MR PRICE: Our comment on this is – remains the fact that we believe it’s critical for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution. This includes the annexation of territory, settlement activity, and demolitions.

I just went through a selection of press briefings that used the word "unilateral" in respect to Israel and Palestinians over the past year, and while the spokesperson often says that the US is against either side making any unilateral moves that could increase tensions, I cannot find a single example where any Palestinian actions are considered unilateral.

Not them submitting complaints to the ICC. Not them building entirely new Arab settlements in Area C. Not them praising suicide bombers and other terrorists. Not paying terrorists and their families lifetime salaries.

Someone should ask Ned Price explicitly what Palestinian unilateral moves the US opposes.

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!

01/25 Links Pt1: The UNIFIL Follies Turn Deadly on the Israel-Lebanon Border; Congress members urge removal of UN official for antisemitism

From Ian:

The UNIFIL Follies Turn Deadly on the Israel-Lebanon Border

Four decades on, UNIFIL’s mission has clearly become untenable. Not only is the organization ineffective, the deployment serves as a key driver of the economy in south Lebanon, employing and sustaining Hezbollah’s supporters and constituents. At $500 million a year—$125 million of which is paid by Washington—the deployment is also expensive. Already, the force is in harm’s way, and during the inevitable next war between Israel and Hezbollah, this 10,000-strong contingent will provide the militia with an impressive human shield.

Recognizing these deficits, in 2020, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened to veto UNIFIL’s renewal in the Security Council if changes weren’t made to the mandate to improve the security situation along the border. Judging from Hezbollah’s aggressive response to even the slightest amendment to the mandate’s language, it’s unlikely these changes would have improved UNIFIL’s performance.

Absent these revisions, the Trump administration pressed to downsize the force, consistent with its limited mission. But stiff opposition on the Security Council, particularly from France, prevented this proposed change to the mandate. Then with the August 2020 Beirut port explosion—which killed over 200 and decimated the capital—the administration balked, dropping any talk of vetoing the mandate renewal. In the end, it settled for strengthening the organization’s reporting requirements and symbolically lowering the troop cap from 15,000 to 13,000 peacekeepers

While UNIFIL provides a useful forum for talks between the Israeli and Lebanese militaries, and its maritime task force is beneficial, the peacekeepers will never play a role in constraining Hezbollah or securing the frontier. Making matters worse, neither the government of Lebanon nor the LAF will fulfill their U.N. obligation to support and protect the organization. Notwithstanding the enormous sums of U.S. funding provided to the LAF since 2006, the Lebanese military remains and will continue to remain beholden to Hezbollah. And Hezbollah’s sponsors in Tehran have zero interest in securing the Lebanese-Israeli border. As a result, south Lebanon remains volatile and UNIFIL isn’t helping. To wit, just weeks ago, Israel downed yet another Hezbollah drone in its airspace.

Three years into a devastating man-made economic crisis and months into a vacuum in the presidency in Beirut, Washington and Paris—the Security Council penholder for UNIFIL—are sure to resist significant changes in the status quo. Indeed, the annual French refrain during mandate renewal discussions has long been “now is not a good time.” To be sure, when it comes to Lebanon, which exists in a perennial state of crisis, there will never be a good time. But now, with Hezbollah increasingly threatening UNIFIL and with Lebanon actively obstructing the mission, it’s incumbent on the Biden administration to reassess the utility of the deployment and of America’s unqualified support for the LAF.

Given its deficiencies, a compelling argument could be made to scrap UNIFIL entirely. Washington could do so simply by vetoing the organization’s mandate renewal this summer—as the Pompeo State Department nearly did. Notwithstanding its shortcomings, however, Israel continues to support the persistence of UNIFIL, believing that the so-called tripartite mechanism, the maritime task force, and the continued presence of some peacekeepers along the frontier may be useful in deescalating tensions.

While the administration may not be able to dispense with UNIFIL, it’s time to downsize the deployment so its size is commensurate with the limited access the organization has in south Lebanon. It will take some heavy diplomatic lifting for Washington to right-size this self-perpetuating interim U.N. bureaucracy, but the effort will be worth it. Reducing UNIFIL will mitigate the risk to the peacekeepers while having only a negligible impact on stability along the Israel-Lebanon frontier. Along the way, it might even convey the message that Washington’s patience with an impotent UNIFIL and intransigent Beirut is limited.

Hezbollah blinding Israeli drivers, pedestrians nightly with lasers

Hezbollah activists have been harassing residents of the northern town of Metullah from across the border for the last several weeks by using powerful lasers, Channel 11 reported Monday evening.

Standing on a hill in Lebanon that is perhaps 180 meters from the town, they shine a blinding green light into Jewish homes, at pedestrians, and perhaps most hazardously, into the eyes of Israeli drivers.

This kind of laser can cause irreparable damage to people’s eyes, including permanent blindness, the report said.

The IDF has not yet found a solution to the problem.

In an effort keep the long-distance stalkers away from their gathering spot, a large floodlight was placed for several days at the most directly affected area, the town’s popular promenade, to shine a revealing beam at them. This has not discouraged Hezbollah, and it was taken away a few days ago.

The Northern Command has turned to the UNIFIL forces that have been stationed on the border since 1978 and whose formal mandate includes assisting the Lebanese government to return its effective authority in the border area rather than leaving Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, in charge.

BBC ‘Newshour’ listeners hear one side of a story

Listeners then heard an interview with Rashid Khalidi – who had published an op-ed in the New York Times on the same topic three days earlier and has been campaigning on the long-running issue for some time – in which Iqbal asked:
Iqbal: “On the issue of the building of a US embassy in Jerusalem, what do you know about the land that will be used to do that?”

Khalidi: “What we know – have always known – is that most of this land is privately owned Palestinian land. Many of the owners, many of the descendants of the owners, are – as it happens – US citizens. This has always been known. We, a group of heirs, descendants of owners, presented this evidence to the then Secretary of State Madeline Albright in the late 1990s and the State Department took note of it and at that point the plan was frozen. So we’ve known about this and it has been known by the State Department – unless they don’t know how to access their own archives – for the better part of 25 years. We’ve known it, the Israeli government knows it, the US knows it.”

Later on Khalidi mentioned the related planning documents that have been submitted to the Jerusalem planning authorities, stating:
Khalidi: “And Adalah, the legal group that represents all of the Arabs, is filing an objection to this planning document which we will have the results of towards the end of this month.”

Referring to what he termed the “so-called Allenby Barracks site”, he later added:
Khalidi: “This is a site that the British government during the mandate period before 1948 rented from my family and a large number of other families for use as a British military barracks. That site is going to be the embassy if the United States plans that have been submitted to the Israeli planning commission go ahead.”

In July 2022 the NGO ‘Adalah’ published documents dating from May 1947 which show a “hiring agreement” between several individuals and the Government of Palestine – i.e. the British mandate authorities. All those documents relate to a block numbered 30113 which, as can be seen on a map from the same era, made up one part of the Allenby Barracks. Adalah claims that the plots concerned were expropriated by Israel in 1950 under the Absentees Property Law but does not address the topic of any compensation that may have been received.

The area known as the Allenby Barracks was originally an Ottoman military site set up in 1916 during the Second World War which included an airfield for the use of their German allies. The site was conquered by the British in late 1917 and used as a military base up until the end of the mandate period.

As the British mandate came to an end, the mandate authorities handed over that site and other military camps in Jerusalem to the Jordanian Arab Legion. The site was captured by Israeli forces during the War of Independence which broke out when surrounding Arab countries attacked the nascent Israeli state.

In 1950 a financial agreement was signed between the Israeli and British governments. Under that agreement, part of the Allenby Barracks remained under British ownership.

In 1964 the British government agreed to sell part the Allenby Barracks to the Israeli government for 140,000 British pounds and in November 1966 the sale was completed. As can be seen in the document below (p.44), the area is numbered Block 30113 – the same number as the block including the plots claimed by Rashid Khalidi and others.

Clearly this topic is far more complex that listeners to ‘Newshour’ would understand from Rashid Khalidi’s obviously partisan version of the story. While Iqbal did say at the end of the item that a response had been requested, but not received, from the US State Department, no right of reply was given to any Israeli representative – for example from the Jerusalem planning department or the government – which would enhance audience understanding of the issue.

Unusually high amount of antisemitism in Arabic media yesterday

All of these articles were published on Tuesday.

From Turkey Al-Aan, the world's capitalist system is split between the British and the Jews.

The global capitalist system is supported by the dialectical relationship between two authoritarian powers, whose struggle sometimes takes the form of collusion.

The Cold War was just an invented fictional war. There were ostensible capitalist and socialist blocs, but the real battle was between two invisible actors. One of these actors was the Anglo-Saxons, whose masterminds were the British.

The second actor is the active elements in the Jewish power, who are known as the proponents of the globalization theory, and they are the founders and owners of the American establishment system.

Two important weekly magazines serve as spokespeople and watchdogs for the world order: The Economist and Time.

The Economist magazine is the mouthpiece for the interests of the British, that is, on behalf of the Anglo-Saxons. As for Time magazine, it is the voice of the Jewish power, which is centered in the United States, but this power also controls the economies of many countries such as Russia, Germany and France.

These are the two most powerful magazines that control and direct those who rule the world. It is essential to follow these two journals regularly to see where the world is heading, and what kind of calculations the masters of the world order follow.

From Al Raiah (Hizb ut-Tahrir) - the Jews are greedy:

The greed of the Jews, their greed that knows no bounds, and their loss of insight and political vision, is what confuses the West and raises their fears. The West realizes that the Jews have no acceptance of Muslims or a real struggle with them, and that all that keeps them in the region is conspiracies, betrayals, and colonial projects, not the power of the Jews and their own capabilities, in When Jewish leaders have been blinded by greed and hatred from seeing this fact, and now they think that they have the strength that enables them to achieve their greed and their biblical and Zionist aspirations.

From Sudan's Sudanile - the Jews control the world:

The Jews have sought for a long time and are still diligently striving to control the world, because their morals are on vacation, and they commit shameful things, evils and sins with coldness.Their own people and others can do anything of the atrocities that have no limits!!.. The strange thing is that Israel, which is part of its club that controls our poor world, presents itself to the beholder with the innocence of children in its eyes, and does not show any fuss about what its sinful and criminal hand has done. Rather, it remains silent like fish to manage its conspiracies and hatred against all!!
America deludes everyone that it is sitting on the top of the global polarity. In fact, it is a humiliated follower of the Jews, along with Europe and many countries of the world, and finally some Arab countries began to be dragged into the Tel Aviv club, and the story is going on, and Sudan, our beloved country, is a strong candidate to plunge into the Zionist mud and shame.

An op-ed in Ma'an says Zionist Jews are excavating in Jerusalem specifically to weaken the foundations of the Temple Mount so the Al Aqsa Mosque will collapse the next time there is an earthquake.

These excavations [near the Temple Mount] have revealed the foundations on which the mosque was built, so that it appears as if it is hanging without foundations or supports to support it, and this act is a preparation by the state of the entity [Israel] to be ready to collapse in the event of any strong natural disaster that may occur in the future, such as the occurrence of an earthquake, for example - Allah forbid! They are betting on the collapse of the mosque as a result of this, so that the reason becomes before the world that it collapsed as a result of natural factors, so that no one condemns them and the Islamic and international community does not turn against them.

None of these would have sounded unusual in 1930s Nazi Germany.

But in the 1930s, the Jews tried desperately to warn the world and the antisemitic outrages were mentioned in the media.

Today, no one wants to talk about endemic, systemic and often official Arab and Muslim antisemitism.

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!

In what has become a daily occurrence, a Palestinian man was shot and killed as he tried to stab Israelis.

Aref Abdel Nasser Aref Lahlouh attempted the attack at a checkpoint near Kedumim.

Palestinian media went through their usual ritual. At first, they claimed that he was shot for no reason.

Then they say that he was "allegedly" trying to stab a soldier but the Israelis killed him in cold blood. And that the heartless Israelis killed him in front of his mother and brother.

And then, when it becomes clear that he actually did try to stab people, they turn him from an innocent victim into a heroic martyr.

Here's video of the incident that appears to show that Lahlouh tried to go around the soldier to attack civilians at the checkpoint, who ran away as the soldier shot him.

Originally, the "Resistance News Network" tweeted, "In yet another cowardly act of cold-blooded execution, zionist forces shot the martyr Aref Abdelnasser Lahlouh (21) from Jenin the settlement of Kedumim, east of #Qalqilya after being forcibly removed from his car. Aref was shot in front of his mother and epileptic brother."

After the video evidence, there was a complete about face. They proudly show the video, saying "Martyr Aref Lahlouh attempted to carry out a stabbing operation on IOF soldiers in #Qalqilya before his ascendance to martyrdom."

Hamas also tries to have it both ways, but they choose to give one message in English to the West and another in Arabic.

In English:

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas mourns Palestinian citizen Aref Lahlouh, 20, who was extrajudicially killed by the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilia.

In Arabic:

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) mourns to the masses of our stationed Palestinian people, its fighter martyr: Aref Abdel Nasser Aref Lahlouh (20 years), from the Jenin refugee camp, who rose to fame while carrying out a heroic stabbing operation against the occupation forces near Qalqilya, this afternoon, Wednesday.
The choice of our people is to escalate the confrontation by igniting the land under the feet of the occupation and its settlers, and that the resistance will confront the crimes of the occupation and its aggression against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque with sacrifices, lives, and all available means so that it remains purely Islamic, and a title for our people and our Arab and Islamic nation.

But the most unusual take comes from the socialist PFLP. The PFLP requires both narratives - from the socialist viewpoint, Palestinians are always victims and therefore always right, while from a Palestinian perspective, they love brave heroic "martyrs." Plus they need to add some antisemitism as well. So their statement includes all three:

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine mourned the death of Aref Abdel Nasser Aref Lahlouh (22 years old), who was shot dead by the occupation army near Qalqilya while trying to carry out a stabbing attack.

The PFLP considered that the Zionist enemy's continued commission of murders against Palestinian youth at checkpoints is at the heart of the killing doctrine rooted in the official Zionist institution, which is dominated by a fascist and bloody military character based on criminal Talmudic religious fatwas.

Interestingly, Ma'an has an analysis that says that Hamas is encouraging these "lone wolf" attacks in order to take IDF attention away from Gaza, and that many Palestinians are critical of these "martyrdom operations" because they often have to pay the price in being unable to go to their jobs in Israel.

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!

Donations to groups that encourage Palestinians murdering Jews are tax deductible in the US

Last year, a group of anti-Israel groups co-sponsored rallies in New York City titled "By Any Means Necessary."

The phrase isn't even a dog whistle, It literally is a call to murder Jews in Israel. it says that bus bombs, suicide bombings of pizza shops and Passover seders and murdering children via sniper are all legitimate "resistance." And if they thought that murdering Jews around the world would help their cause, then that is included in "any means necessary."

One would think that groups that literally call for murdering Jews would be banned. But not only are they legal - incitement to murder Jews is apparently free speech - but donations to these groups are tax deductible.

The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network was founded and is led by members of the PFLP terror group. It proudly promotes the PFLP which recruits children to attack Jews. Yet donors to Samidoun get a tax deduction, as it launders the donations through the Alliance for Global Justice, which claims to support "peace, anti-war and liberation." But AGJ happily partners with a group that openly advocates terror.

"Within Our Lifetime" apparently coined the phrase "Globalize the Intifada," which they explicitly say means "to win liberation by any means necessary."

In this case, it sounds even more like a threat to Jews worldwide, not just in Israel.

Yet donations to Within Our Lifetime are also tax deductible, laundered through Wespac, which describes itself as wanting a more "just and peaceful world" - which apparently includes blowing up Jews.

The Palestinian Youth Movement, another co-sponsor of "By Any Means Necessary," also launders its donations through Wespac.

It seems to me that IRS rules against terrorist organizations are general enough to include any of these groups that say they support violence against civilians as a legitimate means of "resistance." The organizations that launder the money, Wespac and the Alliance for Global Justice, should be examined and put on notice - the contents of these groups' websites should be enough to make an initial determination that they support terror.

This is way overdue.

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!

01/24 Links Pt2: Exhibit Listing Millions of Holocaust Victims to Go on Display at UN Headquarters; Sorry, Not Sorry: The Disingenuous Or Sincere Public Apologies for Celebrity Antisemitism

From Ian:

The Magical Mossad Mystery Tour

Just East of Zar’it, Northern Israel
“You want to know a secret? Hezbollah is watching! They are usually up there with binoculars,” an Israeli soldier confided to me. She pointed north amid the green hills in the direction of Ramya, the Lebanese village which was the approximate starting point of the terrorist group’s flagship tunnel, named Wilderness Flower by the IDF but more commonly known as the Ramya Tunnel. We were standing amid a group of tourists at the tunnel’s mouth, now framed in concrete and with a metal door, nearly four years to the day that the Israel Defense Forces had exposed the assault passageway, one of six dug from inside southern Lebanon under Israeli territory. The IDF has blown up the other five.

If Hezbollah was indeed watching, it must have been a shaming experience for the surveillants. This marvel of military engineering, which would have enabled a flash mob of Shia fighters to emerge in the Upper Galilee to slaughter at will, was now entertaining a group of about 50 mostly elderly and Jewish tourists, some using walkers, many commenting on what schmucks the Hezbollahis must have been to invest so heavily in not one but six failed tunnels, as we moved on to Misgav Am for ice cream.

“It took the IDF four years to figure out all the tunnels,” said Major Nehemiah, another soldier who invited visitors to photograph anything except himself. “Hezbollah envisioned an elite force to surprise us through the tunnels. They would have surfaced here on the Old Northern Road. It would have a been a tactical, propaganda victory for them, against civilians.”

The Ramya Tunnel, he said, had taken Hezbollah about 10 years to build, and apart from Iranian funding, no foreign expertise or other role was evident in its creation. It ran for about a mile under Ramya into this area near the town of Zar’it, and the concluding section consisted of a circular cement staircase rising nearly 80 yards upward to this point. The steps were too steep for many tour members to explore, but some of our orange-helmeted number tried them out, noting that the damp dolomite walls sported power cables (labeled “Original Hezbollah Infrastructure” in Hebrew and English) but no handrails; presumably Hezbollah fighters would have been of a spryer demographic than us.

Hezbollah’s surveillance duties at this site must be light, because visits are rare—the tunnel is not open to the public. But we were not sightseers but fortunate members of the Ultimate Mossad Mission, a biannual tour sponsored by the Israel Law Center and Shurat HaDin (“Letter of the Law”).

The busload skewed mature, affluent, American, European, and Canadian, with a scattering of family ties to Israel—several would hang on after the tour to visit grandchildren or in-laws—and we could have passed for an extended family on the road with our uniform casual clothes, sturdy shoes, mobile phones, water bottles, and laminated IDs hanging from matching lanyards. Most men wore ball caps, with or without kippahs. Some women’s hair blew in the breeze, some sported snoods or bucket hats resembling the kova tembel or fool’s hat beloved of old-timey kibbutzniks.

We shared the élan of the security-conscious elect conversant with the Spy Museum in D.C., the NSA Museum, which is open to the public, or the CIA Museum, which is not. Our travel highlights would not be luxurious hotels or opulent buffets but coveted access to sites like this, and the high-level intelligence briefings we would judge and follow up with penetrating questions.

The connections between our weeklong jaunt and the Mossad were in fact rather modest. Retired and active Israeli security officers with various affiliations provided backgrounders on security matters, but they were often from the military or law enforcement sectors, which should not have been a surprise. The Mossad is a foreign intelligence organization unlikely to provide foreign visitors with information on bread-and-butter security issues. Someone apparently figured that an “Ultimate Border Police Mission Tour” would lack snap.

Shosh Amit: most proud of getting Jews out of Arab countries

It was only when Shosh Amit turned 90 that she agreed to be interviewed by Moshe Vistoch of Israel Hayom. As a girl in Baghdad, Shosh lived through the 1941 Farhud in Baghdad. She was active in the Zionist Underground in Iraq, and immigrated without her parents to Israel. She worked for the Mossad and helped, among other things, Jews escape Syria in the 1980s and 90s.

What eventually convinced her to come forward was the desire to help raise awareness of the contribution of Iraqi Jews to the construction of the State of Israel’s intelligence system, especially in its early years. Her apartment in the Polg estate, where we met on a warm winter’s day, indeed radiates peace and quiet, but does not betray the storms that were the tenant’s lot. Often there were also internal storms that accompanied her until the wee hours of the night and sometimes entered her dreams.

“My last position at the Mossad,” she shares, “involved the escape of Jews mainly from Syria between the years ’82 and ’90. The work accompanied me until I went to sleep. All the time thoughts ran through my head, how are they doing, how will they get out, will everything be alright, Will the smuggler arrive on time, is all the data I gave good enough. My head was working 24 hours a day, but I’m happy that I got to work in this position.”

She was born in 1933 in Baghdad, as the third daughter of a family of seven children. “Our home was a little different from the traditional Iraqi home,” she says, “Fathers in Iraq had a high status and they hardly spoke to their children, some of them did not remember the girls’ names. The status of women was very low, but in my home it was the opposite. My father , who was engaged in the purchase of land in the city of Kirkur, really shared his purchase considerations with us, and my mother was a graduate of the Alliance School, which was not acceptable in those days.

“The house where I grew up was Zionist. My grandmother on my mother’s side immigrated to the Land of Israel as early as 1926. We had a close connection with Israel. My sister, who is two years older than me, and I ,were also given Hebrew names – Uriah and Shoshana. I often hear Iraqi Jews talk longingly about Iraq. I never felt a sense of belonging in my life, maybe because of all the times my father talked about Israel and our intention to come to Israel.” In 1936, her family came to visit the Land of Israel, which only increased her attachment to the Holy Land. “When we returned to Iraq, the members of the Jewish community treated us as saints because we were in Israel, and the curiosity about Israel was great.”

University of Melbourne adopts IHRA definition

The University of Melbourne has become the first university in Australia to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism.

The adoption, along with all of the definition’s examples, forms part of a broader anti-racism commitment made by the university on Tuesday.

The announcement came just days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is marked on January 27.

The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) said in a statement it was “thrilled to hear” of the adoption.

“This sends a message to all Jewish students around the country that our voices are being heard. The University’s anti-racism commitment will go a long way to fostering an inclusive and thriving campus experience for all minority groups,” AUJS said.

“We are really looking forward to working with the University of Melbourne throughout the implementation process. Thank you to the University of Melbourne for taking the lead.”

Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said, “This move is a strong step forward in the fight against antisemitism on campus and in society as a whole.

“By adopting the Working Definition, Melbourne University is taking a meaningful step to demonstrate to Jewish students that antisemitism on campus will not be tolerated.”

The University of Melbourne made headlines for the wrong reasons last year when its Student Union adopted an anti-resolution many deemed antisemitic.

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Arab media have been very excited at the doom and gloom articles in Israeli and Western media predicting civil war or a collapse of Israeli society. Haaretz articles are especially prized and translated.

But it's been a couple of months, and the audience is thirsting for more.

Awad Deif Allah Almalahimah writes in Jordanian news site Khaberni his own expert analysis of how Israeli society is irrevocably split in two, based on his first-hand observations - 20 years ago in the West Bank.

It is quite clear that he has no idea what he is talking about, but his audience doesn't know that.

The Ashkenazi Jews of European origin live in and around Tel Aviv. They are a morally decadent society, with addiction to alcohol and drugs, prostitution, moral decay, homosexuality, sexual transformation, and other perversions and reprehensible things.

As for the fanatics, most of them are concentrated in the West Bank, especially in the areas of Hebron, Jerusalem, and other places, and the enemy has a goal for their concentration there. Here I will tell you some manifestations of religious intolerance:

During my more than seven visits to the West Bank, about two decades ago, I witnessed the concentration of Falasha Jews in Jerusalem, and their residence is confined to certain places, and they do not work in any work or jobs at all. And they consider them as breeding machines, as it is common to see a woman and a man accompanied by 10 children or more, as they walk in the street. Their clothes are shrouded in black - as are their hearts - and their beards are very long, which may reach the knee, and they wear their headscarves that indicate their fanaticism, and their women wear the veil, and no part of their bodies or faces appear, as if they were a copy of the backward terrorist organization ISIS - which had not appeared yet, Perhaps ISIS copied it from the Falasha Jews - yes, ISIS, the organization of the killers, a creation of America and Zionism to distort the great Islam. And the majority of the Falasha Jews, as I mentioned earlier, are given remunerative and generous salaries and benefits, without doing any work, and their services to the entity are represented in breeding new Zionists.

In addition to what I mentioned above from my personal observations, I will tell you what happened to the religious fanatics of the entity. Imagine that about 50,000 Zionist girls do not leave their homes unless they wear the veil. The prohibition of eating, selling, or dealing with pork began to spread. Separation of men and women began to spread in all places. The prohibition of women from working, obliging them to stay at home, and preventing them from going out except accompanied by a mahram began to spread, and strictness began to prohibit doing any work on Saturdays at all.

Contrasting this strict society, the other section is the secularists who brought with them the life of the West with all its vices.

...Accordingly, they are not a people, but rather a population with diverse cultures, religions, languages, customs, traditions, values, morals, and concepts. Because it is a mixed society of immigrants from most, if not all parts of the world. Nothing binds them absolutely except the illusion of the motherland. Where they came from: Western Europe / Eastern Europe / North America / South America / and the Middle East, including some Arab countries / India / Russia / Canada / South Africa / Ethiopia / Britain, and others.

They are not a real, interdependent, cohesive society, with calling for intimacy, coexistence, unity, and rejection of division. Rather, the population of the entity spreads dissonance, division that reaches the point of conflict, and the rejection of the other who came from origins that are not homogeneous, but discordant in everything. God willing, the seeds of the collapse, annihilation, and disappearance of this artificial entity lie in it.

Not to belittle the real problems in Israeli society, but Arab "experts" have been making the claim that Israel is not a real country but a collection of people with nothing in common since 1948.

The last sentence makes it clear that there is a lot of wishful thinking going on here.

By the way, notice how this writer says that Zionism created ISIS. A similar mindset can be seen in this article from Yemen that says that Zionism was behind the burning of the Quran in Sweden.

If you don't like it - it is Jewish (or "Zionist.")

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01/24 Links Pt1: The continuing lie of the “Gaza blockade”; As Billions Flow to Jordan, US Remains Mum on Extradition of Palestinian Terrorist Ahlam Tamimi; Who will celebrate World Hijab Day this year?

From Ian:

Palestinians are playing the long game on world stage – Israel could lose

The United Nations General Assembly recently approved a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to render an opinion on whether the continuing Israeli occupation of the territories has become permanent, and in fact an annexation of the territories. In principle, the Court’s opinions are not binding, and its decisions cannot be directly translated into steps against Israel. However, in practice, the petition of the case to the ICJ is part of a broader Palestinian strategy, and in the present international climate is liable to have significant implications.

In recent years, the Palestinians have adopted the practice of involving international institutions in their conflict with Israel. These efforts include their appeal to the ICJ on the legality of the separation fence, a push for the establishment of international commissions of inquiry after every military operation in Gaza, complaints to the International Criminal Court that led to a pending investigation of Israeli actions related to the conflict, and a drive to have Palestine admitted as a member state of various international organizations.

The Palestinian activity in international organizations is coordinated and aggregate. For example, the General Assembly’s recognition of the State of Palestine in 2012 provided the basis for the determination that the International Criminal Court has the authority to investigate Israeli actions related to the conflict. An ICJ decision that the Israeli occupation is illegal would serve as the basis for additional proceedings against Israel.

Developments in Israeli law are also liable to affect the legal ramifications of the ICJ proceeding. In 2004, it published an opinion that the construction of the separation fence in the territories was a violation of international law. In practice, no steps were taken against Israel as a result of that ruling. A significant factor in Israel’s ability to fend off the opinion was the fact that the Supreme Court had looked into the issue and concluded that the fence was legal under international law. In several places, the Supreme Court even intervened and ordered that its location be modified in order to comply with international law.

However, it seems that the Supreme Court’s willingness to impose international law on Israel’s activities in the territories is no longer as resolute as in the past. In recent years, the court has refrained from intervening in issues related to international law. If the Override Clause is enacted, the Court’s authority to review Israeli actions in the territories will be weakened even more, and the Knesset will be able to pass legislation such as the Settlement Regulation Law, which the Court struck down in 2020. In this situation, it is quite likely that international tribunals will pay no attention to proceedings in the Israeli Supreme Court and not view them as a reason to refrain from investigating the issues.

PMW: The continuing lie of the “Gaza blockade”

In 2022, United Nations officials and reports, many countries and their representatives, and the Palestinian Authority continued to perpetuate the lie alleging that Israel has applied a “blockade” on the “besieged Gaza Strip.”

While the lie was commonplace and even often embellished by claiming that “Gaza is the biggest prison in the world,” statistics released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the so-called “occupied Palestinian territory” (OCHA) reveal the truth.

According to the OCHA statistics, in 2022 there were 424,417 exits via the Erez crossing from Gaza into Israel. 14,909 exits were for Gazan patients, who were accompanied by 10,930 people, entering Israel to receive medical treatment. There were also 573 entries into Israel to visit imprisoned terrorists.

Alongside the entry of the Gazans into Israel, OCHA also reported that 74,096 truckloads of commodities entered Gaza from Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing in 2022. According to the statistics, only 5% of the truckloads were carrying humanitarian products.

In addition to the 74,096 truckloads of commodities, thousands of trucks entered Gaza from Israel carrying fuel:

While statistics released by the Israeli Defense Ministry showed that from 2017-2021 Israel - incredibly - allowed 11,499 new vehicles into Gaza, the number of new cars that entered Gaza from Israel in 2022 has not yet been released.

The OCHA website further revealed that in 2022, in addition to the 424,417 exits from Gaza into Israel, there were an additional 245,145 exits from Gaza, via the Rafah crossing, into Egypt.

In addition to the movement of people, 32,353 truckloads of commodities also entered Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing. All the commodities that entered Gaza from Egypt were for commercial use. No humanitarian goods entered Gaza from Egypt.

A child of Oslo watches the Tel Aviv protests

Yet as a child of Oslo, born and raised in the dark years of rampant terror in which parents lost friends and friends lost parents, in which the obituary sections drove home realities that were decades premature, I have to ask myself: Does the Supreme Court really fulfill these functions in the name of protecting democracy and civil liberties? If so, shouldn't its decisions to rein in government policies be devoid of political bias?

In Oct. 1995, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's government pushed the Oslo B agreement through the Knesset by a 61-59 majority. It did so by promising members of Knesset, from a right-wing party, positions in the government in exchange for their votes. Where were the calls for reining in majority rule back then?

At the time, the left was perfectly happy to win by the slimmest of majorities, however it was achieved. This was the case even though the ramifications of the vote were severe. They did not only threaten civil rights but the physical lives and safety of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Israelis.

Ten years later, I spent the summer of 2005 in Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip. I witnessed firsthand what it was like for the people there when Ariel Sharon turned his back on everyone who voted for him and rammed the disengagement plan through, firing anyone in his government who dissented.

Yet for some reason, the Supreme Court, sans Justice Edmond Levy, decided that it was not its place to interfere. It stood by as the government sent soldiers to expel citizens from their homes, crushing any semblance of their civil liberties.

Sadly, we are still paying for this decision to this day, with Hamas now ruling the dunes where once our hothouses bloomed.

This two-faced approach proves that we should not blindly accept the rhetoric employed by the protestors. This controversy is not really about civil rights or the strength of Israel's democracy. It's about power. Political power and judicial power. It is about people who want influence over the future of the State of Israel even when the majority of the people chose not to elect them.

It's hard to contain the feelings that bubble up when I hear friends on the left who supported Oslo and then the disengagement talk about how the Supreme Court is the defender of civil rights in this country. The Supreme Court proved otherwise when it abandoned the people of Gush Katif. They proved that their own politics supersede their supposed commitment to upholding the civil rights of all Israelis, making this argument against the reform null and void.

Globes reports:

Sources familiar with the matter have told "Globes" that Saudi Arabia will allow Israelis to vacation on the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir, which it purchased from Egypt in 2016. Saudi Arabia plans building a bridge linking the islands to Egypt.

The long-range vision of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is to develop his country and open it up to the world including huge tourism ventures along the Red Sea coast right up to the Gulf of Eilat. The Saudis also plan to make the islands of Tiran and Sanafir into busy tourist destinations with hotels and casinos.

...a solution is emerging that will leave Egypt with a vestige of sovereignty, thus achieving two goals: firstly, Egypt will have a veto on what happens on the islands; secondly, maintaining the peace agreement and giving Israelis the opportunity to vacation on the islands. Israeli passport holders entering Egypt from Taba or Sharm el-Sheikh airport, will be able to spend time in the hotels and casinos operated by Saudi companies on the islands.

The planned tourist spots will be specifically geared towards in international audience. For Saudi Arabia, this includes unprecedented freedoms for tourists:

Saudi Arabia’s giga-project, Red Sea Destination is set to welcome visitors in 2023, ahead of their opening RSG’s senior travel trade director Loredana Pettinati announced that women will be allowed to wear bikinis at the destination.
Pettinati when asked about the current regulations in the kingdom, said at a press conference in Dubai that no restrictions will be imposed on women and there will be no specific gender rules in place at the destination.
Pettinati also explained that as a European expat, she feels comfortable and said that “across Saudi Arabia, we do not have to wear an abaya, women are allowed to drive. There will be no distinction between women and men entering any facility, anywhere.”
She also explained that a man and woman booking a hotel will not be asked if they are married or not.

Saudi Arabia is still a huge violator of human rights, but its modernization is highly significant and pushes it in the right direction. These moves should be celebrated.

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!