Israeli authorities’ actions to seal the family homes in the occupied West Bank of two Palestinians suspected of attacks against Israelis amount to collective punishment, a war crime, Human Rights Watch said today.This punitive measure, which Israeli authorities have said they will follow by demolishing the homes, comes amid a spike in violence that has cost the lives of 35 Palestinians and 6 Israelis since January 1, 2023. The violence has included Israeli army raids that unlawfully attack Palestinian cities and refugee camps, Palestinian attacks on Israelis, and attacks on Palestinians and their property by Israeli settlers, who rarely face punishment for these crimes.“Deliberate attacks on civilians are reprehensible crimes,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “But just as no grievance can justify the intentional targeting of civilians in Neve Yaakov, such attacks cannot justify Israeli authorities intentionally punishing the families of Palestinian suspects by demolishing their homes and throwing them out on the street.”
Friday, February 03, 2023
- Friday, February 03, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2023 terror, Amnesty, blame Israel, collective punishment, house demolition, HRW, kill jews, Neve Yakov, NGO lies, NGO silence, reducing terror
Thursday, February 02, 2023
Melanie Phillips: The entrenchment of Western Jew-hatred
The demonization of Israel is the defining cause of the progressive left. As such, it has become the default narrative in all higher reaches of the culture.Ilhan Omar removed from House Foreign Affairs Committee
In America, where there is still a bedrock of public support for Israel, this poison has spread through the universities into the schools and infiltrated the Democratic Party. Unlike in Britain, however, the Democrats haven’t even gotten to the Labour Party’s stage of seeking to rid themselves publicly of this moral stain.
The ousting of the Jew-bashing Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar from the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee was organized by the Republicans. The Democrats, who refused to take action against her when they governed the House, opposed the ouster, complaining that it was “revenge” for the Democrats’ removal of two GOP representatives from committees during the previous session of Congress.
Accordingly, the Democrats continue to sanitize Omar’s egregious Jew-hatred. In 2019, she tweeted that U.S. support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins”—that is, hundred-dollar bills. In 2012, before she arrived in Congress, she claimed that “Israel has hypnotized the world” and added, “May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
Last weekend, Omar claimed on CNN that she was unaware that the word “hypnotized” and conspiracy theories about Jews and money are anti-Jewish tropes.
“I might have used words at the time that I didn’t understand were trafficking in antisemitism,” she said.
Her protestations of ignorance have drawn widespread incredulity and scorn. In fact, they imply something more unpalatable than being disingenuous.
Omar knows that there’s a prejudice called antisemitism. However, she self-evidently believed that Jews do use their money to exercise covert and harmful power and that they do hypnotize the world.
In other words, Omar thought that what others know to be Jew-hating tropes couldn’t be prejudice because they’re true. So, when she says she didn’t think these tropes constituted antisemitism, she reveals just how antisemitic she actually is.
Yet even now, the supposedly anti-racist Democrats refuse to condemn her. This is because Western progressives either support or refuse to condemn “intersectional” Critical Race Theory.
The US House of Representatives voted on Thursday to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The vote was approved along party lines, 218-211.
Republicans argued that Omar should be removed for past comments against Israel and the use of antisemitic tropes.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy defended the decision to remove Omar from the powerful committee. Speaking to the media after the vote, he said her past statements “make it clear she is unfit to represent the US on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.”
“She repeatedly used antisemitic tropes” and “compared America and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban,” he said.
“She said Americans only like Israel because it’s all about the Benjamins,” McCarthy said. “And three years later, she said, ‘I didn’t know there’s a trope when it comes to referring to someone who’s Jewish with money.’ What does that say to other people around the world? We were right in our action, and she can serve on other committees.”
Omar said regardless of the vote’s outcome, she was “here to stay.”
“My leadership and voice will not be diminished if I am not on this committee for one term,” she said in a speech. “My voice will get louder and stronger, and my leadership will be celebrated around the world as it has been.”
“This debate today, it’s about who gets to be an American,” Omar said “What opinions do we have to have to be counted as Americans? This is what this debate is about.”
RJC applauds the dismissal of Omar
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) applauded the Republican-led House for passing the measure.
“For years, Democratic leadership has failed to hold Rep. Ilhan Omar accountable for her vile, hateful, and dangerous anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric,” the RJC said in a statement. “Today, Republicans, under Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s leadership, kept their promise to remove Rep. Omar from the prestigious and crucially important House Foreign Affairs Committee.”
“RJC has long advocated for Rep. Omar’s removal from this critical committee,” it said. “RJC thanks Rep. Max Miller for introducing the resolution and House Republicans for their principled votes to pass it. We are gratified that Rep. Omar will no longer be in a privileged position to influence legislation regarding US policy toward Israel and the Middle East.”
Hakeem Jeffries: Democrats “Unanimously” Support Ilhan Omar Though "She Has Used Antisemitic Tropes" (h/t MtTB)
More than 2,000 Rabbis Urge Congress To Kick Ilhan Omar Off Foreign Affairs Committee
An organization representing more than 2,000 rabbis is urging congressional leaders to keep Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) off the House Foreign Affairs Committee over her extensive history of anti-Semitism.
The letter comes as a small group of Republicans, including Reps. Nancy Mace (SC), Victoria Spartz (IN), and Ken Buck (CO) have suggested that they may not support House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) bid to kick her off the committee.
The Coalition for Jewish Values addressed the letter to McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), asking that Congress follows through on McCarthy’s pledge to remove her from the committee.
“This is not a political matter, but one of moral conscience, and a necessary step to quell the rising tide of antisemitic speech and violence now impacting Jewish communities across America,” wrote Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, President; and Rabbi Yaakov Menken, Managing Director.
The letter also comes after Omar claimed during a CNN interview on Sunday that she had no idea that her anti-Semitic statements “were trafficking in antisemitism.”
“On three separate occasions, we wrote to the previous Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, to make this same request,” the rabbis wrote. “We were ignored all three times, while antisemitic hate crimes became ever more common in this country. Upon learning of the appointment of Rep. Omar to the Foreign Affairs committee, we wrote to express our ‘alarm, dismay and outrage,’ given that even before her election to Congress, Ms. Omar had repeatedly used antisemitic tropes.”
I am shocked. Just shocked I tell you that Peter Beinart would leap to the defense of Ilhan Omar. What’s that saying about ‘birds of a feather’ … pic.twitter.com/zlcglyrAKC
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) February 2, 2023
He can't even say antisemitism, without putting in quotations. Does Ishaan ever get tired of defending Jew haters? https://t.co/yTikne7Gy0
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) February 2, 2023
- Thursday, February 02, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- anti-Zionist not antisemitic, apartheid lies, ElderToons, EU, follow the money, funding terror, human rights activist, humor, Israel is Apartheid, Terrorists in Suits
- Thursday, February 02, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- humor, Preoccupied
Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.
Check out their Facebook page.
Ramallah, February 2 - A sophomore at Bir Zeit University closing in on the deadline to select a focus for his course of study toward a Bachelor's Degree admitted today he feels too torn to decide among the options available: engineering murder against Jews by joining Hamas; engineering murder against Jews by joining Palestinian Islamic Jihad, engineering murder against Jews by joining Fatah; or engineering murder against Jews by joining one of the smaller, more niche jihadist groups vying for glory in the Resistance against Zionism.
Hamdi Halabi, 19, has already completed most of his core requirements plus a smattering of elective courses, and must now choose a major if he is to complete his degree in time - but the aspiring shahid acknowledged today that he hesitates to commit to any one course of training to kill Jews, for fear that he will regret his choice later when some other path he could have chosen proves more productive and likely to result in his achieving Palestinian immortality through the violent murder of Jews impudent enough to live proudly as sovereign Jews in the ancestral Jewish homeland, an affront that no Palestinian can take lying down.
"I'm having a hard time, weighing the pros and cons of each," he confessed. "The safe bet would be Hamas or Fatah, because they have the established reputations and the most robust resources for training and arms. Fatah, especially, pays you or your family after you conduct an operation to kill Jews. But there's stiff competition to stand out. I'm not a hundred percent confident in my ability to rise above the crowd. That's why I'm also considering one of the less-prominent groups to major in - big fish, small pond, you know the deal."
"It's too bad I'm not allowed to have a double major," he continued. "The rival departments don't like it - even though they try to claim credit for the accomplishments of students or former students from other departments. I can't even choose Fatah, Hamas, or PIJ and a major and one of the smaller organizations as a minor. I know all sorts of collaboration and cross-pollination goes on unofficially. Just not in a way that I can formally join."
Press time saw Halabi weighing the possibility of auditing some Popular Resistance Committee classes in which he couldn't officially enroll as a Hamas major. A friend also warned him that on occasion, students in rival tracks denounce one another to the administration as collaborators or homosexuals, resulting in the accused student getting expelled from the rooftop.
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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- Thursday, February 02, 2023
- Ian
- #PayForSlay, 2022 terror, 2023 terror, Antony Blinken, Day of Rage, gaza, hamas, ICC, Linkdump, lone wolf lies, NGO monitor, pay for slay, security fence, South Africa, Sudan, Thomas Friedman, two-state solution
NGO Monitor: The Role of NGOs in Supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC) Investigation
On December 20, 2019, then Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Fatou Bensouda announced that she intended to investigate alleged war crimes in the “State of Palestine” and filed a request with the Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber to confirm her jurisdiction. On February 5, 2021, the Pre-Trial Chamber in a controversial 2-1 opinion confirmed the Prosecutor’s jurisdiction. On March 3, 2021, Bensouda announced the launch of a formal investigation.NGO Monitor: NGOs Blame the Victims: A False “Massacre” in Jenin and “Legitimate Resistance” outside a Jerusalem Synagogue
This move is to a significant degree the product of consistent and heavy lobbying of the ICC for over a decade by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Throughout, these NGOs have been central to promoting the Prosecutor’s activities: lobbying the Court to accept the Palestinian Authority, filing complaints, representing “victims,” and submitting briefs. Key NGOs include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, FIDH (France), and Palestinian and Israeli NGOs. The European Union, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and other European governments have provided tens of millions of dollars to anti-Israel ICC campaigns and lobbying. In some instances, the European funding was explicitly earmarked for NGO activities vis-à-vis the ICC.
According to the legal principle of “complementarity,” the ICC is only authorized to investigate when a country’s judicial system has proven unwilling or incapable of prosecuting cases that fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction. Even if there is evidence of alleged war crimes, the Court is supposed to respect serious local investigations.
Importantly, as part of the NGO Durban Declaration and accompanying BDS campaigns, advocacy organizations have sought to turn the ICC into a court of universal jurisdiction. Like their exploitation of the UN and other international frameworks, these NGOs seek to use the ICC for demonization and to brand Israeli officials as “war criminals.” In contrast, the ICC was created for the explicit and narrow purpose of prosecuting individuals accused of specified crimes, and not for political legal warfare.
On January 26, 2023, the IDF conducted a preemptive counterterror operation in Jenin, during which nine Palestinians – eight of whom were armed members of Islamic Jihad and other organizations – were killed. The Palestinian Authority, reviving the blood libel from Jenin in April 2002 (Defensive Shield), accused Israel of committing a “massacre” and Gaza-based terrorist organizations launched rockets at Israeli cities.The Tragic Palestinian Children's Crusade
The next day (Friday night, January 27), a Palestinian murdered seven Israeli civilians outside a Jerusalem synagogue; a few hours later (Saturday morning, January 28) a 13 year-old Palestinian shot and wounded two Israelis in a separate incident in Jerusalem.
NGO responses to these incidents reflect an immoral agenda that stands in direct contradiction to the human rights mandate that they and their funder-enablers claim. Palestinian, Israeli, European, and international NGOs and their officials that commented on Jenin before the Sabbath terror attacks repeated the PA propaganda of a “massacre.”
Other NGOs appeared to justify the terror attacks in Jerusalem, or otherwise blamed Israel for the targeting of Israeli civilians. Even those groups that directly condemned the terror attacks simultaneously included condemnations of Israel. One NGO, the Rights Forum (Netherlands), bizarrely denied that the murder of Jews because they were Jews constituted antisemitism.
Importantly, several very vocal and active Israeli advocacy NGOs, including Adalah, B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and Yesh Din, appear not to have issued statements.
On December 12, 2022, 15-year-old Jana Majdi Zakharna was killed during an IDF operation in Jenin. The IDF's investigation revealed that the girl was shot to death on a rooftop as she stood in proximity to a Palestinian gunman who had opened fire at Israeli troops below and that she assisted the gunmen by observing the soldiers' movements.Biden Admin Announces $50 Million in New UNRWA Funding
The Telegram channel "Jenin Al-Qassam," which serves armed Palestinian groups in the Jenin region, has published instructions for "Jihad fighters" that deal with the use of children "to conduct visual observation and information gathering." The Telegram channel also noted that Jenin has a network of observation units staffed by "young people" assisting terrorist groups by documenting on video and delivering reports about the activities of IDF forces.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has written that under international humanitarian law, "Individuals whose continuous function involves the preparation, execution, or command of acts or operations amounting to direct participation in hostilities are assuming a continuous combat function."
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday announced $50 million in new funding for a UN agency that is dedicated solely to the descendants of Palestinian refugees and which has been widely denounced for propagating antisemitism, eliciting rebuke from a top Senate Republican.
Speaking in Ramallah alongside Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Blinken said that the money, alongside the $890 million the Biden administration has already provided to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) in the past two years, was intended to “rebuild” the relationship between the US and the Palestinian Authority.
“All of these steps are part of the longer term ambition to re-establish, but then not just re-establish, rebuild our relationship, as I said, with the Palestinian people and with the Palestinian Authority,” Blinken said. “And this will allow us to more effectively work toward the goal of Palestinians and Israelis enjoying equal measures of democracy, of opportunity, of dignity in their lives. We believe that that can be achieved by a realization of two states. President Biden remains committed to that goal.”
Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, slammed the move Wednesday.
“The Biden Administration is far too eager to give out US taxpayer dollars to UNRWA,” Risch told The Algemeiner. “I do not support a single US taxpayer dollar going to UNRWA without serious reform, in part because their textbooks continue time and again to include antisemitic content. That is why I will be re-introducing my UNRWA Accountability & Transparency Act which would halt funding to UNRWA until all of its antisemitic issues are thoroughly addressed.”
- Thursday, February 02, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- analysis, by any means necessary, Death to Israel, glorifying terror, Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, jew hatred, kill jews, memri, Palestinian propaganda, palwatch, PMW, seeking martyrdom, victimhood
One of such major presuppositions is that Palestinian terrorism, the indiscriminate murderous violence targeting mostly defenseless Jewish civilians, is a core part of the Palestinian identity and a normative Palestinian behavior to be expected. As such, this behavior can not be blamed on Palestinian society or institutions but on Israel and Israeli action, which controls the structure of power from which the Palestinian identity emerged.
- Thursday, February 02, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- academic freedom, Amos Yadlin, apartheid lies, Cornel West, double standards, Harvard, Hypocrisy, op-ed, ZOG lies
It seems a couple points were absent from Dean Elmendorf’s announcement. At no point did he address the elephant in the room: what scholars like Cornel R. West ’74 have alleged as Harvard’s complicity in silencing voices that call for Palestinian freedom.Similarly, HKS’s track record of offering positions should make us skeptical of the sincerity of its mission statement.HKS has proudly lended [sic] its name to Amos Yadlin, a former general in the Israeli Air Force who participated in the brutal war on Lebanon in 1982. ...Yadlin is only one of several questionable characters. As Harvard students, we cannot continue to let our University welcome agents of colonial violence while denying those who reject U.S.-backed Israeli apartheid.
During his normal 5-year review, the faculty committee offered him a raise and a 10 year contract, which for a 67-year old man is as good as tenure. But he refused, insisting that they change his position itself into a tenured position - something that this review board couldn't do. As the Boston Globe reported, "The faculty committee was only in charge of reviewing his reappointment and does not have authority to conduct a review for tenure, [Harvard's] spokesman said."Now, it is obvious why he wasn't granted tenure - he did not have a tenure-eligible job and one cannot make that change at the drop of a hat. West asked for the job to be changed, which is quite a different matter than being denied tenure!
- Thursday, February 02, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2023 terror, Al-Shabaka, celebrating terror, Dalal Mughrabi, defending terrorism, Husam Zomlot, jew hatred, justifying terror, Khairi Alqam, Khaled Abu Toameh, kill jews, Noura Erakat, Susan Abulhawa, Yara Harawi
Wednesday, February 01, 2023
NGO Monitor: Clear and Convincing: The Links between the PFLP and the European Government-funded NGO Network
On October 22, 2021, Israel designated six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist entities due to their links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP): Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Al-Haq, Addameer, Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC), and Bisan Center for Research and Development (Bisan). A seventh – Health Work Committee (HWC) – had been designated in January 2020. The PFLP itself is designated as a terrorist organization by a number of countries and bodies, including the US, EU, Israel, and Canada.An Unholy Rant on a Day of Remembrance
Since then, the NGOs, donor governments, and allies in civil society and the UN have claimed they have not seen anything to justify the designations.
The evidence presented in this report – compiled exclusively from open source materials – proves this narrative inadequate and inaccurate. Irrespective of the information possessed by the Israeli government and intelligence agencies and the criteria for designation, there is overwhelming, publicly available evidence that ties these NGOs and their leadership to the PFLP. On its own, this should have been enough of a reason for European governments not to fund and/or partner with the NGOs.
Of particular note, we found:
The PFLP has issued statements of support for the designated NGOs, and numerous other sources indicate organizational links between many of the designated entities and the terror group.
Three NGO officials – Samer Arbid, Walid Hanatsheh, Abdel Razeq Farraj – indicted and standing trial for their alleged involvement in a deadly August 2019 bombing that killed an Israeli teenager. All of them have been claimed by the PFLP as members of the terror group.
Nine NGO officials convicted for their involvement in planning or executing other terrorist attacks.
Thirty-seven additional NGO officials affiliated with the PFLP.
Five financial institutions – Citibank, Arab Bank, American Express, Visa, Mastercard – shut down online donations and accounts of PFLP-linked NGOs.
In 2022, the Dutch government announced the results of an 18-month audit conducted by a Dutch firm that identified 34 individuals who held positions in both UAWC and the PFLP between 2007-2020. As a result, the Netherlands canceled its contract with UAWC
As European sources and officials have noted, simply affiliating with a terrorist organization can disqualify an organization or individual from receiving EU support. For instance, as confirmed in a June 2020 letter from the Office of the President of the European Commission to NGO Monitor, “[EU] rules make the participation of entities, individuals or groups affiliated linked or supporting terrorist organisations incompatible with any EU funding.”
Click Here to Read Full Report
A quick rule of thumb: whenever you read a sentence that begins with "The Jews," or words to that effect, it is in all likelihood the beginning of an antisemitic rant. Ever since the German ultranationalist historian and politician Heinrich von Treitschke in an 1879 essay first used the phrase "The Jews are our calamity" (Die Juden sind unser Unglück) – a phrase, incidentally, popularized and widely used by the Nazis to buttress their persecution, oppression and mass killing of European Jews – blaming "the Jews" has become the standard m.o. of in-your-face, often quite unsophisticated, antisemites.We are not in competition to win a victimization sweepstakes
On Friday, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day was observed across the globe, a group of five contributors to Kentucky's Courier Journal, joined this rogues' gallery with their opinion piece,"Holocaust Remembrance Day is a time to remember more than one atrocity."
This article is offensive on many levels, but let's begin with the crude antisemitism inherent in their one-sentence paragraph, "Jews do not have a monopoly on persecution and atrocities," which sets up the straw man for their insidious premise: "Jews," the authors imply none too subtly, care only about the persecution of and atrocities perpetrated against Jews and are indifferent to the plight and suffering of others.
Never mind that this is not, and has never been, the case. Never mind that major Jewish organizations—the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the World Jewish Congress, among many others—are at the forefront of condemning and commemorating genocides and crimes against humanity committed against any and all peoples, whether in Rwanda, Bosnia, Myanmar, or anywhere else.
Never mind that the 1948 Genocide Convention—the brainchild, incidentally, of Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Ukrainian Jew—applies by its terms to attempts to destroy any "national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
Never mind that it was Ambassador Ronald S. Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, who condemned the slaughter of Christians in the Middle East and Africa in a 2014 New York Times op-ed writing that "just as I will not be silent in the face of the growing threat of anti-Semitism in Europe and in the Middle East, I will not be indifferent to Christian suffering."
The antisemitic conclusion the authors of the Courier Journal op-ed want their readers to take away is that "the Jews" are only concerned about themselves. Tell that, incidentally, to the families of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwermer, two New York Jews killed in 1964 together with James Chaney while registering African-Americans to vote in Mississippi.
The Courier-Journal writers, by trivializing the immensity of Hitler’s crimes, do history no favors. Over the past couple of decades, we’ve already seen the trivialization of the Holocaust, with references to “Nazi-like behavior,” concentration camps, the gestapo, and yes, genocide tossed about with abandon for everything or everyone who may not agree with us.
The Jewish people have no reason to apologize for expecting the world to take one day in 365, to commemorate the attempt to destroy our people. At the same time, one will find many from our community that have been, and are at the forefront of calling out racism, prejudice, bigotry, violence and genocide wherever they are manifested. Indeed, listen to the speeches of those delivered on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and you will hear a similar refrain in each: “Can we not learn the lessons of the Holocaust?” To suggest we don’t care, or look away, or are interested only in pride-of-place is, pure and simple, a calumny.
I fear that the message of the Louisville Courier-Journal article will lead to a further dumbing down of history or—worse—an erasure of it. It took almost 60 years for the international community to recognize the need to remember the attempt to destroy world Jewry. That act was long overdue. Now, along with so many other tropes and canards that come our way, we are told not to be so selfish. And that the dictator who carried all of this out was no better or no worse than many others.
Holocaust education is an urgent priority today, as an escalating number of Holocaust survivors succumb to the biological clock. The editors of the Courier-Journal, and the op-ed writers, ought to begin their education by sitting down with survivors themselves, the people with the tattoos on their arms who experienced and witnessed the degradation and the brutality. Or perhaps a visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, or the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Or a guided visit through the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, or others in what was Nazi-occupied Europe.
Until then, their shocking and facile charges against the Jewish community will remain a stain on the code of responsible journalism.
- Wednesday, February 01, 2023
- Varda Meyers Epstein (Judean Rose)
- 2023 terror, Judean Rose, Opinion, Varda
Justice Potter Stewart knew it when he saw it. |
Scare quotes, according to the Oxford Dictionary, are “quotation
marks used around a word or phrase when they are not required, thereby
eliciting attention or doubts.” Perhaps nowhere is the use of scare quotes more
galling than when used to justify Arab attacks on Jews. No one could possibly
doubt that it is, in fact, a terror attack when an Arab shoots Jews dead in a
Jerusalem synagogue on Shabbat. Yet despite this fact, a number of news reports
placed the words “terror attack” in scare quotes, as if to cast doubts on the
rightness or wrongness of the event. This malign and antisemitic practice of
using scare quotes to excuse terror, is as common and familiar as terror
itself.
Sometimes there is a thin line between scare quotes and just
plain old quotation marks. There are also times when the intent is subjective,
as in this Twitter exchange from 2016:
@epavard This is an actual quotation. These are not "scare quotes."
— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) April 18, 2016
Did you actually read the story?
I thought it was clear just from the title: Israel police: Explosion on Jerusalem bus
was a “terror attack.” Seven years later, I still think those are scare
quotes and I still don’t think I need to read the article. But perhaps I am
jaded. Associated Press writer Matt Lee thought the quotation marks perfectly
legitimate in that context—and I happen to like Matt Lee. He asks the most
awesome, penetrating questions at State Department press briefings.
Speaking of which, the White House had no problem saying it like it is in its press release on the recent attack on a Neve Yaakov synagogue. No scare quotes in the title: "Condemning the Terrorist Attack in Jerusalem."
And none in the
statement itself, which begins:
“The United States condemns in the strongest terms the
horrific terrorist attack that occurred today outside of a synagogue in
Jerusalem.”
Sky
News, however, took the Matt Lee route, claiming the quote came from
the police, as opposed to the sick and twisted mind of the writer or his
editor:
Police said the gunman arrived at around 8.15pm local time (6.15pm UK time) on Friday and described the shooting as a "terror attack".
Same deal with the Independent—and
oh, by the way, Neve Ya’akov is not a settlement, but a Jerusalem neighborhood:
Israeli police described the shooting as a “terror attack” and said it took place at a synagogue in the Neve Ya’akov settlement.
The BBC, of course,
is always first and worst, this time suggesting that while Israel called the
dude who killed Jews in shul a “terrorist,” it ain’t necessarily so:
The man who attacked the synagogue on Friday was identified by local media as a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, who police described as a "terrorist".
The BBC, of course, has a
vested interest in using scare quotes in this context. They would like you to
think that the shooting was in self-defense, or that a gun went off by accident, or perhaps even
that murdering Jews is a mitzvah, because Jews live on land Arabs want.
What was disappointing this time was the use of scare quotes
by the Washington
Free Beacon, often fairer than most when reporting on Israel:
Israeli police described it as a "terror attack" and said it took place in a synagogue in Neve Ya'akov.
Here too, the quotes are subject to interpretation. The
journalist can always say he is quoting the police. But the lack of context is
troubling. It is too easy for the reader to conclude that the shooting was not
motivated by terror and might even have been justified.
From the standpoint of the journalist, quotes from officials lend authority to a report. Here,
however, the quote does no such thing, because it’s not really a quote. Like Judge Potter Stewart, I know it when I see it, in this case, a quote. Which leads us right back to scare quotes.
Any reporter worth his salt knows that the writing should always be clear and without any taint of bias. For this reason, a good writer always tries to get into the head of the reader. Here, the report needed to be unambiguous. There should have been an effort to remove all doubt from the reader's mind, because the shooting was, in fact, a terror attack, by even the most objective standards.
And of course, there is always another way for a writer to
say something. If you get stuck for words, have a cup of tea and try again, for goodness sakes. Rather than sow doubt and suspicion against the yahud, be on the side of truth, and
state it as fact:
Israeli police have confirmed that a terror attack took place in a Neve Ya’akov synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath.
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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- Wednesday, February 01, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- "As-a-Jew", 1920-1948 Palestine is Israel, anti-Zionist Jews, British Mandate, David Mivasair, Eretz Yisrael, revisionist history
I love this old menu on the wall of a Jewish deli in my hometown of Baltimore. It tells quite a story. "Buy Palestine Matzo"Anyone need to have that explained?
So Long as Palestinians Celebrate Bloodshed, Peace Will Remain Out of Sight
When, in 1998, a Palestinian was fatally stabbed in Jerusalem—apparently by an Israeli terrorist—the country’s president visited the victim’s widow and the Defense Ministry gave his family a six-figure compensatory payment, akin to the support given to Israeli victims of Palestinian terror. Last Friday, the victim’s grandson murdered seven people leaving a Jerusalem synagogue. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to his spokesman Ned Price, hoped during his trip to Israel and Egypt this week that he could “put an end to the cycle of violence.” Stephen Daisley observes:Gil Troy: After Jerusalem terror attacks, some in the West lack empathy for Israel - opinion
On Friday night, in Jenin, Ramallah, Nablus, and east Jerusalem, Palestinians gathered to celebrate the synagogue murders. Crowds set off fireworks, started bonfires, fired their weapons into the air, honked car horns, and chanted. In Hebron they handed out sweets to children while in Gaza cries of “Allahu akbar” boomed from mosque loudspeakers. . . . Hand out enough candies and pastries every time an Israeli is murdered and you will teach your children that killing is sweet. The lesson will not go unlearned.
Hello “cycle of violence,” my old friend; I’ve come to talk with you again. Except, it’s not true. It’s not a cycle of violence. It’s a choice of violence, a choice Palestinians keep making.
When Jerusalem assures foreign audiences there is “no partner for peace,” it is a well-worn talking point but it is not easily rebutted. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, will not visit any grieving widows after Friday night’s attack. The Palestinians will pay no compensation to bereaved Israelis—they couldn’t afford to. The Palestinian Authority operates a Martyrs’ Fund that pays stipends to the families of Palestinians captured or killed while carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis. In 2020, the fund disbursed 597 million shekels (£139 million) in such payments. Sweets for the children, shekels for their widowed mothers.
Where does this get the Palestinians? Nowhere near a state, nowhere even close to the conditions necessary to achieving one.
SO FAR, these Jewish Blame-Israel-Firsters remain a minority. Most American Jews I know, meet and read about in surveys remain proud and protective of Israel. Therefore, although I resent the disproportionate attention the hypercritics command within the community and beyond, I resent even more their supersized self-righteousness and the feeble pushback they increasingly receive.
I share Prof. Ruth Wisse’s consternation – and fury – that, as she wrote in Sapir in 2021, “No other minority in America is ‘in sympathy’ with the war against its members – not African-Americans, Latinos, or Asians, not Native Americans or gays. Only the Jewish Left and their liberal fellow travelers capitulate in the old ways.”
his betrayal by these un-Jews – intellectuals and leaders, often on the Jewish dole, undoing the core Jewish consensus around Israel and Zionism – is even more outrageous because the forces gunning for Israel are not just anti-Jewish, not just anti-Zionist, but illiberal, anti-American, undemocratic and totalitarian.
Let me be clear. I seek vigorous debate regarding Israel, Israeli democracy, Israeli policies, Israel’s leaders and Israel’s attitudes and actions toward the Palestinians and others. Healthy identity Zionism requires a big tent like Abraham’s, open on all four sides – or we suffocate. But just as no tent can stand without its poles, no community can survive without some boundaries.
I attack those delegitimizers who repudiate what Israel is, not what Israel does. I condemn those demonizers who inject irrelevant race-based analogies and critiques of Western actions into Zionism’s unique story. And I challenge communal leaders, living off sacred Jewish dollars, to stop building relationships with Israel only through breast-beating without cheerleading, especially because there’s a bigger, more honest and far more inspiring story to tell.
It’s a story of how our youngest, newest martyr, Asher Natan, lived – not just how he died – loving Torah, loving life, perpetually smiling. It’s a story of our latest heroes, from the anonymous officer who shot the Ir David terrorist while absorbing life-threatening wounds, to this paramedic Fadi Dekidek who explains: “Jews save Arabs; Arabs save Jews,” while calling Magen David Adom “an example for the whole world.”
I hope this violence moves our government to slow down its bulldozing ways and keep us united. I hope it challenges the sky-is-falling gloom-and-doomers to protest without shouting loudly, hysterically, democratically, that Israeli democracy is over.
But I also hope this bloodstained moment, outside a synagogue, on Shabbat, 78 years after Auschwitz’s liberation, reminds those American Jews flirting with anti-Zionism to sift right from wrong. Israel is more humane and democratic than ever. We are all stronger, safer, better, with a robust, safe Israel. And we still all are one – Am Yisrael Chai.
UNRWA is Part of the Problem – Not the Solution
The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has once again requested international financial aid. This is the same organization whose workers have been promoting violence and antisemitism on social media.What Muhammad Aliwat learned in school
UNRWA has since done absolutely nothing to help the "refugees" move on with their lives and seek a better future for themselves or their families.
"Almost all of [the incorrectly labeled Palestinians in Gaza] have been born in Gaza, their parents have been born in Gaza, their grandparents have been born in Gaza... they were never displaced an inch. Yet, every day they hear, they learn, and they get an official stamp from the UN agency that says: 'That's not your home. You might have lived here all your life, but your home is there, just across the fence. That's your real home [Israel], and it was taken from you." — Einat Wilf, former Israeli Member of Knesset, December 1, 2015.
The Geneva-based independent human rights group UN Watch has uncovered evidence of UNRWA staff incitement which clearly violate the agency's own rules as well as its proclaimed values of intolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism.
Meanwhile, in 2021, the US government confirmed its "failure to ensure that taxpayer aid dollars sent to the Palestinian government did not ultimately make their way to terrorists."
Terrorist groups in Gaza, such as Hamas, have continued to build terror tunnels under UNRWA schools, to use the children as human shields if Israel retaliates after it is attacked -- as Hamas member Abu Khaled, openly admitted in December 2021.
"UNRWA's procurement contracts suggest that funds are already flowing to PFLP affiliates," wrote foreign policy expert Julia Shulman.
"[T]he Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act (PATA).... prohibits assistance to the PA unless the administration certifies that 'no ministry, agency, or instrumentality of the Palestinian Authority is effectively controlled by Hamas'" — Matthew Zweig, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, June 2021.
Commenting on the Biden administration decision to restore the financial aid, UN Watch said that now is the time for the US to demand that "neutrality, accountability and transparency" Secretary Antony Blinken paraded.
It does not seem, however, that UNRWA has taken far-reaching and drastic measures to end the incitement to violence and antisemitism. In fact, it has not taken any at all.
It is clear that UNRWA, like many other UN agencies, has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. Instead of seeking ways to solve the problem of the so-called refugees, UNRWA has perpetuated and inflated it.... Instead of promoting peace and non-violence, UNRWA employees have been doing the reverse.... UNRWA donors might consider these evasions before they sign the next check to one of the UN's most incompetent and corrupt organizations.
Muhammad Aliwat, the 13-year-old Palestinian attacker who ambushed and seriously wounded a father and his son at the entrance to the City of David Friday night, used his school notebook to leave a message for his mother that reads: “God, or victory, or martyrdom. Forgive me, mother, you’re going to be proud of me.”Was a 13-year-old Palestinian incited to terrorism by UN schoolbooks?
The 8th-grader, reportedly a student at the Al-Furqan Islamic School for Boys in the Shuafat refugee camp, which uses the Palestinian Authority’s curriculum, has had quite an education in martyrdom, jihad, and antisemitism this school year and last. For example, he studied comprehension through a story promoting suicide bombings, in which Palestinians “cut the necks of enemy soldiers.” In Islamic education, a textbook devotes an entire chapter to teaching that martyrdom is “obligatory,” that it brings honor, glory, and promises entrance to paradise. Those who do not sacrifice themselves are weak.
Jews are depicted as conspiratorial, powerful, evil, and impure, posing a threat to the sanctity of Islam. A teacher guide for the 7th grade teaches that Jews crushed children’s heads, set them on fire, and threw them into wells. Even the science classes Aliwat attended take advantage of the opportunity to teach hate. He learned Newton’s Second Law through the action of a slingshot aimed at soldiers, and biology through a violent clash with the IDF that asks about its effects on one’s bodily organs.
This is a small sample of some of the violent and inciteful material Aliwat was presumably exposed to in the Palestinian Authority (PA) curriculum this year and last; material taught by teachers whose salaries are supported by the European Union, Germany, and other nations. It is the curriculum taught by UNRWA, whose biggest financial supporter is the United States.
UNRWA has been caught twice in the last two years by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Education (IMPACT-se) teaching its self-produced hate material. Its response was a half-apology followed by outright denial.
Education is the imparting of a society’s common knowledge and traditions to the next generation – it is the most important task adults have, it is a core task of government, and it is strategic.
After a young Palestinians shot two Israelis in Jerusalem, proclaiming he wanted to die 'a martyr', our Calev Ben-David reflects on the issue of incitement to terror that is often found in Palestinian school curriculums — including at UN-run schools.
- Wednesday, February 01, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Abraham Accords, antisemitism, Arab media antisemitism, blame Jews, conspiracy theories, Rabbi Levi Duchman, Settlers, Talmudic rituals, twitter, UAE, Watanserb
In the manner of “soft settlement,” Jews residing in the United Arab Emirates continue to buy homes to live in, at a time when Israel is demolishing the homes of Palestinians in the occupied territories and the homes in Gaza.The “Israel in the Gulf” page, the mouthpiece of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, published on its Twitter account a picture of one of these houses.Rabbi Levi Duchman appeared next to a girl carrying a paper scroll, and wrote a comment saying: "Little by little, the number of Jewish homes is growing in the Emirates , the country of tolerance."...In the past two years, since the so-called Abraham Accords that brought an influx of Jewish and Israeli tourists and businessmen to the Emirates, the local community has grown by hundreds of people, Rabbi Levi Duchman, the chief rabbi of the United Arab Emirates, told Yedioth Ahronoth .And the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arab countries led to the flourishing of Jewish life in the Gulf - according to the newspaper's expression - where it became possible to walk around with the "kippah" - the hat of the Jewish extremists - without fear, celebrate at Jewish weddings, and enjoy Jewish "kosher" food , and a way of life that Israelis did not dream of in the streets and cities of the Gulf before.