Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 15, 2024

Iran's proxies: The Houthis joined in the attack, Hezbollah didn't

Israel released this infographic showing where the attacks came from.

While the trajectories are not meant to be precise, they show that the missiles and drones came from Iran and Yemen.

The Houthis have claimed that their shooting at Israel during the past six months is meant to "support Gaza" and that they decided to do this on their own, not because Iran asked them to. This weekend attack indicates otherwise.

As (anti-Iran) Arab analysts point out, the Houthi attack proves that they are doing Iran's bidding, not acting independently. Their participation "reveals the falsity of its claims regarding support for Gaza. Its participation in Iran’s response is in favor of Iran’s plans in the region, and not, as it claims, in support of Gaza."

Reports say that Syrian and Iraqi pro-Iranian groups also joined in.

Now, why didn't Hezbollah use any of its longer-range rockets at the same time? Because that would be a clear expansion of that front, and Israel would not feel constrained in retaliating hard. As it was, there was an escalation of activity by Hezbollah in Israel's north, and Israel did hit back even as the Iranian drones were en route.

There is plenty of other evidence of Iran's heavy involvement with Hezbollah, of course. But even Iran would agree with Hezbollah that overstepping would not serve their purposes before Hezbollah takes over all of Lebanon and then treats the Lebanese people with the same level of disrespect that Hamas treats Gazans.

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!

04/14 Links: The Real War in the Middle East Comes into Focus; Israel-Arab Normalization Proves Its Worth; Hamas rejects hostage deal

From Ian:

Matti Friedman: The Real War in the Middle East Comes into Focus

Last night should make clear, for those still in doubt, that Gaza is just one part of the broader story of Iran’s growing power and its tightening encirclement of Israel. When understood in this context, the behavior of Israel and its opponents becomes easier to understand.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza are one link in the Iranian encirclement. The Houthis in Yemen, who have been harassing commercial ships and firing at Israel’s southern port of Eilat, are another link. The Iranian-backed militias in Iraq make up a third. The Iranian forces and proxies in Syria, including the Revolutionary Guard commanders killed in the recent Israeli airstrike in Damascus, are a fourth. (The strike on April 1, which came after months of attacks against Israel by proxies directed and armed by the Revolutionary Guards, is typically being cast by Israel’s opponents as an unprovoked attack on a diplomatic facility, as if the commanders were cultural attachés in town for a goodwill concert.) Lebanon’s Hezbollah, whose bombardments have depopulated a swath of northern Israel since October 7, is the fifth. If you look at a map, you’ll see that Iran has methodically installed proxies that can strike Israel from almost any direction except the west, where we border the Mediterranean.

The importance of last night’s barrage was that for the first time, the full Iranian alliance gave us a practical demonstration of its scope, orchestration, and intentions. The radical departure here was that the Islamic Republic itself dared to attack directly for the first time. If you’d been watching from space, you probably could have seen the lines of this new Middle East etched in orange and red across the map of the region. You might have also seen the second part of the story, which is the successful defense mounted not just by Israel but by the U.S. and Britain, and also by Jordan and, apparently, by Saudi Arabia—a welcome development hard to imagine a few years ago, and still puzzling to a Western observer fed stories about an “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Whether this attack was a masterstroke or an error by Iran will eventually become clear. But it’s already obvious that they’ve done observers a favor by emerging from the shadows to end any doubt about what this war is and who’s fighting it.

Col. Kemp: The world stands on the brink of all-out war

Israel will have no choice other than to respond to this Iranian attack, as every country would. The IDF has of course been preparing for that as well, perhaps by striking military targets inside Iran and other countries from which any missiles or drones are launched.

As the US sought to prevent Iran from attacking Israel by intensive diplomatic efforts, the Biden administration will likely try to pressure Israel to limit its retaliation, in other words to de-escalate. However, even if limited damage is inflicted in this attack, Israel should strike back hard – perhaps with even greater strength – to deter further attacks.

While hostilities directly with Iran are unlikely to expand beyond air attacks and possibly naval conflict, a major attack by Hezbollah might well lead to an all-out war in Lebanon, which has been on the cards since October.

This latest development in the Middle East shows that this is not just a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The war in Gaza was initiated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both Iranian proxies, and has been joined since the start, in the form of attacks on Israel, by Tehran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and the West Bank.

The ayatollahs have been declaring their intention to eradicate the Jewish state for many years and have built a proxy “ring of fire” around Israel to achieve that, as well as working on a nuclear weapons programme.

However this conflict develops, Israel’s allies, including the US and UK, must do all that is needed to stand strongly by their main ally in the Middle East, if necessary with military action. Failure to do so will increase the prospects of escalating conflict in the region.

Seth Mandel: Israel-Arab Normalization Proves Its Worth

The 1991 Gulf War, in which President George H.W. Bush organized a coalition to dislodge Saddam Hussein from Iraq, offers a good point of contrast. The Desert Storm coalition notably included Saudi Arabia and Egypt, a diplomatic coup for Bush. In order to try and split off the Arab world from the coalition, Hussein ordered the firing of dozens of Scud missiles at Israel, intending to provoke a response that would force the Arab states to the sidelines. Bush understood that the breadth of the coalition was a historic achievement and that as the Cold War ended, the emergence of a pro-Western bloc in the Gulf would be of immense strategic value.

This meant Israel had to sit on its hands, despite fear that some of the Scuds might be carrying chemical weapons. In return, American Patriot interceptors would protect Israel from the Scuds. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir agreed.

The problem was that the Patriots were far less effective than expected. Israeli civilians were killed both by direct Scud attacks and by heart attacks and unnecessary injection of anti-nerve-gas medications. The absence of the promised protection made it harder for Israeli leaders to hold their fire. (It didn’t make it any easier that the U.S. was claiming an absurdly high interception rate that wasn’t publicly debunked until well after the war.) This was less a matter of effectiveness—the U.S. needed no help defeating Saddam’s troops, so Israeli intervention was viewed as high-cost and low-reward—than a basic demonstration of self-defense of a nation under fire.

In the end, Israel held its fire but won itself no favor from the Bush administration for doing so, leaving a sour taste in many Israeli mouths.

Fast forward to 2024, and we read this report in the Times of Israel: “Jordanian jets downed dozens of Iranian drones flying across northern and central Jordan heading to Israel, two regional security sources said in a dramatic show of support from Amman, which has heavily criticized Israel’s prosecution of its war against Hamas in Gaza.

“The sources said the drones were brought down in the air on the Jordanian side of the Jordan Valley and were heading in the direction of Jerusalem. Others were intercepted close to the Iraqi-Syrian border. They gave no further details.”

The coalition was mobilized not for offensive moves but for the sole purpose of defending Israeli territory from Iranian missiles. Israeli and American and Jordanian and British jets flew a coordinated defense maneuver, presumably with the tacit support of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states.

This is the post-Abraham Accords Middle East. And it is the key to understanding the true strategic accomplishment of those peace agreements: all these states are in a very public coalition not only with the United States but with Israel. Recognition and normalization of ties with Israel by Arab states enables the U.S. to organize and broaden its own alliances. The only variable now is whether the Biden administration wants those alliances to thrive or whether it will continue its courtship of Iran, whose overarching goal is the destruction of all of America’s strategic gains over the past 30 years.

Iran told the Security Council that its attack yesterday was a legal act of self-defense:

Upon instructions from my Government and pursuant to our letter dated 1 April 2024 concerning the Israeli regime's armed attacks against the diplomatic premises of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, the Syrian Arab Republic, which led to the martyrdom of seven Iranian senior military advisories (A/78/838-S/2024/281), I would like to inform you that, in the late hours of 13 April 2024, the Islamic Republic of Iran carried out a series of military strikes on Israeli military objectives.

This action was in the exercise of Iran's inherent right to self-defense as outlined in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, and in response to the Israeli recurring military aggressions, particularly its armed attack on 1st April 2024 against Iranian diplomatic premises, in the defiance of Article 2 (4) of the Charter of the United Nations.

It is surprisingly difficult to find a good definition of self-defense under the UN Charter, but I found an article from Chatham House putting together the opinions of a number of experts of what qualifies as self-defense.

One of the conditions they mention seems obvious but it does need to be spelled out:

Force may be used in self-defence only when this is necessary to bring an attack to an end, or to avert an imminent attack. There must be no practical alternative to the proposed use of force that is likely to be effective in ending or averting the attack.

The criterion of necessity is fundamental to the law of self-defence Force in self defence may be used only when it is necessary to end or avert an attack. Thus, all peaceful means of ending or averting the attack must have been exhausted or be unavailable. As such there should be no practical non-military alternative to the proposed course of action that would be likely to be effective in averting the threat or bringing an end to an attack. Necessity is a threshold, and the criterion of imminence can be seen to be an aspect of it, inasmuch as it requires that there be no time to pursue non-forcible measures with a reasonable chance of averting or stopping the attack.

Necessity is also a limit to the use of force in self-defence in that it restricts the response to the elimination of the attack and is thus linked to the criterion of proportionality. The defensive measure must be limited to what is necessary to avert the on-going attack or bring it to an end.

In applying the test of necessity, reference may be made to the means available to the state under attack; the kinds of forces and the level of armament to hand will be relevant to the nature and intensity of response that it would be reasonable to expect, as well as the realistic possibilities of resorting to non-military means in the circumstances.

How, exactly, is sending hundreds of projectiles to many areas of Israel from the north to the south going to stop Israel's alleged aggression in attacking targets that help Hezbollah arm and plan attacks on Israel?

Iranian general Mohammad Reza Zahedi was a member of Hezbollah's Shura Council. Hezbollah admits that he was an important contributor to their military efforts. He was meeting in Damascus to discuss attacks on Israel. Attacking him, outside the Iranian embassy building, was perfectly legal and a real example of self defense.

Did Iran have a peaceful alternative to the massive drone and missile attack? Of course. It could have stopped arming and funding Hezbollah, a terror group whose entire purpose is to try to destroy Israel. Indeed, Hezbollah's raison d'etre is the very reason Israel has no alternative besides military against Hezbollah.

The letter to the Security Council shows how little regard Iran has for the truth, and the depth of its hostility to the Jewish state.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

A grim milestone: The number of fictional dead in Gaza passes 12,000 (7,354 fictional children, 4,708 fictional women)

Finally, people are starting to realize that the Gaza health ministry is reporting two sets of numbers of dead - the ones they count and the ones Hamas tells them to count even if they don't exist.

Yesterday, they released their latest detailed statistics (as of April 11) of the deceased that they have directly counted in hospitals and that they claim to have verified from reports of relatives:

1,604 elderly

4,512 women

6,996 children

8,360 men

21,472 total

They still mention the total number of casualties that Hamas writes in press releases, as of that date 33,634, because disagreeing with Hamas can have bad consequences.

For the first time, the number of unverified deaths surpassed 12,000. In their words, "12,162 martyrs do not have complete data."

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics offers a breakdown of all the people supposedly killed: 14,350 children, 9,220 women, and 1,049 elderly.

Thanks to the miracle of subtraction, we can calculate how many of the "martyrs with incomplete data" are women, children and the elderly.

Women: 4,708

Children: 7,354

Men: 1,057

Elderly: -555 (Yes, negative)

(The numbers aren't perfect because some of the the PCBS data is undated.)

This means that of the 12,000 "incomplete data" martyrs, 96% are women and children, 8% are men, and -4% are seniors.

It still adds up to 100%, right?

This isn't only Hamas lying. This is the Palestinian Authority's official statistics body, one that claims to adhere to "professional ethics" and is praised by European statistics experts as being accurate and well respected.

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!

President Biden loves to use the word "ironclad" in describing US support for Israel's security.

He used that term while campaigning in 2019, saying that his administration would “[sustain] our ironclad commitments to Israel’s security regardless of how much you may disagree with its current leader.”

He's said it again in 2021, 2022, 2023 last week and yesterday.

His wording is notable:

I’ve just spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu to reaffirm America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel. I told him that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks – sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel.

While the rhetoric has been similar during the Obama and Biden administrations, both the words and US actions have indicated that Israel may only employ tools and policies to defend Israeli civilians from attack - but to do nothing beyond that.

US policy towards Israel is to keep the Jewish state - within the 1949 armistice lines - in a hermetic bubble of fences, walls and air defenses.

The problem with this policy is that it is unsustainable. It allows Israel's enemies to keep attacking, day after day, hoping to find the weak spots in Israel's defense, and Israel cannot do anything to stop those attempts.

So we see things like October 7. Or Hezbollah's successful emptying out the northern part of Israel because there is no magic "Iron Dome" type defense against someone using anti-tank rockets on civilian communities. Or Gaza terror groups attempting to overwhelm Iron Dome itself because it is not 100% effective.

The US is telling Israel to sit back and accept being attacked forever, and if its defenses fail, that's a shame, but be very careful not to respond in a way that provokes Israel's sworn enemies to escalate further.

Because, US policy implies, then they would be justified.

On Friday, a US official told Al Arabiya that "The United States will take part in the response to the Iranian response, if Tehran escalates the situation inappropriately." This means that the US would help shoot down drones and missiles, as it does when Houthis are shooting at Israel - but nothing more.

Are the Houthis being deterred? Is Hezbollah? Is Iran?

Israelis could see the slow-motion incoming Iranian drones for hours. The time to respond was during that time period - it was an aggressive war-like action that the entire world could monitor. And yet Israel was constrained from responding in real time, forced to only rely on its Western allies and Jordan to help knock down the threats - or, 99% of the threats in this case.

The reason? Because the US has asked Israel, even last week, not to do anything against Iran without getting a green light from the Biden administration first.

Depending only on purely defensive weapons is not a defense policy. It is an invitation for more attacks.

No country in the world is expected to take a purely defensive posture and not respond aggressively to attacks - except Israel. And Israel is being told to avoid deterrence by its "ironclad" friends in Washington.

Tony Badran in Tablet's blog doesn't pull punches:

The United States has now set itself in between Israel and Iran. On paper, it is “equidistant” between the two parties, and its rhetoric will even emphasize its ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel (i.e., we manage Israeli “defense,” because they are an imperial province). But it also demands info on what the Israelis plan to hit, and tells them whether or not they can hit it. So, in fact, the United States isn’t equidistant at all. It’s Tehran’s bagman/lawyer/errand boy. That’s what gets telegraphed to everyone in the region, too.

At this point in the Obama-Biden era, Israel toeing the U.S. line is a net loss of sovereignty, which will only get worse over time, further narrowing Israel’s maneuverability. The only place they have been able to operate freely [since Oct. 7] has been Syria. But even there the Dems are now telling them, actually, you can’t do that to the Iranians there. In Lebanon there are explicit limits. I mean, the administration publicly said no, you can’t go to war in Lebanon. And eat shit in Yemen too. We’ll handle “freedom of navigation.”

The US "ironclad" support of Israel means iron handcuffs.

Beyond that, one wonders if the US also tacitly communicated to Iran, through intermediaries, what level of Iranian response would be acceptable to the US in order to prompt the US to hinder Israel's own response.

After all, Iran has to defend its honor. And the US understands that - unlike Israelis, they are irrational Muslims who cannot live with themselves unless they project power and force millions of Israelis into shelters. Risking Israeli lives is a worthwhile bargain to let Iran feel victorious. Then, the bargain goes, the US will stop Israel from responding, because no one died (rumors that the Bedouin girl in the Negev hit with shrapnel died were not true) and Iran is happy.

Iran can announce that its operation is over, vengeance is theirs, they can return to their proxy war through Hezbollah and Syria and Iraq and Yemen, and warn the US to do its part of the bargain and not allow Israel to do anything against them.

Iran is not deterred in the least.

Any self respecting nation would respond harshly to such an open attack on its territory. Israel should be striking at every drone factory and every missile site in Iran, at the very least, and those attacks should have started as soon as Iranian aircraft crossed Iran;s own borders towards Israel.

At the moment, with the US constraining Israel's ability to respond, Iran pays no price at all for its blatant aggression. Which means it has a green light to do it again.

The entire Middle East sees that this is what the US means when it says its support for an ally is "ironclad." Which strengthens Iran a lot more than its drones do.

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!

Is Iran also targeting Jordan?

The Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy reported last month on "The Shiite Plan to Attack Israel from Jordan:"

Israeli media revealed recently that the Axis of Resistance led by Iran has made plans to invade Israel via Jordan and carry out a large-scale terror attack against Israeli communities near the border. According to the report, Israel’s defense establishment has identified increased motivation among Iraqi Shiite militia groups supported by Iran to attempt to attack Israel via Jordan using aerial platforms or by other means. Israel is preparing for a scenario in which Iraqi or Afghan Shiite terror cells, supported by Iran, try to invade Israeli territory via Jordan to carry out another massacre similar to October 7.

Iran's ambitions to extend its "Shiite Crescent" (an expression coined by Jordan's King Abdullah in 2004) to Jordan has been noted by others, like the Washington Institute:

There is a fear of the resurgence of threats to Jordan from its eastern borders, which are de-facto controlled by armed groups loyal to Iran. A gradual escalation of military operations—so far limited— is visible at the Jordanian-Iraqi-Syrian border triangle, but this escalation is occurring at a pace that is raising fears of a slide into armed conflict and continuous attrition. Such escalation could turn the area into an Iranian proxy war zone similar to that in southern Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel, and in Yemen between the Houthis and U.S.-led coalition forces.

Jordan reacted to the Iranian attack on Israel Saturday by reportedly shooting down a number of Iranian drones that flew over its airspace.

But as of this writing, Jordan has not admitted to this action. The Twitter/X page of its foreign ministry and its foreign minister have been silent over both Iran's actions and Jordan's reported intervention.

And Iran made a direct threat to Jordan:

Amid escalating tensions, an Iranian military source has suggested that Jordan may face severe repercussions and become the next target if it aligns with the Zionist regime.

The caution follows heightened surveillance by Iranian armed forces, closely monitoring Jordan's activities in the aftermath of a retaliatory attack by Iran against the occupied territories on Saturday night.

The source emphasized that should Jordan choose to engage in any future actions, it risks becoming the next target of Iran's military operations.

Jordan has a large Palestinian population, and Palestinians are angry at King Abdullah for shooting down the drones, calling him a "traitor." In the wake of the Gaza war, Abdullah has trying to placate his anti-Israel citizens by pretending to support Gazans, even as he is dead set against allowing any to take refuge in his territory.

At any rate, most Jordanians hate Israel (and Jews), and it hurts Abdullah to publicly support Israel. It is possible that Iran looks at this as a secondary benefit of its attack, which it must have known would not have hurt Israel at all.

It seems possible that Iran considers the current tumult to be a good opportunity to destabilize the Jordanian regime from within and without, as well as to test whether the US would come to its aid.

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!

04/13 Links: Iran launches over 100 drones towards Israel; What Happens When You Have to Win a War; Melanie Phillips on Media's Anti-Israel Bias and Outright Lies

From Ian:

What Happens When You Have to Win a War

War is war, a horrible time demanding attention to impossible possibilities. Those making decisions do not have the time that scholars have, after the fact, to carefully contemplate choices that could have been made. We expect our generals to be decent men but not overburdened by moral complexities. Being distracted by them gets in the way of decision-making, which must often be quick. We hope, we pray, we count on them to do what they have been chosen to do, to win our war, to not let our enemies defeat us. That is priority one, two, and three. We can only hope they are making good choices. If they have given extra thought to moral concerns, that is a plus, but we shouldn’t expect it from them. Their other purposes are too important. Whatever flaws they may have, our generals must satisfy the reason that we need them, to guard the country, to protect us, to win the war.

What’s most extraordinary is that Israel is fighting a war for its existence while employing measures to reduce civilian casualties so extensive and laborious that our own World War II generals—and civilians—would have deemed them preposterous: dropping millions of leaflets and placing millions of phone calls urging Gazans to evacuate in advance of military strikes, observing pauses to allow for aid delivery and safe civilian passage, strategically deploying munitions in ways that reduce their maximum effectiveness so as to spare civilian life in Gaza. Yes, the fight is vicious and the IDF is fierce in battle. But Israel bears no sign of the indifference to civilian casualties that was a simple, accepted fact of American warfighting in World War II.

Despite terrible press throughout the world describing Israel’s war on Hamas, despite President Biden’s criticism, most Israelis agree that their safety depends on Hamas being eliminated. They are today a nation of 9 million, 75 percent are Jews, on a small piece of land 85 miles at its widest. They don’t have oceans to protect them. No Israeli can ignore the repeated history of Jews being successfully slaughtered. Their fear is justified, as is their rightful fury. Never again. The phrase has been repeated so often that it may have lost its sting. But not its meaning. Jews will never again simply submit to those wanting to eliminate them. Whatever it takes, those intent on seeing them dead will pay the price, and others will think a thousand times over whether they want to arouse the sleeping giant. Yes, giant. Not many men, not much land, but a giant. Cruel experience has taught that a Jewish image less than that invites disaster from those looking for trouble.

Jews in Israel sit on a keg of dynamite. What happened on October 7, 2023, happened on August 16, 1929, the day after Tisha B’Av. Muslims were told that it was their duty to take revenge. “Defend the Holy Places” became the battle cry. Mobs of armed Arab worshippers inflamed by anti-Jewish sermons fell upon Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall, destroying Jewish prayer books and notes placed between the stones of the Wall. Soon after, more than 1,000 Arabs launched attacks on Jews throughout Jerusalem. Forty-seven people were killed. This was followed by widespread attacks on Jews throughout Palestine.

It isn’t coincidence that Israel has one of the great military forces in the world. Some of this may be due to savvy, but it is foremost an illustration that necessity is the mother of invention. Israelis cannot ignore danger. Ten miles away, their neighbors’ offspring are taught from an early age that Jews are evil and must be eliminated. In Iran, they don’t mince words. Mobs chant “Death to Israel” as they conclude their prayers. They also chant “Death to America.” But even if the very worst were to happen, and we were attacked, we—unlike Israel—wouldn’t fear annihilation.

Even in times of relative calm, there have been unimaginable reminders that Israeli citizens are not safe. Their enemy doesn’t care about projecting a respectable image. Quite the opposite. As with the Nazis and ISIS, inducing terror is the centerpiece of their public-relations initiatives. No other nation has had its athletes murdered at the Olympics. Trampling on the Olympic ideal, a moment of peaceful competition, these murders were almost as unthinkable as an attack on a sacred temple or church filled with congregants who had placed themselves in God’s hands. Correction: Synagogues, churches, and mosques are favorite places for terrorists to attack. The more revered the site and the moment, the greater pleasure it gives terrorists. Hamas deliberately chose Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish holiday, to initiate a war. Their hatred becomes clarified and total when expressed at the most sacred time and place. Choosing death at the finish line of the Boston Marathon was also no coincidence. Terrorists find the greatest bliss in killing when those they hate are joyful in the bosom of their finest moments. Israelis are reminded again and again that it is not paranoid to recognize this. They are not being oversensitive. Evil, the most perfect expression of hatred their enemies can conceive, is even worse than our imaginations can conjure. The task of combating it to preserve oneself, one’s family, one’s country, and one’s civilization combines self-interest and nobility. We did right in World War II, notwithstanding all the wrongs. And Israel is doing right right now.

Israel: Standing Alone Against Multifaceted Threats, Thanks to the Biden Administration

Israel is currently facing a multi-front war for its survival, with Qatar, Iran and Iran's proxies, which are encircling Israel, leading the charge. The gravity of this aggression cannot be overstated: not just for the existence of Israel, but also for that of the US, Europe and the West.

Israel's struggle for survival is not solely a regional conflict; it is a battle between civilization and those who think international law, human rights and the rules of war are a Western joke. Since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, its rulers have been calling for "Death to America" – now also demanded in Dearborn, Michigan.

Which side is the US on? President Joe Biden's legacy, especially after surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021, will be "Biden, friend of the Terrorists."

All the US would have to do to stop much of Iran's bellicosity is take out the bases of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) inside Iran -- so there is a direct cost to Iran, not just to its human shields.

Iran, on the way to having nuclear bombs, has provided support to terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the Houthis, all of which have vowed to annihilate Israel. Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, boasts an arsenal of an estimated 150,000 missiles, many precision-guided, aimed at Israel's population. Meanwhile, Hamas has demonstrated its willingness to commit a genocide, launching more than 12,000 indiscriminate rocket attacks just since October at civilian targets in Israel, a country the size of New Jersey.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has outlined his vision for Israel's demise in his book, Palestine, a 416-page "guide to destroying Israel," and railing against "The Great Satan," the United States. This is not a hypothetical scenario; it is a meticulously planned campaign of annihilation.

While the Biden administration is threatening to withhold life-saving arms from Israel, the Biden administration just rewarded both of its chief attackers, Iran and Qatar.

The Biden administration just actually invited Hamas's main funder, Qatar, to operate a planned pier in Gaza to bring in humanitarian aid. All of it will certainly end up with Hamas, not Gazan civilians -- and, one can imagine what else Qatar will allow in, from heavy weapons to more terrorists.

A Hamas "victory," incentivizing aggression, cannot be rewarded; it must be stopped.

Pompeo Explains How Biden Put America and Israel in Iran's Crosshairs

"We've lost the bubble, we've lost deterrence." That's the assessment of former CIA director-turned-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo regarding the state of play in the Middle East as an Iranian attack on Israel is feared within 48 hours.

As the former senior member of the Trump cabinet explained in an interview with Martha MacCallum on Fox News Channel's "The Story" Friday afternoon, it didn't have to — and shouldn't — be this way.

"Iranians already attacked Israel on October 7," Pompeo noted of the nonexistent deterrence that saw Iran's proxy Hamas invade Israel and kill the most Jews in any single day since the Holocaust. That attack and the current threat against Israel is more proof of Biden's "continuation of a failed policy to protect Israel."

Worse than merely failing to deter Iranian attacks on Israel, Pompeo said President Biden and his administration's statements in recent days have given Tehran a green light to keep up its attacks.

When asked about the sobering threat against Israel on Friday, Biden's message to Iran was simply: "don't." But that's not a policy, Pompeo noted. "It's not even a deterrent."

The Biden administration's handling of the Middle East since October 7 only "evinces weakness and fearfulness," continued Pompeo. What's more, the White House and Biden administration have accepted the premise of Iran's threat, one that is incorrect.

"When the Iranians said 'stay out of this,' they haven't left us out," Pompeo corrected. What Biden's statements turn a blind eye to are the attacks by Iran-backed terrorists targeting U.S. service members on the Red Sea, in Iraq, and elsewhere with deadly consequences. Yet Biden's response to such attacks — not to mention the fact that American citizens are still being held by Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza — have not demonstrated strength and certainly have not provided a deterring effect.

Inexplicably, with his latest comments, Biden has given "a green light" to the Iranian regime that has made very clear it wants to destroy the United States, known as the "Great Satan" to Iran, as well as Israel.

04/12 Links Pt2: The Failed Practice of “Jew-Washing”; Silence is acquiescence; Palestinian membership at UN appears on hold; ISIS plot to poison Sea of Galilee

From Ian:

Andrew Pessin: The Failed Practice of “Jew-Washing”

The Jew-washer might naturally object here that it is not because those individuals are Jewish that he dislikes them. The proof is that there are many other Jews, the good Jews, that he likes perfectly well. It is because they are Zionists that he does not like them. It is not them personally—it is their ideas, their ideology, their behaviors in support of that ideology. His attitude and behavior reflect anti-Zionism, then, not antisemitism. And of course (many agree) it is acceptable to object to, be hostile toward, even to hate, an ideology, and that ideology’s concomitant behaviors.

But now, let us note, this response only succeeds if we endorse the Generality Assumption, i.e. if we assume that antisemitism requires hating all (or at least most) Jews. For if Jews come in many types—if there are many different ways in which individuals manifest or express or conceive their Jewishness—then it is perfectly conceivable that someone legitimately characterizable as an antisemite might not hate all or even most Jews.

The crucial question should not be whether he hates all or most Jews, in other words.

It is whether the people he hates, he hates for their Jewishness.

To see this, imagine officials of the medieval Church rejecting the charge of antisemitism. “We do not hate all Jews,” they might say, “only those Jews with a certain ideology and behavior. When Jewish people change these—and convert to Christianity—they are A-1 by us!”[11]

The flaw in this defense is obvious: the ideology and behavior these officials rejected was the very essence of those individuals’ Jewishness. They may not have hated the individual people who were Jews (once they converted), but they hated Jewishness. They then absurdly claim not to hate Jews because they do not hate those people who are no longer Jewish by the relevant criteria—namely people who reject Jewishness.

But now Zionism, too, is intimately or essentially related to many Jews’ self-conception and identity. Not every Jew’s, obviously—many Jews claim to derive their anti-Israelism from their Jewishness (as we shall discuss below), and often express their anti-Israel sentiments prefaced with “As a Jew…” But there are in fact many more Jews for whom their Zionism, their connection to and support for the State of Israel, grounded in three-plus millennia of Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, is an essential part of their Jewishness.[12] To hate them for their Zionism just is to hate them for their Jewishness. A person may have a lot of anti-Israel, A-1 Jews among his friends, then, but that itself does not exonerate him from hating the Jews he does hate for their Jewishness.

This account is coarse, clearly, and needs to be refined. As currently formulated, for example, it may turn many of the divisions within the Jewish people into antisemites against each other: if it counts as antisemitic to hate Zionist Jews for their Zionist Jewishness, it would also count as antisemitic to hate the “As a Jew”s who ground their anti-Israelism in their form of Jewishness. Similarly, when generalized this account may classify almost any objection to any group’s ideology or practices as a form of racism or bias. To hate members of ISIS for their ideology might have to count as a form of Islamophobia, since presumably their form of Islam is essential to their ideology and identity, and so on.

To prevent these serious consequences at least two things are needed:
(1) Articulation of just when and where certain beliefs and practices become essential to or part of individuals’ identities. This would yield a distinction between ideologies (toward which it is generally acceptable to be hostile) as opposed to people and their identities (toward whom it is generally not acceptable to be hostile).
(2) A close look at the specific contents of the beliefs and practices that compose people’s identities to see which, if any, it might be legitimate (i.e. not a form of “bias”) to oppose.

These are large projects beyond the scope of this essay, but a start may be made at least with respect to Jew-washing. We shall begin in the next part of this essay by getting a little clearer on just how Jew-washing works.

The Holocaust as Jew-Haters’ ‘Gotcha’

Curious, isn’t it? Leftists as a rule recognize the right to national self-determination. Jones, for instance, has written for Catalonia’s right to form a new nation, calling it an expression of that “basic democratic principle.” The tenet is enshrined in yellowing volumes of Lenin and honored by progressives with respect to countries around the world. Only when it comes to the Jews is national sovereignty regarded as uniquely wicked, to the point that a trendy word exists — anti-Zionist — to convey opposition to a state’s very existence. Leftists really should ask themselves the question I once did, setting myself on the path from Trotskyism to Zionism: Since our tradition supports the right to self-determination absolutely everywhere, why is Zionism considered shorthand for evil? The question answers itself.

Another way of considering the issue of Holocaust guilt, by the way, is to see it as a source of never-ending hostility against the Jews — for burdening non-Jews with guilt over what was done to the Jewish people. As Howard Jacobson writes in a brilliant essay, “When Will Jews Be Forgiven the Holocaust?” the answer to his titular question is “Never.” “Those we harm, we blame,” he observes, “mobilizing dislike and even hatred in order to justify, after the event, the harm we did. From which it must follow that those we harm the most—we blame the most.”

And while Germany is the most immediate bearer of this guilt, Jacobson suggests the feeling is universal. Jews prick the world’s conscience, and the world resents it. This includes the left, which nurtures itself on gratifying myths about its part in that seemingly Manichean era known as World War II. Our people were the bravest and best fighters against the Nazis, they say; how dare anyone say we have a problem with Jews?

But this legend has a disturbing way of falling apart. A glance at history reveals that those fighting under the red flag demanded that Jews reject “particularism,” including Zionism, and remain in Europe to fight for socialist revolution. Revolution did not come; the industrialized slaughter of the Jews did. Jews paid the price for the failure of the socialist vision.

This genocide should have prompted not only a deep rethink on the left, but a plumbing of its soul. A hint of it came after the war by Polish Jewish Trotskyist intellectual Isaac Deutscher, who wrote that “of course” he’d abandoned his anti-Zionism. “If, instead of arguing against Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s I had urged European Jews to go to Palestine,” he wrote, “I might have helped to save some of the lives that were later extinguished in Hitler’s gas chambers.”

But how many of Deutscher’s comrades, and their ideological descendants, have shown themselves willing to reflect on their program and actions in the early 20th century — about how their dogmatic insistence that Jews rely on universalism and the solidarity of their proletarian brothers ended with Auschwitz? So fourscore years after history established the legitimacy of Zionism, anti-Zionism is more popular than ever. The last genocide of the Jews is hurled against the Jews, in support of those pursuing a new extermination campaign against the Jews, by those whose tradition regarding the Jews isn’t as irreproachable as they want to believe.

“Get over it!” a member of my former party once yelled at our German comrades, who were seen as harboring neurotic, crippling shame over the Holocaust. So Jones would like Germany to get over it, and rejoin the war on the Jews, absolved and free at last of that nasty, pesky guilt.

Silence is acquiescence

And where were our elites? University professors celebrate murder. Women’s groups ignore rape. Newspapers publish cartoons that trade on anti-Semitic tropes. Our government will not condemn a specious allegation by a corrupt regime that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, and not only supports a UN resolution that calls for a ceasefire without the return of the hostages as a precondition, but would even deny Israel the means to defend herself against an avowedly genocidal terrorist organization (if it could, but thankfully cannot).

The incinerated bodies of October 7 awoke the generational trauma of the ovens of the Holocaust; now rampant anti-Semitism here awakes memories its precursor, Germany in the 1930s. Prospects of a government-sponsored genocide in Canada remain remote. But public expression of Jew-hatred has become normalized in six short months. Escalation of the violence we have already seen seems likely. Many of our Jewish neighbours are terrified, and so should we be too.

Have you ever wondered what you would have done in Germany in the 1930s? Would you have stood against the gathering storm? Would you have fought to save the sophisticated, civilized society that Germany was? Would you have hidden Jews or helped them escape? Or would you have stayed silent and inactive, distanced yourself, looked the other way, avoided your Jewish friends out of fear? Or worse, would you have reported them to the Gestapo?

Well, now you know.

If you are a bystander now, then you would have been then too.

If you are (God forbid) one of those parroting the new anti-Semitic tropes, chanting “from the river to the sea,” accusing Israel of genocide, or ripping down posters of the hostages, then you might have been one of those betraying Jewish neighbours to the Gestapo.

We are now called upon to make good on the pledge the world made after the Holocaust: never again. Never again is now. Not just for the sake of our Jewish neighbours, although that is reason enough. But for the sake of our own society.

We cannot sit this out. If we remain silent, if we do not stand up to this tsunami of hate here in Canada, then haters are exactly what we will become. To be silent is to acquiesce; to remain neutral is to become complicit in a vile refashioning of our society.

Perhaps, once Israel achieves its aims in Gaza, the tsunami will recede and the acts of hate will decrease. But a cancer of hatred has metastasized within our body politic. If we do not act now to cut it out, it will spread further, and one day we will look back and wish we had acted, because those few decent people left will not recognize what we will have become.

04/12 Links Pt1: Israel expects Iranian attack within 48hrs; Hamas is at war with the Jews and Judaism; Iran and Hezbollah responsible for AMIA and Israel embassy bombings

From Ian:

UK Statistics Authority urged to review fabricated Gaza casualty figures

The UK Statistics Authority has been urged to review the Palestinian Casualty figures in the Gaza War after several analyses indicated that the figures have been fabricated.

UKLFI Charitable Trust (“UKLFI CT”) has written to Sir Robert Chote, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, inviting it to assess the quality of the Palestinian casualty statistics. These statistics are produced by the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health, and then circulated by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) as well as other UN bodies.

Several analyses show that the Hamas produced figures have been fabricated, regarding both the totals and the breakdowns into men, women and children.[1] UKLFI CT is concerned that these unreliable statistics are invoked and relied upon to support allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian law and genocide by Israel.

Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UKLFI commented: “Credence given to these allegations is fuelling antisemitism on a major scale and is also liable to lead to incorrect decisions by public authorities on important issues.”

The Palestinian statistics are also deployed in a way that implies wrongly that all the Palestinian Arabs killed were civilians, as there is no reference to the number of Palestinian Arab combatants killed. The ratio of civilians to combatants killed is particularly relevant when assessing the proportionality of Israeli military actions and hence whether they are likely to have violated international humanitarian law.

The Israel Defence Forces estimated that 13,000 Palestinian Arab combatants had been killed by the end of February 2024. This indicates a ratio of civilian to combatant deaths of less than 1.5:1, even if the apparently fabricated total figures produced by the Gaza Health Ministry are used. This ratio is much lower than the usual ratio of civilian to combatant casualties in urban warfare, as indicated by a Report by the UN Secretary General which found that in urban armed conflicts worldwide in 2021, 89% of the casualties were civilians.

Furthermore, the Gaza Ministry of Health statistics do not distinguish the many Palestinians killed by Palestinian munitions (such as their own rockets that fall short in the Gaza Strip, as well as ground fire and explosive devices). These are included in the total deaths that are attributed to Israel.

FDD: Hamas-Run Gaza Health Ministry Admits to Flaws in Casualty Data

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said on April 6 that it had “incomplete data” for 11,371 of the 33,091 Palestinian fatalities it claims to have documented. In a statistical report, the ministry notes that it considers an individual record to be incomplete if it is missing any of the following key data points: identity number, full name, date of birth, or date of death. The health ministry also released a report on April 3 that acknowledged the presence of incomplete data but did not define what it meant by “incomplete.” In that earlier report, the ministry acknowledged the incompleteness of 12,263 records. It is unclear why, after just three more days, the number fell to 11,371 — a decrease of more than 900 records.

Prior to its admissions of incomplete data, the health ministry asserted that the information in more than 15,000 fatality records had stemmed from “reliable media sources.” However, the ministry never identified the sources in question and Gaza has no independent media.

Hamas is at war with the Jews and Judaism

There are only two things you need to know to understand what is happening in the Middle East, and they both appear in the 1988 Hamas Charter.

First, Hamas is fighting for Islam and its war against Israel is a religious war. The charter states: “It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Muslim generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem and should be dealt with on this basis.”

Hamas asserts Islam’s claim to the territory of the Land of Israel; not the claim of any political organization, the Palestinians or anything else. “The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day,” the charter states.

“This,” Hamas explains, “is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Muslims have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Muslims consecrated these lands to Muslim generations till the Day of Judgement.”

Hamas also clearly states that its war for Islam is a war against Judaism: “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.”

In the eyes of Hamas, Jews are permitted to live only under Islamic oppression. This is what Hamas means when it says that it “strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, for under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned. In the absence of Islam, strife will be rife, oppression spreads, evil prevails and schisms and wars will break out.”

Under Islamic law, that “coexistence” is a system of religious apartheid in which all minorities are subjugated by the Muslim majority.

Thus, Hamas has an essential problem with Zionism: Zionism is the demand, the insistence, that Jews will not live under anyone. It is the insistence on Jewish independence and the maintenance of Jewish power to defend that independence.

Iran and Hezbollah responsible for AMIA and Israel embassy bombings, Argentina says

Iran and Hezbollah committed crimes against humanity and are responsible for the 1994 Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) and the 1992 Israeli embassy bombings, the Federal Court of Criminal Cassation said on Thursday in a ruling on an appeal of a 2019 decision on cases of corruption and cover-ups by law enforcement and intelligence officials.

The court said that the AMIA bombing "was organized, planned, financed and executed under the direction of the authorities of the Islamic State of Iran, within the framework of Islamic jihad, and with the main intervention of the political and military organization Hezbollah."

High-level Iranian officials and members of the diplomatic mission in Argentina were involved in the ordering of boths attacks, which according to the court fall under the Rome Statute as crimes against humanity for being widespread or systematic attacks against a civilian population.

The court reminded that Former Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohsen Rezaee, former IRGC Quds Force commander Ahmad Vadidi, former cultural affairs officer at the Iranian embassy in Argentina Moshen Rabbani, former diplomatic secretary Ahnmad Reza Ashgari, and alleged Hezbollah operatives Hussein Mounir Mouzannar, Salman Raouf Salman, and Farouk Abdul Hay Omairi have standing Interpol arrest warrants for suspected involvement in the bombing.

The court said that Former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati former Iranian ambassador Hadi Soleimpenpour were also suspected of involvement but had immunity from the issuance Interpol warrants because they hold public office, and additional suspects fromer Hezbollah foreign intelligence chief Imad Fayez Moughnieh, Former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi, and alleged Hezbollah operative Alí Hussein Abdallah are dead.

The court said that Iran and its proxy Hezbollah were motivated by Islamic jihad against the west and its democratic values, and suggested possible political motivations to punish Argentina for not trading agreed upon materials and technology that could be used in its nuclear program.

As crimes against humanity, double jeopardy did not apply in the petition filed by friends and families of the victims of the attacks, AMIA, the Justice Ministry, and police officers who were wrongly detained by the suspects who were falsely implicated by the officials involved in the cover-up.

Former AMIA investigator Judge Juan Jose Galeano, former State Intelligence Secretariat director (SIDE) Hugo Alfredo Anzorreguy, SIDE deputy director Juan Carlos Anchezar, Department for the Protection of Constitutional Order (DPOC) Police chief Carlos Antonio Castaneda were found to have tampered with evidence and covered up the true culprits of the crime. Galeano was given four years prison, Anzorreguy 4 years and 6 months, and Anchezar and Castaneda three years prison.

Golf clubs with Hebrew names are becoming VERY hot this week

Golf aficionados are excited over a new golf club that they only became aware of this week - with a Hebrew name.

From GolfWeek:

Bryson DeChambeau, who opened with a 7-under 65 in the first round of the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club, is playing with a custom set of single-length irons made by little-known clubmaker Avoda that are made by 3-D printing and weren’t approved by the USGA until Monday. With no hesitation, DeChambeau inserted them in the bag at the Masters.

Avoda is a Hebrew word with multiple meanings, one of which is precision. According to Avoda’s website, the company makes two different types of irons, one-length irons like the clubs DeChambeau played when he was sponsored by Cobra, and combo-length irons.

Well, "avoda" does not mean precision - it means labor, or work - but the clubs have a Hebrew word printed on them, "diyuk/דיוק," which does mean "precision."

You can even buy their caps with the Hebrew word:

I don't have too much information on Avoda Golf. .Its owner, Tom Bailey, has previously worked alongside DeChambeau’s coach, Mike Schy. He started this company to help pay for his own golf habit. DeChambeau helped design the club, Bailey's brother turned it into a CAD drawing to have it custom 3-D printed, and the USGA only approved the club for use this week.

Apparently, DeChambeau has played better this week than he has in years.

I have no idea if Bailey is Jewish or how he came up with the names.

But it is sort of cool to see Hebrew on golf clubs.

(h/t Dan)

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!

Egyptian media antisemitism just keeps on coming

Youm7 is the most popular news site in Egypt, with 60 million views a month.

It has a general interest article about the Seven Most Dangerous Books Ever Written.

One of them is the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which they highly recommend:

This is classified as one of the most dangerous books that appeared in world history. It is the book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or the Jewish Danger to the World, as it has caused a global uproar in the West since the appearance of the Russian edition in 1905. No one can fully appreciate it except by patiently studying the entire Protocols, word for word. He must gain insight, be an expert in the currents of history and the norms of society, and be familiar with the events of Jewish and world history, especially the current events and the Jewish fingers behind them, and then be an expert in knowing historical trends and human nature. This is what the writer did in this book, as he revealed the infernal Jewish conspiracy that aims to. foment corruption and disintegration of the world to subject it all to the benefit of the Jews and their control to the exclusion of all other human beings.

Over at El Balad, Major General Muhammad Al-Ghobari discusses current events on a TV show, and mentions that "The Jews are always working to distort religious beliefs and break the established beliefs in countries hostile to them, "

Which could have come out of the Protocols, come to think of it.

At the similarly named El Balad News, Karima Abu Al-Enein helpfully gives a primer on "Hasbara:"

I've seen this term "Hasbara" in Hebrew a lot, so I searched for its meaning and found that it means the doctrine of making lies. I was not surprised by its meaning in Hebrew, as everything that is Hebrew is known for its skill in lying, distortion, denial, and incitement, and history is the best witness to that. This term existed in Zionist thought before the declaration of their ill-fated state in 1948.

Israel's peace partner, Again and again. And not a bit of pushback against Egyptian antisemitism within or without Egypt.

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!

Hezbollah mouthpiece Al Madayeen reports:

Another win for the BDS movement has been recorded after Samsung Next, the innovation sector of the Korean tech giant, Samsung, announced shutting down its operations in "Tel Aviv", occupied Palestine.

Samsung Next, which has invested in some 70 Israeli start-ups so far, is the latest to join the list of companies that have left the Israeli tech sector, accounting for 50% of exports. According to the BDS movement, in 2023, investment in Israeli tech firms dropped by 56% as opposed to that in 2022.

Here is what BDS doesn't want you to know:

Samsung will continue investing in Israeli companies, just from overseas. As their email to employees announcing the decision says,

Israel remains an attractive market for Samsung Next, and the existing relationships with partners and portfolio companies will remain unchanged. ...Although our physical presence in Israel will cease, we remain committed to investing in the region and encouraging referrals from builders and founders.

Samsung Next has no presence in any other countries besides the US and South Korea, so this appears to be a consolidation.

Here's what else BDS doesn't want you to know: The lower investment in tech firms in 2023 was a worldwide phenomenon, not just for Israel.

And yet another thing the BDS movement doesn't want you to know: Since October 7, Israel's high tech sector has still gotten lots of new business. As Startup Nation General reports:

Private investment rounds: There were 220 private investment rounds announced since October 7th, with an estimated $3.1 billion raised.
M&As: The sum of M&As since October 7th is $3.7 billion. There were two very large M&A deals finalized with total acquisition amounts nearing $1 billion. Additionally, nine acquisition deals of over $100 million were finalized, six of which were in the security technology sector.
New Funds: Since October 7th, over 20 new funds have been established, raising a total of $1.7 billion.

Reports of the death of Israel's tech economy are highly exaggerated.

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!

Hamas admitting Haniyeh's sons were killed is part of their cognitive war

Hamas finally admitted, for the first time since October, that adult males linked to the group have died in Gaza.

Up until now, Hamas has only spoken about dead women, children, aid workers and journalists. Since the first days of the war, even though Israel has killed many major Hamas figures, the terror group has remained silent about them. (They admit those killed in Lebanon.)

But with the killing of three of Ismail Haniyeh's sons this week, now Hamas is publicizing the deaths.

The reason is the same as why Hamas is silent about the thousands of terrorists Israel has killed. Because from the beginning, Hamas has waged a cognitive war, one that has been as wildly successful as its kinetic war has been a failure.

The media, NGOs and international politicians never understood this war, and for the most part they have been willing pawns - if not combatants - for Hamas.

For example, Hamas announces over 13,000 children killed. It is a lie. UNICEF repeats the lie, adding as an aside "according to Gaza authorities." The media then repeats it, adding "according to UNICEF." Then other media and politicians and NGOs repeat it in turn, without citing a source. In this way a lie becomes accepted as the truth and Hamas wins a huge victory in world public opinion.

If Israel is only killing civilians, and no terrorists, it must be a supremely immoral war.

So what is different about Haniyeh's sons?

First of all, Hamas is denying that Haniyeh's sons are members of the Al Qassam Brigades. They are treating them like innocent civilians themselves. That's their story to the international community..

But Hamas saw in this incident an opportunity to shore up its support among Palestinians who are upset at Hamas leadership living in luxury in Doha and Turkey. They are now publishing articles and posting videos about how Haniyeh's sons remaining in Gaza is proof of Palestinian steadfastness in their attachment to the land and Haniyeh's willingness to sacrifice for the cause.

Clearly, Hamas doesn't want the world to know about the thousands of Gazans desperate to leave. And when Hamas sends the head of the health ministry to Egypt, it is to go on TV and spread more lies about Israel.

Hamas media are also emphasizing Haniyeh's apparent stoicism upon hearing the news, which they say is meant to deny evil Zionist satisfaction that they caused him pain.

Finally, Hamas later claimed that the same airstrike also killed four (or more) of Haniyeh's grandchildren. This seems unlikely considering the size of the car they were in.

The media has shown an eagerness to accept everything Hamas says at face value. Hamas knew this going into the war - there is an unstated rule that anything Israelis say are to be treated as probable lies so Hamas accusations get a pass from news organizations.

Remember that October 7's success, from Hamas' perspective, was by fooling Israel into thinking that they cared about the lives and welfare of the people under their control, making Israel think that it was in Hamas' interest to keep things calm. Hamas deception and cynicism about caring about their own people is what started this war.

News organizations have under-reported about Hamas' cognitive war. Because, all too often, they are willing participants.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

I don't often see Al Jazeera in my surveys of Arab media antisemitism. Usually they are careful to only say they are against Zionists, not Jews. But a new op-ed, written by Egyptian writer and editor Anwar Al-Hawary, lets the mask slip.

The article surveys the history of Zionism and justifies European antisemitism, distinguishing it from normal European xenophobia.

He says that persecution of Jews by Europeans in the 19th century was nothing special - European colonialists oppressed lots of people around the world.

But the difference between Jews and non-Jews - among the peoples who were subjected to European violence in the nineteenth century - was not in the persecution itself, nor its type, nor its size, nor its extent. The difference was in a fundamental idea: The Jews are the only people who have experience, coexistence, and mixing with Europe, for several centuries, Jews and Europe were not strangers to each other from across borders. This coexistence gave the Jews sophistication in dealing with Europe. The Jews excelled in making money, just as they excelled in science, the arts, philosophy, music, and literature. They also excelled in the skill of social organization. They also excelled in the game of political communication, exerting pressure, influencing, and gravitating towards power, wealth, and influence.

Even in light of persecution, the Jews were an influential and powerful force that provoked envy, hatred, and provocation. The strength of the Jews was one of the reasons for the violence directed against them, while the weakness of other peoples was the motivation behind Europe’s audacity to conquer the world.

The Jews have always been a force of danger and influence everywhere they have a presence, even when they were without a state, even when they were subjected to persecution from the middle of the nineteenth century in Tsarist Russia, to approximately the middle of the twentieth century in Nazi Germany. In these hundred years, the Jews had an ability that was not available to any people other than them, the ability to deal with several empires, and even to toy with them, and to play them against each other. They played with the money they had and the experience in managing it, they played with the superior personalities they had, they played with the connections and instinct they had for espionage, conspiracy, and plotting.

The last hundred years witnessed the development of the influence of the Jews within America, and then their influence on its policy in the Middle East. America was in many ways trying to balance between the Jews and the Arabs, but it always failed under the influence of the Jews’ control over the financial circles, the press, and the media, and their financing of the presidential and congressional elections, and it will continue. This situation is until the Americans discover what the British have already discovered: the idea of Israel is a lost cause.

I bet that Al Jazeera and Al-Hawary doesn't even consider it to be antisemitic at all. They would say that they are complimenting the Jews on their resourcefulness and political savvy. But this is fundamentally what the Protocols of the Elders of Zion says: that Jews collude to gain power at the expense of everyone else.

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!