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Monday, February 28, 2022

From Ian:

Blogger ‘Elder of Ziyon’ Reveals His Protocols
“As long as there have been Jews,” the blogger Elder of Ziyon observes in his new book, “there has been Jew-hatred.” His new book, “Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism,” chronicles the many ways in which the virus of antisemitism has mutated.

Elder’s blog has been widely acclaimed — and for good reason. In addition to his scoops, his work is consistently well researched, well sourced, and well written. His book, thankfully, is no different.

The last several years have seen a renewed interest, both academically and popularly, in the subject of antisemitism. And not without reason — antisemitism has skyrocketed in the West, much of it dressed up as anti-Zionism, a more socially acceptable form of hate.

Yet, as Elder makes clear, there is no difference between the two.

“People don’t hate Israel and Zionism because of Zionist philosophy or Israeli government actions,” he observes. Rather, they “hate Israel because it is Jewish.” This might seem obvious to some, but regrettably it is far from obvious to our Congressional representatives in the “Squad” or their apologists in the press, among others.

As George Orwell once observed, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” And in this, Elder’s new book offers an important contribution.

The writing is clear and concise, and the arguments are cogently made. Nearly every chapter contains a quotable line or thought. And there is an admirable bluntness to the points that he makes.
New Zealand’s Jewish problem
New Zealand, Australia’s South Pacific neighbour, is a nation boasting of magnificent fjords, snow-capped mountains and pristine forests. Its indigenous Maori people have inhabited the country for approximately 1000 years. In 1769, Captain James Cook mapped the islands, now known as New Zealand, which was followed by the arrival of explorers, missionaries and sailors. The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, ensured Maoris were given rights in this new addition to the British Empire. This was followed by extensive British settlement over the remainder of the 19th century. About 1.3 million people immigrated in 1907 which was the peak year for new arrivals.

Some Nazi war criminals, escaping justice in Europe after WW2, settled in New Zealand. New Zealand now champions human rights, but has refused to open files on its Nazi fugitive immigrants. One fugitive Jonas Pukas, served as a machine gunner with the 12th Lithuanian Police Battalion which massacred tens of thousands of Jews. Pukas settled in Auckland in 1950 and reportedly smiled as he described Jews “screaming like geese” and how they “flew into the air as they were shot.”

Another immigrant was Willi Huber, who had served in the ruthless Waffen SS. Huber remarked in an interview with police detective Wayne Stringer, that Hitler was “very clever” and that he had no inkling of the massacre of Jews in Poland and Russia where he served, despite the Waffen SS being pivotal in the extermination of Jewish communities. Huber never expressed remorse and in fact was honoured by having a ski run, restaurant and commemorative plaque at Mt Hutt named after him.

New Zealand (NZ) does not invest in Holocaust education, is not a member of the IHRA and also has not adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism as other democracies have.

Canterbury University located in the city of Christchurch, accepted a Master’s thesis that concluded “the Nazis did not exterminate Jews in gas chambers or have extermination policies as such.”
Holocaust Museum in Indonesia Highlights Internal Muslim Disputes
A proponent of humanitarian Islam, Staquf joined global leaders in commemorating the United Nations’ International Holocaust Remembrance Day last month.

“Holocaust remembrance serves as a memorial and vivid reminder of the cruelty, violence, and suffering that so many human beings … have, for thousands of years, inflicted upon others. Today, in remembrance of the Holocaust and its millions of victims, Nahdlatul Ulama and I wish to raise our voices in a simple, heartfelt call: Let us choose compassion,’” Staquf said, in a virtual event co-hosted by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Unlike the Indonesian council, Staquf did not shy away from recognizing the genocide against the Jews while at the same time demanding justice for the Palestinians.

“Palestinian self-determination is a humanitarian mandate. All parties, including Hamas, Fatah, and the world community at large, must set aside their subjective interests and focus upon improving the lives of the Palestinian people,” Staquf said.

The divergence in approach between Satquf and the Indonesian Council spokesmen is about much more than the Palestinian issue. It is about what the essence of Islam should be an Islam that looks backward and nurtures grievances, or an Islam that seeks to reach out, build bridges, and find solutions.


The Jordanian woman who bombed Sbarro has earned another title
The latest Tamimi 'honor' came at the end of 2021 and has gotten surprisingly little media attention. Or perhaps not so surprising.

That's when Tamimi was included in the annual edition of The Top 20 Most Dangerous Extremists Around the World. The Counter Extremism Project which produces the list is

"a not-for-profit, non-partisan, international policy organization formed to combat the growing threat from extremist ideologies... [It] builds a more moderate and secure society by educating the public, policymakers, the private sector, and civil society actors about the threat of extremism. CEP also formulates programs to sever the financial, recruitment, and material support networks of extremist groups and their leaders."

Positions 1, 2 and 3 are occupied by the heads of Hezbollah, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Hamas. In giving her position 18, CEP accurately calls Tamimi "unrepentant for her actions" and notes she has

exploited media platforms to promote violence against Jewish people, Israel, and its allies. In an interview, al-Tamimi even went so far as to say, “I would do it again today and in the same manner.”

CEP says 2022 will bring new and highly dangerous threats. And that political leaders need to recognize this and ensure that intelligence services are prepared, resourced, and funded to match the danger.

Sounds right.
Israel’s Omicron exit: COVID rules rolled back; expert sees ‘no cloud on horizon’
Israel’s two-year-long pandemic-induced national state of emergency will end on Tuesday, as cases are plummeting, hospital wards emptying out, and a top expert says that “there is no cloud on the horizon, for now.”

Prof. Nadav Katz, part of an interdisciplinary team at Hebrew University that has modeled statistics throughout the pandemic, told The Times of Israel on Sunday: “The numbers are falling as we expected and hoped, and it’s very clear that we are well past the crest of the wave.”

Numbers will continue to fall and even though there are new variants, none of them represent a “cloud on the horizon” that is expected to batter Israel’s newly bolstered immunity, he said.

After so many people got infected by Omicron, experts, including those on Katz’s team, expect that widespread immunity will reinforce vaccine immunity to protect Israel from a large outbreak in the near future, even with new variants.

Israel will repeal most coronavirus regulations on Tuesday, as the country transitions from a “state of emergency” to a “special health situation.” The most notable of these are travel restrictions.

Under the new guidelines, both vaccinated and unvaccinated tourists of all ages will be allowed into the country, as long as they submit a negative PCR test before boarding the flight and take another one after landing in Israel. Citizens will no longer need to test before returning home (though it’s suspected that some airlines will still insist on a test); they will need to test upon arrival.

The requirement for children in middle school and high school to take regular antigen tests at home will end, and it will be canceled for younger children on March 10.
10 arrested, 14 injured in clashes at Jerusalem’s Damascus gate on Islamic holy day
Palestinians and Israeli police clashed near Damascus Gate on Monday afternoon as Palestinians gathered in Jerusalem for an Islamic holiday, leading to 20 arrests, Israeli police said.

In videos from the scene, police could be seen dispersing groups of Palestinians with stun grenades and blasts of acrid-smelling high pressure water from cannons. Dozens of passersby, including women, children and and a man in a wheelchair, fled for cover.

Around 25 Palestinians were injured during the clashes, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. An 11-year-old Palestinian girl was rushed to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Karem hospital after her face was smashed in by a police stun grenade, according to witnesses.

According to police, Palestinians had “chanted incitement and threw stones and bottles at police on the scene.” A spokesperson for Jerusalem police did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the wounded 11-year-old girl.

“Police forces have acted these past few hours to protect public order and prevent rioting,” an Israel Police spokesperson said.

Thousands of Palestinians had gathered in the Old City entryway to celebrate al-Israa wa al-Miraj. The holiday celebrates the miraculous “night journey” of Islam’s prophet, Mohammad, from Mecca to Jerusalem.
PMW: Abbas: “Christians and Muslims fight their enemy” – Israel, to rid the land of its JewsPA Chairman Abbas has stated that Christians and Muslims are united in “fighting” against the common “enemy” – i.e., Israel. He reiterated a common PA libel that Israel's goal is to “empty the land” of Christians and Muslims, and therefore they must join forces in getting rid of the Jews – because Christians and Muslims “have been the owners of this land since this land’s existence”:
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: “We know that the prime Zionist goal is emptying this land of its Christians and Muslims. They [the Jews] don’t want anyone here other than themselves. The Christians before the Muslims, because the Christians were here on this land before the Muslims… the Christian is the brother of the Muslim. They celebrate together, suffer together, live together, work together, and fight together against their enemy, because we have been the owners of this land since this land’s existence… We will remain in this land forever, while the attackers [the Jews] have no place in Jerusalem and no place here.”

[Official PA TV News, Jan. 17, 2022]


The idea and goal that Israel will come to an end is pronounced in PA ideology and PA teachings. Recently Palestinian Media Watch exposed this in its report on Fatah’s Waed magazine for young children, ages 6-15. One of the central teachings in the magazine is that “Palestine” will inevitably replace all of Israel.

Waed teaches Palestinian children that they are descendants of a “Palestinian-Arab-Canaanite” people who existed “5,000 years ago,” or “perhaps 10,000 years ago.” (Waed, Issue 37, pp. 13 and 22). On the other hand, Jews, who have a rich and well-documented history in the land over thousands of years are said to have never been in the land of Israel: “[Israelis are] foreigners who did not know Palestine and did not live in it – neither them nor their fathers and forefathers.” (Waed, Issue 36, p. 2)

Abbas’ statement above, made at a meeting in Ramallah with Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem Theophilos III, joins his and other PA officials’ numerous previous statements denying Jewish history in “Palestine.” A similar recent statement was made by PA Shari’ah Judge Abdallah Harb, who claimed Israelis/Jews are “liars” who invented a narrative and brought in archaeologists to prove a Jewish presence in the land but “didn’t succeed” because “they are the people of falsification and untruth”:


"Source: US's Palestinian Affairs Unit in Jerusalem Acts as Consulate ‘For All Intents and Purposes’
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has again demanded that the US fulfill its promise and open a consulate in Jerusalem designated for PA Arabs. During a meeting between PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and a delegation of members of Congress in Ramallah last week, Shtayyeh demanded the opening of the consulate “to promote a two-state solution.”

A Palestinian Authority source now says that although a date has not yet been set for the official opening of the American Consulate in Jerusalem, the Palestinian Affairs Unit (PAU) headed by George Noll actually serves as a consulate for all intents and purposes.

With the closure of the consulate on Agron Street and its merger with the embassy in Jerusalem, the consulate became a Palestinian Affairs Unit. It has been subordinate to the embassy since it moved to Jerusalem, but in recent months the PAU, which continues to operate from its headquarters on Agron Street in western Jerusalem, has become a consulate for all intents and purposes, according to the Palestinian Authority source.

For example, George Knoll reports directly to the State Department and is no longer subordinate to the ambassador, as he was in the days of David Friedman. This allows the US to receive independent reports that are not subject to the ambassador’s review and are supposed to reflect “the Palestinian reality.”

Noll pursues an independent policy in accordance with Washington’s guidelines vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority leadership and has held numerous meetings in Ramallah with representatives from the various Arab sectors and organizations. Recently he met with the heads of the churches in eastern Jerusalem, who are conducting a fierce campaign against Israel.
Hamas, Hezbollah Leaders Meet in Lebanon to Discuss Israel
A Hamas delegation met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon on Saturday.

The delegation was headed by the head of the Gaza-based terrorist organization’s political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, and deputy Hamas leader in Gaza Khalil al-Hayya. According to recent reports, al-Hayya’s standing within the terrorist group is on the rise. Al-Arouri is responsible for Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria.

Hezbollah-affiliated media outlets reported that the sides discussed the recent developments in the Palestinian arena, namely events in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The sides also reportedly discussed the future of the conflict with Israel and the political situation in the Middle East.

Several months ago, Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashaal visited Lebanon in the aftermath of the Dec. 10 explosion at the Burj al-Shemali refugee camp near Tyre. Killed in the blast was a Hamas engineer named Hamza Ibrahim Shahine, whose funeral turned into a gun battle between gunmen from Fatah and Hamas, reportedly leaving three people dead. Mashaal didn’t meet with Nasrallah at the time, and the belief is that the Assad regime’s animosity toward several of Hamas’ leaders was the reason why.

Two months before the blast, the mosque at Burj al-Shemali was flagged as a main Hamas weapons manufacturing workshop in a detailed report by the Alma Research and Education Center, a security watchdog based in northern Israel.
Israel seizes cryptocurrency earmarked for Hamas
Defense Minister Benny Gantz has signed a seizure order for tens of thousands of shekels in cryptocurrency from 12 digital accounts in violation of terror financing laws, the Defense Ministry announced on Monday.

According to the ministry, this is the third seizure of cryptocurrency so far this year.

Some 30 of the digital wallets seized belonged to businesses that assisted the Al Mutahadun currency-exchange company, owned by the Shamlach family from the Gaza Strip. Al Mutahadun is one of two companies designated in 2021 as terrorist organizations on the recommendation of the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) for their role in funneling funds to Hamas.

The Shamlach family's companies facilitate the transfer of tens of millions of dollars a year from Iran to Hamas, the Defense Ministry said, adding that some of the seized cryptocurrency belongs to the Shamlach family.

The seizure was a joint operation of the NBCTF, the national cyber unit of the Israel Police's Lahav 433 and the IDF Intelligence Directorate, the ministry said.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Syrian Victims Of Putin Atrocities Just Accept They Don’t Deserve Same Support As Ukraine (satire)
Residents of this Arab Republic who lost loved ones to aerial bombing by Russia’s air force, or who suffered injury and displacement themselves as a result of such strikes, voiced their recognition this week that they occupy a lower rung on the ladder of humanity than the people of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and other such locales, and as such cannot expect massive demonstrations of resolve on the part of powerful nations and international alliances to defeat the author of the strikes, even though the author of the two campaigns is one and the same.

In a series of interviews, victims of Russian bombing and ground-assault attacks from the air in Syria acknowledged Thursday their inferiority to the people of Ukraine, and how that inferiority underlies the disparate responses of the global community, principally the West and Europe, to support from those quarters, or lack thereof, for the different populations facing Putin’s aggression. Residents of Idlib, Hama, Aleppo, Palmyra, Homs, and other parts of Syria that have seen massive Russia-induced civilian casualties expressed their understanding that they must rank far below Ukrainians, whose suffering at least makes the news every day.

“At least Palestinians have the support of antisemites who astroturf that cause, because it opposes Jewish safety,” lamented an Idlib-area taxi driver who can no longer work because he lost his legs in a Russian airstrike. “I get that we don’t rate as high as Ukrainians; but it grates on me that Palestinians and ‘pro-Palestinians’ take images of our suffering here in Syria and label it as Zionist atrocities. You’d think a legitimate cause wouldn’t have to invent its suffering.”
US Jewish leaders are asleep on the job in the face of anti-Israel school curricula
Massachusetts Jews are facing a storm of institutionalized animus as anti-Israel curricula are spreading to public schools statewide. Jewish leaders in the Bay State know about these developments, but to date have not told their constituents.

In an Feb. 1 article, I described how state-wide guidelines about teaching the Middle East had been changed in 2018 to tilt heavily against Israel. Massachusetts public-school teachers were told to instruct their students, among other things, about “Palestinian loss of land and the creation of refugees by Israeli military action,” and that there had been a “diverse mix of cultures (e.g. Jews, Palestinians and Arabs of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Druze backgrounds) in the region in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.”

In their opposition to a case I filed to take anti-Israel bias out of the curricula in Newton, lawyers for the Massachusetts Teachers Union argued that these lessons were taught pursuant to the state’s standards and that they are required by law. If, indeed, the standards are followed, they will ensure that children across the state are indoctrinated to believe that indigenous Palestinians were driven out of their homes by the Israeli army, and that Israel is continuing this ethnic cleansing today.

It was disconcerting to learn that when asked about how to fix these standards, Jewish leaders in Boston said that they were not aware of the anti-Israel changes.

Yet it was pursuant to this state-sanctioned, agenda-driven version of history that children in a Newton high school were shown the film “Ismail” on the school’s “Middle East day.”

The film’s opening scene depicts Nazi-like Israeli soldiers in 1948 force-marching Palestinians, with only the belongings they could carry, to refugee camps, all the while ordering them, imitating the Nazi “macht schnell!,” to move faster, mocking them and striking them with the butts of their rifles.
Is Intersectionality Anti-Semitic?
Intersectionality considers that various forms of discrimination are both unique in themselves and can manifest in ways that are more particular due to overlapping prejudices. For example, a Black woman might experience a particular form of racism in being Black, a different form of prejudice in being a woman, and yet a distinct form of bias in being both. It is a broad movement designed to make people consider various forms of biases as well as to create bonds of support between various groups suffering discrimination.

It is therefore perplexing on its face, that antisemitism, the oldest and most pernicious form of hatred, is treated with such scorn among the proponents of intersectionality.

Consider the anti-Zionist fervor of the intersectionality preachers. The Democratic Socialists of America call Israel an “apartheid” state and its New York chapter demands that politicians refuse to visit the Jewish State.

Black Lives Matter condemns Israel’s “apartheid practices and settler colonial project” and both ignores Jewish history and human rights as it inverts attacker and victim in propaganda seemingly lifted from the terrorist group Hamas.

Even the founders of the Women’s March had strong ties to the infamous anti-Semite, Louis Farrakhan.

This alt-left noxious anti-Jewish and anti-Jewish State orientation has even permeated the mindset of progressive Jews.

At the University of Colorado Boulder, a South Asian Jew named Samira K. Mehta is launching a new program called “Jews of Color: Histories and Futures.” It seemingly binds together the most oppressed groups of all- Jews who are Black, Brown or Hispanic. According to the Brandeis Center, roughly 11% of American Jews are non-White, and a much higher 18% among Gen Z. It is therefore a very worthwhile effort.
No BBC news on Australia terror designation - again
In November of last year we noted that the BBC had failed to report Australia’s designation of the whole of Hizballah as a terrorist organisation:
BBC SILENT ON AUSTRALIA’S DESIGNATION OF HIZBALLAH

As reported by many international media agencies and outlets, on February 17th Australia’s Home Affairs minister announced the government’s intention to similarly designate the Hamas terrorist organisation in its entirety.
“The federal government will list the entirety of Palestinian group Hamas as a terrorist organisation, including its political wing.

The military wing of Hamas was already listed by Australia, but the federal government will now join the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel and others in extending the designation to the fundamentalist Islamic group’s political branch.”


Hamas’ response to that announcement included a warped interpretation of ‘international law’ and cited the recent ‘Amnesty International’ report alleging Israeli ‘apartheid’.

To date BBC audiences have not seen any mention whatsoever of that decision by the Australian government on the BBC News website’s ‘Australia’ page or under its ‘Hamas’ tag.
Pompeo slams Taylor-Greene for 'playing footsie' with 'anti-Semitic neo-Nazis'
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Sunday for "playing footsie" with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who hosted a conference she attended on Friday.

"Associating with anti-Semitic neo-Nazis is not consistent with the conservative values I've defended for decades. Representative Taylor-Greene playing footsie with Nick Fuentes and his splinter movement is shameful," Pompeo tweeted.

On Friday, Greene attended a white nationalist conference in Orlando, Fla., organized by Fuentes, a far-right podcaster who has made multiple antisemitic remarks. Greene later claimed to not know Fuentes's views and said she only attended to "talk to the audience."

Photos of the event showed Fuentes shaking Greene's hand. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) also attended the event.

Pompeo has himself been accused of espousing racist rhetoric. One day before leaving office in 2021, Pompeo tweeted from his official account that "multiculturalism" was not "who America is," drawing swift criticism.
Henry Ford’s antisemitic tract The International Jew is still available for purchase on WH Smith’s website, even after retailer promises to remove it
Henry Ford’s antisemitic tract, The International Jew: Jewish Influences in American Life, is still available for purchase on WH Smith’s website, even after the retailer promised to remove it.

We wrote to WH Smith, observing that “There is no disclaimer on your website explaining the antisemitic contents and history of the book. First published in the early 1920s, the book claimed that a vast Jewish conspiracy was infecting America and fuelled antisemitism there and around the world.

“Adolf Hitler was known to keep copies of The International Jew in his office. While Ford later publicly apologised for the book, antisemites continue to use his name to promote it.

“The basis for the book was the antisemitic hoax known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — which we have previously found for sale by your franchisees — it purported to be the minutes of a meeting of Jewish leaders, at which they supposedly discussed their plans for global domination. It was used by the Tsar’s secret police and later by the Nazis to justify brutality against Jews.”

WH Smith replied that “We have filters to remove these types of books from links to our third party fulfilment so I’m not sure how it got through. This book will be removed tomorrow.”

However, within a week, the book was again available on the website, and now, one month later, it is still available for purchase.
Painting sold to Amsterdam museum during WWII returned to Jewish heirs
A prized Kandinsky painting sold to Amsterdam’s famous Stedelijk Museum during World War II has been returned to the heirs of its former Jewish owners, ending a nine-year-long saga, city officials said Monday.

Wassily Kandinsky’s 1909 painting “Bild mit Haeusern” (Painting with Houses) was claimed by the descendants of Jewish art collector and modern art aficionado Emmanuel Lewenstein.

They said the painting was sold at auction to the museum under duress by Lewenstein’s son Robert and his wife Irma Klein in October 1940, five months after Germany invaded the Netherlands.

“Today the painting… has been transferred to the heirs of the Jewish former owners,” the city of Amsterdam said.

“The heirs and the municipality have, on the basis of mutual respect, reached a settlement agreement,” it said in a statement.

The heirs first lodged a claim in 2013, but the Dutch Restitutions Committee — which rules in cases of ownership of artifacts looted during Nazi occupation — rejected the attempt.
LinkedIn to Acquire Israeli Marketing Analytics Company Oribi for $80 Million
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn is acquiring Israeli marketing analytics platform Oribi for $80 million. Oribi develops technology to collect data on users’ online behavior, helping companies optimize their marketing campaigns. As part of the agreement, LinkedIn, which is the world’s largest professional network and is making its first acquisition of an Israeli company, will open a new center in Tel Aviv, which will initially number 50 employees, based on Oribi staff. The acquisition was led by Tomer Cohen, Chief Product Officer at LinkedIn.

Founded in 2016 by Iris Shoor, Oribi has raised $27 million to date. In February of last year, it raised $15.5 million in a Series B investment round led by Ibex Investors and joined by MoreTech, as well as existing investment firms TLV Partners, S-Capital, and Sequoia.

“The acquisition of Oribi will allow us to provide our clients added value and maximize their return on investment,” Cohen told Calcalist. “This technology will allow our clients to analyze campaigns on Linkedin. I’m very excited to be opening an R&D center in Israel and I estimate that it will become a significant part of the company. Our activity in Israel will be completely separate from Microsoft.”

Oribi helps companies through advanced insight into the channels and messages that have the greatest impact on a prospect’s decision making, such as requesting a product demo or applying to a job posting. Through the integration of Oribi’s technology into LinkedIn’s marketing solutions platform, customers will benefit from enhanced campaign attribution to optimize the ROI of their advertising strategies.
Israel picked to host first Ironman Middle East Championship
Israel will host the inaugural edition of the IRONMAN Middle East Championship this November, the IRONMAN organization announced Monday.

The first full-length Ironman Triathlon to take place in the Middle East is scheduled to kick off in Tiberias on Nov. 25, 2022 and will include 75 qualifying slots available for the 2023 Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, the organization said.

Honorary President of the Middle East Championship, Sylvan Adams, noted, "After the success of the Ironman 70.3 event last year, I am pleased to announce that the follow-up will see Israel host the full-distance Ironman Middle East Championship in Tiberias, overlooking the spectacular and historically significant Sea of Galilee.

"As it is a regional championship, Ironman Israel will attract the finest athletes from all across our region and beyond. We are looking forward to welcoming thousands of athletes from neighboring countries to the beautiful Galilee for what will surely be an historic event," Adams said.

Ironman described the Tiberias course as "flat and fast."
The rise and fall of the Sassoon dynasty
Baghdad-born David Sassoon built a global business empire in the 19th century centered on India and the Far East, but within three generations, the fortune his family made was dissipated, and his descendants were more focused on enjoying their social lives. Now a distant relative, academic Joseph Sassoon has deciphered an archive of Judeo-Arabic correspondence which throws new light on the Sassooon enterprise. The result is his new book, The Global Merchants: the Enterprise and Extravagance of the Sassoon Dynasty. Review in The Guardian: The Prince of Wales visiting the Sassoon residence in Bombay, ‘Sans souci’, in 1876

By the end of the 19th century, the Sassoon family were regularly referred to as “the Rothschilds of the East”. This wasn’t just lazy, it was wrong. For one thing the Sassoons’ interests and influence stretched right around the world from Shanghai via Bombay, London and Lancashire, all the way to the Atlantic coastal plain of the United States. Then there was the fact that, unlike the Rothschilds, the Sassoons were not bankers but traders, specialising in opium, cotton and oil. What perhaps the late Victorians really meant when they compared the Sassoons to the Rothschilds was simply this: they were very rich and they were Jewish, a combination that conjured ambivalent feelings not just in “polite” society through which antisemitism flowed like a subterranean river but, over time, in the Sassoons themselves.

Joseph Sassoon, who is a descendant of the dynasty’s founder David, believes that it was his family’s experience as serial immigrants that drove their success and explains their decline. Their original role as treasurers to the pashas of Baghdad meant that they seamlessly acquired the Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew and Persian that equipped them to do business throughout the vast Ottoman empire. When in 1828 they were forced to flee to Bombay as a result of a pogrom, they quickly added Hindustani to their repertoire and settled down to rebuild their lives, using their tried and tested methods of exemplary ethics and ferocious hard work.

In order to avoid a repeat of that first expulsion, though, the family needed to become adept at reading the political landscape and adapting accordingly. Joseph Sassoon points out that the treaty marking the passing of India’s governance from the East India Company to Queen Victoria in 1859 was signed not in the residence of the outgoing governor but in “Sans Souci”, the home owned by the man whom the Illustrated London News described as “Mr David Sassoon, the well-known wealthy Jew Merchant of Bombay and China”. In the face of such antisemitic sneers, these early Sassoons were careful not to draw unwanted attention to themselves. While their fortune was one of the great wonders of the industrialising world, it was offset by a thoughtful philanthropy that built hospitals, libraries and schools for the whole community.









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


Bennett Ruda (Daled Amos) wrote a review of my book "Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism" in The Jewish Press that is truly great. Not only because he appears to love my book, which I of course appreciate, but his review captures the essence of my book beautifully. 

Read his review, and then order the book! (And then write reviews on Amazon!)

_______________________________________

In his introduction to his new book, Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism, Elder of Ziyon writes about the reason for the image of Rashi that appears on his website:

Rashi earned fame for his encyclopedic knowledge as well as his uncanny ability to explain texts clearly and concisely...He is a role model for my writing...

Anyone who is familiar with the Elder of Ziyon website can attest to the breadth of information available there and the clarity with which it is presented. The same is true as well in this new book, based on articles he has written. But make no mistake -- this is more than a collection of "Elder of Ziyon's Greatest Hits." The 51 articles in the 350-plus pages form a coherent whole which delve into five distinct areas:

  • Modern antisemitism
  • International law
  • The experts get it wrong
  • The dishonesty of Israel's demonizers
  • The NGO jihad against Israel

Once you read the first article, you see that beyond having a breadth of knowledge and clarity of presentation, Elder of Ziyon is innovative too.

In A new, better definition of antisemitism, he discusses the need to first define antisemitism before one can address it, and traces the attempts to do just that. He starts with Natan Sharansky's 3D test of demonization, double standards and delegitimization. He then proceeds to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, which has become the most accepted. Elder of Ziyon also addresses, and critiques, the watered-down definitions suggested by the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism and the Nexus Task Force.

And then he offers his own definition:


Why bother with another definition of antisemitism?

For one thing, his definition makes clear that "denigration" -- i.e. unfair criticism -- as opposed to legitimate criticism, is antisemitic. This clearly counters those who claim that antisemitism is being defined in order to prevent all criticism of Israel.

But more than that:

The "malicious lies" clause is crucial. This covers not only Holocaust denial but all sorts of clearly antisemitic lies about Jewish history, such as the Khazar origin myth that Ashkenazic Jews are not really Jewish; that Jews have no historic ties to Jerusalem; or that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis. The other definitions do not cover these lies...This is perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the other definitions.

Innovative.

Elder of Ziyon's fresh insights are evident throughout his book. For example, in the section on international law. 

Let's face it. Not everyone has the time or the patience to investigate claims that Israel is in breach of international law or to plow through the lengthy legal reports that purport to prove that Israel is guilty of major violations. The articles in this section are not only typically clear and concise, but along the way they also point out aspects of international law that are not commonly brought up.

In his introduction to the chapter, Elder of Ziyon points out:

The Fourth Geneva Convention protects civilians in times of war -- but it balances those protections with protections for armies, too.

Anti-Zionists pretend the conflict is about Palestinian human rights. It isn't.  It is about everybody's human rights and balancing competing rights. [emphasis added]

When was the last time anyone pointed out that the Geneva Convention protects the armies as well as the     civilians? 

How does this insight play out in this chapter? Check out some of the articles:

The article on The principle of distinction notes that the Convention clearly states that military attacks must be limited to military targets. This we know. We also know that this issue is brought up against Israel whenever there is collateral damage when Israel responds to Hamas terrorist attacks.

What might not be generally known is that when this particular article in the Geneva Convention was ratified, a number of countries made a point to clarify that the limitation on military attacks did not make an army responsible for collateral damage. In other words, international law allows an army to attack a military target even if there are some civilians there.

Elder of Ziyon quotes both the Military Manual of the Netherlands and Sweden's International Humanitarian Law manual that agree the decision on what constitutes a valid military target is up the military commander. And the US Naval Handbook makes clear:

the commander must also consider the safety of his or her own troops.

But what about human rights in this equation? 

The chapter on The principle of proportionality quotes the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that states the obvious, that a human rights lawyer and an experienced military commander would not value a military advantage and the injury to non-combatants in the same way -- and then concludes that the decision to evaluate those values and weigh them against each other is up to the military commander.

When Israel is put under a microscope, the validity of such an approach is usually ignored.

The chapter Human shields, hostage-taking, and Human Rights Watch provides an opportunity to debunk both The New York Times and Ken Roth of HRW.

Regarding the Hamas use of human shields, the New York Times claims that the legal definition of a human shield under international law only applies when civilians are forced to stay in the area under attack. The International Committee of the Red Cross proves The New York Times wrong, defining even the exploitation of an area of civilians as a breach of international law. The New York Times is basing itself on Ken Roth's error, but examples of other condemnations of human shields by HRW are given to illustrate that the normal definition is used for other countries and the application of force to define humans shields is only required when Israel is defending itself.

Speaking of Hamas, the chapter Hamas violations of international law points out that Hamas rockets into Israel are more than rockets aimed at civilians. Because there is no military advantage to be gained, those attacks are by definition disproportionate -- a fact never raised by HRW, which limits its criticisms of Hamas to mentioning rockets in general, ignoring 19 other kinds of violations of international law that Elder of Ziyon suggests Hamas terrorists are guilty of.

The chapter on The "right of return" myth quotes General Assembly resolution 194 which supposedly supports the right of Palestinian Arabs to return to their homes. In the course of making various points in debunking this claim, Elder of Ziyon notes a double standard, in that the resolution does not single out Arabs as the sole beneficiaries of this right:

Yet no one who supports "return" says Jews have the right to return to the places they lived across the Green Line, whether in Jerusalem or Gush Etzion.

Among the points he makes in Amnesty, HRW and the "right of return" for descendants, he notes that despite their apparent concern for Palestinian Arab refugees,  

Amnesty and HRW have never called on Arab nations to naturalize Palestinians who have lived in their countries for over seven decades.

Terrorism is not legal "resistance" debunks in just 4 and a half pages the Hamas claim that their acts of terrorism are permitted under international law, quoting both a UN Security Council resolution -- binding under Chapter 7 -- and a clear statement by the UN Secretary General that the occupation does not justify targeting and killing civilians.

The section on The experts get it wrong has a timely article on Linkage turned on its head: the Abraham Accords addressing the long-held theory that once Israel gives into Palestinian demands and there will be peace in the region. Elder of Ziyon points out:

The discredited linkage theory has been turned on its head. Instead of claiming the Palestinian issue is the key to solving all Middle East problems, now the problem is in solving other Middle East problems without giving the Palestinians veto power over what Israel does with other Muslim states.

To see the accuracy of this observation, one need only to read about NY Rep. Jamaal Bowman's recent announcement that he was withdrawing his support for the Abraham Accords because he claims they "isolate" Palestinian Arabs.

The section on The dishonesty of Israel's demonizers has articles taking on Peter Beinart's propaganda that denies to Israel rights while extending them to Palestinian Arabs, Edward Said's admitted revulsion at Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr, Judith Butler's claim that Moses was Egyptian and therefore an Arab, and Joseph Massad's demand that Arab countries given Palestinian Arabs unlimited and unconditional support.

The last section, The NGO jihad against Israel, has an article on Oxfam's errors in math and basic agriculture in its claim that Israel is destroying Palestinian Arab olive trees. There are articles on Amnesty International's lack of expertise in military matters in minimizing Hamas terrorism, its annoyance at Israeli pride in its 3,000 year history and its support for a children's book that is supposed to illustrate freedom of religion but seems instead to teach children to hate Jews.

Then there is HRW.

In one article, Elder of Ziyon takes apart their report on last years war between Israel and Hamas. He gives examples not only of HRW bias, but also outright mistakes in their evaluations and conclusions.

In the other article, he tackles their report claiming that Israel is guilty of apartheid. He looks at 3 legal definitions of apartheid, shows how HRW is forced to cobble together its own brand new definition, and notes a part of one of those definitions which HRW omitted that casts doubt on the definition itself.

The HRW report attempts to strengthen its argument with graphic examples, using drawings of Israelis and Arabs to illustrate what it claims are differences in basic rights. After giving counter examples to debunk those arguments, Elder of Ziyon notes something odd about the pictures HRW uses:


The Jews all have lighter skin. The Jews have light, straight hair. The Palestinians have darker skin and wavy/curly hair.

He points out that Israelis are portrayed as 'white,' which in today's volatile age of reaction against 'white supremacy' sends a distinct, if subliminal message.

In his conclusion, Elder of Ziyon writes that modern antisemitism is more than just an issue with the Right:

Not all antisemitism involves violence. Most antisemitism manifests as insults, stereotyping, derogatory language, incitement and demonization. And nowadays, the bulk of that kind of antisemitism comes from the socialist Left.

...The same hate that animates the physical attacks on Jews lies behind the op-eds, NGO reports, and demonstrations that paint the Jewish state as uniquely evil.

Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism, with its short and concise chapters, is an informative book to read. But it also demonstrates in chapter after chapter that many of the claims against Israel by supposed objective authorities is in reality biased and error-ridden demonization. That makes it a useful reference, since we know that these antisemitic attacks are not going stop.

Elder of Ziyon's book is one of the tools that enable us to see these attacks for what they are -- and what they aren't.








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


Emad Moussa writes in The New Arab about how wonderful the Palestinian penchant for chanting at demonstrations is, and he claims that "from the river to the sea" is not at all genocidal, no way:

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”: An anti-Semitic Hamas slogan that warrants police action, according to UK’s Secretary of State for Education Nadhim Zahawi.  A “call to destroy Israel,” say pro-Israel groups.

But to Palestinians and their supporters, the accusations are politically motivated and unjust. The chant has existed long before Hamas was established and in fact, is as old as the Palestinian struggle against Zionism.

It is present in several Palestinian folklore and revolutionary songs and has multiple Arabic derivations, most common of which are: min el-maiyeh lel mayieh (from the water to the water – the wording of which refers to the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan).

The phrase is deeply cultural and closely related to the formation of Palestinian identity and peoplehood – it emphasises the connection to the land, calls for decolonisation, freedom, and an end to the apartheid regime in Palestine, replaced with a unitary civic state with equal rights for everyone.

But in Palestine, as the controversy around the chant indicates, it is hard to separate culture from the political sphere within which it operates. Because this sphere is over-dominant and overarching, it has produced equally dominant cultural expressions and artefacts to challenge the occurring power structure.

Especially visible among these cultural expressions is chanting.
He then goes on to describe how incredibly important chanting is to Palestinian culture.

I could not verify the expression "min el-maiyeh lel mayieh" as being used before the "river to the sea" chant. I'm no expert, but if it was true, I would expect to see it somewhere on the Web in that context (the closest I could find was Arabic textbooks describing the water cycle with a variant of this.)

But the most interesting piece of this revisionist article is that it ignores other antisemitic chants that have been heard at anti-Israel rallies for decades.

The most famous is, of course, "Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud, Jaish Muhammad, sa yahud" or "Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning". It is a call to genocide of Jews as Mohammed massacred them in Khaybar.

There are also chants of "Itbach al-Yahud" - slaughter the Jews - heard in rallies, which pre-dates Israel.

Once we are talking history, "Al Yahud Kelabna," - "The Jews are our dogs" - has been an Arab and Palestinian Arab chant for over a century.

This wonderful Palestinian tradition of chanting, so movingly described as an essential part of Palestinian culture by Moussa, has spawned an equally inspiring tradition of antisemitic chants in English: 

"Long live the intifada" 
"There is only one solution - intifada revolution"
"Hey hey, ho ho, Zionists have got to go"
“With fire and blood, we will liberate Palestine!”
And the popular European chant, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas"

For some reason, this article that rhapsodizes about the importance of chants to Palestinian culture, which argues that they are completely innocuous and misunderstood by the racist West, completely missed these other examples of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian chants. Must have been an oversight. 

(h/t JW)





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





Whenever Israel is forced to defend itself from Hamas rockets, the media falls over itself to show the "human face" of the "horrors of war" - with detailed descriptions of how Palestinian civilians have died. 

Sometimes these civilians aren't really civilians and are actually militants.

Most often they were used as human shields, with Palestinian terror groups hiding behind them in (and under) apartments. I've documented literally hundreds of cases of Israel targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders and the victims are either their relatives or people hosted in their houses. 

Some of the victims are killed by terrorist rockets themselves, but the media blames Israel.

Occasionally, the victims appear indeed to have been the victims of a tragic mistake that occurs during war.

The media, pretending to care so much about the innocents, goes into detail on all of these victims. THe media always has a reason to give these details to their audience, and they always have a reason to avoid giving any context of how Hamas cynically makes it appear as if Israel was targeting children - a ludicrous and slanderous charge.

Yet here we are days into a war where over a hundred civilians have been killed in Ukraine. If you dig hard, you can find out details about how they were killed.



But there is none of the "victim porn" that Arab and Western media revel in.

All the excuses that they use to highlight the victims in Gaza apply a hundredfold more to Ukraine - yet the stories of the civilian victims, some horrific, are buried and difficult to find. Besides this BBC article, how many have you seen? There is no "Gaza Ministry of Health" to give precise-sounding statistics to be parroted by reporters. 

It isn't as if there aren't lots of reporters on the ground in Kyiv and elsewhere.

The media are shown to be hypocrites by their disinterest in offering details of anyone killed when Jews cannot be blamed. 






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


Sunday, February 27, 2022

It was only a matter of time before a conspiracy theory blaming Jews for the situation in Ukraine would pop up.

This one was published in Al Wafd, an Egyptian newspaper, anbd written by Gamal Roshdy.

It is a little hard to follow the logic, but here's how it begins:

All the wars, conflicts and epidemics in the world, since before the First World War until now, are arranged and manufactured by global Zionism: the fall of the British Empire on which the sun did not set, and the emergence of America as a superpower, all of this is in a great Zionist arrangement.

The goal is the alleged dream of the “Greater Kingdom of Israel from the Euphrates to the Gulf,” and that kingdom, according to its plan, is a unified government that rules the world under the umbrella of a new religion called “Abrahamic” within an economic globalization with one currency and one military with one army.

Now the dream is approaching, for that Zionist goal does not require a culture of freedom and democracy in which the West lives, because that culture contradicts the approach of the goal of the unified government that requires the dictatorship of decision-making, and since it aims at a unified religion, army and economy within a unified political administration, here several steps must be taken.

First, elimination of the Christian West by igniting a major war between them, to destroy everything, so that the theory of freedoms and democracy with all their military, economic and political derivatives disappear, so that the leaders of the Zionist scheme can form a unified government according to what is planned.

In short, Jews have been scheming to take over the world for a long time. 

Things get convoluted after that. Israel is apparently preparing to dump the US and ally with China, the next superpower, which it will control as well. And India, which supports the "Abrahamic religion," is on board as well.

What about Ukraine? Well, since the government of Ukraine is dominated by Jews, clearly they were doing the Zionist plan. Russia has resisted the Zionist infiltration, so in this narrative, Russians are the good guys.







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


Saturday, February 26, 2022

From Ian:

As Russians assail Kyiv, Zelensky says Ukraine has ‘derailed their plan’
Russian troops closed in on Ukraine’s capital Saturday after a night of explosions and street fighting sent Kyiv residents seeking shelter or fleeing the city. The country’s leader claimed Ukraine’s forces had repulsed the assault and vowed to keep up the struggle.

“The real fighting for Kyiv is ongoing,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message, accusing Russia of hitting infrastructure and civilian targets.

“We will win,” he said.

Zelensky urged Russians to pressure Russian leader Vladimir Putin to stop the invasion. He accused Moscow of seeking to overthrow him and establish a puppet state in Ukraine.

“We’ve derailed their plan,” the 44-year-old leader said, stressing that the Ukrainian army was in control of the capital Kyiv and main cities around it.

A US defense official told Reuters there was growing frustration among the Russians “that they have not made the progress that they have wanted to make, particularly in the north.”

The unnamed official added: “They have been frustrated by what they have seen is a very determined resistance. It has slowed them down.”

Zelensky said Russians have deployed “missiles, fighters, drones, artillery, armored vehicles, saboteurs, and airborne forces” against Ukraine and have hit “residential areas.”

Zelensky said Ukrainians had been fighting against Russians troops in a number of cities including the southern city of Odessa, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the capital Kyiv. The western city of Lviv and other cities in western and central Ukraine have been targeted with air strikes, he said.
CAMERA Op-Ed Delegitimization links UN Anti-Israel Commission, Vladimir Putin, Ken Roth
Since its inception, Israel has been subject to a constant barrage of delegitimization campaigns. From Arab dictators to antisemites masquerading as “human rights activists,” the right of the Jewish state to exist has been constantly called into question.

A favorite tool of the delegitimizers has been the co-opted and corrupted United Nations, used as an ostensible authoritative source to constantly put to question Israel’s right to exist. Consider, for example, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ infamous New York Times opinion piece, in which he argued for “Palestine’s” admission to the U.N. as a way to “pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one.” (Don’t worry, though – the Palestinian Authority still believes in and incentivizes violence.)

The new U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI) is the latest and arguably most dangerous iteration of this strategy, which is why Israel has decided to refuse to cooperate with it. With an expansive and unparalleled mandate – obviously intended to engage in historical revisionism, label Israel a unique evil and absurdly accuse it of all manner of atrocities – the COI is, in the words of Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Meirav Eilon Shahar, “an effort to delegitimize and even criminalize [Israel’s] very existence.”

The purpose of delegitimization is perfectly clear. Even as Arab regimes and the Soviets manipulated and corrupted the U.N. into efforts such as declaring that Zionism was a form of racism, they were also waging military campaigns to wipe Israel off the map.

One can see the same strategy at play in another horrifying spectacle. On Monday, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin gave an hour-long sermon with singular theme: delegitimizing the right of Ukraine to exist through wild accusations of atrocities and historical revisionism.

Sound familiar?
Ricochet Podcast: #UkraineUnderAttack
Hosted by James Lileks, Peter Robinson & Rob Long With guest Eli Lake

Is anybody else wondering why we’re seeing more coverage about politicians chattering or journalists ducking from skirmishes than, you know, military movements, logistics and strategy? Our hosts sure do, and that’s why they’re eager to hear from Eli Lake, Bloomberg’s foreign policy columnist. Eli gives his take on the Russian pipe dream, Europe’s need for a wakeup call, and how Biden can get serious about his promise to stand up to Putin (hint: some crow eating would be in order).


Clifford D May: Putin's winter war
In my column on Feb. 1, I offered a prediction that Russian President Vladimir Putin would "not start a war during the Olympics, which take place in the People's Republic of China, Feb. 4-20. He has too much respect for – and fear of – its president, Xi Jinping." So Putin was right on schedule when, on Monday, he ordered Russian forces into eastern Ukraine.

What I didn't know then, and we don't know as I write this is, how far he will go. Is it his intention to slice off Donbas, a region where a low-intensity conflict – with Putin backing pro-Russian separatists – has been ongoing since 2014? Or will he order his troops to march on and conquer the entire country?

I'll say more about that in a moment, but first I'm going to argue that this crisis could have been averted if American and European leaders, years ago, had designed and implemented a strategy to contain Putin – as they should have.

As noted in the earlier column, Putin regards himself as a latter-day czar whose mission is to restore and expand the shriveled empire that was bequeathed to him.

He has more money than he can ever spend (his Italianate palace on the Black Sea is valued at over a billion dollars), a much younger girlfriend (a former gymnast and model, if the tabloids are to be believed) and powers unconstrained by any laws. De facto, he has a license to kill, one he doesn't hesitate to exercise.

What he lacks and wants is a legacy – confidence that he will be remembered as Vladimir the Great or maybe Vladimir the Terrible but, in either case, as a man of action, a shaper of history, a lion. He's pushing 70. He has no time to waste.
My Last 24 Hours in Kyiv
The 24 hours leading up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion were disquieting in their combination of surrealism and tedium. The population of Kyiv was clearly deeply anxious, either engaging in seemingly over-the-top preparations for war (every cable news network reported on some little babushka learning to shoot an automatic rifle) or else ignoring it completely. Ukrainians in the capital were oblivious and stoic in the effortlessly graceful manner of men and women who have authentically embraced fatalism.

Along with my fellow Ukraine hand Nolan Peterson—a tall, avuncular, strapping, former combat pilot who is a real life version of Captain America— I wound up spending the eve of the war with the American actor Sean Penn over whiskey, vodka, and cigarettes. Penn was in good form and told us a story about meeting a young President Putin along with Jack Nicholson in a dacha near Moscow. I can confirm that hanging out with Sean Penn was also the last thing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did before the invasion began.

My memory of that night, before war advanced ever farther into Europe, is of an utterly bored international press corps continuing to imbibe copious amounts of spirits in Kyiv’s finest dining establishments, waiting for something to happen.

For my own part, camped out in the Hyatt Hotel, I wrote in the mornings, and spent time in the banya in the afternoon. I would run on the treadmill in the basement gym and watch BBC live feeds being shot on the floor above me. Nikolay Karabinovych, my friend from Odessa and the creator of the conceptual art movement Neue Judische Kunst, called me as I was trying to sweat out the toxins from the drinking bout of the previous evening. Everyone at the time was discussing the existence of supposed “kill lists” that the Russian army was ordered to carry out against dissidents and civil society types.

Karabinovych wanted to know if I knew anything about these lists—a European diplomat had called him to say that his embassy suspected he might be on them. Given my affiliations with the Atlantic Council and Tablet, had I heard if I was also on the kill list?

“Now that you mention it,” I replied. “Probably.”
Ukraine synagogues prepare for tense Shabbat under heavy security
Ukraine's Jewish communities are preparing for an unusually tense Shabbat, without knowing if they will be under Russian or Ukrainian rule when the Sabbath is over, or what the war will bring.

Synagogues in the country were under heavy security for fear of looting and antisemitic attacks.

"I don't have the faintest idea what will happen here on Shabbat. The last time sirens sounded in the city was probably during World War II," said Rabbi Ariel Markovitch, head of the Israeli congregation in Kyiv and the son of Chabad House Rabbi Jonathan Markovitch.

Rabbi Ariel, his family, and other people were at Kyiv's Chabad House, which was stocked with food and extra mattresses.

The head of security at the Federation of Jewish Communities in Ukraine, an umbrella organization that represents 160 Jewish communities throughout the country, urged Ukrainian Jews to stay at home in accordance with local government instructions and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's request that all Ukrainians do the same.

The federation recommended that "everyone pray at home this Shabbat."

Rabbi Baruch Efrati explained that because Ukraine is in a state of emergency and lives are at stake, the principle of pikuach nefesh is in effect, making it permissible to leave cellular phones on during Shabbat, and if there is no alternative, radios.

"Jews living in war zones can reach an agreement with non-Jewish friends or neighbors that if anything unusual happens that demands movement or organization, they will call. Therefore, cell phones can be kept on for Shabbat. If there is no non-Jew, or concern that they will not inform Jews, then a radio can be kept on if tuned to a station that mainly provides news," Efrai said.
'This is our Yom Kippur War,' Ukrainians say



Lee Smith: Ukraine’s Deadly Gamble
Of course, Ukraine was hardly the only American client state to involve itself in domestic political gamesmanship. By appearing before the U.S. Congress to argue against Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took sides with Republicans against a sitting American president—which seems like an even bigger potential faux pas.

The differences between the two situations are even more revealing, though. The Iran deal touched on a core Israeli national interest. As a U.S. ally, Israel was challenging the wisdom of handing nuclear weapons to its own (and America’s) leading regional competitor and rival. By contrast, Ukraine had no existential or geopolitical reason to participate in the anti-Trump operation, which allowed it at best to curry favor with one side of the D.C. establishment while angering what turned out to be the winning party. Russiagate was the kind of vanity project that a buffer state with a plunging GDP and an army equipped with 40-year-old ex-Soviet weapons in a notoriously risky area of the world can ill afford—especially one that lacked a nuclear arsenal.

And that was only the beginning. Just as Russiagate seemed to be coming to a close in July 2019, U.S. national security officials injected yet another Ukraine-related narrative into the public sphere to target the American president. This one appears to have been initiated by Ukrainian American White House official Alexander Vindman and his colleague Eric Ciaramella, a CIA analyst who had served as Vice President Biden’s point man on Ukraine during the Obama administration. When Vindman told Ciaramella about a phone call in which Trump had asked the Ukrainian president for information regarding allegations about the Biden family’s corrupt activities in Kyiv, they called on help from U.S. intelligence services, the State Department, the Pentagon, Democratic Party officials, and the press. Quick, scramble Team Ukraine—Trump is asking questions!

In order to cover up for what the Bidens and perhaps other senior Obama officials had done in Ukraine, a Democratic Congress impeached Trump for trying to figure out what American policymakers had been doing in Ukraine over the past decade. As for the Ukrainians, they again put themselves in the middle of it, when they should have stayed home.

The end result was that the Ukrainians had helped weaken an American president who, unlike Obama, gave them arms to defend themselves against the Russians. More seriously, they reinforced Putin’s view that, especially in partnership with the Democrats, Ukraine did not understand its true place in the world as a buffer state—and would continue to allow themselves to be used as an instrument by policymakers whose combination of narcissism and fecklessness made them particularly prone to dangerous miscalculations. The 2020 election victory of Joe Biden, a man whose family had been paid by the Ukrainians to protect them, can have done little to quiet Putin’s sense that Ukraine needed to be put in its place before it was used yet again as a weapon against him.

From the perspective of the U.S. national security establishment, Biden’s victory over Trump signaled that its actions in Ukraine would stay hidden. So long as the media continued to bark that the 45th president of the United States is Putin’s stooge, no one would be held accountable for anything. Except, as it turns out, D.C. political operatives aren’t the only people who can make history. Putin can, too. And the people of Ukraine will come out much the worse for both of their efforts.
Ukraine’s Zelensky Asked Bennett to Broker Ceasefire With Putin: Report
i24 News – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to intercede on behalf of Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin and halt the Russian invasion, Israel’s Kan broadcaster reported on Friday.

According to an official Israeli statement Friday, the two leaders discussed the situation in Ukraine, and particularly the fighting around the capital Kyiv.

The Israeli Prime Minister “offered Israel’s assistance with any humanitarian aid needed and updated President Zelensky on the steps already taken in this regard,” his office said.

“Prime Minister Bennett reiterated his hope for a speedy end to the fighting, and said that he stands by the people of Ukraine in these difficult days,” it continued.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel later confirmed to The New York Times that the request for Israeli mediation was made on the call.

“We do believe that Israel is the only democratic state in the world that has great relations with both Ukraine and Russia,” said Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk of the request, according to the outlet.

“They didn’t say no,” he said. “They are trying to figure out where they are in this chess play.”


JPost Editorial: The Ukraine crisis presents a moral dilemma for Israel - editorial
On Friday, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Alex Ben-Tzvi was summoned to the offices of Russia's Foreign Ministry in Moscow where he was reprimanded for Foreign Minister Yair Lapid's condemnation of the invasion of Ukraine a day earlier.

In a meeting with Mikhail Bogdanov, the Deputy Foreign Minister and special representative of the president of Russia to the Middle East, Ben-Tzvi was asked why Israel "supports neo-nazis,” a reference to Ukraine.

While the reprimand and its consequences will need to be analyzed in the days to come, the truth is that Israel did all it could to avoid condemning Russia.

On Wednesday, a day before the invasion, the Foreign Ministry put out a statement declaring its support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence without mentioning Russia.

The next day, after the Russian invasion had begun, Israel increased the volume. “The Russian attack on Ukraine is a serious violation of the international order,” Lapid said in a televised address. “Israel condemns the attack, and is ready and prepared to provide humanitarian assistance to the citizens of Ukraine.”

The fact that it was Lapid who spoke and not Prime Minister Naftali Bennett showed Israel’s delicate management of this situation. So far, it is only Lapid criticizing Russia. When Bennett speaks it is far more neutral.

Two senior government sources told The Jerusalem Post’s Lahav Harkov that Lapid and Bennett’s messages – and the differences between them – were coordinated and meant to be complementary.
Israel fails to sign onto US text condemning Russia at UNSC
Israel did not sign onto a United States-backed resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine that failed to gain United Nations Security Council approval on Friday night.

Nor has Israel clarified what its stance will be on an upcoming UN General Assembly resolution that is expected to take Russia to task for its military action in Ukraine.

Israel is not one of the 15 UNSC members and so could not vote on the resolution submitted by the US and Albania.

The US, however, had asked for its diplomatic allies that were non-UNSC member states to make good on an option to sign onto the text as a sign of support.

At least 49 states nations heeded that call. Diplomatic sources said that Israel had refrained from taking a stand on the UNSC resolution because Jerusalem knew that it had no chance of passing. With respect to the UNGA resolution, the source said that Israel was waiting to see the language of the resolution before solidifying its position.

"Our allies know exactly what our position is on the issue," a diplomatic source said.
Top Israeli Officials Hold Assessment on Russian Invasion, Efforts to Assist Ukrainian Jews
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held an assessment of the situation regarding Ukraine and Russia on Thursday with senior officials.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the leaders said that the main points for Israel during the crisis were a continuation of efforts to evacuate Israelis from the area; aid to the Jewish community in Ukraine and preparations to receive olim; preparations to render humanitarian assistance as necessary; and continued discussions on the situation as it pertains to Israel.

“The consequences of the crisis, in its diplomatic, economic and security aspects, were reviewed in the discussion,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

Participating in the discussion were Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, National Security Adviser and Director of the National Security Council Eyal Hulata, the Prime Minister’s Office director-general, the Foreign Ministry director-general and the Finance Ministry director-general, as well as representatives from the IDF, the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry and National Information Directorate.

In remarks on Thursday, Bennett avoided outright condemning the Russian invasion and mentioning Moscow by name.

Speaking at an IDF officer graduation ceremony in southern Israel, Bennett noted that the “world order is changing” and that it is becoming “much less stable, and our region too is changing every day.”

“These are difficult, tragic times,” the Israeli leader said. “Our hearts are with the civilians of eastern Ukraine who were caught up in this situation.”
10,000 Ukrainian Jews to immigrate to Israel in the next few weeks - exclusive
Israel's government estimates that around 10,000 Ukrainians will immigrate to Israel in the coming weeks, government officials told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday.

The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption would not comment on this estimate, but responded saying: "The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption is prepared for the emergency immigration of Ukrainian Jews, and in view of the escalation in Ukraine, the ministry, headed by Minister Tamano Shata, is preparing all sectors to assist and absorb any Jew seeking to immigrate to Israel."

"In light of the drastic increase in applications for immigration from Ukraine and in view of the security situation in the region", the ministry said that Tamano-Shata and Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman agreed on providing additional budgets to actualize the emergency immigration operation from Ukraine.

The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption convened an emergency discussion last Thursday during which Tamano-Shata assembled an inter-ministerial team to remove bureaucratic hurdles for potential olim and to issue immigration visas digitally, in light of a drastic increase in applications. This is in addition to reinforcements in the Absorption Division at Ben Gurion Airport and the cooperation with the IDF.

The Ministry concluded, "We call on the Jews of Ukraine to immigrate to Israel - your home."
400 Aliyah Requests From Ukraine Made in 24 hours
Israeli Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata spoke on Thursday night with one of Ukraine’s chief rabbis, saying the government is “strengthening the Jewish community in Ukraine and that the ministry is ready to welcome any Jew who wishes to immigrate to Israel.”

Rabbi Moshe Asman thanked the minister and spoke of concerns raised during his meetings with Jews from different communities as war broke out in his country.

The doors of the State of Israel “are open to you, Israel is your home and the ministry will help any Jew who wishes to make aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel),” the minister said.

Earlier in the day, Tamano-Shata assessed the situation with the participation of Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai and representatives of government ministries and partners.

In Lviv in western Ukraine, around 400 people applied for aliyah on Thursday — compared to 60 before Thursday morning.

Three consuls in Lviv receive Israelis and Jews residing in the country. The need to open an additional consul in Kishinev will be considered.
Israeli diplomatic staff in Lviv to spends their nights in Poland
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has instructed Israeli embassy staff in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv to cross over into Poland in the evenings, amid ongoing fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian troops following Moscow’s invasion of its western neighbor on Thursday.

The Israeli diplomatic staff will stay in Poland and cross the border into Ukraine every day to continue their diplomatic work and provide consular services to help Israeli citizens leave Ukraine, the foreign minister said.

The Foreign Ministry said it instructed thousands of Israeli citizens still in Ukraine and arriving at border crossings to prominently display a sign bearing the letters ‘IL’ on their clothing or on vehicles so they could be identified by embassy staff in lines and crowds.

“We ask all Israeli citizens exiting Ukraine at the border crossings to display on their bodies (if pedestrians) or in their vehicle (if in a vehicle) a prominent sign with the letters ‘IL’ so that Israeli representatives can locate Israeli citizens in queues and assist them as much as possible,” the ministry said in a statement.

Israeli diplomatic staff would be present at the following crossings, the ministry said: the Medyka/Sheiny crossing into Poland, which officials said was extremely busy and crowded; the Uzhhorod/Vysne Nemescke crossing into Slovakia; the Zahony/Chop crossing into Hungary; the Siret crossing into Romania; the Palanca crossing into southern Moldova; and the Mogilev-Podolskiy crossing into northern Moldova.


After Putin highlights Russia’s nukes, France retorts: NATO is a nuclear alliance
Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to understand that NATO is a nuclear alliance, the French foreign minister said Thursday, after the Kremlin chief boasted about Russia’s nuclear arsenal as he launched the attack on Ukraine.

According to NATO, the nuclear weapons held by members France, the UK and US are a core component of its overall capabilities for deterrence and defense.

Emphasizing that Russia was still one of the “biggest nuclear powers in the world,” Putin had launched the offensive on Ukraine early Thursday with a warning that a direct attack on Russia would lead to “destruction.”

“Vladimir Putin must also understand that the Atlantic Alliance is a nuclear alliance,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the TF1 channel.

He also promised “spectacular” European sanctions which will “strike to the heart” of Russia.

Le Drian said France is also studying a series of requests for assistance from Ukraine, including military.

“They made us a list (of military equipment), we are in the process of studying it, to try to respond as best as possible to their request as quickly as possible,” he said.
Lithuania Closes its Airspace to Russian Airlines, Ending Direct Flights to Kaliningrad Exclave
Lithuania will ban Russian airlines from using its airspace from 2200 GMT on Saturday, the government said, joining other European countries which have taken the same step following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Lithuania is the shortest route from mainland Russia to its Kaliningrad exclave, sandwiched between NATO members Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea’s eastern coast. The ban would force Russian flights to take a longer detour via the Baltic Sea.

“No flights for aggressor planes in the freedom sky,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte tweeted after a government meeting.

Russian forces pounded Ukrainian cities with artillery and cruise missiles on Saturday for a third day running.

Lithuania’s northern neighbor Latvia has also decided to close its airspace for Russian aircraft from midnight to Sunday local time (2200 GMT), the country’s foreign minister Edgars Rinkevics said on Twitter.

The third Baltic state, Estonia, is expected to do the same, its minister of economic affairs said on Saturday.


Kyiv residential apartment block hit in Russian shelling
The mayor of the Ukrainian capital said Saturday that a missile hit a residential apartment building but no casualties were immediately reported.

Rescue workers later said six civilians were injured in the strike and 80 people were relocated from the building.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the missile slammed into a high-rise building on the southwestern outskirts of Kyiv near Zhuliany airport on Saturday.

Klitschko posted an image on a messaging app, showing a gaping hole on one side of the building that ravaged apartment units and several stores.

He said in a video that the night had been “difficult,” with Russian “sabotage groups” in the capital. He insisted that there were no regular Russian troops in Kyiv, but said they were trying to enter from several directions.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine began Thursday with massive air and missile strikes and ground troops moving in from the north, east and south. The Russian military said on Saturday it had targeted Ukraine’s military infrastructure using cruise missiles fired from the air and sea.


Yoseph Haddad’s Speech to Members of the Oireachtas (24-Feb-2022)
"Are you afraid that I will expose your lies and hypocrisy about the State of Israel as an Israeli Arab? Are you afraid that I will expose the true motivations behind your obsession with my country, that maybe, just maybe it’s not about 'human rights' but about a disproportionate focus on the one state in the world which defines itself as Jewish?"

Ceann Comhairle and members of the Oireachtas, thank you for allowing me to address you today on this important subject. I know that in recent days you have heard from a number of speakers about my country, Israel, and the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. I come to you today as a private citizen of the State of Israel to share my experience and provide the truth about what’s happening in Israel from the perspective of a minority.

My name is Yoseph Haddad and I am an Israeli Arab. I was born in Haifa, which is the largest mixed city of Arabs and Jews in the country, and I was raised in Nazareth, the largest Arab city in the state of Israel. This may surprise some of you after what you’ve heard about Israel, but myself, my friends and all my community regularly interacted with Israelis from all sectors and a huge part of my childhood was playing football. I grew up playing football with Jewish, Christian and Muslim kids and let me tell you – the Jews didn’t think “Oh, he’s an Arab” before passing the ball. We didn’t see each other as any different, and in fact through these childhood friendships we learned about each other’s religions and lifestyles, even taking part in each other’s holidays for Eid or Christmas or Passover.

Now fast forward to age 18, in Israel, military service or national service is mandatory for Jewish citizens, but every year, thousands of Israeli Arabs volunteer, a number that’s increasing with time. When I turned 18, I saw my Jewish friends go to the army and I didn’t understand why I, as an Arab, wouldn’t also serve my country. After all, it is my home just as much as theirs. Even more important is that the IDF does not stand for the Jewish Defense Forces rather the Israeli Defense Forces, meaning its purpose is to protect ALL its citizens, including 2 million Arab Israelis.

Just before my service was about to begin, I experienced a trauma that made me realise without any doubt that joining the army to defend my country, and my community, was absolutely the right thing to do. The Maxim restaurant in Haifa was a symbol of partnership in the city; it was owned by Arabs and Jews and it was a place my family regularly frequented for celebrations like birthdays. Yet on the 4th of October 2003, just days after my family was last there, the Maxim restaurant was targeted by a Palestinian terrorist who suicide bombed the restaurant killing 21 Israelis – Arabs and Jews and injuring 51.

I learned a painful but important lesson that day. These terrorists did not care that they were killing Arabs: they targeted us because we are Israeli. Just the same as Hezbollah in Lebanon fired rockets on Israeli Arab cities in the second Lebanon war. Just the same as how nearly half the Israeli civilian casualties from the Second Lebanon War were Arab Israeli Muslims. Just the same as Hamas who fired rockets on Israeli Arab towns throughout the country in May 2021, killing Arab Muslims.
Israeli citizen arrested in Saudi Arabia after publicly praising Israel
An Israeli citizen is being held under arrest in Saudi Arabia for an angry rant in a pharmacy during which he praised Israel as the best country in the world.

Sammi al-Obara, 40, a resident of the Bedouin city of Rahat in the southern Negev region, suffers from diabetes, which was likely the cause of his behavior, his family said.

He was arrested on Tuesday during a pilgrimage to the kingdom, according to Hebrew media reports.

Israel has no diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, which could complicate any efforts to secure his release.

Mussa Obara, a relative, told Channel 12 that the arrested man suffers from diabetes and “sometimes, because of the disease, he can’t control the way he behaves.”

Mussa said that Obara was in such a state of mind when he entered the pharmacy and became agitated at the service he was given. Workers summoned police, who arrested Obara.

The family has appealed to Saudi officials, explaining that Obara is unwell and was not in control of himself. They have also asked MK Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist Ra’am party, which is part of Israel’s ruling coalition, and others for help, Mussa said.

The Foreign Ministry said it was looking into the matter.
ISIS Resurrection Is a Cause for Alarm
The same week as the Syrian prison assault, the Islamic State of Central Africa Province (ISCAP) was able to spring 20 prisoners and kill three people while executing a strikingly similar attack on a Congo prison. “The soldiers of the Caliphate attacked a post of the Crusader Congolese army in the town of Nobili, near the Ugandan border, two days ago, causing its personnel to flee,” said an ISIS communique.

The ISIS branch in Congo killed an estimated 849 people in 2020, the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office reported.

ISIS launched hundreds of terrorist attacks in the Middle East and Europe between 2014 and 2019. Last month, Sweden and France launched a joint probe to investigate ISIS atrocities against the Yazidi minority in Iraq and Syria. It is believed that 10,000 Yazidis were killed and around 7,000 women were enslaved by ISIS during its reign of terror.

The death of a terrorist group’s leader can trigger power struggles and other setbacks. But ISIS is better able to move on with a new leader because it has “well-managed leadership structures and succession protocols,” wrote Haroro Ingram, Amira Jadoon, and Andrew Mines, in a recent piece.

“The death of al-Qurayshi is unlikely to affect the operations of Islamic State group’s affiliates in any meaningful way,” they concluded.

The recent coordinated ISIS attacks cannot be ignored. The previous iteration of the group, which caused havoc across the globe, started in the same manner in Iraq and Syria before it declared its state and Caliphate in Mosul in 2014. A series of attacks on Iraqi prisons in 2012 and 2013 freed a large number of jihadists who later join the Islamic State. These attacks were masterminded by al-Baghdadi.

“We remind you of your top priority, which is to release the Muslim prisoners everywhere,” said al-Baghdadi.

As Iraqis begin to heal from the scourge of the ISIS and rebuild, news of the increase in ISIS attacks in Iraq and neighboring Syria is alarming.

The dangers of a possible resurgence remain high, and the group’s ability to coordinate terrorist strikes can inspire a lot of its followers in the West and others across the world.
Russia Sees Military Coordination with Israel on Syria Continuing
Russia sees its military coordination with Israel over Syria continuing, the Russian embassy said on Saturday, after Moscow signaled displeasure with Israeli statements about the Ukraine crisis.

Following the 2015 Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war, Israel set up a “deconfliction mechanism” with the big power to prevent them clashing inadvertently during Israeli strikes against Iranian deployments and arms transfers in the neighboring Arab state.

“Our military officials discuss the practical issues of this substantively on a daily basis. This mechanism has proven to be useful and will continue to work,” the Russian embassy in Israel said in a statement.

But while voicing support for Israel‘s security needs, it also reiterated opposition to violations of Syrian sovereignty.

The Israeli military, asked about prospects for continued coordination with Russia over Syria, said only that its forces “will act when needed to counter threats, defend the people of Israel and our sovereignty.”

Israel, whose main ally is the United States, condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Thursday as “a serious violation of international order” and has since remained largely muted on Moscow’s actions.
Assad says Russia’s Ukraine invasion a ‘correction of history’
Syrian President Bashar Assad, in a telephone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday, praised the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying it was a “correction of history.”

Damascus is a staunch ally of Moscow which intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2015 by launching airstrikes to support the Assad regime’s struggling forces.

Assad spoke to Putin a day after Russian forces invaded Ukraine on the orders of the Russian president, drawing strong international condemnation.

“President Assad stressed that what is happening today is a correction of history and a restoration of balance in the global order after the fall of the Soviet Union,” said a statement from the Syrian presidency.

Assad also said that “Syria stands with the Russian Federation based on its conviction that its position is correct and because confronting NATO expansionism is a right for Russia.”

Russia’s intervention in Syria marked a turning point in the conflict.
Almost all European aid to the PA held up as officials discuss reform of textbooks
Millions of euros in European Union aid to the Palestinian Authority are stuck in Brussels as officials in the European Commission discuss whether to condition parts of the foreign assistance on reforms to Palestinian textbooks, The Times of Israel has learned.

The European Union, the PA’s largest single donor, helps to pay the salaries of the PA’s many civil servants, which constitutes a significant chunk of the West Bank economy. Between 2008 and 2020, Brussels sent around $2.5 billion in direct budget support to the PA.

But citing “technical difficulties,” the bloc has donated almost no aid to the authority since 2020. The lack of funding has contributed to fears that Ramallah will see a fiscal crisis.

According to a diplomat who asked for anonymity to freely discuss the sensitive subject, the delay in sending EU funds to the Palestinians began as a technical matter.

But the process was substantially gummed up when an official in the European Commission in Brussels sought to condition parts of the aid on changes to Palestinian textbooks, the diplomat said.

“It was a technical matter that became a political matter,” the diplomat summed up.

EU aid to the Middle East is allocated to all the countries in the region as a single package. Neither Jordan, Syria, or Lebanon have received their aid since 2020, with the EU citing the same “technical difficulties.”

Israeli, European and American officials have long criticized alleged incitement in Palestinian textbooks. Palestinians reject that argument, saying that the curricula express the Palestinian national narrative.
Close ties with Russia stop Palestinians from taking sides in Ukraine war - analysis
Similarly, Hamas has also been careful not to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Like the PA, the Hamas leadership is also keen on preserving its good relations with Moscow, especially in light of the group’s increasing isolation in the international arena.

Late last year, a senior Hamas delegation headed by Musa Abu Marzouk and Izzat al-Risheq met in Moscow with Bogdanov and top officials from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Russia had previously hosted meetings officials from Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction and Hamas as part of an effort to end the rivalry between the two parties. Hamas leaders have visited Moscow several times over the past 14 years, and they too have no intention of letting the Ukraine crisis burn the bridge between their group and Russia.

That’s why Hamas was quick on Saturday to deny a statement attributed to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. According to the statement, Mashaal reportedly said that Putin “must halt his invasion of Ukraine and the killing of civilians.”

Concerned that the alleged statement would alienate Putin, the Hamas leadership denied the “fabricated” remarks attributed to Mashaal. “Mashaal did not make any statement to any media outlet regarding the Ukrainian crisis,” said a Hamas spokesperson.

The only Hamas official to comment on the Russia-Ukraine crisis was Abu Marzouk, who wrote on Twitter that the lesson of the war was that the era of America’s status as unipolar superpower has ended.

The US, the Hamas official argued, “was unable to take the decision of war in the face of Russia.”

Abu Marzouk added: “Those who can’t decide on war can’t be decision-makers on international politics. This is where we can talk about the future of the Zionist entity.”


Here Is Why Iran's Mullahs Are Excited About Biden's Nuclear Deal
That the ruling mullahs are asking the Biden administration for guarantees that the US will never be able to leave the new nuclear deal, even after President Joe Biden leaves office, should signal that the mullahs want this deal badly and set off all sorts of alarms.

It is worth noting that Iran's ballistic missile capability is one of the most critical pillars of Tehran's national security policy -- the third-most important program of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), along with Iran's nuclear program and supporting the country's foreign proxies.

[A] nuclear deal will be a victory for Iran's foreign militias and terror groups. The 2015 nuclear deal allowed the flow of billions of dollars into the treasury of Iranian regime, thereby providing the revenues that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) needed to escalate their military adventurism in the region. That project included financing, arming and supporting their militias and terror groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Gaza and Yemen. After the nuclear agreement, Iran's meddling, interventions in the region, and funding militia groups immediately escalated.

Iran also increased deliveries of weapons and munitions to its foreign militias, and the number of ballistic missiles deployed by Iran's proxies rose to an unprecedented level. When the JCPOA nuclear deal was scuttled in 2018, some of Iran's authorities publicly announced that they did not have money to pay their mercenaries abroad.

That the ruling mullahs of Iran seem to be so delighted with what the Biden team is apparently offering, that Iran even wants assurances from the administration that the US can never pull out of the deal, should blowtorch the US negotiators out of the room.

Will the US and the international community reward yet another predatory, expansionist regime with nuclear capability and billions of dollars and the ability to have increased oil and missile production?

How much punishment to his legacy is Biden eager to take on?
Antisemitism is back and Ben and Jerry's is now feeding the beast
Even before Susannah Levin’s resignation from Ben & Jerry’s over its decision to halt sales in what the company terms Occupied Palestinian Territory, the graphic designer found herself at odds with the ice-cream maker’s high-profile social activism. Some three years earlier, a project manager in the Social Mission Department approached her with an assignment intended to promote the narrative “A incarcerates more people than any other country per capita in the world."

Wanting to secure the statistics behind that premise, she asked the manager for its source. Surprised by Levin’s push for documentation, he inquired, “Oh, do you think we need a source on that?” The source he gave was CNN, but Levin probed further and discovered the data CNN used were derived from a study noting in its fine print that China, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea – arguably some the world’s biggest human rights violators, she proceeded to point out – were excluded due to lack of information.

The campaign ultimately was changed to “America incarcerates too many people.” But Levin, a contractor with Ben & Jerry’s for 21 years, whose artwork is ubiquitous in the company’s branding materials, also noticed a change in the nature of her assignments. “I don’t think I got many social mission jobs after that,” she said. “I think I got a reputation.”

Similarly, the ice-cream maker’s decision to effectively pull out of Israel appeared to be a foregone conclusion, she said, bolstered by yet another skewed source that reinforced the company’s preconceived premise. That source was Omar Shakir, a well-known activist for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement whose co-founder, Omar Barghouti, has advocated for “euthanasia for the Zionist experiment.”

Shakir is the lead researcher and author of a scathing Human Rights Watch report published in April, which lists him as HRW’s Director of Israel and Palestine. The report’s allegations about Israel have been refuted by numerous authorities and HRW’s own founder, the late Robert Bernstein, slammed the organization for having “lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked.”

But Ben & Jerry’s executives told Levin they had invited Shakir for a briefing prior to the company’s announcement. And there was no response to Levin’s call for a deeper dive and an accompanying offer to connect management with Bassem Eid, a Palestinian from Jericho who condemns the BDS movement as being harmful to Palestinians (and has since filed suit over the company’s decision to boycott). Management’s silence signaled the inevitability of its move and a turning point in Levin’s career.

“A company that chooses to appease an interest group by making a political statement is really selling their company’s name and reputation in exchange for what they think will win points with activists and they are altering the workplace for their own employees,” Levin told me, speaking as well for others who shared with her their trials in the business world. “It feels threatening to work for a company that makes strong public statements for a cause with which you disagree. The result is that people just ‘self-censor’ – or shut up.”
Fighting anti-Semitism where it starts
FBI Director Christopher Wray recently acknowledged “that the Jewish community in particular has suffered violence and faces very real threats from really across the hate spectrum.”

Tragically, each week brings further examples of that hate Wray referenced. During one seven-day period in February, Massachusetts School superintendent John Buckey reported that anti-Semitic taunts and swastikas were found in elementary school bathrooms as well as a middle school in another part of the state, while three different South Carolina schools experienced anti-Semitic incidents. In New York, home of the nation’s largest Jewish community, a Jewish school bus carrying children, was attacked by a man who used his car to block the bus and then got out and smashed the bus windshield.

Fighting skyrocketing anti-Semitism in K-12 schools requires mobilizing federal, state, and local government resources to combat this scourge, and a critical component, and one that is particularly timely right now, is for the U.S. Department of Education to expand its Civil Rights Data Collection.

Data-gathering must cover religious bias more extensively, and it should specifically identify which religious group is being targeted. This is important because you can’t solve a problem unless you know what the problem is. Schools, local educational authorities and the federal government need this valuable and specific information. They need to understand precisely which religious groups are being victimized and which specific hate crimes students face to know how to effectively reverse the trend in religious harassment. The FBI takes the same approach to hate crime reporting. Now, with religious crime in schools on the rise, we must apply the same standards. As Brandeis Center Chair as well as former Assistant Secretary of Education Kenneth L. Marcus, said “The appalling number of religious offenses underscores how essential this data is.”

The Department should also require the same amount of information pertaining to religious discrimination, bias, harassment and bullying as it does with respect to other bias categories such as race or LGBTI issues, demonstrating clearly the seriousness with which it views the problem.


'Nazi sympathizer', 24, started building homemade submachine gun in his Leamington Spa garage 'to kill Jews', court hears
An alleged Nazi sympathiser started building a homemade submachine gun in his garage in order to fulfil his 'mission' of fighting in a religious war against Jews and other targets of right-wing terrorists, a court heard.

Birmingham Crown Court heard Ben Styles posted in an online group called '#Kill All the Jews' and described the holocaust to friends as the 'holohoax', adding: 'I hope the holocaust is real next time.'

Prosecutors allege the 24-year-old, who has a B-tec in Engineering from Warwickshire College, told his friend he was 'just getting as strong as possible for the war' and sent a picture of his phone lock screen which had images of swastikas on it.

Referring to the lock screen, the defendant allegedly told his friend: 'Waking up and seeing this lock screen to start my day is far more important than some non-person NHS clapper shouting at me about primary school history.'

The court heard messages were also recovered from Styles in 2019 following the terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, which said: 'I just got back from New Zealand - it made me super racist. Then that happened and I had a good day.'
Credit Suisse scandal is nothing new for bank that helped Nazis - opinion
An investigation by 47 international news media outlets revealed this week that Credit Suisse, one of Switzerland’s most prominent banks, protected the secret fortunes of dictators, autocrats, spies, human rights abusers, shady businessmen and other clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption from the 1940s to the 2010s.

A whistle-blower leaked data on more than 18,000 bank accounts worth more than $100 billion to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which has shared the information with other news organizations, including The New York Times. No public figures were among some 100 Americans holding questionable accounts, the Times noted.

Switzerland’s bank secrecy laws have made it a sanctuary for hiding wealth, dodging taxes, laundering money and concealing assorted crimes.

Credit Suisse said it “strongly rejects the allegations.” The bank has paid $7.9 billion in fines, penalties, restitution to the US government and others over the past decade for helping Americans evade taxes and for securities-related offenses, the Times reported. Additionally, it has been “accused of allowing drug traffickers to launder millions of euros through the bank,” the paper noted. It is also under investigation by the US Justice Department and the US Congress.

In the latest revelation, Jordanian King Abdullah II and the sons of the late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were among the clients. 80 years ago, SS chief Heinrich Himmler and dictator Benito Mussolini had Credit Suisse accounts.

None of that should come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the role Swiss banks, particularly Credit Suisse, played in one of the greatest thefts and most heinous crimes in history.

They were Adolph Hitler’s bankers, money launderers and most valuable allies. Hitler waged a war of plunder, looting the central banks of Europe, and the treasures and wealth of the conquered lands – including the lives and property of six million Jews.









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


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