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Monday, July 31, 2023

Hamas brutally represses Gaza demonstrations. Media nowhere to be found.

Last week I reported that Gazans planned a major anti-Hamas rally on Sunday, July 30. I also noted that this news was essentially censored from all Palestinian Arabic media, even Hamas' archrival Fatah did not report on these plans.

A lot of what happens in Gaza is simply not reported by the media.

Thankfully, Gazans publish their own videos and photos on Telegram and similar social media, and the indomitable Imshin has put together a thread showing the demonstrations on Sunday - and Hamas' brutal repression of them. 

Here is her thread. And Western media is essentially complicit in Hamas' censorship and repression by adhering to terrorist directives not to report things that make them look bad.

1/ This afternoon there were demonstrations against Hamas all over Gaza Strip.
This is Khan Younes.
#TheGazaYouDontSee

2/ This afternoon there were demonstrations against Hamas all over Gaza Strip.
This is Nuseirat "refugee camp".

3/ At first Hamas took over the demonstrations, turning them into "pro-Hamas" demonstrations.

 https://t.co/Stq7PCx3Hi  t.me/abualiexpress/…

4/ Then the guns came...

5/ And the shooting at demonstrators started.

 More footage of dispersing anti-Hamas demonstrations in Gaza.


 Demonstrators injured by Hamas "security" thugs.

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More demonstrators injured by Hamas this afternoon.
These are brothers Salama and Rami Barbakh whose father was killed by Hamas in the past.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!
 

 

What would a Palestinian state look like? Look at Ain el-Hilweh, Lebanon



From Naharnet on Sunday:

Clashes renewed Sunday in the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon between the secular Fatah Movement and hardline Islamist groups.

TV networks said the fighting resumed after a senior Fatah commander was killed in an ambush.

An Islamist had been killed and six people including children had been injured in overnight clashes in the camp.

Key Sidon highways were closed to traffic on Sunday as stray bullets and shells landed in various areas of the major southern Lebanese city.

Clashes between rival groups are common in Ain al-Helweh, which is home to more than 54,000 registered Palestinian refugees who have been joined in recent years by thousands of Palestinians fleeing the conflict in Syria.

By long-standing convention, the Lebanese Army does not enter Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, leaving the factions themselves to handle security.

That has created lawless areas in many camps, and Ain al-Helweh has gained notoriety as a refuge for extremists and fugitives.

The Palestinian Authority and its sycophants claim that they would take care of law and order, but Israel's raids of Palestinian areas makes the PA security forces look weak and they lose respect of the populace, which is what cause many armed militias to arrive on the scene to fill the vacuum. If only Israel would leave Area A alone, the claim goes, the Palestinian Authority would be able to enforce law and order.

Ain el-Hilweh is a social experiment that proves this thesis false.

Lebanese troops do not enter. All security is provided by Palestinians. This is the situation that Palestinians want to see in PA-controlled areas - no outsiders, and security provided exclusively by Palestinians.

The result? They cannot govern themselves effectively. They cannot live in peace with each other. They regularly endanger their own people. Two UNRWA schools were damaged and children have been injured in the fighting;UNRWA is suspending all services and operations so the people will suffer even more.

This is how Palestinians treat each other without any outside interference. 

And they cannot use the excuse of being in dire straits - which they are - because that should make a people want to work together even more, not use deadly force on each other. 

If you want to see what a Palestinian state would look like, look at Ain el-Hilweh.  



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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!
 

 

Sunday, July 30, 2023

07/30 Links: UN bodies receive millions from ‘terror charities’; Antisemitism is a Feature of Partisan Extremism; 5 killed in clashes at Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: What are Israel's upcoming diplomatic challenges, opportunities?
IDF Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi recently discussed the importance of “our responsibility for readiness and unity.” He noted that “the IDF’s purpose has not changed over the course of the past 75 years – to defend the State of Israel, ensure its existence, and achieve victory in times of war. The IDF was established in a time of crisis, out of a necessity to ensure the existence of the State of Israel. This need has not changed to this day. The strength of the IDF lies in the quality of its service members, its high level of readiness for war, and its internal and external unity.”

Ahead of Tisha Be’av, Halevi noted that “these days, almost 2,000 years after the destruction of the Second Temple, the IDF is strong thanks to its people, its capabilities, and above all, thanks to its values – the values of the IDF Code of Conduct, according to which we operate and will continue to operate in the future. We don’t have other service members, and we don’t have another IDF.”

“It is never too late to correct this,” he continued. “We must mend this situation, for there is no other way, without internal and external unity. This is all of our responsibility, and first and foremost it is my personal responsibility as chief of general staff. This is the only way we can maintain the IDF’s purpose: to protect the country and ensure its existence.”

As the Middle East works toward integration, and Gulf states do unprecedented outreach, there is a lot of opportunity for Israel. However, in the middle of it all is Iran, seeking to spoil these opportunities.

Tehran has been seeking to destabilize the West Bank via support for terror groups in Jenin, knowing that West Bank clashes can harm Israel’s ties in the Gulf. Moreover, Iran has been encouraging Hezbollah to increase tensions on the northern border.

In Iraq and Syria, Iran continues to threaten the US. Iran also works with Russia and Turkey to try to support the Syrian regime.

Thus, Iran plays both sides. It seeks closer ties with the Gulf and does outreach to Egypt, while also hoping to use Syria, Lebanon, and the West Bank to destabilize and threaten Israel.

Tehran, for instance, announced a new naval missile on July 24, also announcing that it could make a deal with the US via Qatar or Oman. Iran, therefore, uses the carrot-and-stick approach. It is up to Israel to neutralize the stick and ensure that its partners don’t run to grab the Iranian carrot.

These are the challenges – and opportunities – confronting Israel externally as it looks toward the months ahead.
UN bodies receive millions from ‘terror charities’
The United Nations has a terrorism problem.

Last month, its Security Council refused to designate as a global terrorist the architect behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed 170 people.

Just over two weeks ago, the UN’s Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has previously appeared on the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen channel, issued a report that was praised by the terrorist group Hamas.

Until today, the UN has actively failed to define terrorism, affording terrorists impunity on a daily basis. Not only does the UN have a problem identifying terrorism when it is right in front of them, but in some cases the UN has even partnered with terrorism-affiliated groups.

Over the last year, four United Nations agencies have partnered with and accepted $7 million from the terrorism-affiliated NGO Qatar Charity. According to the Counter Extremism Project (that maintains databases on extremist groups, their ideology, leaders, history, financing, violent activities, tactics, and rhetoric), the Qatar Charity is a member charity of the Union of Good network.

The Union of Good umbrella organization was banned by the US Treasury in 2008 because of its status as “an organization created by Hamas leadership to transfer funds to [Hamas]” during the Second Intifada. Hamas is on the US State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

“Terrorist groups such as Hamas continue to exploit charities to radicalize vulnerable communities and cultivate support for their violent activities,” said then-US undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Stuart Levey, at the time. The Qatar Charity has been banned by five Middle Eastern countries.
'First the Saturday people, then.."
A thriller by Bruce Portnoy that spans the US and Israel begins with a car crash and is all too real today. Review.

An old Jewish adage says that "every delay is for the good." I was reminded of that while reading the book "First the Saturday people, and then the…" by Bruce Portnoy, published in 2015 to excellent reviews. Had I read it then, I would have considered this page-turning thriller taking place in the Midwest and Israel a good read, but might also have seen it as another far-fetched fantasy on what an author imagines goes on behind the scenes in international undercover intelligence operations, another impossible spy story that would make a great action film.

However, events since the book was written make those political intrigues eerily believable, so that reading it now is all "for the good" as the adage says, and therefore, recommended.

From its riveting beginning, the book begins to unravel a story with layer upon layer of reality, starting with a husband whose wife is critically injured and daughter killed in an accident he thinks his drinking has caused and her father's wheeler-dealer American-Jewish way of handling the situation. But that, while engrossingly interesting, is only the surface.

Page by page, the layers unfold. Readers need to pay attention to who is narrating each chapter as the scenes follow one fast upon another. Wofl's guilt is not so simple. His wife, an ordinary teacher active in organizations helping Israel as far as he knew, was involved in something far deeper, and the car crash was not as clear as it seemed to be to Wolf and his father in law. It turns out that she was corresponding with the son of a Lebanese diplomat who discovered that a large scale catastrophe to take place in Israel had been carefully planned by Iran. Disaster was imminent, on a scale that would inexorably lead to the destruction of the Jewish State. So Israeli powers work behind the scenes to keep Wolf out of jail despite his vengeful father-in-law's attempts to sway the results, but they can't keep him from wanting to stay in the picture.

Events expand from there, with a second-generation American, a Christian Arab and retired FBI agent who has a sense of justice equal to Wolf's, fueled by his granddaughter's innocent question about what he did to stop the Holocaust, joining him in trying to prevent it from happening. While investigating and in constant danger, the two candidly discuss their views on Israel's existential vulnerability amid the Palestinian Arab narrative, an issue that is brought to the fore in other parts of the book in a clear and forthright manner, making it more than just a thriller.


Antisemitism is a Feature of Partisan Extremism
Far-left Democrats and far-right Republicans don’t agree on much, but both extremes have a disturbing affinity for antisemitism.

Consider Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on the extreme Right, a former StopAntisemitism Antisemite of the Week whose history of antisemitism includes sharing a video alleging that “Zionist supremacists” conspire to replace Europe’s White population with refugees.

Or Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on the extreme Left, who on multiple occasions has met with and praised terrorist sympathizers who celebrate murders of Jews.

These representatives are about as politically divergent as it’s possible to be, so how can they be in alignment on the world’s oldest hatred?

“Horseshoe Theory” may provide answers. The theory posits that the political spectrum looks more like a horseshoe than a straight line, with the extremes closer to each other than they are to the center. Viewing politics through this lens helps make sense of why partisans on opposite sides sometimes take similar positions, albeit for different reasons. For example, the slogan “my body, my choice” has been employed both in support of abortion rights and in opposition to mask and vaccine mandates.

Applying Horseshoe Theory to antisemitism provides some frightening insights into where the two extremes converge - and where they separate.

Rep. Taylor Greene’s support of the Great Replacement Theory, along with her well-known belief in secret Jewish space lasers, typifies right-wing antisemitism. While generally quite supportive of Israel, she and her colleagues on the Republican fringe traffic in conspiracy theories of Jewish control, alleging that cabals plot to weaken America and advance progressive causes.

Some of her Congressional allies even openly associate with Nazi sympathizers. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), for example, has supported and appeared onstage with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, calling him a “patriot.”

Rep. Tlaib’s left-wing antisemitism, on the other hand, looks considerably different. She, along with “Squad” allies including Ilhan Omar (D-MN), couches her bigotry primarily in criticism of Israel’s right to exist.

As the internationally recognized IHRA definition of antisemitism makes clear, criticizing Israel is not antisemitic unless it involves double standards or antisemitic tropes. Sadly, those Representatives fail that test on both fronts.
CNN Host & Ken Roth Team Up To Mislead Viewers About Israel
Throughout this interview, Isa Soares not only failed to take Roth to task for any of his claims about Israel but even asked him soft-ball and leading questions that allowed him to flesh out his biased analysis of the situation in Israel and the West Bank.

Similarly, in March 2023, Soares conducted an interview with Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories who has engaged in trivialization of the Holocaust, has justified Palestinian terrorism, and has been accused of spreading antisemitic tropes.

There too, Soares asked soft-ball and leading questions while allowing Albanese to go on for minutes without rejoinder.

Lest it seem as if it is just Soares’ journalistic practice to allow her interviewees to speak freely and without comment, this is belied by a heated interview she held with Naftali Bennett in May 2023, during which she constantly interjected and put the former Israeli prime minister on the defensive about Israel’s fight against Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

Where is this same journalistic rigor when Soares interviews such notable anti-Israel personalities as Ken Roth and Francesca Albanese?


5 killed, 6 wounded in clashes at Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon
Overnight clashes Sunday in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon left 5 dead and 6 others wounded, Palestinian officials said.

The ongoing clashes are taking place as Palestinian factions in Ein el-Hilweh for years have cracked down on militant Islamist groups and fugitives seeking shelter in the camp’s overcrowded neighborhoods. In 2017, Palestinian factions engaged in almost a week of fierce clashes with a militant organization affiliated with the Islamic State terror group.

The Palestinian officials, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the clashes broke out after an unknown gunman tried to assassinate Islamist militant Mahmoud Khalil, killing a companion of his instead.

Factions used assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers in the overcrowded camp, as ambulances zoomed through its narrow streets to take the wounded to the hospital. Several residents fled the crossfire to nearby neighborhoods in the camp.

According to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency, six people were wounded in the overnight clashes, including two children. The clashes stopped for several hours in the morning, though state media said there was still sporadic sniper fire.
Palestinian factions fail to reach agreement on ‘national unity’
A meeting of leaders of several Palestinian factions ended on Sunday in Egypt without agreement on achieving “national unity.”

The conference, which lasted for four hours, ended without a joint communique by the participants, a move reflecting the failure of the factions to reach an agreement on the formation of a Palestinian unity government and ending the feud between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction and Hamas.

“We can’t solve all our differences in one day,” said a PA official. “That’s why there wasn’t a joint statement. There will be more meetings in the near future.”

Instead of a joint communique, Abbas read out a statement at the end of the meeting in which he called for the formation of a committee that would “continue dialogue [between the factions] to achieve national unity.”

Ways of achieving national Palestinian unity
Earlier this month, Abbas invited the leaders of all Palestinian factions to a conference in Egypt to discuss ways of achieving national unity and ending the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The invitation was issued during an emergency meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah to discuss the Israeli military operation in Jenin Refugee Camp.

Abbas was hoping to use the conference to persuade Hamas and other Palestinian factions to join a unity government, according to Palestinian officials.
Abbas’ advisor: Jews are Satan in human form
Official PA TV, broadcast of Friday prayers and a sermon by PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash at a mosque in Ramallah

Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “A group from among the People of the Book (i.e., Jews) wants to deceive you… and turn you back from your religion so that you will be like them. This goes back to the initial point of the conflict, the conflict between good and evil... They [Jews] have left the path of humanity and followed Satanity. Satanity is an exit from humanity … Satan does not have to be in the form of a demon, hidden, he can also be in your form, but he is Satan. In the form of man, but he is Satan. And they (i.e., Satan-Jews) are still fighting us until they turn us back from our religion.”
[Official PA TV, July 7, 2023]

Mahmoud Al-Habbash is Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations, and Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'ah Justice.

The phrase “turn you back from your religion” is a quote from the Quran 2:99: “Many of the People of the Scripture (i.e., Jews) wish they could turn you back to disbelief after you have believed, out of envy from themselves [even] after the truth has become clear to them..” [Quran 2:99, Sahih International translation]


Arafat planned “the two-state solution as a first stage” says PA member of Parliament
PA Parliament Member Munib Al-Masri: “When [former PLO Chairman and PA President] Yasser Arafat presented the two-state solution at Oslo, I was very angry at him, because it said 22% for the Palestinians and the rest for the Israelis. I came to him in Tunis, and he told me: ‘[Calm] down.’ Our thought in all this was the two-state solution as a first stage, until the Arabs learn-”
Falestinona host: “A temporary solution.”
Munib Al-Masri: “A temporary solution, until [the Palestinians] will live comfortably and are satisfied, and there will be the right of return and the like, and we will live in one democratic state.”
[Falestinona, Fatah’s Information and Culture Commission in Lebanon, YouTube channel, May 24, 2023]

Munib Al-Masri - member of the PA Parliament. A well-known businessman from Nablus, he had been involved in contacts with Israeli businessmen in unsuccessful attempts to foster Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.

Yasser Arafat – Founder of Fatah and former chairman of the PLO and PA. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Arafat was behind numerous terror attacks against Israelis. Although he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 together with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" after signing the Oslo Accords peace agreement, Arafat launched a 5-year terror campaign – the second Intifada (2000-2005) – in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered. Arafat died of an illness in 2004.




Iran: With Friends Like That
The Islamic Republic has been asking to be admitted into the BRICS group [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa] club since 2010 when the "Supreme Guide" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced his intention to create a "New World Order" through a triple alliance of Iran, China and Russia.

Tehran sources say the Iranian demand, though supported by South Africa and India, has been quietly vetoed by Russia and cold-shouldered by China.

Khamenei's dream of a "New World Order" led by Iran, China and Russia, has proven to be a pipe-dream shaped in the mind of a leader that operates in a fantasy universe.

The pipe-dream was partly punctured last week when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his first foreign visit after his election victory to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, ignoring Iran altogether.

[F]or years, the former head of the Islamic Majlis's National Security Commission Heshmatallah Falahat-Pisheh has warned that both China and Russia have treated the Islamic Republic as nothing but a source of profit for themselves.

Former Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh has warned that Russia, having pushed Iran out of the European oil market is now trying to do the same in the Indian and Chinese markets by offering mouth-watering discounts. Since last March, China's oil imports from Iran have fallen by almost 40 percent, according to unofficial estimates, with Russia claiming the part that Iran has lost.
Israel busts Iranian attempt to phish state workers via LinkedIn
Israel exposed an Iranian phishing campaign aimed at gathering information about Israeli policies and citizens, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) announced on Sunday.

The Iranian campaign primarily targeted Israeli civil servants and researchers at various research institutes and had been going on for several months, the Shin Bet said.

Fake profiles were employed impersonating Israelis whom would-be victims had been in contact with for professional or personal reasons. The Iranians would make initial contact through a phony LinkedIn profile, then later shift the conversation to email.

Eventually, the Israeli targets would receive an attached file in the guise of an invitation to a conference or an article or study of interest. Opening the file would introduce malicious software that would give the Iranian contact access to the rest of the target’s computer.

The Iranian entity’s appeals were based on information collected about the Israeli targets from social networks and the internet, and the contents of the correspondence and the connection were appropriate to their occupation and interests.

“The awareness and vigilance of the citizens they turned to, along with additional actions by the Shin Bet and the Israeli security system, thwarted the Iranian attempts to achieve their goal,” the Shin Bet said.


Iran’s Raisi demands return of $7 billion in frozen assets from S.Korea
A sum of $7 billion in revenue from the sale of petrochemical and oil products is being withheld from the Islamic Republic of Iran between two South Korean banks, Iranian state-run Mehr News Agency reported on Saturday.

In a letter penned to the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addressed the financial dispute over South Korea’s holding of Iranian funds.

The Iranian funds have been frozen in North Korea for some time. In late May, Mehr reported that the US was leading a joint effort with South Korea to unfreeze the funds.

At the time, Mehr cited Korean claims that the release of the Iranian money come under the condition that said money would be used for “public purposes.” It further quoted a South Korean government official as saying, “If all goes to plan, we expect our strained relationship with Iran to improve significantly.”

Additionally, a week later, in June, Mehr reported that the decision to release the $7 billion had been made. Nevertheless, citing “some disruptions,” the Iranian news organization notes this has yet to occur and that the money is still being held due to sanctions on the Persian state.
Iranian official promoting Islamic values suspended over alleged gay sex tape
An official in charge of promoting Islamic values has been suspended from his position in Iran after a tape was circulating apparently showing him having sex with another man.

The authenticity of the tape, which allegedly shows Gilan province’s head of culture and Islamic guidance, Reza Tsaghati, has not been verified.

According to the BBC, Tsaghati is the founder of a cultural center that has a focus on piety and promoting women’s wearing of the hijab.

The report said Tsaghati has been removed from his post and officials have denied having any prior knowledge of his behavior.

Same-sex relations are outlawed in Iran, potentially carrying the death penalty, and the LGBTQ community faces discrimination.

Earlier this month, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi launched into a condemnation of Western attitudes toward the LGBTQ community during a visit to Uganda.

“The West today is trying to promote the idea of homosexuality and by promoting homosexuality they are trying to end the generation of human beings,” Raisi said.


American Anthropological Association boycott of Israel will be to its detriment
At one level, the AAA and MESA resolutions represent the politicization of academia, where professors demand that their institutions adopt their politics in place of the often contradictory and always messy politics of the region. Professors know better; a passive-aggressive attitude that has alienated Americans on a wide swathe of issues.

But on another level, the AAA and MESA resolutions, for all their self-proclaimed morality, are the death cries of disciplines devoted to self-destruction. One result of MESA’s Israel boycott resolution was the abandonment of the organization by institutional members who could not countenance paying for discrimination on the basis of national, religious, and ethnic origins, or the attendant bad publicity. Individuals have also voted with their feet, with some reports suggesting a significant drop in membership. The AAA will experience the same results that MESA has

AAA should expect the same results. Not surprisingly, the number of Middle East studies and Anthropology degrees awarded in American universities continues to decline. Those who choose to remain in the professions are either true believers or experts at keeping their mouths shut. The reputational harm to the humanities and social sciences will worsen and intellectual diversity, already vanishing on campuses, will suffer another grievous blow.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Organizations such as ours, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) takes pains to welcome all viewpoints, while refusing to vilify any state or society. Anthropologists need similar alternatives.

Until then, scholars and the public should look on with deep dismay at the AAA decision, and keep the organization and the profession as a whole under a microscope for the abuses that will result from this decision.
Anger as Kanye West reinstated on Twitter after saying he'll go 'death con 3' on Jews
Twitter has reinstated the account of Kanye West, months after he was banned for a series of antisemitic posts.

Elon Musk suspended Ye, as West is also known, from the social media platform weeks after purchasing it last October.

At the time, Musk branded Ye's post of a swastika interlaced with a Star of David as “incitement to violence.”

Meanwhile last October, CNN cited several people with ties to West as saying the rapper and fashion mogul had long been “fascinated by Adolf Hitler.”

No fewer than four people alleged that Ye originally wished to name his 2018 album “Hitler."

The same month, in an interview on Fox News' “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Ye accused Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner of brokering the Abraham Accords solely because of his and his family’s interest in “making money.”

Days later, Ye tweeted: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”
3 resign amid San Diego Human Relations Commission antisemitism backlash
Three members of the San Diego County Human Relations Commission have stepped down amid controversy stemming from a commissioner’s antisemitic remarks.

Commissioner Khaliq Raufi can be heard saying on video (52:18 mark) during a July 18 meeting that the Torah commands Jews “to ‘go kill Palestinians. Wipe them all out.’ It’s a teaching that on a daily basis they teach their followers in their synagogues.”

Raufi stepped down last week, along with District Attorney Summer Stephan and county Sheriff Kelly Martinez, the only two elected officials on the commission.

The San Diego Union-Tribune described Raufi as “an Afghan Community Islamic Center member and refugee who served alongside U.S. troops before immigrating to San Diego in 1992.” In his resignation letter, sent to county supervisor Joel Anderson on July 25, Raufi stated that his “intention was never to hurt anyone through my words.” He accused the commission of not being a “safe space for people to freely express their beliefs and engage in community building.”

In her own letter, to Andrew Strong, the commission’s executive director, Stephan said that she was indefinitely suspending attendance after becoming alerted to Raufi’s remarks, which she wrote were said “in a manner that was disparaging and dehumanizing to an entire segment of our community.”

In Martinez’s letter to Ellen Nash, commission chairwoman, she stated that “the current divisiveness and direction of the Commission has forced me to suspend my participation,” saying that she couldn’t be a part of a commission that “does not uphold the high ideals [upon] which it was enacted.”

Local Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League of San Diego and Imperial County, the American Jewish Committee and Jewish Federation of San Diego, issued a statement condemning Raufi’s remarks.
The Nation Continues Tradition of Publishing Jew-Haters With CUNY Law Speaker Column
While The Nation has form for defending antisemites, including regularly publishing the hate-filled ramblings of professional Palestinian activist Mohammed El-Kurd, it is surprising that editors at the outlet failed to do any fact-checking of Mohammed’s 770-word defense.

For example, at one point she absurdly suggests that Israel is “threatening to provoke a major religious conflagration around the Noble Sanctuary mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem” in reference to Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount. But the fact is that Israel is trying to avoid such a flare-up, including by preserving the status quo which prevents Jewish prayer.

Indeed, the only people who threaten the sanctity of the site are Palestinian leaders who frequently incite Palestinian mob violence by claiming the al-Aqsa mosque is being threatened, such as when PA President Mahmoud Abbas claimed Jews were defiling the mosque with their “filthy feet.”

Mohammed finishes her propaganda piece with perhaps the most disingenuous statement imaginable:
I will not apologize for fulfilling my moral obligation to call out oppressive institutions and regimes wherever they exist, no matter what consequences I may face. Since Israel was established in 1948, it has wreaked violence and pain on the Palestinian people. Rather than targeting people like me who shine a light on that reality, perhaps Israel’s defenders should instead choose to stand on the right side of history and work to end Israeli apartheid.”

So, who are these other allegedly “oppressive institutions and regimes” Mohammed has called out? The answer to that is none if her commencement address is anything to go by.

In fact, it seems there is only one “regime” that Mohammed is interested in. Yes, you guessed it: Israel. We don’t have to wonder why.
U.S. Taxpayers Donated $391K to Terrorist-Defending Imam's Two Organizations
American taxpayers have, over the past two years, given almost $400,000 to two non-profits led by a radical imam in Boston. Imam Abdullah Faaruuq has lionized a terrorist convicted of trying to kill FBI agents and U.S. soldiers.

Faaruuq also handed out Islamist tracts to incarcerated Muslims while serving as a chaplain in Massachusetts prisons. He once described the United States as "the land of the coward and the home of the slave."

Faaruuq is a longtime advocate for Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S. trained neuroscientist who was convicted of multiple counts of attempted murder in 2010 and is currently serving an 86-year prison sentence for her crimes. After Siddiqui's arrest in 2008, Faaruuq downplayed the threat she posed to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, telling interviewers from National Public Radio in New York City, "The government, I think has little to fear from a girl about five foot one and about 90 pounds." Fifteen years later, Faaruuq offered nearly the same description of Siddiqui when speaking with Focus on Western Islamism (FWI). "She's about five foot one, 105 pounds," he said. "They had half a dozen military men with guns ... and they couldn't control a little girl."

It's an odd thing to say about a woman found with two pounds of sodium cyanide and plans for a mass-casualty attack on American soil in her possession when she was detained by Afghan police in 2008. Prior to her interrogation by American officials, Siddiqui grabbed an M4 rifle and began firing it at her questioners while shouting anti-American slogans.

In a 2010 speech about her case, the imam called upon his listeners to "grab onto this rope, grab onto the typewriter, grab onto the shovel, grab onto the gun and the sword, don't be afraid to step out into this world and do your job." This rhetoric prompted Americans for Peace and Tolerance to ask if Faaruuq was "urging Boston-area Muslims to respond violently to the arrests of Islamic extremists."

The following year, Faaruuq emphasized how "brave" Siddiqui was at a fundraiser in Worcester, Mass. In audio obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Faaruuq is heard to say, "They say she took up a machine gun while they held her captive ... and was ready to attack her captors. What a brave woman she is and what a brave woman she continues to be." Faaruuq also said that Siddiqui was "only guilty of trying to defend herself and if my mother was in the same place, she would have [taken] her West Indian machete and cut her way through those kafirs (non-believers)."
Following CAA action, Unite union cancels Bristol screening of antisemitism-denial film and launch of Asa Winstansley’s book ‘Weaponising Anti-Semitism’
Following correspondence with Campaign Against Antisemitism, the Unite union has cancelled the screening of a propaganda film about the antisemitic former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn that was due to be shown alongside a book signing and talk from Asa Winstanley.

Mr Winstanley, a controversial activist and the author of the book Weaponising Anti-Semitism, is a former Labour member who quit the Party after being suspended pending an investigation. He has called accusations of antisemitism under the Party a “smear” and has referenced “Labour’s manufactured antisemitism crisis”. He has also tweeted repeatedly in promotion of the conspiracy theory that Israel is to blame for the racist killing of George Floyd.

The event description stated that there would be a launch of the book which apparently “shows how Labour’s antisemitism crisis was manufactured by those who feared Jeremy Corbyn’s support for the Palestinian cause and a broad progressive agenda.” A book signing and talk from Mr Winstanley was then supposed to take place.

This was due to be followed by a screening of the film Oh, Jeremy Corbyn! The Big Lie. However, following contact from Campaign Against Antisemitism in which we pointed out that the scheduling of the event appeared to be contradictory to the reports that the film has been banned in all of Unite’s buildings, it was cancelled.

The news comes shortly after, following action by Campaign Against Antisemitism, Glastonbury Festival, YMCA, Basildon Council, the national pub retailer Greene King, Tolpuddle Village Hall, Yeovil Labour Club, a Nottinghamshire church and independent venues around the country, have cancelled screenings of the film.

The film claims that it “investigates the ‘secret war’ waged against Corbyn” and questions whether there was an “orchestrated campaign” against the former Party leader.


BBC News continues to avoid the topic of Palestinian child soldiers
Seventeen-year-old Ali al-Ghoul was shot while attacking an IDF bulldozer with a pipe bomb. The Jenin Battalion later put out a video showing al Ghoul and other minors making IEDs. Seventeen-year-old Majdi Ararawi was described by the Jenin Battalion as “one of the fighters of the engineering unit of the Al-Quds Brigades – Jenin Brigade” and sixteen-year-old Nur-al-Din Marshoud was described as “one of the fighters of the Islamic Jihad Movement”.

The practice of recruiting minors to terrorist organisations is of course by no means new but the BBC has over the years serially ignored the topic of the summer camps run by proscribed Palestinian groups.

In 2017 the BBC produced a special feature about “the grooming, then the recruitment and training to create a new army of child jihadists, who might grow into adult militants” in which it was able to inform BBC audiences that “[r]ecruiting child soldiers is a war crime”. That feature however was not about Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad but rather concerned ISIS:

In 2019 and in 2022 the BBC produced content relating to child soldiers in Liberia. In 2020 it reported on child soldiers in South Sudan and in 2022 in Yemen.

Although there is plenty of documentation in the public domain concerning the recruitment of Palestinian children and adolescents for rioting and terrorism, the BBC consistently avoids that very serious issue. The corporation’s worldwide audiences have therefore know nothing about Ali al-Ghoul’s recruitment to Hamas as a teenager or how he and other youths have been exploited by terrorist organisations for the production and planting of explosive devices.

Apparently such widespread abuses by Palestinian terrorist organisations are not considered newsworthy by the BBC.


Members of 'Newburgh Four' who plotted to blow up New York synagogues freed from prison
Three men who plotted to blow up New York City synagogues, a Jewish community centre and shoot down military planes have been released.

The trio, who were convicted more than a decade ago of the plots, were ordered to be released from prison by a judge on Thursday who said they had been manipulated by the FBI.

The men have been named as Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerra Payen, who were three of what became known as the "Newburgh Four."

A fourth individual, James Cromitie, did not seek compassionate release and is expected to serve until 2030. He was described as the ringleader by the US government.

In a scathing opinion against the FBI, US District Judge Colleen McMahon branded the men "hapless" petty criminals. newburghfour

Judge McMahon said in a 28-page legal order that they were "easily manipulated" by the government in a sting operation.

She said all four men were caught up in a scheme in 2009 to attack the synagogues, community centre and launch stinger missiles at military aircraft, driven by overzealous FBI agents and an "unsavoury" confidential informant.

The judge granted compassionate release to three men and reduced their sentence to time served plus 90 days. She cited concerns for the men's health and her own qualms about the original 25-year-sentence she imposed on the men in 2011.
Protesters turn up at Melbourne neo-Nazi powerlifting event at Legacy Boxing Gym in Sunshine North
A neo-Nazi powerlifting event at a Melbourne gym has gone ahead despite 300 protesters gathering outside to voice their disgust.

The European Australian Movement and Nationalist Socialist Network, which is led by known white supremacist Thomas Sewell, hosted the 'White Power Lifting Meet' at the Legacy Boxing Gym in Sunshine North on Saturday.

A social media post from the group stated: 'We implore members of the wider national community to celebrate the movement's exponential growth with us'.

The group promoted its inaugural 'all white' powerlifting competition on Saturday, with seminars and speeches on 'white power' to follow on Sunday at an undisclosed location.

'The wider nationalist community is invited to participate, but must be vetted at a meeting before the event on the 29th to attend,' an event flyer read.

'Australia for the white man!'

Protesters turned out in the hundreds on Saturday, demanding that 'never again' should an event of its kind take place.

'No hate, no fear! Nazis are not welcome here!' the 300-strong group chanted, accompanied by handmade banners and signs.

The demonstration was organised by the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism group who wanted to show that the community is 'against racism and bigotry in all its forms'.

'Never again. That's our message. Neo-Nazis are desperately trying to build a following, and they're doing it in the heart of one of Melbourne's most multicultural suburbs,' said rally organiser Jasmine Duff.
Meet 007: The cell with a license to kill cancer, created by an Israeli startup
To protect itself against disease, the human body has immune cells that patrol like police officers, entering disease cells and destroying them. But some dangerous cells, including some solid tumors, operate in stealth and cannot be targeted by the body’s regular immune system.

Edity Therapeutics, an Israeli startup founded in 2019, reprograms a patient’s own immune cells, giving them the ability to hunt down and destroy these cancer cells. It’s like transforming regular beat cops into lethal supersleuths.

After successful laboratory tests, Edity plans to start preclinical trials of an immune cell that the company is reprogramming to become a delivery vehicle. These cells will contain therapeutic payloads ready to find and destroy not just cancer cells – but a host of diseases currently without a cure.

If that leaves you neither shaken nor stirred, consider the codename of this avenging angel that could be the next breakthrough in targeted cell therapy: ED 007.

Edity will train ED 007 to identify solid tumors that are not usually recognized by the body’s own immune system, allowing them to grow unhindered and metastasize. ED 007 will inflame these tumors, triggering the body’s own immune system to kill the cancer. Because the retrained cells are taken from the patient’s own body, the threat of rejection and autotoxicity is hopefully eliminated.More on Edity’s funding round

“Science allows us to treat any disease in a test tube but there are still many diseases with no cure,” says Dr. Michal Golan-Mashiach, Edity’s CEO and Founder. “Edity’s technology will bring new treatment options to previously incurable diseases, offering new medicines to patients and their families.”
Israel inaugurates longest suspension bridge connecting J'lm Mount Zion to Valley of Hinnom
The longest suspension bridge in Israel will be inaugurated on Sunday and will connect Jerusalem's Mount Zion to the Valley of Hinnom, following nine months of construction at the cost of 20 million shekel.

The 202-meter (663 feet) long bridge is expected to be one of the main tourist attractions in the capital and will be open for pedestrians from 6 am to 10 pm daily. From the bridge, visitors will be able to see the natural valley that surrounds the Old City from the south.

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said the municipality has invested millions in the development of tourist attractions and invited Israelis and visitors from abroad to visit the bridge.

Before the 1967 Six Day War, the valley was a no man's land and used mostly as a garbage dump. Efforts have been underway to clean it up in the past 20 years, and clear hiking trails through it.

It contains archeological remains from different periods in History, ancient grave sites and a spring and is lush with natural vegetation and clear mountain air. Among the artifacts found, was a stone that archeologists believed was being quarried to be used in the construction of the Holy Temple but was left behind for an unknown reason.
U.K government to probe Channel Islands concentration camps
The official inquiry into Nazi atrocities committed on Alderney in the Channel Islands is under pressure to investigate why those responsible for committing war crimes on British soil were never brought to trial in the UK

UK’s Holocaust envoy, Lord Pickles discusses the launch of an inquiry into the number of prisoners murdered by the Nazis in the British crown dependency


Holocaust survivor uses Tiktok to educate millions
As a generation of young Jews come of age, they seek new tools to educate their peers about the painful legacy of genocide and antisemitism experienced by their beloved elders

Jewish World Weekly host Calev Ben-David talks with the great-grandson of Holocaust survivor and author of 'Lily's Promise' Dov Forman, about their work to educate about the Holocaust through social media




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!
 

 

EoZ on vacay

Mrs. Elder and I are on vacation, so I will not be posting, tweeting or making memes and comics as much as usual for the next week.

I'll probably only post as much as most bloggers do normally 😊


Enjoy!

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!
 

 

New poll: Palestinians are as rejectionist of Israel as they ever were

A new poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and  Survey Research of both Israelis and Palestinians finds that while both sides have hardened their positions towards the other, the Palestinians are far more rejecting of any framework that allows Jews to have any rights in the land.

An absurd 84% of Palestinians say that "the suffering of Palestinians is unique throughout the human history." Clearly no one teaches history in Palestinian schools. (80% of Israeli Jews say this about Jews, but they have a couple of thousand years of evidence behind that opinion. The worst event in Palestinian history wouldn't make it into the top 10 of the worst things in Jewish history.)

90% of Palestinians say "Since Palestinians are the victims of ongoing suffering, it is their moral right to do anything in order to survive." To Palestinians, "anything" means even the most immoral crimes against humanity. While 68% of Israelis felt the same way about Jews, I am certain that they interpreted the question differently than Palestinians do: Jews would not include genocide against others in that "anything," but I am fairly sure that Palestinians do.

The moral divide is stark in the responses to the question of whether each group wants to promote good relations with the other. Most Israelis do; the vast majority of Palestinians do not.


Israelis want to co-exist with Palestinians; Palestinians do not want to co-exist with Israelis. How much more obvious can it be that Palestinians do not support any sort of peace with Israeli Jews?

The Palestinians' idea of their "vital goals" is also something instructive - and largely unreported. While 36% said an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines and a Palestinian state were vital goal, nearly as many said the "right of return" of Palestinians to the hated Israel is a "vital goal" - meaning they don't want their own people to live in their own state, and would prefer that they are used as a means to destroy the Jewish state.

But beyond that, 19% said that building a state based on "religious values"  was a vital goal - more than double the mere 9% who said that democracy is a vital goal. Meaning that more than twice as many Palestinians want a state based on the Quran than one based on democratic values.
These extremist, rejectionist positions are always swept under the rug in Western reporting and "expert analysis," which still claims that most Palestinians want a two state solution. 


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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!
 

 



Saturday, July 29, 2023

07/29 Links: Caroline Glick: Present, past and the Tenth of Av; Biden can show his support for Israel by staying silent; Why it would be better for Israel if Iran enriched to 90% now

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Present, past and the Tenth of Av
So, 18 years after the Tenth of Av 5765, the main question that must be answered is why? Why did Sharon order the operation? Why did the left want it so badly?

These questions speak directly to our situation today. In regards to the left, the answer was given by leading writers both before and immediately after the expulsions. And it had nothing to do with security. It had to do with the same issues at the heart of the left’s protests today.

Six weeks before the expulsions, Haaretz ran an editorial explaining their rationale.

“The disengagement of Israeli policy from its religious fuel is the real disengagement currently on the agenda. On the day after the disengagement, religious Zionism’s status will be different. The real question is not how many mortar shells will fall, or who will guard the Philadelphi Route [connecting Gaza with Egypt], or whether Palestinians will dance on the roofs of [the village] Ganei Tal. The real question is who sets the national agenda.”

In other words, Haaretz, speaking for the left, declared it was reasonable to undermine Israel’s national security to maintain the left’s power to set national policy. The best means to preserve that power, the Israeli newspaper argued, was by destroying religious Zionism through a program of expulsion and demonization.

Haaretz’s editorial board wasn’t alone. Opinion-makers from Dan Margalit and Ari Shavit to Yair Lapid jumped on the anti-religious bandwagon using their prominent positions in the media to gin up hatred for the 8,500 Jews of Gaza and their supporters.

Margalit called for the imposition of a numerus clausus against religious Zionists serving in the IDF. Strict limits, he wrote, must be placed on the number of religious Israelis permitted to serve as officers.

Lapid insisted that the Jews of Gaza weren’t his brothers and he wouldn’t have a problem going to war against them.

Shavit wrote the Jews of Gaza deserved no protection from the IDF because as far as he was concerned, they weren’t even Israelis.

So, for the left, religious Zionists—and regular Zionists, for that matter—were their enemy, not the Palestinians shooting their mortars at Israel. The goal of the expulsions was to defeat them in order to preserve the left’s power to dictate national policy.

And what of Sharon? The answer to the riddle of what motivated him leads us again to precisely the point we stand at today.

Just ahead of the 2003 elections, a prosecutor named Liora Glatt-Berkowitz leaked to Haaretz that Sharon and his sons were under investigation for bribery. When she was caught, Glatt-Berkowitz said she had hoped to swing the elections to the left by publishing the information.

Most of the people involved in executing the expulsion plan who weren’t part of Sharon’s inner circle agree that the bribery investigation convinced Sharon to take the step he knew would devastate Israel’s security. Sharon understood that the prosecution and the courts were dominated by hard-left ideologues. To convince them to go easy on him and his sons, he adopted their policies and helped them to destroy their enemies: his voters.

Moshe Ya’alon was IDF Chief of General Staff when Sharon announced the withdrawal and expulsion plan. Ya’alon is now one of the leaders of the left’s anti-government insurrection. But he saw things far differently in the past.

In his 2009 memoir, Ya’alon wrote, “I have no doubt Sharon’s decision derived from external considerations. When he found himself in personal distress because of the criminal investigations against him … Sharon decided to turn the tables and take a dramatic step that blatantly contradicted his worldview and didn’t jibe with his grasp of reality.”

Most historians believe that the destruction of the Second Temple wasn’t inevitable initially. The Jews couldn’t beat the Romans in a frontal battle. But they had sufficient stores of food in Jerusalem to withstand years of siege, during which they could perhaps exhaust the Romans through attrition. The destruction became inevitable, however, when a tiny group of fanatics called the Sicarii burned all the stores of food. The Sicarii wrongly believed that the Jews could defeat the Romans, but the only way to get them to do so was to leave them with no choice other than to fight. Hence, they burned the food.

The question in Israel now is who are today’s Sicarri? The left insists that the Netanyahu government is because it insists on implementing the judicial reform agenda it ran on. The right insists that the leftist elite burning the country in a bid to preserve its power and privilege protected by the judicial system are the Sicarri.

By preserving the memory of the events of the Tenth of Av 5765, we find the answer to the question regarding the Ninth of Av. Jews who want to prevent the destruction of the Third Commonwealth— the State of Israel—must remember that time and that day, and live by its lessons.
President Biden can show his support for Israel by staying silent
The rationale most frequently provided by the White House for the president’s interest is fear that Israel’s democracy will be weakened by speedy parliamentary approval of a law on a vital issue without any support from the opposition, thereby loosening the common bonds between our two great democracies.

But this explanation doesn’t really hold water. It has certainly not been an issue in the past. For example, I don’t recall President Clinton warning Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 30 years ago not to press forward with the Oslo Accord, Israel’s historic but highly controversial peace agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was only approved (via a no-confidence motion) with 61 votes in the 120-member Knesset — a much narrower margin than the judicial reform vote. (I supported the Oslo Accords, by the way, and still do.)

And here at home, passing important legislation without opposition consensus is not much of an issue either. The White House seems quite at ease with Vice President Kamala Harris tying the historical record by so far casting 31 tie-breaking votes in the Senate, including on the administration’s signature achievement, the Inflation Reduction Act.

Democracies sometimes get things done by narrow margins. That’s how our system — and Israel’s — works.

Perhaps President Biden waded into the Israeli political morass in response to pleas from Israelis themselves, maybe even from some current Israeli government officials who despaired of their own ability to affect the course of their domestic crisis. If so, this wouldn’t be the first time Israelis looked to Washington to solve their internal problems. Here, the history is clear even if the lesson usually goes unheeded — it’s not a good idea for either side to wade into the domestic politics of the other. As often as not, well-intentioned intervention can trigger new, bigger problems.

To be sure, there is an important national security rationale for U.S. interest in Israel’s judicial legislation: that Israel’s adversaries not misread dissent for division and miscalculate into conflict. Indeed, there is a legitimate fear that the leaders of Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas see protests by Israeli military reservists, including the vow of many air force pilots to refuse to report for duty, as chinks in the Jewish state’s armor and decide the moment is ripe to put Israel to the test.

But, in this case, the proper response is not for Washington to warn Israel’s government that a parliamentary vote risks the foundational “shared values” of the U.S.-Israel relationship, inadvertently fueling its enemies’ warped rationale for adventurism. Rather, the right approach is to affirm the strength and constancy of American support for Israel, regardless of how it sorts out its constitutional housekeeping.
Biden's Legacy: The Axis of Tyrannies
[T]he weak and possibly compromised administration of U.S. President Joe Biden appears to have enabled and empowered the autocrats of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, all of whom seem to be working overtime to create a new authoritarian world order with themselves at the helm.

Iran, which has already declared a new world order, is, even beyond its accelerating nuclear weapons program, swiftly trying to reshape the world militarily and geopolitically wherever Western nations appear to be losing power. The Iranian regime also appears to be wasting no time indoctrinating it citizens with anti-Western and anti-American points of view.

Since the Biden Administration assumed office in 2021, its vacuum of leadership in the Middle East has led to the increasing influence of China and Iran in the region; the decision by the Gulf nations to dodge the US and tilt towards China, and even to the China-brokered deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran that further sidelines the U.S.

"The Chinese have a strategy they've been following. We kind of wander around from day to day." – Former National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, WABC 770 radio, March 12, 2023.

In November 2022, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed, "Death to America will happen. In the new order I am talking about America will no longer have any important role." The Iranian regime, now that it is aligned with Putin's Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, would probably be delighted to conquer the US.

As the Biden Administration has unfortunately created a leadership vacuum throughout the world, its apparent risk-paralysis and feeble leadership seem quickly to be leading to a new world order led by the Axis of Tyrannies: China, Russia and Iran, with North Korea heading up the rear.


US-Saudi deal to normalize Israel ties may be on the way, Biden confirms
The US-Saudi pact could involve normalization with Israel
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, in a piece published on Thursday, said Biden was considering whether to pursue a US-Saudi mutual security pact that would involve Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, one of Biden’s most trusted aides, was in Jeddah this week with Middle East envoy Brett McGurk discussing the possibility of a normalization deal, White House officials said.

US officials see a potential deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia as possible after the administration of former President Donald Trump reached similar agreements between Israel and Morocco, Sudan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates under the rubric of the 2020 Abraham Accords.

In an interview with Fox News published Friday, Netanyahu said an Israeli-Saudi deal “could be very close if the Saudis want it, it’s up to them.”

“I think this is a great thing if we have it. We will have tremendous economic benefits, it will have tremendous strategic benefits. It will be a blow to Iran and a boon to Israel and the US and the Arab world as well,” Netanyahu said.

An Israel-Saudi deal would “be a pivot of history. It will effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict and enable us to end the Palestinian-Israel conflict,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu has long believed that Israel must first make peace with the Arab world and only then with the Palestinians.

“The Palestinians, who refuse to recognize Israel in any boundary, are only 2% of the Arab world. If we make peace with the other 98%, the Palestinians will stop believing that one day the broad mass of the Arab world will destroy or dissolve Israel and that will bring them into a more realistic position,” he said.

Friedman in his Thursday column, however, suggested that Israel might have to pay a hefty price for such a deal – including a commitment to never annex portions of the West Bank and to halt any settlement construction beyond the built-up areas of existing communities.

He said Israel could be asked to transfer portions of Area C of the West Bank, which is now under IDF military and civilian rule, to areas A and B, which are under Palestinian Authority control.

Netanyahu’s government is unlikely to agree to such steps.


FDD: IDF Intelligence Warns of Growing Threat at Israel-Lebanon Border
Expert Analysis
“The status quo on Israel’s northern border has been relatively peaceful for years, but recent provocations by Hezbollah have disrupted this tranquility. Fueled by Israel’s political instability and a prolonged cycle of violence in the West Bank, Hezbollah and Iran perceive this as an opportune moment to advance their strategy of acting militarily against the Jewish state.” — Joe Truzman, Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal

“Hezbollah rightly calculates that America’s posture in Lebanon constrains Israel and amplifies the group’s deterrence of the IDF. Therefore, the IDF intelligence’s reading that fraying U.S.-Israel ties weaken deterrence against Hezbollah misunderstands America’s posture. The United States is extending a de facto protective umbrella to Lebanon and opposes Israeli military action. Israel and the United States are not aligned in Lebanon.” — Tony Badran, FDD Research Fellow

Hezbollah’s Escalation
For years, the IDF has warned of Hezbollah’s growing military capabilities. Experts estimate that Hezbollah possesses 150,000 rockets and 500 precision-guided missiles aimed at Israel with the intention of overwhelming Israeli defense systems. However, the terrorist group has avoided armed conflict with Israel since the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

That may change. On March 13, a Hezbollah operative crossed the border into Israel and planted a roadside bomb at Megiddo junction that injured an Arab-Israeli driver. Armed Hezbollah fighters erected a tent in Israeli territory on April 8, near the disputed Blue Line, and set up a second tent a week later. On July 6, Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile at Israel’s northern border, with parts of the projectile landing in Israeli territory. The IDF responded to the attack with artillery.

On July 12, three Hezbollah operatives received non-lethal injuries from IDF stun grenades after attempting to sabotage the security fence between Israel and Lebanon. On July 25, the IDF released a video of Hezbollah members patrolling the Lebanon-Israel border near the Israeli community of Dovev. The IDF did not specify the date the video was filmed, saying only that it happened “last week.”
Nasrallah: Middle East will not rest until 'cancerous' Israel is removed
The entire Middle East will not rest until the "cancerous gland" that is Israel is removed, Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday morning according to Hezbollah-affiliated media in Lebanon.

The leader of the Lebanese terror organization further warned that Palestinians today "believe more than ever in the resistance and on the axis of resistance." He also reaffirmed that Hezbollah "stands by the Palestinians with everything we possess."

Speaking on National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Temple Mount visit on Tisha Be'Av, Nasrallah stated that "the enemy must hear a decisive stance from all Muslims."

Nasrallah to Netanyahu: Beware of any foolishness
During his speech, the Lebanese terror leader also warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "beware of any foolishness. Netanyahu will hold a meeting with security chiefs Sunday to discuss the recent uptick in tensions on the northern border with the Lebanese terror group.

The Lebanese resistance "will not be complacent and will not abandon its responsibilities of protection or deterrence," Nasrallah said, amid tensions across Israel's northern border with Lebanon.

"[We] will be ready for any choice, and to face any mistake or foolishness," he said in a message to the Israeli prime minister.
Hezbollah uses Ashura religious events to show off ‘modern weapons’
According to Al-Mayadeen, the Hezbollah members were “protecting the march, in which tens of thousands of Lebanese participated, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, to commemorate the tenth of Muharram.”

Hezbollah members posed with weapons including what appear to be large guns that are intended to be used against drones. These “guns” don’t fire bullets but can supposedly neutralize drones using other methods such as jamming.

Rallies for the religious events took place in the Beka’a Valley and also other areas of Lebanon.

Nasrallah claimed that "Hezbollah's position is to defend Lebanon and its people and its oil, gas and water from looting.” This is a reference to how Hezbollah was able to use threats last year to pressure Israel into a US-backed maritime deal. Hezbollah has hijacked the government of Lebanon and gets it to carry out its orders at sea and on land.

Pro-Iran media such as Al-Mayadeen focused on Nasrallah’s threats to Israel. "Beware of any foolishness,” the terrorist leader said, warning Israel several times. "We will go out in our marches in defense of all the oppressed, the tortured and the oppressed, in Palestine, Yemen and Bahrain, and in the whole world,” the Hezbollah leader claimed.

Nasrallah also slammed European countries in the wake of recent Quran burnings in Denmark and Sweden. This has been used by Ira and also pro-Iran groups in Iraq to create new tensions.

Clearly, Iran thinks this issue can bring Hezbollah more support. According to France24 Nasrallah also made anti-gay comments. "In Lebanon, this danger started with some educational institutions and NGOs” he claimed, accusing groups of pushing “same-sex relations to children,” the France24 report noted. “He called on the education ministry to intervene.”

In short, Nasrallah threatened Israel and European countries, made homophobic comments and sent armed men onto the streets to hijack a Shi’ite religious event, all as part of Hezbollah’s overall octopus-like stranglehold on Lebanon.


Abbas hoping to lure Hamas into Palestinian 'unity' gov't in Cairo
Leaders of several Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the ruling Fatah faction, are scheduled to hold a one-day conference in the Egyptian capital of Cairo on Sunday at the invitation of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (who also heads Fatah). At the conference, the Palestinian leaders will discuss ways of achieving national unity and the latest developments in the Palestinian arena.

Abbas is also hoping to persuade Hamas to join a new Palestinian unity government that would end the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Last week, Abbas met in Ankara, Turkey, with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and discussed with him ways of achieving “national reconciliation” between Fatah and Hamas.

A similar meeting of the faction leaders held in 2020 via video conference failed to end the differences between the groups. Then, representatives of 14 factions in Ramallah and the Lebanese capital of Beirut participated in the conference, which ended with a joint communique strongly denouncing the Israeli government and the US administration. The communique also affirmed the Palestinian people’s “right to practice all forms of legitimate struggle [against Israel] and activate the comprehensive popular resistance as the appropriate option for this phase.”

Palestinian officials said they did not expect a breakthrough from Sunday’s conference, especially in wake of the wide gap between Fatah and Hamas. They said that Hamas is unlikely to accept Abbas’s conditions for joining a unity government, which include recognizing United Nations resolutions pertaining to the Israeli-Arab conflict and the agreements signed between the PLO and Israel. Hamas fears that accepting these conditions would be interpreted as recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

Abbas issued the invitation earlier this month during an emergency meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah to discuss Israel’s large-scale military operation in Jenin Refugee Camp. Abbas was scheduled to arrive in Cairo on Saturday and hold talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ahead of the conference.
Abbas in Egypt for Palestinian unity talks being boycotted by Islamic Jihad, PFLP
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in El Alamein in Egypt Saturday, the news agency Wafa said, ahead of unity talks between Palestinian factions boycotted by the Islamic Jihad terror group.

The Palestinian news agency said that as well as chairing Sunday’s meeting of the heads of Palestinian factions Abbas “is scheduled to meet with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.”

Last week, PIJ leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah made his group’s participation in the talks conditional on the release of its members and those of other factions detained by PA security forces in the West Bank.

In a statement to AFP Saturday, Islamic Jihad official Mohammad al-Hindi again denounced “continued political detention and prosecution of the resistance.”

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group is also boycotting the talks.

Sunday’s meeting will include the heads of other political factions, including Hamas terror group leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Both Abbas and Haniyeh met in Ankara on Wednesday in the run-up to Sunday’s crucial meeting. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has good relations with both, hosted the talks and said his government will do its best to push for intra-Palestinian reconciliation.

A Palestinian official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, said the talks aim to “end the divisions [between factions] in preparation for a unified Palestinian government and presidential and general elections.”
Tsurkov kidnapping shows who really runs Iraq
The kidnapping of the Russian-Israeli Princeton University doctoral student and Middle East analyst, Elizabeth Tsurkov, in Baghdad is the latest indication of who really runs Iraq.

The Kataib Hezbollah organization, identified by the government of Israel and by people close to Tsurkov as the body responsible for her abduction, is a legal part of both Iraq’s “security forces” and, in a different iteration, of its parliament, and of its ruling coalition. Simultaneously, it is engaged in an ongoing campaign of harassment, kidnapping, and possibly also killing of US and Western targets in Iraq, on behalf of its paymasters and controllers in Iran.

I should probably at this point declare an interest. Tsurkov is not the first Israeli citizen to have enjoyed this organization’s hospitality. That honor, such as it is, belongs, I believe, to myself.

An Israeli journalist who managed to interview, and escape, Kataib Hezbollah
In the summer of 2015, as part of a reporting project on the then little-noted Shi’ite militia mobilization in Iraq, I spent a few days with the organization’s fighters in Anbar Province, western Iraq. I even interviewed Kataib Hezbollah’s legendary founder and leader, Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, at a dusty militia base outside the oil town of Baiji, north of Baghdad.

At the time, the ISIS war was at its height, and Shi’ite militias were oddly and momentarily on the same side as the US-led coalition. They had been mobilized as part of the Popular Mobilization Framework (PMU) to face the ISIS challenge.

The Islamic State in Iraq is a fading memory. This does not mean, of course, that it, or something like it, will not rise again. Iraq’s Sunnis are for now a defeated and apparently largely quiescent population. No one should assume that this stance will last forever. But the Shi’ite-dominated PMU, in any case, is still in existence, is now part of the state security forces, and is growing stronger.

Unlike Tsurkov, I managed to get myself a safe distance from Kataib Hezbollah before it discovered who I was. I have not changed the assessment of the group that I made at that time, gathered from observation of its fighters in action, and from talks with rank-and-file operatives and commanders.
Why it would be better for Israel if Iran enriched to 90% now
With Israel consumed by an intense judicial reform debate, Iran is expanding its nuclear weapons program. The Biden administration continues to promote unofficial understandings with Tehran based on keeping Iranian enrichment at 60% in exchange for the release of billions of dollars. The goal: Kick the Iranian nuclear issue down the road until after the 2024 elections. The proper name for such understandings, which in many ways are far worse than the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, should be "false quiet for money", and not "freeze for freeze".

The idea behind these understandings is to freeze Iran's nuclear progress in enriching uranium to 60%, which is very close to what is required technically for Tehran to reach 93%, or weapons-grade enrichment. This gives the mullahs, for the first time, a win-win situation: a de facto green light to 60% enrichment together with massive sanctions relief. Presenting it as understandings rather than an agreement is an attempt by the Biden administration to avoid review by Congress, where it will face fierce opposition.

Israel is better off with an Iranian push to 90% without billions of dollars flowing to the regime and without the illusion that holding Tehran at 60% enrichment is meaningful. No real technical variance exists between 90% and 60% enrichment; the difference in breakout time to a bomb's worth of weapons-grade enrichment is a matter of days or a few weeks. The most dangerous technical threshold has already occurred when the Biden administration did not respond to Iran's enrichment to 20%, which is about 70% of the effort necessary to reach weapons-grade uranium.

For ten months after the US killed Qassem Soleimani, the regime stopped its nuclear expansion. Then it went all out after Biden's election and the end of maximum pressure. When the regime feels American steel, it backs down. When it feels American mush, it pushes forward.
Iranian actress arrested for wishing Netanyahu speedy recovery
Iranian actress Shohreh Ghamar was arrested after writing that she was praying for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's health in an Instagram story, Iranian media reported on Friday.

Ghamar was arrested on suspicion of "publishing offensive content and unsubstantiated claims," according to Mizan, a news agency associated with Iran's judiciary.

The Iranian Fars News Agency shared screenshots of Instagram stories it said were posted by the actress, including one with a photo of Netanyahu with the text "I prayed a lot for your health." The story was posted after the prime minister was hospitalized to have a pacemaker implanted.

Additional screenshots of stories reportedly posted by Ghamar were shared on Iranian social media, including one in which she criticized government officials for threatening to destroy Iran. Fars News Agency additionally claimed that Ghamar called for protests.

Ghamar supported Iranian president in campaign ad
A video of Ghamar starring in a promotional video for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's campaign was shared on social media as well, after her arrest. According to Radio Farda, Ghamar also expressed support for the execution of a death sentence against three protesters who took part in protests in 2018.
Adidas is making a stronger statement against anti-semitism in its next Yeezy drop
Adidas has announced the release of a second drop of its Yeezy stock, products developed as part of its now-defunct collaboration with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. The release, scheduled for August 2, will look different from the previous one in May in a number of ways.

While the last Yeezy drop was limited to Adidas’s members-only platform, this next release will also be available on a number of other retailers, but only via their websites. The decision to expand the range of selling platforms is likely due to the success of the previous drop, which led Adidas to improve its full-year outlook, cutting its expected loss from the inventory by 20%.

Adidas halted Yeezy sales after ending its partnership with Ye in October after the musician made anti-semitic remarks and allegations of inappropriate behavior against the musician during his time working with the German sportswear brand. Next of Adidas’s agenda was figuring out what to do with the unsold Yeezy inventory. Doing nothing would have cost the company more than $770 million. But selling the shoes as if nothing had happened would be considered hypocritical, removing the logo from the shoes would be deceitful, and destroying them wasteful. Adidas also worried that giving the shoes away for charity might have simply fueled a black market.

Bjorn Gulden, the former Puma chief who became Adidas’s CEO after the Ye fiasco, presented a solution in May: selling Yeezy while ensuring that parts of the proceeds would go towards non-profit organizations working towards ending racial hatred and anti-semitism. The Financial Times reported earlier this week that Adidas picked five organizations in the US and China as its charity partners, and that the donations amounted to €8.5 million ($9.3 million). Adidas has publicly identified the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change as recipients but did not specify the donation’s amount, simply referring to it as “significant.”

With this latest release, Adidas added Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) to its list of charity partners. To support the organization’s work, the company said that a limited number of Yeezy products sold directly by Adidas in North America would feature the organization’s blue pins, released as part of its #StandUpToJewishHate campaign. The company is also inviting submissions from other organizations seeking to propose projects aimed at fighting discrimination and hatred in sports.


Amazon Labor Union Alongside Anti-Zionist Activist Linda Sarsour Accuses Israel of ‘Apartheid’
The Amazon Labor Union, which represents more than 8,000 employees at the tech behemoth, took part in a protest on Wednesday accusing Israel of apartheid and genocide in response to an Amazon contract with the Israeli government.

Videos and photos provided to The Algemeiner show executives from AWS and Salesforce being disrupted at least five times during their keynote address at the Amazon Web Services summit in New York. Dozens of protesters outside the event held signs with slogans including “Zionism is Genocide,” “Israeli Apartheid and Genocide Funded by the US,” and “Amazon Profit$ Off Israel’s Military Occupation.” The organizers claim that Wednesday’s anti-Israel protest was the first time that Amazon tech workers and warehouse workers have protested together.

Another speaker and organizer at Wednesday’s protest, the Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, who has a history of making statements widely considered by Jewish groups to be antisemitic and whose MPower Change organization runs the ongoing #NoTechForApartheid campaign against Amazon and Google, said that she was happy to see Israel’s democracy “crumble from within” amid the judicial reform protests.

“I want you all to know that while the Palestinian people are suffering oppression, brutality, and murder and genocide at the hands of the state of Israel, they’re still resilient,” Sarsour said.

The Amazon Labor Union’s President Christian Smalls on Twitter Wednesday liked and retweeted a post describing the protest as opposing the “Israeli apartheid regime,” while the union’s main Twitter account approvingly quote Tweeted a post from Sarsour’s MPower Change.

The organizers of the protest, which included the Amazon Labor Union, the Alphabet Workers Union and Jewish Voice for Peace, allege that Amazon and Alphabet–the parent company of Google–are participating in Israeli “apartheid” against the Palestinians as a result of a $1.2 billion contract the companies have signed with the Israeli government for cloud computing services. The “Project Nimbus” contract aims to move Israeli government services into the cloud with support from the two tech giants.


Globe & Mail Commentator Calls for Canada to Downgrade Ties With Israel
When the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passed an important component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul legislation on July 24, it attracted news coverage around the world, highly unsurprisingly given the ongoing regular protests across Israel against the proposal.

And while many pundits have criticized the legislation, others have dishonestly used the opportunity to call into question Canada’s relationship with Israel.

In a July 28 column in The Globe & Mail entitled: “Canada must rethink its friendship with Israel,” Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa, called Israel’s judicial overhaul an “assault on democratic norms,” and wrote that it raises “difficult questions for Canada” as it relates to Israel. He later argued that Canada should refuse to deal with some Israeli government ministers, become more vocal in its opposition to Israeli government actions, and even “freeze or reduce co-operation with Israel on some issues.” He also called for Canada to cease voting in favour of Israel at the United Nations (UN), which it regularly does.

Juneau lamented the lack of progress in the two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians, and while he acknowledges “the extremist Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip with an iron fist,” and the “fragmentation of the Palestinian leadership” haven’t helped the peace process, he pinned much of the blame on the lack of progress of a two-state solution on Israel, which has “expanded settlements in the West Bank, largely closing the door on a viable Palestinian state.”

While common, claims that Israeli communities in Judea & Samaria (called the “West Bank” by news media outlets) are an obstacle to peace, does not stand up to scrutiny. Not only does Israel possess extensive legal rights to the land in question, but the concept that Israelis living in the lands of their ancestors is as much a hurdle as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which widely incite their population against the very concept of peace with Israel, is absurd.

In Hamas’ case, the hateful rhetoric is only the beginning; the Islamist terrorist group has been warring with Israel for decades, including in major rocket attacks on the Jewish State in 2021, and continues to call for the country’s elimination, and in its place, a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy.
Toronto Star Columnist Accuses Israel Of Planning To Annex “Illegal Israeli” Settlements
In a recent July 27 column in the Toronto Star entitled: “Canada’s feeble response gives green light to West Bank annexation,” columnist Linda McQuaig accused the Canadian government of giving a “feeble” response to Israel’s alleged “moves to annex the West Bank” (Judea & Samaria).

McQuaig’s concern is misplaced for several reasons.

Firstly, despite McQuaig’s statement to the contrary, there is no evidence of any looming plans for Israel to “annex” Judea & Samaria. While extending full Israeli sovereignty over the area is undoubtedly a favourable view among many members of Israel’s new government, that is far from equalling an imminent change.

Secondly, and even more importantly, even if Israel did extend full control over Judea & Samaria, it’s argued that this would not be an illegal move, nor an act of land theft against anyone. According to international law professor and scholar Eugene Kontorovich, such an Israeli act would not constitute annexation because no other sovereign country had title to Judea & Samaria.

Furthermore, according to the same international law precedent which gives Israel the right to any of the areas in the Jewish State, the same right extends to the lands of Judea & Samaria. “Because these territories were part of the British Mandate, Israel has as much legal right to them as to Tel Aviv,” Kontorovich argued in 2019.

In her column, McQuaig also made the unsubstantiated claim that “The presence of 700,000 Israeli settlers on Palestinian land — illegal under international law — is a flashpoint for violence.” The presence of Israelis living in their ancient and ancestral homeland is not illegal, but McQuaig’s allegation that their mere presence somehow creates violence is an irresponsible statement.
Israeli Arabs Largely Reject Henriette Chacar’s ‘Context’ on Israeli Arabs
Other surveys have similar findings. For example, a 2017 study by Arik Rudnitzky and Itamar Radai found that only 8.9 percent of Israeli Arabs identify as “Palestinian in Israel/Palestinian citizen in Israel” and 15.4 percent identify as “Palestinian” (“Citizenship, Identity and Political Participation . . . ” p. 22).

A third study, conducted in 2020 by Camille Fuchs of Tel Aviv University, found only 7 percent of non-Jewish people in Israel identify as Palestinian. Similar findings are apparent in the 2017 Shaharit survey.

CAMERA has contacted Reuters, requesting current credible polling data substantiating Chacar’s claim that Israeli Arabs’ self-identification as Palestinian has profoundly grown in the last three years, from less than 15 percent (at best) to well over 70 percent (as “largely” indicates on the whole).

If such substantiation does exist, then the information would indeed be a great scoop representing a significant new phenomenon. If it doesn’t, a correction is in order.

Stay tuned for updates.
Christian Science Monitor Misleads on Benefits for Arab East Jerusalemites
A Christian Science Monitor feature this week about a centuries-old east Jerusalem soup kitchen mixes heart-warming accounts of generosity and a dose of savory food descriptions with a dash of misinformation (“Centuries-old Jerusalem soup kitchen serves up ‘food with dignity‘”).

The article misleads: “As many of the Palestinians in the Old City do not hold Israeli citizenship, they often fall through the cracks of services provided by Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Jordan.”

In fact, Palestinian residents of Jerusalem’s Old City who do not possess Israeli citizenship receive national insurance, medical, educational and other social benefits granted by the Israeli government.

As Times of Israel reported:
Currently, there are more than 350,000 Arab East Jerusalemites, around 37 percent of the capital’s population. As permanent residents, they pay taxes and are entitled to state benefits like healthcare and social security.

The National Insurance branch serving east Jerusalem Arab residents of Israel is located on 16 Bar Lev Street. A photo of the building, with the Arabic writing under the Hebrew, appears at left.

The right to these benefits can be lost if residency is revoked, which happens when residents no longer maintain their center of life in Jerusalem. Such revocations affect a miniscule sliver of the population. Indeed, according to the U.S. State Department’s Report on Human Rights, just 66 Palestinian residents (representing less than 0.02 of the population) of eastern Jerusalem lost their residency in 2022. There have also been a small number of families who lost residency due to a relative’s involvement in security-related offenses.

Even the rabidly anti-Israel Institute for Palestine Studies acknowledges that Palestinian residents of eastern Jerusalem without Israeli citizenship receive National Insurance benefits:
New Study Shows on Twitter, Israel Falsely Accused of Violating Human Rights More than Any Other Country
According to a recent survey conducted by Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), based on a two-year review of posts on Twitter, Israel is accused of violating human rights more than any other country in the world. The report found that Israel faces those accusations on social media 38 times more than Iran, and more than 100 times more than North Korea. Both of those regimes widely abuse their citizen’s human rights, in contrast to Israel, a liberal democracy that guarantees its people’s rights.
Polish city of Warsaw adopts IHRA definition of antisemitism
The City of Warsaw adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism on Friday.

Warsaw adopting the definition adds the Polish city to a growing number of capital cities to do the same. Warsaw now joins Washington, London, Berlin, Paris, and others.

Poland itself previously adopted the definition in 2021.
Defense presses case that mental illness spurred Pittsburgh synagogue shooter
A federal trial for the man who fatally shot 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue approached its conclusion Friday as the defense, trying to persuade a jury to spare his life, pressed its case that mental illness spurred the nation’s deadliest antisemitic attack.

Robert Bowers, a 50-year-old truck driver from suburban Baldwin, was convicted in June on 63 criminal counts for the 2018 massacre at Tree of Life synagogue. The jury has been hearing testimony in the penalty phase of the trial and will decide whether Bowers will receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors have presented evidence that Bowers was motivated by his hatred of Jewish people when he opened fire at the synagogue on October 27, 2018, killing members of three congregations gathered for Sabbath worship and study. The defense argues Bowers has schizophrenia and acted out of a delusional belief that Jews were participating in a genocide of white people.

On Friday, a defense psychiatrist who met with Bowers 10 times for nearly 40 hours said Bowers saw himself as a soldier of God in a war in which Satan was trying to use Jewish people to bring about the end of the world. Dr. George Corvin, of Raleigh, North Carolina, said it was a delusion brought on by psychosis.

Corvin said Bowers continues to express delusional beliefs about Jews — “disgustingly so” — and that he is incapable of remorse. He said Bowers should be on antipsychotic medication.

Bowers “has a belief that we’re at the end of a war that’s been going on for thousands of years,” Corvin testified. “He still envisions what he did as an unfortunate act of violence at the direction of God — that it will save lives. He believes he’s a tool for God. I know it sounds absurd. It’s psychotic.”
Prosecutors cite Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s good behavior in plea for death row
A courtroom debate over whether the man who killed 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 should get the death penalty hinged briefly this week over the question of how many federal prisoners are Jewish.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Robert Bowers, who was convicted on 63 counts last month, including 22 capital charges. Bowers’s attorneys have been arguing that the federal Bureau of Prisons would likely consign Bowers to ADX Florence, the notorious Colorado maximum security prison known as Supermax.

Two former Bureau of Prisons officials who now offer paid testimony, principally for defendants, painted a picture on Wednesday and Thursday of an austere and isolated existence at the facility, with minimal interactions with other prisoners or the outside world.

The prosecution argued that Bowers’s confinement at Supermax was not as inevitable as the defense contended, and that he could easily end up at a prison with greater allowances, and might even be eligible for more amenable conditions as he aged. Bowers is 51.

Janet Perdue, who worked for more than 30 years as an administrator in the federal prisons system, said Bowers was a likely candidate for the Supermax because he committed a hate crime that got massive national and international attention. The prison has housed the Boston Marathon and Atlanta Olympics bombers, a founder of al-Qaeda, and, until his death last month, Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber.

“Given that his crime is a hate crime he may become the target of other inmates, I think,” Perdue said about Bowers. “Inmates would not take so kindly to seeing him in an open population and may cause him harm.”

The risk was not just to Bowers’s life, she said, but to the safety of prison officials who would have to respond to an attack.


San Diego Police Investigating Hate Crime Against Orthodox Rabbi
Police in San Diego, California are investigating a hate crime in which an Orthodox rabbi was verbally abused and assaulted by a young male, an ABC affiliated reported on Friday.

On Monday morning, Rabbi Aharon Shapiro, who works for a local Orthodox Union chapter, was shopping for sodas at a 7-Eleven near San Diego State University when someone asked if he was Jewish and then, he told KGTV, “without taking a breath…launched into a tirade against Israel, against the Jews.”

The man, Rabbi Shapiro continued, also said “all Jews should be dead, all Jews deserve to die” before snatching Shapiro’s tzitzits off his garment and running off.

“[The] alleged assault on a San Diego Rabbi that was accompanied by antisemitic slurs is reprehensible and another indicator of the hatred that exists toward the Jewish community,” the San Diego office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tweeted after the incident. “We are grateful that San Diego Police are investigating this incident as a hate crime and call on local leaders to condemn this latest act of hate.”

Monday’s attack on Rabbi Shapiro is not the first antisemitic incident in San Diego in 2023. In May, an unidentified person used their own excrement to vandalize the walls of a University of California-San Diego (UCSD) residential bathroom with swastikas, while in March, a man toppled a decorative menorah mounted on the lawn of Chabad House at San Diego State University, the second time such an incident occurred in two years and third time overall that center had been vandalized.

California had the second most antisemitic incidents in the nation in 2022, according to an annual audit by the ADL, with 508, coming in only behind New York, where there were 518. In 2023, incidents on college campuses have raised concerns about the safety of students.
"Antisemite Rips Mezuzah Off, Trashes Brooklyn Yoga Studio"
NYPD’s 61st precinct announced Thursday that officers are searching for a neo-Nazi thug who ripped a mezuzah from the doorpost and vandalized a yoga studio this week in Brooklyn’s Manhattan Beach neighborhood.

The perpetrator, a tattooed skinhead seen on security photos released by police, scrawled a swastika on a blackboard in the studio, adding next to it, “Nazi punk f—k off” in capital letters.

“Prayer documents” were removed by the vandal at the Yoga Hell studio on East 17th Street, and “religious items were damaged,” during the July 18 incident, police said.

Studio owner Katia Riva said she does not intend to cancel classes at the studio over the incident.


Egypt pressing Israel to increase gas exports
Proponents say increasing gas exports would enhance Israel's status in the region, strengthen the economy and encourage more bids for new exploration licenses.

A decision on Israel's natural gas export permits from Israel is set to be taken, and "Globes" has learned that last Sunday the recommendation by Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Israel Katz was discussed by his top officials. This discussion preceded Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich's response to Moody's warning on political developments in Israel in which he said, "The gas industry is increasing exports to Europe."

Israel's must balance between energy security and strengthening Israel's regional status through gas exports, in particular vis-a-vis Egypt. "Globes" has learned that in a recent meeting between the head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamal, who is considered the second most powerful person in Cairo after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Israel's National Security Council head, Tzachi Hanegbi, the Egyptian official pressed Israel to approve an increase in exports. The Egyptians, who are in an economically problematic situation, are interested in Israeli gas both for conveyance through Egyptian liquefaction facilities to Europe (Cairo buys natural gas from Israel for $7.5 per thermal unit, and makes profits in the LNG market) and for its domestic economy.

Egypt's annual gas consumption totals 70-75 BCM (billion cubic meters), with Egypt itself producing about 60-63 BCM. In Israel gas consumption in 2022 was 12.7 BCM, and export volume was 9.2 BCM, including 4.62 BCM to Egypt through the EMG pipeline. These exports are from the Leviathan field, which has maximum annual export production capacity of 12 BCM per year, 11 BCM per year from Tamar and 7 BCM per year from Karish. For the reservoir partners to expand production capabilities, an estimated investment of $3 billion is required for Leviathan and $1 billion for Tamar, and they need to know that they will be able to export more.
What happened to Prisoner X? New film seeks to shed light on disgraced Mossad agent
The question of the true story behind the downfall of Prisoner X — Australian-Israeli Mossad agent Ben Zygier — rattled Israel for much of 2013. But few concrete answers ever arose.

After news broke that Zygier had been secretly imprisoned and then took his own life while behind bars in 2010, contradictory rumors and reports of his activities reverberated around the world. Did he out a Hezbollah double agent? Leak information to Australia? Or Dubai? Did he actually kill himself, or was he murdered in prison?

A new documentary from Israeli Hilla Medalia and Australian Amos Roberts, which premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival earlier this month and will air on Israel’s HOT and Australia’s ABC this fall, seeks to shed some light on the explosive story.

In interviews with friends, journalists, his attorney and through recreated testimony from an anonymous Mossad operative, “Prisoner X” explores how Zygier evolved from a young idealistic Zionist growing up in Melbourne to a young father of two accused of treason and driven to suicide in solitary confinement.

The film tells a dynamic and gripping story for those unfamiliar with the plot, but provides few new details or theories about the life and death of Zygier. So much has been written in the decade since the explosive story was first uncovered, with so many different theories floated, that it is difficult to discern if there was new or simply repackaged information.






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