Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 24, 2024

05/24 Links Pt2: A Contemptible Response to Anti-Semitism; Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Columbia; How Israel lost the elites and won the people - a Eurovision story

From Ian:

How Israel lost the elites and won the people - a Eurovision story

Eurovision celebrates diversity, so it was not surprising to see thousands of Islamists gain interest in the contest this year. Thousands of passionate keffiyeh-clad fans took the street in Malmo days before the contest, singing their own songs of Intifada and other golden living dreams of vision. So moved was the crowd by the music, that Israeli performer Eden Golan had to be escorted in and out of the arena by a convoy of hundreds of police officers and advised not to leave her hotel room during her entire stay. Eden was booed at every rehearsal. The Irish contestant, draped in a keffiyeh that matched their facial tattoos, proudly reported that they cried when Israel qualified for the final. The Greek participant pretended to sleep when Eden spoke at the press conference, and the Dutch singer covered his face and mocked her, in one of several last straws that ended in his disqualification hours before showtime. But perhaps the most egregious of all is when a member of the press asked Eden if she felt it was irresponsible for her to be there, given the danger her participation poses to everyone else (she answered diplomatically like the princess that she is). Bambi Thug, the demon from Ireland

The smirkers, the hissers, those who asked Eden to delete a video they had just taken – it’s unclear how many of them were true believers and how many just thought they were reading the room. As any public figure who posted something along the lines of “thoughts and prayers” on October 7 can tell you, the online mob will set you straight about the Middle East. If enough people bully you into bullying someone else, best to go along with the crowd. If hundreds of people scream loud enough, discount the thousands who choose to remain silent. And all of it maybe would have been ignored, if the Israeli song wasn’t really, really good. “Hurricane” (deadname: October Rain) is a banger, and Eden completely killed it on stage, despite the unprecedented booing at the final. Yet when it was time to announce the jury votes, those are the votes by the panel of experts from each nation, many of the countries didn’t even include Israel in their rankings. They may have liked the song, but really, who wants to deal with those nasty Instagram comments? Avoidance is the safest bet for an intact follower count.

When the jury portion of the show had culminated with Israel at a disappointing 12 out of 26, Israelis began to close out our tabs, but refused to lose hope. And then came the popular vote, the unwashed Eurovision masses. The people of Europe had spoken, anonymously and without fear of retribution. A shocking 15 countries awarded Israel the maximum number of points, launching it into the very respectable 5th place overall, and 2nd among all televoters, an upset not seen since (insert sports metaphor here)

Were the good people of Switzerland paying homage to Theodore Herzl? Was the Swedish vote an affront to Islamist extremism? Was San Marino moved by Eden’s bravery against all odds? We may never know why people voted the way they did (though some antisemites on X have theories), but one thing has been clear throughout the years – Eurovision fans like a good performance and a appreciate an underdog. We threw our espresso martinis in the air and hugged strangers in rainbow flag yarmulkas. We were in lockstep with the world again. The ugly duckling had transformed into a beautiful, socially acceptable swan.

I walked home with my head held high. The loud hateful voices were drowned out, and the room people thought they were reading – well, turns out they were in the wrong room. My joy only lasted a few minutes1. It was not lost on me that nothing has changed - 133 hostages are still being held by Hamas in Gaza. My country is fighting an existential war, increasingly alone. And my other country, the United States, is torn between caving in to the bullies and standing up for what’s right. Perhaps we’d all be better off caring less about what people think, and more about what they do. As Eden says (do you really think this piece won’t end with a cheesy lyric?): “Take it all, and leave the world behind”.

Seth Mandel: A Contemptible Response to Anti-Semitism

Scott and Bonamici both gave quite contemptible performances, complaining about holding the hearings (i.e., doing their job) while remaining militantly unwilling to condemn anti-Semitism without diluting it with “and Islamophobia.” Courtney, however, seemed to be acting in good faith.

For example, Courtney voted in favor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act earlier this month, which assists the Education Department with identifying Title VI-related civil-rights violations concerning anti-Semitism on campus. Courtney, then, can at least lay claim to consistency. Not so Bonamici and Scott, who voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

Whatever Bonamici and Scott are worried about, it isn’t Title VI enforcement. In fact, responding to a plea for civil rights enforcement from Jewish students by demanding more cash has a certain “Your money or your life” ring to it. Is this a protection racket?

Bonamici is particularly hostile to doing her job. Instead of having hearings and investigating the problem, she wants Congress to “work with experts on anti-Semitism, legal scholars with expertise in the area, people knowledgeable in the field who can help us determine what the government response can and should be to the increase in anti-Semitism and racial hostility on campuses.”

First of all, the “anti-Semitism and” does not go unnoticed there. Second, “anti-Semitism experts” already told you what to do about it. They said vote for the Antisemitism Awareness Act. You, Suzanne Bonamici, chose not to follow their advice. Third, the “government response” is to hold these hearings as part of their investigative process. Suzanne Bonamici may not be doing very much with her time, but committee chair Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) has been pairing the hearings with a comprehensive document dive to find out what has been going on at these campuses for years now, and those investigations have informed the subsequent hearings.

“Give us more money” is not an answer here. Neither is anything called “the anti-Semitism police.” Universities are teaching their students blood libels and then encouraging those same students’ physical expression of that anti-Semitism. They are doing so with public money. If that doesn’t bother you, you might be morally unfit to serve in Congress. If it bothers you that it bothers others, the areas of public life for which you are morally unfit expands exponentially.

Christopher Rufo: Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Columbia

The real scandal is that the university has long since relinquished its role as the responsible authority. There should be no sympathy for President Shafik and other administrators, who have perpetuated a colossal double standard: teaching students how to conduct a radical left-wing protest, and then arresting them as soon as they did exactly what their university had encouraged them to do.

In any conflict, people naturally want to pick a side. Sometimes, however, no one is worthy of support.

Columbia’s Intifada is one such conflict. The students are obviously in the wrong, promoting anti-Semitism, destroying property, and using violent methods to achieve dubious political aims. The faculty are a disaster: their ideologies are anathema to scholarly detachment and their re-enactments of 1968 are childish and nihilistic. And the administration is complicit in the entire drama. Bollinger established the conditions for this disaster, and Shafik did nothing to change them—she saw the light only after it was blinding her.

The only exception in the Columbia mess is the New York Police Department. The NYPD demonstrated remarkable discipline and competence in dismantling the violent protests and removing student activists from Hamilton Hall. They went in with the capacity for overwhelming force, but practiced impressive restraint, denying the protesters what they wanted: dramatic televisual images of the police violently assaulting the students. The police, too, had studied the lessons of 1968—and refused to participate in its reenactment.

We don’t have to choose a side, but this does not mean that those of us on the outside have no influence. In recent years, Columbia has received approximately $1 billion in annual federal funding—meaning the American taxpayer is funding the Ivy League Intifada.

Congress could change this dynamic tomorrow. Rather than subsidize left-wing activism and pseudo-scholarship, congressional representatives could strip funding from Columbia and other Ivy League universities, impose severe restrictions on discriminatory DEI departments, and restrict all future support for left-wing ideological programs such as “decolonization” and “post-colonial theory.” This is within the purview of Congress, and in the best interest of the American people.

Ultimately, Minouche Shafik is just a symbol. She presides over an institution that is not under her control. The faster that Congress can change the structural conditions that underpin these institutions, the better. Rather than boycott, divest, and sanction Israel, Congress should boycott, divest, and sanction the Ivy League.

Now, there’s an activist campaign the American public could easily support.

To The Intercept, calling Zionists "Babylon swine" and telling them to "go back to Yiddish land" is simply "criticism of Zionism."

The Intercept has an article about academics who lost their jobs because, they claim, of their support for Palestinians or their criticism of Israel. They are never antisemitic, never hateful, never let go for any valid cause, according to the article.

Here's one of their examples:

“I was fired after 18 years as a professor of Latin American and Caribbean studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice,” Danny Shaw said. He was told last month by administrators at the college, which is part of the public City University of New York system, that he would not be reappointed to his longtime adjunct position. Shaw’s colleagues had moved to reappoint him but were overruled by John Jay President Karol Mason, according to an open letter from the economics department.

On his X account in mid-October, in the wake of stridently bellicose remarks from Israeli officials, Shaw wrote in a now-deleted post that Zionism “is beyond a mental illness; it’s a genocidal disease.” The target was unambiguously Zionist ideology and its adherents, not Jews for being Jewish. The speech is also clearly within the bounds of First Amendment protections. It was, of course, decried as antisemitic.

Let's see what Shaw actually wrote:

“These Zi^nists are straight Babylon swine. We need to protest their neighborhoods...Why are you racist arrogant bullies?...Zionism is beyond a mental illness; it’s genocidal disease."

Three of the four sentences are reprehensible lies, but are quite within the bounds of free speech.

The second sentence, however, cannot be read as anything other than incitement to harass Jews. What else could a Zionist neighborhood be? Do Republicans protest random Democratic neighborhoods, or vice versa, without a specific person or organization in mind? The only time I can recall a demonstration at a neighborhood itself was the neo-Nazis marching in Skokie, Illinois in 1977.

I'm a little less clear ont he "Babylon swine" reference, but since Jew were exiled to Babylon, it doesn't seem to be referring to anyone but Jews.

And then you can add a little more context to see if Shaw means "Jews" when he says "Zionists." As the ADL reports, and no one I can see denies,

At a Sunday, October 15, 2023, rally, Shaw reportedly shouted, “Zionism is a trap. Go back to your true history. Go back to Yiddish land!"

The guy is an antisemite, full stop.

Now, was he "fired"? No. His contract was not renewed. Just as would happen if an adjunct professor was heard saying and writing pro-slavery statements. The First amendment has nothing to do with it. It is not a freedom of speech issue - a college ha the right not to renew a contract for any reason or no reason whatsoever. Here, the reason is clear: Shaw is a disgusting, hateful bigot who should not be in a position to teach or influence students.

And The Intercept is whitewashing his antisemitism and incitement to violence.

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!

05/24 Links Pt1: IDF: 'Rafah op. doesn't contradict ICJ ruling, we will continue,'; Netanyahu requests release of 43-minute Hamas atrocity film; Three US soldiers hurt on pier

From Ian:

'Rafah op. doesn't contradict ICJ ruling, we will continue,' Israel says

The IDF intends to push on with its military operation in Rafah to defeat Hamas, Minister-without-portfolio Benny Gantz told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday, after the International Court of Justice’s demand that it halt any campaign in that area to destroy the Palestinian people.

“The State of Israel is committed to continue fighting to return its hostages and promise the security of its citizens - wherever and whenever necessary - including in Rafah,” Gantz said in a statement he issued late Friday after the ICJ ruling.

Gantz is both a former Defense Minister and IDF Chief-of-Staff and is a member of Israel’s small war cabinet. Both in his statement to the public and in his conversation with Blinken he stressed the importance of continuing the campaign to defeat Hamas and to ensure the return of the remaining 125 hostages kidnapped on October 7 and held in Gaza.

The National Security Council and the Foreign Ministry also stressed Israel's intention to continue with its Rafah operation, noting that the military campaign was designed to target Hamas, not Palestinian civilians.

It noted that the order issued by the ICJ, in which it stated that Israel must “halt its military offensive and any other actions in the Rafah Governate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The Israeli declaration said that the IDF has not and will not carry out military activity in the Rafah area that would destroy the Palestinian people, and was in compliance with international law.

“Israel will continue its efforts to allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip and act, in accordance with the law, to reduce as much as possible the damage to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip,” the declaration stated.

“Israel will continue to keep the Rafah crossing open, allow continuous humanitarian aid to enter from the Egyptian side of the crossing, and prevent terrorist organizations from controlling the crossing.”

Israel in its statement took issue with the larger context of the ICJ ruling, which was issued as the tribunal is adjudicating South Africa’s claim that it is committing genocide against the Palestinian people and is therefore in violation of the 1948 genocide convention.

It stressed that “the accusations of South Africa against Israel at the ICJ in The Hague regarding "genocide" are false, outrageous and disgusting.” Hamas and PA applaud ICJ decision

Hamas and the Palestinian Authority welcomed the ICJ ruling. Hamas official Basem Naim said, “We believe it is not enough since the occupation aggression across the Gaza Strip and especially in northern Gaza is just as brutal and dangerous.

"We call upon the UN Security Council to immediately implement this demand by the World Court into practical measures to compel the Zionist enemy to implement the decision.”

Palestinian Authority spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, the ruling “represents an international consensus on the demand to stop the all-out war on Gaza.”

‘Hamas responsible for prolonging Gaza war’

Hamas started the war with Israel and is responsible for perpetuating the conflict by refusing to lay down arms and release the hostages, Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Thursday.

“Hamas started this war on Oct. 7. Hamas is choosing right now to continue this war by refusing to release our hostages, continuing to attack Israel and vowing to continue to do so as long as it can,” said Hagari in a rare English-language video statement.

While the IDF is doing everything it can to cause “minimal harm to those Gazan civilians Hamas is hiding behind,” the Palestinian terrorist group wants noncombatants to get caught in the crossfire, stated Hagari.

“We’re protecting Gazan civilians in Rafah from being a layer of protection for Hamas, by encouraging them to temporarily evacuate to humanitarian areas like we’ve done with around one million civilians in Rafah until now, who have moved out of harm’s way,” he said of the IDF’s ongoing military operation in the terrorist stronghold along the border with Egypt.

“We’re not smashing into Rafah; we’re operating carefully and precisely,” Hagari reiterated. “The IDF is committed to operating in accordance with international law and will continue to keep that commitment.”

Israel took control of the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on May 7, as tanks from the 401st Armored Brigade rolled right up to the station.

A day earlier, Jerusalem’s War Cabinet decided unanimously to “continue the operation in Rafah to exert military pressure on Hamas in order to promote the release of our hostages and the other goals of the war.”

The Rafah operation, which Israel estimates will last some two months, is being carried out in phases as opposed to a full-scale invasion. The phased nature of the operation allows for it to be paused should a hostage release deal be reached between Israel and Hamas.

Hagari said of the battle in Gaza’s southernmost city, “Hamas is in Rafah; Hamas has been holding our hostages in Rafah, which is why our forces are maneuvering in Rafah. We’re doing this in a targeted and precise way.”

Can Hamas Be Defeated?

Opponents of the IDF’s campaign in Gaza often appeal to two related arguments: that Hamas is rooted in a set of ideas and thus cannot be defeated militarily, and that the destruction in Gaza only further radicalizes Palestinians, thus increasing the threat to Israel. Rejecting both lines of thinking, Ghaith al-Omar writes:

What makes Hamas and similar militant organizations effective is not their ideologies but their ability to act on them. For Hamas, the sustained capacity to use violence was key to helping it build political power. Back in the 1990s, Hamas’s popularity was at its lowest point, as most Palestinians believed that liberation could be achieved by peaceful and diplomatic means. Its use of violence derailed that concept, but it established Hamas as a political alternative.

Ever since, the use of force and violence has been an integral part of Hamas’s strategy. . . . Indeed, one lesson from October 7 is that while Hamas maintains its military and violent capabilities, it will remain capable of shaping the political reality. To be defeated, Hamas must be denied that. This can only be done through the use of force.

Any illusions that Palestinian and Israeli societies can now trust one another or even develop a level of coexistence anytime soon should be laid to rest. If it can ever be reached, such an outcome is at best a generational endeavor. . . . Hamas triggered war and still insists that it would do it all again given the chance, so it will be hard-pressed to garner a following from Palestinians in Gaza who suffered so horribly for its decision.

Here are the things the International Court of Justice today instructed Israel to do, besides reiterating its January ruling:

Immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

Israel is not doing anything to bring about physical destruction of Palestinians.

Here's a statistic you may find interesting: There are more Gazans alive today then there were on October 6. About 180 babies are born every day in Gaza, which is an increase of 41,850 since October 7, higher than even the most exaggerated estimates of deaths.

The ICJ is instructing Israel to stop doing something it never did, never intended to do and never would do.

Maintain open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance;

Israel is willing and able to open Rafah. There happens to be another country on the other side, Egypt, that adamantly insists on keeping Rafah closed for political reasons.

The ICJ is instructing Israel to do something that it fully agrees with but is dependent on others who refuse to.

Here's another fun fact: Egypt is not mentioned once in today's ruling.

Take effective measures to ensure the unimpeded access to the Gaza Strip of any commission of inquiry, fact-finding mission or other investigative body mandated by competent organs of the United Nations to investigate allegations of genocide;

Israel is responsible for the security of any investigator wanting to enter Gaza. That means Israel cannot legally allow them to enter any areas that the IDF cannot guarantee they will be safe - which is still nearly all of Gaza. You can't have it both ways, giving Israel the responsibility to protect these missions coming in from the Israeli side while allowing them to go to areas where they could be killed. It is still an active war zone.

The ICJ is instructing Israel to do something that, practically speaking, is impossible under international law.

In all three cases, the ICJ instructions are based on circumstances in Gaza that do not exist in reality.

Which does not make the ICJ look like they are a serious court.

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!

Exclusive Interview With Dr. Irwin J. Mansdorf On The Psychological Effects Of Language In The Gaza War (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Irwin J. (Yitzchak) Mansdorf, Ph.D., is a fellow at the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs specializing in political psychology and a member of the emergency division of IDF Homefront Command. Earlier this month, the JCPA published his article, “Both Sides” and “Innocent Civilians”: The Psychological Effect of Language in the Gaza War on their website.

Dr. Irwin J. Mansdorf

I asked Dr. Mansdorf about his article.
His responses are lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Generally, when people talk about Israel and the Arabs, they talk about "the cycle of violence," indicating that both sides are equally responsible and no one side should be blamed. You write about how "the both sides argument" is used when discussing the Gaza War. How is that different? Why do people use "the both sides argument"?

The expression "cycle of violence" is a perfect example of a "both sides" mentality. Instead of assigning responsibility for "violence," it perpetuates a myth of "action-reaction-action-reaction." It is similar to the chicken and egg analogy. Since we are never told what came first, who started, who is persisting, and who refuses to end, it appears "both sides" are to blame.

You write that this argument is "a cognitively inconsistent mantra." How so?

Saying "both sides" are responsible is fine if it is true. Otherwise, it is illogical to contend that the victim is the same as the aggressor. In Palestinian circles, there is no "both sides." Palestinian culture and its Western supporters clearly place responsibility and guilt upon the Israeli side, whom they accuse of being colonialists and hence, automatically in the wrong. When some Westerners use "both sides," they are adopting a philosophy that holds that blame is never black and white. Since that is patently false, and sometimes there is right and wrong, the automatic assumption of a "what seems fair" argument splitting blame does not meet the test of logical consistency.

Another commonly used phrase is "innocent civilians." How is that phrase used and what are the underlying assumptions?

A "civilian" may or may not be "innocent." The tendency in much of the media is to again automatically assign "innocence" to all civilians, regardless of whether or not they actually are innocent. A civilian who harbors terrorists, feeds them, covers for them, and believes in their mission carries responsibility for their actions.

How does "the both sides argument," which assumes "an air of fairness," lead to the contrary claim where Israel particularly is blamed, in this case being accused of genocide? Why is it so difficult for the West to see Israelis as "innocent civilians"

In the eyes of many, Israel is a colonial power and its citizens are thus "settler-colonialists." They makes them responsible for taking land that rightfully belongs to the indigenous people, namely the Palestinians. Those who follow this thinking do not have a "both sides" philosophy but rather come down on the wrong end of the right-wrong formula. This happened because they adopted a false ideology related to a wrongly presumed colonial identity of Israel, which assigns guilt, and blame and thus negates innocence.

What is the problem of defining Gazans as "innocent civilians"?

Some Gazans may be innocent. But those who subscribe to the Hamas philosophy related to Jews cannot be said to be fully "innocent." In many homes in Gaza, ammunition, escape tunnels, along with literature of hate and racism against Jews were found. This does not take away Israel's responsibility under international law and moral behavior to protect these civilians, regardless of their personal identification with the enemy, as long as they do not become active participants in attacks on Israelis or Israeli soldiers. For example, on October 7th, there is video documentation of "ordinary" Gazans storming into Israel along with the Hamas terrorists and looting Israeli communities and homes. Many were also seen taking part in the kidnapping and spiriting of Israeli hostages back into Gaza. These are not the actions of "innocents" even though they wore no uniform.

Is there a difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority that would indicate a difference between Gazans and West Bank Arabs as "innocent civilians"?

The Palestinian Authority is no different from Hamas in its goals, although some of their methods may differ. The PA funds terrorism, incentivizes people to carry out terror attacks, rewards them when they do, and teaches--through an educational system that demonizes Jews--that Israel has no place in the region and Jews have no real history in the land.

You mention that after WWII, the Allies instituted a "denazification" program in Germany and the US had the Japanese extensively reform their education program. Was there a difference between the two programs? Was there a difference in the nature of the two populations which would require different programs, and would that indicate a possible approach in reforming the Gazans?

Every culture needs to be treated in ways that respect the mores and ways of that particular culture. In developing a program for the Palestinian population, the particular religious, social, and cultural mores that would support leaving terror behind and moving towards coexistence and cooperation would be embellished. A model for this can be found in the Gulf States which entered into the "Abraham Accord" agreements with Israel. They developed model educational systems that promote peace and cooperation and removed all references that negatively are associated with Jews and Israel.

You write "Legal requirements should not be confused with moral standards." Can you elaborate on that?

Despite the questionable "innocence" of many Palestinian civilians, and their clearly immoral behavior, Israel carries a legal responsibility to protect them if they act as noncombatants. Israel's moral code would similarly be consistent with this and at times go further than required under the law to protect civilians (e.g., providing advanced warning of attacks, actively moving civilians out of danger zones, providing more humanitarian aid than required, etc.)

Read “Both Sides” and “Innocent Civilians”: The Psychological Effect of Language in the Gaza War

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!

The Gaza health ministry keeps two sets of books. The media is only interested in one of them.

From the start of the war, the Gaza Ministry of Health has been maintaining two separate, contradictory sets of statistics on the "martyrs" of Gaza.

One started out as daily video briefings and then became press releases on their Facebook and other social media. Those statistics were identical to the ones released by the Gaza Media Office of Hamas.

The other one was a far more detailed report that had been issued every few days for months. The most recent one was 45 pages long.

Those two sets of statistics contradict each other.

The health ministry tried very hard to reconcile the two in the detailed report. During April, it divided up the "martyrs" into three categories: those who were counted directly from hospital visits, those who were reported by families of the victims that were deemed credible, and the amorphous category of "martyrs who do not have complete data."

On the last detailed report, the ministry described these categories this way:

The cumulative number of martyrs since the beginning of the aggression has reached 34,654 martyrs, of whom 24,691 have complete data with the Ministry of Health (20,976 are listed in the Ministry of Health’s records and 3,715 have been reported by their families), in addition to 9,963 martyrs who do not have complete data.

The last category is largely fictional. On every report, the difference between the "complete data" and "incomplete data" deaths magically added up to exactly what the Hamas media office claimed that day. Yet the media office would also claim 72% of the victims were women and children, while the detailed MoH statistics showed that they only counted about 51% women and children - and even if every single one of the "martyrs who do not have complete data" were women and children, a statistical impossibility, it still wouldn't add up to 72%.

In other words, the Hamas media office makes up numbers every day, and the health ministry has no choice but to report them so as not to call their bosses liars.

That became increasingly impossible over time as independent researchers started pointing out that the two sets of books were irreconcilable and Hamas must be lying. This called into question the oft-cited total that Hamas made up of 10,000 more "martyrs" than had actually been counted.

So the health ministry stopped reporting the detailed statistics publicly. Their last report was released on May 3. They now only parrot the Hamas media office numbers and no longer embarrass Hamas with their other report that contradicts Hamas numbers.

Like crooked accountants, the health ministry maintains two sets of books, and one of them is now secret.

The media has never been interested in the the "verified" MoH statistics. They have only reported on the higher media office number repeated by the MoH, thereby giving it more authority, even though the MoH knows it is lying when it parrots the Hamas numbers. For example, today's New York Times repeats its boilerplate statement, "The situation in Gaza remains dire. More than 34,000 people have died and more than 77,000 have been wounded, according to health authorities in the territory."

The existence of two sets of books is public knowledge. The old detailed reports are still available for any news organization to read for themselves and see for themselves that the two sets of numbers are irreconcilable.

Yet, for all the thousands of articles on the Gaza war, no major media organization is interested in this clear case of how Hamas is manipulating them with false statistics. They simply ascribe the highest casualty counts to "health authorities" who are knowingly, provably lying.

Reuters recently looked at the issue, and only briefly alluded to the inconsistencies, falsely claiming the "incomplete data" 10,000 were actual bodies that had been counted, based on a PA health ministry statement. Instead of looking at the actual numbers to see the contradictions, it airly reported:

In May the ministry updated its breakdown of the fatalities to be based only on the 24,686 bodies it said had been fully identified, and not on the more-than 10,000 bodies it said have not yet been identified.
When it made this change, the numbers appeared significantly less, prompting Israel to raise further questions over the figures.

This didn't happen in May - they had been keeping this other set of books for months. The Gaza MoH never claimed it had 10,000 bodies, or else it would have broken down them by gender and age

Reuters is not interested in the truth.

------

I am not even discussing the thousands of alleged "martyrs" whose names the MoH released with missing or impossible IDs. Which means that even the 24,000 number is exaggerated, by as many as 4,000 people.

If Israel's estimate of killing 14,000 militants is accurate, that means one of two things:

1. The 14,000 dead are included in the 20,000 - which would make civilians only 30% of the total casualties, which would be astonishing.

2. As in previous wars, Hamas is not admitting its own dead during the war, which would mean that there are indeed 34,000 killed of whom 14,000 are jihadists, which is still a very low civilian to militant ration for any urban war.

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!

The ICC partially based its "experts report" on "confidential material" - which can ONLY mean anti-Israel propaganda that cannot be refuted.

The ICC "Report of the Panel of Experts in International Law" has an interesting paragraph:

The Panel has operated pro bono and independently. It has unanimously reached all of the views contained in this Report. It will set out its key reasoning below, but notes that it cannot disclose any material that is currently confidential.

What confidential material could they possibly have?

After all, in Gaza, the only news that comes out is from Hamas media, people quoting Hamas media, and Palestinian stringers for news media and NGOs who are either supporters of or frightened of Hamas.

This panel of "experts" did not send anyone to Gaza. It relied on two major sources of information.

One was public news sources, Hamas press releases, Gaza health ministry statements, NGO reports, and similar.

The other is submissions from the public at large.. Anyone in the world could submit "evidence."

And in fact, there is at least one site dedicated to soliciting and submitting anti-Israel material to the ICC:

The "Justiceforall" site encourages everyone and anyone - not just Palestinians - to submit whatever evidence they have. Or pretend to have. Or made up. Or Photoshopped. Or created with AI.

The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened a digital platform to enable people to submit complaints online to the ICC with the option to add pictures and videos that show the crimes of the Israeli occupiers against them for the court to consider them and to take a stance against Israel. Those with information relevant to current events in Israel and Palestine are asked to provide submissions. Information submitted under this portal should relate to alleged crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC, namely War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide, or Aggression.

Anyone can submit information through the portal. You do not necessarily need to be a victim or witness of the alleged crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC listed above. Information can also be submitted collectively or through an organization (for example an NGO, your masjid, a church), as long as there is an identifiable sender.

This is a concerted campaign to flood the ICC with "evidence." It was publicized in anti-Israel social media groups.

How much of those submissions came from any verifiable source? How much of it was biased? How many submissions included Pallywood photos and videos, or photos from other conflicts, and said they were from Gaza?

We don't know. Because they are "confidential." Any submission by a pro-Israel source about the war in Gaza would be public information, since the IDF is transparent with what is happening.

So virtually all of the "confidential" evidence that we cannot review will be, by definition, anti-Israel. And as such, it is not evidence that Israel could defend itself against until a potential trial, by which time the damage has already been done. It is unlikely that anyone submitted to the court "we think the other side will accuse Israel of X, therefore here is the rebuttal" - you need to know the accusation before you can answer it.

In this way, anti-Israel activists could - and clearly did - stack the deck. The ICC "experts" are not experts in verification of facts, or investigating the social media posts of the submitters to detect a pattern of lies or bias or looseness with the facts. If a Gazan is shot near an aid truck, they don't know if it was from Gaza gunmen or Israel, but you can be sure they will only blame Israel and the ICC has no mechanism to verify or discount their testimony.

To give a simplistic example, many people might have submitted "evidence" that Israel bombed the Al Ahli hospital. Pro-Israel people would probably not have submitted evidence that it was a misfired rocket by Islamic Jihad and that the death toll was highly exaggerated, as the news media reported.. If the prosecutors only saw the fake evidence from the haters, and there were few or no evidence to the contrary, and the prosecutors were not familiar with the case, then that would become - under ICC rules - evidence for Israeli war crimes.

Multiply that by a thousand, or ten thousand. Hamas issues reports that are filled with obvious lies every day, that probably got submitted in different forms many times. At best, the IDF's own statements might be submitted (or solicited) once. The "experts" do no have the skill to investigate the facts, and they would tend to believe the majority fo submissions - even if they did not have an anti-Israel bias of their own to begin with,

There is normally very good reason why submissions should be confidential. Whistleblowers under a cruel regime would want to ensure that their submission never becomes public which could endanger their lives. .But that same mechanism to protect witnesses can be subverted to submit tons of bogus "evidence" that will be considered credible by default.

In short, the ICC submissions process is inherently biased when one side uses lies and propaganda as an essential part of their war strategy.

(h/t Irene)

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05/23 Links Pt2: How the Hamas pogrom galvanized Israel’s enemies; Tunnel with hostages' bodies was under an UNRWA building; The Washington Post’s protocols

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: How the Hamas pogrom galvanized Israel’s enemies

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, is a conservative in this mold. In recent months, he has accused Israel of killing too many civilians in Gaza, of deliberately obstructing the supply of humanitarian aid and of not abiding by international law. He has threatened to cut off the United Kingdom’s (very small) supply of arms to Israel and even implied that the country might unilaterally declare a Palestinian state.

This week, however, there was an abrupt change of tone. In the House of Lords, Cameron not only roundly condemned the ICC prosecutor’s move. He also softened his approach to Israel. Urged again to suspend arms export licenses, he noted that just a few days after the last time he was asked to do so, Iran attacked Israel “with a hail of over 140 cruise missiles”.

Cameron isn’t an ideologue. With woolly liberal ideals largely uninformed by factual evidence, he has generally gone with the flow of fashionable consensus. Now, however, he may be starting to realize that things are rather more complicated than he had assumed.

He has apparently been taken aback by the fierce reaction to his softer tone from within the Foreign Office, where his officials are viscerally hostile to Israel and are currently demanding that the government throw it to the wolves.

Moreover, in the wake of the U.N.’s drastic reduction of its Hamas-dictated and falsely inflated numbers of Gazan civilians killed in the war, Cameron has begun to realize that the evidence he was given by his officials that fueled his threats against Israel was fabricated.

Whether this signals a more general shift towards Israel by Britain’s foreign secretary is now almost irrelevant. For unless the Conservative Party somehow reverses the near-universal contempt in which the public currently holds it, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will become prime minister on July 5.

Although he is falling over himself to reassure the Jewish community that he has now cut out the antisemitism in the party associated with his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, few British Jews believe him. Starmer may have purged Labour of the most egregious offenders, but too many members of parliament and others in the party remain viscerally anti-Israel.

Starmer will also be keen to appease the Muslim community, which presages a harsher attitude towards Israel and may also mean an unwillingness to tackle extremist imams or Muslim antisemitism. The main problem, however, is that support for the Palestinian cause serves as the defining foreign-policy issue for progressive circles. This support drives Jew-hatred and a wish to destroy Israel.

That’s because Palestinianism is itself driven by Islamic Jew-hatred and is constructed entirely on the desire to annihilate Israel, erase the history of the Jewish people in the land and appropriate it for itself.

And that’s why the belief in the “two-state solution” is itself such a lethal error. Its premise is that the “Middle East conflict” is a dispute over the division of the land between two peoples with legitimate claims to that land. But that is simply wrong. The “conflict” is, in fact, a war of extermination waged by the Palestinian Arabs against Israel’s existence, in which a state of Palestine is to be a final solution to the existence of the Jewish homeland.

The failure of America, Britain and Europe to acknowledge this war of extermination has led to their sanitizing, incentivizing and funding Palestinian terrorism. Without this backing, the Palestinian cause and its terrorist strategy would not exist.

The requested arrest warrants and the performative posturing over “Palestine” are all part of the pincer movement of genocidal terror, brainwashed street insurrection and “human rights” lawfare aimed at the destruction of Israel. And this infernal process only exists because for decades, Britain, America and Europe have willed it so.

Seth Mandel: Hamas Has Exposed a Sickness in Western Society

Indeed, there is something very dark bubbling up to the surface of society these days. The people who latched on to semantics in the video translation look absolutely insane. Not strange, not silly, not eccentric, not unpleasant. Actually insane. The fact that some of these people teach in universities is a dirty trick committed against humanity itself.

Then today the Daily Mail released a video of an Israeli intelligence officer’s interrogation of two Hamas fighters captured on October 7, a father-and-son duo. The father describes, in detail, raping one of the Israeli women he encountered while murdering innocents that day. Then his son says this: “My father raped her, then I did and then my cousin did and then we left, but my father killed the woman after we finished raping her.”

I’m sure the same folks are out there trying to find a missing punctuation mark in the translation.

Why are people, some of whom are educators or otherwise part of the intellectual class, out here shredding their souls with a cheese grater? Why? I think one answer is that the only way to make Israel the bad guy here while still being able to sleep at night is to pretend Hamas doesn’t exist. Everything the civilized world has said about Hamas is true. Its barbarism has no limiting principle. And it does nothing but promise to continue carrying out these family rape-and-murder outings the way other people might take their kids to the renaissance fair on a lazy weekend.

There is simply no argument against the immediacy of Israel’s obligation to destroy Hamas.

At some point, we in the West are going to have to grapple seriously with the fact that, yes, the protesters and their faculty supporters are pro-Hamas, just as they say they are. The same is true of a shockingly important segment of the national political media. It’s even true of the odd politician here and there.

It is not true of the majority of this country, no matter what one might think reading the New York Times or watching the BBC. And our best chance at keeping it that way is by being brutally honest about the depths to which some in our society have sunk.

The Viciousness of the Left’s Turn against Israel

Naturally, neither the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez nor his political ally and compatriot Josep Borrell—who was as quick to express his sorrow over the death of the Iranian president as he has been to condemn Israel for war crimes on flimsy evidence—would admit any hostility toward Jews. These two socialists would instead fall back on the rhetoric of progressive internationalism, and their defenders would rush in to complain of the “weaponization of anti-Semitism” to stifle any criticism of Israel. Susie Linfield, a scholar of leftwing anti-Zionism, has some thoughts on this matter:
There is . . . something almost laughable—though also deeply irritating—about the increasingly talmudic debate over whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. [The magazine] n+1 published an open letter signed by many leftist Jewish writers, insisting that the two “anti’s” aren’t the same. But they couldn’t bring themselves even to mention the Hamas attacks by name, instead putting forth a sort of wimpy “all lives matter” line. So let’s stipulate: no, anti-Zionism isn’t always anti-Semitism. You’re not an anti-Semite? Mazel tov! Unfortunately, the political positions of many self-professed anti-Zionists are atrocious nonetheless.

And what’s so weird about all this is that in the aftermath of October 7, it’s become crystal clear that anti-Zionism is often anti-Semitism, and deeply so. The loathing, the resentment, the vilification of Jews is viscerally palpable in so many of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, articles, statements. The n+1 statement was titled “A Dangerous Conflation.” It seems to me that what’s dangerous is the vicious, unhinged anti-Semitism that is circulating all over the world and all over this country, including in its elite spaces.

This is one of the many striking passages in an interview with Linfield by Robert Boyers for the left-leaning journal Salmagundi. Boyers, although admirably open-minded, comes to the conversation with the assumptions of someone steeped in progressive assumptions about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, for which Linfield has little patience. For instance, to the insistence that the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS) isn’t anti-Semitic even if “some BDS supporters envision a total undoing of the Zionist project,” Linfield responds:
What does it mean to “totally undo” a national project—in this case, one that saved millions of Jewish lives? Who the hell is BDS to undo a national project? Are there other national projects on its hit list—France? Bangladesh? China? Why is eliminationism considered a valid “project”—a progressive project!—when it comes to the state of the Jewish people? What will the “total undoing” of Israel look like? We know the answer: it will look like October 7.

Pallywood Actors, Directors Still Not Convincing Enough For Major Film Studios (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Rafah, May 23 - Video production specialists in the Gaza Strip whose work focuses on the staging of heartstring-tugging, rage-inducing clips of innocent Palestinians killed, injured, or otherwise harmed by alleged Israeli attacks have yet to produce material with enough verisimilitude for the entertainment industry to take them seriously as marketable creators, motion picture industry insiders disclosed today.

Actors, directors, producers, and effects specialists in the Gaza Strip noted with frustration Thursday that their ongoing efforts to create content to buttress Palestinian claims of genocide and war crimes by Israel, while resonant in the media and online spaces, have failed for far to impress Hollywood, where executives and casting experts see the Gaza propaganda material as amateurish, failing to convince the viewer that it represents anything real to which they can relate.

"I spend hours each day staging these scenes of carnage," lamented crisis actor Saleh Aljafarawi. "I've played and filmed myself as a rendered homeless by bombing; as a surgeon treating people injured in Israeli bombing; as a corpse; as distributor of much-needed food and medicine to suffering children; as a child receiving distributed food and medicine; and a dozen other roles. I think my acting was top-notch. Certainly my sponsors in Hamas think my performances were good enough to keep paying me to make them. It's a but of a slap in the face to have those creative efforts shot down as 'amateurish' by a bunch of West Coast suits."

"I should have remembered the Jews control Hollywood," he spat.

Editors, cameramen, makeup artists, and other contributors to the "Pallywood" phenomenon voiced similar disappointment. "I love Gaza, I would never leave Gaza," insisted filmmaker Edwood Saïd. "I stay here to I can show the world our story, how beautiful this place was as an open-air concentration camp under blockade where we were all starving, before Israel came in and made it into an open-air concentration camp where we're all starving. I would never leave. And Hollywood won't let me, because apparently my art 'isn't convincing enough' or 'doesn't meet the most rudimentary levels of realism.' Total BS. This was going to be my ticket out of here. Did you know Hamas charges like five thousand dollars to let you out?"

Hollywood decision-makers defended their assessment of Pallywood as unpromising. "Maybe if it were animated," suggested a Universal Studios vice president. "That's approximately the intellectual level of the productions we've seen. In children's programming no one much cares how unrealistic the depictions are and caricature is the name of the game."

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05/23 Links Pt1: Hamas terrorists confess to raping, murdering women on Oct. 7; Unpacking the ICC's absurdity; The Israelis Prove Biden Wrong on Rafah

From Ian:

Andrew Fox Israel Is Succeeding in Gaza

So how does the IDF plan to achieve the aim of defeating Hamas? Through a political solution? Definitely not. No one on the international stage has expressed any interest in helping with governance in Gaza. Nor is there any evidence that these nonexistent partners would do anything other than act as human shields for Hamas, making it impossible for Israel to attack its foes when necessary. The idea that there exists some magic device to convert any sizable number of Gazans to embrace a political alternative to Hamas that would be in any way favorable for Israel can be generously termed a fantasy. According to polling, 2% of Gazans support an Israeli-backed administration. The majority want Hamas back.

Israel’s war cabinet has received significant domestic and international criticism for their lack of a “day after” plan for governance in Gaza, which has been echoed in recent days by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and war cabinet member Benny Gantz. IDF planners are therefore faced with designing operations to achieve a loosely defined goal, with no clearly articulated strategic end state for the operation from their political leadership—in part perhaps because the “end state” may be unsatisfying to Western ears. So how have they met this challenge?

If you look at what is possible, what the best version of “success” looks like, and what Israel is doing, I contend that in Gaza we are seeing a masterpiece of operational design within severe politically imposed limitations. The IDF is not trying to clear Gaza. With no ability to impose a political arrangement in Gaza, and a Gazan desire for continued Hamas rule, the IDF answer is: Let them have Hamas. But the version of Hamas that Gazans will get is one heavily degraded militarily, and, most importantly, with vast swaths of their tunnels and civilian-embedded infrastructure destroyed. In other words, the IDF aims to replace Hamas 3.0—the version that fought three wars against Israel and then launched the brutal Oct. 7 surprise attacks—with Hamas 1.0, which took over the Gaza Strip from Fatah in June 2007.

To accomplish that end, the IDF has methodically razed what Hamas infrastructure they could find in Gaza City, Khan Yunis, and now Rafah. They have secured the Netzarim corridor to control freedom of movement from south to north. It looks like they are trying to do the same thing along the Philadelphi Corridor and Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, to cut off the inflow of weapons and supplies to Hamas.

Facial recognition software in controlled areas allows the IDF to stop known Hamas commanders moving around. This posture also allows the IDF to strike when concentrations of Hamas are identified, to degrade their manpower, and then withdraw again: And that is what we saw at Shifa hospital and are seeing now in Jabalia.

At the same time, the IDF has methodically destroyed buildings to create a 1-kilometer buffer zone around the Gaza border—a measure that if enforced would indeed prevent a repeat of Oct. 7. If Israel has its way, nobody in Gaza is getting anywhere near the border again. However, whether Washington will come down against this policy remains to be seen, which is why for Israel, the key strategic goal in Gaza is arguably to limit as much as possible the internationalization of the Strip through fantastical plans for “the day after.”

As things stand, the operational end state looks like significant Hamas infrastructure is destroyed, its fighting capability severely degraded, and the border secured, with the IDF retaining the capability to strike into Gaza at will. All of this has occurred while shifting hundreds of thousands of civilians out of harm’s way and minimizing innocent casualties (Hamas’ human shield tactics aside). As John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, has repeatedly pointed out, the efforts the IDF has made to protect civilians is unprecedented in modern urban warfare.

Both the tactical and strategic accomplishments of the IDF campaign in Gaza are entirely real. The operational design that allowed for these accomplishments does, of course, come with disadvantages. First, the destruction of civil infrastructure will require a massive reconstruction effort. While innocent civilian deaths are real and tragic, the almost 1-to-1 combatant-to-civilian death ratio remains very low compared to other conflicts. Second, the Egyptians have been very twitchy about Israeli control of the southern border.

However, we now know why. Since the start of the Rafah operation, the IDF has uncovered some 50 tunnels that run from Gaza into Egypt, suggesting a high and ongoing degree of complicity between the Hamas leadership and the military and political leadership in Cairo.

Militarily, the IDF is hamstrung by international pressure to slow operations, and uncertainty about what comes next in Gaza—a choice that may at least partially lie outside of Israel’s control. For our part, Western critics need to eat humble pie and accept that, on the evidence of the last 20 years, our tactics are not to be recommended. What we are seeing in Gaza is not a failure. It’s a quite brilliant IDF operational design, within the bounds of what is realistically possible.

Caroline Glick: Egypt must pay a price for sponsoring Hamas

According to an investigative report in Tablet magazine, in exchange for its “moderating” role in mediating the war between Hamas and Israel, Egypt has received loans and investments from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the United Arab Emirates totaling more than $50 billion. While Egypt was on the brink of insolvency on Oct. 6, this inflow of money has now secured Egypt’s financial viability for the next several years.

There is no objective reason that el-Sisi’s extortionist pro-Hamas policies should succeed. U.S. leverage over Egypt is considerable. Use of but a fraction of that leverage by the U.S. can induce a significant shift in Egypt’s actions, at least in the immediate term. But rather than use it, the Biden administration to date, has rewarded el-Sisi for siding with Hamas against Israel.

Egypt would not have received its cash infusion from the IMF, the European Union and the UAE without a green light from Washington, which also provides Egypt with $3 billion in military aid per year. Rather than demand that Egypt follow international humanitarian law and permit Gazans to flee the war zone to Egypt, the administration has firmly supported el-Sisi’s refusal to permit them to cross the border. Similarly, Washington has been as critical of Israel’s operation in Rafah as Egypt.

Given the administration’s policy, it is time for American lawmakers who understand the danger Hamas’s survival poses to begin criticizing and Egypt’s nefarious role in facilitating Hamas’s weapons build-up and its success in building its warren of more than 400 miles of underground tunnels across Gaza and into Egypt. Egypt should see its aid tied to an end to its sponsorship of Hamas.

If Hamas survives, its perceived victory over Israel will of course inspire Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Shiite militia in Iraq and Syria and Iran itself to step up their assaults on the Jewish state. But it will also be an adrenalin shot for Islamists in the Western world to expand their terrorist attacks and other forms of political violence against Westerners and home and worldwide.

U.S. elected officials must express their disapproval of Egypt’s policies. They need to take action to undermine el-Sisi’s ability to maintain his pro-Hamas policies and anti-Israel brinkmanship by, among other things, tying U.S. fiscal support and military assistance to Egypt to an end to its cooperative relationship with Hamas; its political warfare against Israel; and threats to abrogate the peace treaty with the Jewish state.

Seth Frantzman: A Hamas lobby emerges in the Middle East

A Hamas lobby that will affect the West

This is also important in the West. There are networks of activists with links to NGOs that are basically fronts for the Brotherhood. As such, Hamas has a lobby that stretches across the West.

A lot of this was known before October 7. Hamas was backed by Iran for years. Hamas leaders lived in Qatar since 2012. Egypt had mediated between Hamas and other Palestinian factions and Israel for years.

Doha had transferred cash to Hamas-run Gaza via Israel for years. Whenever there were tensions in Gaza, such as in May 2021, activists in the West would be galvanized to support the Palestinian cause.

In many cases, this was a thinly veiled form of support for Hamas. In fact, in recent years, there has been a quiet attempt to move Western activism away from backing two states and the Palestinian Authority to back Hamas and “resistance” and one state.

However, there are actors in the current conflict that appear to have remained behind the curtain until now.

Russia surprised Israel with its apparent support for Hamas after October 7. Because of the Ukraine war, Moscow viewed the Hamas attack positively as a way to create trouble for the US and US partners.

China sees the war the same way, and China’s backing of Palestinians has rapidly increased in recent years as Beijing has invested more in Tehran.

Egypt’s role is now in the spotlight. What did Egypt know about smuggling to Hamas? How did Hamas stockpile so many weapons despite supposedly being under blockade?

More difficult questions need to be asked about why Egypt didn’t want Israel operating in Rafah and what was done during the hostage talks that dragged them out and may have misled Israel.

For instance, why was Israel pressured to move to a lower-intensity war in Gaza and pause fighting for Ramadan? Was this really a US request, or was it based on Doha and Cairo asking the US to ask Israel to pause the righting?

This essentially gave Hamas a ceasefire in March and April so that it could recover. Hamas didn’t change its stance at the hostage talks and refused to even hand over a list of living hostages.

Israel doesn’t seem to have pressed for the list, leaving questions about whether the hostages were the top priority for Israel’s leaders as well.

However, the overall picture that emerges is that Israel was played by Doha and Cairo in the talks.

The problem Israel faces is the immense lobby for Hamas behind the scenes. Hamas not only has its official backers and the fact it is hosted in Doha, a Western ally, and backed by Turkey, a NATO member, but Hamas also has partnerships with many NGOs.

It has members who have infiltrated NGOs that work in Gaza. It has also brought their silence through threats or other means.

This means that most NGOs, whether those who deal in food health or other forms of aid, never mention Hamas's role in Gaza.

Hamas infiltrated hospitals and schools, and it is not critiqued by the NGOs. This is all part of a very complex lobby that makes Hamas very strong and hard to remove from Gaza.

Naharnet reports:

Lebanese school children on a minibus had a narrow escape Thursday when a drone strike killed a Hezbollah fighter in the car ahead, blowing out the windscreen of their vehicle and wounding three pupils.

The injured children were hospitalised with cuts from flying glass after the aerial attack, which state media and a source close to the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel.

"At first, we didn't understand what was happening, and there was panic among the children," said Ahmad Qubaisi, 57, who was driving the bus with 18 children on board.

"Suddenly a strike hit the car in front of us" near the town of Nabatiyeh, about 13 kilometres (eight miles) from the Israeli border, he said.

"The bus's windshield shattered... I backed up and that's when the second strike hit the car" in front of him on the Kfar Dajjal-Nabatiyeh road, Qubaisi added.

Five paragraphs on how three children were lightly injured and very scared. Awful. Then, we get more of an idea of who the target was:

Hezbollah announced the death of one of its fighters, Mohammad Farran from Nabatiyeh.
Farran was a 35-year-old high school teacher and was heading to the Hassan Kamel al-Sabah School where he teaches Physics, media outlets said.
The Israeli army said Farran was in charge of manufacturing strategic weapons belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
"In recent years, Farran has been working on manufacturing unique, strategic weapons for Hezbollah," the army said, adding that Farran's assassination aimed at striking the growing capabilities of Hezbollah's weapons which are designed to target Israel.

In other words, Israel successfully eliminated a major military threat with minimal civilian injuries or damage even though he was embedding himself with schoolchildren.

But no one will report it that way.

Farran is the 313th Hezbollah member to be eliminated so far this war.

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UNRWA makes absurd accusations, every day

UNRWA tweeted earlier this week:

"'It is not a technical issue to get people fed. It's a political issue – unfortunately, yet again, in the midst of this politics, it's the people of Gaza' who continue to suffer, UNRWA's Sam Rose tells RTE."

A day later they tweeted, "As a result of the ongoing military operation in eastern Rafah the UNRWA distribution centre and WFP warehouse, both in Rafah, are now inaccessible. Food distributions in Rafah, southern Gaza, are currently suspended due to lack of supplies and insecurity."

Yet, as the IDF COGAT unit chided them, other organizations have managed to get aid into Rafah:

Remarkably, other humanitarian NGOs and the private sector have been bringing in food trucks and distributing in Rafah and the rest of Gaza.

Maybe you should reconsider calling yourselves “the backbone of humanitarian aid in Gaza” since others are able to do what you cannot.

Indeed, COGAT has coordinated hundreds of truckloads of food every day this week while UNRWA insists it cannot get any.

If there is a political component, it is UNRWA's desire not to cooperate with COGAT.

That was not the only absurd UNRWA claim recently. Honest Reporting reports:

A May 13 broadcast of Your Morning, a CTV program, interviewed Louise Wateridge of UNRWA, the disgraced United Nations agency with ties to Palestinian terrorism, for her thoughts on Israel’s counter-terrorism operations in the Gaza region of Rafah.

The segment entitled: “Humanitarian corridor desperately needed in Rafah,” featured Wateridge telling her host that Israel’s recent evacuation order in Rafah, which informed civilians in the area of Israel’s expected military operations, had “caused panic and anxiety” among the population.

Wateridge described the mood in Rafah as “eerie” and “scary,” adding that “the speed at which people have had to flee for their lives is something I struggle to explain.”

What Wateridge struggled to explain is in actuality quite straightforward: Israel’s providing of advance warning of counter-terrorism operations represents a laudable and virtually unheard-of step among militaries, which is aimed at minimizing civilian casualties in an urban warzone, even as Hamas, the genocidal Islamic terrorist group, aims to maximize civilian deaths by using Gazans as human shields.

Despite heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas terrorists in Rafah, the last major holdout of the group in Gaza, Wateridge said that “we are not evacuating Rafah,” a statement which on the surface appears noble and even perhaps brave, but in actuality is reckless and irresponsible.

Rather than helping Gaza’s civilians find safety elsewhere, UNRWA is deliberately keeping them in an active warzone.

UNRWA really is worse than useless.

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Arab and Iranian media media are publicizing photos and video of some Neturei Karta "rabbis,"sporting keffiyehs, who participated in the funeral procession of Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi, the "Butcher of Baghdad."

Neturei Karta has been condemned by every major Jewish group, including all Hasidic groups. Even other Hasidic groups critical of Zionism like Satmar signed a letter excommunicating Neturei Karta from their synagogues, calling them "evil" and sinners.

Their presence at Raisi's funeral is being trotted out as "proof" that Iran isn't antisemitic. (Some of the news articles think that these are part of Iran's Jewish community.)

I'm reminded again of the Verband Nationaldeutscher Juden and its leader Max Naumann in 1935.