ISRAEL (IINO)
ISRAEL 2/20/23
When is criticism of Israel legitimate? Dr. Alex Grobman
No democratic states should consider themselves immune to rebuke but no one should be discussing their right to exist either. Op-ed.
Feb 20, 2023, 4:14 PM (GMT+2) – Clearly, not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic. As the late American sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset explained, no democratic states should consider themselves immune to rebuke. “Israel is a liberal democratic state,” he said, recalling that, “in ancient Israel, the Biblical prophets devised the art of self-criticism.”
A useful key in determining whether the criticism in question is legitimate or just antisemitism disguised as such was offered by journalist Edward Rothstein, who suggested examining the “standards of justice.” When they are “applied in profoundly distorted fashion, when those distortions put the literal survival of a society at stake, and when murders are taking place and explicitly encouraged declarations are being made that may even fit university standards for ‘hate speech,’ it is safe to say the rhetoric is no longer honest criticism, but, rather, antisemitism,” he said.
Recognizing What It Is
Like pornography, antisemitism is recognized as such by those who know what it looks like.
The late-Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. did not hesitate to label anti-Zionist remarks as antisemitic. On one occasion when speaking to African-American students at Harvard, he heard an anti-Zionist remark from one of them. According to reports of the incident, Dr. King “snapped at him” and said, “Don’t talk like that! When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking about antisemitism.”
ISRAEL TARGETS SYRIAN ELITE WITH DIRECT MISSILE ATTACK [3:28] by Micha Gefen February 19, 2023 2153 views
Israel launched an airstrike on the Syrian capital Damascus shortly after midnight on Sunday.
According to AFP, who cited a war monitor, more than a dozen people were killed and several others were injured. A residential building was targeted in central Damascus’ Kafr Sousa neighborhood, which is a heavily guarded complex close to Iranian installations. This is the first time when Israel targeted Syria after the recent devastating earthquake. Israel has, however, not commented on the airstrikes yet.
So what was or let’s [ask] who was Israel targeting in the latest airstrikes?
Israeli airstrikes on Syria have become commonplace. However, these air strikes were different in that they seemed to be directly targeting Iranian elites that live in Damascus. Israel is sending a message to the Ayatollahs that no one is immune – no matter where they are.
[Ed.: Tee-hee! Several weeks ago, before Putin warned Israel not to send arms to Ukraine, Putin warned Israel not to attack Syria. So, it was more than a message to the Ayatollahs. It was telling Putin:]
THE FORWARD BRINGS BACK THE JENIN MASSACRE THAT NEVER HAPPENED by Victor Rosenthal
February 13, 2023 – The paper’s promotion of an anti-Israel film whose maker admitted is deceptive is a case of egregious editorial malpractice.
(JNS) Like the proverbial old soldiers, anti-Jewish lies never die. But they don’t fade away either. No matter how often they are proven false, they come back to incite hatred and murder.
Today, the focus of antisemitism is Israel, although the old forms of Jew-hatred remain. So, there are contemporary blood libels like the media accounts of the shooting of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durah, an exercise in what scholar Richard Landes has called “lethal journalism.”
One of the most pernicious and persistent lethal narratives has been the myth of the “Jenin Massacre.” In April 2002, the IDF entered the Jenin refugee camp in pursuit of terrorists who had committed numerous attacks inside Israel, including the Passover Seder Massacre in Netanya, in which 30 Israelis were murdered.
After a 10-day house-to-house battle, 23 IDF soldiers had lost their lives as well as—according to a later investigation by the U.N.—52 Palestinians, most of whom were terrorists from various Palestinian factions. Even the notoriously anti-Israel NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International admitted that there had been no massacre (although they did accuse the IDF of various war crimes).
The media, academics and politicians exploded in a frenzy of hysteria and condemnation. James Petras, a sociologist associated with Binghamton University, compared the battle to the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. Reporter Phil Reeves of The Independent wrote a series of articles in which he accused Israel of a “monstrous war crime” that left “hundreds of corpses entombed beneath the dust.” Saeb Erekat of the Palestinian Authority told CNN that “the number [massacred] will not be less than 500” and his remarks were echoed throughout the media.
Herzog in the crosshairs Ruthie Blum
The idea that it’s possible at this juncture to conduct rational talks with hysteria-mongering judicial-reform rejectionists is tenuous, at best.
(February 19, 2023 / JNS) In an op-ed on Friday in The Jerusalem Post, attorney Russell Avraham Shalev of the Kohelet Policy Forum explains what’s missing from Israeli President Isaac “Bougie” Herzog’s proposed judicial-reform compromise, despite its “many positive elements.”
“While Herzog sounded many of the right rhetorical points, [he didn’t] adequately address the central aim of the government’s reform legislation: putting an end to Israel’s juristocracy and restoring popular sovereignty,” writes Shalev, who goes on to describe how the Supreme Court has spent three decades expanding its powers, “without any legal or constitutional mandate,” causing an “ever-narrowing ability of [the country’s] citizens to rule themselves.”
Indeed, Shalev analogizes: “Like Napoleon grabbing the crown from the pope’s hands and placing it on his own head, the Supreme Court, under the leadership of its former president, Aharon Barak, seized the opportunity to crown itself emperor.”
Israeli minister tells US envoy to ‘mind his business’ on judicial reforms
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli slammed U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides for saying that Israel should “pump the breaks” on its initiative.
(February 19, 2023 / JNS) – Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli rebuked U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides on Sunday, after the American envoy jumped into the debate over Jerusalem’s proposed judicial reform package.
“I say to the American ambassador, slam the breaks on yourself and mind your own business,” said Chikli regarding Nides’s call for the Israeli government to modify its initiative. “You’re not the sovereign here. We’d be happy to debate with you international or security affairs, but respect our democracy,” he added.
After Biden Sent $1B to PLO, Israeli Deaths Rose 900% by Daniel Greenfield
It cost $10,000 to kill a 6-year-old boy and the terrorists have the money.
February 15, 2023 – When Secretary of State Blinken met with PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas, he boasted of the over billion dollars in aid that the Biden administration had programmed for the terrorist territories.
That aid has come with a very heavy price.
In Feb 2019, President Trump’s total cutoff of aid became official. That year, 10 Israelis or people in Israeli controlled areas were killed in stabbings, shootings, rocket and other attacks, down from 12 the previous year, and 15 in 2017, and 16 in 2016.
In 2020 however only three Israelis were killed.
These numbers reflected the diminished capacity of the Islamic terrorists. The reduction in numbers was not due to the pandemic. 2020 still saw attacks, including firebombings, rocket launches and stabbings, but the success and lethality rates for these attacks were lower.
The numbers turned around dramatically once again in 2021.
In April 2021, the Biden administration restored aid to the PLO. Terror incidents, reflecting attack attempts, shot up sharply from 91 in February and 89 in March to 130 in April.
By May, major fighting resumed with 13 Israelis, including two children, killed.
By the time the year was over, 17 people in Israeli areas had been killed. The over 400% increase in deaths was only the beginning. In 2022, 31 Israelis or people in Israeli areas were killed, up from only 3 in 2020, for a massive 900% increase in casualties since the restoration of foreign aid to the terrorists. This was the worst death toll since 2015 under Obama.
But in January and the first half of February of 2023, 10 Israelis have already been killed, including a 6-year-old boy and an 8-year-old boy.
After Biden Sent $1 Billion to the Terrorist PLO, Israeli Deaths Rose 900% By Geller Report Staff
February 17, 2023 – President Trump stopped U.S aid to the Palestinian Authority because of it’s Pay-To-Slay Jews policy. The Biden Administration resumed the genocidal bloody money. Since then, Israeli deaths have increased by 900 percent. Call your member of Congress and demand that all U.S aid to the Palestinian Authority is stopped. The aid is used by the Palestinian Authority to murder Jews.
