Showing posts with label NGO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NGO. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 06, 2023



The Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights just released its report of human rights violations by Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza in 2022 (it has not yet been released in English.)

Its section on violations against Palestinian human rights activists is summarized:

Concerning human rights defenders, the independent commission said: Human rights defenders are exposed to a number of violations and harassment committed by official bodies or other unofficial parties. It may lead to murder, kidnapping, arrest, torture, threats, harm to the family and defamation. Defenders of women's rights are subjected to various harassments by social movements and religious and political parties, who see their defense of women as a contradiction with religion and in line with the goals of the West and a denial of Arab values, customs and traditions.   
Those stories, about real abuse against real human rights activists, is rarely covered by the media - because it doesn't fit the narrative that Israel is the human rights violator of Palestinians and, of course, also one of the biggest human rights abusers in the world. (Apparently Israel is surrounded by an oasis of liberal progressive protectors of humanity.)

So the reality gets buried in reports no one reads while the media exaggerates and fabricates Israeli crimes. 

There are real Palestinian human rights defenders - and no one hears about them.

But there are also fake human rights defenders that get lot of coverage. Here's a story that is getting play in Arabic news sites today:

Human rights organizations have called for a boycott of Israeli companies specialized in the field of water and agriculture, prior to their participation in the United Nations Climate Summit (COP 28) scheduled for the end of next November in the UAE.

These companies work to improve their image in front of the world in light of their theft of Palestinian rights to water and the destruction of the Palestinian environment through toxic agricultural pesticides.

The companies (Mekorot, Netafim, Haifa Chemicals, and Adama) seek to present themselves during the summit with their ability to achieve sustainable solutions regarding the environment around the world, at a time when these companies steal Palestinian resources and direct them towards illegal Israeli settlements according to international law.

Human rights organizations are working to reveal the true face of these Israeli companies, and to defend Palestinian rights against climate colonialism.   
Notice anything strange?

The stories do not mention a single "human rights" organization that is calling for this boycott.

The only group I can find talking about this is, of course, BDS. They probably pretend to be a human rights organization. Yet it would not be a surprise if HRW or Amnesty indeed does call for a boycott of Israeli companies at COP28. Because "human rights" is now nothing more than a slogan, with no relationship with real human rights. 

And the real contributions that Israeli technology make to help the world conserve water are considered not as important as the political boycott of any Jewish-owned company in the Middle East. 

And real humans will be deprived of water in the name of "human rights."




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!

 

 

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Cover of PCHR's "Annual Reprot" [sic]



Remember the huge amount of outrage last year when Israel shut down the offices of seven PFLP-linked NGOs? It was condemned by the UN, political leaders and human rights groups. 

Well, buried in the Palestinian Center of Human Rights 2022 annual report we see something that didn't generate a single headline in the West.

This year witnessed further restrictions, including the amendment to the non-profit companies’ regulation upon a decision issued by the Palestinian Cabinet, which imposed excessive restrictions on the work and funding of non-profit companies, under the pretext of fighting terrorism. 

Issuance of the Non-Profit Companies Regulation No. (20) of 2022 

The Palestinian Cabinet issued a new regulation on non-profit companies, which includes many restrictions on the work and funding of these companies, which is one of the forms of the right to freedom of association in Palestine. This regulation, which was published in the issue 194 of the Palestinian Gazette on 25 September 2022, included serious restrictions that threaten the existence of CSOs registered as non-profit companies. 

The new regulation, which has replaced the old one in force since 2010 and the cabinet’s decision attached to it in 2016 concerning the funding of non-profit companies, came to add more restrictions on the right to form non-profit companies, as the old regulation included many restrictions. The regulation was issued under the pretext of fighting terrorism and money laundering.

More arbitrary measures were imposed by the authorities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on associations, threatening the associations’ right to exist, practice its activities freely, and obtain funding. Most of them fully violate the fundamental rights relevant to the freedom of association, including their right to existence, free performance of activities, receipt of funds and the right to privacy and independence. Also, increased restrictive measures are imposed on the associations in the Gaza Strip due to the double restrictions imposed by the two authorities in Gaza and the West Bank.
So the PA and Hamas are also restricting NGO activity. They are also claiming that they are doing this to fight "terrorism" which is as ironic as it gets.

The Palestinian law includes a provision that the NGOs must operate in line with the plan of action of the relevant Palestinian government ministries, meaning that the takes away all independence for the NGOs. There are many other onerous provisions. 

But no one has a problem with this. I couldn't find any article in Western news media that discussed this topic exclusively.

Palestinian human rights violations are simply not reported. Because if they would be, then the entire lucrative industry of anti-Israel reporting would collapse. 





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Tuesday, June 20, 2023



We have just begun the Muslim month of Dhul Hijjah, considered the holiest month of all, the month where Muslims go on Hajj to visit Mecca. 

The first ten days of the month are considered especially auspicious, and one tradition is to ask for specific requests in prayers, known as dua.

Egyptian newspaper El Balad News helpfully prints a number of duas for each day of Dhul Hijjah, and the first one is interesting:

O Allah, we ask You for all good in this year, and do not deprive us of doing acts of worship, and help us to remember You, thank You, and worship You well, O Most Generous. O God, we ask that this year be a year of goodness and peace, and that the Holy Land be purified from the hateful Jews, for they do not fail you. O children of the Jews, we have a great God.  Take revenge on them, O Subjugator, O God, O God, O God.
Not "Zionists" - Jews.

The newspaper includes the exact same text in its otherwise completely different set of duas for the second day of the month aa well. It will probably publish the prayer for all ten days this years, as it did last year. 

Jordan's Khaberni published this dua last year. 

Cairo24 published this same dua, but for the month of Rajab of last year, and repeated it this year.

I found the same text as a dua for the first day of Muharram in 2010. 

Jordan's Albawaba lists a very similar dua for the second day of the Dhul Hijjah - and since Albawaba get syndicated with MSN network, we have Microsoft spreading prayers for Allah to kill Jews.   

I am not certain who originated these antisemitic supplications, but this article appears to say that Egypt's Dar al Iftaa - governmental Islamic fatwa authority - approved them for another occasion last year.

I could be wrong about that, but if an Egyptian governmental organization has any hand in writing or approving a prayer demanding Allah destroy Israel and wipe out the Jews, it should be raised and addressed diplomatically. 



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!

 

 

Monday, April 10, 2023



Back in January, Haaretz published "The American Billionaires Behind the Far-right Attempt to Destroy Liberal Israel." It highlighted the fact that the Kohelet Forum, a think tank that has influenced the judicial reform plan in Israel, is heavily funded by right-wing American billionaires which, of course, taints the entire organization. 

After all, why should Americans influence Israeli policy? Clearly something isn't kosher here.

Today, Haaretz has an article about another Israeli think tank, the Israel Democracy Institute, which it calls "The Think Tank on the Front Lines of the Battle for Israel's Democracy." It admiringly describes how the IDI has been working hard to fight judicial reform.

It doesn't mention that the Israel Democracy Institute's main funder and international chairman is also an American billionaire, Bernard Marcus. In fact, his Marcus Foundation and an anonymous American entity are listed as the organization's founders, and the majority of its major funders are from the USA, not Israel.



Where are the outraged articles that the think tank behind fighting judicial reform is founded and funded by American billionaires? Where are the intrepid reporters who are working to identify who the anonymous wealthy American co-founders of IDI is and paint them as nefarious opponents of all that is good and right? 

I have nothing against the IDI. It is an important part of the debate. It is an undeniably Zionist organization. Its funding sources are exactly as important as Kohelet's. Its budget is roughly the same as Kohelet's. And in both cases, the funders are American Zionists who care deeply about Israel's future.

Neither Kohelet nor IDI are anti-democracy. Neither of them are an enemy of Israel. 

Those who demonize either one of these are the real enemies of Israel's democracy. To them, partisanship and division are more important than having a fair debate about a crucial topic. Instead of encouraging people to read the articles authored by each think tank, they want to drown the opposing voices out. They want to replace reasoned debate with drama and protests. 

There is plenty of blame on both sides, but the stark difference between how the media treats Kohelet and how it treats IDI show that the media itself is often part of the problem, when its primary job should be to be part of the 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!

 

 

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Last year, a group of anti-Israel groups co-sponsored rallies  in New York City titled  "By Any Means Necessary."


The phrase isn't even a dog whistle, It literally is a call to murder Jews in Israel. it says that bus bombs, suicide bombings of pizza shops and Passover seders and murdering children via sniper are all legitimate "resistance." And if they thought that murdering Jews around the world would help their cause, then that is included in "any means necessary."

One would think that groups that literally call for murdering Jews would be banned. But not only are they legal - incitement to murder Jews is apparently free speech - but donations to these groups are tax deductible.

The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network was founded and is led by members of the PFLP terror group.  It proudly promotes the PFLP which recruits children to attack Jews. Yet donors to Samidoun get a tax deduction, as it launders the donations through the Alliance for Global Justice, which claims to support "peace, anti-war and liberation." But AGJ happily partners with a group that openly advocates terror.

"Within Our Lifetime" apparently coined the phrase "Globalize the Intifada," which they explicitly say means "to win liberation by any means necessary." 


In this case, it sounds even more like a threat to Jews worldwide, not just in Israel.

Yet donations to Within Our Lifetime are also tax deductible, laundered through Wespac, which describes itself as wanting a more "just and peaceful world" - which apparently includes blowing up Jews. 

The Palestinian Youth Movement, another co-sponsor of "By Any Means Necessary," also launders its donations through Wespac.

It seems to me that IRS rules against terrorist organizations are general enough to include any of these groups that say they support violence against civilians as a legitimate means of "resistance." The organizations that launder the money, Wespac and the Alliance for Global Justice, should be examined and put on notice - the contents of these groups' websites should be enough to make an initial determination that they support terror.

This is way overdue. 



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!

 

 

Wednesday, December 28, 2022




Terrestrial Jerusalem and Ir Amim, two Jewish NGOs that spend all of their energy to oppose any Jewish rights in Jerusalem, are alarmed:

On December 27, 2022, the Elad settlers of Silwan accompanied by a heavily armed detail of Israeli police, took over a large plot of land immediately adjacent to the Pool of Siloam in Silwan (from which the name Silwan derives).

The settler takeover is not exclusively a settler initiative. In a press release touting the commencement of excavations on the site, this is being presented as a joint venture between the Elad settlers, the Israel National Parks Authority (INPA), and the Antiquities Authority (IAA). For all those needing proof, this is further evidence that in Silwan, the settlers and the Government of Israel are one of the same.

The land in question has been owned by the Greek Orthodox Church and leased to a Palestinian family since the 1930s. A family member was arrested last night (26 December) in a pre-emptive arrest, and three more were detained this morning.

The Government of Israel and the settlers have decided there is no better time to take over Church property, in a place of cardinal importance to Christianity, than the Christmas week. There is nothing new in this. The settlers and the Government customarily reserve Christmas week for their most problematic initiatives, assuming, not without reason, that the diplomats and decision-makers are all on leave and will not pay attention.
JNS reports the story a bit differently:

An ancient Jerusalem pool that was used by millions of Jewish pilgrims during the time of the Second Temple two millennia ago as a ritual bath before ascending the Temple Mount, and revered by Christians as the site where Jesus cured a blind man, will be fully excavated and then opened to the public, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday.

The Pool of Siloam, located in the southern portion of the City of David, the ancient epicenter of Jerusalem, and just outside the Old City walls is expected to become one of the most important historic and tourist sites in the city.

The pool has been a focal point for archaeologists and scholars for the last 150 years. The excavations are set to begin in January and will continue for at least several months, while the site is expected to open to the public in about a year.
And, crucially:

The planned excavation of the five-dunam site (about 1.25 acres) is getting underway after a 14-year legal battle culminated in June when Israel’s Supreme Court found no reason to challenge the validity of the Ateret Cohanim organization’s purchase of 99-year leases, renewable for an additional 99 years, from the Greek Orthodox Church, the largest landowner in Jerusalem.

One of Ateret Cohanim’s goals is to purchase land in the history-rich area for public viewing, said Doron Spielman, vice president of the City of David Foundation. Previously, the area, which was off limits to everybody, lay barren for decades and was littered with garbage, he said.

“It is not every day that we find an icon in Jerusalem,” Spielman said. “This is not just a huge find, it is a mega-find.”

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said in a statement, “The Pool of Siloam in the City of David National Park in Jerusalem is a site of historic, national and international significance. After many years of anticipation, we will soon merit being able to uncover this important site and make it accessible to the millions of visitors visiting Jerusalem each year.”
According to TJ and Ir Amim, the Jews are stealing away Christian land.

In reality, they legally purchased the rights to the land, and it will become available for millions of Christians to visit!

These people who pretend to be defending Jerusalem prefer that precious historical site be strewn with garbage and inaccessible to all rather than fixed up and available to all.

The transfer of the lease is legal, above board and helps improve Jerusalem. 

Which begs the question: who really cares about Jerusalem? 

Certainly not Terrestrial Jerusalem or Ir Amim. 



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!

 

 

Monday, December 26, 2022

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights called on the international community and  humanitarian organizations to intervene immediately to stop Israel from opening up nonexistent dams that are being blamed for flooding Gaza during torrential rains.

It would be easy to dismiss the hysterical lies of a tiny NGO in Gaza. Like many Palestinian NGOs,  ICSPR is essentially a one man operation meant to attract funding.

Its chairman is Salah Abdel Ati, a "human rights lawyer" who is involved in a lot of other Palestinian NGOs. He is on the Board of Trustees of Law Palestine, and his bio there says that he is also "member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Middle East Studies, Canada, former director of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research &  Strategic (Masarat) in the Gaza Strip (2015-2019), and former director of the Independent Commission for Human Rights in Gaza (2004-2015), Director of Programs and Training at Canaan Educational Development Institute (1997-2004).  Besides, Abdel Ati is a researcher and writer who has published many books, studies, research papers, and articles in the fields of politics, law, human rights, and society. He has worked with the United Nations agencies and international, Arab and Palestinian organizations and has trained thousands of lawyers and human rights activists, judges, workers in civil society organizations, and he is the founder and a board member in several Palestinian, Arab and international NGOs and institutions."

So now we can link an obvious liar to numerous other NGOs and, according to him, "thousands of lawyers and human rights activists, judges, workers in civil society organizations" who he helped train.

There is an almost incestuous relationship between Palestinian NGOs and international NGOs who work in Gaza and the West Bank. They all build on each others' "research" and compete in who will innovate the latest anti-Israel libel. 

Their funding - and salaries - depend on it. 

Lying is not a disqualification from being an honored member of this cabal - it is a prerequisite. 





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!

 

 

Friday, December 23, 2022

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: The top 10 Jewish stories of 2022
It’s been a difficult decade. 2020 was the year of coronavirus-pandemic panic and the general collapse of established norms. This was compounded by the Black Lives Matter riots that set off a moral panic about race, with the mainstreaming of fringe ideas and intersectionality.

2021 was a little better, as the world gradually shook off its COVID paranoia. But it was notable mainly for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that has roiled American politics ever since, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the creation of an Israeli government that combined members of the right, the left and even Islamist parliamentarians.

2022 has been something of a challenge, with war and antisemitism dominating Jewish news just as much, if not more, than in the previous two years. As it comes to an end, here’s a look back at the year with my list—in reverse order—of the top 10 stories and how they’ve shaped the Jewish world.

For good or for ill, JNS has covered them all. Stick with us in 2023, as we continue to give you the best in Jewish journalism with news, analysis and opinion you can’t find anywhere else.

10-The U.N.’s and ‘human rights’ groups’ war on Israel escalates
The report of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, published in June, was a textbook case of antisemitic incitement. In its view, there is no Palestinian incitement, no Palestinian terrorism, no Palestinian rejection of peace. Led by open antisemites like Navi Pillay, the document denied Jewish history and the truth about the century-old war that Palestinian Arabs and their enablers have been waging on Zionism.

Like the rest of the hatred directed at Israel from the world body and so-called “human rights” NGOs, this campaign is often downplayed or ignored by the Jewish world. That’s a mistake, since efforts such as those apparent in the COI report serve as the foundation for the ongoing “lawfare” endeavor to isolate and turn Israel into a pariah state. Far from being insignificant enough to warrant a lack of attention, these undertakings legitimize antisemitism throughout the world and undermine otherwise successful normalization moves between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors.

9-Normalization with the Arab world continues
The second year since the signing of the 2020 Abraham Accords, which led to the normalization of relations between Israel and four Arab and Muslim countries, saw those ties strengthened, with tourism and economic activity continuing to expand in 2022. But, while progress towards full acceptance is slow, the steady rise in trade and the growing signs of security cooperation testify to the Arab world’s belief that it can no longer be held hostage by Palestinian intransigence.

These positive trends might have been even stronger by now, had the administration in Washington prioritized the quest to build on its predecessor’s achievement and expand the circle of peace, especially with Saudi Arabia. But President Joe Biden has botched relations with Riyadh. And though he doesn’t oppose the accords brokered by former President Donald Trump, his foreign-policy team is still more interested in appeasing Iran and the Palestinian Authority.
The European Genizah
The term “European Genizah” refers to thousands of individual pages that were torn out of Hebrew manuscripts centuries ago, and then used to bind books and cover archival files. Sometimes these pages were discovered by chance, and sometimes as a result of a systematic search. They were discovered mainly in Central Europe, in dozens of libraries, archives, and monasteries, and even among private possessions.

The European Genizah is not limited to Hebrew manuscripts. Tens of thousands of manuscripts in Latin, Greek, and other local languages were discarded as worthless throughout Europe, mainly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but also during the medieval era. They were then used by bookbinders and notaries in bindings, to cover files, and occasionally for other uses as well. An unwanted manuscript—whether because the ideas and opinions they contained had been invalidated, because better versions of the works had been published, or because newer and more beautiful manuscripts (or printed books) had been obtained—was removed from the shelves and sold to bookbinders. It goes without saying that ordinary folks had no interest in preserving manuscripts for which they no longer had any use, but even esteemed university libraries did not hesitate to discard thousands of manuscripts, some of which were purchased by craftsmen who used the parchment in bindings and to cover archival files. Parchment is a valuable material, easy to cut but hard to tear, and light (especially in comparison to the heavy wooden bindings that were common then). Therefore, bookbinders found much use for passé manuscripts that no one wished to read any longer. A handful of scholars understood by the middle of the sixteenth century that bookbinders were in possession of ancient manuscripts that should be rescued from their blades, but the phenomenon continued unabated for a long time and throughout Europe. Tens of thousands of such pages have been discovered recently in various countries, some in old bindings, and some in the covers of archival documents.

I will not presently address non-Hebrew manuscripts that have been discovered in book bindings, but I nevertheless note that even these contain, albeit infrequently, information of importance for Jewish history or the history of the Hebrew book. I cite three examples: The first is the remnant of a very old Hebrew manuscript that was discovered by chance within a Latin fragment used in a binding. The second is from a Marseille notary who bound his archival files in the early 1320s with a Latin document that he had written himself a short time before. By then, he no longer needed that document, so he excised and repurposed the parchment. The document contains the account of an investigation conducted by the Inquisition in Toulon, a city near Marseille, against a Jew suspected of helping an apostate Jew return to his original faith. It provides important information about the history of the Jews of that community during this period. The third consists of strips of outdated bills in Latin, which were used in England to bind newer bills. These strips contain information on loans made by English Jews to their Christian neighbors in the thirteenth century.
A startup nation for Zionist causes
Israel is rightly appreciated as a fount of innovation in a vast array of technologies and industries. Being a startup nation demands a mindset that looks at matters afresh, without being constrained by the way things have always been done.

To have a startup nation mindset is to have vision, see the big picture and move towards the fulfillment of that vision. It also entails the willingness to create something new and possibly unprecedented, rather than await approval or direction from others.

Happily, this mindset is not only prevalent in the private sphere, but also – though less visibly – in the realm of organizations seeking to strengthen and defend Zionist values and policies in Israel.

There is a growing coterie of individuals and organizations who understand that the blessings of Zionism, Jewish sovereignty and control of our own land cannot be taken for granted. As Herzl knew, Zionism and its logical extension, the State of Israel, had to be willed into being – "im tirtzu."

But the willing of Zionism and Israel is a constant process, always facing new problems and seeking new opportunities.

The new Zionist NGOs have proven themselves an essential part of Israeli society. Think of the amazing contribution made by groups like Regavim, which call attention to illegal construction. Ad Kan points out the lies of certain Israeli "human rights" organizations. Im Tirtzu and NGO Monitor address foreign government funding of anti-Zionist Israeli organizations. Organizations like B'yadenu have relentlessly pressed for Jewish civil rights on the Temple Mount.

Realistically, if these organizations were not front and center, it is quite likely that the problems they have raised would have gone unaddressed.

These NGOs did not simply emerge fully-formed. They too were willed into existence. In part, this was done by a small fund that has been instrumental in identifying nascent organizations worthy of support and incubating them with seed funding, organizational advice and networking opportunities.

This small fund is the Israel Independence Fund, which since 2007 has had conspicuous success in identifying fledgling organizations with the potential to make a difference in Israeli society.



Every week, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People publishes a newsletter, NGO Action News, where they list out and summarize all of the NGO reports and articles about Palestinians they can find that were published that week. The newsletter is filled with references to reports from Amnesty, Al Haq, Gisha, B'Tselem and lots of other anti-Israel NGOs.

The UN committee routinely and reflexively links to every Amnesty article and report criticizing Israel.  However, every once in a while Amnesty issues a rare report criticizing Palestinian leaders. Does the UN report mention those? 

On November 2, Amnesty wrote an article about the Palestinian Authority and its torture policies.  The NGO Action News that week didn't mention it. 

In June of 2021 and again a year later, Amnesty demanded an investigation into the death of Palestinian Nizar Banat apparently at the hands of Palestinian police. NGO Action News ignored both of them.

On March 18, 2019, Amnesty issued a report on Hamas attacking protesters. That week's NGO Action News didn't mention that, either.

Apparently, supporting "Palestinian rights" doesn't include Palestinian human rights under their own leadership. When Palestinians are oppressed by their own leaders, the UN doesn't care.

Or to put it another way, the UN Committee doesn't care about Palestinian rights. It is wholly about  attacking Israel.



 



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!

 

 

Thursday, October 06, 2022

I was looking at the Amnesty YouTube channel, and saw one video that was quite anomalous.

It was a 2019 video, attempting to be snarky, attacking TripAdvisor for including Jewish-owned destinations in Judea and Samaria.

I couldn't find any other video on the site on any other topic that attempted to have that same sarcastic tone. And it didn't do a very good job. But it illustrates how, for Amnesty, Israel is uniquely evil - only Israel is treated that way. Only for Israel do they spend the money to try to reach audiences that might make their videos go viral. 

On the other hand, they also prove how their obsession with Israel has nothing to do with the seriousness of the human rights abuses that they claim Israel is guilty of - because Amnesty would never attempt to make light of real human rights abuses  in the same jokey way. 

Anyway, this cartoon shows how "research" can be subverted: when the conclusions are decided before the research is done; everyone knows what the report will say and the researchers are tasked with reaching a specific conclusion ahead of time. That way they can only include the "evidence" that supports their thesis and ignore or downplay any counter-evidence.




That's what Amnesty, HRW and other "human rights" NGOs do, all the time.



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!

 

 

Thursday, July 28, 2022



I came across this 2021 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Kubin et al: "Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts."

People believe that facts are essential for earning the respect of political adversaries, but our research shows that this belief is wrong. We find that sharing personal experiences about a political issue—especially experiences involving harm—help to foster respect via increased perceptions of rationality. This research provides a straightforward pathway for increasing moral understanding and decreasing political intolerance. ....In moral and political disagreements, everyday people treat subjective experiences as truer than objective facts.
The paper makes the assumption of goodwill; if you want to convince someone of the truth of your position, enhance your facts with personal experience. The authors suggest that narratives can increase political tolerance.

But it doesn't consider how malicious people weaponize this knowledge in order to lead people away from the facts to begin with  - and how propagandists can use this to increase intolerance.

A commentary on the paper in PNAS does touch on this:
The power that story has over facts to capture the imagination and create respect for an individual’s position is easily exploited. ...Narratives are easily weaponized by propagandists and other bad actors. From this perspective, Kubin et al. may not have uncovered a feature in human discourse that might bridge moral divides but rather a bug that could be easily exploited. While presenting facts garners more respect than claims with no backing at all, these studies still find that narratives beat out facts in creating a greater perception of rationality and even perceived truth. Yet, a position backed by one personal anecdote is no more objectively true than one backed by no anecdote or facts at all. More crucially, a position backed by a personal narrative is not more true than a position backed by facts.

While both narratives and facts can be cherry-picked to support a position, personal narratives, as the authors point out, are unimpugnable. A conclusion drawn from facts, on the other hand, can be disputed and disproven and, thus, science and society should prefer fact-based positions. Yet, when it comes to respect, feelings are prioritized over facts. As these studies show, what is true gains less respect than what one might feel to be true.

Are we to get into a battle of cherry-picked narratives of harm to promote our policy positions, amplified by social media and the ease with which these narratives can spread? How can such narratives be combated? The counter to a story of harm is, by definition, a story of lack of harm (e.g., a vaccine that reduces future infection). However, the larger problem is that the real counternarrative for any anecdotal evidence is found in the data (e.g., a peer-reviewed paper showing the benefits of vaccination for the treatment condition). As such, a troublesome implication of this work is that a false personal story will have more power to create respect than facts, including those facts that would serve to correct the narrative.
This is accurate - but it doesn't go far enough, either.

If narratives are more effective than facts, and personal narratives about being harmed are most effective of all (because no one wants to impugn a personal story about how someone was harmed,) then over time the cumulative narratives of alleged harm by a specific certain group will create hate for that group.

The original study hoped that using personal narratives would increase tolerance. It didn't anticipate that large groups were already weaponizing that as a propaganda method that increases intolerance - towards Jews. Because the Palestinian propaganda machine promotes antisemitism with a torrent of stories about humiliation at the hands of the Jews. 

When a Palestinian goes through a Jordanian checkpoint, they are angry and upset. But when they go through an Israeli checkpoint, even though they are treated with more respect, they claim they are humiliated - because they resent Jews on what they consider their land to begin with. So the only stories the world hears are those of humiliation, whether true or not. And over time the followers of that topic start to believe that Jews are deliberately humiliating Palestinians, because that is what the Palestinian stories say. 

NGOs also weaponize this propaganda tool against Israel. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch reports against Israel are far more detailed and longer than those on other countries. I once did a comparison between two Amnesty reports released around the same time:

Amnesty reports

Israel/WB

Syria/Yarmouk

Title of report

Trigger-happy

Squeezing the life out of Yarmouk

Number of pages in the report

87

39

Number of civilians killed according to Amnesty

22

194

Time period covered

12 months

8 months

Circumstances of their deaths

Mostly while participating in or near violent acts

Starvation, sniper fire, bombings

Number of extensive personal stories given for victims

At least 18, some three pages long

Zero

Number of photos of victims (dead and injured)

At least 14

Zero

Video produced to support report?

Yes, 4 minutes

No

Placement on Amnesty webpage

Linked from front page two weeks after report issued

On front page only the day it was released


Palestinians are humanized and their stories are told. Those stories are detailed and centered on showing how they were harmed and at creating empathy for them. 

Meanwhile, to Amnesty, Syrian victims are just statistics. 

Along with the empathy for the subjects of heart-rending stories comes anger at the victimizers. This is especially true when the storytellers themselves are angry at their supposed tormentors. Just as the audience wants to identify with the victim, they want to share in the anger the victim has towards those they blame for their pain.

So it is no surprise that the Western narrative about Israel, over time, has become more explicitly antisemitic. These same NGOs are now completely at ease in claiming that Israel has a policy of "Jewish supremacy," meant to evoke white supremacy, one of the most evil crimes possible. Singling out Israel as the only current state practicing (a made up definition of) apartheid is another example of normalizing antisemitism in the name of supporting the victims of Jewish greed. Gaza children are only victims of Israeli war crimes; their being cynically used as human shields by terrorists who were the target of the bomb is not mentioned. 

The decades of favoring narrative over facts has created conditions ripe for increased Jew-hatred.

Also, in this world where narratives are favored over facts, there is little penalty for lying. After all, the victims are describing the facts as they claim that they experienced them, and arguing with that is considered to be adding to their victimhood.

One of Israel's reasons for existence is so that Jews will no longer be hapless victims of a world that doesn't care about them. Israel has helped achieve that goal - so now Jews are at a permanent disadvantage in the discourse about which side is in the right exactly because we can no longer claim the same degree of victimhood. And victimhood is the coin of the realm.

There is no defense. Ben Shapiro's famous quote "facts don't care about your feelings" may be true, but facts cannot argue with feelings, either. People want to empathize with and support the real or imagined victims. 

Israel's success at protecting Jews is itself its unforgivable crime, and the Israel-haters are using that success as a reason to try to destroy it. 





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!

 

 

Monday, July 25, 2022

From MEMRI:


In a July 15, 2022 episode of "Pioneers of Tomorrow," a children's show aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV in Gaza, a man dressed in a puppet costume spoke about Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque with children. A little girl said that the Jews must not be allowed to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. A young boy also said that if the Muslims adhere to shari'a law, Palestine will surely be liberated. The man said that the Muslims must also wage Jihad, and the boy responded that Jihad for the sake of Allah is the "pinnacle of Islam".

In addition, the man said that the "criminal Jews" have a plot, explaining: "They are digging tunnels under the Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to... I forgot, what do they want to build?... They want to replace the Dome of the Rock with the Tem... the Tem... What is it called?" In response, the boy said that the Jews want to build the "false Solomon's Temple", but that this will never happen as long as the Palestinians defend Jerusalem. The boy then declared that the Palestinians will fight to their last drop of blood, and the man agreed and praised the martyrs, the wounded, the prisoners, and the exiles who have sacrificed for the defense of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Is it a human rights issue to teach children not only historical lies and to hate Jews, but also to sacrifice themselves for this cause?

I'm only asking because I never see any human rights group say a word about stuff like this. 




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!

 

 

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

With a special appearance by a young looking Ken Roth.








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!

 

 

Wednesday, July 06, 2022

Ben and Jerry's is suing its own parent company Unilever for selling rights to manufacture its products to an Israeli company.  

When the Unilever announced the deal, Ben and Jerry's said that "We continue to believe it is inconsistent with Ben & Jerry's values for our ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. "



I did a quick survey of the human rights records of some of these countries, based on NGO reports and the US State Department. Here are some results, and the list of human rights abuses is far from complete.


Australia

 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprise 29 percent of Australia’s adult prison population, but just 3 percent of the national population.

Austria

Excessive use of force by police; asylum seekers deported

Bahamas

Death penalty, mistreatment of migrants, discrimination against LGBTQ+

Belgium

 Racial profiling by the police, inhumane prisons

Brazil

In 2020, police killed 6,416 people. More than half of the victims were young Black men.

Czech Republic

Roma children experience discriminatory segregation in schools

Dominican Republic

Unlawful or arbitrary killings by government security forces; criminalization of abortion

Estonia

Highest gender pay gap in the EU

France

Violent police attacks on peaceful protesters. Anti-Muslim speech by officials.

Jamaica

Unlawful and arbitrary killings by government security forces;  life-threatening conditions in prisons; law against homosexuality

Mexico

Police, prosecutors and the military regularly commit human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial killings.

New Zealand

Asylum seekers are placed in prison and mistreated by criminals while being processed.

Philippines

ICC investigating crimes against humanity in "war on drugs"

Poland

Laws banning abortions

Singapore

Death penalty, government goes after freedom of speech and assembly

Thailand

Torture, no freedom of assembly or speech

Trinidad &Tobago

Death penalty, unlawful or arbitrary killings by police

Even the countries universally considered the leaders in human rights - Finland, Sweden and Norway - have been accused of discriminating against the Sámi people in various ways, such as attacking their culture and limiting their land rights. 


Not to mention Ben and Jerry's home country of the United States, which according to Amnesty has the death penalty, excessive police brutality, armed forces throughout the world that often kills civilians, and limited access to abortions in some states.


Is Ben and Jerry's OK selling to countries where homosexuality is illegal? Where abortions are illegal? Where the government security forces torture detainees, and violently break up public peaceful demonstrations? Where minorities are not protected and actively discriminated against? Where incarceration of minorities is way out of proportion to their population?


It sure sounds like this is not a problem for them.


No, the only country that Ben and Jerry's publicly says is so reprehensible that it won't sell there without it changing its own laws is Israel, where the crime that is so reprehensible to justify this singular treatment is that Jews build houses in their ancestral homeland, nearly all of it on land that no human being ever lived before.


Anyone can dissect any country's human rights record, in order to find excuses to be prejudiced against that country - while pretending that it is really a righteous position. 


If people decided that they want to cancel, say, Trinidad and Tobago, they could find lots of human rights abuses to justify their decision. But the hate comes first, the justification comes later. 


Which is exactly the case with Israel. The hate, which is by definition modern antisemitism, comes first; the justification comes later. This is why Israel is accused of such a huge variety of human rights abuses in so many areas - not because Israel is guilty of them, but because there is such an intense desire to demonize Israel that literally thousands of people are paid full time to scrutinize Israel from every angle to justify animosity towards the Jewish state. And when they run out of things to accuse Israel of, there is an academic cottage industry to create new ones. 


The many real human rights abuses listed above do not get the publicity that the mostly imaginary abuses attributed to Israel get. 


When you look hard enough, you can find a reason to justify hating any country. And when the bulk of that effort goes towards the only country that has a Jewish majority, it is pretty obvious that human rights is not the real reason for the scrutiny. 




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!

 

 

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