A 2024 Nobel Peace Prize Shortlist Mocks The Death Of Jews

On October 3, 2024, the Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Henrik Urdal, announced his updated list today for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. While PRIO is not associated with the Nobel committee, its views are considered influential. The list included:

  • OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
  • Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms
  • UNRWA and Philippe Lazzarini
  • International Court of Justice (ICJ)
  • UNESCO and the Council of Europe

In selecting UNRWA, PRIO stated “The UN agency has faced a massive funding crisis for years, which has been exasperated by the war itself, and increasingly by the impact of US withdrawing funding following allegations by Israel that 12 participants of the 7 October attacks were Hamas militants, employed by UNRWA. The UN agency took the allegations seriously, by launching both an internal investigation and an external review of its procedures. UNRWA has extensive control mechanisms in place, with a zero tolerance, but not zero risk policy. They therefore terminated the employment of individuals where there was any indication that they might have had ties to militant groups. Throughout the war UNRWA itself has been heavily targeted by Israeli attacks, and by the end of September, 224 of its staff had been killed in Gaza, and 190 UNRWA installations had been damaged. UNRWA’s operation is absolutely fundamental to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. A Nobel Peace Prize to the agency and its Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini would send a strong message about its role in supporting the lives of millions of Palestinian women, men and children.”

Nowhere was it noted that UNRWA teaches its students to despise Israeli Jews. Nowhere was it mentioned that UNRWA has promised 6 million Palestinian Arabs – 42% of whom already live in historic region of Palestine – that their future is inside of Israel, whether Israel likes it or not.

In short-listing the ICJ, PRIO wrote “While a Nobel Peace Prize to the ICJ would largely be seen as uncontroversial, the Court acted boldly in January this year ordering Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip. In addition, it acted early in March 2022 by ordering Russia to ‘immediately suspend the military operations’ in Ukraine.”

The anti-Israel actions were not an accident or related to the current war.

In 2021, PRIO did not recommend Jared Kushner who helped engineer the Abraham Accords which formed normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab and Muslim countries, a feat which was once considered impossible. Instead it nominated B’Tselem & the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) for “contributing to raising awareness in Israel and elsewhere of the need for the Israeli regime to change course if the conflict is to have any chance of reaching a peaceful and just resolution.”

In short, the recommendations for a peace prize in the shadow of the brutal slaughter of Jews was to send a political message that Jews deserve neither peace nor justice; they should have neither until the Palestinian victims of preference achieve all of their goals.

ACTION ITEM

Contact PRIO at urdal@prio.org and +47 92 04 78 41 that the barbaric slaughter of Jews should be condemned clearly and the murderers brought to justice, and their protectors should not be celebrated on the global stage, a mockery to both living and dead Jews.

Related articles:

Israel at 75 (April 2023)

Will a Jailed Terrorist or a Terrorist Group Run the Palestinian Authority? (April 2021)

Jared Kushner’s Parents Donate $20 million to the First Hospital Likely to Win the Nobel Peace Prize (December 2016)

New York Times Grants Nobel Prize-in Waiting to Palestinian Arab Terrorist (February 2016)

Al Aqsa Mosque As A Safe Room?

After Iran fired over 180 missiles at Israel, Israel considered how to handle synagogue attendance during the Rosh Hashanah holiday. Synagogue attendance typically swells on the holy days, with even more secular Jews attending services. But most synagogues only have small mamads (safe rooms) to protect people during a shelling attack, so hundreds could be left unprotected during an attack.

The situation is even more dire at one of the largest synagogues in the world – the Western Wall Plaza at the Kotel – where thousands of Jews gather in the Old City of Jerusalem. The large outdoor location has few easily accessible places to hide from missiles.

Perhaps the grey-domed al Aqsa Mosque can be used by thousands of Jews as a safe room from jihadi missiles. The jihadists would presumably try to spare their religious building, making the mosque a potential haven for Jews.

Al Aqsa Mosque from outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls (photo: First One Through)

Hamas termed their barbaric slaughter of Israelis the “al Aqsa Flood.” Perhaps it didn’t imagine that the term would become a prophecy inverted, drawing masses of Jews onto the Temple Mount.

Related articles:

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Protecting Synagogues Like Abortion Clinics (July 2024)

Palestinian Poll About October 7 Massacre (November 2023)

United Nations Urges ‘Utmost Restraint’ By Israel In Defending Synagogues On High Holidays (September 2023)

Every Picture Tells a Story: Israel Is Scared of Female Iranian Shoppers (February 2021)

Considering Nazis and Radical Islam on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day (June 2019)

The Disproportionate Defenses of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (July 2015)

United Nations Still Will Not Call For Hamas To Face Justice

In the immediate aftermath of the brutal October 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel by various Palestinian Arab terrorist groups including the ruling party Hamas, the United Nations was silent. Neither UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres nor the UN Security Council issued any statement for days. When they finally emerged from their shells, they urged Israel to act with “utmost restraint” rather than issue a statement of solidarity with Israel and for Hamas to be held accountable for its actions (as it does in standard form with every other terrorist attack).

One year later, nothing has changed.

Guterres posted on X his condemnation of the actions of Hamas but would still not say that the genocidal jihadi group must face justice.

The United Nations has shown a complete disregard of the lives, rights, dignity and humanity of Jews. It should not only be defunded but expelled from the United States.

ACTION ITEM

Write White House: The United Nations has STILL NOT DEMANDED FOR HAMAS TO FACE JUSTICE. It should be defunded immediately and expelled from the United States.

Related articles:

The United Nations Welcomes “Peace-Loving” Palestine (September 2024)

UN Human Rights Chief Wants Hamas To Have Greater Weaponry To Attack Israel (September 2024)

The Deep Flaws In The UN’s “Peace” Coordinator (August 2024)

UN Secretary General Sides With Hezbollah Over Israel (June 2024)

Time To Sentence The United Nations For Involuntary Manslaughter (April 2024)

UN Secretary General Accuses Israel Of “Islamophobia War” (March 2024)

US Fails To Lead Systemically Anti-Israel UN Security Council (March 2024)

The UN Has Joined The Jihadi Fray (February 2024)

Fire United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres (January 2024)

UN Secretary General Sees Hostage Release Solely Through Lens Of Gaza (November 2023)

United Nations Declares Jews May Not Judge (November 2023)

The UN Security Council Cannot Bear To Say That Israel Has A Right To Defend Itself (October 2023)

UN Secretary General Says Hamas Speaks For “The Palestinian People” (October 2023)

The United Nations Fails Own Resolution To Combat Terrorism (October 2023)

United Nations Urges ‘Utmost Restraint’ By Israel In Defending Synagogues On High Holidays (September 2023)

The UN Reminds The World That Palestinian Terrorists And Enablers Are To Be Excused (August 2023)

Palestinian Hate Speech (May 2023)

The United Nations Ignores Radical Muslim Violent Extremism and Terrorism (February 2023)

Will The UN Ever Support Israel Addressing Terrorism And Violent Extremism? (February 2023)

14 Million Palestinian Arabs Ready To Reconcile, Vote And Battle (October 2022)

Amid The Terror, The United Nations Once Again Protects Palestinians (April 2022)

The UN Has No Interest in Mid-East Peace, Just a Palestinian State (October 2021)

The UN Cannot See Palestinian ‘Lies and Loathing’ (November 2020)

The United Nations Must Take Its Own Medicine Re the Palestinian Authority (June 2019)

The UN Declares that Palestinian Arabs Should Not Show “Restraint” (July 2017)

The UN Does Not Want Palestinian Terrorists to be Held Accountable (July 2017)

Iranian Proxies In The West Bank?

The Islamic Republic of Iran has many proxies surrounding Israel: Hamas which controls Gaza; Hezbollah which controls Lebanon; Syria; and farther away, the Houthis in Yemen.

Does it also have cells in the West Bank?

As Iran sent over 180 missiles into Israel on October 1, 2024, two Palestinian Arabs from Hebron shot and killed seven people in Tel Aviv and injured many others. The timing was minutes apart.

This was the first time that Palestinian Arabs shot up Tel Aviv streets during the year long war against Palestinian terrorists. Is it a coincidence that Palestinian Arabs decided to blast Tel Aviv just as Iranian missiles showered from above?

West Bank Arabs have been much more supportive of the October 7 attacks and commitment to destroying Israel than their counterparts in Gaza according to Palestinian polls. Israeli activity likely prevented a two-front war on October 7, which would have resulted in thousands of additional Israeli deaths in cities like Kfar Saba and Ra’anana which are very close to the 1949 Armistice Lines.

While the world is focused on the violent storm between Israel and Iran, Israel’s security will need to investigate how deeply Iran has integrated with the newer terrorist groups in the West Bank like Jenin Battalion, Lions’ Den and Tulkarm Brigades, to clamp down on yet another front of jihadi terrorism.

ACTION ITEM

Write White House and pro-Israel members of Congress like Ritchie Torres, Mike Lawler and Josh Gottheimer or your local representative to get the State Department to label the Jenin Battalion, Lion’s Den and the branches of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade as US designated foreign terrorist organizations.

Related articles:

Note To Kamala: Vast Majority Of West Bank Arabs Are Terrorist Supporters (July 2024)

The Gaza Red Herring Covering Iran’s Nuclear Breakout (January 2024)

How Many Terrorists To Target? Between 1,500 and 1.5 Million (October 2023)

UNRWA’s West Bank Terrorists (July 2023)

Majority of Palestinians Believe Israel Will Soon Cease to Exist (June 2023)

Letter to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) On Conditioning Aid To Israel (March 2023)

Biden To Push Coexistence Agenda To Palestinian Arabs Not Interested (July 2022)

NYTimes Says Nasrallah Was Paragon Of Coexistence

Just two months after Israel assassinated one of the leaders of a U.S. foreign terrorist organization in Iran whom The New York Times called a man of peace, the facts repeated.

In July 2023, Israel killed Ismail Haniyeh, one of the heads of Hamas, an organization sworn towards the destruction of Israel, while he visited Iran. In September, Israel took out Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, also dedicated to destroying the “Zionist entity.” Just as the Times called Haniyeh the key towards peace in the region, it extolled Nasrallah.

The Times called Nasrallah a “towering figure… across the Middle East.” He “was opposed to Israel… and maintained that there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians.”

I kid you not.

The Times painted a fictitious narrative that Hezbollah “opposes” Israel, maybe like dueling political parties. Perhaps the organization disliked Israeli policies on a couple of issues, or maybe simply wanted a “Free Palestine” with equality for all.

That is a disgraceful whitewashing of the genocidal intent of the jihadist group. Hezbollah wants Israel destroyed and to bring shari’a law throughout the Middle East.

As relayed in a number of articles and speeches, Nasrallah’s Hezbollah sought the destruction of the Jewish State:

  • “our struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated. We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.” – February 1985
  • “Our people in Palestine, you have the chance to decide on your own destiny, and you can get your land back. O people of Palestine, your way to Palestine and to liberty is through serious resistance and a real insurrection, not through “The Oslo Accord” or the unfair negotiations held in Stockholm. You should choose insurrection and resistance and never let go of your rights. Do what the Lebanese do: They refuse to keep even a small part of their land occupied.” – May 2000 
  • “[Israel] is an aggressive, illegal and illegitimate entity, which has no future in our land…. It’s destination is manifested in our motto, ‘Death to Israel’.” – 2005
  • “Hezbollah congratulates the resisting Palestinian people and the heroic fighters of the Palestinian factions, especially our dear brothers in the al Qassam Brigades and the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, for the wide-ranging and divinely supported heroic operation, promising complete victory. This triumphant operation is a decisive response to the ongoing crimes of the occupation and continuous violations against sanctities, honors, and dignities. It is a renewed confirmation that the will of the Palestinian people and the rifle of the resistance is the only choice in confronting aggression and occupation. It sends a message to the Arab and Islamic world, and the international community as a whole, especially those seeking normalization with this enemy, that the Palestinian cause is an everlasting one, alive until victory and liberation.” – after October 7, 2023 massacre by Hamas

Nasrallah repeatedly stated that Hezbollah will never negotiate with the “Zionist entity.” That its goal was converting all Christians in the region to Islam and bringing shari’a law as soon as Islam crossed the majority. As it is not currently in the majority, the jihadi group will not force conversion by the sword and asked the Christians in Lebanon to therefore not use violence against them, even as they run a completely distinct army from the government of Lebanon.

Part of Hezbollah’s statement of purpose from 1998

The NY Times description of the removal of leading terrorists who were actively gunning for civilians as an unjust assassination of peace, is designed to mark Israel as blood-thirsty murderers who crave war. Expect the hashtag #HitlerWasRight to accompany reposts to Times’ articles.

The New York Times is deliberately lying to its readership that jihadi terrorist groups which seek the complete destruction of Israel are really seeking coexistence. It is a subtle incitement to antisemitism and hatred of Israel, even in the shadow of the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and in the midst of a multi-front war.

ACTION ITEMS

Write to the New York Times to state clearly that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations that seek the destruction of Israel, and not benign actors looking for religious coexistence.

Subscribe to the New York Post

Related articles:

A Milestone For US Recognition Of Foreign Terrorist Groups (September 2024)

NY Times And Amnesty International Cover For Anti-Israel Terrorism In UK (August 2024)

NY Times Lies That Gazans Hate Hamas (June 2024)

NY Times Is Worried About The Health Of The Leading State Sponsor Of Terrorism (May 2024)

Dangerous NY Times Lies Cleansing Palestinians’ Preference For Violence (November 2023)

NY Times Begins To Whitewash Hamas (October 2023)

Palestine Islamic Jihad: NY Times vs. State Department (May 2023)

NY Times Uses J Street As The Source Of Its Israel Coverage And Promotes The Group (March 2023)

NY Times Is Not Willfully Ignorant But Willfully Misleading About The Arab-Israeli Conflict (July 2022)

The NY Times ‘More Confrontational Approach’ (November 2020)

Alias Armies Of Jihad

The escalation of the war between Iranian Proxies and Israel continues to lay bare the alias armies of Iran embedded around the region.

The United Nations is demanding diplomatic negotiations commence between Israel and the Palestinian Authority while only narrowly condemning the Hamas (not Palestinian) savage massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023. For the UN, Hamas is at once distinct from Palestine, and simultaneously a legitimate Palestinian political group, as UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said “Hamas is not a terrorist group for us, of course, as you know. It’s a political movement.”

Does the UN think that Hamas is a separate group inside of Gaza or does it acknowledge that Palestine launched a genocidal war against Israel?

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has vast military capabilities, estimated to be around 150,000 missiles. In conjunction with Hamas’s October 7 war, Hezbollah began its attack on Israel. Israel’s response to Hezbollah has been characterized as an attack on Lebanon rather than Hezbollah.

The shifting nouns makes Israel appear to be the aggressor against a neutral party: while Hamas attacks Israel, Israel attacks Gaza; while Hezbollah attacks Israel, Israel attacks Lebanon.

Hamas controls Gaza and has 58% of the seats in the Palestinian parliament. Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon and has 48% of the Lebanese government.

In no other sphere can a country claim that its military is not a functioning arm of the government. Such fictitious divide affords the government a veneer of peaceful intentions while its army wages war.

Simultaneously, both are proxy groups of the Islamic Republic of Iran, colonial outposts on the borders of Israel.

Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel are either 1) a rogue third party terrorist group attack on the Jewish State, 2) a Lebanese attack, or 3) an Iranian attack. If it is a separate entity, than a diplomatic solution must a) have the Lebanese government confiscate all its weapons, b) strip the group of all seats in parliament, and c) expel it from Lebanon. If the attacks on Israel were from Lebanon, than Israel has full right to attack all of Lebanon. If the attacks were spearheaded by Iran, than we have long been in a regional war.

Multiple countries issue a release calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon (people and government), making no mention of Hezbollah or Iran, tacitly accepting that Hezbollah is part of Lebanon and that Lebanon launched an unprovoked attack on Israel.

The same should hold for Hamas and Palestinian territories: Palestinians launched a war against Israel, not Iran or a limited wicked entity.

Labeling armies with unique names distances the governments and population from the violence they perpetrated. It falsely shields the attacking government and people from fault and casts the defensive response as unwarranted and sinister.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez calls members of Hezbollah “innocent civilians” and Israel’s attack a violation of “international humanitarian law,” which implies that she believes that the people and government of Lebanon started a war with Israel and Israel is acting in self defense.

The anti-Israel world does not believe that non-Hamas Gazans who are killed by Israel’s defensive war are civilians caught in a war that its government started, but defenseless targets of an Israeli initiated attack. The “Hamas attacks Israel / Israel attacks Gaza” (not Hamas) narrative obfuscates the culpability of the people and government of Gaza.

The antisemitic jihadists in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza launched a war of annihilation against the Jewish State using alias armies, attempting to shield the people and governments as uninvolved bystanders. Much of the world has ingested the red herring and is defaming Israel’s just war in the latest incarnation of a blood libel.

Related articles:

Two Narratives Of Israel-Lebanon War (September 2024)

Palestinians Publicly Go Full Genocidal Jihadi (August 2024)

Israel And Jews Everywhere Must Be Protected As An Ethnic, Religious And Linguistic Minority (September 2022)

Politicians In Their Own Words: Why We Don’t Support Defending Jews (January 2022)

Eyal Gilad Naftali Klinghoffer. The new Blood Libel. (June 2014)

Columbia University Renames SIPA “Sinwar School Of Government”

A satire?

Columbia University has long felt insecure among the Ivy League schools, particularly relative to Harvard. Whether in the undergraduate or graduate programs, Harvard was considered the gold standard. For decades, Boston has been known as the elite university city while New York City was an elite city that happened to have a bunch of decent schools.

In June 2023, Columbia decided to embark on a new marketing program. It would no longer participate in the U.S. News ranking for colleges which always placed it well behind Harvard. It would create its own brand in its own way.

Building on its historic reputation as a haven for “revolutionaries” in the 1960s, the administration opted to use the Palestinian Arab enormous massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023 as a launching point for its new branding campaign. It allowed student protestors to harass Jewish students, break into school buildings and intimidate anyone who did not show solidarity with the anti-Israel movement. It gave permission for radicals to cut off access to the school and incite violence. It laughed off the dwindling Jewish population’s petition to remove Professor Joseph Massad who celebrated the October 7 Palestinian slaughter of Jews. The dean of the university celebrated the “peaceful protests” of the students as part of the “long and proud tradition [at Columbia] of protest and activism on many important issues.” She allowed deans who mocked antisemitism to resign with all their benefits rather than fire them for cause.

As college enrollment has been on a steady decline since 2010, Columbia’s administration decided to tap into the populist anti-Israel movement and rename its School of International and Public Affairs, as the Yahya Sinwar School Of Government, after the leader of the Palestinian pogrom on Israeli Jews. It is bringing back the Intifada banners hung by students and etching its call into the stone walls of the buildings’ entrances to embrace antisemitism as the new anti-racism.

Columbia “Intifada” banner to be preserved in the new Yahya Sinwar School of Government lobby as historic inspiration

Columbia hopes that its new jihadi branding will entice the antisemitic generation to look past the flailing institution’s educational content and embrace the thriving Jew hatred culture metastasizing among the socialist-jihadi youth.

Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Columbia has eyes on you.

Related articles:

Ignoring Columbia’s – And The Education Industry’s – Systemic Antisemitism (July 2024)

Considering Campus Antisemitism (November 2023)

The Antisemitic Campus: Decolonize Palestine (October 2023)

Columbia University Completely Fails Mission. And Jews (October 2023)

Is It Racist To Ponder Rashida Tlaib’s Terrorism Ties?

The National Review posted a cartoon in the aftermath of the political-terrorist group Hezbollah’s pagers blowing up around Lebanon and Syria, of U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) sitting at her desk and pondering why her pager had just exploded. In response, many of her alt-left comrades rallied to her and accused the right-leaning media company of racism.

If Tlaib was targeted solely because she is an Arab Muslim, that would certainly be offensive and racist.

But Talib is much more than that.

For one thing, she is a vile antisemite and anti-Zionist. She trafficked in antisemitic tropes accusing Jews of trying to kill Black and Brown people around the world for profit at the Democratic Socialists of America annual conference in 2021. Her comments calling for the destruction of Israel earned her a bipartisan censure of Congress in 2023.

Tlaib has a history of falsely attacking Israel as engaging in “ethnic cleansing”, “apartheid” and “genocide.” She has also refused to call for Hamas to be held accountable for actual premediated genocide and ethnic cleansing. She seemingly believes that the best defense for Palestinian Arab terrorism is to go on the attack to make their evil actions appear warranted.

Does someone’s antisemitism and hatred of Israel warrant being labeled terrorist-adjacent, at least in jest?

On October 25, 2023, Canary Mission alleged that Tlaib has extensive fundraising ties to the Palestinian political-terrorist group Hamas. In July 2023, A Telegram channel linked to jihadi factions fighting against the Bashar Al-Assad regime in Syria said that Rep. Ilhan Omar and Tlaib are getting money from Iran to support lifting sanctions against the leading state sponsor of terror.

Tlaib was one of the only members of Congress who refused to support a resolution condemning Iranian attacks on Israel. The fourteen members that refused to condemn Iran were almost the exact cohort that accused the National Review of anti-Arab bigotry, including disgraced Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY).

The recent exploding pager attack was narrowly targeted to members of Hezbollah, and hit those in its orbit including the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon. It clearly demonstrates the ties between politicians and the terrorist group, hence the cartoon.

Hamas and Hezbollah are both radical jihadi groups with manifestos calling for the destruction of Israel (“It’s destination is manifested in our motto, ‘Death to Israel'”- Hezbollah; “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” – Hamas). Tlaib has not stated anything that extreme, even though she defends the groups’ crimes against humanity.

Had the cartoon been made using Rep. Jamaal Bowman, would people have made a charge of racism about the cartoon? Is the alt-left’s aggressive defense of Tlaib acknowledgment that 75% of Palestinian Arabs support the heinous Hamas massacre of Jewish women, children and the elderly?

While other alt-left members of Congress have a few reasons for possibly being portrayed as anti-Israel, Tlaib is the unquestioned champion of vile antisemitism, promoting libels about Israel, defending anti-Israel terrorist groups and taking funds from their supporters.

The charge of “anti-Arab bigotry and Islamophobia” does not hold.

Related articles:

Tlaib And Bowman Have Aligned With Terrorists To Destroy Israel And America (May 2024)

Over Half A Million Gazans Support Killing Jewish Civilians. They Are Being Sponsored In Congress By Tlaib And Bowman (March 2024)

Rashida Tlaib Wants Shooters Of Palestinians Held Accountable, NOT Palestinian Shooters (November 2023)

Apartheid In Palestinian Authority, Not Israel (May 2022)

Tlaib Shields Anti-Semitic Murderers, If Not White (June 2021)

Criticizing Muslim Antisemitism is Not Islamophobia (March 2019)

Two Narratives Of Israel-Lebanon War

There are two competing narratives of the war between Lebanon and Israel, one being promoted by the liberal media, the United Nations and Muslim-majority countries (the “Anti-Israel Camp”), and the other by Israel and its supporters. How each side sees the framework of the war will continue to direct the commentary as the war unfolds.

Anti-Israel Narrative

According to one telling of the story, Hezbollah is a “Lebanese militant group” which is “supported by Iran.” The group attacked Israel on October 7, just after the Hamas massacre, “to show support for its Palestinian ally,” and will stop fighting Israel as soon as there is a “ceasefire agreed to by Hamas.”

In this telling of the events, Israel has opened up a new front against Hezbollah for virtually no reason, as the key to stopping the Hezbollah attacks is to end the fighting in Gaza. Israel’s “ferocious assault on Hezbollah” is not only unwarranted but infuriating the United States President Biden who has sought to confine the fighting to Gaza.

NY Times article bemoaning Israel’s attack on Hezbollah, creating a rift between the U.S. and Israel

Hezbollah is portrayed as only a Lebanese ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, whose mission and intentions are unstated. Israel’s mission is seemingly a folly, destined to repeat the “mistakes the United States made after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”

Pro-Israel Narrative

The same events are seen very differently by Israel supporters and those who appreciate a truthful account of current events.

Hamas and Hezbollah are U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations, backed by the leading state sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Each is a genocidal jihadi group dedicated to destroying the Jewish State and are acting together to try to achieve that aim.

Hamas has majority support of Palestinians, with 58% of parliament. It’s goal to destroy Israel is to enable 6 million Palestinians to overtake the Jewish State. Hezbollah is slightly less popular than Hamas, with 48% of parliament and seeks to expel the 490,000 Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) who reside in Lebanon to a new state of Palestine.

Israel was attacked by both Iranian proxies of Hamas and Hezbollah on October 7, 2023 and is fighting a defensive war it does not want against each. The threat of Hezbollah is much greater than Hamas, which has an estimated 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel. Over 80,000 Israelis in the north have been internally displaced to the south because of the Hezbollah attacks and ongoing threats.

These narratives are very different. The anti-Israel camp thinks that the United States waged wrongful revenge attacks after 9/11 and Israel is going down the same ill-advised path. But the pro-Israel view is that the American response wasn’t the problem: it waged the war terribly, first by attacking Iraq which was not involved in the 9/11 attacks, and then spending twenty years in Afghanistan fighting a terrorist group that could not pose an existential threat to the US, for the action al Qaeda took on a single day. That dynamic is not remotely similar for Israel fighting two clear and obvious enemies on its borders that are constantly attacking its citizens.

If the reports you consume tell you that Hezbollah is simply helping its beleaguered Gazan allies who are being crushed by the powerful Israeli army against the wishes of the United States, know that you are absorbing a toxic anti-Israel fake account of the just defensive war Israel is waging against genocidal foes next door.

Related articles:

Lebanon-Israel War Narrative (August 2024)

NYTimes Said Israel Killed Man Of Peace In Assassination Of Leader Of Hamas (July 2024)

UN Secretary General Sides With Hezbollah Over Israel (June 2024)

The Gaza Red Herring Covering Iran’s Nuclear Breakout (January 2024)

Deconstructing The Nuance In Anti-Israel Antisemitism

The Pro-Palestinian camp has attempted to separate anti-Zionism and antisemitism, even when the overlap is almost exact. The pro-Israel camp typically points to that fact without acknowledging that some comments which are anti-Israel are indeed not antisemitic.

So let’s make the breakdown a little clearer by separating four components of anti-Israel rhetoric, those against the:

  • Government of Israel
  • State of Israel
  • Israelis
  • Land of Israel

Government of Israel

Criticizing the policy of a government, as a general matter, does not mean that someone hates the leaders as individuals or the country itself. It applies to Israel as much as the United Kingdom, Ecuador or India. In fact, many people who criticize a government’s policies are often big fans of that country, and want to see it be the best version of itself that it can be.

In the case of Israel, criticism of the government and policies veers into antisemitism based on the language and intent. Saying that the Israeli government is like Nazis is antisemitic as the intent is to specifically call them out in the manner of the worst antisemites. Declaring that the Jewish State is a puppet master of global powers is to promote antisemitic tropes.

Cartoon posted in The New York Times showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog, leading a blind U.S. President Donald Trump

Criticizing the Israeli government’s policies is not generally antisemitic, except when the attacks specifically incite and use antisemitic language.

State of Israel

Contrary to popular belief, NO COUNTRY has an inherent right to exist. Neither Montenegro nor South Sudan needed to be created. Cyprus need not be divided. PEOPLE have an inherent right to self determination but no country inherently deserves to exist.

That said, the world is much better off with good sovereign entities, with governments that care and protect their populace. The United States and Japan care for hundreds of millions of people who consent to be governed. The governments try to maintain peaceful relations inside and outside their borders.

So it is with Israel, a country which remarkably has added millions of people since it was founded, absorbing immigrants from around the world. It built a thriving economy and liberal democracy in the heart of an illiberal region.

Yet there are many countries that still refuse to recognize the Jewish State, including thirty Muslim-majority countries. They object to Jewish control of what they perceive of as “Muslim Arab land” in what they hope will be a Muslim-majority (only) State of Palestine. Those countries’ leaders call Israel a “cancer” which should be destroyed.

Iranian leader called Israel an “unclean rabid dog” and a “cancerous tumor”

The Jewish people are the most persecuted people in the world and have been for thousands of years. Calling for the destruction of a thriving country of the most persecuted people in their historic homeland, and only that country of the nearly 200 countries in the world, stinks of antisemitism.

Israeli People

Many western countries are diverse, while many countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are homogenous. Israel is unique in being very diverse while being in the middle of MENA.

Israel consists of Black Jews, Brown Jews, White Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze. Yet the hate targeting Israelis narrowly targets just Jewish Israelis, making the attacks inherently antisemitic.

Land Of Israel

The BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) movement specifically calls Israel a “regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.” To call Jews “settlers” and “colonizers” of their homeland is to deny Jews their thousands of years of history and heritage, a deeply antisemitic lie.

To make it illegal for Jews – and only Jews – to be banned from living somewhere, let alone in their homeland, is deeply antisemitic, no matter if it is codified in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334.

Palestinian law that makes it a capital offense to sell land to Jews is deeply antisemitic.

To deny that the Jewish Temple is the holiest location in the world for Jews, and/or to deny Jews from praying at that holy spot is deeply antisemitic and spits in the face of basic human rights.

The United Nations declared that Jews cannot live in the Old City of Jerusalem and cannot pray at their holiest location on the Temple Mount

Almost every type of anti-Israel comment – including those from the United Nations – are deeply antisemitic. Those that relate to debating policy as happens in every country, are the only ones that typically do not veer into Jew hatred.

Related articles:

The World Must Pressure Palestinians On Basic Truths (August 2023)

Act Against The Antisemitic Slanderers And Definitely Those In Power (August 2023)

The Anti-Semitism In Anti-Zionism (March 2023)

The Re-Introduction of the ‘Powerful’ Jew Smear (March 2021)

The Cave of the Jewish Matriarch and Arab Cultural Appropriation (November 2018)

Abbas’s Speech and the Window into Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism (May 2018)

Squeezing Zionism (January 2016)

The Legal Israeli Settlements (December 2014)

The United Nations and Holy Sites in the Holy Land (November 2014)

“An anti-Semitic Tinge” (July 2014)