#idf 2019

[myjunkisyuzuruhanyu]

The reminder I did not need...🙈🙈🙈😥

Glad IdF 2019 has been 4 years ago and that great things happened afterwards to Shoma...otherwise I would be crying again really hard over Jun facing a similar fate in Skate Canada 2023...

I can't with great skaters looking so disappointed and defeated 😭😭😭

Shoma may have flopped even harder and emotionally that was too much to bear. With Jun I was kind of too stunned to have emotions right there. Yet I am so sad for Jun 💔😥😢

Shoma did well afterwards, so hopefully Jun can recover just as good 🙏

I have an emotional trauma from IdF 2019 I really don't need reminders😭😭😭

But in a way Jun's skate at SkCan also proves that my emotional trauma has gotten better as I am not sobbing for 3 hours straight....😅

[tornoaserjo]

Elon musk te quiero muerto

[probablyasocialecologist]

The IDF uses extensive facial recognition with a growing network of cameras and mobile phones to document every Palestinian in the West Bank. Starting in 2019, Israeli soldiers used the Blue Wolf app to capture Palestinian faces, which were then compared to a massive database of images dubbed the “Facebook for Palestinians.” Soldiers were told to compete by taking the most photos of Palestinians and the most prolific would win prizes. The system is most extreme in the city of Hebron, where facial recognition and numerous cameras are used to monitor Palestinians, including at times in their homes, instead of the extreme Jewish settlers living there, who routinely express genocidal threats against the Palestinians. The IDF claimed that the program was designed to “improve the quality of life for the Palestinian population.”

Antony Loewenstein, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World

[ahaura]

some quick resources with vital information and context about or related to Palestine (compiled Oct. 15)

[Video] Why Israel Deliberately Targets Civilians

[Thread] Zachary Foster, a Ph.d historian of Palestine, posted about the real history of Hamas

[Video] Double Down News covering the myth of "self defense"

[Video] Mohammed El-Kurd on 75 years of violence and oppression

[Thread] Abby Martin debunks the "human shield" excuse used by Israel to bomb civilians

[Video] Mohammed El-Kurd on media literacy, "DO NOT BE COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE"

[Article] "Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed." - Raz Segal, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, in @JewishCurrents.

[Video] Mohammed El-Kurd on ABCNews

[Tweet] Reminder that just a few months ago Netanyahu brought a map to the UN of the “New Middle East” that effectively showed Israel annexing all of Palestine.

[Video] Michael Brooks breaking down how the situation with Palestine and Israel is "not complex"

[Video] Paul Murphy, Irish Parliment Member for People Before Profit, on Israel and Gaza

[Statistics] The Human Cost of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[Video] Husam Zomlot: “It’s the Palestinians that are always expected to condemn themselves.”

[Map] An interactive map that details the history of "Conquer and divide", from 1967 onwards, via B'Tselem.

[Documentary] The Actions of Settlers in Hebron (Tel Rumeida)

[Video] Former CIA admit to lying about atrocities committed by Cubans. They admit they didn't know of a single atrocity done by the Cubans. "It was pure raw false propaganda to create an illusion of communists eating babies for breakfast."

[Documentary] Gaza Fights For Freedom (covers the IDF assassinating and maiming Palestinians in the peaceful March for Return in 2019)

[Video] Ghassan Kanafani’s famous interview

[Documentary] How Palestinians were expelled from their homes

[jewish-sideblog]

Clearly, y'all don't care about Jews, and the fact that Hamas is violently antisemitic doesn't seem matter to any of you. So let me go with a new approach, of equal truth and value. Hamas is violently anti-Palestinian.

This past week, Hamas attacked evacuation routes and prevented Gazan citizens from fleeing an active warzone. [1]

They did that because they routinely use Gazan civilians as human shields. Hamas intentionally builds military targets close to schools, hospitals, and mosques, putting soft targets in the way of both incoming and outgoing fire. Hamas encourages Gazan civilians and children to stand on the roofs of buildings they know the IDF is targeting. [2]

Hamas has refused to allow elections in Gaza since 2006. Not just Palestinian National Authority elections, mind you. No open elections for any office have been held in seventeen years. Palestinian rights to free elections and self-determination have been denied by Hamas. [3] (And good luck to anyone who tries to blame that on Israel, because elections were held by the PNA in the West Bank in 2012, 2017, 2021 and 2022. It's Hamas's intention alone to purge democracy.)

Hamas's track record on human rights is appalling. Palestinian prisoners in Gaza face unfair trials and death sentences after being tortured by police. Palestinian women are prevented from accessing the legal systems to escape domestic abuse situations. Political dissidents in Hamas, even ones who merely support the other half of the Palestinian government, have been summarily executed. [4] [5]

Peaceful organizers in Palestine protested Hamas's massive tax hikes in 2019. Hamas security forces responded by assaulting demonstrators, tracking them down, raiding their homes, and detaining them. And, as previously mentioned, prisoners in Gaza are not treated well by Hamas. [6]

Edit Nov.5, 10:30 PM: I forgot to add arguably the most important thing-- Hamas manipulates the humanitarian aid they receive away from helping Gazans and toward killing Jews. 5% of Hamas's budget actually gets used for humanitarian aid, while 55% goes to military use. Construction equipment intended to rebuild Gaza's crumbling infrastructure is used to build a complex series of underground tunnels. Those tunnels in turn are used to smuggle Iranian military equipment into the country. They were also used for human trafficking in the October 7th attacks. [7]

If you actually want Palestinians to be free, you can't just replace Israel with Hamas. But it's not like they're the only option for supporting Palestinian liberation. While Fatah doesn't have an immaculate historical track record, it now operates as a leftist, democratic socialist, secular Palestinian government that fights for a two-state solution. Similarly, Arab-Israeli political parties like the Hadash-Ta'al coalition support leftist, anti-Zionist, and two-state solutions from within the Israeli parliament.

You can and should support Palestinian liberation movements that abuse neither Jewish nor Arab human rights and dignities. Plenty of them exist out there. But if y'all continue to throw your weight behind an antisemitic and anti-democratic terrorist regime, Palestinians and Jews will both take note of exactly where you stand.

[strangesmallbard]

hey so. i’ve seen many people reblogging some variation of “israel spent millions on a superbowl ad to distract everyone from the airstrikes on rafah” and decided to do some fact-checking. the ad was produced by the kraft foundation to stop jewish hate, founded by robert kraft, who owns the patriots. kraft also partnered with dr. clarence b. jones—who advised dr. martin king luther jr and helped him write the i have a dream speech—to create this ad. according to tara levine, the fcas president, this ad was made in response to rising antisemitism on social media platforms, which her team tracks.

here’s a link to the foundation’s about page on their website. their mission statement solely focuses on combatting antisemitism and does not mention i/p or the ongoing war. the ad itself does not mention i/p or the ongoing war. it’s pretty ironic, and yet not surprising, that an ad created to stop antisemitism is currently the eye of the antisemitic storm on social media. if you sincerely believe netanyahu secretly funded this ad campaign to “distract everyone” from the idf’s airstrike attack in rafa, then you have bought into two different antisemitic conspiracy theories: that jews control the media and that diasporic jews have dual loyalty to israel. while political zionists have used accusations of antisemitism to invalidate pro-palestinian efforts, that’s not what’s happening here. all this information is obtainable via google. please learn to fact check yourselves before posting. thanks!

(bonus: here’s a 20-minute video where kraft and dr. jones discuss the civil rights movement, anti-black racism, antisemitism, and the history of solidarity between black and jewish activists during the civil rights movement.)

EDIT 2/23/24:

after publishing this post, i researched robert kraft and fcas' funding source and pro-israel efforts more deeply, then analyzed my findings in a reblog, which you can read here. tl;dr version - in 2019, kraft was given the genesis prize, a $1 million dollar award. the awarding foundation has direct ties to the israeli government. kraft used part of these funds to finance fcas. this additional information does not negate my original post, however; i can't find any conclusive evidence that the israeli government directly funded kraft's superbowl ad. there is also no evidence that kraft is targeting anti-israel sentiment in the ad rather than antisemitism overall. assuming this connection is still evidence of antisemitic conspiratorial thought, as i detail above.

i'm including this information because i believe it's important to acknolwedge wider context. i don't share kraft's politics re: israel and believe his stance compromises his foundation's overall messaging. i also condemn any efforts to silence pro-palestinian efforts with accusations of antisemitism, but that is still not what's happening here. i also want to clarify that i'm only discussing responses i've seen to kraft's ad, not the ads produced by the israeli government. thanks again!

[infiniteglitterfall]

I keep thinking about a post or a comment I saw months ago that basically said, "if this isn't a genocide then why haven't I seen any photos of Israel on fire"

So here are some photos of Israel on fire.

Starting with the obvious:

October 7th, 2023. Hamas attacked 21 towns. Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Re'im, and Nir Oz were essentially burned to the ground; it will take years to rebuild them.

Satellite images during the attack show fires burning all over.

On October 7, Israel’s farming industry lost approximately 40% of its workforce and 30% of its physical area when the nation’s agricultural center became a warzone and the site of mass death and destruction.

The war forced thousands of people in Israel’s north and south to abandon their homes, leaving hundreds of acres of farmland to lie fallow while the IDF secured the area from further Hamas attacks.

Devastating losses About 20% of Israel’s agricultural land is located in the Gaza border area.... 75% of the vegetables consumed in Israel usually come from the Gaza border region, plus 20% of the fruit and 6.5% of the milk. Meanwhile, Israel’s northern region — which has been facing increasing rocket attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon — accounts for a third of the country’s agricultural land, and according to the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry, about 73% of its domestic egg production is concentrated in the Galilee and Golan regions.

Hezbollah's rocket attacks upon Israeli civilian areas, and Hamas rocket attacks from Lebanon, have caused massive fires across northern Israel.

The elimination of Israel has been a primary goal for Hezbollah, just as it is for Hamas and its affiliated groups.

Unlike Hamas, which targets Jews per se and cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to explain why, Hezbollah's reasoning follows that of the dictatorship of Iran:

"God, according to Hezbollah theology, cursed all Jews as blasphemers damned for all time and throughout history. Hezbollah, as well as the political/religious leaders of Iran, believe that the destruction of Israel will bring about the 'reappearance of the Imam (the Shiite Islamic Messiah).'"

Fire and brimstone it is, I guess.

April:

Nature and Parks Authority says that some 80,000 dunams (20,000 acres) in the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights have gone up in flames since the start of the month.

The Katzrin fire in early June:

Since the fighting erupted, the total scorched area in Israel is three times greater than the area consumed by the two greatest fires in Israeli history: the Sha'ar Hagai blaze west of Jerusalem in 1995, and the Mount Carmel forest fire in 2010. In each of those blazes, some 20,000 to 25,000 dunams of forest went up in smoke.

The total area burnt down now is also three times the combined area incinerated in 2016 when extreme weather conditions caused a wave of fires that consumed some 41,000 dunams. A similar size of woodland and forest also burned down during the Second Lebanon War. In 2019, a huge blaze consumed large swaths of central Israel's Mevo Modi'im community.

According to a Haaretz analysis of satellite images, which matches with estimates by authorities, some 210,000 dunams (about 52,000 acres) of land burned down in Israel and Lebanon: about 150,000 dunams in Israel from Hezbollah attacks and Israel Defense Forces anti-aircraft fire, and around 60,000 dunams in Lebanon. The burned-down areas in Israel stretch over a large area in the Galilee and Golan Heights, while in Lebanon they are concentrated near the border – due to the Israeli military policy of setting deliberate fire to [complex fortified] areas there in order to keep Hezbollah combatants away and to damage the vegetation that provides them with cover.

...These included trenches, bunkers, rocket-launching positions and arms storage sites.

June 4:

'If the fire spreads to the mountain – everything changes': Residents try to survive amid Hezbollah rockets

As rockets rain on their homes and wreak havoc, some Israelis believe the government's lackluster response shows it has forfeited the north to terrorists. "This is Hezbollah's new strategy – intentionally firing on open areas to ignite fires and burn the north," says former mayor.

Gay Eyal, the security officer of the Golan Regional Council, hasn't slept a wink since yesterday. More than 20 communities in the north, including two evacuated towns of Avivim and Dovev, fall under his wide purview.

"It seems this is the new method of the enemy: They see and hear what's happening – they understand burning the north is more effective," Eyal stated grimly. "We're coming off a night of fires. And this morning another blaze started in the Yir'on Forest. Our biggest fear is the fire spreading to Mount Meron. If that mountain ignites, all the communities of Meron, Safsufa, and the Galilee panhandle will be in danger." Eyal claims they prepared in advance, positioning 24 water trailer rigs of 1,000 liters each in every community. "It's a drop in the bucket. We geared up this past year with many water trailers to assist with firefighting, but it's not enough. We're working with fire stations in Safed, Kiryat Shmona, Tiberias, and Carmiel – our council is dealing with four fire stations. The firefighters are doing everything they can, working ceaselessly. They're tearing themselves apart, but the fire is spreading like a field of thorns."

...Another resident from the north who was out all night at the various fire scenes also tells Israel Hayom this morning: "It's impossible to describe what we went through here last night. Everything burned, an entire region was ablaze. I drove between the fruit orchards, between communities as the fires raged, and my heart burned. The feeling is terrible, of destruction. There's no way to explain the feeling of people watching their life's work burning before their eyes."

June 12:

Hezbollah launched some 215 rockets and several more missiles and drones at northern Israel on Wednesday, in what it said was a response to the killing of a senior commander in the terror group by an Israeli airstrike a night earlier.

The successive Hezbollah attacks began on Wednesday morning with a barrage of at least 90 rockets fired at several [CIVILIAN] areas in northern Israel, including Tiberias — for the first time amid the war — Safed and Rosh Pina, sending tens of thousands of people to shelters, as Jewish Israelis celebrated the Shavuot holiday.

The Israel Defense Forces said another 70 rockets were then launched at the Mount Meron area, home to a sensitive air traffic control base. Ten more rockets were fired at the northern community of Zar’it, and an anti-tank guided missile struck a factory of the Plasan armored vehicle manufacturer in Kibbutz Sasa, causing damage. Later in the morning, a drone launched from Lebanon detonated in an open area near the northern community of Zivon, local authorities said. Several more rockets were fired in the afternoon hours at the upper and western Galilee areas.

[ashwantsafreepalestine]

Posted on 27 November, 2019.

A young Palestinian child was blindfolded and forced to march through the streets by IDF terrorists.

They throw stun grenades into other Palestinian homes as they take the child to a military post for questioning.

Absolutely disgusting.

Source: RT

[hummussexual]

BY ABBY MONTEILApril 30, 2024

More than 60 LGBTQ+ organizations are calling for broadcasters, competitors, workers, and viewers to boycott 2024’s Eurovision Song Contest following the competition’s decision to include Israel in this year’s event, which takes place in Sweden.

Support for the boycott has come from LGBTQ+ organizations around the world, including QPEN in the United States, Queers in Palestine in Palestine, Pride in Protest in Australia, and Dyke March Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

“Israeli soldiers wave rainbow flags atop the ruins of Palestinian homes destroyed by the Israeli military in Gaza — a cynical attempt to rebrand Israel’s genocide as an act of queer liberation,” the boycott’s organizers said in a press release statement.

The statement likely refers in part to a viral November 2023 post from the state of Israel's official X account, which showed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier standing amidst rubble it what was reportedly northern Gaza holding a Pride flag that had “In the name of love” written on it in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. The post said that the soldier is “a member of the LGBTQ+ community” who “wanted to send a message of hope to the people of Gaza living under Hamas brutality.” The post was criticized by LGBTQ+ advocates for being a prime example of “pinkwashing.”

The statement continued: “Allowing Israel to participate in Eurovision — an international pop cultural event with a massive LGBTQ+ audience — further contributes to Israel’s desperate pinkwashing attempts.”

The groups’ press release noted that although Eurovision excluded Russia the day after the country invaded Ukraine, similar measures have not been applied to Israel following the January International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that it is “plausible” that Israel is committing acts of genocide in Gaza. While the ICJ stated that it would proceed on South Africa’s case charging Israel with violation of the 1948 Convention of the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the court did not order Israel to stop its military operations. Since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 and took 250 hostages, Israeli military actions have killed over 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza and injured more than 75,000 Palestinians.

This isn’t the first time that artists and LGBTQ+ organizations have protested the international music competition’s inclusion of Israel. Back in 2019, over 100 LGBTQ+ groups endorsed a Palestinian call for a boycott of that year’s competition, which took place in Israel, following what Amnesty International described as “deliberate attempts” to kill and maim Palestinian civilians participating in protests in Gaza.

This past January, more than 1,000 Swedish musicians, including LGBTQ+ icon Robyn, called for Eurovision to exclude Israel from the 2024 competition in an open letter to the European Broadcasting Union, who said in a statement to Billboard that the Israeli public broadcaster KAN has met all the competition rules for this year and is eligible to compete.

Later, in March, over 1,900 queer artists and organizations called on the UK’s Eurovision contestant, queer actor and musician Olly Alexander, to boycott the competition out of solidarity with Palestine.

Eurovision 2024 is set to begin on May 7.

[eretzyisrael]

By GIANLUCA PACCHIANI

BERLIN — In 2019, Gazan activists Hamza Howidy and Amin Abed organized and participated in demonstrations against the harsh living conditions in the impoverished Strip. They were both arrested by Hamas and placed in the same prison cell. Every day, they were subjected to beatings and torture.

Last August, Howidy, 26, managed to leave Gaza after another round of protests and another detention. Abed, 35, stayed behind, unable to afford the exorbitant exit fees from the enclave, and unwilling to let his beloved Gaza collapse further under the weight of Hamas’s mismanagement and repression.

Even after October 7, Abed refused to remain silent in the face of the devastation that the terror group brought upon Gaza. Earlier this month, the well-known activist, a longstanding thorn in Hamas’s side, published a Facebook post in Arabic excoriating the Islamist group for its onslaught against Israel.

“Hamas knew from the very first moment [that Israel would retaliate], but it was ready to give anything in return for the continuation of its rule, the hen that lays golden eggs for its leaders and its investments abroad,” a paragraph in the post read.

Shortly after publishing it, Abed was assaulted by over 20 “thugs” – Hamas security members, according to bystanders – wearing masks and wielding batons and knives in the school where he was sheltering with his family. His arms and legs were broken.

“Amin [Abed] is the bravest Gazan you could ever meet,” said Howidy of his audacious friend and former cellmate, in an interview with The Times of Israel.

“He was never afraid of Hamas. Whenever we thought of organizing a protest, he was the first one to post about it, to speak up. He dedicated everything to opposing Hamas,” Howidy said. (Following his assault, Abed said in a recent interview he is now considering leaving Gaza as well.)

Howidy lives today in Germany, where he arrived a few months ago and submitted an asylum application. He receives shelter and a stipend from the German government.

Safe from Hamas’s retaliation against himself and his family – who in the interim lost their home in an Israeli airstrike and have also left the Strip for Egypt – Howidy is now a vocal Hamas critic on the international stage.

He maintains an English-language Twitter account where he documents the suffering of Gazan civilians at the hands of both Hamas and the IDF. He has also penned a number of op-eds in prominent magazines, chiefly among them Newsweek, and given interviews to international media outlets describing Hamas’s terror rule over Gazans and chastising self-professed liberals on Western university campuses for hurting Palestinians by absolving Hamas of its crimes against them.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

The IDF has entered the Shifa hospital today in Gaza, and searched it for hostages, but none were found. There was info that they had been held there, so the time the IDF has given the civilians to evacuate, was probably used by the terrorists to move the hostages. A possible scenario is that they were moved to southern Gaza.

Meanwhile, the BBC had to apologize today for "misquoting" Reuters twice. The original report said the IDF entered the hospital with medical teams and Arabic speakers. Instead of reporting this, the BBC said the IDF was targeting these groups:

Here's the original Reuters report that the BBC misquoted. Twice.

Here's an image from a vid showing IDF soldiers bringing medical equipment into the hospital:

Yesterday in Washington DC, a pro-Israel rally drew a crowd of 290,000 people, making it the biggest Jewish rally in modern history, and the biggest pro-Israel one:

I'm sorry I didn't know I can watch it online... Something to add to this is that there's a group of 900 people from Detroit, who flew to Washington DC to participate in the rally, but were stranded in the Dulles airport, because their bus drivers refused to drive them to a pro-Israeli rally.

American congress woman Rashida Tlaib is known to have been a part of a hidden American-Palestinian facebook group since 2017. In 2019, it came to light that the founder of the group has doubted the Holocaust has happened, and a lot of criticism was aimed at Tlaib for her membership in the group, but she didn't leave it. Now, it's been shown that there were posts in this facebook group celebrating Hamas' Oct 7 massacre.

I mentioned peace activist Vivian Silver, whose body was identified yesterday, in this post. A lot of "peace activists" tweeted in mourning today. I haven't seen one who has mentioned that Hamas murdered her. One explicitly said, "We don't know who murdered her," even though there's no doubt that Hamas terrorists murdered her on Oct 7 (she was on the phone with her son until the almost last moments).

As rockets from Gaza continue to be fired at Israel, here's a small reminder that around 1,000 misfired, and killed Palestinians:

This is 37 years old Anton Gurionov.

He was at the Nova music festival on Oct 7. He managed to make it out, and also got his girlfriend out of there. But then he insisted on going back to try and get a good friend out. That's when Hamas terrorists got to him. He had a 6 year old daughter. May his memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[probablyasocialecologist]

The Canada Revenue Agency has notified the century-old Jewish National Fund that it plans to revoke the group’s charitable status in Canada over support for military infrastructure in Israel, a decision the JNF says it will challenge in the courts.

[...]

JNF had an earlier run-in with the CRA following a financial audit showing that donations from the organization were used to build military infrastructure for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). The CRA said the move ran afoul of Canada’s Tax Code concerning supporting foreign militaries. The CRA has cracked down on other Canadian Jewish charities in recent years, citing similar concerns. In 2019, Beth Oloth Charitable Organization had its charitable status removed for distributing funds aiding the Israeli military.

Link to story (National Post)

Jul 25, 2024

[veganpropaganda]

Excerpts from the article below. It's from 2019 but many of its points are still relevant and crucial:

Make no mistake: Israel is using veganism as a calculated facade to justify its military’s program of terror, gloss over its occupation of Palestine, and appropriate regional culture and traditions that predate Israel by hundreds if not thousands of years.

Far from being a politically neutral “lifestyle,” true veganism is a radical anti-oppression philosophy, and yet one of the most oppressive governments in the world is co-opting veganism for its own gains.

Ahmad Safi, the Executive Director of the Palestinian Animal League, perhaps best encapsulates the IDF’s breathtaking hypocrisy around veganism in his piece “On the ‘IDF’s vegan warriors’: A vegan Palestinian’s perspective.” In describing a BBC special on the “vegan warriors” of the IDF, Safi notes, “I was somewhat baffled by a particular passage in the article, taken from a radio interview which said of one of the vegan soldiers: ‘Her diet is so important to her that had the army not been able to provide conditions that had harmed no living creatures, she might not have enlisted in a combat unit.’ The only way in which I can interpret this is that the soldier in question does not consider Palestinians to be ‘living creatures.’”

An explicitly intersectional, anti-capitalist vegan movement could never provide a coherent justification for human rights abuses, even on a superficial level. In our desire to make veganism more appealing to the masses, however, vegans have sold our politics out. And the wrong people bought them, along with the IDF’s favorite hummus.

Though we are up against powerful industrial and military systems, we can still move towards justice. Rejecting a consumerist vision of veganism, learning about Palestinian cuisine and culture, and joining the Palestinian civil society movement of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) are just a few actions that we can take.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

CRA notifies Jewish National Fund it will revoke Canadian charitable status

Story by Ari David Blaff

The Canada Revenue Agency has notified the century-old Jewish National Fund that it plans to revoke the group’s charitable status in Canada over support for military infrastructure in Israel, a decision the JNF says it will challenge in the courts.

The CRA did not respond to a request in time for publication. JNF CEO Lance Davis directed the Post to the organization’s public statement and contemporaneous newsletter to its supporters.

They added that their appeal intends to show the CRA’s findings are flawed, that the federal body’s procedures are unfair and that there “is a reasonable apprehension of bias in the audit.”

JNF had an earlier run-in with the CRA following a financial audit showing that donations from the organization were used to build military infrastructure for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). The CRA said the move ran afoul of Canada’s Tax Code concerning supporting foreign militaries.

The CRA has cracked down on other Canadian Jewish charities in recent years, citing similar concerns. In 2019, Beth Oloth Charitable Organization had its charitable status removed for distributing funds aiding the Israeli military.

“Canadian charities are not allowed to fund foreign militaries,” Mark Blumberg, an attorney specializing in Canadian charity law, told the Post by email. “Clearly, there were previously some compliance issues,” Blumberg, creator of CharityData.ca – the largest national database of Canadian registered charities – added. He cautioned that it is difficult to draw conclusions from JNF’s announcement “without reviewing the letters from (the) CRA combined with the letters from the charity to CRA.”

Disenhouse pledged that JNF Canada had worked, and remains committed, to addressing the CRA’s earlier concerns and has strived to avoid a revocation of its charitable status.

“Similar to other charities that support the needs of children, workers, and vulnerable communities we would expect CRA to work with, not against, our charity,” Disenhouse said.

In a statement on Thursday, Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said his group “is supportive of JNF.”

“CIJA remains hopeful that JNF and CRA will ultimately identify a constructive resolution, permitting JNF to continue its important work ranging from relief from poverty to environmental reclamation,” he added.

National Post

[mithliya]

Some believed that the Oct. 7 attack only targeted military sites. Others were convinced that all Israeli civilian casualties were the result of mistaken IDF counter-fire or the activation of the “Hannibal Directive,” a portion of the IDF Code of Conduct — which has reportedly been revoked since 2016 — which purportedly allows for Israelis to be targeted in order to prevent their captivity. Oct. 7 denialism was further fueled by some reports that turned out to be false or inaccurate, such as the 40 beheaded babies or first responders finding dead children hung on clotheslines in a row.

Nevertheless, overwhelming video and anecdotal evidence unequivocally and definitively prove the unspeakable scale of the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians, many of whom were in fact leftists and even peace activists.

I never thought that the Palestinian people and their entirely legitimate grievances would be associated with such brutal acts as those that actually took place on Oct. 7. While Hamas militants are a small part of the Palestinian population, their crimes are a shameful stain in the history of Palestinian resistance to Israeli injustices. Someone who is truly of the left cannot in good conscience explain it away.

Along with the stubborn unwillingness by some on the left to acknowledge how horrendous Oct. 7 was, there exists an equally staunch refusal to denounce Hamas as a seriously violent terror group that not only committed a vile atrocity against Israelis, but has exercised authoritarian violence against Gazans for over 17 years.

Herein lies the problem: Hamas has hijacked the resistance narrative and even the Arabic word for resistance (muqawama). Since taking over the Gaza Strip, the group has consistently hidden behind the resistance narrative, thus shielding itself from criticism and absolving itself of its dismal political and economic failures.

Despite nearly two decades of the Israeli blockade that harmed the lives and prospects of ordinary Gazans, Hamas created an environment in which its members, patrons and affiliates were insulated from the blockade’s dire effects. Hamas established a web of businesses and imposed taxes on virtually every financial transaction and exchange, worsening the economic conditions for millions who were living under crushing poverty.

…

In 2017, 2019 and in the summer of 2023, tens of thousands of Gazans protested against their living conditions, the lack of human rights, and the political deadlock between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. In each of these instances, Hamas responded with overwhelming brutality and force. They jailed, beat and tortured protestors and unleashed its thugs and cyber warriors to bully and harass everyday Gazans.

…

Hamas’s rise to power and entrenched control of Gaza was supported and desired by Netanyahu and his regime of anti-Palestinian extremists. The Islamist group was bolstered in an effort to keep the Palestinians divided and to weaken the PA, preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. With a weak PA and a militant Hamas, Israel could proclaim the lack of a viable partner to negotiate peace with. Netanyahu is now desperate to prolong the worst war that Palestinians have faced in generations to save his political prospects, putting Hamas and Israel’s dictatorial strongman in an unspoken alliance against the people of Gaza.

Hamas’s intransigence and continued refusal to sacrifice some of its demands to achieve a rapid ceasefire agreement illustrates the group’s callous disregard for the lives of its people. Imagine how much more powerful the pro-Palestine movement would be if its actions and strategies were built upon an anti-Hamas framework that acknowledges Palestinians’ rights to resistance but denounces indiscriminate violence against civilians, the theocratic authoritarianism of Islamist groups like Hamas and the human rights abuses that Gazans themselves experienced under Hamas’ rule. Imagine if the pro-Palestine left understood the vast extent to which Hamas was a useful idiot in the nefarious designs of Netanyahu’s regime.

As Gazans turn against the Islamist group in droves due to the horrendous consequences of its deadly actions, it’s time for the pro-Palestine left to follow suit and abandon Hamas.

not the full article but these are sections i found important.

[girlactionfigure]

*ISRAEL REALTIME* - "Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime"

▪️GAZA - IDF ATTACKING RAFAH.. the most southern city of Gaza, and the one that connects Gaza to Egypt - both via entry port and likely smuggling tunnels, and the last Hamas stronghold.  Multiple reports of IDF airstrikes into Rafah this morning.

▪️HOSTAGE PROTEST IN FRONT OF IDF HQ.. Hostage families and activists for their release blocked Begin Road in front of the Kirya base in Tel Aviv (across from Arielli) last night in protest against the “poison campaign” that they say is being waged against the families and demanding a deal that would lead to the release of their relatives.

▪️DEFENSE MINISTER ON LEBANON.. "We are pushing the enemy. The military operation gives Hezbollah an understanding that it is better for it to choose the political path, and at the same time proves our military capabilities." 

▪️SYRIA - OVERNIGHT ATTACKS ON HOMS.. airstrikes, though local channels report civilian deaths from failed air defense missiles rather than the attack.  Sources associated with the regime list 4 sites that were attacked:  Elkzir area (Kosair) southwest of Homs- civilian casualties from air defenses, Havat Aloer and the eastern area of Tadmor Square, Hamra Street in the city of Homs, a building collapsed, and in the area of the municipal stadium - civilian casualties from air defenses, the Alauras area in Homs.  While likely Israel, the IDF does NOT confirm attacks in Syria.

▪️US HOUSE REJECTS ISRAEL AID DUE TO INTERNAL POLITICS..  The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a Republican-led bill on Tuesday that would provide $17.6 billion to Israel, as Democrats said they wanted a vote instead on a broader measure that would also provide assistance to Ukraine, international humanitarian funding and new money for border security.  The vote was 250 to 180, falling short because it was introduced under an expedited procedure requiring a two-thirds majority for passage.  The against was mostly Democrats.

▪️US PRESSURE… A senior American administration official told NBC: The Biden administration is exploring various options, including recognition of a Palestinian state, which would give legal and symbolic status to the Palestinians and add international pressure on Israel to take part in meaningful negotiations that would lead to sustainable peace. (( First, as always where is the pressure on Hamas or the Palestinian Authority for “meaningful negotiations”?  Second, this is a classic “we’re not doing that, but some anonymous official is saying we might - to create pressure” tactic. Third, we will not suicide because defending ourselves doesn’t meet your expectations. ))

▪️IRAN FUNDING HAMAS.. IDF captures documentation showing direct funding from Iran, in years 2014, 2015, 2019, and 2020, Hamas leader Sinwar received $15 million, $48 million, $42 million, and $12 million, respectively. 

▪️HOUTHI SHIPPING ATTACKS.. US Central Command: “Yesterday the Houthis launched 6 missiles at two merchant ships - one Greek and one British. 3 missiles were launched at the Greek ship, one exploded near the ship and caused minor damage. One was intercepted by the destroyer USS Laboon and one fell in the water. 3 missiles that were launched at the British ship - they all missed.

▪️US/UK ATTACKS ON YEMEN.. Arab sources reported a British-American attack overnight in the Hudaydah area of Yemen.

▪️IDF announces grants and tax reductions for disabled IDF veterans, according to the percentage of disability (in Israel you get a disability rating of 19-100%, and disability support is based on the percentage.)