Why Does Israeli PM Hopeful Benny Gantz Makes Himself a Stooge For Jew-Haters? - by Sheri Oz

I can only wish those campaigning for our votes were wise enough to realize that their campaign materials are not only seen by Israelis but by a world that judges us as harshly as it can.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
24 January '19..

Benny Gantz’s election campaign videos are being used by Electronic Intifada to tar and feather Israel. When this is your starting point:

. . . Gantz, like Netanyahu, is accurately reflecting the desires and fantasies of an Israeli public that views the willingness to shed the blood of defenseless Palestinians caged in ghettos after decades of expulsion and military occupation as the truest measure of leadership.

then there is not much they think Israel can do right other than vacate all the land like Hamas and the PLO would like to see happen. In fact, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah, has written a book proposing the one-state solution that solves the Israeli-“Palestinian” problem by ensuring that the Jews in Israel (and Christians and Baha’i) go down the same path as non-Muslims (or Muslims of the wrong kind) in the rest of the Arab world.

Therefore I can only imagine his glee when he set his eyes upon Gantz’s misguided campaign materials and the only positive thing I can say about the Electronic Intifada article is that they translated the videos accurately. First let us look at Abunimah’s justification for hating Israel, as stated in the quote above, and then I will talk about the videos Gantz put out.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Electronic Intifada's Falsehoods, Erekat's Jenin Fictions - by Gilead Ini

...It bears repeating that 52 Palestinians, not 500, were killed during intense urban warfare in Jenin. And it bears remembering who, in the days and months that followed, tried to deceive the public — not only Saeb Erekat with his lies about Jenin, but also Ali Abunimah with his lies about Saeb Erekat’s lies.

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA..
05 July '18..

In 2002, during the campaign of Palestinian suicide bombings known as the “Second Intifada,” and at the height of Israel’s counter-terrorist offensive to stop the attacks, Palestinian officials took to CNN to allege an Israeli “massacre” in the West Bank city of Jenin.

This charge, and the more specific allegation that Israel killed 500 people in the city, quickly spread through the media. Almost as quickly, it was walked back, after it became clear that just over 50 Palestinians, mostly combatants, and about two dozen Israelis, were killed during intense house-to-house fighting in the city.

“That’s not 500,” conceded one critic of Israel, in an article lamenting the “credulous response” by many of his fellow left-wing activists to false Palestinian claims about Jenin.

Reputations suffered. One of the Palestinian officials most responsible for the false rumors, Saeb Erekat, was ridiculed as “Mr. 500 dead in Jenin” by the director of the Center for Israeli Studies at University College in London. The New York Post was more direct, titling a column about Erekat and his accusations “Why TV News Loves a Liar.”

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Now if you want to call it Gaza’s 9/11…

...The statement that “Palestinians are stuck in a repeating cycle” is actually one of the few true pieces of information conveyed in this graphic, but as so many surveys show, this vicious cycle is entirely the Palestinians’ own making. When almost three quarters of a population have confidence that Osama bin Laden would “do the right thing in world affairs” and almost 80 percent believe a war that resulted in more than 2000 dead, more than 10 000 injured and considerable destruction was a “victory” for the terrorist organization that started it, there is unfortunately no basis for any constructive development.

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
11 September '14..

When Israel bombed a few high-rise buildings in Gaza shortly before Hamas finally accepted the ceasefire that had been offered for weeks, anti-Israel activists took to comparing what happened in Gaza to the terrorist attacks in New York on 9/11. Writing at his Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah claimed that “the overall death toll in Gaza since Israel’s bombardment began on 7 July proportionately far exceeds those attacks” and – on the basis of whatever mathematical exercises he was doing – he concluded that “Gaza has experienced about 125 ‘9/11s’ since 7 July” because “Israel has dropped the equivalent of an atomic bomb on Gaza.”

In a second piece on the same subject, Abunimah presented an “infographic” entitled “The Five Stages of Grief” that supposedly “reflects on the shared experiences of grief of Americans [after 9/11] and Palestinians in Gaza, while contrasting the stages of healing and recovery.”

If so-called “pro-Palestinian” activists have the chutzpah to make this comparison, it’s only fair to recall that the Palestinians were among those who cheered and celebrated on 9/11. While there were later attempts to claim that this was not true and while the Palestinian Authority made every effort to suppress reports of Palestinian jubilation, the respected Pew Research Center monitored Muslim public opinion about Al Qaeda and bin Laden for a decade after 9/11, and the survey results document that throughout this decade, Palestinians remained bin Laden’s most ardent admirers.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out!
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The proud supporters of terrorism, kidnapping and bigotry at the Electronic Intifada

...Supposedly, the content offered by EI reflects “the commitment of its cofounders and editors to universal principles of human rights, international law, anti-racism and equal justice.” However, the EI does not hide that when it comes to Israel and its Jewish citizens as well as supporters of the Jewish state, these laudable principles are replaced by a truly Orwellian definition of antisemitism that reflects Abunimah’s preposterous view that “Zionism is one of the worst forms of anti-Semitism in existence today” and that support for Zionism “is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.”

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror/JPost..
15 June '14..

Shaped largely by its co-founder and “Executive Director” Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada (EI) is described on its own website as an award-winning and widely recognized “news publication and educational resource focusing on Palestine.” While the site caters mainly to anti-Israel activists like proponents of BDS campaigns calling for boycotts against Israel, it is sometimes cited by well-placed journalists like Robert Mackey of the New York Times.

Supposedly, the content offered by EI reflects “the commitment of its cofounders and editors to universal principles of human rights, international law, anti-racism and equal justice.” However, the EI does not hide that when it comes to Israel and its Jewish citizens as well as supporters of the Jewish state, these laudable principles are replaced by a truly Orwellian definition of antisemitism that reflects Abunimah’s preposterous view that “Zionism is one of the worst forms of anti-Semitism in existence today” and that support for Zionism “is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.”

Given these views, it is hardly surprising that Abunimah sometimes finds it difficult to conceal his enthusiasm for the kind of murderous “resistance” practiced by terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It is equally unsurprising that Abunimah would now refer to the three recently kidnapped Jewish teenagers as “settlers” and to the security forces searching for them as “occupation gangs” – which, in the context of Abunimah’s ideology, implies that the three yeshiva students were legitimate targets of the “resistance” that Abunimah supports.

A few hour after this tweet, Abunimah referred to the kidnapped teens as “Boers” and mocked Israeli statements reminding the Palestinian Authority of its responsibility to prevent terrorist activity.

However, compared with his EI colleague Rana Baker, Abunimah was almost restrained. Baker could not control her joy when she heard the “wonderful news” of the kidnapping of three “settlers.”

But Abunimah presumably shared Baker’s sentiments, since he supported her in the thread that developed from her jubilant “wonderful news” tweet. It is of course also revealing that Baker felt that the kidnapping of three Jewish teens would be cheered by everybody except for “Zionists.”

Can you imagine Ha’aretz playing into anti-Semites’ hands? Why not?

...In their eagerness to justify antisemitism, the Ha’aretz writers inevitably provided a general justification for bigotry: Have you or anyone you know ever been harmed in any way by a Muslim/Arab/immigrant? If so, it’s fine to hate Muslims/Arabs/immigrants – and if anyone calls you a racist, tell them that the political correctness of your bigotry has been certified by Israel’s famously progressive paper Ha’aretz.

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror/JPost..
31 May '14..

Under the title “Netanyahu playing into anti-Semites’ hands,” Ha’aretz opinion writer Carolina Landsmann makes a convincing case that the paper she works for is determined to compete with the often antisemitic websites that cater to anti-Israel activists and outright Jew-haters. Landsmann begins her not particularly coherent column by mocking the Israeli prime minister’s efforts to have good relations with countries in Asia and Africa. Miss Landsmann’s comment on this diplomatically and economically sound approach: “The West repudiates us? Let’s recreate ourselves in the East (at least until they realize who we are).”

Right, Miss Landsmann: maybe Jews can pretend for a while to be different than they really are, but truly, who would want anything to do with them once it becomes clear who the Jews really are?

For Carolina Landsmann, Israel’s prime minister is really “Emperor Netanyahu, head of the Jewish empire with its capital the State of Israel,” and one of the most frightening developments under his reign is what she calls “the ‘Jewish identity’ bill.” Presumably, she refers to the much debated initiatives to define Israel as a Jewish state, though according to her there is something even more sinister afoot:

“We are witnessing a move to nationalize the Diaspora Jews. The bill aims to identify Jewish with Israeli and convert all Diaspora Jews into Israelis de facto. It’s only a matter of time until Jews, wherever they are, get the right to vote. […] Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are on a dangerous course. They want to harness the struggle against anti-Semitism to the struggle against moves against Israel’s policy. But they don’t realize, or do realize and turn a blind eye, that the move will backfire. It will merely inflame the rage and anger further, because it portrays Israel and the Jews as a body without borders that wants to expand beyond its state. In this sense, Netanyahu is playing into the anti-Semites’ hands by implementing their wildest fantasy about the Jews.”

For good measure, Landsmann also suggests that perhaps “such a situation is not against Israel’s interests. Zionism in its current incarnation has created a distorted dependency on anti-Semitism.”

So let’s summarize all the antisemitic tropes Miss Landsmann manages to pack into her column:

1) Jews want to deceive others who will rightly recoil once they realize who the Jews really are
2) Jews can be seen as “a body without borders” bent on expansion and control everywhere
3) Jews cause antisemitism by behaving in ways that can only confirm antisemitic fantasies about the Jews
4) Jews ultimately benefit from antisemitism

Little wonder that the Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah was excitedly tweeting Landsmann’s column as a confirmation of his views:

Electronic Intifada's Fantasizing about Jaffa

...So who knows: maybe UNRWA would be willing to expand its definition of Palestinian refugees to those who would leave Jaffa because they are deprived of being woken up at dawn by blaring mosque loudspeakers or because they feel that it’s really unfair when Osama bin Laden fans are regarded as extremists.

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
12 October ;13..

“Israel’s Likud hopes to complete the ethnic cleansing of Jaffa” – this is the dramatic title of a recent post by Ali Abunimah at his Electronic Intifada blog. Abunimah wisely avoids telling his readers right away how the Likud intends to implement its evil plan, but once you make it through his summary of how “Zionist invaders” in 1948 mercilessly besieged what Abunimah describes as “the cultural capital of Palestine,” you’ll learn just how devious the Likud really is: as Abunimah eventually reveals, “the Tel Aviv Likud branch promises voters” in a blog post about the upcoming local elections that it will “[s]ilence the muezzin and stop the spread of Islamic movements in Jaffa.”


Naturally, a desire to have noise nuisance laws enforced and opposition to the spread of radical Islamists amounts to “ethnic cleansing” – at least in the whacky world of Ali Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada.

Needless to say, it doesn’t matter for Abunimah & Co that the noise from mosque loudspeakers has sparked efforts to curb their use and volume even in Muslim countries, including, lo and behold, in Saudi Arabia…

And of course it doesn’t bother Abunimah & Co to champion a reactionary group like the Islamic movement. Indeed, the “progressive” fans of Abunimah and his Electronic Intifada will probably feel all warm and fuzzy when they listen to the speeches of Raed Salah, the leader of the Northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, who considers Osama bin Laden a “martyr.”

One could perhaps wonder how Jaffa’s Christian residents feel about the noise from mosque loudspeakers and Islamists – but if you want to advance the ridiculous claim that the silencing of mosque loudspeakers and opposition to Islamists amount to “ethnic cleansing,” it is clearly better not to dwell on the inconvenient fact that there are Arab Christians in Jaffa and that it is a town with several impressive historic sites associated with Christianity.

Indeed, speaking about inconvenient facts, Abunimah manages to demonstrate in this post that he is a master of ignoring them.

Meet "Electronic Intifada", where accuracy and integrity can be rare commodities indeed

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
15 August '13..

Electronic Intifada has a problem with quotations. The virulently anti-Israel website can’t seem to use them accurately or discuss them honestly, most recently stumbling into a controversy about a letter penned by Israeli founding father David Ben Gurion.

This probably shouldn’t come as a great surprise. After all, those behind the site, which directs its wrath not only at Israel but also at peace talks and Palestinian moderates, have repeatedly demonstrated problems with accuracy.

Falsehoods

Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah, for example, belittled the rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists into Israel, claiming the projectiles "carry about a charge, or an explosive charge, of about two pounds." In fact, at the time of he made this remark, Palestinian rockets carried warheads of up to 40 pounds. That is, Abunimah reduced the actual weight of the warheads by as much as 95 percent.

He also flatly lied by saying The New York Times had published an equal number of front-page photographs depicting Israeli vs. Palestinian mourning during the 2008-2009 Gaza war. "It's like almost 1 to 1, or even more images of mourning Israelis," he insisted. Actually, in the relevant time period, six front-page pictures depicted Palestinian suffering; none depicted Israeli suffering or mourning.

Abunimah again fibbed in a recent article about threatening messages sent to Animals lead singer Eric Burdon.

The Electronic Intifada piece, which tried to discredit Burdon’s manager who reported the threats, also goes after activist Avi Mayer. Mayer posted on Twitter that "BDS thugs threaten 72-year-old. Eric Burdon of The Animals cancels concert in Israel, citing threats." (BDS is the acronym for the fringe anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.)

Avi Mayer @AviMayer

#BDS thugs threaten 72-year-old. // @EricBurdon of The Animals cancels concert in Israel, citing threats - http://bit.ly/18xvXU7 

7:00 PM - 23 Jul 2013

According to Abunimah, though, the article Mayer links to in his Twitter post "does not support his claim."

Except it is glaringly obvious, upon clicking on Mayer's link, that the article does support his claim. Already in its very first sentence, the piece notes that "former lead singer of The Animals Eric Burdon on Tuesday announced he is cancelling his planned concert in Israel, citing threats." The news story then quotes Burdon’s manager, who wrote, "We are under increasing pressure, including many threatening emails that we are receiving on a daily basis. I wouldn't want to put Eric in any danger."

(It is worth noting, too, that the Ali Abunimah who implies Burdon’s manager was cynically lying about threats against the singer is the same one who unquestioningly accepts such allegations when anti-Israel groups claim to be the victims of threats.)

Ali goes to Gaza

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
A Warped Mirror..
26 May '13..

He tried and failed several times before, but this week, Ali Abunimah finally made it to Gaza. Obviously, the co-founder of the Electronic Intifada and passionate anti-Israel activist has devoted fans in the Hamas-ruled territory, and they eagerly awaited his arrival. Everyone – including Abunimah himself – was apparently a bit worried that there might be problems crossing the Egyptian-controlled border, which had been recently closed by Egyptian police to protest the kidnapping of several colleagues by Islamist gunmen. And it’s safe to assume that the fact that Israel couldn’t be blamed for the closure and other problems at the crossing made it all so much harder to bear…

Obviously, during his stay in Gaza, Ali Abunimah will do his very best to come up with many reasons to blame Israel. Indeed, his popular “narratives” about the bottomless evils of Israel and Zionism have presumably led to his invitation to the currently ongoing Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) – though it is a bit strange that an activist who likes to present himself as a serious reporter and political commentator would be invited to a festival that is supposedly devoted to literature and the arts. But perhaps Ali Abunimah’s advocacy should indeed be regarded as an art form that deserves to be featured in an event supported by organizations like the British Council and the Arts Council England?

I for one would never accuse Ali Abunimah of sticking to facts or bothering much with reality.

And sure enough, one of his first tweets after crossing from Egypt into Gaza illustrated one of Abunimah’s favorite fairy tales: that Israeli cities like Ashkelon are “occupied” Palestinian towns.

Donation time for a daily dose of hate

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
09 December '12..

The Electronic Intifada (EI) website is currently soliciting donations from its readers with the goal of raising $150 000 by the end of December.

Founded in 2001, EI describes itself as “an independent online news publication and educational resource focusing on Palestine, its people, politics, culture and place in the world.”

Judging from the contents offered by EI, Palestine’s “place in the world” is defined first and foremost by the relentless demonization of Israel – and inevitably, this goes along with efforts to discredit definitions of antisemitism that take account of the obsessive hatred directed against the world’s only Jewish state.

The current call for donations promises EI readers that supporting the site will make them “influential,” because supposedly, the EI-propagated “truth about Palestine” reaches an ever-expanding audience and “journalists from major and independent media all over the world [are] eager to get our perspectives.” However, when it better suits the purpose to claim that the media are terribly biased against the Palestinians, EI co-founder Ali Abunimah will happily put out the opposite message, complaining bitterly that “not one ‘mainstream’ US media org called me during #GazaUnderAttack.”

Anti-Israel Website Indirectly Funded by Dutch Government

Alana Goodman
Contentions/Commentary
28 November '10

The next time you come across an Electronic Intifada article alleging some devious Israeli plot to annex Palestinian olive groves, direct your eye-rolls toward The Hague. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Dutch government may have been unwittingly helping to finance the radical anti-Israel website for years.

The Post reported Friday that the Electronic Intifada is funded by the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, which is apparently being subsidized quite heavily by the Dutch government and the European Union:

The Dutch government has been funding the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, a Dutch aid organization that finances the Electronic Intifada website that, NGO Monitor told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, is anti-Semitic and frequently compares Israeli policies with those of the Nazi regime.

NGO Monitor’s exposure of Dutch government funding for the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) prompted Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal to say on Thursday, “I will look into the matter personally. If it appears that the government subsidized NGO ICCO does fund Electronic Intifada, it will have a serious problem with me.”

The Post reports that the Dutch government provided €124 million to the ICCO in 2008, which the NGO Monitor says makes up 90 percent of the group’s budget. The European Union reportedly contributed another 6 percent.

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Dutch government supports hate-Israel site

Fresnozionism.org
25 November '10

Ali Abunimah is a dedicated anti-Israel activist. His website, Electronic Intifada, is widely read (US traffic rank around 106,000) and linked to (more than 2000 sites). Abunimah gives speeches, appears on panels and is often quoted on the radio. He claims to have met Barack Obama numerous times, and is responsible for this notable quote:

As he came in from the cold and took off his coat [Chicago, 2004], I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.” He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, “Keep up the good work!” — Ali Abunimah

By the “3D test” of Natan Sharansky — Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization — or by the European Union’s working definition of antisemitism, Abunimah’s website and many of his remarks are antisemitic. Here is what NGO Monitor wrote about Electronic Intifada:

…the organization known as Electronic Intifada is very active in BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] efforts, routinely abusing terms like “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.” Nigel Parry, a cofounder of EI, conflates victims of terror with terror leaders, and justifies Palestinian mortars fired into Israeli settlements by stating: “The dilemma in which the Palestinians find themselves is like that of a man who, falsely imprisoned for most of his life and demonized by society, finds himself in a dark room being raped by a highly decorated prison guard, when… he suddenly notices a rocket launcher lying within reach.” Parry also compared Israel’s targeted killing of Hamas head Ahmed Yassin to a “bus bombing.”

EI’s other founder, Ali Abunimah, who appears on many campuses to promote BDS, calls for a one-state solution, meaning the elimination of Israel. Abunimah also compares Israel to Nazi Germany, referring to the Israeli press as “Der Sturmer.”

All this activity is expensive. Where does the money come from? Surprisingly (or not), a great deal of it comes from a Western liberal democracy:

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