Antisemitism in the Animal Rights Movement?

How Sausages are Made - But Not in Israel or the Muslim world!

A fellow animal rights activist, Donny Moss, bemoaned the fact some of us in the Animal Rights movement were, in his opinion, expressing antisemitic views. His Sept 3rd post on Facebook was titled: “Antisemitism comes to the Animal Rights Movement.” Its intro was also published in the Jewish Journal.

How Sausages are Made  - But Not in Israel or the Muslim world!

The majority of Jews and Muslims worldwide oppress, exploit, torture and kill animals in the process of stealing milk, eggs, lives and in other ways abusing our animal kin … except … for pigs. Most Jews and Muslims don’t eat pig carcasses. Pigs and passionate people the world over squeal with joy!

Well, not so fast. For Jews in Israel, a large pork industry supplies meat to Russian immigrants and foreign workers. Another pork industry supplies meat to secular Israelis, who eat pigs’ ribs and sausages made from their ground up dead bodies. As for Muslims, the only exception is if they’re starving. They strictly follow the Quran which interestingly enough bases its prohibition on judaism which has those two pretty large exceptions.

Either way, “there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.” as Marcellus in Shakespeare’s Hamlet says, when he compares the state to a fish that stinks from the head down. meaning there’s political corruption (moral illegitimacy) from the top down. Could the whole system be stinking rotten?

R.E.S.P.E.C.T !

I applaud and respect Donny Moss for sharing his thoughts, feelings and opinions in his Facebook article titled: “Antisemitism comes to the Animal Rights Movement.” By allowing issues like these to surface, be discussed and debated, we become stronger as a movement. Animal rights workers are good at putting ourselves in the shoes of others even if most often those shoes are hooves, fins and talons and in the case of the middle east, perhaps, sandals. Having worked with Donny Moss over many years i’ve come to respect and appreciate him, not only as a dedicated and effective animal liberation activist but also as a person. I feel the same about Rina, Heidi and the other (Jewish and non Jewish) activists and others who “liked,” “loved” and left positive emojis and comments, affirming or, in some cases, disputing his original article/post.

Oct 7th - who was killed that day?

As alternative media reported, many of the 1,139 Israelis killed on Oct 7th, ’23 were peace activists, some for example, going back and forth from Israel to Gaza to bring Palestinians to Israel for needed medical attention. In other words many were true “do-gooders.” In a Democracy Now interview, Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon, the son of such parents describes his parents’ work. Both he and his counterpart, a Palestinian man, Aziz Abu Sarah, whose older brother was beaten to death in an Israeli prison, are calling for an end to war and occupation, as featured in the new film “the Path Forward.”

Will the real terrorists please stand up?

In his piece, Donny Moss said Hamas “attacked Israel on Oct 7 — raping, burning, mutilating, kidnapping and murdering their victims.”

Contrary to unscrutinized, unverified and biased reporting by US, Israeli and Western media, the Palestinian resistance movement and political party Hamas breached security on Oct 7th in an attempt to kidnap as many Israeli soldiers and civilians as possible in order to negotiate a swap of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages. Exchanges of gunfire between Israeli soldiers (and possibly armed civilians) and Hamas captors probably killed many on both sides. But the majority of the 1,139 Israelis killed were by the Israeli military, not Hamas. Why would Hamas kill hostages when dead Israelis are of absolutely no value when negotiating a potential prisoner/hostage swap?

What? The Israeli Defense Forces Killed Their Own Citizens?

According to a report published soon after Oct 7, in Israel’s major newspaper, Haaretz, it was the Israeli military, the Israeli Defense Forces (the IDF), and NOT Hamas, Palestinians or Arabs who killed the vast majority of the 1,139 Israelis (815 civilians and 324 soldiers) on Oct 7th. The report in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper includes testimony from eye witness Israeli settlers, one for example, who survived Israeli tank shelling, other Israeli civilians, senior Israeli commanders and lower ranking Israeli military personnel.  A hard truth to swallow, but not if you understand that these Israeli citizens were blown to pieces and burned to ashes as the result of Israel’s Hannibal directive.    

What the bleep is the Hannibal directive ?

Hannibal was a Carthaginian (north African) general and statesman, (247 – 181 BC) who commanded the Carthage army in its fight against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. He won many battles, escaped twice but the last time was betrayed and rather than allow himself to be captured and taken prisoner, committed suicide by poison.

Named after this general, Israel’s Hannibal protocol is a military directive designed to prevent the capture of its soldiers and civilians even if it means killing them. According to Israeli’s Haaretz newspaper these 1,100 + deaths initially attributed to Hamas was the result of an order from Israeli high command to use maximum force so that “not a single vehicle can return to Gaza.”

An in-depth Australian Broadcast Company investigation came to the same conclusion, that Israel killed its own citizens rather than allow them to be taken hostage. The Palestinian Resistance movement said the ABC report “confirmed the zionist occupation army killed dozens of [its own] settlers under the so-called Hannibal Directive.” Interviewed by Max Blumenthal, Chris Hedges, decades long NY Times war correspondent corroborated this finding. He said that the charred, totally burned, unrecognizable remains of Israeli citizens as well as Hamas captors exactly resembled those bombed by hellfire missiles, in this case dropped from Israeli military aircraft, 28 attack helicopters, military drones and tank mortar cannons.

The Times of Israel also reported on this Haaretz article stating…”senior officers in Gaza division ordered soldiers to use whatever means necessary to prevent abductions even if it posed risk to life.”

Rapes and beheadings?

The claims of mass rapes, guts strewn about, fetuses cut out of pregnant women and beheadings happened only in the imagination of Mr Landau, a member of the ultra-orthodox Zaka organization itself mired for decades in sexual abuse (of teens) and financial scandals. Mr Landau talked openly of “inventing stories using his imagination.” There is absolutely no evidence any of that happened, including the fact no pregnant women were killed that day. In addition, Israeli television news and newspapers debunked these brutal tales calling them “fictional.”

Off with their head - lines (and lies)

How did they begin? The Israeli paper Haaretz reported that, on the aftermath of Oct 7th, instead of sending in its well trained IDF (Israeli Defense Force) soldiers who specialize in recovering bodies and preserving evidence, the government sent in these untrained Zaka volunteers, this private ultra-Orthodox rescue organization that has been documented to have mishandled evidence and spread multiple false stories about October 7 as well as previous incidents. As usual, they used the absurd claims to raise money for their almost insolvent organization. In addition, they were paid well by the Israeli government. As Haaretz reported, Zaka “spread accounts of atrocities that never happened.”

The fabricated reports were picked up uncritically by Reuters, CNN, the NY Times, BBC, the Guardian, NBC and most other major, mainstream outlets. The ridiculous claims continued to be mouthed by U.S. and global news and key politicians like President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. They used them as an excuse to continue to supply Israel with billions of US tax payer dollars which Israel was contracted to spend on 2,000 pound bombs they daily dropped on the people of Gaza. Profits for the armaments industry, Raytheon, Boeing, Hewlett Packer Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics soared higher than their war planes. So did those of Wall Street (aka War Street) and the high-tech industries with which they are connected.

The false narratives contained in the stories made up by the ultra-Orthodox, Zaka, are central to Israel’s demonization of Palestinian resistance; its claim Hamas is a terrorist organization equivalent to ISIS; its devastating war against the Palestinian people and now Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East. These stories also help hide that it was Israel’s hellfire missiles and Hannibal policy that killed over a thousand of its own citizens.

Possibly to be continued in Part 2

Majority of photos are by acclaimed Palestinian photographer Motaz Azaiza as shared on Democracy Now. Images of relatives are from trailer of film “The Path Forward.”