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Friday, August 07, 2020

08/07 Links Pt2: The Farrakhan Paradox: He admires Hitler, white celebrities and black athletes admire him; StandWithUs Condemns Antisemitism That Led to USC Student Leader's Resignation

From Ian:

The Farrakhan Paradox: He admires Hitler, white celebrities and black athletes admire him

The Paradox of Farrakhan is that, while mas of sense in one area, he is a very sick, Hitler-like, Jew-hater. It is what it is. It is not going to chanking lotge It is built into his very Muslim ideology. There is no point in trying to change his mind because that would be like trying to change Hitler’s mind. And, frankly, he never has been and never will be anything in America other than a circus act. So let him compare Jews to termites, and let him just be careful when he stands on wood stages.

But how shall we explain his followers among professional Black athletes, rappers, entertainers? Are they really that hateful towards Jews?

In some cases, presumably yes. After all, if there are some White neo-Nazis, there are going to be some Black Nazis. In that regard, all people are created equal. But to posit something radical, the deeper shame is something more fundamental:

Along their way to excelling in sports or rapping or entertaining, although they are nobly self-made in their one area of excellence by virtue of their own hard work, these Black American success stories who quote and defend and retweet Farrakhan seem never to have learned the high school or college subject of actual history.

Not only do highly rated and recruited football and basketball athletes in college typically side-step getting an academic education, but nowadays even regular college students in America manage to walk out of four undergraduate years of 120 credit hours without knowing any real history, not American history and not world history.

When they tear down monuments, they do not even know who those people were. So they even tear down statues of Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and even abolitionists who died fighting slavery, even a monument in Los Angeles of Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden who gave his life opposing Hitler, because they have absolutely no education in basic history to show for their $160,000 in taxpayer-funded college loans.

Here is the thing: They also do not have a clue who Hitler is or was. Two-thirds of American millennials never even have heard of Auschwitz. This is documented. For all the obsessive spending of tens of millions of dollars by American secular Jews to build Holocaust museums instead of to fund Torah education, the bottom line is that the vast majority of the past two generations of American college “graduates” would not know the difference between Adolph Hitler, Bette Midler, Batman’s Riddler, and Tevye’s Fiddler.

And that is why so many successful Black athletes love Farrakhan’s message of self-reliance and re-tweet his quotes of Hitler without understanding who Hitler was.

So, for now, I offer a very quick one-minute history lesson to DeSean Jackson, Stephen Jackson, Nick Cannon, and Ice Cube: On page 430 of my 1962 paperback Sentry Publishing edition of the 1943 copyrighted Houghton Mifflin edition of Mein Kampf by Mr. Adolf Hitler, the author describes all Black people as “born half apes.”

Look it up. Just look up in the index the ten references to “Negroes” in Mr. Hitler’s book that you and Minister Farrakhan like to quote and retweet. You are quoting from a book that says that each of you — Minister Farrakhan, too — was born genetically a “half ape,” and Mr. Hitler says that is all you ever can be because you are Black, so it is in your blood when you are born. He writes that, even if you learn German and vote for a German party, it still is in your blood, so you remain a “half ape.” Id. at 388-89.

On page 188, Mr. Hitler writes of his WWI experience: “In these months, I felt for the first time the whole malice of Destiny which kept me at the front in a position where every ni - - - r might accidentally shoot me to bits . . . .” (You will have to look it up yourself, Messrs. Jackson, Mr. Cannon, and Mr. Cube to see the full word. It is spelled out fully by Mr. Hitler.)

So if you want to quote Hitler as an authority, be aware that in the same breath and on the same pages he likewise presented himself as an authority that all Black people — and that means you — are genetically “half apes.” Look it up. Any questions?

Time to rediscover KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov

In 1984 Yuri Bezmenov bravely warned us of communist subversion, as we were (and still are) in a state of war with this failed ideology that has killed more than 100 million people in the 20th century alone.

While many of us are at work, America’s children and young adults are being targeted by the new wave of anti-American communist propaganda, funded by:
- Russia, in the form of slick social media videos; details here
- China’s Communist Party, in the form of “Confucius Institutes” set up on hundreds of U.S. college campuses; details here

Here is just one example of the Russian government-funded “SoapBox” (part of “InTheNow”) — in which the host, Rania Khalek whitewashes the violent domestic anarchists and communists who are tearing apart U.S. cities and attacking federal facilities — while vilifying, and justifying the violent attacks on the federal law enforcement officers who have been risking their lives to protect those facilities (and themselves). More here.

How successful have the communists been at subverting American freedom — thanks to the “useful idiots” at all levels of our government, “educational” institutions, “news” industry and arts?

Consider — as documented in STW editor Jon Sutz’s independent report, “America At The Precipice”:
- “The Communist Manifesto” is the most-assigned economics textbook in U.S. colleges, assigned more than twice as frequently as any other economics book
- 70% of U.S. Millennials say that they would vote for a socialist for elective office
- 36% of U.S. Millennials “approve of communism” (up from from 28% in 2018)
- 83% of U.S. college graduates and 68% of elected officials cannot identify the functional differences between the free market and a command (totalitarian) economy
- 64% of Americans overall (across political parties) now agree with Marx’s core doctrine, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

We didn’t listen to Yuri Bezmenov in 1984....

In Defense of Privilege: Those Who Have It Need Not Suffer in The Name of ‘Fairness’

New York magazine published on Tuesday an impassioned defense of Urooj Rahman and Colinford Mattis, the New York City "public interest" lawyers awaiting trial on charges of firebombing an empty police car, among other felonies.

"There is a version of the Rahman and Mattis story in which they are civil-rights heroes, even martyrs, instead of professionals who crossed a line," writes New York contributing editor Lisa Miller, who spoke to friends of the accused who argued that the prosecution "is far more extreme than the crime itself" and "reflects a broader right-wing crusade against people of color and the progressive left."

The author empathizes with the accused, who each face possible sentences of 45 years to life if convicted, noting that in the age of Trump, it's understandable if "some lawyers may want to embrace a more flexible definition of ‘lawless.'" As Rahman said on camera before the incident, "This is the way that people show their anger and frustration. Because nothing else works."

Miller also attempts to humanize the alleged arsonists by sharing some personal details. Mattis was "a social guy, a positive force, always available to give friends a ride, always reading a book on the bus, a fashion agnostic who carried the same gray backpack he used in middle school." Rahman was "unfailingly kind, gentle, and decent" and once "gave a piece of her apartment floor in Athens, Greece … to a queer Syrian refugee in an abusive relationship." Friends recalled a time when the environmentally obsessed Rahman "was about to come over but first sat alone in a restaurant eating sushi, rather than contribute to the convenient waste created by takeout containers."

That's all well and good, but at the end of the day, who cares? Miller is making the right argument—in favor of leniency for the accused attorneys—for all the wrong reasons. In an egregious example of lede-burying, the reader is forced to wade deep into the text before learning that Colinford Mattis "played football at boarding school, joined two eating clubs and a jockish fraternity at Princeton, and, after NYU Law, worked at Holland & Knight and Pryor Cashman, firms where first-year associates earn upwards of $150,000 a year." In case that wasn't enough, he also has a goldendoodle named "Lorde Hampton."

Rahman, meanwhile, is a lawyer who graduated from Fordham. More importantly, she has friends in high places. Salmah Rizvi, a D.C. lawyer and former intelligence officer in the Obama administration, helped secure Rahman's release by telling a U.S. district judge the accused arsonist was her "best friend" and agreed to act as a suretor for Rahman's $250,000 bail, meaning that she would be personally liable for the cost if Rahman fails to abide by the court's orders.

Insane academic paper of the week: “World War Z, The Zombie Apocalypse, and the Israeli state’s monstering of Palestinian ‘others’”

World War Z was (as I recall) a zombie apocalypse movie starring Brad Pitt. At one point in the movie, Jerusalem is seen as the safest place to be because Israelis built a wall around the city to protect themselves from the zombies. Jews and Arabs were safe inside Jerusalem and at one point, they started to sing together, which inflamed the zombies to overrun the wall and get the peaceful Arabs and Jews.

According to this academic paper by Haneen Shafeeq Ghabra & Marouf A. Hasian of Kuwait University and University of Utah, this is really a lesson in how Palestinians are the monsters.

The abstract:

The authors deploy a critical cultural critique that extends the work of monstrosity scholars and other researchers who are interested in the application of zombie apocalypse analyses to critiques of contemporary nationalistic and social controversies. World War Z sets in motion a series of cinematic dynamics that invite audiences to consider how Israeli securitization of Jerusalem might serve as the world's best hope for containing the zombie apocalypse. By decoding the “monstering” features World War Z, the authors note the heuristic value of understanding how the rhetoric of autoimmunity influences mediated perceptions of Israeli and Palestinian conflicts.

The paper says:

We contend that through cinematic modes of monstering and discourses of autoimmunity, World War Z assuages Israeli and Western anxieties by creating characters clearly modeled on Western imaginings of Palestinian terrorists.

Clearly!

By choosing to put on display monstering images of zombies scaling walls, and by choosing to geopolitical situate the potential “cures” for this zombie apocalypse in Israel, the producers and promoters of World War Z are explicitly or implicitly suggesting that Palestinian dissenters, or indigenous “others,” constitute biopolitical threats that can be quarantined or contained by those who know how to battle zombies.

Except that the monsters were not quarantined – the humans (Arabs and Jews) were. But, hey, they only get that part 100% wrong.

The authors quote serious movie critics: Arabs who tweeted their reviews.

Avinash Tharoor, in one Tweet, said to “forget the zombies,” because the “most unrealistic thing about World War Z was Israel inviting in displaced Palestinians.” ⁵⁸ Another blogger, writing from United Arab Emirates, complained that the film went from being “action film into Zionism pornography an hour into the film.” ⁵⁹ Rania Khalek seemed to echo these types of remarks when she tweeted that in World War Z, Israel’s “apartheid” wall apparently “helps keep out a massive horde of zombies.”

Here’s a nice part:

Viewers are asked to suspend belief and forget about how Israeli checkpoints, gates, and grids become the “forensic architecture” that dismantle the social fabric of this region. ⁷⁶ In World War Z, the checkpoints are configured as “salvation” gates, perhaps intended to appeal to the Judeo-Christian sentiments of viewing audiences who are taught on Saturdays and Sundays to believe that Israelis are a “chosen people,” and that Jerusalem belongs to those who fought off the infidels.

In reality, Israeli checkpoints are used to remind Palestinians of their subordinate power positions and their second-class status as dispossessed people.

And the checkpoints at Israeli malls and supermarkets? Are they also meant to demean Palestinians, or to, you know, stop bomb attacks?

What about the fact that the movie makes it very clear that Arabs and Israelis are on the same side and the zombies help unite them? Why, of course,!

The camera focuses on Muslims praying, Israelis and Palestinians chanting together as they wave both Israeli and Palestinian flags, and all of this can be viewed as cinematic form of hasbara (Israeli diplomacy) that elides, counters, or neutralizes the positions of those want to underscore the apartheid nature of Palestinian othering.

The final scene in Jerusalem is described in a truly twisted way:

One of the most intriguing parts of World War Z comes when all of the chanting and flag-waving appears to infuriate the zombies, who overwhelm the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that are there to protect the people from the zombies. As the camera moves beyond the wall, into Palestinian territory, we begin to hear grunting while dozens of monstrous bodies scurry toward the wall. Thousands of zombies are moving in dead-like piles as they breach the Israeli wall. Gerry, along with another Mossad agent, flees the country, barely making it out alive. It no coincidence that the viewer is not afforded space to sympathize with the zombies who symbolically may represent the Palestinians who threaten the security of Israel or the Palestinian terrorists who belong to organizations like Hamas. Situated thanatopolitically in the body of the zombies, the Palestinians, and their demographic threats, can be contained—at least at long as filmgoers, and Israelis, understand the necessitous nature of biosecuritizing walls.

A zombie film that doesn’t humanize the zombies is obviously showing its hate for Palestinians!

The only racists here are the academic authors, who are the only people on Earth who look at the swarming monsters in the film and automatically say – yup, those are Palestinians.

“Jewish Voice for Peace” quietly admits blaming Israel for US police brutality is antisemitic

For years now, the socialist Left – led by “Jewish Voice for Peace” – has been pushing the idea that US police learn to be racist from Israeli police, because a couple hundred US police have gone to Israel to learn counter-terrorism techniques over the last 20 years or so.

We reported on this in 2015 with idiotic articles by Rania Khalek and Dave Zirin that blamed Israel for police killing black people in the US.

Then in 2018, Jewish Voice for Peace issued a highly biased report filled with half-truths that tried to specifically blame Israel for US police brutality and racist methodology. The copious evidence from the very articles they link to that disprove their thesis were ignored.

Meanwhile, the concept that somehow US police are hypnotized by the ever powerful Israelis to attack black people has been the subject of thousands of tweets from JVP and their friends.

It’s bad enough that the claims about what US cops learn in Israel are complete and total lies. But the claim that somehow Israelis are responsible for how US cops act is fundamentally antisemitic – it is the trope that Jews have “hypnotized the world,” as Ilhan Omar put it, and US police are helpless robots who must do what their Jewish masters tell them.

Suddenly and quietly, Jewish Voice for Peace has changed gears and admitted themselves that the idea that Israel is responsible for US police violence – the trope that they have pushed for years - is antisemitic! In a June 5 press release, they write:

Highlighting these police exchange programs without enough context or depth can end up harming our movements for justice. Suggesting that Israel is the start or source of American police violence or racism shifts the blame from the United States to Israel. This obscures the fundamental responsibility and nature of the U.S., and harms Black people and Black-led struggle. It also furthers an antisemitic ideology. White supremacists look for any opportunity to glorify and advance American anti-Black racism, and any chance to frame Jews as secretly controlling and manipulating the world. Taking police exchanges out of context provides fodder for those racist and antisemitic tropes.

Now they are talking about context? The 57-page “Deadly Exchange” report didn’t put any context in its introduction:

it is also amusing how they claim that white supremacists are the ones who are reading antisemitic messages in the “Deadly Exchange” libel. The Jersey City murderers, admirers of the Black Hebrews sect, echoed the Deadly Exchange claim of Jews controlling the police as well as Louis Farrakhan’s “Synagogue of Satan” characterization of Jews. Roger Waters, hardly a white supremacist, also used “Deadly Exchange” as his source for his antisemitic rant on Hamas TV.

Now JVP is backtracking and pretending not to be responsible for the hate – and deaths – that they have encouraged for years.

Why? Not because they are suddenly concerned about the antisemitic conspiracy theories that they have been pushing for years. It is because it “can end up harming our movements for justice.” There is nothing moral about this about-face – it is to distance themselves from the antisemitism that they are responsible for, because they might lose members or funding.

(h/t Daniel Sugarman – who for some reason blocks me.)

Climate Change Proving Difficult Cause For Palestinians To Hijack (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Melbourne, January 16 - Progressive activists seeking to link every cause to the struggle for Palestinian independence confessed today they have yet to arrive at a successful formula for making the fight against long-term, human-induced atmospheric shifts dependent on, or at least subordinate to, the campaign against Israel.

Speaking against the backdrop of fires that have devastated Australia's wilderness, activists described the challenges they have faced drawing a convincing causal relationship between climate change and those disasters, let alone between those two phenomena and Israeli policies or existence.

"Gaining traction with this one has proved harder than we anticipated," conceded Ali Latdam, who helped pioneer the progressive assertion that the Black Lives Matter movement formed but a part of a larger struggle against Israeli treatment of Palestinians. "I think part of the difficulty stems from the lack of resonance climate change already suffers outside a limited cadre of activists. We can't take the fight against global warming to the Zionists unless and until we can generate enough popular support for the fight against global warming in the the first place, and the fight against climate change, despite its prominence in the media, simply doesn't register as a priority among enough people outside the Soros-funded matrix of NGOs."

Activists acknowledge that efforts to draw a direct connection between Israeli policies and climate have enjoyed limited success at best. "We of course have the more-or-less annual accusation of Israel opening dams and flooding Gaza when serious rain hits," noted Rania Khalek. "That always generates some buzz. But it gets less and less effective each year as Zionist Hasbara people counter faster and faster with the irrelevant fact that Israel has no such dams. We're left with deploring the environmental conditions in Gaza, but as in Australia, basically nobody cares."

Contributing to the awkwardness in progressive anti-Israel spaces and groups, those who claim to advocate for democracy and who therefore decry what they call Israel's denial of Palestinian democratic rights - even though Palestinians under the Palestinian Authority have political autonomy and may hold their own elections, which they have neglected to do since 2006 - have remained silent in the face of pro-democracy and anti-regime demonstrations in Iran, a chief financier of Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese terrorist groups that target Israel. "We're just going to wait till this blows over and then get back to business as usual," predicted Latdam. "Did you know it's all a Zionist plot to distract from Israeli crimes?"

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

01/11 Links: Iranians protest after IRGC admits shooting down plane; Remembering the victims of Ukraine Flight 752; Soleimani planning attacks on 4 US embassies

From Ian:

Dr. Martin Sherman: Terminating terrorists and assessing assassinations

Indeed, arguably the only case where a single targeting killing appears to have brought about the end of a terror organization is that of Zuheir Mohsen and the a-Saiqa movement which he headed. Once the second largest faction in the PLO after Fatah, since the demise of Mohsen, a-Saiqa has descended into insignificance and irrelevance.

Overall, however, it does appear that, unless targeted assassinations are part of a sustained, ongoing policy of lethal pursuit of adversaries, the effect of a “stand alone” assassination is, at best, short-lived.

The imponderable “What ifs”

Of course, one of the imponderable questions is that of what would have occurred had targeted assassinations not been undertaken.

After all, one thing is certain. If Israel’s enemies know that they are in danger of losing their lives, their modus operandi will inevitably be more constrained, cumbersome and costly than if they could operate unperturbed, secure in the knowledge that their personal safety was not at risk. With the threat of potential targeted assassination hovering over them, the resources, that need be devoted to their own security, may be considerable and hamper the freedom they might otherwise have.

There is, of course, one other consideration that militates strongly in favor of targeted assassinations. After all, whatever the operational efficacy of targeted assassinations may be—or not be—the conscience of every decent individual should rebel at the thought that arch-purveyors of terror should be permitted to pursue their deadly vocation with impunity.

Indeed, as Pulitzer Prize winner, Bret Stephens recently wrote in the New York Times:
“No U.S. president [or Israeli Prime Minister - MS]…should ever convey to an enemy the impression it can plot attacks against Americans [or Israelis - MS] with impunity. To do otherwise is to invite worse.”

Indeed it is!!

Noah Rothman: Democrats Are Out of Touch on Foreign Affairs, Too

Among general election voters, polling relating to the Soleimani strike has so far indicated that the issue does not mirror America’s partisan divides. A Huffington Post/YouGov poll conducted from January 4-5 found voters approved of the strike by 43 to 38 percent. A January 5-7 Economist/YouGov survey showed voters backed the strike by 44 to 38 percent. Reuters/Ipsos’s January 7-8 poll showed 42 percent of voters supported the strike while just 33 percent opposed it. If support for Trump’s actions in Iraq essentially mirrors his job approval rating, opposition to it most certainly does not. And while the press is more inclined to play up these polls’ findings below the topline (“Americans say Soleimani’s killing made U.S. less safe, Trump ‘reckless’ on Iran” was how USA Today characterized a poll that found only one-third of voters oppose Trump’s actions), the nuances these surveys uncovered are far more intriguing.

Another Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted from January 3-6 indicated that the deep reservoir of mistrust that has characterized Americans’ views toward Iran for the better part of a half-century persists even among Democrats. When asked if Iran represents an “imminent threat” to the U.S., a substantial plurality of all voters—41 percent—agreed. The number of Democrats who agreed with that sentiment precisely tracks with the country as a whole: 41 percent. Huffington Post/YouGov confirms that Democrats and Clinton voters are more inclined to view Iran as a “very serious” threat to the U.S. than even Trump voters and Republicans.

This isn’t necessarily the product of a news cycle dominated by Iranian aggression. A Fox News poll from July found that 57 percent of Democrats (and 60 percent of all respondents) said: “Iran poses a real national security threat to the United States.” And while 42 percent of Democrats oppose “taking military action to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” 38 percent support such an operation. Most polling on Iran over the course of the year presents analysts with an intuitive conclusion: Democrats are far more inclined to oppose military action against Iran than Republicans. But those surveys also suggest that the voting public, including Democrats, will support such a contingency under the right circumstances. It’s not hard to make the case that Iran’s months-long campaign of direct and undeniable attacks on Americans and their allies in the region meets those conditions.

That nuance is lost in the Democratic Party’s response to the crisis that has come to typify the opening days of 2020. Even among the party’s voices of moderation, it is fashionable to blame Trump even for reckless Iranian provocations like the downing of a commercial airliner on the night of January 7. According to Pete Buttigieg, for example, the blame for Iran’s mistaken attack on a plane full of Iranians taking off from an Iranian airport amid an entirely unreciprocated Iranian volley of rockets targeting U.S. troops 500 miles away should be laid at Trump’s feet.

Democrats are betting that their voters, much less all voters, are more or less inclined toward pacifism in the face of manifest threats to U.S. interests abroad, but the polling does not support that conclusion. Just as Democrats eventually learned that Medicare-for-all wasn’t the surefire winner its consultant class believed, they may soon discover that Americans are not as squeamish about killing terrorist commanders as they presume.

Jim Geraghty: Give Blame Where It’s Due, Please

Sure, the Iranian air-defense system would not have been on highest alert this week if the United States had not killed Soleimani outside the Baghdad International Airport January 3. But the Iranians made the choice to fire rockets into Iraq that evening, the Iranian government made the choice to permit civilian air traffic in the hours after their rocket attack, and ultimately it was the Iranian military that fired the surface-to-air missile. You really have to squint and stretch to say that this tragedy — which killed 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, eleven Ukrainians (including the crew members), ten Swedish, seven Afghans, and three Germans — is President Trump’s fault.

One question for the military-technology experts: Does this tragedy stem from poor training on the part of the Iranian military, or does Russian air-defense system equipment do a lousy job of differentiating between civilian airliners and military jets?

Whatever the answer to that question is, the fact remains that right now, the Democratic grassroots believe that Trump is the root of all evil, and all bad things that happen lead back to him in one form or another. There’s a Democratic primary and impeachment battle going on simultaneously. No one of any stature in the Democratic party can afford the political risk of publicly arguing or even acknowledging that anything isn’t Trump’s fault. The Democratic presidential candidates, in particular, have to offer the biggest, most vocal, most emphatic, “yes, you’re right, grassroots” that they possibly can.

“Innocent civilians are now dead because they were caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwanted military tit for tat,” Pete Buttigieg declared. The most common term floating around Thursday night was “crossfire,” even though Tuesday night only one side was firing any weapons. Keep in mind, so far in this conflict, the United States military hasn’t fired anything into or in the direction of Iranian territory.

If we really want to extend blame beyond the Iranian military, there is a long list of individuals and institutions who should be standing in line ahead of President Trump. Let’s start with Iranian aviation authorities who kept their local civilian aircraft flying, and the airlines who chose to keep flights taking off shortly after Iranian military action — when no one could know for sure whether the military action had concluded.

01/08 Links Pt1: Col Kemp: Barbarous Iran is the real Great Satan, but the morally bankrupt Left is incapable of admitting it; NYTs Iran Coverage: ‘Mind-Boggling,’ ‘Impossible To Parody’

From Ian:

Col. Richard Kemp: Barbarous Iran is the real Great Satan, but the morally bankrupt Left is incapable of admitting it

Fortunately our prime minister and foreign secretary have not fallen into the trap of taking Tehran’s side. They recognise that Iran is as great a threat to the UK, sometimes branded by Tehran as the ‘little Satan’.

Soleimani’s Quds Force directed the killing of dozens of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, alongside over 1,000 Americans. In 2015 Soleimani’s proxies set up a bomb factory with three tons of explosive materials in north London. Elsewhere in Europe, a Quds Force organised bombing attack in France was prevented in 2018 and two Dutch citizens were assassinated in Holland in 2015 and 2017.

Khamenei has said he will no longer adhere to the nuclear deal with the P5+1. Despite European leaders’ determination to cling to President Obama’s agreement, they know Tehran has been duping them since it was first put in place. In any case this flawed deal would have allowed Iran to legitimately develop material for nuclear weapons in a few years, threatening the whole world.

Rather than unintentionally encouraging Khamenei’s plans for violent retribution, European political leaders should be working towards the downfall of his vicious dictatorship or at least coercing him towards moderation. Already under severe threat from within, the regime has been seriously weakened by the killing of Soleimani which exposed to their own people Iranian vulnerability in the face of superior American power. EU governments should condemn Iran and its violent actions everywhere and support President Trump in re-imposing sanctions. No matter how bitter a pill for them, it is the right course for the decent people of Iran and the safety of others across the Middle East.

According to Sir Keir Starmer, current favourite to replace Corbyn: ‘We need to engage, not isolate Iran.’ He is precisely wrong, presumably unaware that decades of engagement and appeasement have led only to greater violence, never one inch closer to peace. The Government should ignore him and prepare to back America with diplomatic and military action if this situation escalates, making it clear to Tehran that they will do so.

Caroline Glick: Qassem Soleimani is dead. Who's next?

Political commentator, journalist and author Caroline Glick joins Eve Harow to explain – with her trademark directness – the huge importance and ramifications of the US killing of arch terrorist Qassem Soleimani.

A tremendous destabilizing force who was responsible for the murder of thousands in and out of the Middle East, this act has created an opportunity for regime change in Iran.

Caroline shares her opinion on the players in the region and how American strength is critical to ensure security for good people around the globe.

Iraq, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Europe, Egypt - get ready for an hour-long primer on the maelstrom surrounding little, stable Israel.

Lee Smith: Iran and America Are Suddenly Both Naked

By taking decisive action against Soleimani, Trump showed that Iran’s power is an illusion generated by D.C.’s willingness to look the other way

U.S. officials even had scholarly support to rationalize their failure to hold Iran accountable. During the 1990s, Middle East experts promoted a thesis holding that the clerical regime in fact had little to do with Hezbollah. According to the “Lebanonization” thesis, Hezbollah was a homegrown resistance movement that came into being as a local response to Israel’s 1982 occupation of Lebanon. In fact, as Tablet colleague Tony Badran has written, Hezbollah was seeded in Lebanon in the mid-’70s by “Iranian revolutionary factions opposed to the shah.” U.S. policymakers preferred the fiction that Hezbollah was a homegrown product because it supported both their emotional needs and their policy goals: The West had earned the righteous anger of the natives, and there was nothing to be done except atone by way of offering human sacrifices.

In 1996, Iran’s proxy in Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah al-Hijaz, bombed the Khobar Towers, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel. The Clinton administration’s hopes for rapprochement with Tehran under the leadership of so-called reformist President Mohammad Khatami required the U.S. to pretend Iran was not responsible.

Between 2003 and 2011, according to a State Department assessment, Iran and its Shiite allies were responsible for killing more than 600 U.S. servicemen in Iraq. The body count doesn’t include the U.S. servicemen killed by the Sunni fighters ushered from Damascus international airport to the Iraqi border by Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, Iran’s chief Arab ally. Yet George W. Bush reportedly passed up opportunities to kill Soleimani, deciding against opening a third front against Iranian terrorists that might endanger his doomed “Freedom Agenda.”

There was even less of a chance Obama would kill Soleimani, though his administration reportedly had him in the crosshairs, too. Soleimani was the key to the JCPOA, Obama’s crowning foreign policy achievement. He admired Soleimani, a hard man who got things done. Rather than stop the Quds Force commander, Obama told Arab allies that “they need to take a page out of the playbook of the Quds Force.”

The former president’s conviction was simply the result of what American officials had been saying since 1979. Therefore, Obama counted on Soleimani’s ability to control the ground in Syria and help America stabilize the region. Yet only weeks after Obama diplomats and Iran agreed to the JCPOA in July 2015, Soleimani was in Moscow petitioning Vladimir Putin for assistance in Syria. In spite of the billions of dollars in sanctions relief that Obama had granted Iran, and the $1.7 billion in cash the U.S. shipped directly to the IRGC, the Quds Force and the Shiite international were on the verge of losing the war to rebels in pick-up trucks.

Six U.S. administrations were complicit in turning Iran into a regional power. In that context, the Obama administration’s decision to flood Iranian war chests with cash and recognize its right to build a nuclear bomb was the logical culmination of the rot eating away at the Beltway for four decades. It was perhaps to be expected that an outsider who often doesn’t know when to keep quiet, and can’t stay off Twitter, would be the one to sing out like the boy in the fairy tale. It’s true, the emperor has no clothes. The rules have changed but that doesn’t mean the Iranians won’t be looking for revenge.

01/07 Links Pt2: Ilhan Omar Named 2019 Anti-Semite of the Year; A Model Response to BDS; AHA Rejects Anti-Israel Resolutions for Fourth Time; Beyond levity: ‘The New York Times’ 2019 ethical failures

From Ian:

Trump goes all out against congresswomen for being 'totally against Israel'

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib are not only anti-Israel but also anti-Semetic, US President Donald Trump claimed while doing a radio interview on Monday.

Speaking to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Trump said, “If you go back 10 years or eight years maybe even five years, Israel was the king of the Congress. Our Congress protected Israel and fought for Israel. You look at the way the Democrats in Congress are treating where you have AOC, and you have Tlaib, and you have Omar they are actually, you know, anti-Semitic.”

“They are totally against Israel,” he added. “The things they’ve said. You go back to the past. You look at the things that they’ve said about Israel and Jewish people. It’s incredible. Ten years ago, that would be unacceptable.”

Trump lamented that this was unfortunate because of Israel's importance to the administration. "I think they've lost their minds, to tell you the truth," he attacked.

Although Trump didn’t provide specific examples, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib critics slammed the two Congresswomen for recent anti-Israel comments.

Ocasio-Cortez is in favor of cutting military aid to Israel as long as it maintains its presence in disputed territories in Judea and Samaria and Israel barred both Tlaib and Omar from visiting Israel because of their pro-BDS convictions.

He continued: “I still can’t believe it. I’m a little bit old-fashioned in that sense. Because I’ve grown up and there was always great protection and reverence for Israel. Now it’s the opposite. In the Democrats, it’s almost a negative. They’re going out and what they do for Tlaib and what they do for Omar, Representative Omar of Minnesota and AOC —I think for incredible the way they talk about Israel. You know it just was unthinkable to do that ten years ago and sooner.”

Limbaugh then suggested that Trump’s pro-Israel legislation has helped drive the hypercritical Israel sentiment among progressives within the Democratic Party.

“I actually think you helped drive them even more insane than they were,” he said.

Ilhan Omar Named 2019 Anti-Semite of the Year

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) was named the 2019 anti-Semite of the year by an organization that seeks to combat the spread of anti-Jewish bias.

The organization StopAntiSemitism.org chose Omar, who has repeatedly spread anti-Israel and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, following a public nomination and voting period.

"Among Rep. Ilhan Omar's transgressions, she perpetuated anti-Semitic tropes on Twitter to nearly two million followers and introduced an anti-Semitic resolution in Congress that promoted boycotts of the State of Israel and likened them to boycotts of Nazi Germany," the group wrote in a press release Monday. "The public's vote highlights the growing concern among Americans about the Congresswomen's ability to use and abuse her position of power to propagate hatred in the U.S."

Liora Rez, a spokesperson for StopAntiSemitism.org, said in a statement that Omar's selection highlights the public's growing awareness of rising anti-Semitism in the United States.

"Anti-Semitism is plaguing our nation and it's about time we create real consequences for those spreading it," Rez said. "By exposing bigots like Rep. Ilhan Omar, we are ensuring that the public is alert and able to take action."

Congresswoman @ilhan, why would you attack @AlinejadMasih, the voice & inspiration for hundreds of thousands of oppressed women living in Iran who bravely defy the unjust Hijab law by filming themselves walking through Tehran with their hair uncovered? 🤔https://t.co/4kp0DoCb6J
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 7, 2020

AOC Likes Tweet From Russian State Media Claiming Iran Doesn’t Target Civilians

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) liked a tweet from a Russian-funded operative claiming that Iran, the world's most prolific state sponsor of terrorism, does not target civilians.

"A friend flying into the US says he hasn't seen so much security since 9/11," activist Rania Khalek said in a Sunday tweet liked by the Democratic congresswoman. "The US is terrified of how Iran will retaliate. Iran won't attack civilians, that's what al Qaeda does. But it shows this assassination did the opposite of making Americans safer and our leaders know it."

Khalek is a host for In the Now, a viral media company funded by the Russian government that was kicked off Facebook for its pro-Russia propaganda. She previously served as an editor for anti-Israel site The Electronic Intifada but resigned after speaking at a pro-Bashar al-Assad conference in Syria.

The extent of Khalek's pro-Iran advocacy was on full display in a recent YouTube livestream in which the activist claimed that "Iran is a country that mostly keeps to itself." She also said "it's a really brave country that's been essential to keeping the Middle East stable throughout the last several decades."

Contrary to Khalek's claims, Iran has been responsible for countless attacks on civilians carried out by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its funding of various terror organizations. Ocasio-Cortez's office did not respond to questions about Khalek's Russian state affiliation or her claims about Iran's targeting of civilians.

AOC liking a post written by a pro-Assad war crimes denier and Russian state media employee telling the lie that “Iran won’t attack civilians”, as if it doesn’t do so repeatedly and systematically, shows how endemic ignorance and propaganda are embedded within the left. pic.twitter.com/n70086Szwk
— Oz Katerji (@OzKaterji) January 6, 2020

10/29 Links Pt2: J Street, blank checks and putting the "squeeze" on Israel; Apologist for Terror: Hamas Suicide Bombings Were ‘Unwise Strategy’; Max Blumenthal: Tyranny’s Mouthpiece

From Ian:

J Street, blank checks and putting the "squeeze" on Israel

“Our aid is not intended to be a blank check,” J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami, stated on October 27, at the organization's annual conference.

This type of so-called "conditioning," "linking," and/or "squeezing" of Israel over US aid and support has an unfortunately long history in Washington and it is time for it to stop, once and for all. It's unseemly and the US - Israel relationship loses its value for both nations every single time this road is gone down.

Ben-Ami's proposed tactics seem very close to those actually employed by Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Kissinger is due to speak at an upcoming Jewish conference in New York, and it’s worth considering the real cost of this type of rhetoric and strategy.

Distinguished Israeli diplomat Yehuda Avner (1928-2015) saw this close up in his role as a speechwriter, secretary, or adviser to five different Israeli prime ministers, from both sides of Israel's political spectrum—Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and Shimon Peres. He also served as Israel’s ambassador to both Britain and Australia, as well as in other senior diplomatic positions.

In his widely-acclaimed book, The Prime Ministers, Avner shared numerous remarkable anecdotes—including some troubling episodes involving Secretary of State Kissinger during both the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1974-1975 shuttle diplomacy between Egypt and Israel.

Avner bluntly refers to American officials—meaning Kissinger—who “tied” Golda’s hands on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, telling her “in no uncertain terms not to fire the first shot,” and even “warned” her “against full-scale mobilization” of Israel’s reserve forces. Over 2600 Israeli soldiers died as a result.

Kissinger did not want Israel to win a decisive victory because he thought that would make it hard to wring concessions out of the Israelis after the war.

Apologist for Terror: Hamas Suicide Bombings Were ‘Unwise Strategy’

It’s widely accepted that Israeli society has drifted to the political right since the breakdown of the Oslo process. Palestinian terrorism played a significant role in destroying faith in the peace process and the political left, and enabled the more risk-averse and security-minded Benjamin Netanyahu to become the dominant political figure of the age.

Outrageously however, for Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, an Israeli “peace activist” writing in The Independent, it’s not Palestinians who are responsible for terrorism but Israelis:

Although easier to paint “the other” as the guilty party, it’s more painfully honest, especially for promoting healing of that trauma, to acknowledge at least partial Israeli responsibility for those suicide bombings.

Yes, you read that correctly – Israel is partially responsible for the indiscriminate murder of hundreds of its own people in Palestinian suicide bombings.

This, Godfrey-Goldstein attributes to an environment of right-wing incitement, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir, the election of Benjamin Netanyahu and the appalling massacre of Palestinians at Hebron’s Cave of the Machpela by Baruch Goldstein in February 1994.

In Godfrey-Goldstein’s alternative reality, the absence of peace is not due to Palestinian violence but primarily the figures of Yigal Amir, Baruch Goldstein and Benjamin Netanyahu.

While it is legitimate to argue the impact these people and their actions have had on the peace process, treating Palestinians as incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions and blaming Israeli victims for terrorism is not.

Tyranny’s Mouthpiece

On September 8, 2019, Syria’s state news agency published an article about the beginning of the Third International Trade Union Forum in Damascus, which hosted “dozens of intellectuals, journalists, (and) political and social activists from Arab and foreign countries.” Among the attendees were the American journalists Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek.

If you want to know why Blumenthal and Khalek were welcome at an event organized “under the auspices of Bashar al-Assad”—aside from the fact that they’re frequent contributors to the Russian propaganda outlets Sputnik and Russia Today—the rest of the article should give you an idea. It condemns the “aggressive terrorist war” launched against Syria, along with the “economic war that constitutes terror in and of itself” (a reference to U.S. sanctions). It calls for a media campaign to galvanize world public opinion in support of the Syrian government and “reveal the truth about the U.S. policy of besieging independent and free countries.” It points out that the “real goal of the war on Syria is to stop it from being a force that opposes U.S. and Israeli plots in the region.” And it emphasizes the importance of “exposing the practices of international imperialism.”

In other words, Syrian government propaganda is almost perfectly aligned with the arguments Blumenthal and Khalek have been making for years. Like the Syrian Ministry of Information, they present the Assad regime as an embattled and encircled victim of a jihadist-led coup backed by the United States and other Western powers.

For example, Blumenthal constantly emphasizes the atrocities of jihadist groups like Jaish al-Islam and al-Nusra because they give him moral and political cover for defending Assad, who has committed atrocities on a far greater scale. When he posted a picture of himself in a “neighborhood east of Damascus occupied by the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam until early last year,” he didn’t bother mentioning the fact that he was also surrounded by notorious government interrogation sites that are part of what Human Rights Watch describes as the regime’s “torture archipelago.” Nor did he mention that he was just down the road from the sites of the Ghouta chemical attacks in August 2013, which HRW reports “killed hundreds of civilians, including large numbers of children” and which can “almost certainly” be blamed on government forces.

White ( non Venezuelan) Cosplay socialists Max Blumenthal & Ben Rubenstein assaulted an older women who’s an actual Venezuelan and part of the altercation IS recorded... and now they’re upset that they’re being held accountable.. 🎻 pic.twitter.com/TXynY2a0ZK
— Naomi S. 🍑 the 🍊 #freesyria (@NomiBlockS) October 29, 2019

09/09 Links Pt2: Netanyahu reveals another Iranian nuclear weapons development site; Bari Weiss: Anti-Semites with PhDs are harder to fight; Max Blumenthal, anti-Israel activist, tours Syrian regime’s Damascus

From Ian:

Matti Friedman (NYTs): The One Thing No Israeli Wants to Discuss

The decisive factor in next week’s election — and the reason for Benjamin Netanyahu’s durability — is a repressed memory.

When trying to understand Israel’s election on Sept. 17, the second in the space of six months, you can easily get lost in the details — corruption charges, coalition wrangling, bickering between left and right. But the best explainer might be a small film that you’re unlikely to see about something that people here prefer not to discuss.

The opening scene of “Born in Jerusalem and Still Alive,” which just won the prize for best first feature at the Jerusalem Film Festival, catches the main character grimacing as he overhears a glib tour guide. When she describes downtown Jerusalem to her group as “beautiful,” the “center of night life and food for the young generation,” Ronen, an earnest man in his late 30s, interrupts.

“Don’t believe her,” he tells the tourists in Hebrew-accented English. “You see this market? Fifteen years ago it was a war zone. Next to my high school there was a terror attack. Next to the university there was a terror attack. First time I made sex — terror attack.” One of the tourists sidles over, interested. “Yes,” Ronen tells her, “we had to stop.”

No single episode has shaped Israel’s population and politics like the wave of suicide bombings perpetrated by Palestinians in the first years of the 21st century. Much of what you see here in 2019 is the aftermath of that time, and every election since has been held in its shadow. The attacks, which killed hundreds of Israeli civilians, ended hopes for a negotiated peace and destroyed the left, which was in power when the wave began. Any sympathy that the Israeli majority had toward Palestinians evaporated.

More than any other single development, that period explains the durability of Benjamin Netanyahu, which outsiders sometimes struggle to understand. Simply put, in the decade before Mr. Netanyahu came to power in 2009, the fear of death accompanied us in public places. There was a chance your child could be blown up on the bus home from school. In the decade since, that has ceased to be the case. Next to that fact, all other issues pale. Whatever credit the prime minister really deserves for the change, for many voters it’s a good enough reason to keep him in power on Sept. 17. (h/t Yerushalimey)

MK Ayman Odeh, Head of the Arab Joint List on official PA TV: "Bringing down this government together with Benjamin Netanyahu is a great [Palestinian] national goal." What do you think? https://t.co/mzhQ5QZ4Mc pic.twitter.com/EAvFFYBJbW
— Pal Media Watch (@palwatch) September 9, 2019

Bari Weiss: Anti-Semites with PhDs are harder to fight

In order to be welcomed as a Jew in a growing number of progressive groups, you have to disavow a list of things that grows longer every day. Whereas once it was enough to criticize Israeli government policy, specifically its treatment of Palestinians, now Israel’s very existence must be denounced. Whereas once it was enough to forswear the Jewish Defense League, now the very idea of Jewish power must be abjured. Whereas once Jewish success had to be explained, now it has to be apologized for. Whereas once only Israel’s government was demonized, now it is the Jewish movement for self-determination itself.

This bargain, which is really an ultimatum, explains so much.

It is why Jewish leaders of the Women’s March were subjected to anti-Semitic attacks and exclusion by the movement’s other leaders.

It is why at the University of Virginia, Jewish student activists were barred from a minority-student coalition to fight white supremacy.

It is why Manny’s, a popular café and event space in San Francisco, is being regularly protested. Its owner – a gay, progressive Mizrahi Jew – is, according to the protesters, “a Zionist and a gentrifier.”

And just as those on the far right have an out when accused of anti-Semitism – we like Jews just fine so long as they self-deport to Israel and keep our country unsullied – those on the far left have an out as well. We like Jews just fine, they say, as long as they shed their stubborn particularism and adhere, without fail, to our ever-shifting ideas of justice and equality. Jews are welcome so long as they undertake a kind of secular conversion by disavowing many or most of the things that actually make them Jewish. Whereas Jews once had to convert to Christianity, now they have to renounce Jewish power and convert to anti-Zionism.

Self-Mutilation as a Jewish Cultural Strategy and the Sad History of the Yevsektsiya

Of course, Judaism has always been uncool, going back to its origins as the planet’s only monotheism, featuring a bossy and unsexy invisible God. Uncoolness is pretty much Judaism’s brand, which is why cool people find it so threatening—and why Jews who are willing to become cool are absolutely necessary to Hanukkah-style anti-Semitism’s success. In the days of Antiochus, this type of anti-Semitism needed those boys who voluntarily underwent painful genital surgery to prove that Jews weren’t the problem—just the barbarity of Jewish law. During the Soviet era, it needed proud internationalists to prove that Jews weren’t the problem, just the repulsive chauvinism of Jewish national identity—including what we now call Zionism.

The Soviets actually went one better. In 1918, they created an entire branch of their government solely for cool Jews, whose paid job was to persecute the uncool ones. This was called the Yevsektsiya, or the Jewish Sections of the Communist Party, and in their brief and bloody lifespan, one finds the origins of today’s supposedly novel concept: Jews who are of course not anti-Semitic (how could they be? they’re Jews!), but simply anti-Zionist. In the course of not being anti-Semitic and being simply anti-Zionist, the Yevsektsiya managed to persecute, imprison, torture, and murder thousands of Jews, until their leaders were themselves purged.

Yevsektsiya-style anti-Semitism, or Hannukah-style anti-Semitism, always promises Jews a kind of nobility, offering them the opportunity to cleanse themselves of whatever the people around them happen to find revolting. The Jewish traits designated as repulsive vary by country and time period, but they invariably contradict the specific values that the surrounding culture has embraced as “universal.”

The reason for this is clear: There is actually nothing “universal” about those particular values, except the insecurity of the societies hoping to enforce them. Not everyone feels it is critical to a well-lived life to play sports in the nude; not everyone believes that Jesus is the son of God; not everyone agrees that authoritarian central planning is the solution to the world’s ills; not everyone thinks that denouncing one’s ties to an ancestral homeland is a sign of virtue. Jewish particularity exposes the arrogance of a society’s self-righteous leaders along with their profound insecurity, their deep fear of any suggestion that there are other ways to be. Those insecure leaders then enlist the help of Jews by promising them a merit badge of universal righteousness. Thanks to Judaism’s inherent uncoolness, there will never be a shortage of Jews willing to comply.

Ultra-Left bookstore cancels screening of film on Gaza because producer Max Blumenthal is such a pro-Syria turd

The uber-Left social media is in an uproar because one of their own has decided that supporting Syria's murderous regime is perhaps not very progressive.

Bluestockings is a bookstore in Manhattan that describes itself as "a volunteer-powered and collectively-owned radical bookstore, fair trade cafe, and activist center in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We carry over 6,000 titles on topics such as feminism, queer and gender studies, global capitalism, climate & environment, political theory, police and prisons, race and black studies, radical education, plus many more! "

It was scheduled to screen an anti-Israel film called "Killing Gaza" and follow that with a discussion via Skype with Max Blumenthal who produced the film.

Then it realized that Blumenthal supports the murder of hundreds of thousands by Syrian president Assad, and decided that he is perhaps not as progressive as his anti-Israel credentials would indicate.

In a Twitter thread last night, the bookstore wrote:

We here at Bluestockings want to be very clear on our decision to cancel the Killing Gaza screening the @nycDSA set for March 16. All the love to the DSA, it's clear that there wasn't enough due diligence on both our parts in regards to the film's director, Max Blumenthal.

As has been pointed out to us over the past few days, Max Blumenthal and many in his camp regularly make a point of retweeting and sharing pro-Assad stances.

This goes from directly mocking Syrian refugees to suggesting that Assad's war crimes are completely fabricated. Which hurts not just the Syrian people but the sizeable Palestinian population within Syria.

The objection to this screening is entirely based on Max Blumenthal and we are in talks with the DSA to screen another film that is made by and centers Palestinian voices in the ongoing conflict against the Israeli army.

Bluestockings is a community space first and we want to make sure that our inclusivity does not come at the expense of Middle Eastern communities and activists.

The response has been pretty evenly split between those who love Blumenthal's hate for Israel above all, and those on the far-Left who still have some idea of the difference between right and wrong. (Not with Israel, of course, but I suppose we should praise those who actually agree that killing hundreds of thousands of Syrians is a bad thing.)

Here's a subthread where Lebanese journalist Rania Khalek and her friends explain why they are so upset, to a little pushback - but mostly support.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Holocaust cartoon competition winner Carlos Latuff disappoints some fans (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

As long as the Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff focused on bashing Israel, his fans could see nothing wrong with his participation in the “International Holocaust Cartoon Competition” organized by an Iranian newspaper in 2006. Latuff won the second prize with one of the countless images he produced on the antisemitic theme presenting Israel as today’s Nazi Germany, while the Palestinians appear as victims suffering like the Jews under the Nazis.

But the down-with-Israel camp that never had a problem with antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism is no longer one big happy family united in hate for the world’s only Jewish state. The horrors committed in Syria by Assad and his allies Iran and Russia have convinced some people that Assad’s ardent hatred of Israel isn’t quite enough to embrace him – though there are still many veteran Israel-haters like Max Blumenthal and his ilk who remain ardent defenders of Assad’s regime.

I wrote already in fall 2016 about the backlash against Blumenthal’s determined efforts to make butcher Assad and his allies look good; at around the same time, Blumenthal’s good friend and fellow-Israel-hater Rania Khalek also lost some of her erstwhile fans over her eagerness to embark on a career as an Assad apologist.

Now it seems that Holocaust cartoon competition winner Carlos Latuff has managed to alienate a few of his fans with a cartoon that smears Syria’s famous White Helmets – a volunteer rescue group that tries to help civilian war victims – as Islamist terrorists.

And just like with Max Blumenthal, erstwhile fans of Latuff are now disappointed that he “even glorified the Russian invasion and bombing of Syrian civilians as some fight against terrorism and imperialism.”

It’s welcome news that more people seem to realize that “Carlos Latuff is a fascist and a smear merchant. He is motivated by hate and resentment. He has no regard for truth or justice. If you use his crude and racist cartoons, you do your cause a great disservice.”

Arguably though, it’s a bit late to come to this conclusion more than ten years after Latuff got a prize at Iran’s “International Holocaust Cartoon Competition.”

And in any case, it seems that most so-called “pro-Palestinian” activists remain ardent fans of Latuff’s vile output.

The notorious “hate site” Mondoweiss features his cartoons regularly; one good example of Latuff’s endless recycling of the antisemitic meme presenting Israel as today’s Nazi Germany and the Palestinians as the Jews of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s is a cartoon Mondoweiss published last October “to celebrate the IDF’s 70th birthday.”

Here are some additional examples of Latuff’s largely undiminished popularity among those who think the slaughter that has been going on in Syria for years should not distract anyone from the urgent task of demonizing the world’s only Jewish state.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

01/24 Links Pt2: How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine; Saving the Syrian Jewish Brides; Why Do Western Gays Abandon Their Islamic Brothers?

From Ian:

NYTs: How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine

The choice facing Ivry on that day in October 1982 was only one example of a dilemma that has confronted many Israeli authorities over the course of the nation’s brief history — the violent and sometimes irreconcilable clash between the fundamental principles of democracy and a nation’s instinct to defend itself.

As a reporter in Israel, I have interviewed hundreds of people in its intelligence and defense establishments and studied thousands of classified documents that revealed a hidden history, surprising even in the context of Israel’s already fierce reputation. Many of the people I spoke to, in explaining why they did what they did, would simply cite the Babylonian Talmud: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” In my reporting, I found that since World War II, Israel has used assassination and targeted-killing more than any other country in the West, in many cases endangering the lives of civilians. But I also discovered a long history of profound — and often rancorous — internal debates over how the state should be preserved. Can a nation use the methods of terrorism? Can it harm innocent civilians in the process? What are the costs? Where is the line?

Increasingly, people want to talk. It was during a conversation in 2011 with a senior officer in a North Tel Aviv cafe that I heard for the first time about how Sharon had ordered that transport plane carrying Arafat to be shot down in 1982. He described everything in detail but set a stiff condition for publication of the story — another person had to describe the event on the record as well. Only by doing that could I publish the story. I went to see that person, knowing how difficult it would be to get him to speak about the episode. I approached in a roundabout manner before I touched on the relevant point. The man looked at me with his steely gaze, but then a softer and slightly sad expression came over his face. “For more than 30 years,” he said, “I have been waiting for someone to come and ask me about this story.”

No target thwarted, vexed and bedeviled the Israeli assassination apparatus more than Yasir Arafat, the charismatic P.L.O. leader who died in 2004. Sometimes he would simply escape, and sometimes the officials overseeing an effort would call it off because the target could not be confirmed or because the price in civilian lives was deemed too high. Time and again, the desire to kill Arafat placed Israel at the center of the ongoing debate about what a nation can and cannot do to survive. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

David Collier: Uni of Warwick – false accusations of aggressive & misogynistic behaviour

And it is important to remember that the issues mentioned are serious, but localised. After I released the last report, some press articles lost both perspective and context, painting Jewish existence at Warwick as an image of constant peril. Little could be further from the truth. As someone who constantly seeks context rather than headlines, and in support of Jewish students at Warwick, I need to address some of this here.

As a result of the exaggerated threat, Jewish students on Warwick released a statement that is worth reading. These students firmly believe that Warwick is one of the ‘greatest campuses’ in the UK for Jewish students. They remain proud of the growth and activity of the Warwick Jewish Israeli Society.

The facts speak in their favour. They firmly defeated the BDS motion, and passed a ‘Warwick Against Antisemitism’ motion in the students union, organising a ‘whole week celebrating the diversity in Israel and hosting holocaust survivors’. It was the BDS defeat that led to the small group of Faculty founding ‘Warwick for Justice in Palestine’ in the first place.

They accept they have issues with university support and individuals within the Student Union, but are insistent this does not reflect on their experience of Warwick as a whole. For them, most of the Faculty, and most of the student body are on-side and supportive. Anti-Israel activism is in general seen for what it is. Remember, only 10-15 students turned up for the event last Wednesday. On a campus that holds thousands.

This small group of activists are an issue, and whilst holding the greater picture in focus we must be allowed to deal with it. In context, and bearing in mind the real-life issues of the students. I am absolutely certain many of the Faculty on Warwick are appalled by the actions of the few. I am also certain over-exaggeration, confuses the issue, complicates life for all students on Warwick, and in many cases can be self -defeating.

What everyone deserves, is for the university to recognise the problem that does exist, and deal with it. The only question is – do they have the guts?

Abbas, May, Trump

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the implications of Mahmoud Abbas ripping off his mask, as well as the pressure building for Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May to go and the May/Trump fiasco.

12/31 Links: Trump: Iranians tired of having wealth stolen, ‘squandered on terrorism’; OECD: Israel ranked 11th happiest country in the world

From Ian:

Trump says Iranians tired of having wealth stolen, ‘squandered on terrorism’

US President Donald Trump again encouraged the protesters in Iran on Sunday, saying that the Iranian people were no longer prepared to see the country’s resources “squandered on terrorism” as mass protests continued.

“The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism,” Trump tweeted, saying that it looks like the Iranians “will not take it any longer.”

“The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!” he said.

Trump’s tweets the previous day angered Iran’s government, leading the Foreign Ministry spokesman to say the “Iranian people give no credit to the deceitful and opportunist remarks of US officials or Mr. Trump.”

Trump’s remarks came with the Iranian interior minister cautioning that Israel, the US, and other regional powers do not understand the nature of the clashes and that their delight at anti-government demonstrations is misguided.

A third night of unrest in Iran overnight Saturday saw mass demonstrations across the country in which two people were killed, dozens arrested and public buildings attacked.

The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change, and, other than the vast military power of the United States, that Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most.... pic.twitter.com/W8rKN9B6RT
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2017

Stephen L. Miller: Iran's protests are powerful and real. Why are mainstream media outlets so hesitant to report on them?

How will the Obama Presidential Library wing look celebrating a nuclear deal with an oppressive Iranian regime that could possibly be deposed by security forces and the military joining with protesters, thirsty for democracy and a return to an Iran before the 1979 revolution?

More to the point, how will it look if the Trump administration, of all things, facilitates and encourages such change in Iran?

The prospect of this is not lost on the self-styled resistance and anti-Trump media, all too anxious to witness the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Obama Library or hand a Nobel Prize to former Secretary of State John Kerry.

Overseeing the fall of an oppressive, hardline Iranian regime that sponsors terror all around the globe – followed by the rise of a democratic Iran not interested in aggression against its neighbors – would be a foreign policy victory for President Trump, one of the biggest for a president since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

If the Iranian regime is ousted, the move would neuter Hezbollah’s primary source of funding. It would diminish Hamas at a time when the United States rightfully is moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in defiance of the United Nations.

Replacement of the Iranian government could signal that Assad’s days in Syria are finally coming to an end, without powerful bullies to back him up. A new Iranian government would also no doubt give Russia pause about meddling in Middle East affairs – a hesitancy it did not have when the Obama administration gave Russian President Vladimir Putin “flexibility.”

Combative media reluctant to give President Trump credit for any policy victories – along with reluctance by anti-Trump analysts on the right (this one included) – should not divert our attention from Iranian citizens risking their lives to take to the streets. These Iranians hope the United States and the rest of the world do not ignore them again.

Why Can’t the American Media Cover the Protests in Iran?

Selling the protesters short is a mistake. For 38 years Iranian crowds have been gathered by regime minders to chant “Death to America, Death to Israel.” When their chant spontaneously changes to “Down with Hezbollah” and “Death to the Dictator” as it has now, something big is happening. The protests are fundamentally political in nature, even when the slogans are about bread. But Erdbrink can hardly bring himself to report the regime’s history of depredations since his job is to obscure them. He may have been a journalist at one point in time, but now he manages the Times portfolio in Tehran. The Times, as Tablet colleague James Kirchik reported for Foreign Policy in 2015, runs a travel business that sends Western tourists to Iran. “Travels to Persia,” the Times calls it. If you’re cynical, you probably believe that the Times has an interest in the protests subsiding and the regime surviving—because, after all, anyone can package tours to Paris or Rome.

Networks like like CNN and MSNBC which have gambled their remaining resources and prestige on a #Resist business model are in even deeper trouble. Providing media therapy for a relatively large audience apparently keen to waste hours staring at a white truck obscuring the country club where Donald Trump is playing golf is their entire business model—a Hail Mary pass from a business that had nearly been eaten alive by Facebook and Google. First down! So it doesn’t matter how many dumb Trump-Russia stories the networks, or the Washington Post, or the New Yorker get wrong, as long as viewership and subscriptions are up—right?

The problem, of course, is that the places that have obsessively run those stories for the past year aren’t really news outfits—not anymore. They are in the aromatherapy business. And the karmic sooth-sayers and yogic flyers and mid-level political operators they employ as “experts” and “reporters” simply aren’t capable of covering actual news stories, because that is not part of their skill-set.

The current media landscape was shaped by years of an Obama administration that made the nuclear deal its second-term priority. Talking points on Iran were fed to reporters by the White House—and those who veered outside government-approved lines could expect to be cut off by the administration’s ace press handlers, like active CIA officer Ned Price. It’s totally normal for American reporters to print talking points fed to them daily by a CIA officer who works for a guy with an MA in creative writing, right? But no one ever balked. The hive-mind of today’s media is fed by minders and validated by Twitter in a process that is entirely self-enclosed and circular; a “story” means that someone gave you “sources” who “validate” the agreed upon “story-line.” Someone has to feed these guys so they can write—which is tough to do when real events are unfolding hour by hour on the ground.