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Friday, July 28, 2023

07/28 Links Pt2: Ending Aid Won’t Stop the Demonization of Israel; Richard Landes: A biased press is legitimizing blood libels; Polish Jewry’s Not-So-Golden Age

From Ian:

Collection: Ending U.S. Aid to Israel
The publication on July 16, 2023, of an article by Jacob Siegel and Liel Leibovitz calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel opened a fresh debate over a topic dominated by outdated assumptions and emotional entreaties. To deepen the conversation, Tablet invited a group that includes a retired IDF general, U.S. Senators and members of Congress, former Middle East diplomats, and writers from various political persuasions to offer their thoughts on the issue. Their articles, and more from Tablet’s archive, are collected here.
Caroline Glick: Time to Stop Toeing the Line
At the height of Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s seven-week war with Hamas in the summer of 2014, then President Barack Obama imposed an embargo on a shipment of Hellfire missiles to Israel after the Pentagon approved the transfer.

A senior Obama administration told the The Wall Street Journal at the time that Israel could no longer expect automatic resupply of critical munitions in wartime. The decision to embargo the Hellfire missiles, the official averred, amounted to “the United States saying ‘the buck stops here. Wait a second … It’s not OK anymore.’”

The embargo was spurred by an IDF artillery round that fell on a United Nations school Hamas was using as a missile launching site. As is its wont, Hamas placed civilians at the site to serve as human shields.

The Hellfire embargo was meant to teach Israel a lesson.

But what lesson? If the administration wanted Israel to minimize civilian casualties, Obama should have been happy to supply Israel with more Hellfire missiles. Unlike regular artillery shells, the precision guided Hellfire missiles minimize civilian casualties.

By embargoing the Hellfire missiles, Obama was ensuring that all things being equal, more civilians would die. And that was the point. By denying Israel access to Hellfire missiles in the middle of a war, Obama was forcing Israel to choose between fighting Hamas with “dumb” artillery rounds at the cost of more civilian casualties and more U.S. and international condemnation, or standing down.

Under the circumstances, the IDF General Staff might have been expected to reevaluate the desirability of maintaining Israel’s dependence on U.S. military assistance over time. But no such reassessment took place then, or since. Over the five decades since the U.S. transformed Israel into a U.S. client state through military aid, the handful of senior IDF officers who opposed the aid found themselves denied promotions, marginalized, and out of the IDF.

To be sure, U.S. military assistance to Israel has a lot to recommend it. $3.8 billion annually in free U.S. military platforms and munitions is a lot of money. True, it’s less than a sixth of Israel’s military budget and Israel would survive without it. But it’s still a lot of money.
Richard Goldberg: American Military Aid to Israel Serves Both Countries Well
As disagreements between the Biden administration and Netanyahu government boil over, the inclination by some supporters of Israel to search for policy solutions that free Israel from a perceived yolk of dangerous U.S. foreign policy is often well-intentioned, even if their solution is misguided. Jerusalem is indeed frustrated with a White House that treats the democratically elected leader of Israel with disdain while offering the world’s state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, billions of dollars in cash. Not to mention the unprecedented meddling by an American president in Israel’s domestic politics at a moment of great social upheaval.

But tension between a left-wing American president and a right-wing Israeli government is a phenomenon observed across three decades—from Clinton to Obama to Biden. And each time it’s been the Congress that steps into the breach, appropriating assistance to Israel and using the power of the purse to defeat hostile executive policies whenever possible.

It’s also understandable for supporters of Israel to grow frustrated with members of Congress who work against Israel’s security interests every day—stabbing Israel in the back by supporting sanctions relief for Iran, condoning Palestinian pay-for-slay and defending U.N.-sponsored antisemitism—only to get a kosher seal of approval from pro-Israel institutions so long as they vote “yes” on foreign aid to Israel. But cutting off that aid is not the appropriate response to that outrage since it would stab Israel through the heart, not just the back, and leave it even more vulnerable to Iran. The more thoughtful response would be to defend aid to Israel and then use the American political system to hold accountable at the ballot box those who endanger both America and Israel’s security.

The trend inside the Democratic Party should not be ignored. The threat that one day someone like AOC might be House speaker or someone like Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy or Bernie Sanders might be Senate majority leader has likely already prompted contingency planning in Jerusalem—not just for the risk posed to U.S. assistance but to the broader bilateral relationship. But right now, they’re not in charge of congressional appropriations—and the Democratic president, despite all his flawed Middle East policies that undermine Israel’s security and his constant meddling in Israel’s domestic politics, still pushes his party to support robust military aid to Israel.

There may yet come a day when the threats, requirements, and Israeli budget allow for a tapering of foreign assistance without harming our mutual national security interests. That day is not today. Iran is on the verge of enriching uranium to 90% weapons-grade, Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets and a growing arsenal of precision guided munitions in Lebanon, and Tehran’s proxies are trying to take over the West Bank. Cutting off American military aid to Israel would be a strategic disaster for both countries.
Dennis Ross: The Wrong Message at the Wrong Time
When authors as diverse as Nicholas Kristof, Jacob Siegel, and Liel Leibovitz all write about ending U.S. military assistance to Israel, it is noteworthy.

Writing in Tablet, Siegel and Leibovitz are convinced that the aid gives the U.S. a veto over Israeli actions, makes money for U.S. weapons manufacturers, and feeds the commonly held fiction among Israeli critics that Israel is handed a blank check. This last point, Leibovitz and Siegel legitimately argue, is not only untrue but serves the purposes of those who accuse advocates for Israel in the U.S. of serving Israel’s interest at the expense of America’s. The dual loyalty implication is not subtle and has long been an anti-Semitic trope. Siegel and Leibovitz see ending military assistance to Israel as a way of taking away this argument. Although valuable, for them that is a secondary reason for ending the military assistance. Siegel and Leibovitz believe Israel will be better off without it: It will reduce American leverage on Israel, mean Israel’s hands won’t be tied by Washington, and permit Israel to benefit from being “able to shop on the open market” and no longer be tied to U.S. equipment and its cost overruns and technical problems.

Kristof’s perspective, appearing a few days later in The New York Times, is different. He looks at the high costs of $3.8 billion a year in military assistance to Israel as being unnecessary because it is a country that is no longer poor and has a per capita income greater than Japan and a number of the Western European members of NATO. Moreover, he looks at how that money could be used to help poor countries like Niger desperately in need of assistance. To be fair, Kristof is talking about beginning a discussion and not abruptly cutting our military assistance to Israel, but clearly the aim is to get there.

The intent of Siegel, Leibovitz, or Kristof may not be to contribute to those who are increasingly critical of Israel—and who would love to see the U.S. apply real pressure on it by cutting off military assistance and ending political support for it. But that will surely be the effect of their articles. Yes, even those who are generally supporters of Israel may favor applying pressure at a time when Israel’s government includes messianic nationalists and ultrareligious parties—and is pushing an agenda that many Israelis believe is threatening to the democratic identity of the country. These Israelis, and their supporters in the U.S., want to show that the costs of the Netanyahu government’s policies are high, and are taking a terrible toll on support for Israel in America and internationally. The Knesset’s recent adoption of the law revoking the reasonability provision in court rulings will only add to this impulse.

Understandable, perhaps, but is cutting military assistance the right tool for that? No, it is not. Siegel, Leibovitz and Kristoff generally act as if cutting off assistance would have little or no effect on the way the Iranians and Hezbollah would read the situation and American support for Israel. Already, the turmoil in Israel is being read by both as a sign of Israeli weakness, with Hezbollah’s actions over the last few months ranging from having an operative carry out a terrorist act in Megiddo to permitting Hamas to fire rockets from southern Lebanon to increasingly provocative acts along the border, demonstrating that Hassan Nasrallah is becoming far less risk-averse. Cut off American assistance now, or say we will plan to do so, and the Iranians and Hezbollah will up the ante and make a conflict far more likely. Does Israel need a multifront conflict? Would that serve America’s interests?


Ted Cruz: Dead Wrong
The hostility that the Biden administration has shown toward Israel makes the Obama-era policies look tame by comparison. Again: They have pursued a campaign against Israel that is granular, whole-of-government, and often conducted in secret. Consider 10 examples:

First, in the opening days of the administration the White House instructed the State Department to stop signaling support for the Abraham Accords. The State Department implemented those instructions by issuing guidance that prohibited even using the phrase “Abraham Accords.” None of these changes was acknowledged publicly.

Second, State Department officials issued verbal guidance that prohibited funding for joint U.S.-Israel science and technology projects in Judea and Samaria, including parts of Jerusalem. The guidance did something America has never done before: unilaterally impose territorial restrictions on U.S. scientific research aid to Israel. The projects which are being targeted are for curing cancer and easing aging. It is simply an antisemitic boycott. Decades ago, the U.S. and Israel bilaterally agreed to such limits against the backdrop of unique regional conditions, but in 2020 both sides rescinded and rejected them as discriminatory. But in June 2023 the State Department began distributing in writing their new guidance to all relevant federal agencies—effectively endorsing and implementing BDS. Tellingly, this guidance was not cleared through the State Department’s own special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, and of course administration officials did not formally notify Congress or make the policy public.

Third, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor issued a $1 million Notice of Funding Opportunity grant offer for work by nongovernmental organizations to delegitimize Israel, which likewise was not cleared by the department’s own antisemitism envoy.

Fourth, the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) quietly changed the name of the bureau that handles Israel from “Israel and Palestinian Affairs” to “Israeli and Palestinian Affairs,” the idea being to level the relationships that the U.S. has with our Israeli allies and with the Palestinians.

Fifth, the Office of Palestinian Affairs gave a Bronze Age Judean relic to the Palestinian Authority as “an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony,” a literal erasure of the ancient Jewish connection to Israel.

Sixth, State Department diplomats at the United Nations rejoined, engaged, and boosted U.N. organizations that promote anti-Israel and antisemitic incitement.

It is worth pausing here and noting a couple things. None of these policies was advanced by leveraging aid to Israel, and none of it would have been hindered if aid to Israel was reduced. And all those policies were just from inside the State Department. The Biden administration’s assault on Israel, of course, has been whole of government.

Seventh, the Department of Defense and the Israeli military held the “Juniper Oak” military exercises. As with the Obama-era MOU, what could have been a way to enhance military cooperation was instead turned into a way to constrain Israel’s ability to defend itself. According to Dan Shapiro, Obama’s former ambassador to Israel who was on the Biden administration team tasked with securing a new nuclear deal with Iran, the U.S.-Israeli exercises were meant to “make it less likely that one acts independently without close coordination with the other”—in other words, designed to tie the hands of Israel’s military.

Eighth, the Department of Justice unleashed the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Israel in response to an incident in which a Palestinian American journalist was killed covering a firefight between Israeli forces and terrorists, even after other parts of the administration had concluded the death was accidental.

Ninth, the Departments of Justice and State worked together to circumvent multiple congressional sanctions targeting the Palestine Liberation Organization, a terrorist group, so they could bring to Washington, D.C., the group’s secretary general for high-level press briefings—while the administration was simultaneously shunning cabinet ministers from Israel’s democratically elected government. Top officials from across the administration publicly told reporters and testified to Congress that such engagement was advancing American national security interests, but in nonpublic notices the State Department expressly confirmed to Congress that the Palestinian Authority continues to pay for acts of terrorism against Israeli and U.S. citizens.

Tenth, despite such terror financing, the State Department and specifically the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Palestinian controlled areas. Tens of millions of dollars of that funding was incorrectly entered into government databases in ways that prevented public and congressional scrutiny. Roughly $20 million sent to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip was entered as going elsewhere. In one case a $5 million award to the Gaza Strip was publicly reported with the wrong amount, the wrong location, and deliberately anonymized (had it not been anonymized, it would have been clear the money was going to Gaza). None of these mistakes was made public by the administration.

This list is not comprehensive.

Again, none of these policies would be hampered by reducing military aid to our Israeli allies. Quite the opposite: Eliminating aid would provide momentum to the deeply reckless policies already being pursued by the Biden administration, which have acutely endangered American and Israeli national security.
Ritchie Torres: Ending Aid Won’t Stop the Demonization of Israel
Lately, I have heard more and more pro-Israel Americans, still a small minority within the pro-Israel community, grow increasingly convinced that U.S. aid to Israel is no longer worth the political scrutiny it attracts. If the U.S. were no longer providing aid to Israel, then the anti-Israel zealots, the argument goes, would stop obsessing about Israel and stop singling out the Jewish state for delegitimation.

I, for one, am skeptical that the hyperbolic and hysterical hatred for Israel, reinforced by decades of demonization, would magically disappear with the end of U.S. foreign aid.

There is no reason to think that BDS activists here in the U.S. would suddenly stop promoting the delegitimation of Israel simply because foreign aid for the Jewish state is no longer a line item in the federal budget.

For the BDS movement, which would retain its raison d’etre regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C., ending U.S. aid to Israel is a distant second to ending Israel itself. The anti-Zionist crusaders in U.S. politics will not declare mission accomplished until the Jewish state ceases to exist.

Tablet magazine recently published a controversial piece, “End U.S. Aid to Israel,” that alleges that “America’s manipulation of the Jewish state is endangering Israel and American Jews.” The article’s assault on U.S. aid to Israel is so provocative that Tablet has invited me, as a pro-Israel member of Congress, to offer a response.

The article asserts that U.S. aid to Israel provides “Congress and the White House with a tool to leverage influence over a key strategic ally.” Exactly which White House and Congress the authors have in mind the article doesn’t say but the claim here is readily refutable by the recent history of the American-Israeli relationship.

No recent American president or congressional majority has ever proposed conditioning or otherwise leveraging aid to Israel. Nor has any recent American president or congressional majority ever actively attempted to do so in order to impose its will on Israel. Quite the contrary: Both the White House and Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have never wavered in affirming that, no matter what policy differences emerge between the two democracies, U.S. aid to Israel should be unconditional, much like the friendship itself. Indeed, Israel is an oasis of bipartisan cooperation in the D.C. desert of partisanship and polarization.

The article then proceeds to provocatively portray U.S. aid to Israel as an exploitative arrangement that subsidizes the U.S. defense industry at the expense of Israel’s own defense base. Although the argument might contain a kernel of truth, I disagree with the cynical conclusion it ultimately draws.
Israeli Dependence Day
While it’s true that “the United States gives billions of dollars in aid to Israel each year,” over 90% of that money must only be used as credit for buying weapons from U.S. companies. The motive is to make Israel, or any other country receiving similar aid, dependent on U.S. weapons, ultimately giving the U.S. the ability to leverage that power to their will.

It gets worse. As part of the aid deal with the U.S., Israel also signs off its rights to purchase or sell military technology from or to other countries without Washington’s approval. In practice, many Israeli companies such as Brill, an Israeli boots manufacturing company, have had to close down due to the increase of U.S. foreign aid and Israel needing to find more ways to spend the added credit. In the 1980s, the U.S. even forced Israel to shut down its production of the LAVI fighter jet, a domestic initiative which would have allowed Israel to free its air force from foreign sourcing. Imagine how many jobs and industries could have been created in Israel if it hadn’t sold out to the short-term allure of U.S. aid, and instead invested in its long-term future. There is a repeated theme tied to foreign aid, and that is making sure Israel never becomes fully independent.

The main arguments for maintaining the U.S. aid are that Israel needs this money (credit) for critical defense expenditures, or that since Israel cannot currently manufacture military equipment such as planes, it must rely on other countries to source them. Well, Israel is not a poor country, and if it invested resources in making sure all military equipment and technology was manufactured locally, it could control its own industry, creating more jobs and bringing in more money than the aid itself. Now, it is true that Israel cannot develop its own planes overnight and may need to temporarily depend on external sourcing, but then Israel should at the very least diversify its sourcing and expedite a revamped fighter jet program that would eventually make the country fully independent. The U.S. is not to be blamed, but rather understood, as having only filled the void the British Empire left when it was forced to withdraw from what was then called “Mandatory Palestine.” When the British colonized the Land of Israel/Palestine, they maintained their power—as they did in other areas under their control—by turning the locals against each other, convincing Israelis that Palestinians and Arabs wanted to drive them to the sea, and convincing Palestinians and Arabs that Jewish self-determination was an extension of European colonialism. Just like other peoples who had been manipulated into turning against each other due to British imperialism such as in India/Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria, Israelis, Palestinians, and the neighboring Arab countries were also played, and fell for the same imperial gambit. With the U.S. now replacing Britain’s dominant function, foreign aid is offered in the Levant anywhere that Washington wants to extend its control, which currently includes Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority.

Let’s be clear. There is no inherent issue with Israel maintaining a productive relationship with the United States or any other country as long as the relationship is not toxic, immoral, or harmful to Israel’s long-term interests. We must also keep in mind the current volatile state and uncertain future of the American project. Assuming that the United States still exists in its current form for another 20 years, the likelihood of a future administration becoming more openly hostile to Israel seems increasingly likely given America’s current political trajectory.

“Independence” is defined as “freedom from the control, influence, support, or aid of others,” and if Israel wants to truly achieve independence, the conversation about who Israel is, what role it must play, and how free it wants to be, must begin now.
Israel, Right or Left
Is U.S. military aid to Israel a right-wing or a left-wing issue? Nothing in Tablet’s article calling to “End U.S. Aid to Israel” suggested partisan argumentation, yet some of the online discussion it inspired immediately swerved in that direction. Nicholas Kristof’s column making a similar argument in The New York Times a few days later, suggested that ending aid to Israel is part of a liberal agenda, even as he gave a backwards nod to the Tablet piece, noting that “it’s not just the liberals” who argue that aid should be cut. Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporter Ron Kampeas labeled Siegel and Leibovitz “two right wingers” in a tweet that declined to mention the Tablet authors by name while expressing surprise that Kristof was getting “pro-Israel flack.” Netanyahu, Kampeas tweeted, “has been thinking about this since the 1990s.”

Let’s set aside the question of whether the assumptions about the political affiliations of the Tablet authors are correct—in fact, their body of published writing suggests that they are not so easily grouped under an ideological label—the apparent need to politically pigeonhole a complex essay is frustrating and unhelpful. Siegel and Leibovitz argue that aid as currently structured does more harm than good to Israel because it stunts Israel’s domestic defense industry, curbs Israel’s autonomy, and transforms the country “into a scapegoat for every lunatic conspiracy theorist in America to indulge in Jew-baiting in the guise of pontificating about ‘U.S. foreign policy.’” They point to the damaging effect that the focus on aid to Israel has on America’s own strategic priorities, while also making the more provocative claim that “America’s manipulation of the Jewish state endangers Israel and American Jews.” Finally, they question the wisdom of channeling American Jews’ political energies into supporting a policy that is, at bottom, a subsidy for the U.S. defense industry. Their argument appears to be rooted in the belief that both the U.S. and Israel would be better off refocusing their commitments on their respective national interests—a claim that has both left and right wing versions but is far too specific and nuanced to be reduced to the crude lens of political bias.

There are profound unstated questions underlying this essay that simply get glossed over or ignored in the rush to assign it to a political team. Among them: How to ensure Israel’s success going forward? What strategic value does Israel provide to America and what can America offer in return? What is the best way for American Jews to express solidarity with Israel? What is the right path forward for Americans and Israelis together? These questions invite American Jews to look at the aid not as Democrats or Republicans but first and foremost, as members of the Jewish people.

In a sense, it is unsurprising, and perhaps even inevitable that these questions should immediately evoke partisan bias. Although Israeli and American Jewish analysts of all stripes have over the years raised the point about U.S. aid’s harmful aspects, in the current political climate in the U.S. the most vocal advocates for canceling or limiting aid have been Democratic politicians from the furthest reaches of the progressive end of the spectrum. Some of them are aggressively hostile to the Jewish state, others hardly bother to hide their contempt for it. They are wholeheartedly applauded by those who’d like to see Israel erased from history. The former head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, who has made a career out of demonizing Israel despite evincing the same level of historical understanding of the state found in an average freshman dorm, has tweeted Kristof’s column out three times.
It’s About Partnership
More than anything, the aid symbolizes America’s commitment to Israel’s security, which dramatically affects Israel’s and America’s deterrence posture and avoids a military confrontation in the region. Iran will be more brazen should its regime conclude that the U.S. will not stand by Israel in a future confrontation. It might also consider breaking out to a bomb in light of the absence of a credible threat from the U.S. and Israel. Hezbollah will be less deterred and even Palestinian terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, would be less restrained in promoting terror attacks in Israel if the U.S. commitment to its security is undermined. Altogether, the U.S.-Israel military partnership serves as a stabilizing force and prevents further security deterioration and its humanitarian costs.

Not only should the American-Israeli partnership not be changed—it actually suits contemporary U.S. strategic priorities, as the administration is resolved to allocate more resources to the Indo-Pacific while optimizing its assets in the Middle East. Israel’s “defend itself by itself” approach, enables the U.S. to effectively use its regional posture to build a regional pro-American coalition that counters Iran’s malign activities while enhancing U.S. influence and diminishing China’s and Russia’s.

Assessing U.S. security aid to Israel by its influential impact—whether it constrains Israeli policy—is likely to overlook its importance to both countries’ national security. Simultaneously, it will be a grave mistake to see the military assistance package as an obstacle to enhancing the relations even further. The aid signifies the bond between the countries and the framework for cooperation between them, and should serve as a basis for future upgrades that better reflect the nations’ interests in the 21st century.

In fact, during President Biden’s visit to Israel last year, he announced the launch of U.S.-Israel Strategic High-Level Dialogue on Technology in critical and emerging technologies, led by their national security advisers. This dialogue should be an opportunity to fortify Israel’s commitment to preserve U.S. technological superiority, while promoting its own tech hub and boosting their mutual innovation ecosystems. By doing so, the U.S. and Israel could create a new pillar which invigorates their common partnership in light of the great U.S.-China rivalry, and deepens the relations between their peoples.

As Israeli society faces a struggle over its democratic nature, an immense grassroots liberal force has emerged. This force consists of the majority of Israelis—right, center, and left wings alike. Its chief international ally is the U.S., and its vision is to make Israeli democracy stronger, which would further deepen the moral bond Israel shares with America. This is yet another opportunity to bolster the bonds between the nations. Forming new U.S. policies regarding Israel, while focusing only on its current government, will be erroneous and dangerous for the interests of both countries.
Antisemitism is a Threat to Europe and the Freedoms that Took Centuries to Achieve.
The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks famously said, “Antisemitism isn’t a threat just for Jews, it’s a threat first and foremost to Europe and the freedoms it took centuries to achieve.” The recent social breakdown in France provides yet another example of an age-old historical truth: untreated antisemitism is both a catalyst and warning sign of a broader sickness in society. Antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine – and when unchecked, it’s followed by broad social upheaval, economic destruction, and cultural stagnation – throughout history and today.

Over the last several decades in France, a pattern has played out that is familiar across history.

Antisemitic violence has proliferated in French society, often going unpunished by the judicial system, unaddressed by the political establishment, and unabated by the public. Hate crimes, muggings, terrorism, and intimidation have targeted the small Jewish community. 74% of French Jews were victims of antisemitic acts during their lifetime and 61% of anti-religious acts in France have been directed at Jews.

Although Jews represent less than 1 percent of the French population, 40 percent of all violent hate crimes in France are antisemitic. Due to “political correctness” France has not done nearly enough to combat antisemitism. And like many western nations, France’s antisemitism is not confined to one political camp. It comes mostly from growing hostile Muslim population, but also from the far left and the far right.

The appeasement of vicious antisemitism in France, as Jews have been killed in high-profile terror attacks and hate crimes, has allowed the seeds of social unrest to fester. This tolerance of hatred has resulted in French Jews emigrating in record numbers, ultimately leading to the situation today in France – rioting, lawlessness, and political violence.

Elected leaders must protect France from repeating the mistakes of the past. If they don’t, you can find many other examples in history to see where the country may be headed.
Towards Anglo-French anti-extremism
The French government has refused entry to Muhammad Rabbani, the managing director of the British Islamist activist group CAGE. The French interior ministry described Rabbani as part of a “radical Islamist movement”. It was not wrong.

CAGE — self-described as a “human rights” advocacy organisation — has a history of Islamist extremist connections. The Home Secretary Suella Braverman said on July 18, 2023, “Cage’s leaders have excused and legitimised violence by Islamist terrorists.” Originally called Cageprisoners, the group was focused on justice for Muslims unlawfully detained in the War on Terror but it has also campaigned in favour of convicted terrorists, such as Aafia Siddiqui and Djamel Beghal. CAGE’s operations director, Azad Ali was described by a newspaper as “a hardline Islamic extremist who supports the killing of British and American soldiers in Iraq by fellow Muslims as justified”. When he attempted to sue for libel, his case was rejected; the judge said Ali’s case had an “absence of reality”.

Rabbani himself has a history of Islamist activism that pre-dates his involvement with CAGE. Belying supremacist aspirations shared with Islamic Movement groups across Europe, training he provided to the Young Muslim Organisation UK in 2009 carried the message: “Our goal is to create the True Believer, [and] to then mobilise these believers into an organised force for change who will carry out dawah [preaching], hisbah [enforcement of Islamic law] and jihad. This will lead to social change and Iqamatud-Deen [an Islamic social and political order].” In 2017, he was charged under the Terrorism Act after refusing to provide police at Heathrow airport with the passwords to his mobile phone and laptop. He was found guilty of wilfully obstructing police.

The French accused Rabbani of “spreading slanderous words” about “supposed ‘Islamophobic persecution’ and mass surveillance by western governments, including France”. It was not wrong about this either.
In about-face, Swedish woman burns paper instead of Torah outside Israeli embassy
A Swedish woman who received permission from local authorities to burn a Torah book outside Israel’s embassy in Stockholm aborted the act on Friday.

The 50-year-old woman, who is believed to have a history of mental health problems, burned a blank piece of paper instead and declared that it was a “symbol of the Swedish system that is empty of content.”

When she submitted a request to Stockholm police to hold her protest, the woman had said it was about the “systematic violation of children’s rights in Sweden.” It was unclear why she had chosen to make a Torah book the prop in her protest.

It was the second planned Torah book burning in recent weeks that was canceled at the last minute.

Hours before the woman’s about-face, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen called his Swedish counterpart Tobias Billström and told her that the planned burning would harm relations between the two countries.

Swedish officials have come under criticism in recent weeks for repeatedly approving various protest events at which holy books have been defiled — particularly Qurans. The latter acts have sparked an angry backlash across the Muslim world. Sweden has said that while it does not approve of the actions, it holds freedom of expression and protest as sacrosanct.
JNS TV: Richard Landes: A biased press is legitimizing blood libels | Top Story
Four toxic elements are coming together to create a rising tide of antisemitism.

In this week’s episode of Top Story, JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin discusses the factors fueling a rising tide of antisemitism around the globe with scholar Richard Landes, author of the book "Can The Whole World Be Wrong? Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad."

They discuss
- The intertwining of far-left ideology and Islamist worldview
- How the media has paved the way for lies and propaganda to enter the mainstream


‘The News That They Needed to Hear’: US Advocates for Jews on Campus Testify Before Knesset on University Antisemitism
American nonprofit leaders on Tuesday testified before an Israeli parliamentary committee to discuss rising antisemitism on American college campuses.

Convened by the Knesset Committee on Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs, the hearing marked the first time in over five years that an Israeli parliamentary meeting was specifically dedicated to the problem of anti-Zionism on US college campuses.

“Many are able to recognize Jew-hatred when it comes from white supremacists, such as swastikas spray-painted on a wall or overt denial of the Holocaust,” said Alyza D. Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law —a nonprofit that has successfully pushed the US federal government to protect Jewish college students from anti-Zionist discrimination said during her testimony before Israeli politicians.

The hearing comes amid hundreds of antisemitic incidents at higher education institutions across the country, ranging from ‘classic‘ expressions of antisemitism to the denial of the Jewish connection to the land of Israel and the right of the Jewish people to self-determination.

“Today Jewish Zionist students are increasingly being vilified, harassed, and shunned,” Lewin continued. “University administrators are failing to protect these students because they mistakenly think that what they are witnessing on campus is a political debate. But make no mistake — ostracizing, marginalizing, or excluding Jews on the basis of the Zionist component of their Jewish identity is not ‘speech.’ It is discriminatory and unlawful conduct and must be recognized and condemned as such.”
‘EndJewHatred’ Nonprofit to Launch Chapter in Michigan After Antisemitic Vandalism at Flagship University
A Jewish civil rights nonprofit is launching a chapter in the state of Michigan in response to antisemitic incidents of vandalism at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in which someone graffitied swastikas and homophobic slurs on two off-campus a fraternity houses earlier this month.

EndJewHatred, which has successfully pushed for the establishment of “End Jew Hatred Day” in cities and localities across America, made the announcement on Tuesday, citing the need for on the ground personnel trained to react quickly to hate crimes targeting the Jewish community and Jewish institutions.

“The launch of #EndJewHatred movement in Michigan comes in response to a dramatic rise in threats of Jew-hatred over the past year, dangerously fermenting in the state,” EndJewHatred director of mobilization Adar Rubin said in a press release. “We seek to empower, strengthen, and unite the Jewish community on a grassroots level to fight back against bigotry while showing up to demand both direct action and consequence.”

On Friday, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor president Santa J. Ono said that the administration is aware of the vandalism of the fraternity houses and has asked the Ann Arbor Police Department (AAPD) to investigate it.

The new EndJewHatred chapter will hold weekly meetings for setting an agenda and training new recruits. Its other activities will include local demonstrations, distribution of flyers raising awareness of antisemitism, and outreach to the local Jewish and non-Jewish community.

Michigan had the 9th most antisemitic incidents in the US in 2022, according to an annual audit issued in March by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In December, a man from Dearborn was charged with ethnic intimidation after shouting “F*** the Jews” and “F*** Israel” at children attending the pre-school of Temple Beth El synagogue.


At AFP, Even a Palestinian Rocket Attack Is Cause For Whitewashing Palestinian Violence
The first days of the month were no different, and included a stabbing attack in Bnai Brak in which a young Israeli victim was wounded, and a shooting at the community of Avnei Hefetz.

Moreover, each of the weekly reports contains an appendix in the back detailing the numerous daily rock, molotov cocktail and other non-“critical” attacks, per Meir Amit’s terminology.

A second AFP story today, “Israeli troops kills Palestinian teen in West Bank: ministry,” likewise whitewashes Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, stating: “Since early last year, the territory has seen a string of attacks by Palestinians on Israeli targets, as well as violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities.” (Emphases added.)

The double standard in the language is striking. Israeli settlers attack Palestinian “communities,” but Palestinians attack Israeli “targets,” a term which erases the fact that Palestinian perpetrators have relentlessly targeted Israeli civilians.

Indeed, almost all of the fatalities on the Israeli side this year have been civilians, while the vast majority of fatalities on the Palestinian side have been combatants, most affiliated with terror organizations.

But that critical information is completely lost in AFP’s story, which obscures:
So far this year, violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed at least 203 Palestinians, 27 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources on both sides.

They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.

It’s remarkable that while civilian deaths on the Palestinian side are an exception, AFP places them on equal footing with combatant fatalities, citing “combatants as well as civilians,” without any kind of quantification. In contrast, on the Israeli side, where civilian deaths are pretty much the rule, AFP doesn’t see fit to note them at all.
BBC’s Bateman tweets simplistic claim about Jerusalem eviction case
The BBC’s latest guidance on individual use of social media includes the following instruction for those “working in news and current affairs (across all Divisions) and factual journalism production…”:
“Do not sacrifice accuracy for speed. Second and right is always better than first and wrong – an inaccurate post is a problem for you, your colleagues and the BBC.”

Bateman’s claim that the Sub Laban family were evicted from an apartment “they’ve lived in for decades” does not by any means tell the whole story. Details of that long-running case were provided by CAMERA in 2015:
“The family’s failure to move back into the building following extensive, drawn-out renovations complete in 2001 jeopardized their status as “protected tenants.” […]

…the Sub-Labans were never the owners of the property, but rather enjoyed “protected tenant” status. That status can be lost if the tenant abandons the property without intention of returning – and it is irrelevant whether the tenant is Jewish or Palestinian. […]

The magistrate court (34656-11-10) in a decision upheld by the district court (28083-12-14) found that the family had not returned to the apartment in 2001. According to the court from 2001-2010 (when the property was transferred to the trust) the family did not live in the apartment. From 2010 until 2014, they had only “pretended” to live in the apartment.”

In 2016 CAMERA reported further developments in that case.

Tom Bateman’s simplistic portrayal of that story clearly misleads his 16.3 thousand followers. Twitter users would however not have been able to point that out to him because the BBC’s Jerusalem correspondent prefers to restrict replies to his Tweets rather than be corrected on the kind of inaccuracy described in the BBC guidance as “a problem for you, your colleagues and the BBC”.


Arnold Schwarzenegger to Receive Award of Courage From Holocaust Museum L.A.
The Holocaust Museum L.A. has found a headliner for its Nov. 6 gala.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been confirmed to receive an inaugural Award of Courage for his longtime advocacy “against anti-Semitism and bigotry,” per the museum which cited his social media posts that have found the son of a Nazi officer speaking out against hate.

He’s been active offline as well. Through the USC Schwarzenegger Institute, the former California governor recently brought together the USC Shoah Foundation’s Institute for Visual History and Education, the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism and other partners together for a special event, “Terminating Hate: Breaking the Cycle of Extremism.” In 2022, he visited Auschwitz and later shared his experience by recounting the “horrific” details of the Holocaust while also promoting peace and tolerance amid a rise in anti-Semitism.

“The first Award of Courage embodies all the lessons of the Holocaust, the spirit of educating and elevating humanity to fight hate in all forms,” explained Holocaust Museum L.A. CEO Beth Kean. “Arnold, by speaking out publicly, embodies our museum’s essence of inspiring humanity through truth.”

Melissa Rivers will emcee the 15th annual event, which will take place at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Also honored that night will be Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Sandra Gerson Kanengiser.
Polish Jewry’s Not-So-Golden Age
Between the world wars, the Jews of newly independent Poland had renowned yeshivas, a vibrant civil society, numerous newspapers in multiple languages, networks of secular and religious schools of every stripe, a robust and diverse array of political movements and parties, and one of the greatest collections of writers, scholars (rabbinic and academic), artists, and intellectuals the Jewish world had ever seen. It is easy, then, to see this era as a golden age. Yet, Kenneth Moss argues in his book An Unchosen People, most Polish Jewish thinkers of the 1920s and 30s saw their circumstances very differently. David Engel writes in his review:

Polish Jews saw themselves as overwhelmingly poor, fundamentally unsafe, and deeply uncertain about their future. Their lives were shaped by political currents that were “pervasive, profound, and above all indifferent to what Jews wanted or hoped for.” Moss focuses on “a growing multitude of [Jewish] skeptics” who, beginning in the late 1920s, cast doubt on the ability of any Jewish political party, ideological movement, cultural organization, or communal agency to generate effective “practical responses . . . to danger and bad fate.”

Avrom Golomb, a widely read Yiddishist educator from Wilno, not only noticed but affirmed such assessments: Polish Jews, he observed, were confronting “a stable, permanent, and chronic uprooting-politics.” Although Golomb remained a committed diaspora nationalist, he spent most of the 1930s in Palestine. This is an example of what Moss calls “vernacular Zionism”—one that looked to that country not so much as a place for living an ideologically correct Jewish life but simply as a safer alternative to an increasingly grim Polish reality.

Poland defined itself from the start as the nation-state of the ethnic Polish community, to which Jews by definition did not belong. Its proclamation of independence in 1918 was accompanied by murderous anti-Jewish violence. When Poland’s first president was elected in 1922, with Jewish support, he was tagged “president for the Jews” and promptly assassinated. The following month the prime minister declared that all political decisions would be made by the “Aryan Christian majority.” The Polish political arena was split largely between parties prepared to bear the presence of Jews as long as they remained in their proper place (as second-class citizens who owed the Polish nation gratitude for its historic tolerance and whose needs and interests must always be subordinate to those of ethnic Poles) and parties who saw no legitimate place for Jews in Poland at all.
The Bizarre Anti-Semitic Movement That Drives Its Members to al-Qaeda and Neo-Nazism
Earlier this year, an American serviceman was sent to prison for an attempted terrorist attack that received little coverage. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Emelie Chace-Donahue, and Thomas Plant relate the facts:
In March 2023, authorities sentenced the former U.S. Army private Ethan Melzer to 45 years in prison for plotting a terrorist attack against his own unit, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, during its upcoming deployment to Turkey. Melzer had leaked sensitive information about the deployment to co-conspirators—one of whom was an undercover FBI source whom Melzer believed was a member of al-Qaeda. The prospect that the attack might kill Melzer himself did not faze him; . . . he hoped his planned attack would provoke the United States into another costly war.

Melzer, despite his eagerness to help al-Qaeda, is not a Muslim at all, but a member of a secretive occult group called the Order of Nine Angles (O9A), which may have as many as 2,000 members. Its philosophy is anti-Semitic and loosely neo-Nazi, and it encourages its members to take radical actions by seeking out what its texts call “insight roles.” Gartenstein-Ross, Chace-Donahue, and Plant explain:
O9A should be seen as a Satanist movement and philosophy that is influenced by elements of fascism. . . . At the heart of the O9A’s outlook is a self-proclaimed mission to aid individual and societal evolution toward enlightenment by balancing human and supernatural forces. To progress toward this enlightenment, O9A holds that Western civilization must unlock its true pagan ethos, which has been corrupted by Judeo-Christian values. To this end, O9A encourages individuals to commit “sinister” and “heretical” acts conducive to liberation from artificial societal norms, thus breaking down the current social system.

Insight roles are lifestyles that adherents adopt that contradict their natural predispositions. For example, someone who considers himself honest might turn to a life of crime. Insight roles have many potential outlets: joining an “insurrectionary political organization,” assassinating those who support the current societal system, “undertaking jihad,” or joining or forming an anarchist or neo-Nazi group.

Some O9A texts also position the “Magian ethos,” [i.e., Judaism and Christianity], alongside white supremacist and anti-government conspiracy theories, including those alleging that a New World Order or Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG) is a hidden hand behind major world governments and events. Moreover, some O9A texts use terminology and references directly linked to white supremacism and neo-Nazism.
German Bank Returns Kandinsky Painting to Heirs of Original Jewish Owners Persecuted by Nazis
A state bank in Bavaria, Germany, has agreed to return an artwork by famed Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky to the family of a Dutch Jewish couple who originally owned the painting in the Netherlands, The New York Times reported on Monday.

Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB) said in a statement that it will follow a recommendation of the German independent advisory commission on Nazi-confiscated cultural property, which advised that the 1907 painting Colorful Life should be returned to the heirs of Hedwig Lewenstein Weyermann and Irma Lewenstein Klein.

“Every restitution is important to the families of persecuted victims as it provides them with a sense of healing, justice and dignity,” James Palmer, who represents the heirs, told The New York Times.

Emanuel A. Lewenstein, an art collector and director of a sewing machine factory, and his wife, Hedwig Lewenstein Weyermann, lived in Amsterdam and purchased Colorful Life in May 1923. Starting in 1933, after her husband’s death, Weyermann loaned the painting to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. After her death, the painting came into the possession of her son, Robert Gotschalk Lewenstein , and his then-wife, Irma Lewenstein Klein.

The painting was then taken from the museum and sold at auction in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam on Oct. 9, 1940, mere months after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. Salomon B. Slijper purchased Colorful Life at that auction and in 1972, BayernLB bought the painting from Slijper’s widow and loaned it to the museum Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, where it has remained since then. The painting shows a large group of people, dressed in bright and colorful garments, out on a lawn doing a variety of activities such as playing music or dancing.
Movie About Founder of Underground Zionist Armed Organization to Make World Premiere at Toronto Film Festival
The lineup for the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) will include the world premiere of Shoshana, a film about the founder of the Lehi underground Zionist armed organization, Avraham “Yair” Stern.

From French screenwriter Laurence Coriat and director Michael Winterbottom, the film is set in British Mandate Palestine and follows two British police officers — Thomas Wilkins (Douglas Booth) and Geoffrey Morton (Harry Marling) — in Israel as they try to find Stern and stop his plan for attacks against the British mandate. The Zionist paramilitary fighter and poet is played by actor Aury Elby. The film — which is in English, Hebrew, Russian, Arabic — is a historical thriller that “weaves a story of star-crossed love with one of political radicalization,” according to TIFF.

TIFF announced on Monday its first lineup of films for this year’s festival. It revealed 60 official selections for the gala and special presentations programs for this year’s festival, with films from 70 countries. The festival will take place September 7–17.

Stern was born on Dec. 23, 1907, in Suvalk, which was a border town in north-eastern Poland near Lithuania. In 1926, when the sixth grade of his Hebrew school was shut down before he could finish his studies, he moved to Jerusalem with a special emigration visa to complete his schooling. He remained in the country and later studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he graduated with a MA degree in Humanities.

Before founding the Lohamei Herut Israel (Lehi), Stern was one of the first to join Irgun Zvai Leumi, a well-armed underground, independent army also known as Etzel or The Irgun. It was founded by former Haganah commander Avraham Tehomi and 19 other former Haganah commanders. It engaged in hostile activities against the British government in Israel and Stern was chief undercover agent in charge of purchasing arms abroad and overseeing their transportation to Israel. Stern wrote in a published pamphlet that the organization was fighting “against the Foreign Occupier and its wicked schemes.”


Controversial rapper releases new song, references antisemitism accusations
French rapper Freeze Corleone, famous for his song “F*** the Shoa” has become the center of a new controversy this week, after he released “Shavkat.”

“Shavkat” was written in testament to MMA fight Shavkat Rakhmonov, according to Algeimeiner, and contains pointed remarks against French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin who is facing a rape charge.

The song caused controversy over the lyrics “Et je crache des flammes comme Arcanin/Je préfère être accusé d’antisémitisme que de viol comme Gérald Darmanin.” This translates to “And I spit flames like Arcanine/I’d rather be accused of antisemitism than rape like Gerald Darmanin.”

Darmanin responded to Corleone on Tuesday, according to the Algeimeiner, in an official statement that denounced the rapper as an “apologist for Nazism and antisemitism.”

“At my request, the Ministry of the Interior is studying legal remedies as quickly as possible to prosecute the author of these remarks,” Darmanin said, pointing out that he was also calling on “Facebook and Twitter not to spread this garbage.”

In a tweet, Corleone tweeted that the song had 175,000 likes and 200,2548 total views by July 24.


Funeral takes place in Israel for Holocaust survivor David Leitner, 94
David (“Dugo”) Leitner was born in Hungary in 1930 to his parents, Meir and Golda Leah, and raised in an Orthodox home. In March 1944, invading Nazi Germans corralled his family to the ghetto; six weeks later, they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Young David was separated to live with thousands of other children there.

On Jan. 18, 1945, he started the long trek (known as the death marches) from Auschwitz to Mauthausen and from there to Gunskirchen, where he was liberated. Gripped with hunger, the teen dreamed of his murdered mother’s bilkalach—balls of dough cooked to a golden brown.

Leitner survived to enjoy similar foods for the rest of his life.

He moved to Israel in 1949, joined the Israel Defense Forces and eventually settled in Moshav Nir Galim. At an outdoor market in Jerusalem, he saw falafel for the first time and recalled the nostalgic cuisine of his youth that had sustained him during the escape through the Polish countryside. Despite the chickpea dish tasting very different, a new yearly ritual commemorating his survival began.

The Times of Israel reported that Leitner died on July 26 at the age of 94. His annual personal observance every Jan. 18 grew to be celebrated and recognized around the globe.

While initially a private act, Leitner’s family began participating with him, and the media took notice. As more people joined in, the day took on a special name: “Operation Dugo.”

In 2019, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin invited Leitner for a falafel meal. Other leaders who have also participated in the tradition include President Isaac Herzog and former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi.


On Tisha B’Av, Many Media Methods For Distancing Jews From Their Holiest Site
Today marks Tisha B’Av, the solemn fast day mourning the destroyed First and Second Jewish Temples, along with a host of other tragedies which befell the Jewish people on this date. As Jews recite mournful liturgy and observe customs to mark the loss of the two Temples which once stood on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, major Western media outlets continue to engage in misreporting distancing the Jewish people from their most sacred site.

Thus, The New York Times set the tone earlier this week with a July 25 page-one news analysis (also online here), which erroneously refers to the Western Wall as Judaism’s holiest site (“Netanyahu ushers in a precarious new era”). Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley errs, referring to “an ultra-Orthodox party that proposed fining women for reading the Torah at the holiest site in Judaism.” The proposal in question would have criminalized women reading the Torah at the Western Wall, which is not Judaism’s holiest site.

The Temple Mount, not the Western Wall, is Judaism’s holiest site, a fact which The Times has rightly noted in the past. (No one is permitted to read the Torah at the Temple Mount, where Jewish prayer is forbidden.) Moreover, a commendable Oct. 22, 2015 New York Times correction stated:
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the Western Wall. It is one of the holiest sites in Judaism, not the holiest site. (The holiest is the Temple Mount.) The error was repeated in a picture caption.

The paper again corrected this point in 2017.

The aptly named Holy of Holies, which the High Priest entered only once a year on the holiest day of Yom Kippur, is on the Temple Mount, and was housed in the two Temples. But the Temple Mount’s status as Judaism’s holiest site predates even the First Temple. According to Jewish tradition, the Even Hashtiya, the foundation stone upon which the world was created, is located on the site. Jews believe that the biblical Abraham brought Isaac to that spot for sacrifice and that the Ark of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments once stood there, the epicenter of Judaism.

While the Western Wall is the holiest site where Jews are permitted to regularly pray, it derives its holiness from its proximity to the Temple site. Though CAMERA alerted The Times to the error yesterday, a correction has yet to appear as of this writing.




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