Friday, December 01, 2023

12/01 Links Pt2: Douglas Murray: Europe's clash of cultures — and antisemitism — is coming to America; The 7 October denialists

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Europe's clash of cultures — and antisemitism — is coming to America
Well, the war on Christmas certainly started early this year. On the streets of New York. And in the ugliest way possible.

By now, everybody will have seen the footage of anti-Israel activists and pro-Palestinian extremists trying to disrupt the Christmas tree-lighting at Rockefeller Center.

Let’s ignore for a moment that one of the crowd was carrying a swastika and that the general mood of the crowd was more of a mob than a demonstration.

What did they think they were doing?

Perhaps these thugs had been emboldened by managing to interrupt the Macy´s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

But what had Macy’s ever done to them? And why attack a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony? Who do these people think they are?

The answer is that they are fanatics, and fanatics who have whipped themselves up into a huge lie.

The idiots trying to stop the Christmas tree-lighting on Wednesday night kept chanting for an “end to genocide.”

But if any of these people had ever left their college dorm rooms, they might have discovered that there is no genocide going on in Gaza.

In fact, in the 18 years since the Israelis left Gaza (forcibly removing every last Jewish resident), the population of Gaza has boomed.

In the last 18 years, the population of Gaza has gone from 1,299,000 to around 2.05 million people.

In other words, the population of Gaza has grown by almost a million people since the Israelis left.

Which is one reason why you hear so much about the youthful population of Gaza.

Perhaps if any of the members the forward operating unit of the anti-Christmas tree brigade were capable of thinking, they could answer an obvious question:

Where is the genocide? Is it not happening? Or are the Israelis trying to commit genocide against the people of Gaza yet are so bad at committing genocide that the population actually grows while they´re trying to kill everyone? I’d love to hear the answer.
Editor's Notes: Where are our allies?
Many Jews, who have long prided themselves on standing with other groups and communities in their time of need, have been left wondering: Where are our allies?

Indeed, in the weeks since the October 7 massacre, a slew of Jewish activists – many of whom have long identified with the progressive left – have written heart-wrenching essays and social media posts expressing their sense of pain and abandonment. “It is horrifying that people who profess that their life is all about the humanity of others – that maybe that humanity doesn’t extend to Jews,” one such activist, Jonathan Rosen, told the Financial Times. Rabbi Sharon Brous, a popular progressive Jewish leader in Los Angeles, described feeling “existential loneliness.”

And yet, not everything is bleak. Many prominent figures from communities with which American Jews have long aligned themselves have stood up for Israel and the Jewish community in recent weeks. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries – one of the most senior elected officials in America and a longtime member of the Congressional Black Caucus – was front and center at the massive March for Israel in Washington two weeks ago, where he spoke powerfully about the need to support Israel and Jews around the world at this time. The Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute has the text, “CHLI mourns for the victims of the heinous attack on our friends, the people of Israel. This is a time for solidarity with the State of Israel,” emblazoned across its website’s homepage. Scores of leaders from the African American, Asian American, Latino, and LGTBQ communities have expressed their revulsion at Hamas’s atrocities and have condemned the recent explosion of Jew hatred across America and around the world.

In a conversation he and I had earlier this week, Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York made his position plain.

“I’m commonly asked why, as a gay Afro-Latino from the Bronx, am I so outspoken against antisemitism, and people are asking me the wrong question,” he told me. “The right question is not why I have chosen to be outspoken. The right question is why others have chosen silence in the face of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.”

Allyship should not be transactional. We support one another not because we expect to get something in return, but rather because it is the right thing to do.

And yet, at the same time, allyship, if it is genuine, should be mutual and bidirectional: We feel your pain. We stand with you, we march alongside you, and we speak out for you when you need us. Is it too much to ask that you do the same?

That is the question that many Jews are asking at this fateful moment. The answer we receive will echo for years to come.
Stop Psychoanalyzing Israel
Upon his arrival in Israel last month, President Biden advised, "While you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it." The notion that if Israel hits hard at terrorists, it must be acting out of some kind of irrational emotion is inaccurate and insulting.

In the years before there was an Israel, there were those who dismissed Jewish concerns about Nazism as a kind of emotional rage from which Jews just needed to calm down. The false diagnoses of "Jewish rage" assumes that all Jews think alike and act alike. Therefore, since some Jews were persecuted in the past, their descendants today must be acting out some hidden psychological problem if they cry out or fight back.

The absurdity of that argument is obvious from Israel's demographic makeup. Most Israelis today are not children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors - because their parents and grandparents did not come from Europe. Certainly Israelis are deeply interested in the history of the Holocaust. And they may justifiably view the Nazi genocide, and the world's reaction to it, as a cautionary tale. But that is a far cry from being traumatized or mentally unbalanced as a result of what happened to previous generations.

When Israelis look at Hamas, they don't see Nazis. They see Palestinian Arab terrorists who, just weeks ago, perpetrated mass murder, torture, rape, and beheadings of Jews. Israel's response to them is not rage against imaginary enemies. It's self-defense against real enemies.


Melanie Phillips: The devastating Hamas weapon of war
Hamas, the genocidal jihadi force responsible for the barbaric October 7 pogrom in Israel, has a devastating weapon of war. That weapon is the western media.

With some honourable exceptions, these media outlets have been doing Hamas’s filthy work for it. Despite the terror group’s record of lying through its teeth, the media accepts what it says at face value while casting doubt on everything said by the habitually truthful Israelis.

On November 8, Christiane Amanpour said on CNN that “over 4,300 children have been killed” during Israel’s military operations in Gaza. She admitted that this figure was “according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah”. But the numbers were, in fact, issued by the ministry’s Gaza branch, which is run by Hamas. Like countless other journalists, Amanpour failed to note that Hamas never acknowledged a single terrorist among these fatalities, and that the designation “children” includes its many teenage terrorists.

These media outlets never give up on their determination to paint Israel falsely as a mendacious and bloodthirsty aggressor.

Journalists sneered at Israel’s repeated claims of Hamas command tunnels beneath Gaza’s al Shifa hospital. Even as the IDF started to produce videos of these tunnels, showing their arched roofs, toilets and rooms using electricity sourced from the hospital, The New York Times continued falsely to assert that the Israelis “have not shown conclusive evidence of a vast network of tunnels”.

These outlets haven’t just been shilling for Hamas but for other Palestinians represented as struggling against “iron-fisted” Israeli oppression.

The media ignored or waved away the fact that many of the Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails in return for the release of Israeli hostages have convictions for terrorist violence.

Worse still, journalists have drawn a depraved moral equivalence between Israeli hostages released by Hamas and the Palestinian terrorist prisoners released by Israel.

The most jaw-dropping example was on Sky News. Interviewer Kay Burley put to an incredulous Israeli spokesman, Eylon Levy, the astounding claim made by a “hostage negotiator” that the ratio of three Palestinian prisoners exchanged for every Israeli hostage meant the Israelis valued Palestinian lives less than Israeli lives.

Burley actually believed that this sick and twisted misrepresentation of Hamas extortion as bigotry on Israel’s part was a serious point that required an answer.

There have been countless examples of western journalists going out of their way to sanitise Hamas and deny the enormity of its crimes.
The spiked podcast: The 7 October denialists
Ella Whelan, Tom Slater and Lauren Smith discuss the downplaying of Hamas’s crimes, the fallout from the Dublin riots and the witch-hunting of Rosie Duffield.


Melanie Phillips: Why Israel is entitled in law to the "West Bank"
I took part in Times Radio’s breakfast show to discuss that day’s news with my fellow columnist Hugo Rifkind and presenters Aasmah Mir and Stig Abell. When we started discussing the anti-Israel demonstrations that have been taking place in Britain for weeks, the discussion took a somewhat lively turn. You can listen to it by clicking the arrow below.

A number of people were astonished to hear me state in this discussion that Israel is not in “occupation” of “Palestinian land” and that the Jews alone are entitled in law to this territory.

Their astonishment wasn’t surprising, since these facts are never referred to in mainstream discourse.

Yet Israel is entitled to this land — all of it — many times over in law, as well as according to history, truth and morality.

There has never been any such thing in law as Palestinian land. There never was a state of Palestine. When the Romans conquered the Jewish kingdom of Judea, destroyed the Jewish Temple and drove the Jews of Judea into exile, they renamed it Palaestina in an attempt to erase its Jewish identity. When the last colonial occupier of the land, the Ottoman empire, fell after the First World War, the international community that carved up the Middle East to create a number of new states kept the name Palestine to describe the territory which was now to be recreated as the homeland of the Jewish people.

This was cemented at the 1920 San Remo Conference and given the force of international treaty law by the League of Nations — the precursor to the UN — in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine. This made the UK the mandatory power and gave it the duty to settle the Jews throughout Palestine. After Britain sliced some 70 per cent off this land to create (Trans) Jordan in an act of arbitrary realpolitik, Palestine consisted of what is now Israel, the “West Bank” and Gaza.

To make this quite clear: only the Jews were given the legal right to settle the land in what is now Israel, the “West Bank” and Gaza.


Zionist gives Palestinian history lesson

Who’s Fighting and Dying: The Young
They are 19- and 20-year-olds who no longer have Facebook or Instagram pages. Instead, they have memorial pages on a military website, and if their families are lucky, they have a last letter to remember them by. “I miss childhood with you so much,’’ reads one such letter written by a 20-year-old staff sergeant in the Israeli Defense Forces to his younger sister before dying in Gaza. His note recalls the silly videos they used to make pretending they were famous and laughing till it hurt.

Since the sister would only receive the letter if her brother failed to make it home, he reminded her that “you are now the eldest sibling. It’s a difficult task but I’m sure you can handle it.” He added: “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that face-to-face,’’ punctuating that last thought with a heart.

Much of the world has a cartoonish view of the people who serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, not that different from the gun-toting characters in video games that glorify mayhem. One needs only examine the stream of obituaries coming out of Israel between Hamas’s deadly rampage on October 7 and the pause in fighting on November 24 to see how far from the mark that narrative is.

Consider that nearly 30 percent of the 82 Israeli troops who have lost their lives in combat from October 8 on were no older than 20. Five were teenagers. Nineteen were only 20 years of age, the largest single cohort among the fatalities. Trailing only slightly were the 13 deaths recorded among 21-year-olds and 10 deaths among 22-year-olds.

In other words, the Israeli troops who have been risking life and limb to protect their parents, grandparents, younger siblings, and countrymen from extermination include far too many young people who have not yet had the chance to attend college as their peers do in other countries. They have not had the chance to marry, start careers, or see the world. Surely, they deserve a future, too.
Fear Israel perpetuates terrorism by fighting is yet another double standard
Yet in a bigoted worldview, as many indoctrinated Palestinians do not think or have other considerations besides a violent stimulus-response, it isn’t considered that Gazans may have other motivations to enlist with Hamas, regardless of the degree of Israeli military action. Some Palestinians, like Hamas, are beholden to a jihadist worldview preached by religious leaders, which casts eyes beyond the borders of Israel.

Some are motivated by political ideology, like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which seeks a socialist revolution. Many may also be nationalists, motivated by irredentist designs, still un-accepting the existence of Israel.

There are many other factors devoid of any military action that would drive someone to become a terrorist.

In Israel and the West Bank, affluent Palestinians have turned to terrorism for no reason other than religious or political zealotry. Attributing potential Palestinian actions as responses to Israeli operations fails to understand the underlying issues of conflict, leaving them unaddressed in favor of an ongoing cycle of violence narrative.

The idea that Israel’s military operations create more terrorism ignores that Hamas has been brainwashing and radicalizing children for more than 20 years. Civilian rapid-reaction security teams in the Gaza periphery kibbutzim described how terrorists wore wide gleeful grins while firing at them – not expressions of anger.

Gazans have gone through kindergarten ceremonies in which they execute Israelis, Hamas training summer camps, and watched television programming demonizing Jews. The seeds of violence have been sowed by Hamas far more than any Israeli action.

Leaving Hamas in power is far more likely to create terrorism than a supposed consequence of collateral damage. Hamas is a known quantity that will certainly raise generations for war, radicalization by airstrike is only a possibility.

What Biden and others call for is half measures – to leave Hamas in power and substantially change the conflict equation. This has been tried multiple times before. There were ceasefires and half-measures after Cast Lead, Pillar of Defense, Protective Edge, and Guardians of the Wall.

Each operation has brought with it more death and suffering without solving the problem, allowing Hamas time to rearm, reorganize, and of course, recruit. Leaving Hamas in power is what leads to the creation of more terrorists, and as with the Nazis and ISIS before them, only with its destruction can this be stopped.

The writer is an IDF infantry reservist serving on the Gaza border.
Gerald M. Steinberg: Behind the Human Rights Watch Curtain: Hate and Corruption
Two major revelations have ripped away the curtain from HRW's moral facade, and revealed a thoroughly corrupt organization.

A week later, a second earthquake ripped through HRW's carefully manicured curtain of secrecy.

In 2009, Roth and HRW started hiding the full list of donors – an early red flag for an NGO claiming a moral agenda.

[A]n independent investigation of all financial activities covering the past 25 years is required, accompanied by the examination of possible violations by Roth, Whitson and others of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The damage done to the moral core of human rights and to Israeli victims of Hamas terrorism is incalculable and irreversible. But an internship or work experience at HRW is no longer an asset, and being listed as a donor in HRW's glossy PR publications is worse than embarrassing.
Beware Of Media Sanitizing Antisemitism With Phony ‘Jewish’ Sources

While We Lived Our Lives, They Organized

American Jews Never Learned to Fight Leftist Jew-Hatred

Why Jews must reject victimhood

Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Crickets

Sheikha Moza: Qatar’s glamorous – but viciously anti-Israel – face

Amid rising antisemitism, the view for Jews in Canada looks bleak

Did Hamas Kill the Possibility of Saudi-Israeli Normalization? Hardly
Carefully watching the growing tensions between Iran and the U.S. are Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Since October 7, there has been much speculation that the Israeli counterattack on Hamas would strain Jerusalem’s still-new relations with the former two countries, and render impossible the forging of friendly relations with the last—which, on October 6, seemed very much on the horizon. Ilan Zalayat and Yoel Guzansky, however, conclude that these worries are overstated. In fact, much as Evelyn Gordon wrote in Mosaic, the Gulf states are hoping Israel succeeds in eliminating Hamas:

Abu Dhabi in particular is worried about any achievement linked to Hamas’s ideological identification with the Muslim Brotherhood. In a statement at the United Nations, Reem al-Hashimy, the United Arab Emirates Minister of International Cooperation, described the Hamas attacks as “barbaric and cruel.” The Foreign Ministry in Abu Dhabi blamed Hamas exclusively for the escalation and said that it was “appalled” that Israeli civilians were abducted as hostages.

[W]hile Saudi Arabia is highly critical of Israel, it has also not spared Hamas. For example, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence, said that the Hamas atrocities opposed the principles of Islam and were not “heroic.” In Saudi-controlled media outlets, the dominant line is to accuse Iran of being behind the barbaric Hamas attacks and to describe the Palestinians as victims of the Islamic Republic—in sharp contrast to Riyadh itself, which has sought to improve the lives of the Palestinian people by means of normalization talks.

In addition, while it is impossible to imagine Israel and Saudi Arabia moving any closer to normalization while the war continues, Riyadh has left the door to normalization open. . . . Saudi Arabia and the UAE see how Iran has no problem using its proxies and how the United States is mustering its military force to defend Israel. These developments could encourage it to move closer to Israel and the U.S.
Israeli VC Medved in Abu Dhabi: Gaza conflict will be ‘subsumed in a movement of reconciliation and cooperation’

The Pinsker Centre: Ep. 40 – Israel-Hamas War: Is Peace in the Middle East Possible?
In this podcast, our Policy Fellows Baran, Orla and Lucas discuss how the Israel-Hamas war has affected Israel's relationship with regional partners, particularly with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, and what role the US plays and should play in the conflict, considering its military involvement in the region and the security threat of Iran. They also outline different scenarios of post-war resolution for Gaza and what they could mean for Israel's domestic politics and international reputation.


Seth Mandel: A Truly Terrible Idea on Campus Anti-Semitism

Terrorist Group Sponsored Princeton Anti-Israel Rally

Author urges Indigo's Jewish CEO to drop vandalism charges but not her books

Tufts University Student Group Honors Palestinian 'Martyrs'—Including Hamas Terrorists Who Died Attacking Israel

U. Michigan Cancels Anti-Israel Vote After ‘Pro-Palestinian’ Students Send Unauthorized Email Blast

Will The Media Thrice Deny Hamas’s intentions?

New York Times Kids Section Insists Hamas Wants a Two-State Solution, Blames Israel for ‘Crime’ of Starving Gaza

Gaza surgeon used as pundit by BBC, Sky and CNN wept as he praised terror leader

Grierson Trust Bans Individual From Awards For 10 Years Following Antisemitic Incident

At UN summit, Herzog meets with Brazilian, Emirati, Indian, Qatari, UK leaders

Hamas-friendly protest groups bankrolled by Democratic dark money juggernaut Tides

Mass. hate crime task force member calls Jews ‘Nazis,’ threat to Tree of Life synagogue

Massachusetts Hate Crimes Task Force Member Accuses Israel of Genocide, Says Jews Control The Media

Exclusive: Rep. Morgan Luttrell Demands Accountability for VA Employee Mocking Israeli Hostages

ICC prosecutor visits Israel and West Bank in unprecedented trip

The secret dialogue between ICC and Israel, months of negotiations led

Reporter's Notebook: The ICC chief prosecutor interview that

MEMRI: Senior Hamas Official Osama Hamdan: I Promise That A War Of Liberation Is Coming Soon – Not Just Another October 7

House passes bill to freeze Iranian prisoner-swap funds

MEMRI: Iranian Regime Officials Praise Iran's Proxies In The Palestinian Resistance And The October 7 Massacres, Call For Eradication Of Israel

Way Past Kristallnacht

Nearly half of British Jews considering leaving amid surge in antisemitism

15 New York synagogues hit with false bomb threats on Friday

Why a Maine town swapped out a Star of David from its holiday display

Decrying man who won’t work for Jews, NJ attorney general cites Islamophobia

Tel Aviv bumped down to world’s 8th most expensive city to live in – survey

Connecting Youth & Conservative Values - Freya Leach, Director of the Centre for Youth Policy, MRC
Connecting youth to conservative values with Freya Leach

Freya Leach is the Director of the Centre for Youth Policy at the Menzies Research Centre. She was a Liberal candidate in the 2023 NSW Election.

She is studying Commerce/Law at the Uni of Syd and has a background in macroeconomics, having worked in equities research at UBS.

Freya shares her experience of being a conservative, pro-Israel student on campus.






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