Friday, December 29, 2023

12/29 Links Pt2: On the Hatred of Jews; The unholy alliance between wokeism and barbarism; Fetterman’s Clear Thinking and Clean Conscience

From Ian:

Rabbi David J. Wolpe: On the Hatred of Jews
Israel is the only country in the world that is routinely and widely targeted for eradication. So is anti-Zionism synonymous with antisemitism?

There are exceptions, but the overlap is striking. I have never heard of activists who are angry with China targeting Chinese restaurants in Paris, but when Hamas terrorists were recently arrested in Europe with plans to blow up Jewish institutions, they were not targeting Israel, but Jews. If someone is angry at Israel, they target Jewish synagogues, businesses, and restaurants — anything associated with Jews, anywhere in the world — no matter their relationship to Israel.

This enmity has deep roots.

I have a position at the Harvard Divinity School, and I often wonder whether we teach students that both the New Testament, and to a lesser extent the Koran, contain messages hostile to Jews. Do the students learn that Martin Luther said Jews “are a serpent’s brood” and their synagogues should be burned, or how during periods like the Almohad persecution, Jews could accept Islam, flee, or die? How Christians persecuted and periodically murdered Jews for some 1,500 years?

Jews experienced more acceptance in Muslim lands, yet still were labeled impure, subjugated, and were often persecuted. Many of my congregants in Los Angeles were forced to flee Iran when the Shah fell in 1979 — their property confiscated, the leader of the community executed, and the Khomeini regime making clear they were unwelcome in the new Islamic republic. Having lost everything and escaping with their lives, years later, they still have nightmares.

Why all this hatred against one small people? We remained different, distinct. We would not become Christian or Muslim. We were outsiders, others, champions of diversity.

Moreover, Jewish culture — portable, book-focused, and one that venerates scholarship and learning — primes us for economies where information and mental agility lead to success. When you don’t like someone, seeing them succeed magnifies the antipathy.

Finally, Jews introduced the idea of ethical monotheism — the moral demands that one God makes on human beings — to the western tradition. As Jewish essayist Maurice Samuel said, “no one likes an alarm clock”; Jews represent conscience and conscience is a disruptive and painful partner in our lives.

The energy and outrage Jews generate — making up 0.2 percent of the world population — is oddly disproportionate. Antisemitism is a wild, irrational eruption.

Harvard has a long and ignoble history of antisemitism, as Harvard President Claudine Gay said in her remarks to Harvard Hillel in October. It is time to admit it, confront it and overcome it. One can criticize policies without calling for the end to the only homeland Jews have ever known. One can demand a Palestinian state without globalizing the intifada — the term for a protest that previously resulted in over 110 suicide bombings that targeted buses, cafes, and malls.

If we cannot learn to argue civilly at Harvard, how can we have hope for the civility of other places in the world?

Jews gave the world a precious gift: the idea that each human being is an image of God. I pray that we all remember and honor that gift.
Yisrael Medad: ‘Palestine’ and the energy of colonization
In what can only be considered as an ironic twist of intention, it has become apparent that not only has the idea of a free Arab state of Palestine become an agenda item of the first degree for the United Nations, human-rights NGOs, and other similar bodies and institutions, but it has become the ideal of these bodies as well. The slogan “Palestine must be free” has literally colonized the minds of intellectuals, academicians, diplomats and university students, thus assuring, at least for the short term, it being a constant of discussion, debate and involvement.

In what I have termed as the rhetoric of obversity—that is, the orchestration of language to mean not what was originally intended, as well as the expanding of their meaning to include new definitions—the normative definition of settler colonialism has been modified. Settler colonialism is when invaders occupy a territory to permanently replace the existing society with the society of the colonizers so as to enjoy metropolitan living standards and political privileges. It has been applied, wrongly and falsely, to Zionism.

This allows news items, such as one from Dec. 20, “Illegal Israeli Colonizers Raze Land,” to hammer the term into the heads of Jewish youth who should know better as it more easily does into the thinking of others.

Implicit in applying the “settler colonialism” terminology is to suggest that the goals of Zionism were and are the elimination and exploitation of the “native” population. However, that never happened, nor was it the intention of the Zionist enterprise. In fact, it’s the opposite.

Cary Nelson, is his magnificent “Israel Denial” on the faculty campaign against the Jewish state, notes on pages 120-123 how the older claim of Zionism as a colonialist movement has now been linked to the false assertion not only of a supposed Arab Palestinian identity but an Arab Palestinian indigeneity as well, thereby interlocking the core forces that drive the anger and involvement of college student even while this causes a racialization format.

In an academic treatment, Sai Englert quotes Fayez Sayegh who described the core of Zionism’s ideology as one of “racial self-segregation, racial exclusiveness and racial supremacy” on p. 22 in a 1965 PLO booklet. Sayegh, the Syrian-born founder of the Palestine Research Center of Beirut, is held to be a pioneering analyst in the field. Perhaps one of the more illustrative examples of language rape practiced by the proponents of pro-Palestine propaganda is the one used at the March 2011 Seventh Annual Conference of the London’s SOAS Palestine Society. It would have us believe that “[f]or over a century, Zionism has subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new colonial Israeli society.”

To give but one example of the relative primitiveness of the approach in its early period is to quote from Sayegh writing: “The frenzied ‘Scramble for Africa’ of the 1880s stimulated the beginnings of Zionist colonization in Palestine.” Jews at that time were a permanent feature for centuries in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron. Leading up to 1740 and in the following decade, thousands immigrated to Eretz Yisrael expecting the Messianic era to evolve, including Rabbi Moses Haim Luzzatto and Kabbalist Rabbi Haim ben Attar.

Indeed, in all the previous centuries, Jews were moving to reside in Eretz Yisrael, including hundreds of rabbis and some of the greatest luminaries of Jewish scholarship. In the mid- to late 18th century, hundreds of Chassidim, many with families, were immigrating to the country. By the early 19th century, the pupils of the Vilna Gaon, too, were making the move. Not antisemitism but religious motivation was the force behind this.
How Westerners Empower Radical Islam
Yasmine Mohammed - not her real name - is the author of the 2019 book Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam. Born in Vancouver with a father from Gaza and an Egyptian mother, she says, "any criticism of Islamic cultures is deemed xenophobic or racist." But this reluctance to apply to Islam the same pressures for change and improvement we apply to ourselves is a form of the inverse racism of low expectations.

This is evident in the failure of many Westerners to properly condemn Hamas' actions on Oct. 7. Instead of heaping condemnation on Hamas, as we would do with any other group, she feels that many Western universities, media, and politicians imply its behavior is a fitting response to Palestinian grievances.

"After the Holocaust, would you now expect Jewish people to jump into the homes of German people and start slaughtering families and kidnapping people? Of course not." But when it comes to Arabs or Muslims, a different, lower set of expectations is applied - as if barbarism is perfectly OK.


Seth Mandel: This Isn’t ‘Bibi’s War’—It’s Israel’s
Democrats feeling pressured by their base—or liberated by the anger of their base, as is sometimes the case—want to ratchet up their criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. And they would like to do so without seeming to take Hamas’s side on any facet of the conflict. So they’re going after Bibi.

“I cannot support sending Israel more weapons as long as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains in power,” announced Rep. Joaquin Castro yesterday. Calling for the removal of an allied head of government in the middle of war is probably a tweet you want to leave in the “drafts” folder, especially if you’re a member of Congress on the intelligence committee.

In opposing additional aid to Israel, Sen. Bernie Sanders framed it this way: “We should not provide this money to allow Netanyahu to continue the indiscriminate bombardment.”

Castro’s fellow Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett hit similar notes this week: “So long as Netanyahu faces no consequences, even more innocent civilians will face death and starvation.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren argued for conditioning aid to Israel because, she said, “U.S. military aid can’t be a blank check to a right-wing Netanyahu government.”

Last month, as Israel’s military was preparing to go into southern Gaza, California Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs came up with the silliest version of this talking point and announced: “I strongly oppose a continuation of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current military campaign.”

Sorry folks, but this isn’t Bibi’s war. It’s Israel’s.

Nearly 4 percent of the country’s population was called up for this war. Many Israeli families are affected by this alone. Beyond that, there’s the large number of victims and casualties from the initial attack, the many Israelis that needed to be relocated, the large swath of the country in range of regular rocket attacks from Gaza and Lebanon, the volunteers needed to keep businesses running and farms producing, and on and on. This is not a war of choice, it is a war of survival that Israelis would be thrilled not to have to fight.
Phyllis Chesler: In Memoriam
One Israeli told me that his young soldier son has just lost thirteen friends, “real friends,” who have fallen in battle, and “how each funeral is devastating.” But he adds: “When you see the amazing kids this country has raised, you feel even more how lucky they were to grow up in this country and that this truly is a special place worth defending.”

Another Israeli described the unending shiva calls and how “the burial grounds are a place of honor, love, solace, and community. When one visits the homes of the bereaved, the mourners are surrounded by supporters from their towns and loved ones.”

The spirit of the people is amazing. I received a Newsletter about how a platoon of army reservists on their way to Gaza were treated at the Jerusalem market. The entire line of shoppers insisted on paying for their food and would not take “No” for an answer.

A third Israeli broke my heart with her eloquence. She wrote: “These dutiful Israeli soldiers will not grow old. Nor hug their parents again, nor meet someone they will love, nor parent, nor stroll in a Nature preserve in their beautiful land….ever again.”

Finally, the most humbling email I’ve received to date, was from an Israeli mother whose sons were in combat. She said that my words sustained her and functioned as a light in the darkness.

Oh, but they will all be enshrined in both history and memory. However, they were so young! I am about sixty years older than many of them and thousands of miles away. How many universes have been lost? How many future children and grandchildren will never be born?

When will the American government finally understand that Islamist Jihad is a religious war against infidels, (Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Baha’i), a war launched by Islamist barbarians? What will it take for Western journalists and academics to understand that the Jihadists are coming for the Sunday people next; that Iran has Europe and America in its gunsights?

Most important, when will our government decide to respond to Iran’s attacks on America?
French Report Details Hamas Buildup to October 7 Attacks
A report this week in the French daily Le Figaro describes Hamas' exhaustive preparations for the Oct. 7 attacks and expected reprisal, from appointing dummy commanders to take the brunt of Israel's response, to sending members on secret training missions, all while keeping the timing of the assault from all but a handful of people.

Saleh al-Arouri, a top Hamas official based in Lebanon, gave Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah a heads up just 30 minutes before the rampage kicked off. Hizbullah, which had been planning a similar assault on Israel, was not pleased. The report claimed, "The cards they had been holding for a future attack against Israel had been shown by the Palestinians: penetrating inside Israel, airborne [assaults], the element of surprise," noting a "well-known plan by Hizbullah's al-Radwan [unit] to infiltrate the Galilee."

According to a Hizbullah source, Arouri "oversold" Hamas' leaders on the support they could expect from Hizbullah and others. Nasrallah, unable to commit backing, sent Arouri to Tehran, where he and Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh were told by Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that it would not be embarking on an "all-out war" against Israel, Le Figaro said.

Hamas members and allies were sent to drill for the assault in Syria and Lebanon, getting them out of Gaza under the guise of sending them to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrimage.
U.S. Senators Urge UN Women To Fire Anti-Israel Deputy Chief After UN Admits She Violated Code of Conduct
U.S. senators are calling on UN Women to fire one of their top officials after the UN admitted that she violated their code of conduct by using her social media accounts to endorse more than 150 claims that Israel committed “genocide” and other crimes.

In wake of an exposé by a watchdog group, the UN recently admitted that UN Women Deputy Chief Sarah Douglas “committed a violation of the Code of Conduct” in connection with her anti-Israel activity on social media, that the matter is “being dealt with,” according to a statement by the UN Secretary-General’s spokesman.

“Douglas made one anti-Israel post after another, all while refusing to advocate for the innocent women Hamas terrorists abused,” tweeted Senator Rick Scott today. “The only way UN Women should deal with Sarah Douglas is by firing her.”

Last week, Ms. Douglas deleted her social media accounts on X (formerly known as Twitter) and LinkedIn after the exposé revealed her partisan political activity in endorsing 153 posts since October 7th that promoted anti-Zionism, accused Israel of “genocide,” and celebrated shutting down bridges and highways for campaigns opposing Israel.

“The UN has admitted that Sarah Douglas violated its code of conduct for spewing antisemitic rhetoric,” tweeted Senator Marsha Blackburn yesterday. “When will she be fired for her actions?”

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an independent nongovernmental organization based in Geneva, welcomed what he said was “a rare admission by the UN of malfeasance committed by one of their senior officials.”

“But this isn’t enough. Although the spokesman of the UN secretary-general referred to ‘a violation’ of the UN’s Code of Conduct by Sarah Douglas, in fact there were at least 154 violations in the past two months alone.”

“We remind the UN that Ms. Douglas publicly endorsed no less than 153 tweets accusing Israel of genocide and other crimes, and that she addressed the UN from her home sitting next to a giant ‘Palestine’ poster with the colors of the Palestinian flag. Moreover, in previous years, she attacked the U.S. and glorified former PLO official Hanan Ashrawi, who recently defended the October 7th massacre.”


Global women’s rights groups silent as Israeli women testify about rapes by Hamas
As global women’s rights groups keep being silent about Israeli civilians who were victims of Hamas sexual violence, the 'Hamas Raped MeToo' Movement demands justice for the victims of the terrorist organization

'It's too little and too late. The damage has already been done... The vast majority were silent, and justified it... As long as it doesn't happen to Muslim women there are no news,' says the movement's initiator, and project manager Avushag Avinoam


Brendan O'Neill: The unholy alliance between wokeism and barbarism
The fallout from 7 October brought to the surface a crisis of Western civilisation that has been brewing for decades. It confirmed that when you socialise the young into a system of loathing for their own civilisation not only do you make them indifferent to the threats faced by that civilisation – you make them welcome such threats, to embrace them as necessary moral correctives to our own hubris and misplaced exceptionalism.

Having educated the young to view the West as a racist entity; to fear America and Britain as nations born in the sins of slavery and Empire; to ‘decolonise’ their own learning of those arrogant white men of Enlightenment; to eschew science as a Western conceit that negates more indigenous ways of knowing; and to doubt the existence of truth itself, we cannot now be shocked to find them so cavalier about a violent assault on this awful, unspeakable West. In this case, Hamas’s racist onslaught on the people of a state that is seen to embody Western values in the Middle East. For many today, ‘Western civilisation is synonymous with racism, oppression and exploitation’, as one academic puts it. So why not celebrate its violent humiliation? Why not revel in the degradation of those who enjoy its gains?

We cannot afford to underestimate how significant it is that many of our young sympathise with Hamas and view the Jews they butchered as oppressors. This must be a moral watershed for the West. In turning the young against civilisation, we’ve marched them into the arms of barbarism. We have lost them to Hamas.

The unholy marriage between wokeism and Islamism can no longer be denied. Both scorn the idea of Western civilisation. Both disavow Enlightenment as Western arrogance. Both dread the march of modernity, whether as a threat to Gaia or Sharia. And both hate Jews. One side views them as pigs and monkeys, the other as an oppressor class. Once again Jews have come to be seen as the embodiment of modernity, and therefore the enemies of modernity, whether that’s the civilisation sceptics of our own elite universities or the civilisation attackers of radical Islam, turn on them. Viciously. The woke dehumanise them as oppressors, Hamas dehumanises them with violence. Both are assaults not only on Jews but also on the civilisational conscience itself.

There is a reluctance, these days, to speak of a clash between civilisation and barbarism. It feels too old-world. And yet its existence can no longer be ignored. Today we face not merely a clash of civilisations, but, perhaps more importantly, a clash within Western civilisation. On one side, those who have abandoned reason, on the other those of us who wish to defend it. A movement in 2024 against the barbarorum of our times would be no bad thing.
‘Woke West’ expecting Israel to live next to a ‘violent’ terror organisation
The “woke West” somehow still expects Israel to live next to a “violent” terror organisation amid continued calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, according to Spiked Online chief political reporter Brendan O’Neill.

Three-quarters of the 193-member United Nations General Assembly, including Australia, voted in favour of a humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution demands "all parties comply with their obligations under international law", which includes international humanitarian law, notably regarding the protection of civilians, and calls for the release of all hostages without conditions.

“They want Israel to surrender to the fascists of Hamas – that is what they are calling for when they say there should be a ceasefire right now,” Mr O’Neill told Sky News host James Macpherson.

“I think Israel has the right to pursue this terrorist movement.”


Seth Mandel: John Fetterman’s Clear Thinking and Clean Conscience
Rarely do senators have to repeat themselves as much as John Fetterman does. And it’s not because the Pennsylvania Democrat has trouble projecting his voice—at six-foot-eight, he’s a walking public-address system. It’s just that many in Washington have a hard time with the concept that he holds the same opinions today that he did the day before.

This is especially a problem when members of his party appear malleable on an issue. One current such issue is Gaza: The progressive base of the Democratic Party abhors President Biden’s support for Israel’s quest to destroy Hamas. In the past few weeks, they’ve succeeded in getting Senate Democrats to discuss conditioning aid to Israel and in nudging supposed “centrist” House Democrats to raise public alarm over Israel’s military strategy. After that, Vice President Kamala Harris signaled that she would prefer to take a tougher line than her boss does with the Israelis.

But Fetterman hasn’t changed. He’s still the guy who wore an Israeli flag like a cape to the big pro-Israel rally in Washington, and he’s still the guy who enjoys taunting Hamas supporters who harangue him in public. And he’s still the guy who has made his Senate office wall a kind of abacus for hostages, keeping tally of who is lost and who is found.

What’s more, he appears to find it strange that his own support for Israel should depend on his colleagues’ approval.

Even if the party continues to splinter on Israel, Fetterman told Politico in an interview published Wednesday, “I would be the last man standing to be absolutely there on the Israeli side on this with no conditions.”

Fetterman is moved by the images out of Gaza. He has no trouble mustering appropriate sympathy for civilians who are suffering the war’s effects. But he also knows that sympathy for Palestinian civilians doesn’t necessitate blaming their plight solely on Israel. The fact that Hamas is responsible for civilian casualties hasn’t changed just because the number of casualties keeps rising.

“I grieve, and it’s awful the incredible civilian deaths and the suffering,” he says. “It’s awful. War is hell, as they say. But only one side has used civilians as human shields. Only one side has broken the cease-fires. Only one side will systematically rape, torture and mutilate Israeli women and girls in the most unspeakable, awful ways. … Without destroying Hamas, there will be no enduring peace and a stable, two-state solution.”
John Fetterman: Hamas must go, I would be 'last man standing' for Israel
Fetterman pressed on his views of Netanyahu
When asked if he believes that Netanyahu should remain in power, he responded: “[Netanyahu] is the leader that we have, and that is the leader that we’re working with.”

The interviewer pressed him on this question, saying that even some Israelis are frustrated by him, seemingly drawing equivalences to wanting Hamas overthrown.

He responded, “To me, it’s not a referendum on Netanyahu. It is just what we have to do to stand with Israel. And I do agree with the prevailing opinion that Hamas must be destroyed.”

The interviewer asks a third time, “But should Netanyahu stay in power, yes or no?”

Fetterman says that he does not have a vote in it. He elaborates, “That’s for the Israeli citizens. They have much more at stake. But what I can say [is] I believe that an overwhelming majority of Israeli citizens would want a senator standing with them and their right to destroy Hamas [and not] somebody that would splinter or peel away when things continue and as more and more antisemitism continues to go across college campuses, across our nation.”

Fetterman: Israel has the imperative to destroy Hamas
In an interview on the View, Fetterman explained why he disagrees with placing conditions on further military aid to Israel, arguing that Israel “has the imperative to destroy Hamas.” He has consistently argued that Hamas must be destroyed for a viable two-state solution.


StopAntisemitism announces top three 'Antisemite of the Year' finalists
StopAntisemitism, a non-profit watchdog organization dedicated to exposing and combatting antisemitism, has announced its top three finalists for 2023’s Antisemite of the Year.

The annual competition has garnered 10,000 votes in its fifth year, and the voting results will be announced on January 8, 2024. In 2022, Kanye West was named Antisemite of the Year.

This year’s finalists are:
Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas and one of the key masterminds behind the October 7 attacks. The brutal attacks resulted in the murder of 1200 Israelis, while another 240 were taken hostage, including 30 children. Haniyeh praised the October 7 massacre on television as a “great victory.” Haniyeh has played a primary leadership role in Hamas since its takeover of Gaza in 2007 and has vowed never to recognize Israel.

Rashida Tlaib, an American Democratic Congresswoman, blamed the October 7 attacks on Israel.
She falsely accused the Jewish state of hospital bombings, which were later proven to be the result of a failed rocket launch by Palestinian terrorists. Despite this evidence, Tlaib continued blaming Israel, endorsed false claims of “genocide,” and defended the antisemitic slogan “From the River to the Sea.” On November 7, one month after the massacre, Tlaib was censured by her colleagues for her statements regarding genocide against Israel.

Gigi Hadid, a supermodel and influencer, has a history of antisemitic comments against the Jewish state and its people. She is the older sister of supermodel Bella Hadid and daughter of failed real estate mogul Mohammed Hadid, both of whom have frequently made antisemitic and anti-Israel statements.

Following the October 7 massacre, she falsely accused Israel of being “the only country in the world that keeps children as prisoners of war” and of “abduction, rape, humiliation, torture, murder of Palestinians years and years before October 7, 2023.”


I Am a 96-Year-Old Jew. Can We Talk about this Anti-Israel Vitriol Please?
Universities across Canada and the U.S. have become alarming hotbeds for anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric and actions. Students do not feel safe on campus nor protected by school leadership. In my hometown of Vancouver, a controversy has flared up at the Samuel and Frances Belzberg Library - an institution of research and learning that was endowed by my late husband and me - located in the Morris J. Wosk Center for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University.

The librarian for history, international studies, liberal studies and political science at SFU posted several hateful tweets that go beyond criticism of Israeli policy. On Oct. 29, the librarian denounced Zionism and Israel as "vile, inhumane, deranged, and monstrous." She also urged people to boycott Indigo books simply because its owners founded a charity that funds former Israeli soldiers' education.

I am 96 years old. I make no secret of my Jewishness. I lost dozens of family members in the Holocaust: aunts, uncles, cousins yet to blossom into their full selves. The horrific events of Oct. 7 were a stark reminder that antisemitism has endured and, astonishingly in recent months, deepened in Canada, the U.S., and Europe.

Our hopes in endowing the library 34 years ago were rooted in our commitment to create a space where facts and information were centered, a place that would foster mutual understanding, not a cascade of social-media vitriol from one of our own librarians. I am also concerned about the unwillingness of officials at Simon Fraser University to publicly disavow these messages. The extraordinary irony is that the library exists within a Center for Dialogue.

I completely acknowledge, and celebrate, that our endowing the library gives me no right at all to hold sway over the learning and the dialogue that takes place within it. The library belongs to everyone now, as it should be.

And so, simply as a citizen and as a patron of the library, I think it is within my rights to express the obvious: this is an institution based on free and civil discourse. Such messages on social media from our librarian are no more tolerable in a library than bigoted social media messages from a professor or student leader should be at this university. I am convinced that ugliness and hate in the public sphere is the enemy of peace and reconciliation. Decency, learning, openness and dialogue are our only hope.
Harvard a synonym for antisemitism, says Diaspora minister
Harvard University has become synonymous with antisemitism, and to a total moral collapse of core basic academic values that is spreading like wildfire on American campuses, Israel’s minister for Diaspora affairs said Thursday.

The remarks come as the Ivy League school is facing a donor revolt following the evasive congressional testimony by Harvard President Claudine Gay on calls for the genocide of Jews, and the university board’s subsequent refusal to oust her.

Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli said that all three university presidents who testified on Capitol Hill should have been forced to resign, even before their bitterly criticized congressional testimony, due to their failure to speak out against the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.

“Universities that were unable to issue an unequivocal condemnation of Oct. 7 are in a colossal crisis from a moral point of view,” Chikli said in an interview with JNS. “Moral relativism has created a moral abyss. Truth has become a relative term.”

He advocated increased pressure “by all means,” on academic institutions which tolerate antisemitism, adding that the strong backlash across the political spectrum against their testimony created an opportunity for change, and showcased the massive foreign funding of American universities by Qatar which many Americans were unaware of.

While the president of the University of Pennsylvania has stepped down from her position following her testimony, the heads of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology remain in their jobs, having apologized for their remarks.

Chikli lamented the slide to “academic amateurism,” which, he said, was spurred by “a post-modernist progressive mindset, where equality and political correctness have overtaken merit, quality and basic truths.”
Should Jews abandon Ivy League schools? William Daroff’s post-Oct. 7 take
Is America on the verge of another Holocaust?
"There are certainly red flags and similarities," Daroff admitted. "Before October 7, I was very focused on staying away from any Holocaust illusions or comparisons because of my strong belief in ensuring the uniqueness of the Holocaust. My thoughts on that have adjusted."

He said that the ostracizing of Jews, Jewish faculty and students, the boycotts of Jewish stores and Jewish restaurants, the graffiti, and the broken glass are reminiscent of darker days in Jewish history. The comparisons to the 1930s are impossible to avoid. But there is one significant difference: "The government is now on our side and is there to protect us," Daroff said.

The Nazi government was focused on killing the Jews. The czars of the Russian government targeted the Jews. In America, "we have unbelievably productive relationships with government at all levels, from the White House, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security to governors, mayors, and police chiefs. We know that we can count on them to be on our side.

"So, while there are certainly bright red flags, today's situation is better than it has been."

This is despite dozens of recent polls indicating that the younger generation – individuals between the ages of 18 and 30 – are skewing anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. A recent Harvard University poll found that younger Americans overwhelmingly see not only Israelis but Jews as "oppressors."

These young people will be the country's future police chiefs, governors and senators.

"It's very worrying," Daroff said, shaking his head. But he said these same people are polling as uninformed or less informed of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict than their older counterparts.

"I'm hopeful that over time, as we and the Israeli government are better able to inform that population, they will come along," Daroff said. "It's tough to change minds in the heat of a conflict. But, God willing, the heat of the conflict will be less hot soon, and we'll be able to get into more proactive seeking to inform that age group."
Think tank boss who hosts ministers hailed Hamas’ ‘epic resistance’ of Israel
The head of an influential think tank who has hosted government ministers has spoken of his “pride” in the Hamas terror group and hailed its war on Israel as “the dictionary definition of epic”, the JC can reveal.

Mahmoun Fandy, the founder of the London Global Strategy Institute — which saw Middle East Minister Lord Tariq Ahmad and Tory MP Nigel Evans attend its annual dinner last June — has made a string of incendiary comments about Hamas since the October 7 atrocities.

In November, Fandy asked: “Why do I take pride in Hamas’ resistance during this difficult period?” Answering his own question, he wrote: “Hamas is similar to us at a time when there are many who bring us shame. You see, the Al-Qassam fighter has fathers and his pride is similar to our people among whom we grew up.”

This month, he wrote that Hamas was “the first line of defence for your national security against an expansionist settlement occupation project”.

Discussing the IDF’s campaign following October 7, he claimed: “They went beyond talking about epics, but the dictionary definition of epic is exactly what the resistance is doing in Gaza.”

In 2017, Fandy’s think tank, LGSI, held a five-hour workshop and dinner on President Donald Trump’s attitude towards the Middle East attended by Tobias Ellwood, then a junior government minister.

Ellwood would go on to become the chair of the defence select committee until he was forced to resign earlier this year after he visited Afghanistan and praised the Taliban. He had said that following the Taliban’s seizure of power, security had “vastly improved”, corruption had decreased and the streets of Kabul felt “relatively safe”.
Masha Gessen, you self-hating Jew, this is just wicked
In her PBS interview, introduced by Amanpour as discussing why people are not exercising critical thought at this time. Gessen explains:

“It takes a lot of time and intellectual energy to draw that comparison [between Gaza today and Jews in Nazi Germany] and people don’t have time and intellectual energy when they’re scared” and, you know, uh, Jews are actually scared. [Actually!] I think a lot of it is, you know, the aftermath of Oct 7th that has blinded people to the fate of others which is what happens when people are scared.

To see what happened in Israel [what happened? OMG! Can she not call it what it is?] and to have the Israeli government spin it as an antisemitic attack when, in fact, it was an anti-Israeli attack, really makes people feel like they are under attack.”

"Spin it" as antisemitic? I guess she has not read the Hamas Charter that promises to kill Jews inside Israel and out, not Zionists, not Israelis, Jews!

Makes people FEEL LIKE they are under attack?! Get Gessen a private viewing of that 40-minute Hamas Horror film immediately. Make sure she sees the Hamas proclamations on Al Jazeera promising more Oct 7th‘s in the future.

Martin asks why it is important to make the connection between Nazi Germany and what is happening in Gaza, and Masha responds:

“What is happening in Gaza now is that people who have been effectively ghettoized for the last 17 years [Show Gessen videos of Gaza before the war that put that myth to rest forever] are being indiscriminately targeted, killed, and starved. [Let her hear communications between soldiers and command when they cancel an operation because there are civilians in the area.] And this is probably, at this point, the strongest connection. You know, you may not realize that out of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, 1.3 million died of starvation and disease, exactly what is being inflicted upon people in Gaza as a weapon of war right now.”

Please, someone, show Gessen the videos of Hamas stealing food and fuel from the trucks bringing in humanitarian aid to the civilians. Show her the videos of Hamas terrorists killing their own people who are trying to prevent them from stealing the food meant for their children.

Gessen concludes:
“The biggest difference between Gaza and the Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe is that most Gazans are still alive. [She actually said that with a straight face, all serious and emotionless.] There is still an opportunity for the world to step in and stop it.”

Maybe she is displacing her angst at the way the world did not step in and stop the Holocaust, did not stop the murder of members of her family and community in Russia. That is the only way I can understand her vicious ignorant attack against Israel.
Ousted UPenn board chair Scott Bok says donors should not have 'a loud voice on how universities are run' after prominent alumni pulled funds over its handling of anti-Semitic crisis

‘As a Jew,’ Green Party candidate Jill Stein accuses Israel of genocide
The campaign website of Jill Stein—a physician, activist and perennial presidential candidate—has two items in its press release section: the announcement on Nov. 9 that she is seeking the Green Party nomination and a Nov. 15 release accusing Israel and the United States of war crimes.

“Israel’s attack on Al Shifa Hospital is a horrifying and brazen war crime before our very eyes,” Stein, 73, stated. “Attacking a hospital with bombs and snipers, shooting doctors and patients, cutting off power and blocking supplies keeping patients alive, including premature babies—these are not acts of war, they are acts of genocide.”

The release does not note that the Hamas terror organization is known to operate from and beneath hospitals and to use human shields.

On Wednesday, Stein posted a video on social media, in which she again accused Israel of genocide. “I grew up dedicated to the proposition that genocide would never happen again. That means never again for anyone. Free Palestine,” she wrote.

In fact, the video begins with Stein saying, “As a Jew, I grew up dedicated to the proposition that genocide would never happen again.”

“Gaza’s future is our future. We must have a ceasefire now,” she added. “A supermajority wants that, but our elected officials, our misleaders, they are paid not to have a beating heart, not to have a breathing soul, not to have a thinking brain, and we say, ‘Shame on you.’”

“We are going to throw those bums out,” she added. The video ends with a chant of “Free Palestine” and “As Gaza goes, we all go.”

The word “Jew” doesn’t seem to appear on the site of the Chicago native, who grew up in Highland Park, Ill., and graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. According to reports in Jewish media, she grew up as a member of a Reform temple in Illinois.


What John Oliver Doesn’t Know About Israel and the Palestinians
Listening to Oliver, you would think that Benjamin Netanyahu was the sole reason the Oslo Peace Accords went nowhere. He apparently does not know that Israel twice made generous peace offers — the first by Ehud Barak to Yassir Arafat in 2000, and the second by Ehud Olmert to Mahmoud Abbas in 2008 — both of which would have given the Palestinians a state of their own with its capital in east Jerusalem. Barak’s proposal would have given the Palestinians a state that would include 100% of Gaza and 92% of the West Bank, as well as territory carved out of Israel that would exceed, in size, the 8% of the West Bank Israel would annex. The Palestinians would have their capital in east Jerusalem, where some Arab neighborhoods would become part of the Palestinian state; finally, the Palestinians would have sovereignty over the Christian and Muslim Quarters in the Old City. Despite this generous offer that gave the Palestinians almost everything they had asked for, Arafat simply walked out.

In 2008, Ehud Olmert offered Mahmoud Abbas even more. 94% of the West Bank, and in compensation, enclaves of land taken from Israel, amounting to 5.8% of Israeli territory. along with 100% of Gaza. In addition, the Palestinian capital would be in east Jerusalem; some Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem would also become sovereign Palestinian territory. The Old City of Jerusalem would be internationalized, placed under the control of five parties: the future state of Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Israel. Abbas, like Arafat eight years. before, walked out, unwilling — again like Arafat — even to discuss the offer.

John Oliver ignores both of these offers. For him, the failure to follow through on the Oslo Accords had nothing to do with those Palestinian refusals; Oliver chooses to blame Netanyahu.


Biden Tells Netanyahu to Solve Palestinian Tax Revenue Issue
President Biden held a difficult conversation last Saturday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel's decision to withhold part of the tax revenue it collects for the Palestinian Authority, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, the Israeli government said it would transfer all the funds except for those that go to Hamas-run Gaza. The PA, however, has refused to accept a partial transfer of the funds. Biden told Netanyahu he expects him to solve this issue, added that "this conversation is over," and ended the call.

A few days after the Biden-Netanyahu call, the issue came up again during a meeting at the White House between Israeli Minister Ron Dermer and U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. "We have made good progress and think this issue of tax revenue transfers is on its way to being resolved," a U.S. official said.
Naftali Bennett: Israel Retaliated Inside Iran for Iranian Terror Attacks in 2022
When I became prime minister in June 2021, I told my security chiefs that my goal was to avoid, if reasonably possible, local clashes with Hizbullah and Hamas. Rather, Israel's national-security resources must be focused on weakening our primary enemy - Iran.

As prime minister, I made another decision regarding Iran. I directed Israel's security forces to make Tehran pay for its decision to sponsor terror. Enough impunity. After Iran launched two failed UAV attacks on Israel in February 2022, Israel destroyed a UAV base on Iranian soil. In March 2022, Iran's terror unit attempted to kill Israeli tourists in Turkey and failed. Shortly thereafter, the commander of that very unit was assassinated in the center of Tehran




Armenian Christians attacked in Jerusalem, some in serious condition
Over 30 armed provocateurs wearing ski masks and some carrying lethal weapons attacked a group of Armenian bishops, priests, deacons, and other citizens on Thursday in the Old City of Jerusalem, according to the Armenian Patriarchate.

“A mass and coordinated physical attack was launched,” the Patriarchate wrote in an official letter to the Police and Israeli government, which The Jerusalem Post reviewed. “Several priests, students, and indigenous Armenians are seriously injured.”

“They attacked us,” Bishop Koryoun Baghdasaryan, director of the Real Estate Department for the Patriarchate, told the Post. Armenian Patriarchate Chancellor Aghan Gogchyan said the attackers used pepper spray and other chemicals, which they targeted at seminary students, several of whom were taken to the hospital.

The Police confirmed that it received the letter and said that arrests were made on both sides - both Armenians and Muslims who allegedly carried out the attack. No one has been officially charged, the Police said.

“There was an unfortunate incident where some Arab Muslim men and some men from the Armenian community got into a brawl in the old city of Jerusalem,” Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum told the Post. “Police came promptly to separate the parties, and arrests were made on both sides.

“The city of Jerusalem will not tolerate any criminal activity, whether religiously motivated or otherwise, and the police will prosecute those responsible,” she said.


UN Women Champion says Christmas is ‘celebration of the birth of a Palestinian child’

MEMRI: Palestinian-Jordanian Journalist: The West Stole Christianity From Us, Just As It Stole Palestine; Jesus Was The First Palestinian Fida'i

MEMRI: Pakistani Columnists Call For Boycotts, Revenge Against Israel: 'We Will Take Revenge, Allah Willing'; 'Arab Countries Need To Take Decisive Action To Stop The Zionist Expansion, Which Poses A Grave Danger To The Entire Region'

Samantha Woll stabbed eight times in face, neck
36th District Judge Kenneth King rescheduled the next court date for convicted thief Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 28—the man prosecutors allege killed Detroit Jewish community leader Samantha Woll on Oct. 21—so that defense attorneys could receive evidence from prosecutors.

Jackson-Bolanos is now slated to appear in court on Jan. 2 for a probable cause hearing. Evidence for the defendant’s legal team to consider include his coat stained with Woll’s blood.

Ryan Elsey, the assistant prosecutor for Michigan’s Wayne County, said the murder of Woll appeared to happen at around 4:20 a.m. when she was likely sleeping in her living room after returning from a wedding. Her killer stabbed her face and neck eight times after entering through an unlocked door.

Jackson-Bolanos faces counts of felony murder, first-degree home invasion and lying to the police. He is currently being held without bond. Records from the Michigan Department of Corrections reveal that he has engaged in violent behavior while previously incarcerated.

Law enforcement has insisted since the start of the murder investigation that antisemitism did not appear to be a motive.
DC nonprofit adviser praises Jew-hatred on Urban Dictionary
One example, from 2017, is “David: ‘Did you see Joshua perform Jewish trickery on Ellie?’ Nancy: ‘Yes. Now her wallet, house and car are gone.’ David: ‘Damn. I hate Jews.’”

Some appreciate the antisemitic “definitions.”

“A new term enters the urban dictionary: ‘Israeled.’ About time it becomes more mainstream,” wrote Akshobh Giridharadas, a strategic communications adviser at the Washington, D.C. nonprofit U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum. (He has since deleted the post.)
Israeli martial artist provides tips and techniques for New York Jews’ self-defense
Natan Levy proudly carries the banner for Israel into the octagon as a mixed martial arts fighter in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). But at a time of heightened antisemitism, the Paris-born Israeli is insistent that all Jews should be able to fight for themselves.

“They’re gonna hate us, whether you’re confident or you’re not,” Levy told JNS of antisemites, who he said he long ago learned he couldn’t reason with. “Whether you practice Judaism or not, for them, you’re always going to be a Jew. So a Jew needs to be strong, needs to be self-reliant. And this is the way to move forward.”

This week, in the Fight Factory gym atop a Jewish community center in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., Levy, 32, provided a free seminar for those who looked like they’d been in a fight before and those who appeared to be throwing their first punches.

“I wanted to teach them some self-defense moves. But mostly, I wanted to inspire them to keep training because one hour is not going to help,” he told JNS. “You need to train regularly; you need to be strong, you need to be fit, you need to have knowledge of the techniques, you need a strong mind. Today was to give them a taste and inspire them to keep training.”

Levy provided instructions on a proper fighting stance, punching techniques, keeping would-be attackers at arm’s length and defending against someone within close range.

With approximately 100 people gathered on a wall-to-wall mat, Levy—sporting his signature black “Jew Jitsu” T-shirt—first showed participants how to balance their weight, pushing back slightly on their front foot before carrying forward to throw a jab.

Then, it was on to turning the back heel and hips to deliver a full blow. Rinse and repeat until everyone got the hang of it.
Israeli UFC fighter @Natan_Levy proudly carries the banner of Israel
Israeli UFC fighter Natan Levy proudly carries the banner of Israel as a mixed martial arts fighter and in times of hightened antisemitism, wants to make sure all Jews can fight for themselves

'For me its about making Israel stronger, the Jewish community stronger,' he says




King Charles pays tribute to Auschwitz survivor Lily Ebert as she marks 100th birthday



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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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