Monday, October 31, 2022
From Ian:
Head-Scratching Questions about Jews and Israel
Head-Scratching Questions about Jews and Israel
Writing a weekly column isn’t for the faint of heart or the perpetually bored. Sometimes, I tire of attempting to write heartfelt words and reflections week after week. Therefore, I’ve devoted this week’s column to asking readers 25 head-scratching questions about Jews, Israel and that harmoniously peaceful corner of the world known as the Middle East:Indoctrinating schoolchildren to hate Israel and Jews
1. If Jews control the media, why does the media generally depict Israel in such a harsh and even untruthful manner, and in the same vein, if Jews control the world, why isn’t the world more sympathetic toward Jews?
2. If Jews are white, why do the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups chant “White Power” while demanding their demise, and if Jews aren’t white, why are they excluded from progressive groups that vow to protect non-whites?
3. Why do Jew-haters get to keep their jobs, but those who espouse prejudiced views toward other groups are canceled? Case in point: Why has it taken more than two weeks for Adidas to drop Kanye West? (Thanks to Balenciaga, though).
4. Given that the regime in Iran is currently butchering protestors, including young girls, why have Iranian diplomats still not been expelled from any Western countries, with the exception of one (see below)?
5. Why did Iran conduct a major cyberattack against Albanian government websites (yes, Albania) last month, resulting in the expulsion of diplomats from the Iranian embassy (and can the rest of Europe take a cue from Albania)?
6. Why did the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) just ask the Supreme Court to overturn Arkansas’ anti-boycott (BDS) law against Israel, citing concern for Palestinians’ rights, but the organization hasn’t uttered a single word about Iranians dying to protect the civil liberties of their fellow citizens?
The cognitive war against Israel has been pursued on college campuses for well over a decade. It has persuaded many to view the Jewish state as a racist, colonial oppressor of an innocent indigenous people and an illegal regime that exists on land stolen from Palestinians. Now, these slanders, lies and distortions are being injected into younger and even more impressionable minds: those of schoolchildren.Far-left MK: Kiryat Arba shooter not a terrorist, settlers aren’t innocent civilians
A recent example of this was the Newark, New Jersey school board’s decision to include an anti-Israel book on its mandatory reading list. The book, A Little Piece of Ground by Elizabeth Laird, found its way into the sixth-grade English curriculum for the 2022-2023 school year. According to its description on Amazon, it “explores the human cost of the occupation of Palestinian lands through the eyes of a young boy.”
The book depicts Israelis as an evil force that constrains the life of the young protagonist in a capricious and cruel way. Karim, the 12-year-old protagonist, complains that his father is “humiliated” by the Israeli checkpoints, but young readers are not told that such checkpoints exist because Israeli citizens have suffered decades of terror attacks.
Israelis are portrayed throughout the book as an inhuman military machine. “The Israeli tank that had been squatting at the crossroads just below the apartment block for days now had moved a few meters closer,” the reader is told. “He could imagine the great armored machines lying down there, like a row of green scaly monsters, crouched waiting to crawl back up the hill and pin the people of Ramallah down in their houses again.”
Some Israelis are literally rather than metaphorically dehumanized. “Human?” Karim says at one point. “You call those settlers human?”
A spokesperson for the Newark school district tried to justify the inclusion of the book by claiming that it “elevates historically marginalized voices, strengthens and sustains a focus on the instructional core and provides opportunities to learn about perspectives beyond one’s own scope”.
In a letter to Newark’s superintendent of schools, Morton Klein and Susan Tuchman of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) pointed out that the book will manufacture a false and negative image of Israel and Jews in the minds of students. They said the author was “clever, repeatedly sending the false and outrageous message to her young readers that Israelis are heartless and cruel, that their goal is to humiliate Palestinian Arabs and make their lives a misery, and that Jews are stealing other people’s land.”
Hadash-Ta’al MK Ofer Cassif said Monday that he did not consider the Palestinian gunman who killed Ronen Hanania in a shooting attack near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Araba on Saturday to be a terrorist.
In an interview with the Ynet news site, Cassif was asked if he considered settlers killed in West Bank attacks to be victims of terror, with Hanania given as an example.
Cassif, the alliance’s only Jewish MK, said he did not.
“Don’t portray him as a simple man,” he said of Hanania.
“Especially those that live as a thorn in the side [of the Palestinians], they can’t be considered innocent civilians,” Cassif said.
“Myself and my friends in Hadash have for years said that we support a nonviolent struggle, but that’s what happens in every place where there is occupation and repression — those who expect the occupied and repressed to just sit and do nothing are lying to themselves,” the lawmaker added.
Hanania and his son Daniel were shot Saturday evening while visiting a convenience store located between Kiryat Arba and the adjacent city of Hebron.
The attacker was identified as Muhammed Kamel al-Jabari, an apparent member of the Hamas terror group. After shooting Hanania and his son, Jabari opened fire on medics and settlement security guards who arrived at the scene to help the pair, seriously wounding a paramedic.
English speakers trying to figure out how to vote in the Knesset elections, and why these elections are important, please watch the video that @AviAbelow and I did this morning where we lay it out.https://t.co/r15jnLjzyV
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) October 31, 2022
This is a lie. All Israeli citizens, Arabs, Jews, Druze, Armenians, Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, however one identify or whatever religion one is, can vote. #Israel https://t.co/PzGBCnBsXk
— ?? Shai De Luca ?? ????? (@ShaiDeLuca) October 30, 2022
