There are no antisemites. They are ALL just misunderstood!

A year ago I posted newspaper articles showing that even the worst antisemites deny being antisemites. They always have a reason for hating Jews that has nothing at all about hating Jews. 

A neo-Nazi skinhead who said he doesn't hate Jews, just doesn't want them around anymore.

Famous firebrand radio star Rev. Charles Coughlin denied being antisemitic.

Henry Ford, who distribute the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the US, denied it as well. 

Both the Soviets and Nazis (at one point) claimed they weren't antisemitic - but only anti-Zionist!

Here are some other examples of how, magically, no one is antisemitic.

General George Van Horn Moseley, 1939:

Charles Lindbergh's America First group, 1941:

A Canadian colonel who put out a pamphlet called "Plans of the Synagogue of Satan," 1953:

French political party, 1956, says they are not antisemitic but the Jews control the phone company and post office:

Their insistence that they weren't antisemitic, and even in some cases making their own definitions of antisemitism to prove it, sounds very familiar nowadays.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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04/27 Links Pt2: Israel Is Antiracist, Anti-Colonialist, Anti-Fascist (and Was from the Start); Why the world has turned against Israel; Caroline Glick: An afternoon among the angels

From Ian:

Jeffrey Herf: Israel Is Antiracist, Anti-Colonialist, Anti-Fascist (and Was from the Start)

Nor did support for Israel come only from the Soviet bloc. Liberals and leftists in London, Paris, New York, and Washington heard Jamal Husseini, the representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations, reject a Jewish state in Palestine, because, he said, it would undermine the “racial homogeneity” of the Arab world. Such remarks resonated in a profoundly negative fashion with Americans who had followed the appalling news out of Germany during and after the war. In the Senate, Robert Wagner, a major author of New Deal legislation, extolled the Jewish contribution to the Allied cause. He had already denounced appeasement of the Arabs during the war. With the Allied victory, continuing to appease Arab rejectionism surely made no sense. In the House, Democratic Congressman Emanuel Celler of Brooklyn led efforts to focus attention on Jamal Husseini’s cousin, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who had entered into a written understanding with Germany and Italy to “solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries . . . as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy.”

The liberal media also took note. Husseini’s collaboration with the Nazis was thoroughly documented in the New York Post as well as in the left-wing publications PM and The Nation, by I.F. Stone, Freda Kirchwey, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Edgar Mowrer, who urged Husseini’s indictment at Nuremberg. Nevertheless, despite extensive State Department files on Husseini’s collaboration with the Nazis, the American bureaucracy succeeded in resisting efforts to put him on trial and publish its evidence of his Nazi-era activities.

The brief confluence of Soviet and liberal Western sympathies for the nascent Jewish state was brilliantly exploited by Ben-Gurion. He understood better than anyone that it presented a unique moment to bring Israel into existence, with the assent of the world’s two great powers — and that it was an opportunity that would soon close, as indeed it did. During the “anti-cosmopolitan” purges of the early 1950s, Stalin reversed course, spread the lie that Israel was a product of American imperialism, repressed the memory of Soviet support for the Zionist project, and launched a four-decade campaign of vilification against Zionism and Israel. It was one of the most successful propaganda campaigns of the Cold War.

Stalin succeeded in rewriting American history, too. His insistence that it was the Americans and not the Soviets who had wholeheartedly supported the establishment of the State of Israel carried the day. And yet the records of the Departments of State and Defense and the CIA clearly document their emphatic and consequential opposition to the Zionist project.

The differences between the international political landscape of the late 1940s and the one that emerged first in Soviet and then world politics in the 1950s and 1960s need to be reflected in American-Jewish discussions about the establishment of Israel. Contrary to what we’ve heard at the United Nations for decades, in international BDS efforts, and in academic descriptions of Israel, the Zionist project was never a colonialist one.

Just the reverse. The generation that created the state, and its supporters abroad, viewed it as part of the era of liberal and leftist opposition to colonialism, racism, and, of course, antisemitism. The evidence is clear: Whatever faults Israel may have, its origins had nothing to do with American or British imperialism. The argument to the contrary is a conventional unwisdom that has found a home in too much scholarship and journalism of recent decades. Israel’s establishment was not a miracle that eludes historical explanation. It was an episode of enormous moral and military courage for which space was created by canny and hard-headed political leaders in the cause of historical justice — in particular David Ben-Gurion, who seized a fleeting moment, Israel’s moment, to create an enduring achievement.

Daniel Ben-Ami: Why the world has turned against Israel

From Israel's foundation in 1948 through the 1960s, the left generally celebrated Israel as an expression of Jews' right to national self-determination. By the 1990s, however, Western elites started to reject the idea of national self-determination. Yet the denigration of the right to national self-determination undermines the Palestinian cause, too.

Indeed, many of today's anti-Israel activists aren't really interested in Palestinian self-determination. They are mainly concerned with attacking Israel as a symbol of everything they dislike. This leads them to uncritically endorse Hamas, the leading Islamist representative of the Palestinians, and often Islamism more broadly.

Islamism's goal is not national self-determination, for the Palestinians or anyone else. Rather, it wants to create an international Islamic order. The destruction of Israel - and not the creation of a Palestinian state - is seen as central to achieving that objective. Islamists regard Jews as an expression of "cosmic Satanic evil," who should be physically exterminated if Islam is to flourish.

The Palestinian slogan, "from the river to the sea" (meaning from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean), is popular among both Islamists and Western leftists. Islamists often state openly that they want to murder most if not all of the Jews living there. So when they chant "Palestine should be free," they typically mean free of Jews.

Stephen Daisley: Why I love Israel

[T]here are plenty of reasons for Zionists to be gloomy on this, Israel’s 75th birthday, but there is one reason for optimism that outshines them all: Israel is 75. Israel was created; survived an immediate Arab effort to annihilate it; ingathered the survivors of the death camps; settled the land and built kibbutzim; struggled through the lean and lonely years; triumphed in the Six-Day War and reunited Jerusalem; pulled through the Yom Kippur War; endured two intifadas; rescued Beta Israel and welcomed the refuseniks; lost Yamit, lost Rabin, lost Gush Katif; made the desert bloom with fruits and microchips; and made peace with Arab nations. All of that in 75 years and, despite impossible odds, Israel lives yet.

Israel is a hard country and for many a hard country to love. It is flinty but whiny, eager for the world’s love but diplomatically tin-eared, unsentimental but gripped by existential angst. It is a country that adores its army and reveres military discipline but is so hectically informal that you wonder how it made it to 75 days, let alone 75 years. It also boasts the highest density of rude people in the known universe, although I find that strangely endearing. I have never loved Israel more than the time the manager of a Tel Aviv minimart yelled at me for a) not speaking Hebrew, b) being a foreign journalist, and c) coming in to shop when she was trying to watch TV. Only in Israel, the innovation nation, could they invent the inconvenience store.

If Zionism is the theory, Israel is the practice and like all practical translations of idealism it is compromised, haphazard, sometimes unsightly, and occasionally disheartening. But that tension between Zionism and Israel, between ahavat and ha’aretz, is where the great debates take place and where the course of Jewish history can be set or changed. Israeli independence, as it reaches 75 years, is still a miraculous application of a mundane idea: Jewish self-determination.

Israel Independence Day: Celebrating 75 Years with Natan Sharansky

Former Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky's personal journey reflects that of the Jewish people, and the centrality of Israel in his life and Jewish identity mirrors the experiences of so many Jews around the world.

Sharansky: "The existence of Israel and, in a way, the existence of the Jewish people is the best demonstration of the importance of these two basic desires of people - to be free and to belong."

"For a thousand years, what were we fighting for? For our right to live freely in accordance with our identity. And then Israel was established. It could not be created as a non-Jewish state and it would never have succeeded in gathering all the Jews if not for its freedom." "There is no other nation or any other state which embodies the strength of this connection. And if you look at history and compare us with Israel 50 years ago, we have much more freedom and much more identity. We have far more of a Jewish and democratic state, so that's the direction we're heading in....Our history and our triumphs are the best proof of how important it is for these two things to go together." "I grew up [in the Soviet Union] having zero connection with anything Jewish except through antisemitism....It was Israel that came in a very powerful way to the center of our life, from the Six-Day War, and it allowed us to discover our identity, that we have a history, we are a people and we have a state. That gave us the strength to fight for our Jewish rights and for a better world."

"When people simply want tikkun olam [repairing the world] without any identity...your life is very shallow. Look at how all these Birthright kids - whose bar mitzvah was the last time they've had a connection to being Jewish - suddenly discover that it's cool and even interesting to live inside history....Suddenly, they have energy, meaning and understanding....In this age, there is no better way to quickly give Jews a brief injection of the importance and meaning of discovering their Jewish identity than coming to Israel."

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12/22 Links Pt2: Challenging the false anti-Israel narrative with facts; Jordanian anti-Israel film no longer Oscar contender; In WW2, German Generals Knew about the Annihilation of Jews

From Ian:

‘A Brief And Visual History Of Antisemitism’ Is An Important Resource In Today’s Climate

Israel B. Bitton’s new book, “A Brief and Visual History of Antisemitism,” shouldn’t be needed — but sadly, it is.

A substantial work two years in the making, the visually rich effort features a foreword by Israeli President Isaac Herzog. It’s aimed at all people, but it is particularly designed for seniors in high school as some of the images and discussion could be too intense for younger readers.

Former longtime Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, was intimately involved in the creation of the book. He told me, “Knowledge is power. We wanted the book to be easy to read and follow.” And it is — even coming with “augmented reality bonus content” aimed at a generation that might not be as familiar as they should be with the long and sordid history of hate and violence directed against the Jewish people.

Hikind went on to note that in November alone, there were 45 hate crimes committed against Jews in New York City — almost three times as many as those committed against all other groups combined. Hikind also cited FBI Director Christopher Wray’s Nov. 17 testimony before Congress that “Antisemitism and violence that comes out of it is a persistent and present fact,” with the Jewish community “getting hit from all sides.” Wray then said 63 percent of religious hate crimes were motivated by antisemitism — a remarkable fact when considering that only 2.4 percent of Americans are Jewish.

The book runs 549 pages before hitting its densely packed endnotes, serving both as a well-documented resource book and a useful tool for the classroom. It’s divided into nine discrete units: Defining Antisemitism; Beginnings of Antisemitism; Proliferation of Antisemitism; Secularization of Antisemitism; Apex of Antisemitism; Easternization of Antisemitism; Politicization of Antisemitism; The Current Landscape; and Combating Antisemitism.

I queried Hikind about how antisemitism might be different today than it was when the infamous “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was published in Russia in 1903. “There is no difference,” Hikind said, “The same thing Jews were accused of in the past are the same things they are accused of today.”

David Collier: Challenging the false anti-Israel narrative with facts

“Not all opinions are equal. And some things happened just like they say they did. Slavery happened, the Black Death happened, the earth is round, the ice caps are melting, and Elvis is not alive” -Rachel Weisz (playing Deborah Lipstadt) from the movie ‘Denial’.

Jews are facing Orwellian inversions of history. We are witnessing an increase in Holocaust denialism, that can even perversely attempt to make Jews responsible for the events in Nazi Germany. And we are seeing a rewrite of the story of Zionism, which results in Jews being portrayed as powerful, sadistic monsters.

Thankfully, Holocaust denialism is mostly in the shadows. Every decent person will have nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, the rewrite of the Israel story has been far more successful. Media, politicians, and even many Jews on the left, have lost sight of what is true. It is this history – the real history – that I highlight here.

Anti-Israel activism is based on two key falsehoods.

The first is that the Arabs welcomed the Jews (and were then betrayed by them).
The second is that the Jews controlled the events, eventually going on a deliberate rampage, slaughtering or expelling innocent and passive Arabs.

I have no intention of making this a wordy piece, but rather to go on a brief journey through time. Using news reports to highlight the truth upon which the conflict is built.

Acceptance and populations
Let me begin with the idea that the Arabs accepted the Jews – or lived with them in peace before the Zionists came. Until the latter part of the 19th century, pogroms could occur in places such as Tzfat or Hebron (1834) and the world remained oblivious. If news did break out, it often came through published letters of notable travellers that witnessed events. This distressing eye-witness account of a brutal attack on Jews in Jerusalem, was written in July 1834 and published four months after the event occurred:

That attack was not conducted by the Egyptians or the Turks – but by local Arab Muslims. This was the life of Jews in Jerusalem under Ottoman Islamic rule: 3rd class citizens, vulnerable to the violent whims of the Islamic rulers and local Muslim populations. Below are three more extracts from newspapers in the 19th Century, One details the ‘indignity’ with which Jews of Jerusalem were treated. The two others refer to Ottoman laws restricting Jewish free movement (one even mentions the ‘enmity’ towards them):

All reports from the area of the time speak of squalor, empty lands, decay, and neglect. Laws were set in place restricting Jewish land purchase and movement. This blatantly anti-Jewish decree did not just affect Jews from Europe – but even Jews inside the Ottoman empire:

American Israelite, 25 July 1884

At differing levels anti-Jewish activity continued until the British arrived. Between 1914 and 1917, the Turks expelled all the Jews in Tel Aviv and Yaffo:

Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat Oklahoma,19 Jan 1915

There was an unmentioned driver to the Turkish oppression of Jews in the late 19th Century. The Islamic rulers were worried about Jews entering a land with a low population. So *Muslim only* immigration was encouraged. This can be seen in reports from the time, such as this one that details the Bosnian Muslim immigration and the barriers placed on others:

This research is unique. Help to battle antisemitism and support the fight for truth in 2023

Donate via PayPal https://t.co/K6jr3Bu7nc
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THANK YOU - let us all keep exposing the truth! END

— David Collier (@mishtal) December 22, 2022

Alan M. Dershowitz: Democracy in Israel

Israel's democratic system is based on a unicameral parliament, the Knesset, the members of which are chosen in an election based on nationwide proportional representation. Because no one single political party has ever in the country's history won a majority of 61 out of 120 Knesset seats, multiple parties -- including small ones -- need to group together in a coalition to form the government.

It is often necessary to make significant compromises among the parties in order to make up a governing coalition. That is what is happening now with Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who .... promises to continue to oppose [bigotries] in the new government he is working to form under himself as Prime Minister.

Israel, however, presents a very different face through the persona of its President Isaac Herzog. In Israel, the presidency is a non-partisan ceremonial role, without executive powers. Herzog... in 2015 ran unsuccessfully for prime minister as leader of the left-wing Labor Party. Today, as president, he represents all the citizens of Israel. His face is that of a centrist patriot with a long history of supporting human rights for all....

Herzog can remind the world that no country in history has contributed more to the world -- medically, scientifically, technologically, agriculturally, culturally, in human rights and in other ways -- during its first 75 years of existence than Israel. This, despite having to devote so much of its resources to defending itself against genocidal threats from Iran and other nations and terror groups committed to its destruction. Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan and other Arab nations, and is seeking peace and normalization with still others.

Netanyahu, who was Israel's longest-serving prime minister, has played an extremely positive role in many of these developments, as well as in creating a peace that few thought possible with four Arab countries -- the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco -- after decades of hostility – all while countering deadly threats from Iran and leading Israel's economy away from socialism into the high-tech wonder that it is.

There is much for Israel to be proud of, even as it faces challenges both from without and within. No nation is subjected to more unfounded and disproportionate condemnation -- from the United Nations, from international tribunals, from NGOs, from campus radicals, from many in the media -- than the nation-state of the Jewish people.

.@CNN reports Israel's new government is "now made up all of men, and all orthodox except for Netanyahu himself." https://t.co/9kXNnAd0vZ

Note to CNN: Netanyahu hasn't even announced who from his own Likud party, including women and non-orthodox, will become ministers. pic.twitter.com/d9Dr5uh86i

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 22, 2022

DEBATE: Does the Supreme Court have too much power? | Caroline Glick Show #supremecourt #democracy

In the new “Caroline Glick Show,” Caroline Glick hosts a debate between jurists Alan Dershowitz and Avi Bell about why the Israeli Supreme Court needs reforms.

While the two law professors disagree about the scope of the reforms required, they both agree that the power of the Court should be limited.

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12/19 Links Pt2: The light of Hanukkah that has continued to shine for 74 years; General Washington’s Christmastime Hanukah Encounter; Children discover 2,000-year-old lamp in the ground

From Ian:

Daniel Greenfield: The light of Hanukkah that has continued to shine for 74 years

A candle is a brief flare of light. A wick dipped in oil burns and goes out again. The Hanukkah light appears no different, but it is.

Two thousand years after the Jews had come to believe that wars were for other people and miracles meant escaping alive, Jewish armies stood and held the line against an empire and the would be empires of the region.

And now the flame still burns, though it is flickering. Seventy-four years is a long time for oil to burn, especially when the black oil next door seems so much more useful to the empires and republics across the sea. And the children of many of those who first lit the flame no longer see the point in that hoary old light.

But that old light is still the light of possibilities. It burns to remind us of the extraordinary things that our ancestors did and of the extraordinary assistance that they received. We cannot always expect oil to burn for eight days, just as we cannot always expect the bullet to miss or the rocket to fall short. And yet even in those moments of darkness the reminder of the flame is with us for no darkness lasts forever and no exile, whether of the body of the spirit, endures. Sooner or later the spark flares to life again and the oil burns again. Sooner or later the light returns.

It is the miracle that we commemorate because it is a reminder of possibilities. Each time we light a candle or dip a wick in oil, we release a flare of light from the darkness comes to remind us of what was, is and can still be.

Israel is one of the most progressive countries in the world

While so-called “progressives” and biased media in the United States level a relentless stream of accusations against Israel, these “critics” uniformly ignore the fact that Israel is one of the most liberal, progressive nations in the world. If Israel’s “progressive” critics really cared about social justice, they would be the country’s most fervent supporters.

Enemies of Israel falsely accuse Israel of white colonialism, apartheid, ultra-nationalism, unfair treatment of its Arab citizens, LGBT “pinkwashing,” theocracy and violations of international law.

In fact, Israel is a mature democracy with high-functioning government and judicial institutions, plus a long track record of moral behavior and the rule of law. It guarantees expansive civil liberties, equal rights and economic opportunities to its citizens.

This includes, of course, Israel’s two million Arab citizens—20% of the population—who share all the benefits of Israeli society.

Israeli Arabs are currently represented in the Knesset by two political parties, one of which is an Islamist party that was part of the outgoing government. An Arab Muslim judge serves on Israel’s Supreme Court. An Arab Christian also served as a Supreme Court justice and was chair of Israel’s Central Elections Committee.

An Arab Muslim is the head of Bank Leumi, Israel’s largest bank. Arabs also make up 30% of the country’s doctors and 50% of the country’s pharmacists.

Thousands of Israeli Arabs volunteer for service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), even though military service is not required of Arab Muslims or Christians.

So much for the myth of Israeli apartheid.

General Washington’s Christmastime Hanukah Encounter

There is a particularly American Hanukah story that occurred when Washington and his troops were at Valley Forge during Christmas of 1777. Dan Adler’s article “Hanukkah at the White House” recounts this tale of George Washington’s encounter with a Jewish soldier: “In December, 1778, General George Washington had supper at the home of Michael Hart, a Jewish merchant in Easton, Pennsylvania. It was during the Hanukkah celebration, and Hart began to explain the customs of the holiday to his guest. Washington replied that he already knew about Hanukkah. He told Hart and his family of meeting the Jewish soldier at Valley Forge the previous year. (According to Washington, the soldier was a Polish immigrant who said he had fled his homeland because he could not practice his faith under the Prussian government there.) Hart’s daughter Louisa wrote the story down in her diary.” Rabbi Susan Grossman has written that, “[l]ike generations of Jews before him, that soldier served as a ‘light unto the nations’ (Isaiah 42:6), bringing inspiration and courage to a nation in its birth pangs. And he did so in a perfectly American way, a way in which a miracle did result, the miracle by which the light from one religion helps give comfort and courage to another.”

Washington “was welcomed at the home of Corporal Michael Hart,” which is described as “a two-story stone building on the southeast corner of the public square, directly opposite the courthouse. His general store was on the first floor, his residence on the second. Michael Hart’s wife, Leah, prepared a kosher meal... in honor of the Hanukah festival, it being the sixth day of the holiday.” (To offer a mild correction, December 21, 1778, was the eighth and final day of Hanukah that year, since Hanukah ran from sundown, Sunday, December 13, 1778, until sundown, Monday, December 21st.)

Further, Louisa Hart would “proudly record” in her diary: “Let it be remembered that Michael Hart was a Jew, pious; a Jew reverencing and strictly observant of the Sabbath and festivals, dietary laws were also adhered to although he was compelled to be his own Schochet [ritual slaughterer]. Mark well that he, Washington, was then honored as first in peace, first in war and first in the hearts of his countrymen. Even during a short sojourn he became, for the hour, the guest of the worthy Jew.”

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12/14 Links Pt2: No, Zionism isn’t out of date: Why the US arrests some terrorists but ignores others; Professor reveals pervasive antisemitism at University of Toronto Medical School

From Ian:

No, Zionism isn’t out of date

Ha’aretz columnist Anshel Pfeffer does not believe in Zionism. He doesn’t oppose it, he just thinks talking about it is a category mistake:

You cannot be either a Zionist or an anti-Zionist, he says, just as you cannot be a veteran of Iwo Jima unless you were born at least 90 years ago and fought in that battle. Zionism isn’t an ideology. It’s a program, or an ideological plan, to establish a state for Jews in the biblical homeland. And that program was fulfilled on May 14, 1948, when David Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s independence at the old Tel Aviv Museum. That’s it. Done.

"…believing that on the whole, founding the State of Israel was the right thing to do, doesn’t make you a Zionist any more than thinking that Oliver Cromwell was right to overthrow King Charles, makes you a Roundhead. It simply doesn’t matter what you think about long-ago events you didn’t take part in. Israel is a reality and it’s not going anywhere."

He’s wrong. There absolutely is such a thing as Zionist ideology, a set of basic principles that Zionists believe. And here they are:
-There is an am Yehudi, a Jewish people. You might think this is obvious, but Mahmoud Abbas denies it, and so do the “[insert nationality here] of the Mosaic persuasion” crowd, which includes the American Reform Movement.

-The survival of the Jewish people requires the Jewish state, a state that is more than just a state with a Jewish majority. The precise meaning of “more” differs according to the faction of the Zionist movement to which one belongs, but the Nation-State Law that was passed by the Knesset in 2018 is an example of a secular attempt to explicate that.

-Only in the Jewish state can a person fully realize his Jewish identity. You can still be a Zionist if you don’t believe that all Jews ought to live in the Jewish state, but Zionism includes the idea that diaspora life is sub-optimal even when it is not actively dangerous.

-One needn’t be a Jew to be a Zionist. Agree with the principles above and you are a Zionist, regardless of your own religion or ethnicity.

Pfeffer points out that there were religious and secular, socialist and revisionist Zionisms. This was true before 1948, and it’s still true today. But all of them affirm the principles above. The existence of factions doesn’t negate the truth behind an ideology. After all, these are Jews we are talking about!

Tom Stoppard and the Failure of ‘Diasporism’

As much as the contributions of Diaspora Jews should inspire pride and celebration, it has become clear that there has emerged no serious alternative other than Israel for those who would sustainably perpetuate specifically Jewish achievement and inquiry. Those of us in the Diaspora will not all move there—although Stoppard is here to remind us that Jews will always require a refuge from the forces of hatred that now seek Israel’s destruction. But we are called upon to support the Zionist project not only as a form of self-defense but also to continue providing the wider world with the fruits of Jewish labors. Leopoldstadt’s invocation of a potential Jewish state at the play’s beginning, and Israel’s existence at its end as the tiny remnant of the Merz and Jacobowicz families gathers in the once-grand apartment of assimilation in 1955, mark it as one of the most profoundly Zionist documents of our time.

It is a reflection of the durability and power of anti-Semitism that, even if the playwright had uncovered the facts of his own Jewish past in 1955 the way his young British character does, rather than in the 1980s, he would have risked a great deal by writing Leopoldstadt as a young man in the wake of his career-making success with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1966. He likely would have become known as a Jewish, rather than a British, playwright—a dramatist making a special pleading due to the tragedy visited upon his own family. No, it was his established reputation as the greatest living English dramatist that has enabled this unlikely production—among other things, Leopoldstadt has a cast of 38, the largest any play on Broadway has seen in generations. Therein lies yet another lesson about the limits of Diasporism.

The Hanukkah Queen Who Saved the Jews

A generation after the Hanukkah miracle, in the midst of great turmoil, Salome Alexandra defended Judaism and restored Jewish practice.

The story of Hanukkah is one of the best-known in Jewish history: how a small group of faithful Jews, led by the Maccabees, revolted against their Hellenist Greek rulers during the years 167-160 BCE, and restored the Temple in Jerusalem to Jewish worship once again.

Their unlikely military victory and the miracle of a single jug of oil burning in the Temple’s golden Menorah for eight days are celebrated during the holiday of Hanukkah. Less known is what came next.

The “Maccabee” brothers (named after one brother, Judas Maccabeus) established the Hasmonean royal dynasty that ruled the Jewish kingdom of Judea for over 200 years. Far from presiding over a peaceful nation, the Hasmonean rulers were mercurial, autocratic, and ruled a land continually on the brink of civil war. It fell to Queen Salome Alexandra - also known as Shlomit Alexandra and as Shlomzion - to stand up to some of the most terrifying dictators imaginable, champion traditional Judaism, and restore peace to Judea.

A key fact that’s often ignored in telling the Hanukkah story is that many Jews at the time embraced a Hellenist lifestyle, worshiping Greek deities and embracing Greek values. Within a generation of the Hanukkah miracle, the Jewish community was again riven into factions, most notably the Sadducees, who rejected the Talmud and many Jewish elements of a traditional Jewish lifestyle and who dominated the ruling classes, and the Pharisees who clung to Jewish traditions and lifestyles.

Queen Salome and her Wicked Husband
Queen Salome was born into a prominent scholarly family and married into royalty. She possessed incredible courage and calmness. Salome’s brother was Shimon ben Shetach, one of Judea’s most renowned rabbis and a champion of the Pharisee cause. When it became too dangerous for her brother to remain in Judea because of Sadducee persecution, Queen Salome hid him, as well as other rabbinic allies of traditional Judaism.

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Antisemitic Canadian Arab journalist denies he is antisemitic

Nazih Khatatba, general director and editor of Ontario-based Arabic newspaper Meshwar, writes in Wattan.net:

I am a Palestinian Canadian journalist. Our newspaper, Mishwar, is published in Arabic and distributed in the Ontario region, especially Toronto. We have the right to attend any event, especially if it is related to Palestine and the Middle East. We are not anti-Semitic, and we have not spoken badly about Jews in Canada or other countries. Rather, we criticize the Israeli occupation policy and stand with the Palestinian people. Those who accuse us of “anti-Semitism” without evidence are themselves supporting and protecting the Israeli occupation that commits daily murders against Palestinians.   

He is especially upset at Honest Reporting Canada, which has exposed his and his newspaper's words publicly.

So here are some of their highlights:

Accusing Jews of dual loyalty:

The vast majority of ambassadors and mediators the US administration sends to the Middle East are Zionists and hold Israeli citizenship, and they owe more loyalty to this entity [Israel] than the US itself, including the US envoy Amos Hochstein [who was assigned] to negotiate with Lebanon on the demarcation of the region’s maritime borders and gas resources. He is not considered a mediator but rather a negotiator for the occupation entity more than his leaders. He is trying to play on the factor of time and procrastination, buying the debts of some loyal Lebanese leaders and activating the role of pawns to pressure Hizbollah. Still, this game that succeeded with the Palestinian Authority will not gain success with [Hassan] Nasrallah [leader of Hezbollah].

(Hochstein is not a dual national.)

Casting doubt on the Holocaust:

Why are the Zionist organizations afraid of opening the Holocaust file, preventing researchers from approaching it, and protecting it with strict laws that threaten those who come near it with imprisonment, prosecution, and even dismissal from work? Is it possible that they are hiding something, and we do not know?

Crazy antisemitic conspiracy theories:

Some world leaders in the West, who belong to the Zionist-Masonic movement, have already long ago drawn their plans to divide the Arab homeland in order that the Zionist-Masonic generations will inherit it generation after generation.

All aforementioned details confirm without a doubt that there is today an actual track to implement the Zionist -American enterprise, which is aiming at weakening Iraq and Syria, to tear them apart and to fragment them as a basis to tear apart and fragment the entire Arab region. This also confirms without a doubt that the goal of the attack, which the entire Arab region and areas are subject to, is basically to tear apart this region in order to serve the colonial Zionist -American enterprise.

And in 2015, it published an article that said that killing is ingrained in the Jewish faith. 

Sounds pretty antisemitic to me!

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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12/02 Links Pt1: R.I.P., UN Two-state Solution; Welcome, Bibi: Blinken To Headline Anti-Israel J Street Conference; Palestinian teens order Haredi man to kiss their feet, post on TikTok, are arrested

From Ian:

Welcome, Bibi: Blinken To Headline Anti-Israel J Street Conference

A State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon that Blinken’s engagement with anti-Israel groups like J Street is an "important part" of the agency’s mission.

"It is routine for the secretary of state to engage with different civil society groups representing a broad array of foreign policy interests, this is an important part of the State Department’s domestic outreach," the spokesman said.

While Blinken is not the first secretary of state to address a J Street conference—then-secretary John Kerry and then-vice president Joe Biden both spoke in 2016—the timing of his address is being viewed as highly symbolic. The Biden administration in December took the extraordinary step of launching a Justice Department investigation into the shooting of a Palestinian-American reporter by the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel in September conducted its own independent review in cooperation with the U.S. State Department, and U.S. lawmakers are accusing the administration—given the president's support for an additional FBI investigation—of kowtowing to radical elements in the Democratic Party who seek to transform Israel into a pariah state.

One senior State Department official told the Free Beacon that "attending this J Street event is like a blatant and obvious attempt to stick Bibi [Netanyahu] in the eye."

"Unfortunately," said the source, who was not authorized to speak on record, "it has the effect of undermining our relationship with Israel, and thus U.S. national security."

It's not the first sign that the Biden administration is less than elated at Netanyahu's reascension to power last month. Biden waited days to congratulate the newly elected Israeli leader, drawing accusations the president was trying to isolate Netanyahu's conservative government before it even was seated.

"The Biden administration is filled with partisans who hate Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu. They banned the use of the phrase ‘Abraham Accords,' couldn't bring themselves to have President Biden call Netanyahu to congratulate him until their silence became comical, and now they're even unleashing the FBI," Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) told the Free Beacon. "So of course Secretary Blinken is going to J Street, an anti-Israel activist group that also criticized the Abraham Accords, loathes Netanyahu, and regularly calls for investigations against Israel. It's both disgraceful and predictable."

One former Israeli government official told the Free Beacon the administration is not even trying to hide its disdain for Netanyahu and his conservative coalition.

"This is simply bad diplomatic strategy," said the source, who would only speak on background so as not to upset either government. "Speaking to J Street may displease the incoming Israeli government, but they're hardly afraid of the lobby. This doesn't send a message of strength but rather one of petulance. Secretary Blinken should know better."

US insists it’s still committed to reopening Jerusalem consulate, but few convinced

The Biden administration’s new envoy to the Palestinians declared Wednesday that the US still plans to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem after nearly two years of delays, but Israeli and Palestinian officials did not appear convinced.

Asked for his response to US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr’s renewed pledge, a senior Palestinian official speaking on condition of anonymity chuckled. “At this point, we don’t get excited over these kinds of declarations from the Americans,” he said. “With all due respect, we’ll respond when there are facts on the ground.”

Prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has avoided commenting on Amr’s remarks, ostensibly waiting until he is sworn into office, but an official in the Likud leader’s inner circle told The Times of Israel that his boss’s position on the matter has not changed, confirming a report in the Makor Rishon news site.

After vowing during the campaign to reopen the de facto mission to the Palestinians, which his predecessor Donald Trump shuttered in 2019, US President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed Netanyahu in May 2021 that Washington wanted to follow through on the pledge.

The then-prime minister responded by voicing his opposition to the proposal. Netanyahu and other opponents to reopening the consulate have argued that it encroaches on Israeli sovereignty in the city — the eastern portion of which the Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state.

The Biden administration did not move on the matter following Netanyahu’s refusal. And if the Democratic president’s hesitance to enter public spats with Israel guided his policy then, that inclination was boosted in the year that followed, when Israel was governed by a unity government led by prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.

David Singer: R.I.P., UN Two-state Solution

The founding document of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1964 (PLO) expressly disavowed any claim to sovereignty “over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” and “the Gaza Strip”. It was only in 1968 – after Jordan and Egypt had lost these lands to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War – that the PLO began to agitate for an independent Arab state west of the Jordan River – employing terrorism to try and achieve it.

The PLO strategy failed.

However the long-dormant UN two-State solution was resurrected by the international community in: 1980: Venice Declaration
1993: Oslo Accords
2002: Arab Peace Initiative.
2003: President Bush Roadmap
2011: President Obama
2020: President Trump

Powerful backers indeed – but no such two-State solution has appeared a remote possibility for the last forty years

A radically-different proposal however surfaced in Saudi Arabia on 8 June 2022 that was both revolutionary and ground-breaking: Merge Jordan, the Gaza Strip, and part of the West Bank into one territorial entity to be called the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine – no new Arab State between the River and the Sea.

The UN’s response has been disgraceful.

Instead of welcoming this Saudi proposal and the prospects its successful implementation offers for ending the Jewish-Arab conflict – the UN has failed to even acknowledge its existence - denying it any oxygen, exposure or traction in the UN.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres and UN Special Co-ordinator for the Middle East Process Torr Wennesland have made no public comments whatsoever on the Saudi proposal or included any reference to it in their monthly reports to the Security Council since its release. They need to break their silence. Until they do – they remain compromised and conflicted.

A UN closed forum convened on 8 November by the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) with Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s) from “Palestine” Israel and the United States “Advocating for Accountability in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” - - asserted that “Safeguarding the two-State solution” remained their prime objective.

Not one of them apparently mentioned the Saudi proposal - whose successful implementation would put them all out of business by finally ending a conflict that has defied resolution for more than 100 years.

Guterres continued parroting the UN’s commitment to the two-state solution on 22 November -without mentioning the Saudi solution – which needs to be aired and debated in the UN General Assembly, Security Council and CEIRPP and no longer suppressed.

The UN’s 75 years-old failed two-State solution to end the Jewish-Arab conflict has well and truly passed its use by date. The time has come for the UN to adopt the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution to replace it.

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