Some Black Leaders Supported Zionism Before Herzl Did (Daled Amos)

 

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a reporter asked Golda Meir about African leaders that were cutting off diplomatic ties with Israel under Arab pressure. The reporter claimed this proved that Israel's African policy and the aid given was a waste of time. Golda Meir disagreed:

Because what I did for Africa was not just a policy of enlightened self-interest. I did it for the benefit of the African peoples, and deep in their hearts they know this to be true. It was an expression of my deepest historic instincts as a Jew, and a demonstration of my most profound and cherished values as a Labor Zionist. [The Prime Ministers, by Yehuda Avner, p. 236]

Golda Meir was not the first Zionist to speak about helping Africa.

Herzl's novel, Altneuland, describes his vision of what Jewish Palestine would look like. At one point, one of the characters declares:

There is still one problem of racial misfortune unsolved. The depths of that problem, in all their horror, only a Jew can fathom. I mean the negro problem. Don't laugh, Mr. Kingscourt. Think of the hair-raising horrors of the slave trade. Human beings, because their skins are black, are stolen, carried off, and sold. Their descendants grow up in alien surroundings despised and hated because their skin is differently pigmented. I am not ashamed to say, though I be thought ridiculous, now that I have lived to see the restoration of the Jews, I should like to pave the way for the restoration of the Negroes. [Translated from the German by Dr. D. S. Blondheim, Federation of American Zionists, 1916, available online]

Herzl's desire for Blacks to be restored to their homeland was mutual.

In fact, Black support for the Jewish State predates Herzl.

In their book, Israel in the Black American Perspective, Robert G. Weisbord and Richard Kazarian start with a chapter on early Black support for the Zionist idea.

As early as the post-Civil War era, when Blacks were still too focused on their survival and that of their families to concern themselves with foreign affairs, there were still a few Black intellectuals and leaders who kept abreast of events overseas.

Some saw parallels between their own situation and that of the Jews -- and others saw Zionism and the return to the Jewish homeland as the paradigm for the transplanted Africans in the US.

Here is a summary of what the book describes about some of those leaders --

Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912)

Blyden was born in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, which had a significant Jewish population, and later immigrated to West Africa in 1851. He was an editor, a prolific writer of books and pamphlets, a linguist, a professor of classics, secretary of state of the newly established republic of Liberia, Liberian ambassador to Great Britain and president of Liberia College.

Edward Wilmot Blyden. Public Domain

As he describes in his book, The Jewish Question, while traveling in the Middle East in 1866, Blyden wanted to travel to "the original home of the Jews--to see Jerusalem and Mt. Zion, the joy of the whole earth." While in Jerusalem he went to the Western Wall.

Keep in mind that Theodor Herzl wasn't even born until 1860. Instead, this was the time of 'proto-Zionists' like Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, who wrote Derishat Ziyon (Seeking Zion), and Moses Hess, who wrote Rome and Jerusalem -- both published in 1862.

Weisbrod and Kazarian write:

In point of fact, Blyden in the 1860's and 1870's was much more of a Zionist than most Jews. He advocated Jewish settlement in Palestine, a phenomenon which, in his judgment would not have an adverse effect on the Arabs. Blyden reproved the sons of Abraham for remaining in the Diaspora and for not migrating to their ancient homeland, which the Ottoman Turks were misgoverning.

Towards the end of the 19th century, with the resurgence of antisemitism in Russia, France and Germany, that political Zionism came into its own with Herzl and his publication of The Jewish State in 1896. The First Zionist Congress followed in 1897.

Blyden's booklet, The Jewish Question, was published the following year:

Blyden was familiar with Herzl's Jewish State and predicted that it propounded ideas which "have given such an impetus to the real work of the Jews as will tell with enormous effect upon their future history." Blyden also commented on the powerful influence of the "tidal wave from Vienna--that inspiration almost Mosaic in its originality and in its tendency, which drew crowds of Israelites to Basle in August 1897...and again in 1898."

However, Blyden also thought that if the timing was not right, the Jewish State could be established elsewhere as well. He felt that because of the shared suffering of Jews and African Americans, they were specially qualified to be spiritual leaders in the world.

So he invited Jews to come to Africa --

Africa appeals to the Jew... to come with his scientific and other culture, gathered by his exile in many lands, and with his special spiritual endowments.

As it turned out, when the British offered Herzl land in Africa in 1903 for a state, that invitation was nearly accepted.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

Booker T. Washington was such a celebrity during the latter part of his life that he was invited to have dinner with Theodore Roosevelt at the White House and to have tea with Queen Victoria.

He was born into slavery, but despite the hardships, he taught himself the alphabet, got an education and went on to found the Tuskegee Institute, which he headed for 35 years.

Booker T. Washington. public domain

From his childhood, Washington had an interest in Jews, based on his familiarity of Bible stories -- and drew parallels between the histories of Blacks and Jews. In a speech he delivered in 1905, Washington said:

In Russia there are one-half as many Jews as there are Negroes in this country and yet I feel sure that within a month more Jews have been persecuted and killed than the whole number of our people who have been lynched during the past forty years.

While Washington believed in thrift and hard work as key to Black equality, he also thought that progress could be achieved through racial solidarity -- just as it had helped Jews:

There is, perhaps, no race that has suffered so much, not so much in America as in some of the countries in Europe. But these people have clung together. They have had a certain amount of unity, pride and love of race.

Washington predicted success for Jews in the US, "a country where they were once despised and looked upon with scorn and derision" -- success that was achieved largely through dedication to education and enabled them to gain positions of power and preeminence.

 

He did not share the back-to-Africanism of Blyden, and did not see it as a solution to Black problems in the South. Similarly, while he was a friend of the Jews, Washington didn't see a Jewish State as much of a solution for Jews either. When asked if there was anything among Blacks that compared to the Zionist movement, Washington responded:

I think it is with the African pretty much as it is with the Jews, there is a good deal of talk about it, but nothing is done, there is certainly no sign of an exodus to Liberia.

Based on the lesser interest in Zionism in the US at the time, it is no wonder Washington was skeptical.

 

W.E.B Du Bois 1868-1963

Du Bois championed the cause of racial justice -- and of Zionism as well. He was born in Massachusetts and was educated at Fisk University in Nashville, at the University of Berlin and received a Ph.D from Harvard. He wrote historical treatises, sociological studies and essays on the important issues of the day. Du Bois was one of the founders of the NAACP.

 

He saw potential in the Balfour Declaration for a similar solution for Blacks. With the defeat of Germany in WWI,  his dream was an independent free central African state carved out of German East Africa and the Belgian Congo.

 

It didn't happen.

 

 

W.E.B Du Bois Public Domain

 

He believed that such an African state would have a mutually beneficial relationship with Blacks around the world, similar to the Zionist view of a Jewish state.  In 1919, Du Bois wrote an article in the NAACP magazine Crisis that

The African movement means to us what the Zionist movement must mean to the Jews, the centralization of race effort and the recognition of a racial fount. To help bear the burden of Africa does not mean any lessening of effort in our problems at home. Rather it means increased interest. For an ebullition of action and feeling that results in an amelioration of the lot of Africa tends to ameliorate the conditions of colored peoples throughout the world. And no man liveth unto himself.

Du Bois started a monthly magazine for Afro-African children around 1919 called The Brownie's Book. In it, he wrote about Zionism.

o  In the first issue, he told his readers about the new Jewish state planned "'round about Jerusalem"

o  Eight months later, he told them that a "great Zionist congress of the Jews is meeting in London"

o  He also noted proposals to "tax the Jews all over the world for the support of the new Jewish government in Palestine"

o  In January 1921, he wrote about the finished blueprints for a Hebrew university on the biblical Mount of Olives in Jerusalem

o In 1929, he wrote about the "murder of Jews by Arabs in Palestine."

In 1948, Du Bois published "A Case for the Jews." In it, he described Zionism as a question of

young and forward thinking Jews, bringing a new civilization into an old land and building up that land out of the ignorance, disease and poverty into which it had fallen, and by democratic methods to build a new and peculiarly fateful modern state.

In June 26, 1948 the NAACP adopted a resolution that

The valiant struggle of the people of Israel for independence serves as an inspiration to all persecuted people throughout the world. We havil the establishment of the new State of Israel and welcome it into the family of nations.'

Marcus Garvey 1887-1940

Born in Jamaica, Garvey was the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). He wrote that Africa needed to be transformed into a

Negro Empire where every Black man, whether he was born in Africa or in the Western world, will have the opportunity to develop on his own lines under the protection of the most favorable democratic institutions.

His wife described his vision in a way similar to the Zionist goal of a Jewish state:

Garvey saw Africa as a nation to which the African peoples of the world could look for help and support, moral and physical when ill-treated or abused for being black.

 

Marcus Garvey. Public Domain

 

 

In 1920, Garvey told a UNIA meeting that after WWI,

A new spirit, a new courage, has come to us simultaneously as it came to other peoples of the world. It came to us at the same time it came to the Jew. When the Jew said 'We shall have Palestine!' the same sentiment came to us when we said' We shall have Africa!'

At the same time, the Jewish press was aware of what Garvey was doing and also saw the parallels between his pan-Africanism and Zionism. In the book, African Americans and Jews in the Twentieth Century, edited by V. P. Franklin, Hasia Diner notes in "Drawn Together By Self-Interest" that the Yiddish Press used the idioms of Jewish history to describe Marcus Garvey:

 

 

 

But Garvey was a complex -- and even contradictory -- figure when it came to Jews. There were statements he made that were antisemitic and when British Prime Minister Neville suggested in 1939 settling Jewish refugees in British Guiana, Garvey lashed out, claiming that British Guiana was a "Negro country" and criticized Zionism.

 

Walter White 1893-1955

In 1947, the UN voted on the partition of then-Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. It was an opportunity to finally create a Jewish state -- but a two-thirds majority was necessary to make it happen.

 

Enter Walter White.

 

 

Walter White. Public Domain

 

Zionists approached White, urging him to persuade two Black nations, Haiti and Liberia, to reverse their announced opposition to partition and to vote for it instead.

 

He was opposed to the idea of 'segregating' Jews from Arabs and resented the pressure Zionists put on him. Nevertheless, according to his autobiography, he helped "because Palestine seemed the only haven anywhere in the world for nearly one million Jews of Europe."

 

When the votes were cast, Liberia, Haiti and the Philippines all voted for partition -- and those votes were critical in achieving the 33 to 13 vote for partition.

 

 

Black leaders like these make for a sharp contrast to the likes of Sharpton and Farrakhan.

 

 

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Remember When Farrakhan Said Palestinian Arabs Were Bloodsuckers? (Daled Amos)

 

If Blacks are a minority and Jews are a minority, why is there such tension between them?

One element that caused this friction is the way social interaction between Jews and Blacks was structured in the 1960's.

According to the book "Israel in the Black American Perspective" (1985):

In the Black community Jews were frequently associated with wealth and "parasitism." Under the least propitious circumstances, Blacks usually met Jews as storekeepers and landlords--the most visible representatives of an oppressive economic system. Such meetings were not likely to promote good will and mutual respect. [p4]

But if Jewish storekeepers and landlords are such a significant reason for how Blacks viewed Jews, why would that hatred seem to be so focused on Jews?

In a footnote to that paragraph, the book's authors -- Robert G. Weisbord and Richard Kazarian, Jr. -- point out that Jews were not the only storekeepers and landlords that Blacks had contact with:

In some cities, New Orleans and Newark to mention just two, Italian-black relations were acrimonious for similar reasons. Of late, "exploitative" Korean merchants in Harlem have aroused the ire of Afro-Americans, some of whom have responded with "buy Black" campaigns and organized boycotts of the Korean businesses.

And in Detroit, Arab grocers, mostly Iraqui [sic] Christians, have experienced picketing by Blacks who denounced profiteering outsiders. Burning and looting occurred in 1983 following the killing of a Black youth by an Arab storekeeper.

Antagonism to the Arabs in Detroit was rooted in the frustrations Blacks feel when confronted by the more rapid economic progress made by first and second generation immigrants. Black hostility to the Iraquis [sic] in the Motor City is strikingly similar to that directed at the Jews in Gotham and elsewhere. [p6. Text divided into paragraphs for easier reading. Emphasis added]

Over the decades, Race Riots were not directed only at Jews:

Similar to the 1943 Detroit Race Riots that devastated the Jewish population, and the 1967 Race Riots that left hundreds of Chaldean [Iraqi Arab Christian] businesses destroyed, Koreans too dealt with a destructive riot in 1992 Los Angeles.

The context for the 1992 riots is the reaction to the verdict that cleared the police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King, a year after a Korean store owner shot and killed a 15-year-old Black girl because he thought she was stealing a bottle of orange juice --

The nearly weeklong, widespread rioting killed more than 50 people, injured more than 1,000 people and caused approximately $1 billion in damage, about half of which was sustained by Korean-owned businesses. Long-simmering cultural clashes between immigrant Korean business owners and predominately African-American customers spilled over with the acquittals. [emphasis added]

In Chicago, there was friction between Blacks and Arab immigrants too:

Common complaints about stores predominantly owned by Muslims from Palestine, Jordan, and Yemen, are that they only provide low-quality food and don’t take any ownership over their role in the community. “The reality is that Englewood is changing, and if you don’t improve your model, in time you will go out of business,” says Gunn.

Yet despite tensions between Blacks and other groups -- tensions that let to riots -- have you ever heard Farrakhan attack minorities other than Jews?

Actually, he did.

In 1995, The Chicago Tribune reported about

comments Farrakhan made Friday during a television interview in which he was quoted as saying Jews, Arabs, Koreans and Vietnamese were "bloodsuckers" who set up businesses in the black community but never gave back to those neighborhoods.

Arabs?
Not just any Arabs.

The Buffalo News had the full quote:

In an interview with Reuters Television aped Oct. 4 and made public Friday, Mr. Farrakhan touched on several sensitive subjects that previously outraged Jewish leaders and prompted accusations of anti-Semitism against him.

"When we use the term 'bloodsucker,' it doesn't just apply to some members of the Jewish community. That could apply to any human being who does nothing for another but lays on that human being to suck the value of its life without returning anything," Mr. Farrakhan said in the interview.

"Many of the Jews who owned the homes, the apartments in the black community, we considered them bloodsuckers because they took from our community and built their community but didn't offer anything back to our community.

"And when the Jews left, the Palestinian Arabs came, Koreans came, Vietnamese and other ethnic and racial groups came. And so this is a type and we call them bloodsuckers."[emphasis added]

Later, Farrakhan complained about the media for misreporting what he said: "It is unfortunate that the media is taking words that were spoken out of context to create division."

He never did make clear what the proper context for "bloodsuckers" was.

But the next day, Farrakhan did a turnaround, equating the suffering of Black Americans with other minority groups in the US:

In an address at Operation PUSH headquarters, 930 E. 50th St., Farrakhan said African-American men are dehumanized in the United States in the same way Japanese, Germans, Italians and, more recently, Koreans, Vietnamese and people of Middle Eastern descent have been treated in the U.S. during wars involving Americans.

..."We didn't feel their pain because they were considered the enemy," Farrakhan said to the gathering of about 100 people. "Thanks to the media manipulation, we are seen now as the enemy."

To understand Farrakhan's turnaround, you need to keep in mind:
-- His original comment was on a Friday.
-- His "correction" was the next day, on Saturday.
-- Two days later, Monday -- was his Million Man March.

Farrakhan's statement standing up for other minorities was a cynical move to avoid bad press for his upcoming Million Man March in Washington.

So why did Farrakhan have it in for Palestinian Arabs?

According to The Encyclopedia of Chicago, Palestinian Arabs started arriving at the end of the 19th century, and many settled in Chicago in particular --

By the early 1970s, they owned nearly 20 percent of all small grocery and liquor stores in Chicago, most located in African American communities, although Chicago's 30,000 Palestinians represented less than 1 percent of the city's population. By the 1990s, Palestinians had maintained this niche, but they also diversified into used-car dealerships, gas stations, auto repair shops, ethnic stores, and fast-food restaurants, remaining, however, primarily a community of small business entrepreneurs serving mostly “minority” communities. According to the 1990 census, more than 45 percent of employed Palestinians in the Chicago area worked in retail trade. The second largest concentration—some 14 percent—were professionals. [emphasis added]

As with Jews, Arab Christians, Italians and Asian-Americans, there were Palestinian Arabs, too, who were store owners in Black communities.

This is not to minimize the problem of race relations or deny the validity of alleged discrimination. But the knee-jerk reaction of Farrakhan to accuse such a varied group of immigrants of being 'bloodsuckers' exploiting the Black community reveals more about Farrakhan than it does about the various ethnic groups he attacked.

Maybe that is why Farrakhan ended up focusing his hate on one group alone -- Jews.

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For Jews, identifying as “white” is not always helpful (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

While writing a recent post on Jews: From Asiatic, Mongoloid, Slavonic, Low-Level Caucasians To Privileged White Supremacists, I came across this on Twitter:

As it turns out, it's a hoax.

But that does not mean that the 'whiteness' of Asian Americans is not an issue.

Yes Magazine, features an article asking the same question Are Asian Americans White? Or People of Color? The answer, of course, is no, Asian Americans are not 'white'. But apparently, you might have thought they are.

Why?

Because "on average Asian Americans are among the most successful in the United States," though there are major differences, depending on the particular segment of the Asian-American population. The underlying assumption being that lack of success for a "person of color" might be due to racism -- and that success itself is a sign of integration and with it, "becoming white."

That would certainly seem to indicate that Jews are white, based on their financial success and apparent integration into society. (And let's not start with the percentage of Nobel Prizes that Jews are awarded).

But more importantly, the article bases Asian American status as People of Color squarely on how they are treated. Regardless of the prosperity of the more successful Asian Americans, the problem of racial discrimination remains:

Asian Americans continue to experience discrimination, hate crimes and racial violence, xenophobia, concerning levels of racial/ethnic bullying in schools, and other indicators of racial marginalization in the U.S.

But if hate crimes and violence are the proof that Asian Americans are not integrated and therefore not 'white', then surely Jews pass that same test with flying colors.

If Muslims are not considered integrated enough to be 'white,' why should Jews -- who regularly suffer more hate crimes each year according to the FBI -- be considered white?

Yet Jews are considered 'white' -- and white supremacists, at that.
Something doesn't add up.

Michael Lerner approached this issue from another angle when he wrote in The Village Voice in 1993:

In the context of American politics, to be “white” means to be a beneficiary of the past 500 years of European exploration and exploitation of the rest of the world — and hence to “owe” something to those who have been exploited. So when Jews are treated as white in the United States, the assessment is not a crude physical one but a judgment of Jewish culture and civilization, history and destiny.

When Rome sent the majority of the indigenous Jews out of their native land, many found their way to Europe. Jews did not share in that exploitation, they were the victims of it -- not to mention those Jews who remained and witnessed the Islamic invasion that came later.

The Spanish, who were explorers and colonizers. Does that mean they are...'white'?
What about the Italians, who did their share of exploration and exploitation?

For that matter, what about Muslims, who invaded:  Syria, Egypt, North Africa and then-Palestine (all then under Christendom) as well as Spain, Portugal, France, Sicily, Rome, Russia (under the Tartars), Anatolia, Constantinople, and the Balkan peninsula. [see: Bernard Lewis, "What Went Wrong" (p.4ff)]

It still doesn't add up.

Obviously, it all depends on whose rules you are following, and now that Jews live in a time when people are drawing up sides to see who qualifies for People of Color -- Jews are again being excluded, despite a history, culture, religion and language that demonstrates a separate ethnicity, and the fact Jews are anything but 'white'.

In an op-ed in the LA Times last year, an African American woman suggested doing away with the term "person of color" altogether:

The terms “women of color” and “people of color” are meant to be inclusive. But, from my perspective, they only help to leave black people behind — specifically black women. While every minority group faces its own challenges in America, a “one size fits all” mentality toward diversity erases the specific needs of the most vulnerable communities. [emphasis added]

Considering how Jews ended up being the odd man out, one would have to agree.

She goes on to write that this is not to deny the important implication of People of Color for common solidarity and struggle --

But even more important is doing the hard work of understanding and fighting to overcome the distinct layers of injustice that face people of different identities — and different layers within those identities. A black person has different challenges than someone who is both Muslim and black, and a black, Muslim woman has different challenges still. Parsing the implications of these differences, instead of flattening them, is what it means to be “intersectional,” an important but widely misunderstood concept — even by the liberals who use it most. Intersectionality is not about building the biggest interracial team possible. It’s about catering to the individual needs of different communities to make sure no one is left behind.

Put this way, intersectionality is not a weapon to be used against Jews, but a group that Jews can not only be a part of but also contribute to -- just as Jews contributed to the black community, long before Black Lives Matter became a weapon to attack the Jewish community today.

But that still leaves the problem of Jewish identity, and the need to recognize and embrace that Jewish identity. At a time when Jews are surrounded by those who want to define for Jews:

o  What does and does not qualify as antisemitism
o  What Zionism really means
o  What a Jew is

-- at a time like this, there is a need to strengthen ties, not only with Israel, but with the Jewish community.

Other ethnic groups talk about the importance of their identity. Jews should too.

  Returning to the article in Yes Magazine:

identifying as Asian American is not a biological destiny or question of geography, which would suggest a passive orientation (i.e. individuals are born Asian) rather than an active choice to identify in solidarity against matrices of oppression. [emphasis added]

For many of these ethnic groups, their identity is an active choice in the solidarity of their identity against what they see as US colonialism and racism.

For Jews, the danger may be more than that.

It is in seeing their Jewishness as simply a matter of birth. Considering Jews are historically threatened by both assimilation and discrimination, Jewish identity is more than an issue of solidarity. It is a question of survival.

And there are Jews for whom simply identifying as 'white' is not a guarantee of survival. 

Intersectionality is being weaponized against Jews.
But instead of a threat, it should be a warning and maybe even an opportunity for Jews to get their act together.

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Zionism: From The "Jews Can't Agree On Anything" File (Daled Amos)

Last night, someone tweeted:

At first, this seems pretty straightforward -- and accurate.

After all, you would expect it would take someone who is actually familiar with Zionism to really understand it and besides -- the 'definition' of Zionism among the general population is going to be influenced by the "Zionism is Racism" crowd.

But that is not how people on Twitter saw it -- and I am talking about the reaction from Jews and non-Jews sympathetic to Israel.

I'm not even criticizing individual comments; I'm just pointing this out as a phenomenon.

So instead of stopping there, here are some of the reactions.
Note, responses by Rafaella Gunz, who started the thread, are indicated by "RG"

Not necessarily [and away we go...]

As I said on this thread yesterday, I know people who aren’t Jewish but definitely get it. Your tweet is insulting to them which I hope is not your intention. We need all the friends we can get.

RG: They get it because they speak to Jews. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about goyim who make up definitions of it being about stealing land and killing people.

I don’t think you should generalise like that, some of us have been well taught

RG: I said "probably." And I'm referring to goyim who make up definitions about it being about ethnic cleansing or land stealing. If that doesn't apply to you, the tweet wasn't about you.

What do you mean "probably"?

RG: Probably means probably.

Probably wrong, and definitely irrelevant.

What about if that definition comes from a Clown? And he/she/it could be a Noahide? Or, also maybe he could be like me, right now. Absolutely drunk? How much, bad/wrong it could be that definition my dear?

I'm a Gentile. I believe in Israel's right to exist with secure borders without qualification. Are you going to cancel me?

I’m a Zionist & I understand Zionism but I’m not a Jew. Your comment saddens me.

What’s the definition?

RG: The belief of Jewish self-determination in our indiginous homeland

You can't just kill other people who live there.

RG: Thaaats not in the definition. Thanks for proving my point.

You might as well say all Palestinians are terrorists which clearly they’re not- I say that as a Jew before you all pile in! But in all seriousness, and as I keep repeating; if people study, research history, they’re entitled to form an understanding of Zionism. Don’t diminish friends

Defining Zionism is as problematic and controversial as defining antisemitism. That should not come as a surprise. But just as Jews should be able to define what qualifies as Jew-hatred when we are attacked, we should also be respected enough to define our own movement to reclaim and live on our indigenous land -- land that both European (Roman) and Muslim invaders conquered and colonized.

Fat. Chance.

One of the concerns expressed is an appeal to an "open tent" -- that we should do whatever is in our power to avoid turning away people who are potential allies.

Yes, there is some merit in the importance of not turning friends away, but we are talking here about a tweet, and even at that, a tweet that was qualified by the word probably. And even then, all that was being said is that some non-Jews are probably wrong. Not probably evil.

Other groups can say outsiders don't get it. Just now, I did a search on the phrase "white people just don't get it" and it got 112,000 hits. When I did a search on "white people don't get it," it got 837,000 hits.

I understand the sentiment, but I don't think it should stop us from admitting the truth -- and doing our part to educate Jew and non-Jew alike on what Zionism is.

Also, such a tweet is not an attack, let alone a threat to "cancel" someone. Jews did not go rioting in the streets when they were attacked on the streets of New York City and shot in their shuls. We have been working within the system. That claim borders on the "straw man" argument that criticism of Israel is accused of being antisemitic. Demonization of Israel is antisemitic, criticism is not. Not our fault that these days people don't know the difference.

And if that 'saddens' them, that is OK. It is not personal, it is a reflection of the reality of the growing power of antisemites in the Democratic Party and among antisemitic groups that recognize their growing impunity to attack Jews and Israel with vicious labels and lies. If anything, we need to speak out more forcefully about that, not less.

Yes, people who "study and research history" are entitled to form their own opinions. But is that supposed to mean that if they don't do the study and research, they are not entitled to their own opinions? The fact is on the one hand that people do not base their opinions on research, and on the other hand, even if they do their research -- that doesn't mean it is "correct" or that I have to agree with them.

Rafaella Gunz makes it clear that she was referring to non-Jews who actually twist and distort the meaning of Zionism. It is an important distinction.

The bottom line, it is great for Jews -- and Israel -- to have allies, but that doesn't necessarily mean that those allies fully understand us or our love of Israel in the same way that we do. Maybe some do. It doesn't matter.

Other groups have the right to have their history, culture and homeland respected -- regardless of one's ability to identify with them.

Jews deserve no less.

And we should say so.

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The Collapsing of the American Mind (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

In August 2005, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd invoked a mother's moral authority against President Bush on the issue of the Iraq War.

Cindy Sheehan's son had been killed in Iraq the previous year and insisted on camping outside the Bush ranch until the president agreed to speak to her. Bush had already spoken to her, but she insisted on speaking to him again, so she could tell him why the war was wrong and the US should pull out its forces. Dowd attacked Bush's failure to meet with her, proclaiming that regardless of his own justifications for the war

his humanitarianism will remain inhumane as long as he fails to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.

Putting aside the moral authority of parents whose children were killed in the war yet agreed with the reasons for it -- the fact remains that the idea of this kind of moral authority resonates.

For example, in 2014 the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network announced on its website:

Over 300 Survivors and Descendants of Survivors of Victims of the Nazi Genocide Condemn Israel’s Assault on Gaza

313 Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of the Nazi genocide have signed this letter written in response to Elie Wiesel’s manipulation of the Nazi Genocide to attempt to justify the attacks on Gaza.

The 'letter' neglects to link to or even quote what Wiesel said. But it does make clear that it opposed the "ongoing genocide" of the ever-increasing Palestinian Arab population.

Looking through the 312 signatures -- and the moral authority they represent -- the breakdown is that the letter was signed by:

o  39 Holocaust survivors
o  97 children of survivors
o  112 grandchildren
o  13 great-grandchildren
o  51 other relatives

The underlying assumption is that not only does the respect due to Holocaust survivors extend to how Israel should defend itself against the genocidal intentions of Palestinian terrorists, but that this 'authority' is somehow hereditary and passed down to all descendants.

Part of the problem is that the definition of moral authority, which Dowd took for granted, may not be what these people think it means.

Wikipedia, while by no means authoritative on the issue, defines Moral Authority as

authority premised on principles, or fundamental truths, which are independent of written, or positive, laws...the authoritativeness or force of moral authority is applied to the conscience of each individual, who is free to act according to or against its dictates.

This definition of the relativeness of moral truth to each individual may explain why Dowd helpfully declared that Sheehan had absolute moral truth -- and that it should apply broadly.

Fast forward to today.

With the current wave of riots following the police killing of George Floyd, we have been subjected to a different kind of authority -- a collectivist moral authority -- one in which not everyone has a say, but which we are expected to abide by nevertheless, lest one suffers from the kind of collective demonization that was prevalent in Soviet Russia.

Writing about The American Soviet Mentality, Izabella Tabarovsky notes a change in social media reminiscent of Soviet Russia:

Twitter has been used as a platform for exercises in unanimous condemnation for as long as it has existed. Countless careers and lives have been ruined as outraged mobs have descended on people whose social media gaffes or old teenage behavior were held up to public scorn and judged to be deplorable and unforgivable. But it wasn’t until the past couple of weeks that the similarity of our current culture with the Soviet practice of collective hounding presented itself to me with such stark clarity.

Here in the US, we are subject to the punitive authority of a mob that has draped itself in the guise of moral superiority. After all, who can (dare) argue against the idea that Black Lives Matter?

Yet these mobs are different from the ones back in the day of the Soviet Union:

The mobs that perform the unanimous condemnation rituals of today do not follow orders from above. But that does not diminish their power to exert pressure on those under their influence.

This has resulted in a cancel culture that attacks more than just statues to be torn down.

Ira Stoll has been maintaining a List of People Canceled in Post-George-Floyd Antiracism Purges. Starting with James Bennet, who lost his job over the backlash to the Tom Cotton op-ed, the list includes editors, CEOs, and employees at universities and media -- over 20 people so far.

To take an example of the 'moral authority' at the university level -- we have gone way beyond the usual mob harassment and intimidation of invited speakers that we have been used to talking about, where the students harass and the university sits idly by and allows it to happen.

Instead, at UMass Amherst, University Targets Its Own Student for ‘White Supremacy’

Campus professors, administrators, and graduate student instructors publicly smeared UMass Amherst student Louis Shenker as a dangerous racist and falsely charged him with hate crimes to get him expelled from school, claiming that his “views are not the kind we want to cultivate at the University.”

In December 2018, Shenker -- a "Jewish, a conservative, an outspoken Zionist, and a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump" -- attended a protest against racism and white supremacy while wearing a MAGA cap and carrying a sign supporting Trump. He was harassed by students, who blocked him from displaying his sign, calling him a “Nazi” and a “fascist."

That is when a graduate student who teaches undergraduate students grabbed his hat and screamed curses at him. The campus police determined that Shenker was "the victim of larceny and assault and battery motivated by anti-white and anti-Jewish bias."

The university did nothing.

Then things got worse.

 

On October 13, 2019, two faculty members and an assistant dean exchanged emails formulating a harassment and defamation plan to force Louis to leave the university. In possession of the emails, Louis’s attorneys confirmed that Professor Maryann Barakso wrote, “We need to talk about Louis. He is becoming a major problem…. As you know he is Jewish, so we have to be very careful and smart in how we deal with this problem.” Professor Lauren McCarthy responded, “We’ve dealt with other problem students in the past successfully and you know nobody likes a racist so we can handle it.” [emphasis added]

In other words, as Shenker's lawyer put it in a letter to the university, "They formulated a plan to terminate Louis’s contractual relationship with the university by defaming him as a racist."

The article goes on to describe how the university staff put their premeditate plan into action:

On campus, their graduate student sympathizers disseminated hundreds of flyers depicting Louis’s face with big block letters: “ALERT! WHITE SUPREMACIST LOUIS SHENKER.” The flyer went viral on UMass-connected social media where Louis was called a Nazi and threatened with physical violence.

Beth Peller is a long-time militant activist. She proselytizes her students with stories about her past radical escapades including Occupy Oakland and writing articles from Lebanon defending Hezbollah in its 2006 war against Israel. Peller knows how to work the system. She filed a series of false charges against Louis with the municipal police, alleging that he was a white supremacist who was threatening her. These legal actions were vacated by Louis’s counsel for lack of evidence, but not before Louis spent two nights in jail.

Peller then orchestrated an online petition calling on the university administration to expel the dangerous white supremacist Shenker. Hundreds of professors from across the country, including Cornel West, Judith Butler, Mark Bray, Johnny Williams, and professors from Louis’s own university signed on to this slander.

The petition was published by the Campus Anti-Fascist Network (CAN), an Antifa-associated group founded by Stanford Professor David Palumbo-Liu, a virulently anti-Israel academic, and Purdue Professor William Mullen, who wrote “we need to de-Zionize our campuses.” Mullen claims CAN’s purpose is “to drive racists off campuses.” He asserts that his group includes a large number of students and faculty and has been endorsed by several university departments. CAN was eager to help with the malicious campaign, given that the organization’s goal is to silence anybody with whom it disagrees, especially Trump supporters and conservative speakers. [emphasis added]

Fearing for his safety, Shenker was forced to flee the campus.

One of the ominous elements of this account is how easily professors across the country -- hundreds of them -- were mobilized into attacking, slandering and endangering the life of Louis Shenker. University professors may not be noted as moral authority figures, but historically, professors and "intellectuals" are generally recognized as authority figures and historically such people are looked up to for guidance and inspiration.

Those days are apparently gone.
These days, when the media covers for violent riots as peaceful protests, it seems that anyone can lay claim to the mantle of being an "intellectual."

According to the article, one of those who signed on to the attack on Shenker was Cornel West -- a supporter of BDS who also makes excuses for Palestinian terrorism, writing that the actions of Hamas “pale in the face of the US-supported Israeli slaughter of innocent civilians.” West once accused President Obama of being “most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want.”

Another of those mentioned in the article is Judith Butler, who believes that "understanding Hamas-Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important."



Note the applause Butler receives to this comment.

This is the same Judith Butler, as Elder of Ziyon notes, who is impressed by Edward Said's thesis that

Moses, an Egyptian, is the founder of the Jewish people, which means that Judaism is not possible without this defining implication in what is Arab.’

In other words, neither Said nor Butler are aware that the early Egyptians were not Arabs.

Mark Bray is a college professor and author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Bray is a big fan of Antifa:

Bray argues that “fascism cannot be defeated through speech” and that the lessons of history suggest that Neo-Nazis and white supremacists have to be shut down before they become too powerful or normalized.

...For Bray, violence is not simply a question of kicking a fascist if a fascist kicks you but of “preemptively” shutting down “fascist organizing efforts . . . before they turn deadly.”

It is not surprising that he would jump right in to smear someone without checking the facts -- or perhaps the fact that Shenker wore a MAGA cap was all the proof he needed.

Antifa also is "anti-Zionist"

Bray said that while anti-Zionism is not a focus of antifa, many members tend to be anti-Zionist as part of their far-left activism. Anti-Racist Action groups, he said, had taken part in anti-Zionist events in the past.

[Jewish antifa member] Sieradski said, however, that Jews play a significant role in the movement because “we’re fighting Nazis and anti-Semitism is the prime ideological viewpoint of Nazis.”

The last "intellectual" mentioned above as participating in the smear attack on Shenker is Johnny Williams, who wrote an opinion piece in 2014 in the West Hartford News, Another view: Academics remaining silent about the perils of Zionism is not an option. Yes, that's right, Williams wants you to know that

In academia, most scholars shun speaking and writing about the state of Israel’s siege and wars in Palestine.

If only.

In a response, Rob Monyak writes Another view: Academics are expressing anti-Israel 'invective'

Given what has taken place in academic discourse regarding Israel in the last 20 years, I find this to be a truly outrageous contention and makes me wonder whether Mr. Williams has been living under a rock

Apparently, Williams found time to come out from under that rock to join in an attack on a student.

Monyak concludes

Mr. Williams advocates “critical and untampered public debate” and erroneously concludes that he and his cohort “unnerve people because we go beyond the commonly accepted or officially defined version of human events.” That’s not it at all. The unnerving takes place because their primary interest is not in debate, but in flinging as much populist muck as he can at Israel without regard for intellectual accuracy or conceptual clarity. [emphasis added]

Mr. Williams's attack on a student is apparently consistent with his past mudslinging.

All in all, such is the level of heroism we can expect these days from our role models in academia, as it becomes difficult to distinguish them from the unruly mobs -- with nary a word from the media.

Allan Bloom wrote about The Closing of the American Mind.

These days we may well be witnessing The Collapse of the American Mind.

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Jews: From Asiatic, Mongoloid, Slavonic, Low-Level Caucasians To Privileged White Supremacists (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

When it comes to spreading Jew-hatred, Tamika Mallory -- a disciple of Al Sharpton -- learned her lessons well. Back in 2018, she was quoted in a New York Times article, about how much she knew about those white Jews:

Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it.

Labeling Jews as "white" and accusing them of having "white privilege" has proven to be a winning strategy for Jew-haters, as protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd have devolved into riots, some of them deliberately targeting Jewish businesses and synagogues.

But as we've pointed out before, Jews Were Not Always Considered "White" In The US

In her article, Diabetes and Race: A Historical Perspective, Arleen Marcia Tuchman writes about how difficult the US government found it to pigeonhole Jewish immigrants at the turn of the century. The Dillingham Commission, a US Congressional Committee set up in 1910 to ascertain the "whiteness" of immigrant groups, apparently had their hands full with the Jews:

In the 19th century, the United States Bureau of Immigration had classified Jews as “Slavonic,” a subgroup of the elite Aryan stock. However, the Dillingham Commission took issue with this, insisting that linguistic and physical criteria, including the “Jew’s nose,” placed them among the Semites, lower down on the Caucasian ladder.

  ...extreme nativists, who were determined to end the influx of eastern European Jews into the United States [referred] to the Jews’ physical stature, moral traits, and origins as a nomadic tribe, they insisted that the Jews not be classified as Caucasian at all, but as “thoroughbred Asiatics.”...One author could not hide his disdain for the “primitive, tribal, Oriental” character of the Jews. Yet another wrote disparagingly of the “Mongoloid traits” of the Jews, which he attributed to the blood of the Mongolian Khazars allegedly coursing through the Jews’ veins.

Now at last the Jews have finally made it as full-fledged members of the white race in the US -- only to find out that now being "white" is a bad thing.

How are Jews supposed to respond to the charge of being White?

One recourse has been to point out that not all Jews are white -- a fact that is part of the complex history of the Jews.

 

Ethiopian Jews are, of course, only one example of Jews of Color.

Here is another example of a Jew of Color:

Gal Gadot. Youtube screencap

When Wonder Woman hit theaters in 2017, the Comicbook / DC site confirmed:

Yep, with a quick google search, it turns out that Gal Gadot is not actually Caucasian, but is in fact Israeli.

For proof that Gal Gadot is not "white", the article pointed its readers to a post by Dani Ishai Behan on the Times of Israel Blog, who addresses the question -- Are Jews A People of Color?

At issue is the culture of antisemitism on the "anti-racist" left:

if we are “just white people with funny hats”, then we are perforce not “really” an oppressed group, thereby enabling anti-racists to retain their credentials without having to listen to Jews or take our concerns seriously.

And by extension, labeling Ashkenazic Jews as "white," makes it that much easier to portray Israel as a  "white colonial project," based on some religious whim, taking advantage of the Arabs.

Behan responds by saying straight out that Jews -- including Ashkenazic Jews -- are People Of Color:

For one thing, we are an indigenous people of the Middle East. Our identity, our DNA, our culture, our language, and our history all attest to who we are as a people – centuries of exile doesn’t change that.

An obvious rebuttal is that the fact remains that Ashkenazic Jews are...white.
Behan's response is -- so what?

but this is fairly common among all Levantine groups, not just Jews. Moreover, fair skinned Latinos, Iranians, Pashtuns, and Native Americans aren’t exactly rare either. This is called “white passing”: the ability to blend in and escape some of the more immediate effects of non-whiteness while still suffering from the marginalization and othering that non-Jewish minorities experience. To put it another way, looking white is not the same as being white. [emphasis added]

You know, Behan may have a point.

Linda Sarsour. Youtube screencap.

In a second post, Behan writes that Ashkenazic Jews also qualify on the basis of their history for inclusion in the PoC club:

An indigenous people of the Middle East, Ashkenazi Jews were driven out of their homeland by European (and later Arab) colonists and taken as slaves to Europe where they were consistently regarded as savages, periodically massacred, and excluded from society on the grounds that they are a foreign, non-Christian, and non-European (or in the words of our European oppressors: Oriental/Asiatic) presence on European soil. [emphasis added]

The fact that today, Ashkenazic Jews are able to pass as "white," mix with them, and be accepted by them still misses the key point that Behan made before: "looking white is not the same as being white" --

having to hide one’s ethnic background just to be treated as a “normal” human being is not privilege, because white people (*actual* white people, not Jews) don’t have to do this. They don’t need to change their names, or flatten their noses, or bleach their skin, or straighten their hair, or take their kippahs off, etc. The fact that Ashkenazim, and white passing Jews in general, need to *work* just to be seen as regular people really says it all...

A perfect recent example in Winona Ryder, who spoke in an interview of her own experiences of antisemitism as an actress:

“There are times when people have said, ‘Wait, you’re Jewish? But you’re so pretty!’ There was a movie that I was up for a long time ago, it was a period piece, and the studio head, who was Jewish, said I looked ‘too Jewish’ to be in a blue-blooded family.”

True, Jews, to some extent, are able to "pass" themselves off as "white" and do not suffer from the same kind of racism as other groups. But those who exploit this difference in order to attack Jews in the US as benefiting from "white privilege" are jumping the gun -- and show a certain amount of hypocrisy as well:

All in all, we mustn’t make the mistake of assuming Jews enjoy “white privilege” just because our experiences are not symmetrical with those of African-Americans or Hispanics, as to do so would be unreasonable, fallacious, and hypocritical (again, no other ethnic minority is held to this standard). Anti-Jewish racism looks different because the stereotypes are different. In other words, we are not viewed by society as “uneducated thugs”, but as “dishonest”, “conniving”, “clannish”, and “bloodthirsty” mongrels who control everything behind the scenes, and these racist tropes play out in the way we are treated in this country. [emphasis added]

Those who will argue that the economic success of Jews is proof of their "white privilege" are willfully blind to history. There was a time that Jews enjoyed that same level of economic success in Germany and France -- and we all know how fleeting and impermanent that turned out to be.

 

Bottom line, those elements that combine to make a Jew an Ashkenazic Jew make him non-white as well:

Inasmuch as a group’s non-whiteness is contingent on their history, experiences, heritage, and relationship with the concept of “white” as defined by its pioneers, Ashkenazim certainly do qualify as a non-white people.

If other people from the Middle East are considered to be "people of color" -- regardless of their appearance, then the same must go for Jews as well, and the length of time that Jews have been displaced from their home in the Middle East does not make one bit of difference -- "Centuries of displacement from our land does not change this fact, and alleging otherwise is a form of erasure and antisemitism."

Yet, of all ethnic groups, it is the Jews who continue to be begrudged their Middle Eastern roots on account of the color of their skin.

Now that's creepy.

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The Changing Face of Black Antisemitism (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

When you have the Internet, who needs encyclopedias?

If nothing else, encyclopedias do offer a snapshot of the times in which they were published and the attitudes that were prevalent at the time.

Take the Encyclopedia Judaica, for example -- published in 1971.

The article on Anti-Semitism, describes the post-WWII period in the US, when there were relatively few openly antisemitic conflicts. However:

Some social anti-Semitism does remain, for, as repeated studies have shown, the Jews are the only white group in the United States for whom social rank is consistently lower than economic status. [3:136]

According to the article, tensions existed between the Jewish and Black communities. At the time, Jews -- being generally the last occupants in Black neighborhoods at the time -- were visible as landlords and storekeepers, giving rise to tensions. On the other hand, Jews were among the leading proponents of integration and were a major source of the money and power behind the movement for equal rights for Black Americans, which itself was a cause of resentment for those who wanted to see the revolution as their own.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (with beard) in front row of civil rights march with Martin Luther King Jr. (Fair Use)

Nevertheless,

Whatever the future may hold for anti-Semitism in America, its present temper is such that it is generally regarded as a minor problem.

Oh for the good old days.

That piece was contributed to the encyclopedia by Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, who at the time was the Associate Adjunct Professor of History at Columbia University. Two years earlier, in 1969, he wrote his popular book, The Zionist Idea, so it is not surprising that he also contributed to the EJ article on Zionism.

What is interesting is that there too he mentions the developing tensions between the Jewish and Black communities, leading to "confrontation in the name of group identity and group interests." Hertzberg writes that

Within such an atmosphere many Jews were pushed toward identification with the specific interests of the Jewish community and its own peculiar destiny. The alternative for some of the young who had cut their teeth politically in the black movement, was to come to Israel. [16:1063]

There is a certain irony that today, this time around, Jewish identity is weakening and along with that there is a growing division between American Jews and Israel. In contrast to the 1970's, today there are fringe groups identifying themselves as Jewish, who openly attack Israel.

The tension between the Black and Jewish communities was serious enough to warrant a separate entry in the EJ under "Negro-Jewish Relations in the U.S.," explaining that

It was argued that black anti-Semitism was essentially anti-whitism, based on real situations in which a Jew often was the only white in the black neighborhood -- as shop owner, landlord, social worker, teacher.

But these days, Jew-hatred has moved beyond "anti-whitism," as Jews are apparently deserving of attack all on their own -- with flyers being passed around such as this one:

and this one

In the first flyer, some of the data is misquoted from the Jerusalem Post article, while some of it does not come from the article at all.

And why doesn't the flyer just come right out and say they want to institute racial quotas in colleges instead of basing college acceptance on qualifications?

In the second flyer, the reference to usury is gratuitous and clearly intended to stoke Jew-hatred, considering that money lending has nothing to do with how these billionaires made their fortunes.

In addition, the suggestion that at the time -- in 2013 -- half of all billionaires were Jewish is debunked by later articles by Forbes, which in 2016 listed 540 billionaires in the US and in a separate article in 2018 listed 106 US billionaires as being Jewish -- which comes out to 19.6% instead of 48%.

There was a time that the tension between the Black and Jewish communities could be attributed to Jews being the 'face' of "white Americans" in the Black neighborhoods themselves.

Today, under the banner of "Black Lives Matter," there is an attempt to single out Jews who have achieved success either academically or financially beyond what BLM deems acceptable.

These days, intersectionality is in, but the Black community -- at least as far as Black Lives Matter is concerned -- has no interest this time around in allying itself with the Jewish community.

At a time that the 'cancel culture' has not only caused statues to be torn down but people to lose their jobs, the attacks on Jews being carried out in the name of "Black Lives Matter" are a serious threat that adds to the already rising tide of antisemitism and the physical attacks on Jews living in the US.

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Today, Will The King Of Jordan Finally Be Challenged on Protecting Terrorist Ahlam Tamimi? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

 

 

The Associated Press reports that today, King Abdullah II of Jordan is scheduled to speak with Congressional committees, via video, about his opposition to Israel extending Israeli law to parts of the "West Bank."

But there are reports that the discussion between the king and Congress is likely to cover a topic even more controversial than that.

At issue is the extradition of Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, who masterminded the 2001 Sbarro massacre in Israel, which killed 7 children from the ages of 2 to 16 years old. As part of a deal for the release of hostage Gilad Shalit, Hamas demanded that Tamimi be included among the over 1,000 terrorists freed.

Israel acquiesced to the ransom demand.

Tamimi ended up in Jordan, where she was not only welcomed with open arms -- she became a celebrity and had her own TV show for a number of years.

But 2 of the people Tamimi killed were American citizens, and in 2013 she was indicted in the US on the charge of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against American nationals. Despite the fact that there is an extradition treaty between the US and Jordan, and that in 1995 it was used to extradite Jordanian national Eyad Ismoil to the US for his part in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center -- Jordan has refused to extradite, and has questioned the validity of the treaty itself.

Pressure has been steadily building as Jordan's refusal has been covered in the media and members of Congress have begun asking questions.

Today may be the day that King Abdullah can no longer avoid facing the issue of extradition.

And there are indications that the US may be backing up their request with a threat.

Henry Wooster is Trump's nominee to be the next US ambassador to Jordan. While being questioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during confirmation hearings, Wooster responded to a question by Senator Ted Cruz on what leverage is available for getting Jordan to extradite Tamimi:

The United States has multiple options and different types of leverage to secure Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi’s extradition. We will continue to engage Jordanian officials at all levels not only on this issue, but also on the extradition treaty more broadly. U.S. generosity to Jordan in Foreign Military Financing as well as economic support and other assistance is carefully calibrated to protect and advance the range of U.S. interests in Jordan and in the region...If confirmed, I would explore all options to bring Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi to justice, secure her extradition, and address the broader issues associated with the extradition treaty.”

Henry Wooster. (Public Domain)

Wooster’s responses to the questions were obtained by The Associated Press.

The AP's Matt Lee notes that Wooster's comments are in contrast to US policy up to this point, which has been to try to address these issues with Jordan quietly, behind the scenes, and avoid making this disagreement public.

It is because Wooster spoke so openly about this, that there are expectations that King Abdullah will be asked directly about Tamimi today.

Wooster himself is currently the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Maghreb and Egypt and has served also as the Deputy Chief of Mission, and then Charge d’Affaires, at the U.S. Embassy, Amman, Jordan -- so he appreciates the delicacy of the situation.

In his opening statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before taking questions, there is no reference to the US taking a strong stand against Jordan on the extradition issue. Wooster toes the public line, quoting Secretary of State Pompeo that “Jordan is one of the United States’ enduring strategic partners,” and emphasizing the US priority to ensure Jordan's security and stability. Wooster goes so far as to say that Jordan has been "an invaluable ally in our joint work to counter terrorism, support international peacekeeping, and provide humanitarian assistance throughout the region."

Keep in mind that Wooster's opening statement was made on May 13 -- over a month ago. The questions posed to Wooster and his responses should have all taken place last month. And while his opening statement appears on the websites of the US embassy in Jordan, Roya News in Jordan and Jordan Daily -- none of them have the followup questions or answers, though Roya News quotes from the AP article, without any official government response.

So why are Wooster's responses appearing now, a month later?

The timing implies there may have been a leak to the Associated Press, at a time when Wooster's answers will have the most impact.

It looks like things may be getting interesting.

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France once again a hotspot for antisemitism in Europe (Daled Amos)

by Daled Amos

Protests against police brutality are not limited to Minnesota -- nor to the US, for that matter. This past Saturday, there was a “Justice for Adama” rally in Paris. Adama Traore was a black man who died while in police custody in Paris in 2016. His death continues to fuel protests of what is perceived as police racism and brutality, especially after the 3 officers who detained him were cleared of wrongdoing. There were multiple reviews carried out -- and the last one was just last month, on May 29, a few days after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis. But just as the protests that have spread across the US have been exploited to incite antisemitism, the same happened during the Paris protest as well. And these protests are all supposed to be anti-racist. Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, tweeted a video of the protesters in Paris yelling "Dirty Jews"

 

Anti-racism protesters in Paris today shout "Dirty Jews!" pic.twitter.com/APQCep0da0

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) June 13, 2020

Nor did the attack on Jews appear to be completely spontaneous

Back in 2004, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged French Jews to immediately leave France and make Aliyah to Israel in order to escape "the wildest anti-Semitism." Just how bad was it?

According to the French interior ministry, in the first 6 months of 2004 alone there were 510 attacks or threats against Jews -- compared with 593 in all of the previous year. While that number has fluctuated since then, and at times has gone down, the number went up again in 2019. The Associated Press reported in the beginning of this year on the increased number of acts last year against Jews in France:

A total of 687 anti-Semitic acts were counted in 2019, compared to 541 the previous year. The account by the interior ministry showed that 151 of the acts were of the most severe category, “actions,” meaning attacks on people or their possessions, theft or physical acts. There were 536 threats.

That is an increase of 27%. More recently, Netanyahu also called for Aliyah -- this time by European Jews in 2015, following an attack by a lone gunman on a synagogue in Copenhagen. Netanyahu went Sharon one better. His Cabinet approved a plan for $46 million to be used for encouraging immigration and helping Jews from France, Belgium and Ukraine go through the immigration process:

“Of course, Jews deserve protection in every country but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your home,” Netanyahu said. “We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe. I would like to tell all European Jews and all Jews wherever they are: Israel is the home of every Jew. … To the Jews of Europe and to the Jews of the world I say that Israel is waiting for you with open arms.”

At the time, not only did French officials take offense at Sharon's comments, but also Jewish leaders in France said that Sharon should have stayed quiet. They likely did not appreciate being put on the spot and having attention drawn to their situation. Just as French Jews were not happy with Sharon's comment, the response to Netanyahu's offer also drew criticism. Denmark's chief rabbi responded: “Terror is not a reason to move to Israel," (?) and Great Britain's former Middle East envoy, Lord Levy, said in an interview:

Look at the incidence of terror in Israel and I think it's a gross exaggeration to say that it is the only safe place for Jews.

But if the increase in antisemitism becomes more clearly a left-wing phenomenon and not associated only with white supremacists and other right-wing groups, will attitudes to Aliyah then change? The right-wing and left-wing are viewed very differently:

Left-wing antisemitism not only continues under the radar, unchallenged, it also makes the rounds with a certain level of acceptability. We may find out just how acceptable is it as we work our way to the November elections.

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Palestinians are apathetic–and some supportive!–of “annexation” (Daled Amos)

 

It is not completely clear that Netanyahu in fact will be extending Israeli law over sections of Judea and Samaria come July 1st. The voices coming out against the idea are coming out louder and in increasing numbers. Some of those opposed are from the right-wing in Israel as well. But what about the Palestinian Arabs? Are all of them opposed to the idea? The Algemeiner reports that Some Palestinians Voice Enthusiasm About Potential West Bank Annexation by Israel

While Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are warning of a wave of violence in response to the possible annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel, at least a few Palestinians on the ground appear to be unconcerned.

The article itself is based on a report by Channel 13 (Hebrew). The report notes that unlike the days of Arafat, when the Arabs followed what Arafat declared to be the will of the people -- willingly or unwillingly -- things are very different with Abbas in charge:

When the Palestinian Authority wanted to clear the area, the citizens wanted work permits in Israel. When the United States moved the embassy to Jerusalem, the Palestinians promised a wave of violence and the public chose not to take to the streets. Now, for annexation, this abyss is as wide and big as it never has been. [Google Translate]

The quotes in the Channel 13 article epitomize this abyss.

"I am from the village of Jeba. I want the villagers to be happy. They are subject to the authority today and they want Netanyahu and no one else, they want an Israeli identity card." "It is better than a million times for Israel to be responsible for the entire territory. We are prepared to be under Israel's military shoes and not under Abu Mazen's head." "I do not want a state - I want money. Money is better than a state. All the Palestinian people want it. The authority has looted us and destroyed us."

This account, of a minimal reaction to the extension of Israeli sovereignty, is echoed in an article in Haaretz earlier this week, Palestinian Leadership Struggling to Rally Public Against Israeli Annexation:

On Monday, at the height of the blitz of interviews, Palestinian factions organized a demonstration in Manara Square in Ramallah against Israel’s plans to annex territories of the West Bank. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party and the Palestinian security forces had been asked to recruit people to attend the demonstration, but even these two powerful organizations were unable to whip up public enthusiasm to turn out. Barely 200 people showed up at the square. [emphasis added]

Even the usual spots where the media can usually rely on for getting a story on conflicts between Israel and the Arabs are disappointing:

On Tuesday, news photographers who had their fill of two hours of speeches at Manara Square turned their attention to the nearby Beit El checkpoint, which is known to be an area of friction where clashes can quickly develop between young Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, but no one cared to show up there either. “There isn’t even one picture to take,” one photographer groused. [emphasis added]

Times really are tough. Whether the lack of reaction is in response to the growing dissatisfaction with Abbas, lack of interest in Israel's proposed policy or even acceptance of the proposal -- the signs are there that the expected anger from the "Arab street" in the "West Bank" just is not there:

“It’s not that Palestinians have forgone their dream of self-determination, independence and liberation and the end of the occupation. It’s just that Palestinians have gotten to a situation in which they no longer believe in anyone,” a longtime Fatah member remarked. “The disconnect between the leadership and the public is worsening, and what happened at Manara is a symptom of it.” [emphasis added]

That is according to Fatah. But go ahead and combine the quotes from the Channel 13 article, with a recent poll indicating the shrinking identification of Arabs in the territories as "Palestinian," where the percentage of Arabs identifying as "Palestinian" has gone down:

o  14.6% in 2017 (Shaharit) o  14% in 2019 (972 Magazine) o  7% in 2020 (Jewish People Policy Institute)

Do that, and it may be that the claims made by Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in their fear of 'normalization' are reflective of an increasingly minority view.

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