01/12 Links Pt2: ADL: Number of Americans believing antisemitic stereotypes nearly doubled since 2019; Jews who defend antisemites

From Ian:

Karol Markowicz: The New Jew

The New Jew remembers the Taffy Brodesser-Akner piece about how support for Israel is no longer in fashion on the left, how “we whispered to each other that it felt like the anti-Israel sentiment was actually a new way of being openly anti-Semitic, somehow wrapping it up in a Democratic cause” and how that piece made him sad. Today it would make him angry. How dare the mealy-mouthed left question the existence of the only Jewish state? We're done explaining anything to anyone anymore.

When someone is found to be a Jew-hater (a term far preferable to the clunky “antisemite”) he thinks “please, just don’t take them to the Holocaust museum.” Having to prove our humanity to people who hate us is embarrassing and the New Jew refuses to do it. We are not here to beg “please don’t hate us” and show them how much we have been hated by others. We’re here to say we mean “Never Again.” We’re here to boo when you think we won’t have guns to protect ourselves.

Her favorite Jewish organization is Tikvah because they didn’t flinch when the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan demanded they disinvite Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from their Jewish Leadership Conference. The boldness was appealing. The event went on, the protestors impotently raged outside, and the Jews inside got to say: we invite who we want.

The New Jew furtively discusses admiration for Bari Weiss if she’s at the beginning of her journey away from the left and brazenly Ben Shapiro if she’s exited the building.

Religiously, the New Jew is either Orthodox or shul-less. She noticed that Reform and Conservative synagogues stayed closed for too long during Covid and when they re-emerged they were temples to leftism not G-d. She fills in her worship at Chabad, because they’ll never turn Shabbat into a struggle session, but it’s not an exact fit. The shuls will get there. They’ll have to. Their empty pews will be their signal.

She has broken with Facebook or Instagram friends who said vile things about Israel while Jews hid from bombs in basements in Tel Aviv. He has looked at his family, or dreamed about the one he hopes to have, and said "Not us. Not ever."

He discovers there are many others like him, so many others, and they’re welcoming and accepting as we all navigate together being independent Jews in the freest of countries.

The gun booing was telling because it wasn't about quietly owning a firearm. It was about letting others know that you do. It was about standing up for that right, standing up against the idea that our people will always be sitting ducks. We will not be.

A real political realignment to accompany this shift is coming. It is not here yet. One issue, like support for Israel, often leads to change on other issues, like gun rights. One little time you pull out a thread and where has it led? The whole shawl of Jews-always-being-liberals unravels.

Israel is an imperfect example but it's still instructive. Israel was once a left-leaning country. It is not today. The shift runs parallel to what is happening with Jews in America. Leftism rewards victimhood and the New Jews have decided to be victims no more.

Melanie Phillips: An ancient spoon stirs American mischief against Israel

So why is the U.S., which claims to be Israel’s staunch ally, giving credence to a false Palestinian identity created to write the Jews out of their own history?

The Biden administration’s sympathy with the Palestinians is well documented. It has persistently refused to call them to account for their murderous aggression and incitement. It continues to fund them regardless of their “pay-for-slay” rewards to terrorists’ families. It forces Israel to undermine its own security in pursuit of a “two-state solution” that the Palestinian Arabs have refused for almost a century.

In creating a new role of special envoy to the Palestinians, for which it appointed a man with a record of profound hostility to Israel, Hady Amr, the administration upgraded the Palestinians’ status by giving them direct and public access to the U.S. government. It has also appointed other profound enemies of Israel to several prominent positions within the administration.

But what the Assyrian spoon transfer reveals is that the Palestinian Big Lie is being promoted as truth by none other than the Department of Homeland Security, which was created after 9/11 to protect America against terrorist attacks.

Far from being a key link in the chain of Western security, the DHS has internalized the fiction about Palestinian identity that is promoted as a principal weapon in the war of extermination against Israel—and is in turn the flag behind which march the Islamist foes of the West.

Noll said of the spoon transfer, “This is a historic moment between the American and Palestinian people and a demonstration of our belief in the power of cultural exchanges in building mutual understanding, respect and partnership.”

It was certainly a historic moment. What it demonstrated, however, was that the Biden administration is a far more profound foe of Israel and the Jews than most people have yet realized.

Zionism is more than just a viewpoint and passion - opinion

ZIONISM INSPIRES the Jewish people to this day, through heroes like the Maccabees, who fought for freedom in ancient Israel. It is what triggers mourning for the destruction of the Jewish temples in Jerusalem thousands of years ago.

Zionism is what powers the Jewish people’s ancient connection to the land of Israel, which is constantly reinforced by new archaeological findings. These discoveries date back to the times of King David, whose own Zionism led to him declaring Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish nation, uniting that nation once again.

Zionism is what has accompanied the Jewish people through centuries of exile, crusades, conquerors, pogroms, persecution and the Holocaust.

Zionism is all the above and more. It is such a core element of the Jewish people that it is part of our religion, our oral and written history, our traditions and our national memory. It is an inherent part of our sense of peoplehood. Regardless of whether we live in Israel or not, or agree with the current Israeli government or not, Zionism is part of who we are.

While these clubs and others claim that their only goal is to boycott Zionists, the outcome of their actions is excluding and silencing Jews and Jewish voices on campus. An outcome that, if not confronted, could expand well beyond the halls of UC Berkeley.

These attempts to portray Zionism as merely a viewpoint are a transparent backdoor to excuse antisemitism - a backdoor that must be nailed shut. The way, to do so is to show the OCR and the world that Zionism is an intricate part of the Jewish people, their identity and their shared ancestry. Zionism must be recognized for what it is: an integral part of Jewish Identity not only by the OCR in its investigation but the wider public.

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A fun Twitter thread with a human rights "expert" trying to defend Ken Roth

Sunjeev Bery is the Executive Director at an NGO called Freedom Forward. He was advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at Amnesty International USA from 2011-2017. he's been interviewed on TV as some sort of expert.

For the past few days, Bery has been tirelessly tweeting his support for Ken Roth in the Kennedy School story - and going after Roth's critics.

Including me.

Which makes for some very entertaining reading.

Roth tweeted, "Harvard's Kennedy School says it 'welcomes new ideas—even unpopular and controversial ones." Its curriculum "encourages students and faculty to talk openly and effectively about difficult and highly charged issues.' Except for Israel, Dean Elmendorf?"

I responded to Roth, "Perhaps @Harvard @Kennedy_School has a policy against hiring obsessive liars? In 2014 I compiled a list of Ken Roth's Twitter lies over just a few months, and documented why they were wrong. He of course never corrected [any of] them. See for yourself," linking to a list of dozens of lies and distortions that Roth tweeted during and after the 2014 Gaza war.

Sunjeev Bery was very upset, apparently, at the tone of my list. "I started reading your "document" @elderofziyon, and it became clear within 10 seconds that it's a flimsy prop that enables you to just claim that people are liars. You are selling something that is far less than it actually is and using it for propaganda purposes."

Not knowing (or caring) who he was, I answered, "You are invited to tell me where I am wrong."

Instead of doing that, Bery wrote, "Many of the statements you make in your documents are simply claims and represent your beliefs. You seem to be adopting the posture that your claims are The Truth, and that those you disagree with are The Liars. Your intent is propagandistic."

Ah, so it isn't my facts - but my intent - that offends him. Good to know that human rights professionals are as little interested in the truth on Twitter as they are when they write their reports.

Then he hit me with what he considered his real zinger - which he used on other critics of Roth on the thread. "But here's the real question that tests your intentions: What are YOUR human rights criticisms of israel?"

It was already clear now that he was playing a game and had no interest in any semblance of truth, so I said I was done with the conversation: "So you cannot find a single example where Roth was correct and I was wrong.  Out of several dozen.  And then you want to accuse me of being disingenuous? Bye."

But this human rights professional brought out his inner teenage troll and kept trying to goad me. "Nice try buddy. Again @elderofziyon, what are YOUR criticisms of Israel?." I ignored him. 

Another tweeter answered him, "He asked you a question in direct response to your criticism and you still didn’t answer.  You should answer his question before you move on."

Bery answered him or her, "Wrong, buddy. If he can't say anything critical of Israel then he is ultimately a propagandist and a pro-government partisan arguing in bad faith."

I gave in and finally responded:

I'm not here for your amusement.  I don't pretend to be anything but a pro-Israel site; I provide a tiny bit of counterweight to the tsunami of anti-Israel information out there. I am not a newspaper that pretends to be balanced. That being said, I strive to be 100% truthful.

To me, "bad faith" is accusing me of something and not being able to back it up, and instead changing the subject. THAT is a propaganda technique that the anti-Israel crowd does all the time; reframing the conversation instead of admitting mistakes. 

I don't play those games.

After repeating himself for some reason, he gave me his one example of where my criticism of Roth was off-base to him with this screenshot:

By your own admission, you say that Ken Roth uses "the best available data" but because he doesn't include the caveats, you claim he is lying.

This is a totally bad faith argument on your part, and it is one of many many such examples in the document.

And so your overall document @elderofziyon lacks the substantive content necessary to justify your overall claim. 

My reaction to the content of your document is that it serves the purpose of creating a propagandistic and misleading headline.

 That is why I ask if you have any criticisms of Israel's policies that you are willing to state here publicly?

This is the test for differentiating an honest critic from a propagandist. A propagandist promotes a government and avoids mentioning any criticism whatsoever.

OK, at least he said something specific, even if it made no sense. I responded:

My 2014 article says "dozens of them were flat-out false, and others were knowingly deceptive." Your example is one of the deceptive ones - Roth stated the statistics AS FACT without saying "reportedly" or any other word newspapers would use.

Of course, he never corrected.

To defend that, and to cherry pick that out of all my examples that show how Roth DID lie multiple times, shows that YOU are the one who is being a propagandist. Is this the standard you accept for a human rights leader you have defended so energetically?  That's pretty sad.

Bery:

No, I pointed out one example of many lies within your document in response to your request. There are many more examples of similar exaggerations.

But once again, you have failed to answer my question:

What are YOUR criticisms of Israeli policies?

The answer seems to be none.

Obviously he did not point out a single mistake or lie of mine. But I decided to answer his main question:

I defend my family publicly. I criticize them privately.

Everyone has biases. Every media outlet does, too.  I admit mine -and the goal of my writings - upfront. Call it propaganda if you want, but I insist on honesty and transparency - which is much more than most media.

To Bery, this was the smoking gun! After a rehash of earlier arguments, he wrote, "Here's the reality, @elderofziyon.  You are self-admittedly engaging in pro-Israel propaganda. You clearly state that you avoid making any public criticism of Israel, and that your only public comments on Israel are to defend its policies. "

Uh, yeah. 

Yes. It is no secret. Wikipedia calls me a pro-Israel blogger. Not sure why that bothers you. 

Ken Roth is also a propagandist, as I proved. But he insists there is no bias, which I have comprehensively shown he has. 

And you are cool with that.

Bery's response to this graphic is priceless:

I bet many of Ken Roth's tweets regarding Israel are because he feels pressure to respond to propaganda accounts like yours constantly flooding Twitter with false claims.

So the only reason Roth treats Israel like the worst violator of war crimes is because people like me bother him!

Only then did I look Sunjeev up - and propaganda is his middle name. 

Pot, meet kettle.

Sunjeev worked at Amnesty USA during the 2014 Gaza war. AI-USA said that Amnesty would correct any errors in their "Gaza Platform." I pointed out SCORES of them, calling terrorists "civilian." They ignored it.

Who is a propagandist?

His hilarious response was to paste my tweet where I admitted that I am a pro-Israel blogger. So damning!

Then I noticed that this "human rights professional" "Liked" a tweet that was pretty much at his maturity level:

So....it is propaganda when I defend one side, but it is perfectly OK to pretend to be an objective head of an NGO while "Like"ing tweets that say  "Zionists love smelling their own farts"?

Bery then fell apart - yet defended it!

1. Zionists and Jews are not the same thing. It is anti-Semitic to conflate the two.

2. There are Christian and Hindu zionists. There are Jewish anti-zionists.

3. You are part of an organized troll strategy of amplifying your propaganda tweets, which I do liken to flatulence.

The guy who was trolling me for hours says I'm the troll!

I responded with my own numbered list:

1. Your Like proves that you are not the least bit objective. Just like your hero Roth.

2. If you don't know what objectivity means, then your defending Roth as objective is far funnier than a fart joke.

3. I wrote a book describing how today's anti-Zionism is a modern form of antisemitism.

4. This thread has proven to any observer that you have zero intellectual honesty.

He then said that I didn't answer him, presumably his non-sequitur that Zionists and Jews aren't the same: "Once again, you didn't respond to anything that I said. But that's cool. Keep up the propaganda! 👍 Your audiences are getting smaller and smaller 😊"

So I finished him and the thread off:

I never once claimed that Jews and Zionists are the same.  Your reading comprehension is about the same level as your objectivity. 

This thread will make a great post, though. Making a fool of a supposed human rights expert to the entire world is always fun!

His final response after bring proven a hypocrite with not the slightest interest in truth?

 The troll couldn't handle being made a fool of.

But the most bizarre part is that while it is obvious that he said nothing at all to contradict a single one of my facts, ... he thinks he won!

Bery's entire argument is that to have any credibility, every Zionist must criticize Israel publicly and constantly. Obviously, he has no similar criteria insisting on "balance"  for the anti-Israel zealots he admires and quotes.

I'm actually complimented that he keeps calling my writings "propaganda." Here is his response to the 2009 NYT op-ed by Robert Bernstein decrying how the organization he founded, Human Rights Watch, had gone off the rails by going after democracies like Israel that have checks and balances and downplaying the evil of the real human rights violators of the world:

I'll gladly share the insult with a true human rights giant.

The NGO Bery currently heads, "Freedom Forward," says it "seeks a world in which all people have the benefit of living in societies that are anchored in democracy and respect for human rights."  It doesn't appear to actually do anything besides create "campaigns" against Israel and US Arab allies.

I wonder who funds it. The site is not very transparent about that. 

Bery himself seems to have a soft spot for that bastion of democracy and human rights, Turkey. 

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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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Someone complained about one of my @KenRoth tweets to Twitter in Germany (update)

Ken Roth, formerly of Human Rights Watch, has been having a meltdown lately. 

Over the summer, Harvard's Kennedy School did not offer him a fellowship, reportedly because rich Zionists who fund the school didn't like his record of crazed anti-Israel tweets and reports.

We have no information about whether this is really the reason. But Roth is pushing that narrative as mentioned in the original Nation article about this non-story.

 As a propagandist, Roth waited until he could get media coverage for the insult to his vaunted expertise and now he is tweeting about the supposed loss of "academic freedom" that this represents - now that he has found another fellowship at another Ivy League school.

He's been tweeting constantly about this.

Anyway, I responded to one of his tweets where he demeaned anyone who called out his anti-Israel obsession as a form of antisemitism:

So Roth, or one of his German fans, tried to show how much they care about freedom of speech by reporting me to Twitter!

I received an email:

Hello,

Twitter is required by German law to provide notice to users who are reported by people from Germany via the Network Enforcement Act reporting flow.

We have received a complaint regarding your account, elderofziyon, for the following content:

Reported Tweet

@KenRoth We're not idiots, Ken. We know what human rights advocacy looks like. We know what "criticism of Israel" looks like. And we know what antisemitism looks like.

Your obsessive hate for Israel (and even now, blaming rich Jews for not getting the Harvard gig) is antisemitism.

We have investigated the reported content and have found that it is not subject to removal under the Twitter Rules (https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311) or German law.

Sincerely,

Twitter ------------------------------------------------------

Roth would post every single time someone complained to Twitter about one of his tweets, pretending he is a champion of free speech and evil Zionists were trying to silence him. (Even though Human Rights Watch under him banned me from their Twitter feed!)

So....who is trying to silence me, and does Roth support them?

UPDATE: They complained about a second tweet of mine! 

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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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An analysis of Ken Roth's tweets prove his anti-Israel obsession and lack of credibility as a human rights expert

On Thursday I wrote about The Nation article claiming that Ken Roth, formerly head of Human Rights Watch, was unfairly passed over for a position at Harvard Kennedy School because of powerful Jews who didn't like his being a critic of Israel.

The argument, as I showed then, was absurd. Even according to the article, "Roth’s tweets on Israel were of particular concern." 

Since then, the "progressive" crowd has been amplifying The Nation story - and its subtle antisemitic trope of rich Jews who try to control free speech - with no skepticism. Roth has also been tweeting the story. 

So while I had looked previously at Roth's anti-Israel tweets many times and identified lots of bias and lies, I decided to do a survey of his tweets in 2021, the year before his Harvard rejection, to objectively prove that he has an anti-Israel obsession.

I looked at every tweet of Roth's that used the phrase "war crime" or "war crimes" during the year and counted which countries he was referring to. Some tweets referred to more than one country or entity - for example, Syria and Russia both bombing civilians in Syria - and I would count tweets like that for both countries.

The results are stunning. 

In 2021, Roth associated Israel of war crimes 65 times, more than triple any other country or organization.

The only reason Hamas and the PA are in second place is because of his Israel obsession as well - he usually mentioned "war crimes by both sides" when talking about Hamas rockets during the May Gaza war, but most of his tweets about Israel mentioned only Israel. 

Is Israel 10 times worse than Russia? Six times worse than Syria? And infinitely worse than North Korea, who didn't get accused of war crimes once?

This is not "criticism of Israel." This is obsessive, psychotic hate, which is part of a consistent pattern we've seen over years of his tweets. And his 2021 tweets were even more obsessive over Israel than his 2020 tweets were. 

In that year, 2021, Roth tweeted real antisemitism as well, by blaming British antisemitism on Jews rather than on the attackers. And shortly afterwards implied that American Jews who were upset about Ben and Jerry's anti-Israel moves were acting on behalf of the Israeli government - the age-old dual loyalty trope that is a sure sign of antisemitism. 

But the sheer number of anti-Israel tweets, and scores of flatly false accusations of war crimes (neither settlements nor Israeli actions in Gaza are illegal, let alone war crimes), prove without a doubt that Roth has no credibility.

I have plenty of other evidence that Human Rights Watch under Roth was also obsessed with Israel - but the tweets are his own words, from his own keyboard, and these statistics cannot be denied. Roth has a crazed obsession with demonizing Israel. The numbers don't lie, and anyone can reproduce my research. 

Harvard did the right thing. 

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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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11/21 Links Pt2: Why is the religious left taking sides against Israel?; 1,000 Israeli Students Call on Harvard Crimson to Move Office from "Stolen Lands"

From Ian:

Why is the religious left taking sides against Israel?

For the old religious and evangelical left, Israel often represents Western Civilization, colonialism, and imperialism. For aging denizens of Liberation Theology, the Palestinian cause offers the narrative of a Third World people oppressed by First World wealth, technology, and cultural superiority. Israel is an ally of the United States, and from the religious left’s perspective, is an unwelcome extension of American (and British) power into the Mideast. The Palestinians, from that view, are victims of the American imperium, meriting special advocacy by concerned justice-minded American Christians.

The religious left’s animus towards Israel leads to often absurd contradictions and double standards.

Evangelical leftists relate to this narrative, often informed by their own neo-Anabaptist perspective, which is pacifist and anti-empire. Israel of course has by necessity a significant military force, much of it made possible through American aid. This rankles neo-Anabaptists who think anti-violence is the gospel’s chief theme. There is another sometimes-underlying concern for neo-Anabaptists. They are discomfited by ancient biblical Israel, with its divinely ordained kings, warrior heroes, armies, and military victories, all of which defy the neo-Anabaptist stress on God as supremely peaceful. If only unconsciously, they are inclined towards a form of Marcionism, the early church heresy that minimized the canonical authority of the Old Testament. This discomfort with the Hebrew scriptures facilitates unease with modern Israel.

The religious left’s animus towards Israel leads to often absurd contradictions and double standards, especially for a denomination like the PCUSA. It and the other mainline Protestant bodies have countless statements condemning Israel for ostensibly oppressing the Palestinians among other depredations. But they are largely silent about human rights abuses so prevalent among Israel’s Arab neighbors, including the Palestinian Authority, not to mention countless repressive regimes around the world. They ignored Hamas’s July rocket attacks on Israel. A 2011 PCUSA report affirmed calls for democracy during the Arab Spring, but such calls are rare, and it naturally focused on criticizing U.S. Mideast policy.

The PCUSA General Assembly in July did condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But it devoted more verbiage to the United States and NATO having “flooded Ukraine with lethal weapons,” enriching “war profiteers—at the expense of the taxpayers, the poor and the planet,” guided by “powerful geopolitical and financial interests.” It also derided sanctions against Russia and lamented the cost to “planetary survival and social justice.”

The Religious Left descends from the Social Gospel, later radicalized by Liberation Theology. It disdains capitalism, bourgeois democracy, America, Western Civilization, and human rights regarding speech, religion, and property. But its hostility to Israel is especially pernicious, not just for its double standards, but also for its underlying disregard for a people who have been among the world’s most tormented.

Modern Israel arose from the ashes of the Holocaust. From the beginning, Israel has had to fight for its very existence. Christians should understand that opposition to Israel as a Jewish state is opposition to Israel as a nation.

John-Paul Pagano: First Principles

Antisemitism is different from most other forms of racism. In order to combat it, we need to understand what is a conspiracy theory.

It's customary to hear well-meaning people intone something along these lines: "Antisemitism and anti-black racism are part of the same fight.” In a basic sense, this is true: they are both odious forms of hatred that endanger people and corrode society. Diminishing them as much as possible is part of the same overarching defense of our civic health.

But it’s a platitude that papers over essential differences between two opposite forms of racism. Few human phenomena can be described with an algorithm. There are always ambiguities and exceptions. Nevertheless, it’s heuristically valid to arrange racism into two categories: a caste-oriented, “down-punching” form and a conspiracist, “up-punching” form.

By and large, anti-black racism constructs an underclass that the racist regards as inferior, to be segregated, plundered, and exploited. In the main, Antisemitism views the Jews as a preternaturally powerful, evil elite that plunders and exploits the Antisemite—and the broader society he seeks to awaken to the struggle. In the ugliest of ironies, however much he rails about Jewish degeneracy, the Antisemite invests the Jews with traits and abilities that make them seem diabolically superior.

Jonathan Tobin: The ADL is waging war on free speech, not on Trump or Twitter

Yet the ADL has shown a dangerous propensity for Internet censorship—an authoritarian impulse that it usually veils behind a desire to quell the rising tide of antisemitism. Its consultations with the PayPal online payment system, for instance, were geared toward demonetizing anyone, not just far-right extremists, whose opinions were out of favor with the left.

The attempt to sink Twitter by persuading advertisers and users to exit it goes beyond those efforts to harness Big Tech clout to enforce woke orthodoxy on the Web.

What the ADL is now demanding is to set a standard by which no social-media platform or Internet service can survive if it enables conservatives to participate on an equal footing with liberals.

Censored or uncensored, Twitter—or any similar company—will always be something of a sewer, as it prizes angry discourse and discourages thoughtful exchanges. But if the ADL and others succeed, a precedent will be set to ensure that no platform encouraging debate from both ends of the spectrum can survive.

The consequence of the above—such as the Biden administration’s use of social- media companies to squelch COVID-19 debate—will be an even more divided country and greater civil strife.

Just as important, it will create an atmosphere in which free speech is not merely under assault, as it is on college campuses and other places that have been completely captured by the left. It will mean we are moving closer to a society where the norm will be to silence dissent on all important topics.

It is already a disgrace that the ADL treats partisan advocacy as more important than its core mission of fighting antisemitism. But its effort to sink Twitter makes clear that its real goal is to shut up those who don’t toe its political line.

Think what you like about Trump or Musk. But this latest stand shows that there is no greater foe of democracy than the ADL under Greenblatt.

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11/17 Links Pt2: Antisemitism should test America’s conscience; Liberal network funnels cash to charity sponsoring Palestinian terror-linked group; Robert Clary, Corporal LeBeau on ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ Dies at 96

From Ian:

Antisemitism should test America’s conscience

The memory of the brutal Holocaust may be fast fading; yet, the evil that brought it about appears to be creeping upon us, once again. Hate speech, defamation, history revision and violence are being directed towards Jews of all ages. Perpetrators appear to be gradually “testing the waters” to see what they can get away with before upping the ante of hostilities; especially in a freedom of speech driven America.

Enemies of Jews recognize now, unlike in times gone by, that Jews no longer stand alone, and will not quietly succumb to another existential threat. This is due, in no small part, to the existing sovereign State of Israel, which now serves as a vocal advocate and refuge for Jews since its rebirth in 1948. Anti-Jewish forces recognize that Israel will not sit idly by, while the blood of our people is spilt; as was the case in its absence, during the 1930’s and 40’s; enabling the “Final Solution” Holocaust.

Indigenous Israel is and never was merely incidental to Judaism, but rather integral to the Jewish faith and its survival. Our enemies appreciate this reality. The protection afforded is so formidable that those who hate us have come to the conclusion that they must first eliminate Israel before challenging our Jewish viability. To assist in their cause and by trial and error, they came upon diversionary tactics; including cloaking their hostility towards Jews under the guise of ‘Anti-Zionism.’

This augmented with the malicious “Boycott, Divestment and Sanction terror tactics (B.D.S.),” has gained traction within the media and support from some, self-labeled progressive politicians including a number who appear to reside within the legislative branch of our government; if not covertly elsewhere, as well.

Ignoring the present day escalating antipathy towards Israel and by extension towards Jews in Israel, Europe and now in the United States, is only serving to reinforce contempt for them, in general. The ugliness manifests through opportune acts of targeted property destruction, including defacing head-stones of our dead and violence towards our living where they feel they can get away with it.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Is Germany ending its ‘culture of memory’ of the Holocaust?

If the Israelis and Zionists are today’s Nazis, they should be attacked on the streets of Berlin, London, and Los Angeles. Germans may read that last year there was another 29% spike in antisemitic crimes in their cities – 3,027 in 2021. But why should they care? After all, they weren’t alive during World War II, let alone personally linked to Nazi Holocaust. In addition, in 2022, human rights NGOs like Amnesty International paint Israel as an apartheid state and antisemitic diplomats are given free rein to crank out one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly. Meanwhile, the German cultural elite, instead of rallying behind beleaguered Jewish citizens, greenlighted and defended a prestigious art exhibition rife with ugly antisemitic stereotypes.

And German Jews woke up on the anniversary of Kristallnacht to this catchy campaign on the KFC app: “Memorial Day of the Reichspogromnacht [Kristallnacht]: Treat yourself to more tender cheese with the crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!”

Any wonder why a prominent German Jewish leader just announced he can’t live in Germany anymore? He’s leaving for Israel and urging the rest of German Jewry to follow.

It’s small solace that Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem, had to personally intervene with the secretary-general of the Goethe Institute to cancel the event entirely.

Before it is too late, it’s time for Germany’s political and cultural elite to denounce all those who facilitate the demonization of Israelis; time to hold antisemites accountable for their deeds and crimes, whether from far right neo Nazis, Islamists, or Jew-haters from the far left; time to end blatant antisemitic exhibitions to dress up pornographic Jew-hatred as artistic freedom; time for all German states, cities, and municipalities to fully adopt and implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism; and to endorse the Bundestag vote that labeled the anti-peace Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as antisemitic.

For decades, Germany and Israel and Jews the world over have worked hard to rebuild relations between our people in the wake of the Shoah. But where are the German voices today that rebuke those who demonize Zionists as Nazis at home, and that speak out in the face of the Iranian regime’s serial Shoah denial? Where is the public display of solidarity with Jews?

Eight decades after the Shoah, Germany must connect younger generations to the nation’s self-declared culture of memory, or it will wake up one day soon to see Hitler’s dream of a Germany that is Judenfrei, free of any Jews, become a reality.

Liberal dark money network funnels cash to charity sponsoring Palestinian terror-linked group

AFGJ, which also got $210,000 from the New Venture Fund in 2020, is based in Arizona. The self-billed "progressive" and "anti-capitalist" group is an offshoot of the Nicaragua Network, a group that backed the socialist Sandinista political regime in Nicaragua.

Samidoun, which is one of up to 130 projects that AFGJ sponsors, was designated a terrorist group by Israel in February 2021 for operating as an arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. Samidoun aims to free Palestinian prisoners, who in many cases have ties to the PFLP, according to NGO Monitor, an Israeli watchdog group.

Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy found in a 2019 report that one Samidoun activist was "trained by" the Islamist terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon. That activist allegedly paid money to PFLP activists in Belgium.

On the heels of this report, Mastercard, Visa, and American Express said they would not allow their services to be used by Samidoun. Similarly, Paypal, Plaid, and Donorbox, three major global payment providers, shut down online donation portals for Samidoun in 2019 because of its PFLP ties.

In October, the Netherlands banned Samidoun's leaders from entering the European Union. Discover, the credit card company, said in 2021 it would quit processing donations to AFGJ because of its ties to Samidoun.

"If you have a mechanism that enables regular Americans to give money to a terrorist organization, that is a problem," Itai Reuveni, a spokesman for NGO Monitor, told the Washington Examiner.

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11/03 Links Pt2: Israeli Film Purports to Expose the Story of a Massacre That Never Happened; Melanie Phillips: The Jihadi Onslaught Against Christians; The Deception of Palestinian Nationalism

From Ian:

A New Israeli Film Purports to Expose the Story of a Massacre That Never Happened

Beginning this evening, the Manhattan Jewish Community Center is hosting its Other Israel film festival. Featured movies include Boycott, described as an “inspiring tale of everyday Americans” engaged in “legal battles that expose an attack on freedom of speech across 33 states in America”—namely, legislation that prevents states from doing business with entities that discriminate against and boycott Israel. Another film featured at the festival is about smugglers who help Palestinians evade Israeli soldiers, while a third film focuses on Mizra?im who were “denied their right to a better life in Israel” by the Israeli government.

At the festival’s opening night, there will be a screening of the documentary Tantura, directed by Alon Schwartz, which investigates allegations of a massacre perpetrated by the Haganah during the 1948 war. But like the “massacre” at Lydda, or the more famous one at Deir Yassin, it’s unlikely this atrocity ever took place. The distinguished historian Benny Morris sets forth the evidence:

In both [a recent article published in Haaretz] and the film, Schwarz maintains that Israeli forces, specifically the 33rd Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade, perpetrated a large massacre against the inhabitants of Tantura immediately after they captured the seaside village on May 23, 1948. The film is based on the allegations made by Teddy Katz in his master’s thesis, submitted to the University of Haifa in 1998. . . . Katz is the film’s hero and chief narrator.

Schwarz maintains in the article that his film is based on Katz’s paper and on “documents, military aerial photographs, and other archival materials.” This is just another crude lie, which points precisely at the central historiographic problem with Katz’s thesis and Schwarz’s film: there is no written evidence from 1948—not in Israeli archives, not in United Nations’ archives, and not in the archives of the Red Cross or the Western powers—that describes or even mentions a big massacre at Tantura. Katz and Schwarz base the “big massacre” thesis entirely on interviews with Arabs and Jews who “remembered” or claimed that they remembered it 40 years after the event.

Particularly damning is the absence of reports on this supposed outrage from contemporaneous Palestinian sources. Radio Ramallah, for instance, reported on the Israeli victory at Tantura, but said nothing about a massacre.

It’s noteworthy that a memorandum of the Arab Higher Committee, titled “The Atrocities of the Jews,” which was sent to the UN in early July 1948, makes no mention of Tantura—another puzzling omission if a large-scale massacre had recently taken place there. It’s worth noting that Palestinian historiography in the decades after 1948 also did not mention a massacre at Tantura. The book deemed the Nakba bible, the six-volume al-Nakba published between1956 and 1960 by the chronicler Aref al-Aref, does not mention a massacre at Tantura.

Melanie Phillips: The Jihadi Onslaught Against Christians

Last Saturday, there was violence in the vicinity of Bethlehem. You won’t have read a word about this in the mainstream media. That’s because the perpetrators weren’t Israelis but Muslim Arabs, and the targets weren’t Palestinians but Christians.

This was but the latest in a serious of attacks on Christian Arabs in the Bethlehem area. You won’t have read about those in the mainstream media either — just as you will have read hardly anything there about the horrific attacks on Christians that continue to take place in Nigeria and other African countries.

This is what happened on Saturday, according to contemporaneous reports on social media. A Christmas bazaar opened in Beit Sahour, a town near Bethlehem. A young Muslim Arab went to the bazaar and started taking videos of Christian girls wearing western clothes, which to his eyes probably seemed immodest.

A Christian scout leader threw him out of the bazaar. A short time later, he returned with a gang of men. They started stoning the Holy Forefathers Greek Orthodox Church near the bazaar. They smashed up cars parked nearby belonging to Christians and struck the scout on the face. In the absence of the Palestinian police, the church rang its bells — a known danger alert for churches.

Videos of these events started circulating on social media. You can see one here, in a tweet which suggests the perpetrator had tried to enter the church.

2008: The Deception of Palestinian Nationalism

The evidence that simple autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza was never the PLO’s true goal is everywhere. In 1970, US Secretary of State William Rogers suggested that the West Bank and Gaza be given up by Israel in return for peace and recognition. This plan was accepted by Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Only Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, rejected it, opting instead to attempt an overthrow of Jordan’s King Hussein.

The evidence runs deeper. Yassir Arafat, who was head of the PLO until 2004, was under the direct tutelage and control of the KGB. Ion Mihai Pacepa, KGB officer and onetime chief of Romanian Intelligence, was assigned to handling Arafat. Pacepa recorded several of his conversations with Arafat when they met in Romania at the palace of brutal dictators Nicolai and Elena Ceausescu. In these conversations, Arafat unequivocally states that his sole aim is to destroy Israel.

Pacepa and the KGB were delighted. They consulted General Giap, a close associate of Ho Chi Minh, who was involved with the North Vietnamese propaganda effort during the Vietnam War. Giap recommended to Arafat that he “stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your [Arafat’s] terror war into a struggle for human rights.” It had worked in Vietnam, he claimed, because transforming the conflict from one of ideologies (Socialism vs. Capitalism) to one of an “indigenous” people’s struggle for liberty had turned the tide of popular support in the West against the war.

Similar advice was provided to Arafat by Muhammed Yazid, minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments. He wrote “wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab States, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead present the Palestinian struggle as one for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression that in the struggle between the Palestinians and Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.”

Yasser Arafat heeded this advice, and with the help of bi-weekly plane-loads of Soviet supplies brought in through Damascus as well as the Soviet propaganda machine, he began to portray the Palestinian Arabs as a supposedly indigenous population whose human rights were being tarnished by Israel.

The fact is that after the War of 1967, Israel inherited Arab refugees living in the West Bank and Gaza that were forced to live there in the period of Egyptian and Jordanian control from 1948 to 1967. Israel immediately offered to return the lands it won in 1967 (West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan Heights) in return for a peace treaty. This offer was rejected by the Arab countries in the Khartoum Conference (Aug. 29- Sep. 1, 1967). In Arafat’s authorized biography, Arafat: Terrorist or Peace Maker, Arafat claims this moment as one of his greatest diplomatic victories.

It is telling that Zahir Muhse’in, member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, said the following in a 1977 interview with the Amsterdam-based newspaper Trouw. “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.”

Palestinian nationalism is therefore a historical fabrication born out of a communist thirst for expansion and an Arab resentment of the existence of Israel. The “need” and “desire” for Palestinian is a veiled expression of the “need” and “desire” to end Israel’s existence.

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100 years ago: When Harvard's president said that discrimination against Jews was GOOD for the Jews

In 1922, a Jew who graduated from harvard in 1900 wrote a letter to the president of the university Lawrence Lowell about newspaper reports that Harvard was limiting the number of Jews who would be accepted at the university.

Lowell's response was that limiting the number of Jews at universities was good for Jews.

The logic is convoluted and recognized at the time as being absurd, but this is how antisemites who don't consider themselves antisemites think.

The exchange of letters was published in the New York Times and various Jewish publications in June of that year. Here is Lowell's initial reply:

Dear Mr. Benesch: There is no need of cautioning you not to believe all that you see in the newspapers. As a colleague said to me yesterday, there is perhaps no body of men in the United States, mostly Gentiles, with so little anti-Semitic feeling as the instructing staff of Harvard University. But the problem that confronts this country and Its educational institutions is a difficult one, and one about which I should very much like to talk to you. It is one that involves the best interests both of the college and of the Jews, for I should feel very badly to think that these did not coincide. 

There is most unfortunately, a rapidly growing anti-Semitic feeling in this country, causing—and no doubt in part caused by—a strong race feeling on the part of the Jews themselves. In many cities of the country Gentile Clubs are excluding Jews altogether, who are forming separate clubs of their own. Private schools are excluding Jews, I believe, and so, we know, are hotels. All this seems to me fraught with very great evils for the Jews, and very great perils for the community. 

The question did not originate here, but has been brought over from Europe—especially from those countries where it has existed for centuries. The question for those of us who deplore such a state of things is how it can be combated, and especially for those of us who are connected with colleges, how it can be combated there —how we can cause the Jews to feel and be regarded as an integral part of the student body. The anti-Semitic feeling among the students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews. 

If their number should become 40 per cent of the student body, the race feeling would become intense. When, on the other hand. the number of Jews was small, the race antagonism was small also. Any such race feeling among the students tends to prevent the personal intimacies on which we must rely to soften anti-Semitic feeling. 

If every college in the country would take a limited proportion of Jews, I suspect we should go a long way toward eliminating race feeling among the students, and, as these students passed out into the world, eliminating it in the community. 

This question is with us. We cannot solve it by forgetting or ignoring it. If we do nothing about the matter the prejudice is likely to increase. Some colleges appear to have met the question by indirect method,  which we do not want to adopt. It cannot be solved except by co-operation between the college authorities and the Jews themselves. Would not the Jews be willing to help us in finding the steps best adapted for preventing the growth of race feeling among our students, and hence in the world? 

The first thing to recognize is that there is a problem—a new problem, which we have never had to face before, but which has come over with the immigration from the Old World. After the nature of that problem is fairly understood, the next question is how to solve it in the interest of the Jews, as well as of every one else. 

Very truly yours, 

A. LAWRENCE LOWELL.

Lowell is saying that hating Jews is a natural part of being human. The more Jews, the more hate. If only there would be fewer Jews, then antisemitism can be limited. 

In fact, as Mr. Benesch pointed out in his response, if there were no Jews at all, then that would solve the problem, right?

The last paragraph says it all. Too many Jews on campus is the problem, and Harvard was looking for a solution - and it found one: discriminate against them.

People use similar convoluted logic to justify bigotry today, and they are just as certain that there is no prejudiced bone in their bodies. And in a hundred years, we will marvel at how today's intelligent people accepted today's version of antisemitism as normal. 

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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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