"Jewish academics" write an open letter against the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. Another larger group responds.

From the EU Observer, November 3:

Israel is trying to gag its critics by formally labelling them as antisemites in the UN, Jewish academics have warned, but the EU Commission says there's no cause for alarm.

Some 128 scholars of Jewish history and Holocaust studies from around the world raised the red flag in a letter published in EUobserver on Thursday (3 November) entitled: "Don't trap the United Nations in a vague and weaponised definition of antisemitism".

Yes, once again Israel haters have written a letter. 

And once again, it is meaningless to have 128 academics sign anything because there are millions of academics worldwide, and one can find a few hundred to sign any fringe opinion. 

And once again, the criticism of IHRA has nothing to do with what it actually says.

Yet once again, the letter - since it comes from Jews and supposedly (but not really) scholars of Jewish subjects - gains an outsized amount of publicity.

It is all a game, and one where the media plays its part to inflate issues it agrees with.

But without the pro-Israel side countering the meaningless letter, it appears to be the consensus among Jewish academics.

So other Jewish academics who support the IHRA definition wrote their own letter - and gathered more signatures than the anti-Israel academics did. The effort was spearheaded by the Jewish Studies Zionist Network, which was organized this year.

 JSZN co-coordinator, Adam Fuller, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Youngstown State University, said, “This isn’t about criticizing Israel. You can criticize Israel’s government all you want like you can criticize any other government in the world. But the hostility toward Israel rises to something well beyond mere criticism. It’s demonization of Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state. The demonization parallels any other antisemitic trope that paints the Jewish people as thieving and conniving.”  

Jarrod Tanny, Associate Professor of Jewish History at University of North Carolina Wilmington, and founder of JSZN, said, “Contrary to what the IHRA WDA’s opponents think, this document is not some sort of legal code intended as a weapon to silence critics of Israel. It is a working definition, a tool to offer guidance to those who need to grapple with antisemitism but are unfamiliar with the issues at hand. Our critics maintain that the JDA {Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism)  is a far superior definition of antisemitism, but upon careful examination it is obvious that it is intended as a get out of jail free card for the demonization of Israel.”

 “Unlike the JDA,” Tanny added, “the IHRA ensures that Israel is treated like any normal internationally recognized independent state and its supporters are afforded the same rights as anyone else."

Indeed, the JDA definition spends as many paragraphs on what they claim antisemitism isn't - obsessive criticism of Israel - than on what it is. 

Hate for Israel is no less antisemitic as hate for Jews. There is a clear distinction between demanding a boycott of the world's only Jewish state - which includes silencing Zionists - and mere criticism of Israel. 

It is a shame that these "open letters" force others to respond, but the game has to be played. 

On another note, I really need to get hold of the JSZN to see if they want to hold a seminar on my (IMHO, superior) definition of antisemitism. 

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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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The White House initiative against antisemitism falls way short

A week ago, lawmakers sent a bipartisan letter to President Biden asking for various government agencies to work together to fight antisemitism:

We welcome the measures the Administration has taken thus far to address antisemitism. However, combating a growing threat of this magnitude, particularly here at home, requires a strategic, whole-of-government approach. Interagency coordination also could benefit from considering a broadly understood definition of antisemitism, as several agencies have adopted or recognized individually. Because many individual agencies play a critical role in combating antisemitism, closer coordination is needed to share best practices, data, and intelligence; identify gaps in efforts; streamline overlapping activities and roles; and execute a unified national strategy. The strategic collaboration of such entities would also send a key message to the American people and the international community that the United States is committed to fighting antisemitism at the highest levels. 

As such, we urge you to prioritize coordination among all agencies working in this space, including, but not limited to, officials from the Department of Homeland Security; the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Department of Education, including the Office for Civil Rights; and the Department of State, including the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, the Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, and the Office of International Religious Freedom; in addition to representatives from the Intelligence Community; the Office of Management and Budget; the National Security Council; the Homeland Security Council; the Domestic Policy Council; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; in order to ensure all relevant entities within the Executive Branch and Congress are working in tandem. Creation of an interagency task force led by an official at the Assistant Secretary rank or higher is one way to accomplish such coordination.

Likewise, we request that agencies working collaboratively to combat antisemitism work with the leadership of the House and Senate Bipartisan Task Forces to Combat Antisemitism and key non-profit community stakeholders to develop a National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism. Doing so will provide a cohesive and comprehensive plan for interagency efforts in this critical space. 

Seemingly in response, the White House issued this statement Monday:

As President Biden has made clear: antisemitism has no place in America. All Americans should forcefully reject antisemitism – including Holocaust denial – wherever it exists.  

The President is establishing an inter-agency group led by Domestic Policy Council staff and National Security Council staff to increase and better coordinate U.S. Government efforts to counter antisemitism, Islamophobia, and related forms of bias and discrimination within the United States. The President has tasked the inter-agency group, as its first order of business, to develop a national strategy to counter antisemitism. This strategy will raise understanding about antisemitism and the threat it poses to the Jewish community and all Americans, address antisemitic harassment and abuse both online and offline, seek to prevent antisemitic attacks and incidents, and encourage whole-of-society efforts to counter antisemitism and build a more inclusive nation.

There are some significant differences between what the members of Congress asked for and what the White House is establishing.

First of all, and most troubling, is that the Biden administration letter lumped in Islamophobia and "related forms of bias and discrimination" with antisemitism. This already weakens the initiative, even with the strong language about antisemitism being its first task. Antisemitism is not like other types of bias and it cannot be fought using the same tools. It appears that the Biden initiative is going to consider antisemitism as a purely right-wing phenomenon, ignoring progressive, Black and Muslim-based antisemitism. It is difficult to call out those forms of antisemitism when they are considered fellow victims - one cannot imagine a group denounce Muslim antisemitism when members of the same group are fighting Islamophobia at the same time. They would issue kumbaya statements about being against Nazis, not real recommendations. 

This is "all lives matter"ing antisemitism.

The White House letter's specifically mentioning Holocaust denial hints at this concentration on only one kind of antisemitism, from the far-Right. While Holocaust denial is horrible, it is a fringe opinion in the US and not a major ideological threat. Denying the emotional, historic and religious Jewish connection to Israel, claiming that Jews controlled the slave trade, demonizing the Jewish state, denying that Jews are "real Jews" altogether, and claiming that Jews are a monolithic group that controls the media, financial system and government - those are the ideological threats that American Jews face today that can and does turn violent.

Secondly, the Congressional letter specifically said that a unified definition of antisemitism is important to fight it. It clearly means the IHRA working definition (although mine would be better.)  The White House did not mention that, almost certainly because of fears of attacks on the initiative from progressives - who are part of the problem. This fear of upsetting the "Squad" has already taken one of the most important tools to fight antisemitism - defining it properly - off the table.

Thirdly, while the Congressional letter asked that this inter-agency group have some real power by being lead by an official at at least Assistant Secretary rank, the White House response only says that it will be led by "staff." It will have no power except, perhaps, to call meetings. 

The White House press release language is strong, but given how it is watering down what over 120 lawmakers asked for, it appears like it is a cosmetic move to make it look like they are doing something rather than a real effort to fight antisemitism. And it is hard to escape the conclusion that this watering down is out of fear of upsetting the "progressives" who are a major component of today's antisemitic ideologies.

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

 

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12/09 Links Pt1: A tale of two narratives; Melanie Phillips: The Good Jew/Bad Jew demonization strategy; Are Israeli-Australian ties in danger?; Bibi: What Rashida Tlaib Doesn't Seem to Know

From Ian:

A tale of two narratives

At the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies a clash of two narratives.

On the one hand the stirring, fact-based Zionist narrative, on the other, the openly conceded fabricated “Palestinian” narrative—which as one senior PLO official openly admitted “serves only tactical purposes”, and whose sole purpose is to function as “a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.”

Although enormous international efforts have been invested in futile endeavors to portray these two narratives as reconcilable, the truth is that they are inherently and incontrovertibly mutually exclusive. Either one of them will prevail, absolutely and exclusively, or the other will.

The reason for this unfortunate impasse is—as is becoming ever clearer with the passage of time--that Palestinian-Arab enmity toward a Jewish state does not arise from anything the Jews, do, but from what the Jews are.

This enmity, therefore, can only be dissipated if the Jews cease to be.

Successive Israeli governments, cowered by left-leaning civil society elites, have refused to articulate this "inconvenient truth", and refrained from formulating policy that takes it adequately into account.

Accordingly, they have perpetuated the myth that there is some fictional "middle ground", which, if found, would leave both sides not totally un-aggrieved ", but still tolerably satisfied enough to eschew violence.

Melanie Phillips: The Good Jew/Bad Jew demonization strategy

One of the favorite strategies deployed by Jew-baiters is to divide the community into Good Jews and Bad Jews.

Good Jews have politically correct, progressive opinions. Jews who don’t hold with those opinions are Bad Jews.

This distinction is helpful to Israel-bashers, who can use it to claim that they can’t possibly hate the Jews because there are Jews who support their hostility to Israel.

The White House this week hosted a round table on antisemitism to discuss the alarming escalation in attacks on American Jews. Yet the Biden administration conspicuously failed to invite to this discussion the Zionist Organization of America, the Coalition for Jewish Values and the Jewish Leadership Project.

These organizations defend Israel and the Jewish people against left-wing ideologies. They are therefore Bad Jews.

Sadly, this odious Good Jew/Bad Jew trope is now being promoted within the Jewish world itself.

Both in Israel and the Diaspora, progressive Jews have been convulsed over the composition of the new government being assembled by Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is because he is handing out government positions to three highly controversial lawmakers.

The rabble-rouser Itamar Ben-Gvir is set to become minister of national security.

Bezalel Smotrich, who hankers after an Israeli theocracy, will reportedly be a junior defense minister with certain powers over the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria.

Avi Maoz, whose party opposes LGBTQ rights and other progressive causes, is apparently being given control over outside input into the school curriculum and a new office devoted to “Jewish identity.”

This has produced epic pearl-clutching by Diaspora Jews, who are falling over themselves to announce that they might now withhold their support from Israel. Such hysteria also promotes the Good Jew/Bad Jew agenda.

Caroline Glick: Lapid and friends use demonization to incite a civil war

Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid has never been a high-minded politician. During his five months in power as caretaker prime minister, he tried to get the only non-leftist television station in the country thrown off the air. He called his political opponents and their voters “s**ts,” and “forces of darkness,” who have no right to exercise their legal right to oversee the actions of his lame duck government.

In the leadup to the elections, he accused Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu of being anti-democratic and warned that Netanyahu would not accept the election results if he lost.

As is invariably the case with progressive elitists like Lapid and his colleagues, it turns out that it is they who reject the basic rules of democracy and refuse to accept the results of the elections. Rather than accept that they received a drubbing at the polls and will spend the next four-and-a-half years in the opposition, Lapid and his comrades have doubled down on their demonization. They use their slanders of Netanyahu and his colleagues to raise the barricades and call for civil war.

Lapid’s opening volley came last Wednesday during the official annual memorial ceremony for Israel’s first premier, David Ben-Gurion. In his speech, Lapid used Ben-Gurion as a means to justify the statements and actions he took in the days that followed. Lapid did two things in his address: First, he totally distorted Ben-Gurion and what he stood for, and then he used his imaginary Ben-Gurion as a foil to demonize Netanyahu and his coalition partners.

Ben-Gurion, of course was the leader of the Zionist revolution. He was a Jewish nationalist. He led the settlement of the Land of Israel before and after the establishment of the state. He built and led the IDF in two wars. He defied the American Jewish leadership and transformed Israel into the voice of the Jewish people and the center of Jewish life worldwide.

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11/28 Links Pt2: IHRA Definition of Antisemitism Is Only "Polarizing" to Israel's Detractors; Anti-Israel activists and human sacrifice; Ye x Milo x Fuentes

From Ian:

IHRA Definition of Antisemitism Is Only "Polarizing" to Israel's Detractors

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) "working definition" of antisemitism is not polarizing to anyone other than Israel's detractors and antisemites.

The IHRA definition has been adopted by three dozen nations, at least six Canadian provinces and numerous states in the U.S.

The IHRA's detractors refuse to acknowledge that modern antisemitism is often tied to the Jewish State (e.g., Jewish soldiers being called Nazis).

They accuse those of us who defend the definition of being "right-wing" and of "weaponizing antisemitism" in order to defend Israel.

This is meant to undermine our efforts to protect ourselves against hate.

In the case of the IHRA definition, it's often the same people who call for universal rights and freedoms who oppose those very same rights for the Jewish people, particularly as they define their relationship with the State of Israel.

The IHRA definition is not "polarizing" to anyone other than those who either lack an historical understanding or are with an agenda to exacerbate the problem of hate and defame the Jewish state.

Anti-Israel activists and human sacrifice

In the anti-Israel context, there is the more recent case of Rachel Corrie. A college senior, Corrie became a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a terror-connected NGO that exploits foreign activists in service of the Palestinian cause. It is likely that she had already been indoctrinated in anti-Israel ideology, but the ISM almost certainly compounded it by orders of magnitude via a cult-like environment of hate.

Corrie lived for some time in Gaza, where she became infatuated with the people and decided that Israel was committing genocide against them, in which, as an American, she was complicit. In 2003, she knelt in front of an Israeli bulldozer, ostensibly in protest of a house demolition. The driver could not see her, and she was crushed to death.

She has, of course, become a martyr, and her letters and emails have been transformed into books and plays. Yet what they reveal is a deeply insecure and troubled young woman, possessed by existential guilt and desperate to redeem herself. Corrie’s death, in other words, was less a tragic accident than a kind of seppuku—a ritual suicide that she hoped, perhaps unconsciously, would be a moral expiation. She did not come to this conclusion on her own. She was the victim of unscrupulous people who wanted, or at least knew they were likely to acquire, a martyr.

One should not look away from what this means: Emotional blackmail kills. It is a kind of murder. Murder at third hand, perhaps, but murder nonetheless.

It is also part of a very ancient tradition. What the blackmailers are after, in the end, is the most primal of all forms of absolution: the human sacrifice. It is sometimes an emotional sacrifice, but far too often it is also physical.

From their origins in prehistory, such sacrifices were, almost invariably, expiatory acts. They were attempts to redeem a person or a community from their sins, to appease the gods and turn them away from stern judgment. And above all, such sacrifices made the victim a sacred object.

There are many among us, often young and vulnerable, who wish to become sacred objects and are told that if they sacrifice themselves, whether in life or in death, they will become so. It is tragic that many choose to believe this, but that does nothing to redeem those who lead them to the altar.

Judaism has always seen human sacrifice as an abomination, which indeed it is. We should not forget this admonition. No one, however righteous they consider themselves to be, has the right to demand such things from anyone. Like the priests of Moloch, those who use emotional blackmail of vulnerable individuals to achieve such an end stand accused.

Ye x Milo x Fuentes

Stop me if you've ever heard this one before:

Fueled by his hatred of Jews, one of the most recognizable black man of his era decided to forge an alliance with one of its most high-profile white nationalist, or, at the very least, the one whose juvenile stunts attract the most attention. One of the men behind the scenes who worked on arranging the meeting is himself Jewish, though he has long repudiated his heritage, is known to have engaged in antisemitism, as well as for being a grifter, and is distrusted by many in the movement. On the other hand, he has shown an uncanny ability to ingratiate himself with its leaders and keep the spotlight on himself. All of this revolving around grand political ambitions on both sides.

Obviously, I'm referring to the infamous 1961 entente of George Lincoln Rockwell, Malcolm X, and Daniel Burros which culminated in years of friendly relationships between the American Nazi Party and the Nation of Islam.

On June 25th, 1961, ten members of the American Nazi Party quietly arrived at the Nation of Islam rally in Washington, DC. In the Uline arena, they were surrounded by more than 8000 members of the Nation of Islam. They were not there to disrupt, attack the attendants, to protest the speech; instead, they were front-row guests. That night, Elijah Muhammad had called in sick, so Malcolm X took the stage to give the keynote speech in his stead. Rockwell contributed $20 to the cause and, while having his picture snapped by Jewish photographer Eve Arnold, he barked at her, 'I'll make a bar of soap out of you.' (She answered, "As long as it isn't a lampshade”).

At first glance, it would seem highly bizarre that members of the American Nazi Party, in full regalia and occasionally Sieg Heiling, would be tolerated amongst the Black Nationalist movement. Still, it more than made sense once you realized that they shared the same antisemitism and views on racial separatism. There was also a historical precedent; the units described as the most vicious, brutal, and antisemitic of the SS were the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar, composed almost entirely of Muslims.

Eight months after their first public meeting, George Lincoln Rockwell addressed more than 12,000 black audience members at the Chicago International Amphitheatre, urging them to ally with Nazis to be truly uplifted. "You know we call you niggers," he addressed the crowd. "But wouldn't you rather be confronted by honest white men who tell you to your face what the others all say behind your back?". He later praised the Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad as the 'Adolf Hitler of the black man.'

The Decline of Islamism, and the Rise of the Muslim-American Far Left and Far Right

Born in St. Louis, Umar Lee (né Brett Darren Lee) converted to Islam at the age of seventeen, and was quickly drawn to its stringent Salafist form, and to Islamist political radicalism. He subsequently broke with extremism, although he remains a committed Muslim. In conversation with Dexter Van Zile, Lee discusses his own experiences—including a recent visit to Israel—and his observations about Islam in the U.S.
Islamism is no longer popular. Back in the day, it was very popular. . . . I attribute that to reality—the failure of the Arab Spring, the disaster of what happened in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Islamist politics has become so unpopular in the Muslim world that historians in 100 years are going to write that there was a 40-year period—from the mid-to-late seventies until the late 2010s—of Islamist political revival that faded away after the Arab Spring. In the U.S. we don’t see people talk about Islamist politics.

Conversion had some negative consequences [for me]—a period of extremism and Islamist politics—but it also kept me out of trouble and away from a criminal lifestyle. You have to remember that a very high percentage of guys who grew up where I did ended up addicted to drugs, or alcoholics. Many didn’t live to see forty and quite a few didn’t make it to twenty-one. For all of the problematic aspects of the Muslim experience in America, there is a track record of conversion keeping some men off the streets and clean.

On the subject of how American Muslims fit into contemporary political divides, Lee comments:
What you’re increasingly seeing in the Muslim community in America is a gender divide. You’re seeing that progressive politics [are] very popular, especially with women, especially young women. We know after 9/11 there was [a] leftward shift in the American Muslim community. . . . But you’re [now] seeing an insurgency led by men, particularly younger men, that are rejecting this progressive shift. They’re rejecting it in very harsh terms and going very far to the right. What you’re seeing in the Muslim community is—especially the young people—the left, and now this segment of the far right, are really taking up all the oxygen and moderate politics is very unpopular.

Unfortunately, there is more uniformity when it comes to attitudes toward the Jewish state:
By far, the least popular thing you can do [in the Muslim community] is support Israel. I could get on video and drink liquor [or] smoke weed and people would say, “Hey everybody, no one’s perfect. Everyone makes mistakes.” I could be in a [pornographic film] and people would say, “Hey, well, . . . ” But support Israel? That is the worst thing that you can do.

When it comes to Israel, everyone is still unhinged. It doesn’t matter what segment of the communities they’re in. There are very few rational people. And even the rational people I talk to, [who] agree with me in private, won’t say anything in public.

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11/25 Links Pt2: Whoopi Goldberg, Here’s Why Hamas Is Recognized as a Terror Organization; Children chant massacre-Jews song at North London school

From Ian:

No Good Jew Goes Unpunished

REVIEW: ‘Bad Jews: A History of American Jewish Politics and Identities’

Tamkin’s personal leanings often make her an unreliable narrator. She tries to sanitize the Second Intifada as "a Palestinian uprising that came from the failure of the peace process in the first decade of the 2000s and the violence that ensued," a sentence worthy of Orwell’s "Politics and the English Language." She describes Jewish Currents, which she admires, as "the magazine founded for the Jewish Left back in 1946," leaving out that it was Stalinist. She congratulates Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) for apologizing for an anti-Semitic remark, without mentioning that Omar quickly walked back the apology and reiterated her conspiracy theory.

Notably bad is Tamkin’s discussion of the neoconservatives. Hostile framings and poor paraphrases of Irving Kristol arguments are one thing. Another is that she doesn’t seem to know what she’s talking about. The first words she uses to describe neocon intellectuals are "free-market capitalists"; in fact, they were notable within the conservative movement for accepting limits on the free market and making peace with the New Deal, while critiquing excesses of the Great Society on empirical grounds. Next, she writes, "Neoconservatives actually started out as leftist radicals. They were disciples of Leon Trotsky." For most neocons, this is false. Norman Podhoretz, for instance, was never a Trotskyist. Some, like Kristol, had been Trots in college, but their Marxist credentials were far inferior to, say, those of many founding editors and writers of the conservative (no "neo") National Review.

The problem can be traced to the book’s citations. Tamkin’s pattern is to rely on a single secondary source for information, citing it several times consecutively to cover a topic, before moving on to another single source, also cited several times in a row, for a new topic. In her neocons chapter, she cites Benjamin Balint’s book on Commentary 16 times in a row. I’ve read the book and it is serviceable, but it is only one view on a topic on which countless words have been written. Commentary’s archives are also available online. To rely so thoroughly on single sources is indicative of laziness, frankly, and lack of knowledge.

Tamkin claims to argue that there’s no such thing as a good Jew or bad Jew. But her heart isn’t in it. At every opportunity, she valorizes her bad Jews, the ones who vilify Israel and the American Jewish community. They’re the heroes. Eli Valley, the Jewish cartoonist known for drawing Israelis and pro-Israel Americans as Nazis, she fawns over. Her comment that "multiple people, on learning that I was writing this book, told me that I had to speak to Valley. His work meant so much to them, they told me. It had helped them figure out their own relationship to Jewishness" is perhaps more revealing than she intended.

The flip side is that Tamkin clearly thinks her good Jews are bad. The major Jewish organizations are portrayed throughout as morally indefensible; even Jewish leadership in the civil-rights movement is unconvincingly labeled a "myth." Anticommunists and Israel supporters are cast as fear- and guilt-ridden tyrants, synogogue-goers as conformist and xenophobic. In her most disgusting passage, Tamkin blames the deadly 2018 shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue on Donald Trump and then immediately uses the tragedy to dump on Orthodox Jews—themselves the victims of most anti-Semitic violence—for several paragraphs.

At the end, Tamkin has one last somersault to perform: excusing left-wing anti-Semitism. "When I hear that the fixation should be on antisemitism on the left," she writes, "I recall that there was a reason that American Jewish professionals in the 1960s decided not to focus on the antisemitism within the Nation of Islam," namely, that it could detract from the broader progressive struggle. She then has a quote that the response to left-wing anti-Semitism should be "to show up more" to left-wing causes. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), it is made clear, is the ideal type. At last, and in so many words, we have Tamkin’s elusive definition of a good Jew: a leftist.

Bad Jews: A History of American Jewish Politics and Identities by Emily Tamkin

Whoopi Goldberg, Here’s Why Hamas Is Recognized as a Terror Organization

Whoopi Goldberg, the famed American actress and co-host of the ABC daily talk show The View, has come under fire for seemingly questioning whether Hamas is a terror organization.

During a discussion on The View about Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s past statements on foreign affairs, co-host Sara Haines brought up Omar’s June 2021 comment that equated the United States and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas.

Remember when Whoopi Goldberg claimed the Holocaust wasn’t racism, it was white people fighting white people?

Well, she’s at it again…

Remember when Whoopi Goldberg claimed the Holocaust wasn't racism, it was white people fighting white people?

Well, she's at it again…

This time she felt it appropriate to proclaim that not everyone thinks that Hamas are terrorists. pic.twitter.com/4vSEnzkZtY

— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) November 23, 2022

While Haines was expressing her indignation at Omar’s comment, she referred to Hamas and the Taliban as “organized terrorist communities,” to which Goldberg responded, “Depends on who you talk to.”

So, to help Whoopi Goldberg and her viewers understand who considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization and why they do so, the following is a brief guide to everything you need to know about the organization.

Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, is currently recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Canada, the Organization of American States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In addition, New Zealand and Paraguay have designated the military wing of Hamas as a terror organization.

The reason that so many states and supranational bodies designate Hamas as a terror organization is that, since its founding in 1987, Hamas has been responsible for some of the most heinous attacks on civilians in Israeli history.

Children chant massacre-Jews song at North London school

An Iranian propaganda video in which dozens of children sing a song that references an apocalyptic myth about massacring Jews was filmed at a school just 15 minutes’ walk from the New London synagogue in St John’s Wood, a JC investigation has revealed.

In the video, shot earlier this year in the playground of the Islamic Republic of Iran School (IRIS) near Queen’s Park station, the children sing about joining 313 mythical warriors in a conflict against the infidels, when (according to the present Iranian regime) Israel will be obliterated and Jews killed.

Some scenes were also shot at the nearby Islamic Centre of England (ICE), which is controlled by the Iranian regime and linked to the school. ICE is currently the subject of a statutory inquiry by the Charity Commission, as the JC disclosed last week.

The song, entitled Hello Commander, has been praised by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who claims its popularity proves his people’s “loyalty to the system”, Iranian pro-regime media has reported.

Its recording in St John’s Wood, in easy reach of several synagogues and Jewish centres, has raised serious concerns among community security officials.

In the London video, rows of boys in white shirts and pressed black trousers and girls in blue flares, white blouses and matching hijabs can be seen saluting and singing their allegiance to their “commander”, Ayatollah Khamenei.

The children, aged between eight and 15, sing: “Without you, this life has no meaning. This life comes alive when you are here for me.”

They then sing about fighting in history’s final battle for the mythical leader known as the Mahdi, last seen supposedly almost 1,200 years ago.

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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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11/15 Links Pt2: O Ye of Little Faith: The Anti-Semitism of Kanye West; Another Palestinian BDS fail; Smearing Israel from the Ivory Tower

From Ian:

A New Legal Approach to Jew-Hatred

It’s what makes Jews one people even if they speak different languages, have different color skin, and observe Judaism with different practices. And so, the concepts and terminology that the anti-Israel left chooses to employ now actually pit anti-Israel zealotry against American anti-discrimination laws.

We counsel an updated application of Natan Sharansky’s famous Three D’s test. “Criticizing” Israeli Jews for being white colonizers does not merely aim to delegitimize Israel; it delegitimizes Jews by severing them from their constitutive national symbols, holy books, and beliefs. It demonizes Jews by casting them as “white occupiers” who exploit non-white people. And it engages in rank double standards against Jews by singling out for scrutiny, among all the nations of the world, their interrelated claims to their ancestral homeland and national unity.

Just imagine the uproar if whites on university campuses told Afro-Caribbean students that they were not really black and could not share the banner with black students from other parts of the world. The victims of such harassment would quickly and rightly have administrators in their corner. The school could lose its federal funding for allowing an out-group to tell an in-group who they are and who they are not, and which national bonds emerging from the mists of time are sufficient to confer unity. Yet that is what happens every time activists deploy the indigeneity canard to demonize Zionism as a colonialist project.

And this is how progressives tantalized by the success of the postcolonialist anti-racist movement in the United States have badly overplayed their hand. They have run headlong into the Civil Rights Act. Lawyers up to the task of defending Israel and American Jews can and should sue institutions that fail to protect Jews. The lawyers must identify and explain the horrific and patently anti-Semitic implications of calling Ashkenazi Jews “white”—not because there is anything wrong with being white, but because it is maliciously inaccurate—and calling Israel a colonialist state.

When campus activists call Israel “colonialist” or Israelis “white Europeans,” they trace Jewish history back only to Europe. But history is more than a millennium old, and Jews can trace their heritage back much further, all the way to Jerusalem and Beersheba and Yavneh, well before the Romans first renamed Judea “Palestine” to sever the Jewish connection to the land. Referring to Arabs as “indigenous” or “native” similarly rewrites history and the Jewish tradition by erasing the Jewish national and religious connection to the Land of Israel—possibly the most foundational element of Jewishness no matter how abstractly defined.

As elite institutions adopt the trendiest, crassest anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the Jewish legal defense creates itself. Indigeneity may be a silly value to champion, but if that is the framework that progressives insist on, it will collapse under the weight of its own bankruptcy and hypocrisy. Postcolonial anti-Semitism will fall apart as soon as Israel’s defenders expose its delegitimization, double standards, and demonization for what they are: the oldest form of hatred, going by its latest name.

Antisemitism and Jew-hatred are not the same - opinion

Jew-hatred is on the rise in the US. I’m not talking about antisemitism, I’m not calling it antisemitism. I’m talking about Jew-hatred. Antisemitism and Jew-hatred are not the same.

Jew-hatred is a visceral hate. It is emotional, it is not at all rational. Other than diving into the dark corners from which it emanates, there is almost no true response or method to combat Jew-hatred.

The only way to confront Jew-hatred is to make it unacceptable in public spheres. Like other behaviors that are unacceptable in public, Jew-hatred needs to be rejected. Racism is unacceptable, and so is Jew-hatred. Xenophobia is unacceptable, and so is Jew-hatred. Homophobia is unacceptable, and so is Jew-hatred.

Decent people need to step up and say a loud and clear “no” to those promoting and professing Jew-hatred. They need to say “stop” no matter how subtle the message. They need to send out their message on social media and in person.

There is no logic to Jew-hatred. And because it is illogical, there is no reasoning with Jew-haters. A Jew-hater cannot be convinced that he/she/they are wrong. There is only shaming. Shaming – public shaming and private shaming – is the only language they understand. It is the only message they will receive and internalize.

What is the difference between Jew-hatred and antisemitism?
Plain and simple, that is the difference between Jew-hatred and antisemitism. Antisemitism is a philosophy. Antisemitism is based on principles. It is wrong – but it is not visceral. It is based on a set of ideas.

Today’s Jew-hatred is filled more and more with anger and vitriol. Today’s Jew-hatred smacks of medieval-style Jew-hatred, which was deeply seeded in religious hate.

Social media allows for and even permits the free flow of this hatred. It goes unchecked. It flourishes.

O Ye of Little Faith: The Anti-Semitism of Kanye West

In response to a series of anti-Semitic outbursts, several fashion companies severed their business dealings with the rapper Kanye West, as did the agency that represented him. Elliot Kaufman cautions against seeing this reaction as evidence of civic health:

The naïve view is that the refusal to defend West marks a sea shift in black attitudes toward Jews, transcending the impulse to defend the indefensible just because it was done by a fellow African American. The cynical view is that if West hadn’t first angered black people with his comment that slavery was “a choice,” and betrayed black leaders with his decision to put on the MAGA cap, the reaction would have been entirely different.

West now simply has reason to paint himself as a victim of Jewish power. Meanwhile, Kaufman writes, the forms of anti-Semitism that have particular purchase among African Americans are not going anywhere:

Any confrontation with black anti-Semitism incurs risk for Jews, but it is necessary. First, black anti-Semitism places traditional Jews in physical danger every day on the streets of Brooklyn and not only there. Many Jews have moved to neighborhoods where they can usually avoid being mugged by such a reality, but some won’t—or can’t afford to. They are owed practical, moral, and political support, including against progressives whose policies release criminal Jew-haters to the streets, where they can attack again.

Second, black anti-Semitism has a unique ability to strike at the heart of liberalism, the older kind that has often made exile in America seem for Jews like a vacation from history. Jewish success and prominence in America—taken by some as a standing insult—have hinged on liberal principles of merit, equality before the law, pluralism, free expression, and individual rights, as opposed to group privileges. Black anti-Semitism, in denying the legitimacy of Jewish success and prominence, is also an assault on those ruling principles. Its deeper meaning is to call the American system a fraud, a manipulation, and a conspiracy.

MEMRI: Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan on Kyrie Irving, Kanye West Antisemitism Scandals

In a speech livestreamed on The Collective 9 YouTube channel on November 10, 2022, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan spoke about the accusations of antisemitism that NBA star Kyrie Irving and rapper Kanye West have been facing recently. Farrakhan said that the Anti-Defamation League should look into the “horror” that their parents have done to blacks in America and throughout the world, and he said that Jews consider 1,000 black lives to be worth less than the fingernail of one Jew. He said that the Jews have not apologized to African Americans for the transatlantic slave trade or for the killing, raping, castration, and enslavement of blacks. He also claimed that the Jews are responsible for African Americans seeing themselves as “Tarzan”, as “blackies”, and as “little black sambo”. In addition, Farrakhan said that the Nation of Islam’s views on the Jews are based entirely on quotes from Jewish rabbis, scholars, and historians.

The MEMRI Lantos Project exposes anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the Middle East region and Middle Eastern communities in the West with the aim of supporting legislation and educating media and the general public.

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11/08 Links Pt1: Israel Won’t Ever Be the Country of American Fantasies—Nor Should It Aspire to Be; US Backs IHRA Definition After UN Criticism; German institute holds ‘Shoah, Nakba’ event on date of Kristallnacht

From Ian:

Israel Won’t Ever Be the Country of American Fantasies—Nor Should It Aspire to Be

Following last week’s election, the veteran Middle East reporter Thomas Friedman authored a New York Times column under the headline “The Israel We Knew Is Gone,” full of dire predictions about what will befall the Jewish state now that its citizens have returned its longest-serving prime minister to power. Daniel Gordis dissects the column’s faulty assumptions and misguided conclusions, which distill misconceptions that plague much American commentary on Israel:
Here’s the heart of the problem. There are many people around the world who want Israel to be something it does not wish to be. They want it to be successful, but humble. They want it to be strong and secure, but still desperate for foreign support of all sorts. They want it to be Jewish, but in a “nice” kind of way. Israeli dancing (which I haven’t seen here in years), flags at the right time, a country filled with “Hatikvah moments,” as some call them. A country traditional enough to be heartwarming, but not so traditional that it would dare imply that less intense forms of Jewish life cannot make it. A country steeped in memory, but also one that is finally willing to move on.

An Israel moderate in every way would be an Israel easy to love. It would be a source of pride, but not a source of shame. It would be an Israel that would make us feel great as Americans and as Jews. The only problem is that that Israel doesn’t exist, and it never has.

And what of Friedman’s more specific gripes?
Tom Friedman writes that “Netanyahu has been propelled into power by bedfellows who see Israeli Arab citizens as a fifth column who can’t be trusted,” intimating that Israeli Arabs are not a fifth column. Some are; some aren’t. . . . I’ve interviewed many Arab women and men who are quite the opposite. But if you live in the Negev, if you have farmland you can’t protect from Arabs in the south or the north, you’re fearful. If you’re a young Jewish Israeli woman afraid to walk in downtown Beer Sheva, you don’t think a “fifth column” is a ludicrous claim. . . . Friedman can dismiss it, but Israelis increasingly don’t. The left and center ignore the issue, and now, Israelis are ignoring them.

Eugene Kontorovich [WSJ]Israel’s Right-Wing Coalition Gets the Cold Shoulder From Biden

The victory of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition has many on the left bemoaning the end of democracy in Israel. Even before voting began, Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) threatened harm to bilateral relations should Israelis vote to the right. The State Department has said it would boycott some right-wing ministers, and President Biden waited almost a week before calling to congratulate Mr. Netanyahu. Yet Secretary of State Antony Blinken apparently had time Friday to phone Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who last stood for election (to a four-year term) in 2005.

What has degraded Israeli democracy, according to critics, is the electoral success of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s party. Mr. Ben-Gvir’s critics cite his past in the far-right Kahanist movement. For all the consternation, one would think he was the future prime minister, rather than the head of a second-tier party, with seven of 120 seats in the Knesset.

Yet those saying Mr. Ben-Gvir’s inclusion in the government is unacceptable were untroubled by the departing government, which included Ra’am, a party affiliated with Israel’s Islamic Movement, which was founded by a convicted terrorist; or the far-left Meretz, with roots in an actual Stalinist party; or by Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s apparent willingness to accept support from Hadash, a still-Communist party whose members of the Knesset recently justified terrorism against Israeli civilians.

Another theme in the dire forecasts for Israeli democracy are legal-system reforms that the new government may pursue. The measures would actually reinforce democracy and introduce checks and balances to a political system in which the Supreme Court has far more power than its American counterpart.

Like the U.S. Supreme Court, Israel’s strikes down laws as unconstitutional—even though Israel doesn’t have a written constitution. The court has, without statutory authority, taken upon itself the power to strike down any law or government action as “unreasonable”—that is, anything the justices don’t think is a good idea. The justices—they currently number 15—decide what laws to bestow “constitutional” status on. They also dominate the committee that appoints new justices as well as lower-court judges. Candidates don’t undergo confirmation hearings before the Knesset.

The legal reforms being discussed would weaken the ability of sitting justices to pick their successors. The reforms would allow the Knesset, in some cases, to override Supreme Court decisions based on interpretations of Knesset legislation—much as the Canadian Parliament can do. Such a measure would be a far less radical check on the court’s power than the court-packing U.S. Democrats have entertained as a way of reining in the judiciary.

For years, Israeli prosecutors have pursued Mr. Netanyahu for the crime of “breach of trust.” Some in the incoming government seek to do away with this offense because no one knows what exactly it prohibits. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Skilling v. U.S. (2010), struck down as unconstitutionally vague a similar statute about denying “honest services.”

The potential legal reforms don’t undermine the values Israel shares with the U.S. Instead, they would bring Israel closer to the American model.

Jerusalem publishes zoning for new US embassy in Jerusalem

The Jerusalem Municipality on Tuesday published the zoning description for a new US Embassy complex in the capital city.

The embassy will be on Derech Hebron between Hanoch Albek Street and Daniel Yanovsky Street, an area known by its British Mandate-era name, “Camp Allenby.”

The complex will include an embassy, offices, residences, parking and security structures. The buildings can be no more than 10 stories high, and the wall surrounding the area will be 3.5 meters high.

Time to start planning the move
Members of the public will have 60 days to submit their opposition to the plan to the municipality.

“After almost four years of hard work with the American Embassy in Jerusalem, we are pleased that the zoning plans were published this morning for the new Allenby complex,” Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum said Tuesday.

“The US Embassy in such a central part of the city will upgrade the urban landscape of the neighborhood and connect it to all areas of the capital through the [Jerusalem] Light Rail network that will stop almost at its doors,” she said. “We hope that more countries will follow and move their embassies to our capital, Jerusalem.”

The US Embassy moved to Jerusalem in 2018, a few months after President Donald Trump recognized Israel’s capital.

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How many of these far-Right Republican figures have dabbled in antisemitism?

Haaretz has two articles about extremism in today's Republican party, and many of the examples include what they claim is antisemitism. 

Armed with my definition of antisemitism, do their examples fit the bill?

Law professor David Schraub says that the GOP is now as antisemitic as Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party was. Let's look at what he says.

After years of largely futile efforts by Jews to raise the alarm bells on ascendant antisemitism in the GOP, 2022 finally has made the problem too obvious to ignore. Republican candidates up and down the ballot are cavorting with open white supremacists, attacking their opponents for sending their kids to Jewish schools and eagerly elevating the conspiratorial Jew-baiting of celebrities like Kanye West.

My definition is precise, so I need precise examples. I am unaware of any candidate attacking opponents for sending kids to Jewish schools, for example, but the specific language would be important - i.e., if the point was attacking their record on public schools  but having nothing to do with the "Jewish" part of the schools they sent their kids to.

The only link given to a specific event is here:

The faux-populist rage at “globalists” and cosmopolitan “elites,” at what one far-right judge sneeringly dubbed “the Goldman rule”– that is, "the guys with the gold get to make the rules" – would be perfectly at home in the Corbynist social media milieu.

He points to a concurring opinion in a legal case by circuit judge James Ho, who quotes "The Goldman Rule:" "He who has the gold makes the rules."

That really sounds antisemitic. But Judge Ho includes a source for this "rule," and it comes from the book "Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam" by Vivek Ramaswamy, about an unwritten rule at Goldman Sachs that the employees would joke about. It has nothing to do with Jews - it has everything to do with corruption at Goldman Sachs.

Now, Judge Ho was tone deaf to mention this without further context, and it opened him up to the appearance of antisemitism. It was stupid. But antisemitism is malicious, and when you follow the source, there is no indication of malice; it was tone deaf in the sense that Ho did not seem to recognize that without context, Goldman was not referring to a generic Jew. 

The cases where apparent stupidity cross the line into antisemitism is when the person saying the statement is either knowingly engaging in antisemitic dog whistling, or when any normal person would recognize that the trope is antisemitic. Such is one case in the other article, by Ben Samuels, "Meet 10 of the Most Extreme Republicans Running for Congress." 

I am certainly not trying to promote these candidates' nutty opinions, many of which include QAnon conspiracy theories. Conspiracy  theorists very often fall into antisemitic tropes. I just want to look at the specific examples of antisemitism given and determine if, indeed, they are.

One of those Republican candidates in the article is Marjorie Taylor-Greene, whose most famous episode is when she claimed the Rothschild family worked with a California utility to redirect the sun's rays to start wildfires to clear land for a rail project. The conspiracy theory is insane enough but adding the Rothschilds makes it cross the line into antisemitism. The article also mentions that she, like many far-Right figures, promotes conspiracy theories about George Soros - and without specifically mentioning his Jewishness, I am reluctant to consider those inherently antisemitic (as my linked article on the topic notes.) Yet the clearest evidence of her antisemitic attitudes comes from her promoting a video in 2018 that said “Zionist supremacists have schemed to promote immigration and miscegenation.”

The article says that Rep. Lauren Boebert "notably asked a group of kippa-wearing visitors at a U.S. Capitol building last January if they were doing 'reconnaissance.'" Again, at first glance, this appears to be a clear example of antisemitism. But a little research shows that this is a case of being clueless rather than antisemitic - Boebert had been accused a year earlier of bringing groups of people to the Capitol to engage in "reconnaissance" ahead of the January 6 riots. She was making fun of herself, and assumed (like most political blowhards) that everyone, especially religious Jews who generally lean Republican,  follows her life obsessively and would get the joke. 

Again, tone deaf and stupid, but not antisemitic in itself. 

Candidate J.R. Majewski is not specifically quoted on antisemitism in the article, but it does quote him as referring to himself as a "superfan of Gab," the social network that hosts many white supremacists and antisemites. It seems highly unlikely that someone who is a fan of Gab is unaware of the antisemitism on the platform. You might argue that Twitter also is filled with antisemitism, but who refers to themselves as a superfan of Twitter? This, to me, strongly indicates that at the very least, Majewski is tolerant of antisemitism. 

The article notes that  in 2016, candidate John Gibbs defended an antisemitic Twitter account that regularly promoted Nazi-era propaganda. That account, "Ricky Vaughn," was a cesspool of antisemitism and racism; there is no way to defend that account without defending antisemitism. 

Republican candidate from Texas Johnny Teague leaves little doubt:

[Teague has] written a novel fictionalizing Anne Frank’s final days, in which he writes that she embraced Christianity just before being murdered by the Nazis. As reported by JTA, the book continues Frank’s diary entries, where she aimed to learn more about Jesus by trying to obtain a copy of the New Testament, reciting palms and expressing sympathy for Jesus’ plight. His version of Frank writes: “Every Jewish man or woman should ask questions like ‘Where is the Messiah? … Did He come already, and we didn’t recognize Him?’”   

This is incredibly offensive and antisemitic, effectively saying that Jews who do not accept Christianity are wrong.  

Two other candidates that engage in George Soros conspiracy theories - Jo Rae Perkins and Mike Cargile - also engage in other truly nutty conspiracy theories. Cargile also has been linked to white supremacists, which would indicate that his Soros theories include a Jewish component that would make them antisemitic, Perkins is obsessed with QAnon which as far as I know has not trafficked in antisemitism, so she appears to just be an idiot. 

I am generally of the opinion that if accusations of antisemitism must include mind-reading, without any other evidence, we should err on the side of caution. I say this knowing that some antisemites will consciously hide their hate for Jews, or wink at that hate with dog-whistles (I don't see evidence of that in these cases except for MJT.) There is also the strong possibility that some of these candidates have said other things not mentioned in this article that could add the context that would tip their ambiguous statements into full blown Jew-hate.

Yet even with that caution, too many of these candidates appear to fall on the antisemitic side of the fence. 

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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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11/06 Links: Melanie Phillips: How Jew-hatred has to fit the narrative; ADL creates 'more antisemitism,' divides Jews, black people -Candace Owens

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: How Jew-hatred has to fit the narrative

Last week, a Palestinian Arab terrorist murdered 50-year-old Israeli Ronen Hananya and injured 5 others. But Hananya was murdered in Kiryat Arba in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, and so was considered a “settler”. Since such Israelis are thus blamed for their own murder, Hananya’s killing went unreported by western media.

It was part of an escalating campaign of Palestinian Arab terror attacks in which 27 Israelis and others have been killed so far this year. Who can be surprised? For Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, has been calling on social media for “an escalation against the… settler herds”. That is, Israeli Jews.

Nazi-style antisemitic tropes demonising Jews constantly pour out of the PA. None of this is reported by the western media, which instead turns the Palestinian Arabs into martyred victims and the Israelis into their oppressors.

The watchdog Honest Reporting has revealed that a letter published last month on the Jew-baiting website Mondoweiss, signed by more than 300 Palestinian and Arab reporters, supported several journalists who had posted pro-Hitler messages on social media.

One signatory herself compared the Israel Defence Forces to Nazis. Another likened Jews to “dirt and rats” and, in response to a tweet about the death of a young Palestinian, replied: “Do you still ask why Hitler killed the Jews?”

Read anything about that in the mainstream media? Of course not. It doesn’t fit the narrative.

West’s views about Jews haven’t appeared in a vacuum. He’s channelling Jewish conspiracy theories and links between the Jews and Satan pushed by Nation of Islam’s leader Louis Farrakhan, as well as claims by the Black Hebrew Israelite group that black people are the real Jews and that “so-called” Jews have stolen their identity and birthright.

These views are commonplace in America’s black community. Yet Farrakhan is still indulged by the Democrats, and you won’t hear a peep about black antisemitism from the mainstream media.

Instead, everyone is “shocked” by a rapper’s Jew-hatred, while a murderous attack by an antisemite on a public figure is turned into a political football.

As if antisemitism weren’t bad enough, this makes it truly heartbreaking.

ADL creates 'more antisemitism,' divides Jews, black people -Candace Owens

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) creates more antisemitism, political commentator Candace Owens said on Saturday night in the wake of the Kanye West and Kyrie Irving antisemitism scandals, sharing a tweet by an anti-Israel activist claiming that the NGO created Jewish insecurity to justify Zionism.

"I think the ADL is like BLM [Black Lives Matter] and the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]. They create more antisemitism just like BLM created more racism." wrote Owens, explaining why she shared The Grayzone News editor Max Blumenthal's tweet. "They work only to further divide groups—in this circumstance, black and Jewish people."

In the tweet shared by Owens, Blumenthal had written that "White American Jews are living through a golden age of power, affluence and safety," and that "Acceptance of this welcome reality threatens the entire Zionist enterprise, from lobby fronts like the ADL to the State of Israel, because Zionism relies on Jewish insecurity to justify itself."

He added that Irving and West did not threaten American Jews in any concrete way, and the result of the ADL's attempt to justify its existence was "Jewish paranoia and Black humiliation is the result."

You are about to get into a lot of trouble for stating this.
Reminds me of when I said something similar about the NAACP and BLM way back when.
When you disrupt the trauma economy and call out the not-for-profits that benefit from it, you become their next target. https://t.co/gNbl9YsoZZ

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) November 5, 2022

Owens warned Blumenthal that he could "get into a lot of trouble" for his statements, and that she had experienced backlash over similar statements about BLM.

"When you disrupt the trauma economy and call out the not-for-profits that benefit from it, you become their next target," she said.

The US political commentator further called upon Americans to "fix fractured relations between Jewish and black Americans." She decried the cancel culture response to Irving and West.

I think the ADL is a partisan hack organization, too. But RTing Max Blumenthal, who spends his life covering for Jew-haters and stumping for Israel's destruction, makes the conversation significantly worse. It's garbage. pic.twitter.com/Y5hr6RwfjJ

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 6, 2022

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11/03 Links Pt1: Israelis Want Leaders Who Have a Vision for a Jewish and Zionist State; Melanie Phillips: Israel joins the West’s culture wars

From Ian:

With overwhelming victory, Netanyahu set to form strong, stable, legitimate, right-wing gov’t

Apparently in Israel, the fifth time is the charm. After repeated attempts by the opposition, by defectors from his own right-wing bloc, by the prosecution and the Supreme Court to prevent embattled former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from ruling, the electorate finally ended Israel’s protracted political deadlock by voting overwhelmingly in favor of Netanyahu and his natural—and loyal—right-wing allies.

With 87.6 percent of the paper ballots counted, Netanyahu’s bloc is likely to surge to as many as 65 seats in the 120-member Knesset. The number represents a stable parliamentary majority. By contrast, Israel’s left-wing collapsed to barely 45 seats—a massive 20-seat gap between the right-wing and left-wing blocs. Parties comprising the outgoing coalition secured only 50 Knesset mandates this time around, including an Arab party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Even if the distribution of mandates shifts slightly as the final votes are counted, the results are clear: Netanyahu is returning to power for a third stretch as head of government, after a year in the opposition.

The vote was a national referendum on the fitness of Netanyahu—Israel’s longest-serving prime minister—as the man best suited for the top job. It was also a referendum on the tremendous damage caused cycle after election cycle by opposing parliamentarians who conspired to block the people’s choice from serving as prime minister.

In a major surprise, turnout was the highest in years. Many had said that Israelis were growing tired of going to the polls each year and might boycott the voting booths. On the contrary, Israelis embraced their hyper-democracy and voted overwhelmingly to return stability to the electoral system. And the voters proved once again that Israel is a traditional, center-right country.

Despite all the efforts to oust him, it is now clear that Netanyahu has not lost any support across five consecutive elections. And now, the right-wing government he is poised to assemble represents the most stable alignment he has ever secured. There is virtually zero chance that Netanyahu will attempt to move towards a so-called unity alignment with parties that have tried to prevent him from serving as premier. Doing so would bring a Trojan horse and the opposition directly into his cabinet. Stability depends on forming an alliance with parties that actually support Netanyahu’s candidacy.

Continuity expected on Bennett-Lapid policies on Lebanon, Turkey - analysis

The next government is likely to continue some of its predecessors’ key regional policies if Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu forms a coalition, as expected.

Netanyahu expressed sharp opposition to the Lebanon maritime demarcation agreement shortly before it was set to be signed, calling it “terms of surrender.”

However, when the deal was finalized last week, Netanyahu said he would “behave as [he] did with the Oslo Accords.” When Netanyahu became prime minister in 1996, he fulfilled the previous government’s commitment that Israel would mostly withdraw from Hebron, following negotiations in which he demanded the Palestinians pledge to stop terrorism.

Netanyahu’s attitude towards the Oslo Accords as prime minister can be summed up in a statement he made at the time: “If they give, they will get; if they don’t give, they will not get.” Netanyahu repeated this call for reciprocity several times in his autobiography published last month, and as such, is likely to be his approach to the Lebanon agreement, as well.

US President Joe Biden provided Prime Minister Yair Lapid with a letter of guarantees over the weekend that would likely limit Netanyahu’s ability to change the deal. The letter backs up the Lebanon agreement and states that the US is committed to supporting the IDF and strengthening its ability to defend Israel, including against threats to its ships and energy assets.

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati told Reuters on Wednesday that the US guarantees protect the maritime boundary deal.

Melanie Phillips: Israel joins the West’s culture wars

With the result of its election this week, Israel has joined other Western countries in a notable current trend: A revolt by the public against the political establishment.

The Religious Zionist Party has now become the third-largest party in the Knesset. This is likely to mean cabinet posts for the rabble-rouser Itamar Ben-Gvir and the ultra-conservative Bezalel Smotrich in a new government led by the Likud Party’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

While their likely inclusion is due to Israel’s baroque political structure—some 90% of voters didn’t vote for them—the increase in support they received is significant.

Just as happened in Hungary, Italy, the U.S. and Sweden, the once-fringe Religious Zionist Party has come to power because a significant proportion of the public has become profoundly disillusioned with a political establishment that it felt was ignoring and betraying its interests and values.

Before the election, a number of mainstream conservative-minded Israeli voters said they would be voting for Ben-Gvir. So too did a surprising number of the secular young in Tel Aviv. For the latter, Ben-Gvir’s authenticity and directness made him an unlikely political rock star. In addition, among some conservatives, there was a weariness with Netanyahu.

Others who had previously voted for the Yamina Party’s Naftali Bennett felt a deep sense of betrayal when he tore up his previous promises and principles and formed a governing coalition with the left-of-center Yair Lapid that depended upon the Islamist Ra’am Party.

As this coalition staggered along, there was further disillusionment. Bennett and Lapid seemed to be groveling to the Biden administration, only for Israel to get kicked in the teeth in response.

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11/02 Links Pt2: The Holocaust Is Not Your Metaphor; The Balfour bogeyman; AOC’s ‘obsession’ with Israel is ‘shameful’; LA Council Passes IHRA Definition of Antisemitism

From Ian:

The Stories She Never Told

My mother loved to talk politics, real estate, and cooking. She’d happily offer intelligent insights on nearly any subject except one: her own life. With stops in prewar Hungary, Auschwitz, the Sorbonne, Mexico, and finally Manhattan, my mother’s life was extraordinary, but she kept it to herself. I hated that, but I knew why. So tender-hearted that news of terrorist attacks or natural disasters brought her to tears, she needed to distance herself from the pain of her own past. Still, as her child, I needed to understand her and the world that created her.

As a teenager and young adult, I plied her with questions, but I was only partly successful. I uncovered the scaffolding of her past but not its interiority. My mother is gone now, but my curiosity remains. I still search for her by immersing myself in stories of prewar Hungarian Jewry. Surprisingly, a new book about a Sephardic Holocaust survivor has opened a window into my mother’s inner life.

One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World, a Natan Award winner, is a Tuesdays with Morrie-style recollection of journalist Michael Frank’s conversations with nonagenarian Stella Levi, who grew up on the island of Rhodes. My mother was born thousands of miles and a universe away in the Romanian city of Satu Mare, the small Romanian city better known by its Yiddish name Satmar—the birthplace of the Satmar Hasidic sect—yet their lives seem to mirror each other.

They were born within two years of each other in the mid-1920s; both grew up in religiously observant but non-Hasidic families (prewar Satmar was home to many non-Hasidic Jews), and both belonged to the last generation of Jews to feel deeply rooted in their European birthplaces. My mother’s forebears had lived in or around Satmar for more than two centuries. Levi’s family had been part of the Juderia, Rhodes’ Jewish district, since the Spanish Inquisition. Both grew up in the embrace of aunts, uncles, and cousins in a world that moved to the eternal rhythms of the Jewish calendar.

Living within a 5-mile radius in Manhattan, both Levi and my mother viewed themselves as consummately modern women, yet both were intensely nostalgic for their childhood homes. Levi spoke of “a place where old women sat outside and told stories … took dishes to be baked in the communal oven … and where a granddaughter learned to prepare her grandmother’s sweet and savory dishes.” Unable to access the right words, my mother expressed her longing to recreate the flavors of her childhood and by carrying a crumpled photograph of her doomed aunts and cousins inside of her wallet.

Daniel Greenfield: The Holocaust Is Not Your Metaphor

"A production of Romeo and Juliet for non-binary performers"

This is what happens when the Holocaust becomes universalized, a free-floating metaphor and finally woke kitsch.

Yes, that’s the problem there.

This production, which has now been canceled, comes on the heels of things like the various Anne Frank revisions, including the Latino/ICE one. The underlying problem though is the use of the Holocaust and Hitler as a metaphor for everything bad.

The Holocaust is not a lens. It’s certainly not a lens for whatever woke nonsense is trying to appropriate Jewish history to make claims about the “rise of fascism” today.

There, is to a much lesser degree, similar objections to Netfix’s Dahmer movie which distorted and rewrote the history of the murders to score political points.

Treating real events, especially the murder of people, as a metaphor reduces the dead to the means of a political end while robbing them of their voice, their history and their identity.

The Holocaust is not slavery, slavery is not the Holocaust, whatever some sexual minority is upset by is not either one, and real events are not interchangeable. Neither are real people.

The Balfour bogeyman

In the eyes of the Palestinian Authority, one historical act is attributed with all future Palestinian suffering. That act is the Balfour Declaration, issued today, Nov. 2, in 1917. The declaration was the first contemporary, internationally recognized expression of the right of the Jewish people to establish a national homeland in the geographical area known as “Palestine”.

“His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

As exposed by Palestinian Media Watch, the PA Ministry of Information called the Balfour declaration: “The greatest crime in the history of mankind,” and the official PA daily called it “The crime of the century.”

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who also serves as the PA’s Supreme Shari’ah Judge recently claimed that the Balfour declaration violated international law:
“Israel’s very existence contradicts international law. On what right do you bring people who have no connection to this land and plant them here and tell them: This is your national home? Who gave Britain a right to give a national home? Was Palestine the land of [former British Foreign Secretary Arthur] Balfour’s father?”

[Facebook page of the Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Oct. 10, 2022]

So how then, can one answer the PA’s claim?

While the Balfour Declaration was an important statement of policy on the part of the UK government, it certainly did not have the ability to bring about the creation of the Jewish state without wide international consensus.

Historically, the declaration was issued as part of a new regional order that was born out of World War I and the demise of the Ottoman Empire, which, inter alia, had controlled most of the Middle East for centuries. As part of the new order, new borders were drawn and countries were, for the first time, carved out.

In the Ottoman Empire, “Palestine” as the separate national country and identity, as the PA claims, never existed. Rather, the region was merely just another region of the empire with no specific definition.

Abbas’ advisor: Israel’s existence contradicts international law

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11/01 Links Pt1: How Israel’s elections may impact the Middle East; UN: Suspend adoption of IHRA definition of antisemitism; Canada Calls to Oust Iran From UN Women’s Rights Commission

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: How Israel’s elections may impact the Middle East

As Israelis voted for the fifth time in less than four years, the region could greet these latest elections with a shrug. After all, another election will probably come in a year or so.

However, the current government of Prime Minister Yair Lapid and alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made major strides in the region. Lapid, Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz put a premium on public meetings and outreach around the Middle East, including hosting such important forums as the Negev Summit.

On the other hand, Lapid also rushed into the agreement with Lebanon days before the election. This matters, and on policies from Ukraine to Turkey, there could be shifts after the election that impact the region.

Israel and Turkey
One of the most important shifts in the last year has been Israel’s decision to work with Turkey. After years in which Ankara had bashed the Jewish state, comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and backing Hamas, Turkey sought to change its tone over the last year. This resulted in numerous high-level meetings and visits.

The normalization between Ankara and Jerusalem may be only on the surface, because Turkey’s ruling AKP Party is the same party as before the reconciliation. But it could also mark a shift that continues after the election.

It’s clear that with Turkey, there was a choice to normalize relations after former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu left office. Ankara had increased its extreme rhetoric and anti-Israel behavior during Netanyahu’s 10 years in power. This included the launching of the Mavi Marmara flotilla, as well as hosting Hamas leaders and vocal threats to “liberate al-Aqsa.”

Ankara’s behavior occurred against the backdrop of close Turkey-US relations during the Trump administration and its increasing role in Syria. It’s not entirely clear what led to Turkey’s increasingly anti-Israel behavior, especially considering that in the early 2000s, the countries had managed to continue amicable relations despite the differences between the AKP and Israel. The party is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood and is close to Hamas ideologically, making it naturally hostile to Israel.

During the Netanyahu era, there was little chance of reconciliation with Turkey. Netanyahu always believed that Israel had to exude strength in the face of threats, and he wasn’t afraid to critique Turkey’s actions.

Today, both Ankara and Jerusalem have shifted rhetoric, and this has enabled major changes on the political and diplomatic fronts.

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: Will Bibi Make a Comeback?

Dan Senor joins the podcast today to map out five scenarios for the Israeli election results—Israel is voting today. And then we discuss why professional Republicans seem a little more anxious than thrilled about the clear pattern in the polling about what’s going to happen next Tuesday here in the American elections. Give a listen.

Netanyahu's peace plan with the Saudis may also end the Arab-Israel conflict

Israel’s Leader of the Opposition Benjamin Netanyahu has broken his silence - giving his nod of approval to examining the Saudi-proposed Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (Saudi Solution) :
“I think the big prize is peace with Saudi Arabia, which I intend to achieve if I go back into office… The rise of Israeli power facilitated the Abraham Accords, and the continual nurturing of Israeli power will also nurture a broader peace with Saudi Arabia and nearly all of the rest of the Arab world. I intend to bring the Arab-Israeli conflict to a close.”

Peace with Saudi Arabia and ending the Arab-Israeli conflict will require Netanyahu to successfully negotiate to make the Saudi Solution - published in June - acceptable. That would see:
· Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria ('West Bank') being merged into one territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine - with its capital in Amman - not Jerusalem
· Abandonment of the 74 years-old Palestinian Arab demand to return and live in Israel
· Recognition of Jewish sovereignty in part of Judea and Samaria ('West Bank') for the first time in 3000 years
· No new Palestinian Arab state between Israel and Jordan

Yesh Atid Party Leader - Yair Lapid, Blue and White Party Leader - Benny Gantz - and Labor Party Leader - Merav Michaeli - have all rejected the Saudi Solution outright - aligning their respective parties policies with President Biden’s to continue pursuing the failed unachievable two-state solution first dreamt up by the European Union in 1980 and endorsed by the United Nations in 2003.

The leaders of all other Israeli political parties have yet to comment on the Saudi Solution.

Netanyahu, however, indicated his thinking was clearly in sync with the game-changing proposals.

Hundreds of Jews visit Temple Mount on election day

Twice the number of Jews visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on election day this year compared to last year, the Temple Mount Administration reported on Tuesday afternoon.

“The visitors said they took advantage of the election day vacation to go up and visit the site where the House of God stood,” the administration said in a statement. “It reminds them of how fortunate they are to be in a Jewish state, voting for a Jewish government.”

Nearly 300 Jews had already visited the mount by 10:30 a.m., the administration said.

Visits to the Temple Mount by Jews have been on the rise over the past year in general.

Some 47,988 Jews visited the Mount last year, in Hebrew year 5782—a 94% increase over the year before.

Anything about the Palestinian Auth, which is in the 18th year of Abbas’ 4 year term, without elections? No, didn’t think so. Just more lies and Jew hate from @hrw? https://t.co/0jkRZI9fWq

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 1, 2022

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