05/04 Links: From Colombia to Columbia, an unceasing war on Israel; American Exceptionalism and the NYPD; Antisemitism not only sanctioned, but rewarded on college campuses;

From Ian:

FDD: From Colombia to Columbia, an unceasing war on Israel

Last Thursday, Colombia’s far-left president, Gustavo Petro, announced that he was cutting diplomatic ties with Israel—a move warmly lauded by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist regime in Iran. In a speech delivered at a May Day rally, Petro perfectly captured the left’s Palestinian fetish, along with the fervent belief that the defeat of “Zionism” will usher in a new era of people power. “Today the world could be summed up in a single word, which vindicates the need for life, rebellion, the raised flag and resistance,” Petro declared. “That word is ‘Gaza,’ it is ‘Palestine,’ they are the boys and girls who have died dismembered by the bombs.” Petro, who was elected in 2022, is a genuine revolutionary with the life experience of one, having joined the M-19 terrorist organization while still a teenager and having been tortured at the hands of Colombian military officers. Nonetheless, his words resonated deeply at the other Columbia—the Ivy League university in New York City—where pro-Hamas demonstrators playing at revolution while their parents pay exorbitant fees set up an illegal tent encampment.

They resonated as well in Tehran, where Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi lauded “the uprising of Western students, professors and elites in support of the oppressed people of Gaza,” while foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani expressed satisfaction with “the awakening of global society … regarding the Palestinian issue and the depth of public hatred toward the crimes of the usurping Zionist regime and the genocide supported by America and some European governments.” Again, these are exactly the same sentiments being articulated at Columbia, at UCLA, at George Washington University, and at the other American campuses turned upside down by the wave of solidarity with Hamas.

To many Jews, all this will seem like a colossal failure—a failure of Holocaust education, which Jewish communities have been deeply invested in for several decades; a failure to accurately convey the true nature of Israeli society beyond the “settler-colonial” caricature pushed by much of the left and some far-right influencers; a failure to maintain constructive relationships with those other minorities where sympathy for Hamas and its atrocities is rife, particularly American Muslims, many of whom originate from non-Arab countries, and African-Americans. Perhaps the toughest aspect of all is the realization that debate and argument are fruitless, not least because refusal to communicate with “Zionists” has become an article of faith at the pro-Hamas rallies and demonstrations.

Still, at the same time, we need to shake off the myth that these demonstrations are an expression of “civil society”—individuals and volunteer groups mobilizing for Gaza out of desperation at the bloody scenes in that territory. From Moscow to Bogota to Ankara to Tehran, the world’s authoritarians are delighting in the opportunity to wield the language of human rights in the faces of gullible Westerners. Rather than persuading, we should be focused on defeating at the source. That means, in Colombia’s case, lobbying U.S. legislators to impose trade restrictions and other sanctions on its government for as long as it demonizes Israel, a democracy and a stalwart American ally, as a rogue state. Doing so will anger and alienate the left even more, but we have no choice. All we can do is act. And, from time to time, laugh

Seth Mandel: American Exceptionalism and the NYPD

One of the most telling aspects of the pro-Hamas student encampments is their participants’ pathological aversion to police—both for what it says about the campus bubble and for what it reveals about the demonstrators’ antipathy for Jews.

“I don’t really know how to process the fact that, at the bare minimum, there are going to be 100 cops at the [graduation] celebration,” Columbia student Suleyman Ahmed told the Wall Street Journal. Ahmed wasn’t part of the protests, the Journal explains, but when he heard there was going to be a police presence on campus through the end of the semester a couple weeks away, “he couldn’t concentrate on cramming.”

Whether that’s true—it’s hard to imagine a person carrying such exquisite fragility into adulthood—or whether Ahmed was just mimicking the debilitating sense of entitlement around him is less important than the fact that he was unashamed to say this sentence out loud to a newspaper reporter. In the bubble of “elite” campus culture, this is a normal thing to say. One is left wishing there were some institution that could prepare college graduates for the world.

Meanwhile, the reluctance to call in the police by campus administrators has, in roughly 100% of cases, proved not just foolish but dangerously irresponsible. At Columbia, about a quarter of those arrested for violently taking a campus building were unaffiliated with the university. At the City College of New York the same night, more than half of those arrested were unaffiliated with the school. Twenty-two of them violently impeded police clearing of an occupied building.

NBC’s reporting shows just what a tourist attraction these protests had become. One of those arrested was anarchist James W. Carlson, whose rap sheet over nearly twenty years of violent demonstrations includes aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted lynching. Another arrestee had reportedly been fired from the New York Botanical Garden for cheering on Hamas’s campaign of mass slaughter, child murder and sexual torture on Oct. 7.

Two others have arrest records related to their behavior at various protests over the years. The cause isn’t what matters to these folks; what matters is causing violence and disorder. If you are the parent of a student at one of these schools, you have plenty of reason to wonder why the institution cultivated this atmosphere and then delayed allowing police to restore safety and remove violent trespassers from campus.

Andrew Neil: It's easy to mock the entitled know-nothing student protesters who couldn't find Gaza on a map. But they are useful idiots making common cause with genocidal Islamists who want to see Israel wiped out

There is increasing evidence in the U.S. that hardline agitators and anarchists are now orchestrating the protests, with privileged, naive students their useful idiots. A Leftist website, CrimethInc.com, run by veterans of BLM, Antifa and Occupy Wall Street, has been publishing lessons learned and coordinating activities across the country.

According to the NYPD, half the protesters arrested at Columbia and New York's City College were not students. They push for the occupation of buildings wherever possible — and that is when violence and vandalism are most likely to occur.

They were behind the occupation of Hamilton Hall, which was roundly trashed, and behind the wilful and appalling damage done to the library at Portland State University in Oregon.

There was a feeling in America this week that perhaps the worst was over. The university authorities had acted at last, major figures on the Left and Right had condemned the encampments, police intervention from Los Angeles to Texas to New York had been effective (and largely non-violent) and even President Biden was wheeled out to give his tuppence worth.

It was the first time we've heard from 'Silent Joe' since the campus unrest took root. He has proved strangely reluctant to condemn the protesters and even on Thursday did no more than spout a few mealy-mouthed platitudes about free speech and peaceful protest.

He needs the youth vote — essential to his victory in 2020 — to be re-elected in November and has been keen to court that vote with a $160 billion student debt write-off (with more to come before election day) and the reclassification of cannabis, effectively decriminalising it.

Saying a few robust home truths to student protesters has so far eluded him. And this could come back to hurt Biden.

If the protests continue and the Democratic convention in Chicago in August is hijacked by violent protesters, as the 1968 convention (also in Chicago) was by anti-Vietnam war protesters, then a sense of lawlessness would only help Donald Trump as it helped Republican Richard Nixon in 1968.

So Biden might have to stiffen his resolve and his response before the summer is out to secure his re-election chances.

More fundamentally, sensible politicians of all persuasions need to think seriously about why so many young Americans — especially the ones who are supposed to be the smartest — are so easily prepared to make common cause with a genocidal Islamism.

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10/11 Links Pt1: President Herzog: History Will Judge Those Who Fail to Stand Against Hamas; May God Avenge Their Blood; Fears of large-scale aerial infiltration in northern Israel

From Ian:

President Isaac Herzog: History Will Judge Those Who Fail to Stand Against Hamas

Not since the Holocaust have more Jews been murdered on one day. Not since the Holocaust have we seen such images of innocent Jewish mothers and children, teenagers and old women loaded into trucks and taken away into captivity. Hamas has imported, adopted, and replicated the savagery of ISIS.

Whole families have been wiped out. Mothers and fathers, with babes in arms, murdered in cold blood. Massacred. A young couple, Tamar and Yonatan, murdered in their home along with their 6-year-old twin daughters Shachar and Arbel, and 4-year-old son Omer. A wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor in her 80s who was taken into captivity by Hamas terrorists. Israel will act firmly and with full force to defend its people and eliminate this threat. This is our solemn duty. However, the international community also has a duty to fulfill here.

For too long, when Israel has faced incursions or rockets from Gaza, elements of the international community have sought to justify Hamas' actions, swallowing their lies. Over the next days and weeks, Israel will be doing all it can to secure its borders, to remove the threat posed by Hamas, and to return its captive civilians and soldiers. It will demand the support of the international community.

History will judge Hamas for its crimes against humanity, along with all those who fail to stand against them.

Israel Agrees to Unity Government To Wage War on Hamas

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense chief and centrist opposition party leader Benny Gantz have agreed to form an emergency government, a joint statement from Gantz's National Unity party said on Wednesday.

Terrorists from Islamist group Hamas invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip on Saturday in a surprise assault that killed at least 1,200 people, the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israeli history.

Israel has responded with a massive bombardment of Gaza that has killed 1,055, and deployed thousands of troops around the enclave amid growing expectations it will launch a ground invasion to destroy Hamas.

The sides agreed to form a war cabinet comprising Netanyahu, Gantz, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the statement said, and during the fighting with Hamas in Gaza will not promote any unrelated policy or laws.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid was not expected to join the emergency government at this stage.

John Podhoretz: President Biden’s Magnificent Statement

Give credit where credit is due: This afternoon, Joe Biden gave what might be the most powerful statement in support of Israel ever delivered by any president. There were no qualifications. There was no evocation of root causes. No effort was made to hold out an olive branch or to suggest to Hamas, or to its fellow Iranian vassal Hezbollah, or their paymaster in Tehran that their future cooperation might lead to better days. The president said Hamas exists to destroy Israel and to kill Jews, and pledged this country’s full support in Israel’s effort against its enemy. He did not shy away from mentioning the atrocities that have made all people whose moral sense has not withered into a bilious pool (i.e., Rep. Rashida Tlaib, hanging a Hamas flag in your office in tribute to monsters who beheaded babies, may history spit your name from its lips as a curse) rear in horror and revulsion. He did not even begin with the customary “good afternoon.” He simply said, “There are moments in this life when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on the world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend.” And the words that followed never wavered.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Biden: Israel "Has a Duty to Respond" to Hamas Massacre

President Joe Biden said Tuesday: "There are moments in this life - and I mean this literally - when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas - a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews. This was an act of sheer evil. More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered - not just killed, slaughtered - in Israel. Among them, at least 14 American citizens killed."

"Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children. Stomach-turning reports of babies being killed. Entire families slain. Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace. Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies. Families hid in fear for hours and hours, desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention. And thousands of wounded, alive but carrying with them the bullet holes and the shrapnel wounds and the memory of what they endured. You all know these traumas never go away."

"The brutality of Hamas - this bloodthirstiness - brings to mind the worst rampages of ISIS....So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel....Like every nation in the world, Israel has the right to respond - indeed has a duty to respond - to these vicious attacks.... Our hearts may be broken, but our resolve is clear....Let there be no doubt: The United States has Israel's back."

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Children's book erases Jews and Israel from the Middle East (UPDATE)

Here is a map of the Middle East from the children's book, Amazing Women of the Middle East:

You will notice that there is no Israel in this map. It is replaced with "Palestine."

Modern nations like Jordan and the UAE are mentioned, so it cannot be that the map refers to a time period before 1948. 

Iran and Turkey are shown, so this isn't a map of only Arab countries.

It is a clearly deliberate attempt to erase Israel from the map. 

The list of women that the book discusses seems to be missing a certain type of people as well:

• Scheherazade, Persia, narrator

• Nefertiti, Ancient Egypt, 1370 BCE, Queen of Egypt

• Queen of Sheba, 1050 BCE, modern-day Ethiopia

• Semiramis, ancient Iraq, 811 BCE, Queen of Babylon

• Cleopatra VII, Egypt, 69 BCE, last queen of Egypt

• Zenobia, Syria, 240 CE, Queen of Palmyra

• Theodora, 497 CE, Empress of Byzantium

• Rabiya al Adawiyya, Iraq, 714, poet

• Shajarat al Durr, Egypt, early 13th Century, Sultana of Egypt

• Hurrem Sultan, Ukraine, 1502, Sultana of Ottoman Empire

• May Ziadeh, Nazareth, Palestine, 1886, writer

• Nazik el Abid, Syria, 1887, activist

• Anbara Salam al Khalidi, Lebanon, 1897, activist and feminist

• Saloua Raouda Choucair, Lebanon, 1916, painter

• Fairuz, Lebanon, 1933, singer

• Zaha Hadid, Iraq, 1950, architect

• Anousheh Ansari, Iran/USA, 1966, astronaut

• Somayya Jabarti, Saudi Arabia, 1970, editor-in-chief

• Nadine Labaki, Lebanon, 1974, film maker and actress

• Amal Clooney, Lebanon/British, 1978, lawyer

• Manahel Thabet, Yemen, 1981, economist and mathematician

• Maha Al Baluchi, Oman, pilot

• Nadia Murad, Iraq, 1993, rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner

• Zahra Lari, UAE, 1995, ice skater

• Azza Fahmy, Egypt, jewellery designer

Hmmm. No Jewish women make the cut of Amazing Women of the Middle East. No Queen Esther or prophet Deborah or Golda Meir. 

Some people complained to a Canadian book chain, which removed the book from its shelves. The publisher, Michel Moushabeck who founded Interlink Publishing, wrote a snarky and demeaning response:

This past week, Interlink and my family were subjected to some vicious trolling by a small number of people on social media started by a pro-Israel group, which resulted in the removal of copies of a children’s picture book, Amazing Women of the Middle East, from the shelves of Indigo Books, a large bookstore chain in Canada. The book was banned because the group complained that it was anti-Semitic because the word Palestine—instead of Israel—appeared on the accompanying map that helped identify to children where the women featured in the book originally came from (one was from Palestine). 

We are saddened to see such an important book that celebrates Middle Eastern women of all faiths, be disparaged online. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have been recipients of false accusations of anti-Semitism and this will likely not be the last. The notion that Palestinians are intrinsically anti-Semitic is a harmful and false narrative rooted in racism. This stereotype is harmful to not only Palestinians, but ignores the very REAL problem of anti-Semitism happening around the world. The books we publish amplify marginalized and underrepresented voices, including indigenous Palestinians, who are often left voiceless in Western media. We also publish talented Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, etc. authors who further our cultural understanding of their lived experiences. 

He then went on to make fun of one tweet. 

One of the women profiled is Scheherazade, from Persia. Persia is not listed on the map, which means the children won't be able to identify where she came from!  So from the outset, we can see that the publisher is not being intellectually honest in his defense of a propaganda map that erases Israel.

Moushabeck goes on to misrepresent and demean the feelings of the people complaining. No one is saying that "Palestinians are intrinsically antisemitic." If the map drew Palestine as being in the West Bank, no one would have cared.

But the decision to erase the Jewish state is indeed antisemitic. 

Including women who represent all religions and areas of the Middle East except for members of one religion and one nation is indeed antisemitic. (And saying that women of "all faiths" are celebrated means that to the publisher, Jews don't count.)

There is also another implication in this letter: that women from ancient powerful empires like Egypt, Persia and the Ottoman Empire represent "marginalized and underrepresented voices," that Christians and Muslims who make up billions of people are "marginalized." Is Cleopatra really that marginalized? But the tiny number of Jews from a small ancient kingdom to a small modern democracy are not worth mentioning.

Let's be honest. The reason there are no Jews or Israel in the book is because the author and publisher do not believe that Jews have any rightful place in the region, historically or today. 

Let's be even more honest. If the book treated Jewish women on par with the others, and included Israel in the map and Israeli women like Nobel Prize winner Ada Yonath or Israel Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch or poet Leah Goldberg, the book would be boycotted by the target audience. 

So cut the crap. This has nothing to do with Palestinians and everything to do with what can only be considered a deliberate mindset that Jews are outsiders, colonialists - in short, the enemy. 

That's why this book is antisemitic. 

The publisher's letter that twists the arguments about the book and belittles the Jews who were insulted by it proves the underlying antisemitism more than the book itself does. 

I don't like censorship but this book promotes the idea that Jews do not belong in the region, and it is therefore utterly unsuitable to be bought by anyone who supports the liberal stance that Interlink Publishing pretends to espouse.

(h/t Jim W)

UPDATE: The UK publisher has pulled the book from its website after a legal action by UK Lawyers for Israel.

UK Lawyers for Israel warned Pikku Publishing the book, called ‘Amazing Women of the Middle East: 25 Stories from Ancient Times to Present Day,’ could be in breach of education laws if used as a teaching aid in schools because it featured no Israeli women and had erased Israel from a map of the region.

The book, which is marketed to children over the age of nine, is listed on a web page marked “Teachers’ Resources” on the publisher’s website.

UKLFI warned self-publishing company Pikku if the book were used as a teaching aid in schools it would be likely to result in a breach Section 406 of the Education Act 1996.

This forbids ‘political indoctrination’, which is defined as the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school.

The UK Lawyers for Israel requested the publishers both in the UK and the USA withdraw the book and re-publish it with the correct map and featuring at least one ‘Amazing Woman’ from Israel.

The title has been withdrawn both from Pikku’s website and the teaching resources based on the book have also been removed from the ‘teachers’ resources’ section.

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