There is no inoculation for the virus of Jew-hatred

My post about Jimmy Carter's antisemitism last week prompts a question: but what about all the wonderful things he has done?

One cannot argue that Carter has not been sincere when he works with Habitat for Humanity, for example. His Middle East work may be influenced by his antisemitism, but he has worked on many other worthy causes. How can those things fit together?

But one can ask the same thing about lots of other antisemites. Alice Walker is a gifted poet and storyteller, but that doesn't make her immune from antisemitic attitudes. Roger Waters was a good songwriter in the 1970s, but that doesn't mean he doesn't harbor antisemitic attitudes. Roald Dahl wrote fantastic children's books, but also hated Jews. 

Then again, we can go back in history and ask the same questions. Voltaire was a groundbreaking philosopher, but he was also a racist and antisemite. Martin Luther was a brilliant theologian and an obsessed Jew-hater. 

If theology can coexist with hate, perhaps that invalidates the theology. But pioneers in theology and philosophy and humanitarianism and progressivism and socialism and science and even medical ethics have been found to be antisemites - and these are all fields that, in theory, if you believe their self-definitions, should be immune to antisemitic thought.

Obviously, theory is very different from practice.

Some people say that antisemitism is a conspiracy theory. Or that it relegated to the Right. Or that is is a form of bigotry that is part of a larger group of discriminations against race or sexual preference or age. 

Yet it fits in no clear category. It morphs into new forms every few decades. 

It is a virus with new strains coming out all the time. 

Viruses have only one imperative - survive by adaptation. Right now the most virulent strain of antisemitism spreads by pretending to be outraged at how Jews act in Israel - and it cloaks itself by insisting that this current hate of Jews in Israel has nothing in common with the previous instances, despite the obvious parallels.  

This is hardly the first time antisemitism pretended to be the opposite. In 1873, the Southern Baptist Convention issued a resolution on antisemitism that pretends to be philosemitic - but ends up wishing that all Jews should convert to Christianity.

Is this any different than modern antisemites who wish just as fervently that the Jewish state be destroyed, that Jews should live as second class citizens in a Muslim majority state and most of them should be ethnically cleansed? Is the Southern Baptist desire that all Jews see the light different from those who want all Jews to be "good Jews" who shed all nationalism and all attachment to the land of their ancestors? 

And both of them claim to be doing it because they care so much about Jews. 

The other strains of the antisemitic virus didn't die out. The Middle Ages strain is still there, the Christian strain still thrives in many places, the Nazi strain stays stubbornly alive and spreading. Social media has been a huge boon to the virus, allowing it to spread at the speed of light. People can work very hard for years to come up with a way to minimize the threat of one strain but another one can emerge and propagate in days. 

Today, we hear people arguing against accusations of antisemitism. How can Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch be antisemitic when their entire organizations are based on human rights? How can  Jeremy Corbyn be antisemitic when he is an avowed anti-racist?

The virus doesn't care what philosophy you have. Whatever you hate most in life can be linked to Jews, and usually is. 

Instead of reflecting on the history of antisemitism that shows that anyone can catch the virus of antisemitism, many pretend that they are immune. Worse, they pretend that their progressivism or humanitarianism or anti-racism inoculates them from antisemitism - that they aren't and cannot be antisemitic because their worldview does not allow it. 

On the contrary, the virus can grow in any medium. The anti-racists become antisemites by accusing Jews/Israelis of racism. The humanitarians become antisemites by accusing Jews of inhumanity. The very ideas that people believe make them immune to infection are the ones that spread it.

Just like before, they justify their hate as being based on facts, unlike all of their predecessors. even though those predecessors said the exact same thing. They write their articles and posts and tweets that show the exact same kind of irrational, obsessive hate that previous centuries of antisemites had. 

As we know from recent experience, viruses are hard to eradicate. We still need to try. But we need to understand that the virus does not avoid anyone because of their belief system. On the contrary, it often uses that very belief system as a means of spreading further. 

Beware of anyone who says they cannot be antisemitic because of their worldview. Instead, teach them about the history of antisemitism, and show that they have very prominent Jew-hating forebears, who were the world's leaders in theology, the arts, philosophy, science and the Enlightenment. 

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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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02/15 Links Pt2: The Truth Behind the Palestinian ‘Catastrophe’; Irwin Cotler: To combat antisemitism, we must first agree how to define it; Moral idiocy: Academics fuel Palestinian terror against Israel

From Ian:

The Truth Behind the Palestinian ‘Catastrophe’

ON AUGUST 5, 1948, not quite three months after the new state of Israel was invaded by five Arab armies, a short volume titled Maana al-Nakba (later translated as The Meaning of the Disaster) appeared in Beirut to popular acclaim. The author was Constantine K. Zurayk, a distinguished professor of Oriental history and vice president of the American University of Beirut.

Zurayk was the wunderkind of the Arab academic world. Born in Damascus in 1909 to a prosperous Greek Orthodox family, he was sent off at 20 to complete his graduate studies in the United States. Within a year he had obtained a master’s from the University of Chicago. One year later, he added a Ph.D. in Oriental languages from Princeton. He then returned to Beirut and the American University.

Zurayk soon became one of the leading advocates of the liberal, secularist variant of Arab nationalism. After Syria won its independence in 1945, he was chosen to serve in the new nation’s first diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C., and also served with the Syrian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly.

Zurayk’s book reflected the sense of outrage among the Arab educated classes over the 1947 UN partition resolution and the creation of the Jewish state. Zurayk’s anger was even more personal, since he had participated in the UN deliberations on the Palestine question. His 70-page book then became a reference point for future pro-Palestinian historians and writers. Yoav Gelber, a prominent Israeli historian of the 1948 war, cited Zurayk’s work when he told me he didn’t think there was much new in Arafat’s 1998 Nakba Day declaration. “The Nakba was at the basis of the Palestinian narrative from the beginning,” Gelber said. “Constantine Zurayk coined the phrase in 1948.”

In previous writings about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, I wasn’t able to comment on Zurayk’s book. A limited-edition English translation of Maana al-Nakba appeared in Beirut in 1956, but it was never published in the United States. It was only recently that I found a rare copy in a university library and finally read the real thing.

It was not what I expected. The Meaning of the Disaster actually isn’t about the tragedy of the Palestinian people. According to Zurayk, the crime of the Nakba was committed against the entire Arab nation—a romantic conception of a political entity that he and his fellow Arab nationalists fervently believed in. And, it turns out, Zurayk was no champion of an independent Palestinian state.

In an introductory paragraph, Zurayk writes about “the defeat of the Arabs in Palestine,” which he then calls “one of the harshest of the trials and tribulations with which the Arabs have been afflicted throughout their long history.” Zurayk’s only comment about Palestinian refugees is that, during the fighting, “four hundred thousand or more Arabs [were] forced to flee pell mell from their homes.” (All italics added.)

Zurayk predicted that all Arabs would continue to be threatened by international Zionism: “The Arab nation throughout its long history has never been faced with a more serious danger than that to which it has today been exposed. The forces which the Zionists control in all parts of the world can, if they are permitted to take root in Palestine, threaten the independence of all the Arab lands and form a continuing and frightening danger to their life.”

Irwin Cotler: To combat antisemitism, we must first agree how to define it

The IHRA definition provides examples of both forms of antisemitism. The examples addressing older forms include stereotypes of Jews as controlling the media, world governments and the economy. Examples of newer forms include denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination and holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel.

These latter examples have provoked some opposition, with opponents alleging that the IHRA definition will stifle criticism of the actions of the Israeli government, as well as advocacy for Palestinian human rights. This claim is as misleading as it is unfounded.

In fact, distinguishing between what is and what is not antisemitic enhances and promotes free expression and peaceful dialogue. In particular, the IHRA definition explicitly states that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

Accordingly, the definition serves to protect speech that is critical of Israeli policy — which I have myself engaged in — so long as it does not cross the delineated boundaries into antisemitism. Conversely, using this definition, genuine antisemitism, such as those examples listed above, can be defined and recognized.

The IHRA definition therefore sets the parameters for a healthy, democratic, tolerant debate and dialogue. It fosters non-hateful communication, and prevents both actual instances of antisemitism as well as unjust labelling of antisemitism. In doing so, it aligns with Canadian values of equality, diversity and human rights.

My hope for 2023 is that the Canadian jurisdictions that have not yet adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism will do so, and that the ones that have adopted it begin to implement and use it. The IHRA definition is an indispensable resource in helping to identify, recognize and define antisemitism, and adopting it is the critical first step towards Canada’s collective effort to combat the rising tide of antisemitism.

Gil Troy: Moral idiocy: Academics fuel Palestinian terror against Israel - opinion

Imagine the hate required to overrun fellow humans at a bus stop. Imagine the super-sized evil required to keep accelerating when you notice six- and eight-year-old brothers standing there, innocently chatting with their dad. And imagine the perversity involved in celebrating such murders. Friday proved – again – how deep anti-Jewish demonization has been drilled into too many Palestinian hearts, deforming their souls.

Until the world acknowledges this wickedness – which on Friday ended three lives – more such murderers will be mass-produced – with Western dollars, progressive encouragement, and, in modern Jewry’s sickest trend, some Jews’ validation too.

Too many Blame-Israel-Firsters discount this cultivated ugliness which mocks their delusions that peace will descend once Israel retreats, creating a Palestinian dictatorship – er, state – next door. These pie-in-the-skiers keep deciding that Palestinian abominations confirm Israeli iniquity. They theorize that only desperate individuals driven by evil “occupiers” would act so viciously.

Jews have often been blamed for their enemies’ enmity. This Palestinian addiction to violence, however, reveals more about the killers than those killed.

This, the real cycle of violence, with Palestinian rejectionism and antisemitism fueling terrorism, poses the biggest obstacle to peace. The terrorist rot infects Palestinian identity. Contrast Israel’s army, which will abort legitimate missions to minimize civilian casualties, with Palestinians’ death cult, which targets kids and often blackmails the most vulnerable Palestinians into terror.

The Terrorist-Intellectual Complex
An academic recently challenged some other centrists and me for attacking the Netanyahu-Deri corruption yet ignoring the “occupation’s corruption.” Actually, I’m struck by many critics’ corruption, judging us long-distance through ivy-clouded lenses.

Their “Terrorist-Intellectual Complex” perpetuates violence. Palestinians keep deluding themselves that terrorism works, emboldened by ever-accumulating stacks of UN resolutions, academic treatises, “human rights” proclamations, and student petitions – amplified by retweets and likes.

Many have long noted that only intellectuals could figure out how to call themselves “progressive” while supporting sexist, homophobic, Jew-hating, murderers. Today, “woke” parents training their kids in self-abasement and cravenness to dodge confrontations, even in self-defense, nevertheless cheer Palestinians’ killing cult. And self-proclaimed “Social Justice Warriors” justify this most unjust movement, forgiving the Palestinian Authority and Hamas autocracies.

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01/16 Links Pt2: How identity politics fuels anti-Semitism; Ken Roth’s Main Contribution is to Antisemitism, not Human Rights; MSNBC Claims Ilhan Omar’s Antisemitism the Fault of ‘Right Wing Hatemongers’

From Ian:

How identity politics fuels anti-Semitism

For several decades, the NUS has been closely wedded to the cultural politics of identity. As an institution, it works as a kind of coalition of identity groups that are all governed by an ideology of victimhood. Within the ranks of the NUS, identities perceived as ‘victims’ enjoy formidable authority.

But the NUS has apparently made an exception in recent years when it comes to Jews. In this, the NUS follows the identitarian mindset now widespread in our culture, which positions each identity within a hierarchy of victimhood – and which inexplicably places Jews near or at the top of that hierarchy.

Among devotees of identity politics, the Jewish identity has lost much of its claim to moral authority. The status held by Jews since the Holocaust has been revised. Jews are once again being portrayed as powerful, privileged and as aggressors. They are equated with the state of Israel and presented as the oppressors of a highly acclaimed victim group – the Palestinians.

In a world in which victim status trumps all others, this shift has had significant consequences for Jews. It is not that identitarians set out to cultivate anti-Semitism. But identity politics has helped to create a cultural and political climate in which Jewishness is increasingly perceived with hostility, as a negative identity. The validation of some identities always implies a devaluation of others – it is a zero-sum game. Today, the Jewish identity is on the losing side of that game.

Jewish identity is gradually becoming what sociologist Erving Goffman, in his classic 1963 study Stigma, characterised as a ‘spoiled identity’. A spoiled identity is one that lacks any redeeming moral qualities. It is an identity that invites stigma and scorn. Today, this is demonstrated by campaigns against the age-old Jewish practice of male circumcision, implying that Jews are perpetuating a barbaric custom. In a similar vein, attempts to ban kosher meat in parts of Europe signal an air of condescension toward Jewish culture, which is viewed as inhumane.

Bigotry has returned through the seemingly innocuous medium of identity politics. Back in March 2021, Politics Live, the BBC’s flagship politics programme, featured a bizarre debate on whether or not Jews are an ethnic minority. Apparently, this was open to question because some Jews have now reached positions of power and influence in British society. For identitarians, Jews have joined the ranks of the oppressors. Jewish privilege is seen as another version of ‘white privilege’.

This identitarian mindset has fuelled the new anti-Semitism. It must be confronted – not just within the NUS, but across British society.

The Baffling Appeal of "Jews Don’t Count"

Though Jews Don’t Count may be a weak and frivolous exercise in moaning, it has nevertheless struck a chord with that section of UK Jewry who, by virtue of their acculturation and success, are best positioned to make their voice heard. Of course, no one is completely immune to the kind of narcissistic self-pity that Baddiel and his guests have to offer, but this popularity is still, at first sight, surprising. Surprising, that is, until we understand its subtext, which contains an attempt to answer the central question of what Shaul Maggid has called “post-Judaism”: what does it mean to be a post-ethnic and post-religious Jew?

In Jews Don’t Count, Baddiel interviews over a dozen Jews, but there are few Israelis, religiously observant Jews, or Zionists among them. He thus deemphasizes or excludes something like 80 percent of the Jewish people from his analysis. The only time we see a yarmulke is in the background when Baddiel visits a New York deli and observes that Jews like pickles. Jews Don’t Count is, in other words, very clear about what Judaism isn’t (religion, Israel, and, of course, being white), but it is silent on the question of what positive content being Jewish has. Baddiel has stated elsewhere that “I’m really interested in and connected to the culture, the comedy, and obviously the identity, which is core to my being.” (Baddiel is, of course, a vocal atheist, and someone who doesn’t even care enough about Israel to oppose it, though he makes no bones about not liking it very much.) But what does that identity, which is the core of his being, consist of? What exactly is Baddiel identifying with?

In lieu of any indication that there is something other than anti-Semitism that Baddiel finds interesting about Judaism, the alarming answer to that question appears to be that Baddiel’s Jewish identity consists precisely of being a member of a persecuted group. The otherwise baffling popularity of Jews Don’t Count indicates he is far from alone. While, historically, many Jews have abandoned their faith and people in order to shed the burdens of being a loathed minority, the post-Jew does the opposite: clinging desperately to that legacy of persecution as the essence of being as a Jew. For some Jews, a denial of God’s existence, the divine authorship of the Torah, or their eternal connection to the Land of Israel is more than just an argument they disagree with: it’s an attack on their fundamental being. For post-Jews, the same blow is received when someone tries to gently point out that they are not a victim of anything but their own inability to quit while they are ahead.

The undeniable link between Anti-Antisemitism and America’s decline - Opinion

The New Antisemitism
The modern rise of antisemitism also known as the New Antisemitism kicked off at the start of the 21st century with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. With the Islamo Leftist alliance behind it, BDS, with its agenda to demonize the Jewish people and destroy the State of Israel, quickly moved from the fringes of our society and into the mainstream. Civil society organizations, American universities, and far-left politicians would come to endorse the BDS ideology.

Behind BDS, there has always stood a burning hatred of America, its exceptional liberal democratic and capitalist character, and worldwide influence, which is why it has been embraced by the far left and radical Muslims.

With American Jews unable to mount an effective defense against BDS due to our small numbers, division, and aversion to conflict, a door was opened for BDS to get incorporated into the Left’s radical ideologies as they have gained popularity over the past twenty years, normalizing antisemitism as an integral part of anti-Americanism.

Antisemism is now part of the Left Radical Ideologies
BDS and CRT are now intimately intertwined through the left-wing theory of “intersectionality”, and are being aggressively implemented in the workplace and school through CRT-adjacent policies like DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and Ethnic Studies Curriculums. Americans from an increasingly early age are being indoctrinated to view America as intrinsically evil that must be totally remade according to racialized and socialist ‘Woke’ standards.

Although Jews are a major target of these groups, the struggle is not really about us—the ultimate target has always been America.

American Jews need to create alliances with other Americans focused on helping the public to understand that anti-Semitism spreading BDS, CRT, Ethnic Studies and DEI are first and foremost a threat to our core American values. Nothing less than the future of America – and the Jewish American community – is at stake.

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12/12 Links Pt2: The Apartheid Libel to Destroy Israel; Teaching Terror to Tots - reevaluating the Oslo Accords; Collier: An open letter to Gary Lineker

From Ian:

PMW: Teaching Terror to Tots - reevaluating the Oslo Accords

Many observers have been puzzled why the 1993 Oslo peace accords did not lead to peace but precisely the opposite. Sporadic Palestinian terror attacks prior to 1993 were replaced by repeated Palestinian terror waves murdering more than 2,000 Israelis. PMW’s report "Teaching Terror to Tots” is the key to understanding the post-Oslo terror enigma.

Palestinian Media Watch as been documenting official PA/Fatah ideologies, policies and messages disseminated through every framework they control for over 20 years and everything that PMW has exposed has raised questions about the sincerity of the PA/Fatah in the peace process. PMW recently published a report on Fatah’s Waed magazine for children ages 6 – 15, covering every issue published over the last eight years. The messages for Palestinian children spread through Waed confirm that the PA/Fatah end game was, and remains, Israel’s destruction and Israel’s replacement by “Palestine”.

The hundreds of examples in the 70 page report show that through Waed, Fatah – that has dominated and controlled the PA since its creation – has been teaching Palestinian children that:
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” after “the Zionist invaders will go to the garbage can of history” because “the period of Zionism will eventually pass.” As a last step all “the Jewish settlers in Palestine will disappear.”

Israel must be destroyed because Jews/Israelis are:
“Zionist thieves who stole our land”… “Jewish invaders”… “foreigners from all ends of the earth who did not know Palestine and did not live in it – neither them nor their forefathers.”

Since Jews have no rights, Palestinians have the “right to wage an armed struggle to take back its stolen homeland.” This is the only PA/Fatah path, because “the liberation of Palestine will only be achieved through armed struggle.”

In short, the PA/Fatah’s message to children is that Israel was created by theft, its continued existence is a crime, and its destruction via the armed struggle is justified and inevitable. The children who read Waed are taught that they have the responsibility to bring about the future world without Israel.

The PA/Fatah education that is documented in the report is the driving force behind the current Palestinian terror wave that is led by Palestinian youth who have been raised on these hate messages. If no action is taken to combat the PA/Fatah education to hate and terror, it will continue to be the driving force for Palestinian violence for generations.

PMW’s exposure of the PA/Fatah messages through Waed should have far-reaching political implications. Attitudes towards the Oslo Accords and policy towards the PA must be reassessed based on the reality of what the PA is and not the illusion of what the international community imagined it would be. If Palestinian terror is to be stopped and stability returned to Israel, the newly exposed PA/Fatah teachings must be the impetus for a new attitude towards the PA.

PMW is releasing this report at the GPO’s Christian Media Conference in Jerusalem.

To read PMW's "Teaching Terror to Tots" click here.

The following is an Executive Summary of "Teaching Terror to Tots":

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Apartheid Libel to Destroy Israel

Recently... however, with the UNHRC's persistent allegations that Israel is an apartheid state, that label is being pushed even further in an apparent effort to make it stick. The complicity of recent reports from NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch appear to be trying to ensure that their libel will be complete.

The campaign emboldens the radicals among the Palestinians, including the Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), whose declared goal is to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.

Terrorist groups such as Hamas and PIJ are undoubtedly happy to see non-Arabs and non-Muslims -- and even ostensible human rights organizations -- join their effort to falsely depict Israel as an apartheid state.

Former UNHRC chief Navi Pillay, despite extensive evidence of massive anti-Israel bias, was recently appointed to chair the UNHRC's first and only open-ended Commission of Inquiry.

Basically, [the New York Times] is saying that although the two countries cannot be equated, the comparison is being forced and twisted into place for the sake of furthering an alternate agenda which has little to do with the facts on the ground.

Israel's founding charter pledges to safeguard the equal rights of all residents: "... It will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations."

Among many of South Africa's Apartheid laws, the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act effectively stripped all Blacks of their South African citizenship and of the right to vote.

Israeli Arabs, however, have full citizenship, including the right to vote and to public demonstration. They are represented in all levels of government, including positions as members of Knesset (parliament), in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as Supreme Court justices. Israeli Arabs hold positions as high-ranking officers in the Israel Defense Forces, including that of major-general in the Central Command.

David Collier: An open letter to Gary Lineker

Last week a Palestinian tried to attacked Israelis in the car. He then stabbed a nearby border guard in the face. When he lost a struggle to steal a weapon he was shot and killed. A UN spokesperson reduced it to a ‘scuffle’. This vile rewriting of history was then repeated in the Guardian newspaper.

There is no correlation remaining whatsoever between the event (the terror attack) and the way it was reported (an innocent man was shot). It is the lie that goes viral. Raw propaganda packaged for the international virtue signallers.

Why on earth would you want to get involved in this?

Spreading myths empowers the extremists. It perpetuates the conflict and pushes peace further away. Nobody in their right mind seriously believes those people attacking Israelis want a two state solution. Nor do those putting up illegal structures. They have deliberately created a battlefield (it doesn’t actually exist unless they come out to confront Israelis).

All this ends with people on the outside, people such as yourself – making it all worse by promoting the propaganda.

So please, can you virtue signal at someone else’s expense – and leave what you do not understand alone.

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10/19 Links Pt2: Why I think the Golden Age for Jews in America is coming to its end; The UN needs to be reimagined and reformed; Peter Bergson – The Unintended Hero of the Holocaust Era

From Ian:

Why I think the Golden Age for Jews in America is coming to its end - opinion

The New Antisemitism is becoming violent
The decline in the favorability of mainstream American views toward Israel has coincided with a rise in antisemitic violence, particularly in large metropolises, promoted by Islamo-Leftist groups. In New York City, more than half of hate crimes in 2019 targeted Jews. During the last major conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in May 2021, terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched more than 4,000 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians. At the same time, we witnessed stunning and unprecedented scenes in New York, Los Angeles, and other American cities of Jews being assaulted by mobs of anti-Israel activists. This surge of anti-Jewish hate also included harassment, vandalism and online abuse.

With many Jews in America now fearing walking the streets in their kippot or wearing other items that identify them as Jewish or Zionist, or even speaking Hebrew in public, we are sliding in the direction of our European Jewish brethren—in fear and under siege, requiring more and more layers of security.

Meanwhile, many American Jews serve willingly as useful idiots for groups that despise us, divided our community, and weaken our resolve, under the pretext of legitimate critique of the Israeli government policies.

The end of the story for American Jewry?
While we undoubtedly face grave challenges as American Jews, we must not give up. Until now, due to lack of information and fear of rejection and persecution, many American Jews have been complicit as anti-Zionism morphs into the new antisemitism. Now is the time to stand up, fight back with all our remaining might and hold antisemites accountable.

We must form alliances with groups that share the same Judeo-Christian values of freedom and democracy, inspire today’s Jewish youth to be proud of their people and the Jewish homeland, and bring Israel back to the center of our Jewish life in the diaspora.

We must embrace Zionism as an integral part of our Jewish identity. We must engage in renewed efforts to strengthen the homeland of the Jewish people, ask Israel to empower and defend Jewish communities worldwide, and take stock of the strength our community possesses.

We must collectively demand a rejection of all forms of antisemitism, including and especially anti-Zionism.

James Kirchick: Calling Out an Antisemite

When I learned that Alice Walker and I would both be speaking at the same literary festival, I seized the chance to expose her views.

Fully a third of the Freedom Riders who risked life and limb to desegregate interstate bus travel in the early 1960s were Jews. So were many of the young men and women who took part in the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign to register black voters in Mississippi. The town of Philadelphia will always be remembered as the place where Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two such Jewish activists from New York, and James Chaney, their black colleague from nearby Meridian, were murdered by white supremacists. President Barack Obama posthumously awarded them the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014. An individual about whom I knew nothing until visiting the museum is Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, a civil-rights activist who earned the distinction of being the first white clergyman to have his home and congregation bombed by white supremacists in 1967.

The history and contemporary state of black-Jewish relations has been weighing on me since August, when I visited Jackson as a guest of the Mississippi Book Festival. I was there to present my book, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, as part of a panel entitled “(Re)shaping Public Discourse,” alongside professors Eddie Glaude and Imani Perry, both of Princeton University, and the authors of books about James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, respectively. Also invited to address the festival, immediately after our panel, was Alice Walker, one of America’s leading African-American writers, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple—and a well-known antisemite.

Walker evinces her antisemitism primarily not through her own words, but in her enthusiastic promotion of David Icke, the ex-footballer and prominent proponent of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion who simultaneously denies the Holocaust while claiming that the Jews perpetrated it against themselves. In 2013, Walker told the BBC’s Desert Island Discs that if she could keep only one book it would be his Human Race Get Off Your Knees, which purports to reveal the “sinister network of families and non-human entities that covertly control us from cradle to grave.” Asked by the New York Times what books were on her nightstand in 2018, she included in her response Icke’s And the Truth Shall Set You Free. In an exhaustive inventory of Walker’s antisemitism published in Tablet magazine, Yair Rosenberg observed that this tract alone contains the word “Jewish” 241 times and “Rothschild” 374 times. “These references are not compliments,” Rosenberg wrote.

John Ware: Rewriting history: Corbyn’s Labour Party, antisemitism and ‘Panorama’

The UK is facing economic meltdown. The world may be heading for nuclear Armageddon. Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, have been preoccupied with salvaging his reputation over the antisemitism crisis that dogged his leadership for more than four years.

Did Corbyn or his office interfere politically in antisemitism disciplinary cases when he was Labour leader — or did they not?

Disciplinary cases were meant to be determined by officials at Labour Party HQ independently of the Leader or his political advisers.

In April 2020 Corbyn supporters found vindication in a leaked internal report by Corbyn staffers which, perhaps unsurprisingly, concluded allegations of interference were “entirely untrue.”

Six months later, the statutory investigation into Labour by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) concluded there had been interference: “We found evidence of political interference in the handling of antisemitism complaints throughout the period of the investigation”, thereby unlawfully discriminating against Jewish members. The EHRC blamed a “lack of leadership” within Labour “which is hard to reconcile with its stated commitment to a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism.”

Then, last summer, Corbyn’s supporters were buoyed up by a report by the barrister Martin Forde KC which accused the mainstream media of being “entirely misleading” in how we reported allegations of interference.

So where, in this attritional battle for the truth, does the truth actually lie?

I must declare an interest because I presented the programme most often mentioned in the Forde Report: BBC Panorama’s “Is Labour antisemitic? ”transmitted in July 2019

A fortnight ago, the “Investigation Unit” of the Qatari-based Al Jazeera TV network piled in. Its central allegation against the BBC came from Corbyn’s Director of Strategic Communications, James Schneider.

He claimed to have “exposed” how Panorama had misleadingly presented evidence to suggest there was “unwarranted meddling” by Corbyn or his office “in antisemitism cases.”

Days after killing soldier, fugitive gunman shot dead attempting another attack

A Palestinian gunman suspected of killing an Israeli soldier in East Jerusalem earlier this month was shot dead on Wednesday evening, after opening fire at security guards near the entrance to the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.

Police officials confirmed that Udai Tamimi, who they say killed Sgt. Noa Lazar, 18, and seriously injured a civilian guard on October 8 at a checkpoint near the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, was killed while carrying out another attack.

A security guard, 24, was taken by the Magen David Adom ambulance service to the Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, with an injury in his hand. He was listed in light condition, the hospital said.

Security camera footage of Wednesday’s attack showed a lengthy exchange of gunfire between Tamimi and the security guards.

Tamimi, 22, fled the scene of the attack earlier this month. He was thought by police to have been hiding in the Shuafat refugee camp since then.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid hailed the killing of Tamimi, and sent well wishes to the guard wounded in Wednesday’s attack, in a statement published by his office.

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01/08 Links Pt2: Netanyahu: I won’t let settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan; Pres. Trump: No Lives Lost; Iran ‘Appears To Be Standing Down’; Court Upholds Anti-BDS Law in State of Arizona

From Ian:

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Netanyahu: I won’t let settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan

Settlements will not be evacuated in any peace plan while Benjamin Netanyahu is prime minister, he vowed on Wednesday amid talk that the Trump administration may present its peace plan within weeks.

“I will not let any settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan. This idea of ethnic cleansing...It won’t happen,” Netanyahu said at the Kohelet Forum’s conference on the US decision that settlements are not illegal.

His remarks came as diplomatic sources say the Trump administration is strongly considering releasing its plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming weeks, before the March 2 Knesset election.

“There is a window of opportunity. It opened, but it could close,” Netanyahu added, warning of “weak leadership” that will “hit rewind,” in an apparent reference to his election rival Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu expounded on Jewish rights to live in Judea and Samaria, pointing to its anchoring in legal documents from the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations.

“There was no West Bank separate from the rest of the land. It was seen as the heart of the land. We never lost our right to live in Judea and Samaria. The only thing we lost temporarily was the ability to exercise the right,” Netanyahu explained.

PM Netanyahu: "Israel is Completely Beside the United States"

Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised US President Donald Trump for authorizing the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran's Quds force. In his speech at a summit in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Soleimani was behind deaths of "countless" innocents and sowed "fear, and misery, and anguish" -- and was planning to do even worse.

Pompeo 'disavows' Carter-era anti-settlement policy

The US rejects a 1978 memo determining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in a video statement to the Kohelet Forum’s conference on his settlement policy.

Pompeo said the US is “disavowing the deeply flawed" the Carter-era memorandum, written by then-State Department Legal Adviser Herbert Hansell, which called all Israeli settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines to be illegal.

This goes a step further than Pompeo’s statement in November that the US “no longer recognize Israeli settlements as per se inconsistent with international law.”

“It’s important to speak the truth that the facts lead us to, and that is what we have done,” Pompeo said in his video message. “We are recognizing that settlements do not inherently violate international law.”

As such, he added, the US is returning to a more “balanced” policy, “advancing the cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Kohelet Forum said: “For decades, the obscure Carter-era memo was used as justification for anti-Israel policies...Secretary Pompeo’s statement makes clear the US’s wholesale rejection of the legal theory that holds that international law restricts Israeli Jews from moving into areas from which Jordan had ethnically cleansed them in 1949.”

Celebrating “Pompeo Doctrine” on legality of Israeli settlements with Psagot ⁦@SecPompeo⁩ wine at ⁦@KoheletForum⁩ conference, with ⁦@IsraeliPM⁩ ⁦@USAmbIsrael⁩ ⁦@AmbDermer⁩. pic.twitter.com/RhdxPNRcic

— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) January 8, 2020

Bennett: Area C of West Bank belongs to us, we’re waging a battle for it

Israel is waging a “real battle” against the Palestinians for control of Area C of the West Bank, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said on Wednesday, as he declared “officially" that the territory belongs to Israel.

“Our objective is that within a short amount of time, and we will work for it, we will apply [Israeli] sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another,” Bennett told the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem.

Bennett, who heads the New Right party, added that he intended to make that demand part of his coalition agreement to enter the new government after the elections.

The second goal, Bennett said, was to ensure through the promotion of settlement construction to ensure that within a decade a million Jews will live in Judea and Samaria.

In the interim, Bennett said, “We are embarking on a real and immediate battle for the future of the Land of Israel and the future of Area C. It started a month ago and I am announcing it here today.”

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06/08 Links Pt1: Pierre Rehov: Exposing the Truth About the Gaza Riots; PA Supreme Shari'a Judge: The Jews Have No Connection To Jerusalem; Giuliani: PA a 'renegade group' of 'terrorists and thieves'

From Ian:

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Pierre Rehov: Exposing the Truth About the Gaza Riots

Islamist organizations attacking Israel have always had a propagandist’s keen sense of vocabulary in their communication with the Western world.

Rightly convinced that few of us are able or even interested in deciphering their original speeches — which reveal their true intentions — they have been flooding us for decades with erroneous concepts and false claims, all playing on our desperate desire to do “good” and fight for the oppressed. They try to use our own history and heartstrings to make us react in a way that will be favorable to them.

And over the years, their terminology has been accepted by everyone, including — it must be said — in Israel itself.

For weeks, Hamas and other terrorist organizations have undertaken what they want the world to believe is a peaceful and “pacifist” popular uprising.

Once again, their deceptive use of vocabulary is clever and manipulative. On one level, these “protests” are peaceful demonstrations, thereby serving as cover for multiple attempts to destroy the separation barrier between Gaza and Israel, kidnap soldiers, kill Israeli and Jewish civilians, and launch terrorist attacks.

Why are the Palestinians “protesting” at the fence? The true answer is to destroy and overrun the Jewish state. But according to Hamas, they are simply seeking a “right of return” for the descendants of “refugees.”

Buses chartered by Hamas and Islamic Jihad — decorated with giant keys and illuminated names of missing villages supposed to symbolize this “right of return” — show up every Friday in front of mosques and schools in Gaza. Hamas has created a manipulated population, ready to kill themselves for these cynical or obsolete words and ideas.

MEMRI: Palestinian Authority Supreme Shari'a Judge And Abbas' Advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: The Jews Have No Connection To Jerusalem; This Is An Imperialist Myth And Distortion Of History

Mahmoud Al-Habbash, the PA Supreme Shari'a Judge and President Mahmoud 'Abbas's advisor for religious affairs, said at a June 4, 2018 conference that the struggle in Jerusalem is between the rightful owners of the city – the Muslims and Christians – and "some foreign Western imperialists that have no connection to this soil." He added that the state of Israel is an imperialist Western enterprise whose purpose is to weaken and divide the Arab world, and that the claim that the Jews have a historical connection to Jerusalem is nothing but a distortion of history.

The conference at which Al-Habbash spoke, organized by "the Muslim-Christian Council for the Salvation of Jerusalem and the Holy Places" and the Organization for Muslim Cooperation (OIC) under the title "The Monotheistic Religions against the Judaization of Jerusalem and Its Holy Places," was also attended by other PA officials, including the Palestinian Mufti, as well as other Christian and Muslim religious leaders, and ambassadors.

The following are translated excerpts fromn Al-Habbash's statements at the confrence:
"The battle for Jerusalem is not a religious one; it a political battle between the rightful owners [of the city] and the imperialists. This obligates us to raise the Arab and Muslim world's awareness of the Arab, Muslim and Christian identity of Jerusalem...

"We must be careful when using a particular term or word in connection with Jerusalem, for this is not a conflict with the Jews, but a struggle between the [real] residents and owners of Jerusalem, who are Muslim, Christian and Arab, and some foreign Western imperialists that have no connection to this soil. The catastrophe of Jerusalem did not begin in 1967 or 1948, or with the Balfour Declaration. It began much earlier, about 450 years ago, when imperialist calls began to be heard in the West.

"Palestine is not the [Jewish] Promised Land or the land of the [Jewish] forefathers – for if it is, why did they consider it as [only] one of several options when they started looking for a place for their state?...

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