Showing posts with label Kanye West. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kanye West. Show all posts

Monday, July 31, 2023

By Daled Amos

Well, maybe those are not the exact words that Elon Musk, head of Twitter -- now known as X -- used, but that seems to be the gist of what he said to West -- now known as Ye.

In December, Musk suspended West's Twitter account after the rapper tweeted a swastika interlinked with a Star of David. The head of Twitter called it "incitement to violence."


But that wasn't all that West did. JNS has a fuller list of West's antisemitic comments:

October, CNN reported that several people connected to West said he was “fascinated by Adolf Hitler,” and wanted to name his 2018 album “Hitler.”

o  October, on Tucker Carlson's show then on Fox News, West claimed Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner brokered the Abraham Accords solely in the interest of “making money.”

o  Soon afterward, he tweeted, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” adding, “The funny thing is I actually can’t be antisemitic because black people are actually Jew [sic] also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

o  In an interview with Chris Cuomo, West claimed there was a “Jewish underground media mafia” and his “death con 3″ remarks were prompted by “Jewish record labels” that not only “take control” of publishing but of the culture itself. “It’s like modern-day slavery,” he said.

o  In November, West took Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes to Mar-a-Lago to meet  Trump. Fuentes has a history of denying the Holocaust, praising Hitler and making racist remarks about black Americans.

o  Weeks later, in an interview on “InfoWars” with Alex Jones, he said that “Hitler has a lot of redeeming qualities” and that he loves Nazis. He also repeatedly brought out a small net and “Yoo-hoo” chocolate milk to mock Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

So why did Musk do an about-face and allow West back on Twitter? After all, those who supported Musk's original decision to suspend West for his antisemitic incitement are as disappointed and angry as those who originally defended West's inciteful remarks on the basis of "free speech." Now neither side is likely to count Musk as being in their corner.


CNN quoted a report from The Wall Street Journal, that there will still be limits on the Twitter account. Going forward, West will be unable to monetize his account -- no ads will be allowed to appear next to his tweets. According to CNN, "it’s not clear whether West submitted an appeal, or if something else prompted his account’s reactivation." Yet according to Haaretz, quoting from that same Wall Street Journal article:

X reinstated Ye's account after receiving reassurances that he wouldn't use the platform to share antisemitic or otherwise harmful language, the report said, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Haaretz even claimed in their headline, "Musk Restores Kanye West's Account After Promise Not to Post Antisemitic Content Again." [emphasis added]

Even so, what about an apology? Kanye West has already demonstrated that his apologies lack regret and are worthless.

Back in October, when he was on Piers Morgan Uncensored, West did say:
I will say I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the ‘death con’ [comments]. I feel like I caused hurt and confusion. And I’m sorry for the families of the people that had nothing to do with the trauma that I had been through, and that I used my platform where you say hurt people hurt people. I was hurt.
But this was after Morgan asked:

When you insult the Jewish people and say you’re going ‘death con 3’ on the Jewish people, that is as racist as anything you say you’ve been through. Racism is racism and you know that I think. Don’t you?

And West replied:
Absolutely not.
West continued:
Yeah, obviously, that’s why I said it. Yes, I fought fire with fire. I’m not here to get hosed down. It’s a different type of freedom fighter.

By way of comparison, in 2009, Kanye West embarrassed Taylor Swift on the stage of the MTV Video Music Awards. Then, 4 years after having apologized, West claimed that he regretted the apology and only made it because he felt pressured.

So again, why would Musk allow West back on Twitter?

CNN may be hinting at a possible reason in the headline to their article:

Elon Musk reactivates Kanye West’s Twitter account following X rebrand [emphasis added]

Has Musk discovered that allowing hate speech can be a good business decision? Consider: according to CNN

Twitter’s Violent Speech Policy prohibits inciting and glorifying violence, wishing harm on other people, and threatening others. But it makes some exceptions, including for “figures of speech, satire, or artistic expression when the context is expressing a viewpoint rather than instigating actionable violence or harm.”

We've already seen how unreliable Universities are when it comes to preserving free speech.
What can we really expect if the flip side -- hate speech -- becomes good business? 





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!

 

 

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Tucker Carlson is in the news because he just got dumped by Fox News. Some say it’s because of the lawsuit filed by former head of booking for the Tucker Carlson Tonight show, Abby Grossberg, against the network and several individuals at Fox, including Carlson. Grossberg says she “endured an extremely hostile work environment” and was subjected to antisemitic treatment by Alexander McCaskill and Justin Wells, both senior producers for Carlson’s show. 

Carlson is accused of misogyny in Abby Grossberg’s suit—though not antisemitism. That hasn’t stopped the media from suggesting otherwise by seeming to lump him together with McCaskill in blaring headlines about the suit and perhaps with good reason: the scent of antisemitism does seem to cling to Carlson, though there is never anything overt one can point to—no proof that Tucker Carlson hates Israel or the Jews.

In a 2021 piece for Haaretz, “Tucker Carlson Is Now a Big Problem for pro-Israel Conservatives” Jonathan S. Tobin writes, “One of the things that sets Carlson apart from virtually any other prominent conservative figure is his distinct lack of enthusiasm for Israel.”    

On the Carlson show, the barbarous Assad regime in Syria is justified for its supposed defense of Syrian Christians. Worries about Iran or even criticism of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Tehran — as much of a Republican mantra as opposition to Obamacare — is never heard.

Nor, for that matter, is any direct criticism of Israel. It is, like Sherlock Holmes' "Hound of the Baskervilles," the dog that never barks on Fox at 8pm EST.

Even when he hosts figures from the left who are well-known for their hate for Israel, such as Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, a notorious BDS advocate, the Jewish state never gets mentioned. The same is true for frequent guest journalist Glenn Greenwald, another supporter of the Palestinians. Greenwald discusses his disdain for Big Tech censorship on Carlson’s show, but not the Middle East.

While Carlson never bashed Trump for his historic support for Israel, he seized any chance he could to single out the administration figures most closely associated with the Jewish state for attention and often vicious critique.

Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner was a particular object of Carlson’s vitriol. Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley — a favorite for Republican Jews and a 2024 hopeful who can likely count on the pro-Israel community’s support if she runs — is another Carlson punching bag.        

That lack of enthusiasm has expressed itself is through his pooh-poohing of the Iranian nuclear threat and its quest for regional hegemony. More from Jonathan Tobin, this time from his 2021 piece, Why are Tucker Carlson and Peter Beinart trying to help Iran?:

[While] Trump was careful not to get suckered into a war, [his] vigorous approach to Iran, including the killing of its top terrorist—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Gen. Qassem Soleimani—met with Carlson’s disapproval. To his dismay, Trump’s policies on Iran were not much different from the positions of the dreaded neo-conservatives that Carlson despises . . .

Carlson’s reaction to Biden’s attack on the terrorists who killed an American last week was brutal, accusing the administration of “killing strangers” in a “far-away land” and bringing “war back to the Middle East after four years.” He mocked the idea that ISIS was a threat to the West and sees no need for “counter-terrorism” measures. He also defended the brutal Assad regime in Syria. Like Beinart, despite its genocidal threats towards Israel and his aggression towards Arab states in the region, Carlson dismisses the whole idea that the United States needs to do anything about Iran.

Curiously, Carlson is an outlier when it comes to the issue on which nearly all Republicans move in lockstep: Israel . . . In contrast with other Fox shows and other conservative venues, Israel is almost never mentioned on his show. But though liberals and Democrats are the main targets of his scorn, he reserves his greatest disdain for “neoconservatives” and others whom he believes have duped America into fighting “forever wars” in the Mideast instead of taking care of the needs of those at home. He seems particularly angry at Republicans who have become beloved by the pro-Israel community like former U.S. Ambassador the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Carlson is right that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly failures. But, like Beinart, he goes further and now claims that Syria and its ally Iran aren’t worth bothering about.

These Iran apologists may start out from different points and have different end goals. But both have little use for the alliance with Israel and bend over backwards to dismiss concerns that Iran, and its Islamist and authoritarian allies, are threats to America’s interests and values.

Many of those accusing Carlson of anti-Israelism and antisemitism, both now and in the past, have pointed to ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt’s call—to the World Federation of Advertisers—to boycott Fox, pointing to Carlson’s “open endorsement of the Great Replacement Theory.”:

Before I pause for Q&A, let me share with you another vivid example of how hate speech and white supremacy is moving from the margins into the mainstream.

Just two weeks ago on his Fox News program, Tucker Carlson openly endorsed the white supremacist “Great Replacement Theory.” If you haven’t heard of it, this is a virulently racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory that holds a secret group of Jewish people are plotting to flood the United States with non-whites and immigrants in order to commit “white genocide.”

Lots of us see the ADL and Greenblatt as irredeemably radical left, among them, this writer. We tend to discredit anything Greenblatt says or does. Some, in fact, point to Greenblatt’s decrial of the former Fox employee as proof that Tucker Carlson is innocent of these accusations and is neither a conspiracy theorist nor an antisemite. But even Greenblatt and the ADL sometimes get it right—just as a broken clock is right, twice a day.

Ben Sales expands on Greenblatt’s assertions:

On Monday, [Tucker Carlson] delivered a 20-minute defense of his “replacement” idea. At the end he took aim at the ADL, saying its defense of Israel’s Jewish majority and opposition to the return of Palestinian refugees contradicts its advocacy for immigrants in the United States.

“In the words of the ADL, why would a government subvert its own sovereign existence?” he wondered, referring to an essay on the ADL’s website. “Good question. Maybe ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt will join ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ some time to explain and tell us whether that same principle applies to the United States.”

Perhaps this sounded simply like Carlson going after a group that has been challenging him.

But for far-right extremists, his question went beyond a debate about immigration policy. Carlson was alluding to a meme that has traversed white supremacist circles for years and is a direct corollary to the “replacement” theory: Jews want to replace white people in the United States through mass immigration, the theory goes, but in Israel they protect their own race by restricting immigration.

White supremacists often refer to this idea by calling for “Open borders for Israel” — trollishly suggesting that American Jews should support similar immigration policy for the US as they do for Israel.

“Open borders for Israel” was a rallying cry at the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where far-right marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us.” A Facebook group called Open Borders for Israel features Pepe the Frog, a cartoon appropriated by the “alt-right.” An “Open Borders for Israel” face mask featuring an anti-Semitic caricature is available for purchase on at least one website, and a white supremacist group distributed flyers with the slogan at Texas Christian University last year, according to TCU360, a campus news website.

The contradiction only works in white supremacists’ imaginations. In reality, while American Jews tend to sympathize with immigrants and refugees, few Jews actually call for “open borders” in the US And many Jews and Jewish groups, including the ADL, are particularly critical of Israel’s restrictive refugee policy, which has been a topic of heated debate there for a decade.

In the “open borders for Israel” meme, white supremacists take substantive debate beyond the pale of legitimacy. Beyond critiquing policy, they suggest (falsely) that Israel’s immigration system is one more piece of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy white society, and that Jews are playing a dishonest double game by advocating separate policies for the United States and Israel.

Responding to Carlson’s salvo, directed at Greenblatt and the ADL, CAMERA Senior Research Analyst Gilead Ini tweeted:

Tucker is wrong because the ADL opposing a "right of return" is about preserving a single, functioning refuge for an oppressed people, slaughtered in the millions *as Jews,* expelled from their countries *as Jews,* whose population today is still below pre-Shoah numbers.

Surely Tucker understands the difference between what's described above and the situation of, say, Americans of English descent. But he doesn't care. He's about dulling rather than sharpening viewers understanding, for the sake of scoring his point.

Ini isn’t shy here. He says it very clearly: Tucker “understands the difference” between Israel’s “right of return” and the Biden Administration’s “open borders” policy in the United States. Carlson is being cagey and misleading here, suggesting to his viewers that when Jews make Aliyah to their indigenous territory, it is exactly the same as illegal immigrants flooding the border in Texas.

There is more than a hint of antisemitism here, but only if you’re willing to let go of loyalty to Tucker for the sake of loyalty to Israel and the Jewish people. Tucker knows better—knows exactly what he is doing when he says these things about Israel. The now-terminated Fox News employee is too smart not to understand the import of his own words, and the theory that some conclude lies behind these words. In other words, those who so “reasonably” deduce that Tucker was pointing only to what he sees as the double standard of the ADL, and not really suggesting that Jews have no right to immigrate to the Jewish State, delude themselves. Otherwise, he would not leave the matter fuzzy, unclarified, and open to interpretation.

Where do we draw the line in our understanding of Tucker’s equivocal rant? Did his words mean nothing more than a pointed rebuke of the liberal, two-faced ADL? Or was he couching his words to avoid outing himself as someone who, at the very least, thinks that Jews demand special treatment. At worst, Tucker may be, as Greenblatt asserts—though I am loathe to give the ADL credence or legitimacy in these matters—a firm believer in the Great Replacement Theory.

In January of this year, Tucker insulted Ahinoam Nini, a singer of international renown, known simply as “Noa,” no last name, outside of Israel—her real name is probably too difficult for most non-Hebrew speakers to pronounce. Nini is rabidly far-left, and her political views are anathema to Israelis on the right. Under the cover of Nini’s leftwing politics, Tucker gave himself permission to mock her singing and hand gestures. Then Carlson went further, drawing attention to the fact that Noa is Jewish: “Yeah, and those people run the world? They are so impressive!”

Was Tucker making fun of the Great Replacement Theory, leftists, the singer herself, or the Jewish people? All of the above? Who knows? Only those of us who have come to believe that where there’s antisemitic smoke, there’s antisemitic fire, will interpret these words as yet more evidence that Tucker Carlson is, indeed, an antisemite.

On October 6, 2022, Tucker Carlson hosted Kanye (Ye) West on his show. Not long after, Kanye took to Twitter, in his now famous antisemitic rant. You know—the one where he said, “I’m a bit sleepy now, but when I wake up, I’m going death con 3 on the JEWISH PEOPLE.”

The indefatigable Jonathan Tobin once more documented the evidence of and the slippery nature of Tucker Carlson’s probable antisemitism six days later, when he drew a line between the Ye’s appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, and the “death con 3” tweet:

Carlson became something of a tribune for conservatives for his forthright condemnations of the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020 and willingness to speak out on other issues dear to the hearts of those on the political right. That made him a target for the left, with groups like the Anti-Defamation League seeking to de-platform him for his discussions of so-called “replacement theory” about immigration. This said more about the ADL’s partisanship than Carlson, since the idea that demographic change will alter American politics is one that originated with and continues to be advocated for by Democrats.

Here again, the fact that liberal groups have already “cried wolf’” about Carlson makes it easier for him to dismiss criticisms when he actually does something to mainstream hatred. This is what happened in the wake of the West interview.

Carlson embraced West because some of what he says is in line with conservative views about race-baiting (his endorsement of a “White Lives Matter” shirt) and opposition to abortion. On the program, the rapper/fashion mogul was allowed to claim that Jared Kushner pursued the Abraham Accords for financial profit rather than to advance peace.

Carlson is unique among leading conservative media figures in that he is not a supporter of Israel. He is careful, however, to stay away from discussions about the Jewish state, lest he run afoul of mainstream conservative opinion, which is overwhelmingly Zionist.

The word “Israel,” thus, is a word almost never heard from 8-9 p.m. on Fox News. And it is not surprising that Carlson would allow one of the Trump administration’s greatest triumphs to be denigrated in this particular manner.

While Carlson trumpeted the interview as proof that West was not, as many claim, a disturbed individual or a hatemonger, what was left out of the broadcast was as interesting as what was left in. In outtakes that have subsequently been published, West made numerous allusions to hateful Jewish stereotypes.

He even echoed assertions of the Black Israelite sect that African-Americans were the real Jews—effectually denying the existence of a Jewish people. That Carlson would leave this out of his show demonstrates that he was attempting to hide West’s anti-Semitism.

Days later, West dropped the veil. In a series of tweets, he announced that he was going to “def con 3 against the Jewish people.” Yet conservative talk-show host Candace Owens defended him, in essence instructing Jews on what does or does not constitute anti-Semitism.

Like liberals circling the wagons around left-wing haters of Israel and the Jews, Carlson and Owens are doing the same for West and for the same reason. In each case, legitimizing anti-Semitism is considered justified if it defends a political ally, regardless of the consequences.

Though Carlson censored the interview with Ye, editing out all West’s antisemitic crazy talk, Tucker ended the show by, according to Vice: “declaring that the artist—whose erratic behavior has for years been at the center of discussions about mental health and how Black men with mental health issues are treated— is ‘not crazy’ and ‘worth listening to.’ He also added, approvingly, that Ye was ‘getting bolder’ in what he has to say.”

Was Ye emboldened by the interview with Tucker? Did the fact that Tucker hid Ye’s hateful ravings from the public, encourage the bipolar rapper that Carlson actually approved of these antisemitic sentiments? Why did Tucker tell his audience that Ye is “not crazy,” “worth listening to” and “getting bolder in what he has to say” if not to show admiration and approval for Ye’s virulent dislike of the Jewish people?

The mask is slipping and some of us already see Tucker Carlson for what he is: a covert antisemite. Maybe it's time for Tucker to come out of the closet and put all doubt to rest. Unless, of course, he's afraid to be canceled—a process Fox News appears to have already begun.



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!

 

 

Tuesday, January 03, 2023

From Ian:

FBI Says Violence Against Jews Is in Decline. Jews Aren’t Buying It.
The FBI’s latest annual report shows a decline in violence against Jews, findings that are at odds with Jewish watchdog groups who say anti-Semitic hate crimes have hit their highest levels in history during the past two years.

The FBI’s 2021 findings, released at the end of last year, have sparked accusations the federal law enforcement agency is deflating these statistics at a time when the American Jewish community is facing an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism. At least one watchdog group is calling on Congress to investigate how and why the FBI underreported anti-Jewish hate crimes.

"At a time of record anti-Semitic hate crimes, it is appalling that the FBI's data-gathering has been so badly botched," said Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a watchdog group that combats Jew hatred. "This massive failure has undermined the purposes of hate crimes data precisely when we most need the data. If the FBI doesn't quickly correct this problem, congressional committees will need to ask some serious questions."

Marcus said the FBI’s 2021 statistics on hate crimes against Jews are "essentially useless" due to new reporting procedures that omitted statistics from organizations typically included in the federal agency’s yearly assessment. While the FBI claimed that violence against Jews decreased last year, groups such as the Anti-Defamation League reported that 2021 saw the highest levels of anti-Semitic violence on record. A report from the AMCHA Initiative, a Jewish advocacy group, last year found that assaults on Jewish students and their identities doubled in the 2021 and 2022 academic year.

Marcus, an attorney and former staff director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, said the FBI’s inaccurate reporting is likely to prompt congressional oversight.

"In my experience overseeing federal civil rights data collections, congressional committees have historically taken a keen interest in the completeness and accuracy of governmental information provided to the public," Marcus told the Washington Free Beacon. "It is hard to imagine that a failure of this scope would escape the notice of congressional oversight staff."

"I am hopeful that the Department of Justice and FBI will clean up this mess on their own," Marcus said. "If DOJ and the FBI do not fix this problem, however, by providing corrected and complete data to the public, we should not be surprised if Congress should get involved."
Sweet success in Ben & Jerry’s-MDA blood donor project
Ben & Jerry’s Israel and Magen David Adom have begun a joint project to raise awareness and encourage young people to join MDA’s regular pool of blood donors in Israel.

To sweeten the project, Ben & Jerry’s set up ice-cream carts at four blood donation stations across the country where anyone who donated blood received free ice cream.

Locations included the Dizengoff Center, where 71 units of blood were donated; in Rishon Lezion, which collected 119 units; at Rupin Academic College, where 80 people donated units of blood; and at the Knesset, which collected 120 units. The donated blood can conceivably help save the lives of about 1,000 people in less than two months.

Able to save the lives of around 1,000 people in under 2 months
MDA vice president of blood services Prof. Eilat Shanar said, “In order to maintain a proper blood supply in the State of Israel, MDA’s blood services are required to collect about 1,000 blood units from volunteer donors every day. We are very happy about the cooperation with Ben & Jerry’s and we hope to continue this activity in other places throughout the country and encourage more and more people to donate blood and save lives.”
Is the UK Turning into Something Extremely Different?
On December 1, 2022, Britain’s Office for National Statistics released the latest 10-yearly census, carried out in 2021, showing that the fastest-growing population in England and Wales is Muslims. According to the census:
“For the first time in a census of England and Wales, less than half of the population (46.2%, 27.5 million people) described themselves as ‘Christian’…”

“It’s not a great surprise that the Census shows fewer people in this country identifying as Christian than in the past,” the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, said in response to the findings, “but it still throws down a challenge to us not only to trust that God will build his kingdom on Earth but also to play our part in making Christ known.”

The Muslim community in Britain reacted otherwise. Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said:
“Whilst the Census does look at religion, the lack of wider religion-specific monitoring prevents us from fully understanding how acute the issue of under-representation of Muslims is in British society.

“These initial figures give us an opportunity to now make meaningful change and create a better Britain for all.”


In 2013, British journalist Vincent Cooper wrote: “By the year 2050, in a mere 37 years, Britain will be a majority Muslim nation.”

The census taken 2021 has revealed that while fewer than half of people (27.5 million) in England and Wales now describe themselves as Christian, those claiming “No religion” rose by 12 points to 37.2% (22.2 million). Those identifying as Muslim rose from 4.9% in 2011 to 6.5% (3.9 million) in 2021. The next most common responses were Hindu (1.0 million) and Sikh (524,000), while Buddhists overtook Jews (273,000 to 271,000).

Religion seems a far more important part of life for Muslims than for other Britons: it appears central to their sense of identity. According to a report from 2006:
“Thirty percent of British Muslims would prefer to live under Sharia (Islamic religious) law than under British law…. Twenty-eight percent hope for the U.K. one day to become a fundamentalist Islamic state.”

An article by Abdul Azim Ahmed, published by the Religion Media Centre in September 2021, admitted that within Britain all the divergent schools of Islam are present — although Salafism has grown in recent years, particularly among younger Muslims.

Trevor Phillips, former head of Britain’s Commission for Racial Equality and Equality and Human Rights Commission, found that the followers of Islam hold very different values from the rest of the society; many apparently want to lead separate lives. “Muslims are creating nations within nations,” he said.

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

From Ian:

The Democrats must have a ‘Sister Souljah moment’ on antisemitism
The recent rise in American antisemitism is the result of a lack of consequences for those engaging in it.

For example, Americans Against Antisemitism studied 194 anti-Jewish assaults and 135 attacks on Jewish property in New York that have taken place since 2018. According to their July 2022 report, only two of the perpetrators actually went to prison.

A similar situation is occurring on college campuses. Students who harass Jews are rarely if ever suspended or expelled, and almost never face any consequences at all. This has emboldened antisemites on campus, with a chilling effect on Jewish and pro-Israel voices.

Colleges have codes of conduct according to which harassment of other students can result in serious ramifications. These codes have not been enforced against antisemites.

In the realm of politics, when Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar engaged in anti-Jewish and anti-Israel comments, and expressed support for BDS, their fellow Democrats were initially prepared to take action against them. A resolution passed by the House of Representatives (H.R.183) sought to “ensure safety” for Jews. It stated, “Accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel or to the Jewish community than to the U.S. constitutes antisemitism.”

The resolution was a response to Omar’s comments, with Tlaib by her side, that supporters of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship “push allegiance to a foreign country.” In Jan. 2019, Tlaib criticized Sen. Marco Rubio’s efforts to punish those who attempt to boycott Israel, tweeting, “They forgot what country they represent.” Rubio posted, “The ‘dual loyalty’ canard is a typical antisemitic line.” Neither Tlaib nor Omar have apologized for these statements.

Instead of making it clear that Tlaib and Omar’s bigoted views are anathema to the Democratic Party, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed both for reelection.

Sadly, it is not surprising that several Jewish organizations, including the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Ameinu, along with the left-wing lobby J Street, issued a statement saying they “oppose Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s pledge to strip Representative Ilhan Omar of her House Foreign Affairs Committee seat based on false accusations that she is antisemitic or anti-Israel. We may not agree with some of Congresswoman Omar’s opinions, but we categorically reject the suggestion that any of her policy positions or statements merit disqualification from her role on the committee.”

With Jewish organizations like these, we should not be surprised that antisemitism is rising.
War of Independence veterans protest 'defamatory' Netflix movie
Veterans of the War of Independence, who are currently in the tenth decade of their lives, have joined the furor surrounding the Jordanian film Farha, which depicts Israel Defense Forces soldiers executing Palestinian children and babies, demanding Netflix immediately remove it from their library.

"We are Holocaust survivors who defended our country. Remove the defamatory film," the five ex-soldiers called.

The Israel Law Center has sent a warning letter to Netflix on their behalf concerning a potential breach of Israeli defamation laws.

The group consists of 96-year-old Oded Negbi, who served in the Givati Brigade and fought many battles in the Negev and Jaffa; 92-year-old Eitan Yavzory of Kibbutz Afikim, who fought in Gush Etzion and in the Negev; 94-year-old Ezra Yachin, who fought in Jerusalem; 92-year-old Lt. Col. (Res.) Ze'ev (Tibi) Ram, a Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family at Auschwitz and enlisted in the Golani Brigade upon the outbreak of the War of Independence; and 91-year-old Prof. Benny Arad, a veteran of the Haganah, who fought in the War of Independence, among other conflicts, and served as an IDF officer for many years. As a physicist, Arad was one of the founders of the Department of Experimental Physics at the Negev Nuclear Research Center.

"It's an antisemitic movie. When I heard about it, I was appalled. At the thought that this movie is being shown all over the world, I was driven to stand up and protest, and I called in my son. He contacted the Israel Law Center," Arad said.

"Personally, I don't watch television. But when we're defamed like this, I can't let it pass. The world doesn't know what the IDF is, what a moral army we have. So they may think that the lies that the movie shows are the actual truth. All we did is defend our country, our nation, and our nascent state."

Negbi also shares his frustration with the movie and the lopsided fashion in which it depicts his comrades in arms.

"The life I lived alongside the Arabs was completely different. When I heard about that movie, I shuddered. I went through many hardships. My mother taught me to give to others and help them. Not even the concept of killing children could come out of a home like that. The very notion of harming an Arab child was far from our minds. It's sheer slander," he said.
‘Activist’ or Antisemite? Dr. Noura Erakat’s Poorly-Timed Speech at OSU
Several incidents involving swastikas, harmful antisemitic libels, and images of the burning Israeli flag took place on Ohio State University (OSU)’s campus in the months and weeks leading up to the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

One would have hoped that OSU administrators and students could come together to resist this unprecedented and abhorrent increase in antisemitism on campus.

Sadly, those hopes were crushed by the invitation of a speaker to campus who spews the very same libels.

On November 9, the OSU Palestinian Women’s Association hosted Rutgers University Professor Dr. Noura Erakat, who spoke to Ohio State students over Zoom to discuss her new book, “Justice for Some: Law and the Occupation of Palestine.”

Although she is hailed by her university and many anti-Zionist activists as an expert in international law, fallacies in her book can be found as early as the introduction, where Erakat discusses “Zionist militias established Israel by force, without regard to the Partition Plan’s stipulated borders.”

This falsehood negates the indisputable fact that in 1948, most Jews accepted United Nations Resolution 181, which partitioned the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. Arabs, on the other hand, vehemently rejected the proposal and tried to eliminate Israel and kill its Jewish inhabitants.

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

From Ian:

How did black, Jewish communities go from friendship to tension? - opinion
The events over the last couple of months involving the black and Jewish communities have triggered a lot of thought-provoking questions and concerns. During my entire time working for Jewish non-profits, leaders of these organizations encouraged us to use the strong history of solidarity between black and Jewish communities as part of our outreach.

When educating Jewish university students, we always discussed the special relationship between Dr. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Heschel. We used quotes from influential black leaders to showcase how these figures were supporters of Zionism at a time when Israel was vulnerable.

Looking back now, I realize that historically, the relationship between both communities is a lot more complicated, and today is no different. While black and Jewish solidarity during the civil rights movement sounds beautiful, those stories don’t resonate with my generation because it’s not our reality anymore. Historically the black and Jewish communities supported one another, but clearly, things are different now.

So what happened? How did we get here?
Since the civil rights movement, different events have caused friction between our communities, which have dampened the good relationship which black and Jewish people once shared. Over time, antisemitism and racism have infested both groups. In addition, various events, like the Crown Heights riots, created tension. Hate also spewed from extremist groups and organizations like the Nation of Islam, causing more friction.

Today, black nationalists like Louis Farrakhan and his followers are normalizing antisemitic rhetoric. And now, prominent figures like Kanye West openly spreads antisemitic conspiracy theories while promoting extremists from the Black Hebrew Israelite community who openly support Hitler and the Nazis on the streets of New York.

The black and Jewish communities have, in the past, worked together as vulnerable groups to fight for equality. Over the years, they lived as neighbors in segregated neighborhoods in the US.

Their alliance had some profound moments. Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald teamed up with Booker T. Washington to create schools for black children in the south. Rosenwald donated $70 million to build 5,000 schools for black children.

Black colleges also stepped in during World War II to rescue Jews from Germany. After the Nazis took power, the US failed to take immediate action, thus administrators from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) saved 50 Jewish-German scholars by hiring them.


Lyn Julius: Making sense of the great Mizrahi exodus
Sixty years ago, Algeria declared its independence from France after a bloody war that is thought to have claimed over a million lives. In the course of throwing off the French colonial yoke, Algeria divested itself of 800,000 “white settlers” or pieds noirs. But along with the settlers went 130,000 native Algerian Jews.

There was a reason for this: Within a year of independence, it was clear that there would be no place for non-Muslims in the new Algeria. Indeed, the country’s constitution stipulated that only those with a Muslim father or grandfather could acquire Algerian citizenship.

The Jewish refugees, who held French citizenship, were “repatriated” to France, where they had never lived. One of them was Shmuel Trigano, then 14-years-old. Within two days and with two suitcases in hand, his life changed forever. Uprooted from the only home he had ever known, he was left permanently scarred.

However, it was only relatively recently, when he saw Palestinians brandishing the keys to homes they had left in 1948, that Trigano realized there was a political dimension to his trauma.

“We also had keys,” he says of the 900,000 Jews forced to flee Arab countries. “But we were too modest. We did not make claims—and because we were silent, we allowed a false narrative to fill the vacuum.”

In order to counter what he calls a massive distortion of the facts, Trigano set about applying the tools of his trade as a professor of sociology. He constructed a conceptual framework to make sense of the post-1940s Jewish exodus from 10 Arab countries over a period of 30 years.
David Collier: Gazan scams the anti-Zionists – antisemitism makes people dumb
A Gazan has just scammed anti-Zionists out of £1000s. Pete Gregson, the Scottish man who ran the campaigns has even just admitted it. The truth here is that this is a cycle; The lies of anti-Israel propaganda creates anti-Zionists, anti-Zionism embeds antisemitism, and antisemitism makes people targets for scams. And trust me on this, the people in Gaza and the West Bank are fully aware of it.

A Gazan scammer – the backstory
Keeping this part short: Those who read this blog will know that throughout 2022, I ran several articles on the relationship between Pete Gregson, an active antisemite from Scotland, and a Gazan by the name of Mohammed Almadhoun. Gregson put out an endless stream of fundraisers to help Almadhoun and even ran the Gaza- Edinburgh twinning campaign alongside him. I went digging (as did one or two friends), tracking down Almadhoun and all his claims. It took a while, we had to dig deep – and I even ended up speaking to an Egyptian surgeon referenced in one of the campaigns (who denied ever operating on Almadhoun). My research showed beyond doubt that not only did Almadhoun’s family have ties to both Islamic Jihad and Hamas, but that the fundraising campaigns were a scam.

A Christmas Eve notice and the Boxing Day email
Pete Gregson carried on with his campaigns, ridiculing my research and standing by his Gazan ‘friend’. Until on Christmas Eve the latest campaign was suddenly closed. Then yesterday (Boxing Day), Pete Gregson personally sent an extraordinary email to all those that had contributed. It began like this (full email – see image) :
“It greatly pains me to admit to our having been victims of a humongous scam “

He even openly admitted that I had been right:
Gregson explains that he now knows that Almadhoun, the Gazan scammer will ‘tell lies with impunity if he can scam money‘
Let Jews Arm Themselves to Keep Their Synagogues Safe
Since 2018, there have been three violent attacks on worshippers at American synagogues; numerous others were attempted, threatened, or successfully foiled by law enforcement. Under these circumstances, Jewish communities have adopted various protective measures, including arming themselves. State laws in Maryland and New York, however, specifically prohibit carrying weapons in houses of prayer. Stuart Halpern and Tevi Troy argue against such regulations:

Legally speaking, the laws appear to violate the Second Amendment guarantee of the right to bear arms. Indeed, the New York law was challenged on that basis, and the Maryland law may face a legal challenge as well. But the laws could also be subject to a First Amendment challenge, as they could be seen as an unreasonable burden on the free exercise of religion. After all, if you can’t worship safely because of the threat of anti-Semitic violence, how can you be free to practice your religion?

Legalities aside, there is a larger problem here: these laws may be well-meaning, but the fact remains that, if enacted, potential victims will comply with the law, while their potential attackers won’t. As a result, the attackers will remain armed and dangerous, while potential protectors will be disarmed and limited to the run, hide, and fight directives of local synagogue security committees. These committees do great work, but they necessarily tell congregants, as a last resort, to throw a siddur (Jewish prayer book) at an attacker. A siddur, alas, is a poor substitute for a gun in a firefight.

The 3,000-year-old Jewish tradition has examined the tension between sanctity and safety in the synagogue. In the book of Exodus, the Almighty offers instructions for building a sacrificial altar—what would become a central component of the holy sanctuary. The Israelites are told that it is not to be made of hewn, or carved, stone. Using a sword—a weapon—in the construction of a ritual object, the Bible makes clear, would profane what is meant to be sanctified. Yet the Jewish tradition also recognizes instances of violence as necessary in defense of holy places. The book of Kings recounts how the rebellious Joab, after a failed coup, tries to avoid capture from King Solomon by grasping the sanctuary altar. Solomon ordered him executed there nonetheless.

Friday, December 23, 2022

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: The top 10 Jewish stories of 2022
It’s been a difficult decade. 2020 was the year of coronavirus-pandemic panic and the general collapse of established norms. This was compounded by the Black Lives Matter riots that set off a moral panic about race, with the mainstreaming of fringe ideas and intersectionality.

2021 was a little better, as the world gradually shook off its COVID paranoia. But it was notable mainly for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that has roiled American politics ever since, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the creation of an Israeli government that combined members of the right, the left and even Islamist parliamentarians.

2022 has been something of a challenge, with war and antisemitism dominating Jewish news just as much, if not more, than in the previous two years. As it comes to an end, here’s a look back at the year with my list—in reverse order—of the top 10 stories and how they’ve shaped the Jewish world.

For good or for ill, JNS has covered them all. Stick with us in 2023, as we continue to give you the best in Jewish journalism with news, analysis and opinion you can’t find anywhere else.

10-The U.N.’s and ‘human rights’ groups’ war on Israel escalates
The report of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, published in June, was a textbook case of antisemitic incitement. In its view, there is no Palestinian incitement, no Palestinian terrorism, no Palestinian rejection of peace. Led by open antisemites like Navi Pillay, the document denied Jewish history and the truth about the century-old war that Palestinian Arabs and their enablers have been waging on Zionism.

Like the rest of the hatred directed at Israel from the world body and so-called “human rights” NGOs, this campaign is often downplayed or ignored by the Jewish world. That’s a mistake, since efforts such as those apparent in the COI report serve as the foundation for the ongoing “lawfare” endeavor to isolate and turn Israel into a pariah state. Far from being insignificant enough to warrant a lack of attention, these undertakings legitimize antisemitism throughout the world and undermine otherwise successful normalization moves between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors.

9-Normalization with the Arab world continues
The second year since the signing of the 2020 Abraham Accords, which led to the normalization of relations between Israel and four Arab and Muslim countries, saw those ties strengthened, with tourism and economic activity continuing to expand in 2022. But, while progress towards full acceptance is slow, the steady rise in trade and the growing signs of security cooperation testify to the Arab world’s belief that it can no longer be held hostage by Palestinian intransigence.

These positive trends might have been even stronger by now, had the administration in Washington prioritized the quest to build on its predecessor’s achievement and expand the circle of peace, especially with Saudi Arabia. But President Joe Biden has botched relations with Riyadh. And though he doesn’t oppose the accords brokered by former President Donald Trump, his foreign-policy team is still more interested in appeasing Iran and the Palestinian Authority.
The European Genizah
The term “European Genizah” refers to thousands of individual pages that were torn out of Hebrew manuscripts centuries ago, and then used to bind books and cover archival files. Sometimes these pages were discovered by chance, and sometimes as a result of a systematic search. They were discovered mainly in Central Europe, in dozens of libraries, archives, and monasteries, and even among private possessions.

The European Genizah is not limited to Hebrew manuscripts. Tens of thousands of manuscripts in Latin, Greek, and other local languages were discarded as worthless throughout Europe, mainly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but also during the medieval era. They were then used by bookbinders and notaries in bindings, to cover files, and occasionally for other uses as well. An unwanted manuscript—whether because the ideas and opinions they contained had been invalidated, because better versions of the works had been published, or because newer and more beautiful manuscripts (or printed books) had been obtained—was removed from the shelves and sold to bookbinders. It goes without saying that ordinary folks had no interest in preserving manuscripts for which they no longer had any use, but even esteemed university libraries did not hesitate to discard thousands of manuscripts, some of which were purchased by craftsmen who used the parchment in bindings and to cover archival files. Parchment is a valuable material, easy to cut but hard to tear, and light (especially in comparison to the heavy wooden bindings that were common then). Therefore, bookbinders found much use for passé manuscripts that no one wished to read any longer. A handful of scholars understood by the middle of the sixteenth century that bookbinders were in possession of ancient manuscripts that should be rescued from their blades, but the phenomenon continued unabated for a long time and throughout Europe. Tens of thousands of such pages have been discovered recently in various countries, some in old bindings, and some in the covers of archival documents.

I will not presently address non-Hebrew manuscripts that have been discovered in book bindings, but I nevertheless note that even these contain, albeit infrequently, information of importance for Jewish history or the history of the Hebrew book. I cite three examples: The first is the remnant of a very old Hebrew manuscript that was discovered by chance within a Latin fragment used in a binding. The second is from a Marseille notary who bound his archival files in the early 1320s with a Latin document that he had written himself a short time before. By then, he no longer needed that document, so he excised and repurposed the parchment. The document contains the account of an investigation conducted by the Inquisition in Toulon, a city near Marseille, against a Jew suspected of helping an apostate Jew return to his original faith. It provides important information about the history of the Jews of that community during this period. The third consists of strips of outdated bills in Latin, which were used in England to bind newer bills. These strips contain information on loans made by English Jews to their Christian neighbors in the thirteenth century.
A startup nation for Zionist causes
Israel is rightly appreciated as a fount of innovation in a vast array of technologies and industries. Being a startup nation demands a mindset that looks at matters afresh, without being constrained by the way things have always been done.

To have a startup nation mindset is to have vision, see the big picture and move towards the fulfillment of that vision. It also entails the willingness to create something new and possibly unprecedented, rather than await approval or direction from others.

Happily, this mindset is not only prevalent in the private sphere, but also – though less visibly – in the realm of organizations seeking to strengthen and defend Zionist values and policies in Israel.

There is a growing coterie of individuals and organizations who understand that the blessings of Zionism, Jewish sovereignty and control of our own land cannot be taken for granted. As Herzl knew, Zionism and its logical extension, the State of Israel, had to be willed into being – "im tirtzu."

But the willing of Zionism and Israel is a constant process, always facing new problems and seeking new opportunities.

The new Zionist NGOs have proven themselves an essential part of Israeli society. Think of the amazing contribution made by groups like Regavim, which call attention to illegal construction. Ad Kan points out the lies of certain Israeli "human rights" organizations. Im Tirtzu and NGO Monitor address foreign government funding of anti-Zionist Israeli organizations. Organizations like B'yadenu have relentlessly pressed for Jewish civil rights on the Temple Mount.

Realistically, if these organizations were not front and center, it is quite likely that the problems they have raised would have gone unaddressed.

These NGOs did not simply emerge fully-formed. They too were willed into existence. In part, this was done by a small fund that has been instrumental in identifying nascent organizations worthy of support and incubating them with seed funding, organizational advice and networking opportunities.

This small fund is the Israel Independence Fund, which since 2007 has had conspicuous success in identifying fledgling organizations with the potential to make a difference in Israeli society.

Friday, December 16, 2022

From Ian:

Liberals, Progressives, Wokeness and Israel
Putting all this together, what the JILV survey powerfully documents is a troubling phenomenon that has pervaded the larger American political system today: namely political sorting. In its most basic form, political sorting, which is often confused with polarization, is a fairly new phenomenon and is where ideological and attitudinal positions no longer vary but are expected to align to particular liberal or conservative attitudes. The result today is that Democrats are more uniformly left-leaning and Republicans are more uniformly right-leaning than they were decades ago. Both the left and the right promote packages of ideas and attitudes that must be adopted wholesale if one is not to fall into disfavor. Today, dissent and divergence become almost impossible if one is to avoid adverse social consequences and possibly real professional ramifications as well. And for macro-political development, as Democrats are more habitually liberal and Republicans become more conservative, compromise and bipartisanship becomes harder to achieve. This is exactly what is happening with respect to Israel and ideology and represents an existential threat to the Jewish community and American support for Israel as well.

The recent uproar at Berkeley Law School is a case in point. Nine student groups at the law school banded together to amend their bylaws so as to exclude any Zionist speaker from ever speaking at the law school. That Women of Berkeley Law, the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and the Law Students of African Descent felt compelled to join forces with the Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association in this endeavor, illustrates how powerful this ideological sorting can be. Under the guise of intersectional solidarity, groups that have nothing to do with the Middle East conflict institute a litmus test that permanently excludes the vast majority of Jews who believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. To be part of the community of the good is to expel people with improper beliefs.

More specifically, to understand sorting what is critical to understand is that the electorate has not changed significantly in the aggregate as generations have aged in and out, but voters have sorted. Consider that in the 1990s there were many pro-choice and pro-immigration Republicans and pro-gun Democrats. These variations have disappeared with issues all lining up on the left or right such that if you are a Democrat, you have to believe and promote a particular agenda wholesale and thus one can predict an individual’s political positions based on partisanship alone. Thus, the United States is experiencing increased partisan polarization now even though Independents have grown as a share of the electorate while the number of partisans has shrunk

Turning to the JILV survey itself, support for Israel has become part of the larger political sort of the American public. Today, vast majorities of Republicans support Israel, while Democratic backing is much lower. To be on the left these days means that one cannot support Israel and be ideologically pure; backing Israel is a conservative value and that line cannot be crossed in the ideologically sorted world of today. Thus, it is also the case that those who score lower on the woke scale are appreciably more aligned with Israel than those who are highly woke. Attitudes toward Israel are now part of the liberal or conservative packages that partisans must uniformly adopt, constituting a new norm in American politics evident in the data here. As Abrams and Wertheimer pointed out, sorting has become so deep that it has influenced views and sharply divided Americans on ideas as varied as the nuclear family, the structure-enabling philanthropy and, of course, the police and justice systems.

Moreover, views toward religion, tradition and history have become part of the story now. To be liberal today means real disdain for people of faith and their rights to religious liberty including support for Israel, while conservatives take the exact opposite approach. As Zaid Jilani has written with respect to race, the vision of the now sorted left is one where, “America isn’t a land of opportunity. It’s barely changed since the days of Jim Crow. Whites, universally privileged, maintain an iron grip on American society, while nonwhites are little more than virtuous victims cast adrift on a plank in an ocean of white supremacy.” The emergent narrative and anti-racist policy positions are now stories, “where whites are the villains and minorities are the victims” making “honest discussion of why homicide is the leading cause of death for young Black men … off limits” for instance. The JILV data show the exact same trend with respect to Israel; support for Israel, even with its faults and complex narratives, is simply on the wrong side of the story and cannot be supported if you are on the liberal side of things.

Given the growth of woke culture and the inexorable sorting process in American political life, friends of Israel must ask themselves some tough questions: Should they continue to focus attention on progressives with deeply held woke commitments who seem to be sorting themselves out of support for Israel, or seek to strengthen support among those who don’t share those ideological commitments and are more inclined to support Israel? To what extent should friends of Israel continue to focus efforts on making Israel’s case in the public realm, and to what extent should they join forces with others in opposing the ideology that gives rise to the growing antipathy toward the Jewish state?

Now is a good time to rethink the mainstream Jewish posture in American politics.
Ungrateful France’s ‘national narrative’ ignores the Jews
France has had Jews for over 2,000 years, and their contributions to the economy, politics, culture and science cannot be denied. But the journalist and blogger Veronique Chemla notes that Judaism and the Jews are virtually absent from the “national narrative” in school curricula and textbooks as well as in exhibitions in French museums. This post is an extract from a talk she gave about this blindspot to the Tsedek Lodge of B’nai B’rith France. She also discussed the issue in her interview with André Barmoha on Radio Chalom Nitsan on 13 December 2022.

Revolutionary, Republican, secular France fought the influence of Catholicism. The state remains embarrassed by the history of religions and by the Jews whom she nevertheless emancipated. France also feared fragmenting the nation by isolating the Jews, while not daring to seem to exclude them. The revolutionary Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre had affirmed: “We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation, and grant everything to the Jews as individuals” – a phrase that still inspires French diplomacy. But even as individuals, the ungrateful homeland ignores them in its national narrative.

Other factors were a pro-European France which denied the “Jewish and Christian roots of Europe” (Jacques Chirac), choosing instead multiculturalism, cultural relativism, atonement. History was perceived through an anachronististic moral lens – the Rights of Man, “political correctness”, making France feel guilty for slavery or colonization. The Crémieux decree was hidden from view while Eurabia ( an European-Arab alliance – ed) was rejected. French Jews are caught between, on the one hand, “pedagogues’ who “deconstruct” history, and, on the other hand, “political correctness”, the disintegration of the nation, European political “elites”, the claims of the “racialized” – Eurabia in different guises.

Jewish historians – Jules Isaac, co-author of school textbooks during the first half of the 20th century, and Marc Bloch – may have felt awkward writing about their co-religionists.

Most important of all, generations of historians, whose studies have skirted around Jews and Judaism, have produced a vicious circle of ignorance, bias and misunderstandings of Jewishness, Judaism and Jews.
Smearing Israel from the Ivory Tower
Israel, a tiny country the size of New Jersey, is the only state in the Middle East that substantially recognizes individual rights, such as legal equality for men and women, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the freedom to engage in same-sex relationships. Compared to its neighbors—Islamic dictatorships that trample rights and violently oppress their populations—Israel is an oasis of enlightenment and liberty. Yet many American and European professors increasingly show support for anti-Israel movements and tyrannical regimes that aim to erase Israel from the map.

Iran is among the most brutal. According to the U.S. State Department, “The Islamic regime in Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” and the “regime elites squander the people’s resources and opportunities, while suppressing freedom and basic human rights.”1 As of this writing, for more than a month Iranian “security forces” have been violently cracking down on widespread protests, which sprang up after the regime’s so-called morality police reportedly killed a young woman for not wearing a hijab correctly.2

Iranian leaders call for “death to Israel,” “death to England,” and “death to America.”3 They fund terrorist groups that wreak havoc in countries neighboring Israel, forming a “ring of fire” around it with the goal of annihilating the tiny democratic republic.4

Yet according to the academic watchdog group Canary Mission, which documents people and groups promoting hatred of the United States and Israel, more than eight hundred professors on North American campuses participate, to varying degrees, in efforts to undermine Israel. So do many in Europe. Among the most vocal anti-Israel professors are David Miller, recently fired from the University of Bristol; Amin Husain at New York University (NYU); and Marc Lamont Hill at Temple University. They are working to erode Israel’s stability, credibility, and security. This despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that Israel is a vital partner and strategic ally of the West.

Miller, previously a tenured professor who served as chair of Bristol’s sociology department, has spent years maligning Israel by advancing conspiracy theories in the classroom and via articles, social media, a website, and a talk show. In his quest to delegitimize the country—which he calls “a violent, racist foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”—he has claimed, for instance, that British Jewish students are “being used as political pawns.”5 Without evidence, he accuses these students of being “constitutionally bound to promoting Israel and campaigns to silence critics of Zionism or the State of Israel on British campuses.”6 To achieve his goal, Miller advocates prohibiting pro-Israel groups from exercising their right to assemble, saying, for example, that Israel “depends for its lifeblood on the transnational Zionist movement. To dismantle the regime, every single Zionist organisation, the world over, needs to be ended. Every. Single. One.”7 (Zionism is the belief in and support of a Jewish homeland.)8

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

From Ian:

Richard Landes on Why Leftists Embrace Islamist Ideas about the West
Richard Landes, chair of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and author of Can the "Whole World" Be Wrong? Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad, was interviewed in a December 5th Middle East Forum Webinar (video) by Dexter Van Zile, editor of the Middle East Forum's Focus on Western Islamism (FWI), regarding the left's embrace of Islamist ideas about the West.

Landes said Edward Said's 1978 book, Orientalism, had "pretty much taken over academia" with its premise that any criticism of Islam was a form of "Western racism." By 2000, said Landes, Said's ideas had "crystallized into a basic feature of the Western public sphere." In 2001, a further significant watershed in this process was the U.N.-sponsored Durban conference, an international forum purportedly held to fight racism. At the conference, "You had the NGOs ... their sacred theme was human rights ... lining up with and joining forces with some of the most regressive groups on the planet. And so as a result ... And the key thing in that unification was the adoption by both sides .... They had already both more or less developed this thought, but they jointly targeted Israel and the United States as, in millennial terms, the Antichrist. Or in Muslim terms, the Dajjal."

Landes described the alliance formed at Durban, followed three days later by the jihad against America on 9/11, as a "red-green alliance" between the "progressive left and jihadis." He referred to it as a "marriage between post-modern sadism and post-modern masochism." The poisonous seeds of that merger account for the Islamists' marching in lockstep with the left, targeting both Israel and the U.S.

Landes said their joint strategy to undermine the West is "demopathy," i.e., using democracy to destroy democracy. Both groups used their platforms to channel their hostility, often publicized at anti-U.S. and anti-Israel protests in the form of symbolic imagery on placards linking swastikas with the American flag and the Jewish star. Landes noted that Islamist propagandists have grown "bolder and bolder. Initially, they didn't think they could get away with saying the things that they say now, so they couched it in human rights terms." He said that "what's happened over the last 20 years is that they've just seen how foolish Western leaders are and that they can get away with just about anything. But I think they still, by and large, don't openly say in English what they say in Arabic."


Phyllis Chesler: The history of the media intifada against Israel
From the moment Yasser Arafat launched his long-planned second intifada against Israel in 2000, the most brazen lies about both Jews and Israel were relentlessly told and widely believed. For years, master propagandists in cyberspace, the Western media and academia managed to diabolically invert reality. The entire world believed an utterly false narrative.

Richard Landes’s new work Can the Whole World Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad fearlessly, carefully, relentlessly and brilliantly documents this history.

Landes is a historian and a scholar of apocalyptic movements. He is the author of eight books and countless articles. He maintains a formidable website, The Augean Stables. He is also a consummate wordsmith. For example, he coined the phrase “Pallywood” (Palestinian Hollywood) to describe the Palestinians’ tactic of staging theatrical productions in war zones in order to create anti-Israel propaganda disguised as news.

In his book, Landes proceeds blood libel by blood libel, beginning with the iconic death of Mohammed al-Dura, a Gazan child allegedly murdered with malice aforethought by cruel Israeli soldiers. With his death caught on video and immediately blamed on Israel, even though the video proved no such thing, al-Dura became the boy whose image has graced a thousand mugs and t-shirts, inflamed the entire world and led to countless Muslim atrocities, including suicide bombings, shootings, knife attacks and car-rammings against Israeli civilians.

As Landes notes, the initial reporting on the incident was malicious and incendiary: “The (flawed) footage and its accompanying narrative immediately went viral, then mythical. The footage was spectacular, as emotionally powerful as the dogs attacking Black protesters in Birmingham (1963), and the terrified Vietnamese girl running down the road naked, aflame with napalm (1972). … Despite extensive problems with the footage … journalists piled on the story. … It became the icon of hatred for the 21st century. One cannot overestimate its impact.”

“The role of al-Dura as incitement is clear,” Landes writes, “and if the damage was less than the old European pogroms, it’s only because the Israelis could defend themselves as the Jews of Kishinev could not.”

Landes also reminds us that Osama bin Laden used al-Dura in a recruiting video for global jihad and that the first Palestinian suicide bombers featured al-Dura in the videos they left behind.
EU source says anti-Israel measure 'tainted' in wake of Qatar corruption scandal
A source that has been privy to the European Parliament's behind-the-scenes deliberations over an anti-Israel resolution has told Israel Hayom it was problematic to have this measure come up for a vote at this time in light of the recent revelation that Qatar allegedly bribed senior officials in the legislative body in exchange for treating it with kid gloves over human rights.

"This corruption case involving the parliament raises the question of whether this is the right time to vote on this [anti-Israel resolution]," the source said.

The parliament's subcommittee on human rights has been at the center of the scandal and its chair Maria Arena has had to step down due to possible involvement (it is unclear if she is among the four being charged, who include EU Parliament's Vice President Eva Kaili, who was arrested).

Arena, who has initiated the anti-Israel motion, has stepped aside as chairperson in the wake of the investigation and her office has been sealed off, but the subcommittee has continued working on the draft. "This is the same subcommittee that has initiated the effort to hold the vote on the Israel resolution," the source said. "Considering this, perhaps it would be inappropriate to have these measures stay on the subcommittee's docket; perhaps they should be shelved for the time being until the picture becomes clearer."

On Monday, the various elements in the parliament tried to reach an agreed language, but all the drafts currently being circulated are not good for Israel, with some outright hostile. All call for the adoption of the two-state solution. The most pro-Israel draft has been sponsored by the right-wing parties, as it condemns Palestinian terrorism and demands it come to an end. The other resolutions call on Israel to avoid approving new communities in Judea and Samaria and voice criticism over the Abraham Accords, while also coming out against the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism.
NGO Monitor: Report: Potential Abuse of German Development Resources by Terror Affiliated Palestinian NGOs
Development and cooperation aid is seen as one of the most effective strategies for promoting democracy and fundamental rights, as well as building sustainable and inclusive societies, particularly in places where these processes are in their initial phases. To be sure, the path to building a democratic society is a political process, traversing existing ideological and social rifts, and subject to passionate debates between different political camps.

Especially in conflict ridden areas, politicization can result in development aid lending a platform to radical voices and amplifying inflammatory, hateful narratives. Such aid is particularly susceptible to abuse by groups that promote radical political narratives.

This is even more pronounced in the Palestinian-controlled areas, including Gaza, where many of the political factions are designated as terror groups by Europe (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP]).

This paper provides a case study that examines the ways that political actors propagate and legitimize radicalized narratives – namely, local Palestinian civil society organizations affiliated with the PFLP terror group, which receive European and more specifically German development aid.

The PFLP is multifaceted, consisting of overlapping functions including militant operations, local partisan political activity, and international advocacy via a “human rights” NGO network. These aspects are complementary, all contributing to the broadening of the PFLP’s sphere of influence and to achieving its goals.

The overlapping character of PFLP activities was illustrated acutely when several senior NGO employees (including those in financial leadership positions) were arrested for a PFLP terror attack in 2019, in which Rina Shnerb, a 17-year-old Israeli, was murdered. A subsequent investigation run by the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MoD) concluded that six PFLP-affiliated NGOs had diverted public funds. Ultimately, all six were designated as terror entities.

Monday, December 12, 2022

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.

Thursday, December 08, 2022

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Does Europe Support This? Al-Haq Tells the World to Dismantle Israel
On November 29, 2022, the Palestinian NGO Al-Haq published yet another antisemitic screed dedicated to denying the Jewish people sovereign equality, by defining Zionism and the State of Israel as inherently illegitimate. For 200 pages, the Palestinian NGO – designated as a terrorist entity by Israel in October 2021 over its ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization – extorts the international community to dismantle the Jewish State. To achieve this goal, Al-Haq absurdly distorts Israeli policy and practice beyond recognition, and misrepresents international legal standards.

Central to Al-Haq’s publication is the repetition of the claim that Israel’s existence as a Jewish State represents “apartheid.” This assertion was debunked in NGO Monitor’s 2021 and 2022 analyses: “False Knowledge as Power: Deconstructing Definitions of Apartheid that Delegitimise the Jewish State” and “Neo-Orientalism: Deconstructing claims of apartheid in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

Al-Haq’s publication is intended to influence the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent Commission of Inquiry’s (the “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel,”) plan to formally declare Israel to be committing “apartheid”; to pressure the International Criminal Court to indict Israeli officials for crimes against humanity; and for third states to apply a wide variety of sanctions against Israel, associated institutions, companies, and individuals.

While broader in scope, this publication echoes the same ideological position expressed by Al-Haq in a formal submission to the COI in May 2022. (For more information, see “Al-Haq’s Antisemitic Submission to the UN’s Permanent COI”)

EU and member states support for Al-Haq
If not for the millions of Euros in support from the EU and its member states Al-Haq has received over several years, the Palestinian NGO would not enjoy nearly the same level of influence and access as it currently does. Despite the organization’s reported ties to the PFLP, and its campaigning to dismantle Israel, Europe has yet to denounce and reject its longtime partner.

While the EU froze financial support to Al-Haq in May 2021 as a result of its links to the PFLP, in June 2022, the organization claimed that this freeze had been lifted – and as yet uncorroborated assertion.

Notably, in May 2022, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra, met with Al-Haq officials in the West Bank – despite the Israeli designation.

Moreover, Al-Haq is listed as an implementing partner on multi-grantee projects funded by the French (€900,000 for the entire project) and Swedish (Al-Haq receives over $2.5 million of the over $8 million project) governments.
John-Paul Pagano: What Is a Conspiracy Theory?
When I began studying Antisemitism two decades ago, one of the first things that occurred to me was its essential nature as a conspiracy theory. While mundane anti-Jewish bigotry is always found, the form of Jew-hatred that is historically salient identifies “the Jews” as a preternaturally powerful, secretive, evil elite which enslaves and exploits humankind. Even a surface examination of conspiracy theories shows that while the identity of the elite changes, this narrative outline is common to all of them. Alternately—and with good reason we will explore later—Antisemitism is sometimes singled out as the ultimate conspiracy theory.

So we can better understand conspiracy theories if we widen our scope to include insights from the much larger literature on Antisemitism. The history of the “Longest Hatred” is an opportunity to examine more than a thousand years of the consistent social practice of a single conspiracy theory. In this vast and detailed record, we will detect patterns and peculiarities that expose the essence of the thing.

The definition I propose hence will leverage scholarship on conspiracy theories and conspiracism, but be situated in the living context of Antisemitism—the up-punching form of racism that is centrally rooted in the cultural heritage of the West and has done so much to shape its social and physical reality. This approach yields a dense definition, but one that is also—after some clarification of terms—comprehensive and empirically legible.

It is, as follows:
A conspiracy theory is a belief that a circumstance or event is a deliberate, connected, and occulted product of the timeless struggle between the forces of Good and Evil, attributable to the malign influence of a secret elite that supernaturally coordinates to enslave and exploit humankind, fabricates false consciousness to hide its activities, and indulges in pleasures and rites of extreme misanthropy.

In upcoming (though not necessarily contiguous) posts, I will clarify the terms I highlighted above and will also discuss three conceptual domains—Manichean, Epistemic, and Magical—in which many of the features and themes of conspiracy theories should be evaluated. I will explain and justify my definition over posts that I will specially mark for this purpose, so they become a series that readers can revisit and reference.

As a variety of racism, the historian Paul Johnson viewed Antisemitism as “so peculiar that it deserves to be placed in a quite different category.” Defining that peculiarity also helps to reveal what is a conspiracy theory—a mode of thought that is in some ways more corrosive than caste-based racism, but against which we’ve mustered no social movement to stigmatize and diminish it.
An open letter to progressives: It’s time to speak out
I wanted to believe perhaps I’d simply missed something. After all, I have always worked in progressive spaces myself. I know how much this movement cares about the safety, dignity, and flourishing of all communities in this country.

But diving into various digital channels and searching through recent public statements yielded nothing. I saw plenty of commendable statements of solidarity aimed at other groups. Perhaps I wasn’t searching hard enough.

It shouldn’t take this much effort to uncover sentiments of support in a time of need.

The progressive movement should be a seamless, natural ally to the Jewish community. But despite the fact that so many Jews in this country find themselves ideologically aligned with the progressive left, for a long time now that movement has behaved as if we are either inevitable supporters – no matter their approach to our oppression – or unimportant ones.

Throughout my tenure in progressive environments, I encountered deafening silence through the violence in Pittsburgh, Poway, and Colleyville. I was told my identity didn’t qualify me to join workgroups focusing on diversity, solidarity, and inclusion. I was called a Zionist (I am one – they meant it as a slur). Assumptions were freely and unapologetically made about my political leanings, my perspectives, and my general pleasantness based on the fact that I was born in Israel and that I am a Jew. Throughout it all, I was expected to continue supporting the causes that have always meant so much to me – and I still do. (h/t jzaik)

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