Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Mairav Zonszein

Showing posts with label Mairav Zonszein. Show all posts

Monday, June 22, 2020

The Left turns on the only member who admits Roger Waters is an antisemite

As I write this on Monday night, I have seen only one anti-Zionist Leftist explicitly call out Roger Waters’ blatant antisemitism and lies, Mairav Zonszein.

Leftist Jewish groups mostly retweeted a very generic tweet that sort of implied distaste at his words without mentioning Waters’ name, so their readers could easily have thought that they were talking about the far Right.

This way they could claim to be against antisemitism without actually criticizing Waters.

The crazed responses to Zonszein from her fellow anti-Zionists, however, are something to behold.

This one has some practical advice: Waters might be an antisemitic jerk, but criticizing him is worse:

There are the predictable denialists, hand wavers and subject changers:

Some are flabbergasted that an anti-Zionist can have an original thought that is not in lock-goose-step with the masses:

My favorite:

“They.”

And, inevitably, those who get so angry at basic facts that they attack the person who was their heroine five minutes beforehand:

I disagree with practically everything Zonszein writes, but she is the only anti-Israel Leftist I see who actually called out this perfect example of Left antisemitism. All the others are cowards or sycophants.

CJR article by a leftist attacking The Forward ends up damning the Left more than its target

Mairav Zonszein, the far left writer who I have shown on numerous occasions to be intellectually dishonest, does it again - but this time for what most people consider a prestigious journal, the Columbia Journalism Review.

In short, her piece attacks The Forward for not being leftist enough. (The subtitle is "How America's Jewish newspaper lost the left.")

Now, I have attacked the Forward many times for publishing opinions and promoting articles that I think gave too much oxygen to the far-Left, providing their members a platform that is far out of proportion to their actual numbers. But the standard that one should use to criticize a media outlet, outside of insisting they report the truth, is whether it adheres to its own stated positions. The Forward's masthead says " News That Matters To American Jews," not "Bernie Sanders Fan Club" or "Zionists are Racists." (The Forward's advertising pitch does say that it is "a beacon of integrity, iconoclasm and progressive thought" but it is unclear whether it uses the word "progressive" the same way the uber-Left does. What is clear is that The Forward considers itself above all a Jewish media outlet, not a leftist one.)

Criticizing The Forward for not being leftist enough when it never claimed to be a leftist media outlet is only one piece of Zonszein's dishonesty. Zonszein misleads again and again, stating things that CFR should have fact-checked.

For example, she writes, "Compared to figures such as Omar and Ocasio-Cortez, Stephen Miller, a Trump senior adviser who is one of the most influential Jews in the White House, was given less attention, even as he advanced white-supremacist policies inspired by Mein Kampf." I count over 90 articles in The Forward about Stephen Miller, nearly all of them extremely negative. That's plenty of attention! Yes, there are about 130 articles that mention Omar, but a significant number of them support her against her critics. (Zonszein's link about Mein Kampf is also false, it does not support her assertion that Miller's positions were inspired by Hitler.)

The article goes on to berate the Forward for publishing occasional opinion pieces from the Right, such as from Mort Klein. Whether she likes him or not, he is the head of a major Zionist organization and to banning him from the Forward would be astonishing To the Left, censorship of opinions they don't agree with is a higher editorial imperative than publishing a variety of opinions that are representative of American Jews.

More outrageous is this section where Zonszein implies that The Forward is in bed with neo-Nazis: "Another contributor published 'We Need to Start Befriending Neo-Nazis.'" The article in question, by Bethany Mandel, was about the few people who try to get neo-Nazis to understand Jews and to change their minds - the exact opposite of the implication by Zonszein.

The straw that broke the camel's back, to Zonszein and her far-Left, anti-Israel friends, was that The Forward has not been shy about calling out leftist antisemitism such as that consistently pushed by Ilhan Omar.

That problem came to a head last February, when Batya Ungar-Sargon, The Forward’s opinion editor, called out Congresswoman Omar for anti-Semitism, sparking a national controversy and leading to the fundraising email that angered Jewish progressives like me. “It is frustrating and saddening to see The Forward today embracing, indeed, reveling in, its newfound role as policeman, prosecutor, judge, and jury deciding what is and isn’t anti-Semitism,” Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, says.

So the Left can tell us what antisemitism is and the Forward cannot? Because according to them, there is simply no such thing as any antisemitism that is not from the far Right, and mentioning any other type outrages them. Arab antisemitism is "protesting for Palestinian freedom" no matter how many times the word "Jew" is used. Attacks on Jews in Brooklyn are twisted to somehow be Trump's fault. And, of course, there is antisemitism on the Left itself, often camouflaged as being anti-Israel. Even UN expert on freedom of religion and belief admits that there is leftist antisemitism.

But the far Left is outraged and wants to silence any such opinion. To them, even the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance cannot express an opinion on what antisemitism is. Only they can, and all antisemitism conveniently comes from their political opponents. They are guilty of the "weaponizing" antisemitism they accuse everyone else of doing, even in this very essay.

The article doesn't even have a consistent, coherent viewpoint. Zonszein's last paragraph is a stunning example:

In many ways, what is happening with the paper reflects what has been going on in the American Jewish community writ large: the collapse of centrism, the polarization of discourse, and the imperative to take a stand. And that’s the source of my frustration with The Forward. Communicating through op-eds and imposing divides among Jews isn’t the kind of journalism required to guide us through the difficult moment we’re in.

She just wrote an entire article attacking the site for publishing opinions that are too Right and not enough from the Left, and then she complains about "the collapse of centrism"? She wants to silence Bethany Mandel, who cannot be pigeonholed as Right of Left and is as classically liberal as they come, and then complains about the "polarization of discourse"? Is the "imperative to take a stand" a bad thing? She mercilessly attacks any Jewish opinion she disagrees with and then complains about "imposing divides among Jews"? What a bizarre conclusion to Zonszein's screed.

The main thrust of the piece, besides attempting to smear The Forward, is to insist that it has no right to publish any opinions that Leftists disagree with. This fundamentally anti-liberal and anti-free speech stance is a very strange one for a watchdog like CJR to publish.

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Leftists say philo-semitism is antisemitism. That means Judaism itself is antisemitic, and the circle is complete.

Mairav Zonszein at +972Mag, criticizes a Tel Aviv speech by Elan Carr.

Elan Carr, the State Department’s special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism, told a group of Israelis and Americans Tuesday night that in order to combat anti-Semitism, teaching the Holocaust is not enough. The U.S., he believes, needs to “educate on philo-Semitism.”

This is too much for Zonszein, who then articulates a still new concept of the Left that loving Jews is antisemitic:

Philo-Semitism, which is sometimes referred to as “positive anti-Semitism,” is an inverse form of anti-Semitism that views Jewish stereotypes — including that Jews are smart, rich, and cunning — with admiration. While on its face, philo-Semitism appears to cast Jews in a positive light, it effectively affirms the beliefs of anti-Semites while tokenizing and exceptionalizing Jews, often conflating them with the State of Israel. In its essence, philo-Semitism, like anti-Semitism, sets the Jews apart as a group distinct from society at large, which is precisely what makes it so dangerous.

So, according to the geniuses of the far Left, it is just as bad for people to go to Jewish doctors or lawyers as it is to boycott them. People who want Jewish neighbors are just as bad as those who try to keep them out of their neighborhoods.

In fact, people who love Jews for their perceived scholarship, charity and morality are dangerous, just as bad as those who hate Jews for their perceived greed or ambition.

(There was once an All in the Family episode where bigot Archie Bunker insisted on getting a Jewish lawyer. That kind of "philosemitism" may exist but it is very rare, and even where it exists, it is far better than antisemitism - a true antisemite would refuse to deal with any Jew.)

Zonszein alludes to those who admire Israel as a bastion of success, morality and strength in an ocean of bigotry and hate. And this seems to be the real reason that Leftists hate philosemitism - because loving Israel is inseparable from philosemitism. And loving Israel is the cardinal sin of the far-Left, so it must be redefined into a form of bigotry, the worst insult possible.

The most ridiculous, and telling, criticism of philosemitism is that it "sets the Jews apart as a group distinct from society at large."

Judaism itself sets Jews apart from the rest of the world!

Jewish law and tradition itself ensures that while Jewish survival depends on a separateness - hence Jewish dietary laws, the prohibition of intermarriage, and countless other examples. It doesn't mean that Jews cannot exist in the larger non-Jewish world or must live in ghettos; Jews have always been part of the larger society. As a minority, it is important for preservation of the religion and the peoplehood of the Jews to establish some separation.

According to the leftist anti-philosemitism doctrine, Jewish law and tradition is antisemitic.

It gets more absurd. Its says explicitly in the Jewish scripture (Deuteronomy 14:2): "Thou art a holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be His own treasure out of all peoples that are upon the face of the earth."

God Himself is antisemitic.

(Extending things a little more, the NAACP is racist.)

Obviously, these leftist arguments are ridiculous. Yet is also ironically proves that the Jewish Left is eminently unqualified to speak about antisemitism.

Because, you see, if they are against any sort of Jewish distinction from any other person, that means that they cannot speak as Jews on any topic. They have abrogated their own Jewishness, since their fervent hope is to be indistinguishable from non-Jews. Eating bagels and lox on Sunday mornings is distinction and therefore antisemitic. Synagogues that cater to Jews are antisemitic. Hillels on campus are antisemitic. Being proud of being Jewish is antisemitic.

They want Judaism to disappear so that there is no longer any distinction between Jews and non-Jews. They do not want to consider themselves Jewish at the risk of distinguishing themselves and contributing to antisemitism, in their twisted worldview.

Therefore, since they are against a separate Jewish existence, they have abrogated the right to use the "As A Jew" argument - since the very words "As A Jew" makes them different from non-Jews. The phrase itself is antisemitic according to them. They only use it cynically to bolster their arguments against Judaism and a Jewish nation.

In short, the Jewish Left argument that philosemitism is as dangerous as antisemitism is, by definition, antisemitic.

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Trump's IAC speech is a Rorschach test of the Jewish left

Here is just one of many reactions to President Trump's speech at the IAC National Summit last night:

He so perfectly exposes how the pro-Israel industry is rooted in commodifiying, tokenizing and instrumentalizing Jews and how the JudeoChrsitian Zionist ethos is essentially antiSemitic https://t.co/LOP0YRbFfW
— Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין (@MairavZ) December 8, 2019

Let's be clear: the only people who are upset over a President, or anyone, saying that people should love Israel more are people who hate Israel. Not Israeli policies, not Israeli leaders, but Israel. And that includes too many Jews, who then fall over themselves saying that such statements - that some Jews need to love Israel more - are antisemitic!

Here's the entire speech.

The audience at the IAC did not think that Trump's speech was antisemitic. Even when he made jokes about how many of them are realtors:"You are brutal killers. Not nice people at all." The audience recognized it as a joke from someone who loves them; the pundits are screaming "antisemite!"

Trump, speaking to the Israeli American Council: "You're not nice people at all, but you have to vote for me. You have no choice. You're not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You're not going to vote for the wealth tax!" pic.twitter.com/IXoaVUw6MU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2019

Some commenters who are slightly more honest but still hate Trump are using a slightly newer trope - he's not an antisemite, he's a philosemite - and that is just as bad! Because as a philosemite, he mentions what he admires about Jews and those are used as proof that he is stereotyping them which is supposedly terrible. People who love Jews saying that Jews are good with money is somehow as bad as antisemites saying that Jews are money-grubbing misers.

In the end, Trump is a Rorschach test. If you have Trump derangement syndrome he is an antisemite or an evil philosemite. If you are honest you can see he loves Jews and Israel. (None of the critics are mentioning that Trump yet again unequivocally slammed antisemitism in this very same speech, nor that he movingly praised American Jews.)

It is possible to disagree with Trump's politics and still see that he loves Israel and Jews. But the number of honest critics of Trump is very small.

There is plenty to criticize about Trump. One can even criticize how he seems to tolerate those on the Right who are antisemitic. But to claim that this speech is proof of Trump's antisemitism shows much about the hate of the critic and nothing about Trump.

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No, @MairavZ, neo-Nazis and white supremacists love BDS

A tweet from far left Mairav Zonszein:

Anti-Semitic crime and hate crime rose by 20% last year in Germany. The report found that nine in 10 anti-Semitic offenses were committed by people on the far-right - the same ones that support the anti-BDS resolution.https://t.co/BSYbHsbeZM
— Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין (@MairavZ) May 20, 2019

First of all, she gives incomplete information from the NYT article she is indirectly referring to:

Now some 200,000 Jews live in Germany, a nation of 82 million people, and many are increasingly fearful. In a 2018 European Union survey of European Jews, 85 percent of respondents in Germany characterized anti-Semitism as a “very big” or “fairly big” problem; 89 percent said the problem has become worse in the last five years. Overall reported anti-Semitic crimes in Germany increased by nearly 20 percent last year to 1,799, while violent anti-Semitic crimes rose by about 86 percent, to 69. Police statistics attribute 89 percent of all anti-Semitic crimes to right-wing extremists, but Jewish community leaders dispute that statistic, and many German Jews perceive the nature of the threat to be far more varied. Slightly more than half of Germany’s Jewish respondents to the E.U. survey said they have directly experienced anti-Semitic harassment within the last five years, and of those, the plurality, 41 percent, perceived the perpetrator of the most serious incident to be “someone with a Muslim extremist view.”

...a number of surveys show that Muslims in Germany and other European countries are more likely to hold anti-Semitic views than the overall population. The 2015 Anti-Defamation League survey, for instance, found that 56 percent of Muslims in Germany harbored anti-Semitic attitudes, compared with 16 percent for the overall population. Conservative Jews see the political left as unwilling to name this problem out of reluctance to further marginalize an already marginalized group or because of leftist anti-Zionism.

But more bizarre is Zonszein's assertion that the far right support anti-BDS legislation.

Just last week, MEMRI issued a report on posts it found in six pro-BDS Facebook groups, totaling 135,000 members, and it identified many members of these groups who are explicitly white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Sometimes the groups themselves host antisemitic articles.

User Larry DeVore,[26] posting on the group "Boycott Israel… Support BDS," shared a meme by Philip E. Taylor, with the text by the author "TALMUD = 'JEWS OWN EVERYTHING' IT SAYS IT RIGHT HERE IN THE ZIONIST BIBLE (TALMUD WRITTEN BY CRIMINAL RABBIS) SO IT MUST BE TRUE!" The meme states: "Jewish Holy Book, Talmud. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat, 348, that property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which consequently is entitled to seize upon it without any scruples. An orthodox Jew is NOT bound to observe principles of morality towards people of other tribes. He may act contrary to morality, if profitable to himself or to Jews in general."
Devore also posted a video to the same group, titled "Jewish Kabbalistic Occult Ritual Child Murder throughout history." Although the video has since been removed from YouTube, the content of the video is made clear by a comment by Leanore Morris: "My GOD no wonder people hate the Jews with them killing children not their own but gentiles or Christians and most of them being either young child or baby this is shit."

Some examples of neo-Nazi posts on the personal Facebook pages of members of these BDS groups:

The BDSers love to claim that they hate white supremacists and Nazis, but the Nazis who support BDS are welcomed into their spaces. In their view, Nazi philosophy is preferable to Zionism and is welcome to be posted.

Funny how that works.

(h/t @kweansmom, @ru_chana)

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So-called "journalists" don't like to be held to their own standards

An interesting Twitter discussion yesterday started off with this Jeffrey Goldberg tweet about a Haaretz article on how the Times of Israel co-founder has given lots of money to CAMERA, which is highly critical of Haaretz. Here is some of the discussion:

A subthread opened up from Mairav Zonszein, who styles herself as a journalist and has published in The Guardian, the New York Times, the Forward and elsewhere:

Two of the major principles that journalists are supposed to adhere to are fairness and accuracy. We've already shown that Zonszein violates both of those principles, yet calls herself a journalist.

A third major principle is accountability, that journalists must issue corrections and apologies when they violate the other principles. By attacking a media watchdog, Zonszein shows that she is also violating that principle.

So what exactly makes her - and the other critics of CAMERA in the field who refuse to adhere to basic journalistic standards - "journalists"?

I am on the record that I will correct any errors I write no matter what the political orientation of the critic. Why do left-wing journalists have such a problem adhering to the same, basic standard? Even worse, why do they castigate the people who find the errors?

It is almost as if these so-called "journalists" value bias over truth.

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Sure abortions are easy in Israel, but they aren't liberal enough in NYT op-ed

+972 writer Mairav Zonszein scores an NYT op-ed by coming up with a brand new way to bash Israel:

I KNEW Israeli law required that all abortions be approved by a committee. I also knew that the procedure was widely accessible. I’d never heard of an Israeli woman being denied an abortion (as opposed to say, a divorce, which must be granted by the husband in a religious court).

So I never really gave it much thought, until I found myself sitting in front of such a committee, six weeks pregnant with a 5-month-old baby at home.

When I went to my gynecologist, all he could do was provide me with an ultrasound as proof of my pregnancy. “I don’t do abortions,” he told me. “The committees deal with them. You can call this number.”

Each committee includes a social worker and two doctors. The law stipulates four criteria, any of which is sufficient for approval: If the woman is below 18 or over 40; if the fetus is in danger; if the mother’s mental or physical health is at risk; or if the pregnancy occurs out of wedlock or is the result of rape or incest.

I am 33 and free of medical issues. But because my partner and I are not legally married, I felt some relief knowing that I had a clear ticket out. Still, I balked at the realization that I had to request permission.

The Pregnancy Termination Committee at the hospital near me operates for only a few hours twice a week. As I waited to register, it began to sink in: I had no control, no privacy and no anonymity over this intimate, difficult matter pertaining strictly to my own body. The idea that anyone but me had the power to decide my family’s fate and mine was harrowing. Israel’s abortion policy, it hit me, was the opposite of liberal.

Not that my request wasn’t granted. The doctors (one man, one woman, as per protocol) informed me as I walked through the door that I was “approved.”

There were no medical questions or examinations, no offers of information or assistance. It was cold, efficient bureaucracy. A nurse administered the abortion medically the next day.

I didn’t feel any stigma from the staff. But some committees might be more judgmental than others.

I can certainly sympathize with the difficulty of deciding to abort a child, even for someone who passionately believes in a woman's right to do so. I can even feel for the desire not to have to face a committee, no matter how empathetic and professional they are.

But forgive me if I don't quite believe that Zonszein cares about her privacy or anonymity, when a process that she admits was quick, nonjudgmental and painless is fodder for her anti-Israel op-ed in a major international newspaper.

And she cannot complain that she has no control, either, for the same reason she cannot complain that there are back-alley abortions in Israel for married women who want to abort:

The most recent figures show that, in practice, 98 percent of abortion requests in Israel are approved. But of the approximately 40,000 abortions performed each year, only around half go through the committees.

The other estimated 20,000 are being conducted illegally, through doctors at private clinics, not at home or in alleyways. There are plenty of doctors you can find online at the click of a button. While they are theoretically subject to punitive legal measures, their patients are not — and the authorities simply look the other way.

Many illegal abortions are thought to involve married women. These women may fear rejection of their applications, or that the invasive committee process will take too long and they want to put the ordeal behind them as quickly as possible.

If she was so concerned over her privacy and anonymity, why did she do through this process to begin with? She could have found an alternative, as she admits, at the click of a button.

Likewise, Zonszein cannot complain that those wanting abortions outside the committee system have to pay for them:

A 2014 reform to the national health coverage law offers free abortions to all women between 20 and 33 regardless of circumstance.

They are free. Period.

But...but...

Although Israel is often seen as relatively progressive on abortion because a vast majority of women are able to terminate their pregnancies, the situation here is actually the inverse of most Western countries, where abortion is lawful and largely free of restrictions. Israel’s policy may be better than countries where abortions are strictly prohibited (like Brazil and Egypt), or where exceptions are made only to save a woman’s life (like Ireland), but it is far from being liberal.

OK. Let's compare the supposed restrictions on legal abortions in Israel with liberal European countries that she claims are "largely free of restrictions."

In the Netherlands, a five-day waiting period is required between the initial consultation and the abortion.

In Sweden, between 12 and 18 weeks of gestation, the women must discuss the procedure with a social worker.

In the UK, two registered medical practitioners must certify that the required medical grounds have been met.

In Italy, a "one-week reflection period" is imposed unless the situation is one of urgency. A certificate confirming the pregnancy and the request for termination must be issued by a doctor and signed by the woman and the doctor.

In Finland, an abortion must be authorized by one or two doctors up to 12 weeks, or by the State Medical Board up to 20 weeks. Abortion is free of charge under national health insurance but women must pay hospital fees.

In Germany, the woman must receive state-regulated counselling to inform the woman that the unborn have a right to life and to try to convince her to continue her pregnancy.

So when you compare Israel's abortion procedures with those of European nations, Israel is indeed more liberal than most. Zonszein is lying and the New York Times is not fact-checking her.

Women who do not want to go through the committees can easily get safe, professional and free abortions. But...the process isn't "liberal" enough for the New York Times. And that is a good enough reason to add to the list of terrible things that Israel is doing.

As long as your op-ed bashes Israel, it is fair game for the NYT to publish it, no matter how trivial or unfair it is. This op-ed is even more cynical than most, because it gratuitously uses what is supposedly a very personal experience for the writer as extra emotional ammunition to publicly hurt Israel.