Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts

Monday, December 23, 2024

By Forest Rain

In December Haifa celebrates the "holiday of holidays", a festival marking Hannukah, Christmas, and the Muslim holiday Eid Al-Adha. A celebration of multiculturalism, Jews, Muslims, and Christians living together peacefully.

The historic German quarter with the Bahai Temple at the top of the road is decorated with beautiful lights and filled with vendors selling food, Santa hats, balloons, and various little toys.

(Bahai is another religion. Their world center is located in Haifa)

Israelis like having a sliver of European Christmas environment here at home. The lights are pretty and a reason to celebrate is wonderful - particularly in a country filled with difficulties, pain, and grief.

Holiday of Holidays in Haifa 2024

The thing is that in Israel there is what you see on the surface and the layer of meaning underneath.

I don't enjoy the “Holiday of Holidays” as much as most people do because, while I too love the pretty lights, I can't ignore the layer underneath.

This festival is a good thing in that it brings tourism to Haifa. That's good for businesses. But whose businesses? And what message is being conveyed in this celebration?

The entire premise of the festival is based on a distortion of truth. Hannukah and Christmas come more or less at the same time every year. Eid Al-Adha coincides with the Jewish and Christian holidays approximately once every 33 years due to the shifting cycles of the Islamic calendar relative to the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars.

Celebrating the holidays as if they come together is a reflection of the Jewish hope that the different religions can come together, joyously. It's a reflection of an ideal (a fantasy), not a reflection of reality.

Just like Israelis who lived in the communities near Gaza believed that the Gazans they employed were the forerunners of peace between our nations, believing that their cooperation was the only reality, never dreaming that there was another layer underneath. They employed Gazans in their homes, providing them with salaries much higher than they could dream of attaining in Gaza. They invited them to eat with their families and supported them when they had personal problems – driving their sick children to Israeli hospitals, staying with them for the duration of the hospital stay to serve as a liaison with the system and make sure they didn’t feel alone. The Israelis saw genuine friendship and collaboration between human beings.

They never imagined that those same Gazans would be the ones to provide the Hamas invaders with maps and lists of who lived in which house, if there was a gun in the house, a dog and anything worth stealing. The Israelis never imagined that the people they invited into their homes would be the ones to tell the invaders who to slaughter first, describing habits and schedules to make it easier to achieve that goal.

It's incredibly dangerous to address reality as what we wish it was, rather than as it really is.

The lights are pretty and, although I am Jewish, I recognize Christmas as a positive holiday – not the consumerism of what Christmas has become for many, the religious idea of hope and salvation for every individual is inspirational and beneficial to society. The thing that most people abroad don’t realize is that the Christians in Israel are mostly Arabs and Arab culture is stronger than Christian values. The other Christians are escapees from the Soviet Union, using some Jewish ancestor as their ticket to a better life. It is legitimate for any human being to strive to improve their circumstances. At the same time, while these are often educated people who can contribute to the economy, their lack of connection to Israel as the homeland of the Jews is a problem.

(Yes, there are many Russian and Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, who are both Jewish and Zionists and have done much for the country. I am not referring to them)

The “Holiday of Holidays” does not display Hanukah on the same level as the Christian or Muslim holiday. There are no symbols to represent the Maccabees and there is very little in the decorations that represents the miracle of light. There is nothing in the atmosphere that conveys the Jewish triumph over the greatest army in the world and regaining of sovereignty in their land – the miracle of those days that has become super relevant to us, in this day.

The symbols and atmosphere of Christmas dominate but the culture that is felt is Arab – the vendors who benefit from the business, the style, and the food. The Arab business owners are Israelis, their presentation is successful and the food is delicious.

So what is wrong?

On the external level – absolutely nothing. Business is good. Success is good. Everyone loves a party and good food.

On the underlying layer, there are two problems – cultural domination and a lack of Jewish pride.

There is no such thing as a vacuum and when we don’t fill the atmosphere with the spirit of our celebration, inviting others to attend and benefit from the light of our miracles, of course, others will step in and fill the void. When we don’t tell our story of course others, who never stopped telling stories, will insist that we have no story.

It is lovely to celebrate with other people and enjoy their holidays. The problem is where is our holiday? Why aren’t we telling our story? Why aren’t we inviting others to join our celebration?

The lights are pretty but I can’t completely enjoy them when I feel I am staring into the void where Jewish identity, pride and joy is supposed to be.





Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

Wednesday, December 11, 2024




UPDATE: In response to the outcry, the Vatican has removed the offending nativity scene. See: Vatican removes nativity display featuring baby Jesus lying on keffiyeh. I will leave it up to the reader to decide if the removal of the display remedies the fact that the pope abused his own religion in service of antisemitic propaganda in the first place. (Hat tip to Ian.)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Trust me on this, the Baby Jesus was not wrapped in a keffiyeh at birth, and not at any other time either. Even Arabs wore turbans—not keffiyehs—until at least the early 18th century. And Jesus was not an Arab but a Jew.


Why, then, is there a nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square featuring a wooden Baby Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh? 

One might put the anachronistic keffiyeh “swaddling” of the Baby Jesus down to artistic license. But “Nativity of Bethlehem 2024” by Bethlehem artists Johny Andonia and Faten Nastas Mitwasi, has nothing to do with art. The crèche is merely antisemitic propaganda dressed up fancy in olive wood, mother-of-pearl, stone, ceramic, glass, felt, and fabric.

At the unveiling of this “artwork,” the pope said its presence is meant to remind us of those who “suffer the tragedy of war in the Holy Land." But we know who he means. The pope means that ARABS are suffering, because, oh look! Here is Baby Jesus in a keffiyeh.


This is, after all, the same pope who suggested a global effort be made to determine whether Israel is guilty of committing genocide in Gaza—the same pope who called Israel’s actions in Lebanon as going “beyond morality.” The same Pope Francis who never once mentioned Hamas by name.

This all calls to mind a boring dinner I attended last week during which a fellow diner expounded at length in an annoying way as if only he were knowledgeable enough to weigh in on that particular topic. I made my excuses, and as I walked away, a word came to mind, pontificate. That’s what the annoying fellow diner had been doing. Pontificating.

An interesting word, I thought, no doubt derived from the word pontiff. The dictionary confirmed this for me, adding that the word comes from the Latin pontifex, or high priest. I gasped a little when I read that, though I’d long understood the significance of the ornate papal garments. It still felt like a terrible affront—a “borrowing” of a core concept in Judaism in service of an ideology proscribed by the Torah. 

The artwork titled “Nativity of Bethlehem 2024” represents, in a similar vein, a form of appropriation—an appropriation of Jesus to support a false narrative that casts him not as a Jew, but as an Arab. The viewer is presented with a distorted perspective, hearing nothing about the actual crucifixions of Jews on October 7 or the ongoing plight of hostages. There’s no mention of how many lives in Gaza could have been spared had the hostages been released, nor is there a single word about Hamas. All of this is deliberately kept from public scrutiny, seemingly with the blessing of the pope. 



Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

Wednesday, December 04, 2024

 

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

With the death of American hostage Omer Neutra now confirmed, that leaves at most three American hostages in Gaza left alive. All told, there are seven American hostages still held in Gaza; four of them, including Neutra, are dead, their families denied even the right to bury their dead and process their grief. Does it matter that come January 20th a new, tough-talking sheriff in the form of President Elect Donald J. Trump is coming to town?

It does and it doesn’t. The fact that someone in Israel’s corner is moving into the Oval Office doesn’t change the fact that the American hostages were betrayed by the most powerful nation on earth: America. It was always a possibility because that’s the way it goes with American Jews. American administrations come and go, some of them more and some of them less pro-Israel. Some of them more and some of them less antisemitic.

Joe Biden, or whoever operates under his guise, doesn’t care about some Jews who left America voluntarily to live in a state that is nothing but a pain in the neck to Joe. A thorn in his side. (Those pesky Jews.)

President Trump will be far better, as was proven on Monday afternoon following the news of IDF confirmation of Neutra’s death on October 7. Taking to Truth Social, President Trump issued a firm threat to Hamas:

Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East - But it’s all talk and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!

Netanyahu offered Israel’s heartfelt thanks to President Trump for this strong show of support. Trump’s stern warning was exactly what was needed but had been sorely lacking every day for the past 424 days. The Biden administration, however, was focused only on restraining Israel while appeasing Iran. Biden and his handlers just didn’t care about a handful of American Jews who had chosen to leave the Land of Opportunity for a country that everyone hates.

The betrayal by America of its hostages in Gaza is real, and it should be food for thought for American Jews who have not yet been bit by the Aliyah “bug.” It’s a fact: American Jews cannot count on their government to protect them or help them in their time of need. The Biden Administration proves the point. Some presidents may indeed help American Jews when they are in trouble, but others won’t, and it won’t matter if said American Jews are held in Gaza, slashed in the face on a street in Brooklyn, or harassed and violently abused on an American university campus. Some administrations won’t care enough to come down hard enough on the perpetrators to put the fear of God into them.

Jews with American citizenship are, in the end, still less worthy of protection than other Americans. Witness the Biden administration’s lack of will to do much of anything at all for American citizens being held and brutalized in Gaza because they are Jews. Trump coming into office will change this dynamic for a while, and we can hope it will last a good long time, but for the sake of self-preservation, American Jews would be well advised to accept that America is not a place they can count on. When push comes to shove, American Jews may or may not receive the help they deserve at the time it is needed most.



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, November 20, 2024



Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

When Donald Trump won the election, there was great relief in Israel, something like a collective sigh. There was also anxiety. It’s a long time until January, and we don’t know how much longer the hostages can hang on. But there was, and is, a further cause for anxiety, and that concerns Trump’s cabinet picks, which here in Israel we can’t help but think: are these anointed ones good or bad for the Jews and for Israel?

Matt Gaetz

We might as well begin our examination with Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general, a bad choice by all accounts. Gaetz has what we call in Hebrew, “panim doresh steerot,” a face that needs slapping. There is a lot of noise about his sexual peccadilloes, corruption, and illicit drug use. We remember how Gaetz forced Kevin McCarthy out of his role as House speaker. It’s not as if Gaetz didn’t have plenty of support for the ousting of McCarthy. Nonethless, McCarthy insisted that Gaetz had led the charge against him specifically to wiggle out of an ethics investigation:

“I’ll give you the truth why I’m not speaker. Because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old, an ethics complaint that started before I ever became speaker. And that’s illegal and I’m not gonna get in the middle of it.

“Now, did he do it or not? I don’t know. But ethics was looking at it. There’s other people in jail because of it. And he wanted me to influence it.”

Indeed there are plenty of reasons to dislike Gaetz, but from the standpoint of the Jewish people, the main issue should be his horrid antisemitsm. Gaetz voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act, saying that International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism would hold the bible itself as antisemitic because, Gaetz claimed, Christian scripture dictates that the Jews are responsible for Jesus’s death.

Um no. That would be the Romans. Which makes Gaetz a horrible person for pinning this death on the Jews. It’s that kind of slander that leads and has always led, to the letting of Jewish blood. There can be no benign reason for an educated person to say such things. Matt Gaetz hates Jews.

“This evening, I will vote AGAINST the ridiculous hate speech bill called the ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act,’” said Gaetz prior to the vote. “Antisemitism is wrong, but this legislation is written without regard for the Constitution, common sense, or even the common understanding of the meaning of words. The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!”

Matt Gaetz, in addition to blaming the Jews for what the Romans did, invited Charles Johnson, a Holocaust denier and white nationalist, to be his guest at a 2018 State of the Union address. Gaetz claimed he hadn’t know these things about Johnson, then subsequently defended him, and denied the accusations. Johnson, said Gaetz, is “not a Holocaust denier. He’s not a white supremacist.” But Johnson is both.

When crazy Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene compared COVID public safety measures to the Holocaust, Gaetz defended her. “[Greene] defends Israel and attacks Democrats. Media falsely slams [Greene] as antisemitic. Some Republicans take the bait, sadly,” said Gaetz.

Our attorney general-to-be has been known to hire staff members who hang with white nationalists, and say white nationalist things. He called the ADL “racist” when that body called for Tucker Carlson to be fired from Fox News on account of Carlson pushing the Great Replacement theory. Matt Gaetz said that Carlson is “CORRECT about Replacement Theory.”

The Great Replacement theory, as described by the ADL, “claims there is an intentional effort, led by Jews, to promote mass non-white immigration, inter-racial marriage, and other efforts that would lead to the ‘extinction of whites.’”

RFK Jr.

Moving along, we come to RFK Jr., Trump’s pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. is another one for conspiracy theories. While dining with journalists, Bobby Kennedy Jr. aired a nutty conspiracy theory positing that COVID was designed to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” said Kennedy, who also claimed that vaccine mandates made people less free than Anne Frank under Nazi rule.

After the footage was leaked, Kennedy went into damage control mode, claiming that he never EVER suggested the virus was designed to spare Jews.

“I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews,” wrote Kennedy. “I accurately pointed out — during an off-the-record conversation — that the US and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races since the furin cleave docking site is most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns and Ashkenazi Jews.”

RFK Jr.’s friendship with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was cemented through just such views as these. Bobby Jr. in fact, called Farrakhan a “truly great partner” for helping him spread the idea that vaccines cause autism. Andrew Wakefield, now disgraced, concocted this “theory” in 1998 and was subsequently exposed as a fraud. When COVID hit, Farrakhan urged his congregants to "follow Robert Kennedy," claiming that scientists developed the coronavirus vaccine in order to "depopulate the Earth."

If RFK Jr. and Farrakhan agree on these nutty conspiracy theories, what other views might they share in common?

Of course, RFK Jr. was wise to quickly disavow his affinity for Farrakhan the antisemite at the outset of his presidential campaign. When asked about the relationship between during his campaign, Kennedy said he is an “opponent” of Farrakhan and "never endorsed anything that Louis Farrakhan has said," which of course, is a lie.

Should Jews look the other way on RFK Jr.? Perhaps. Bobby Jr., speaking to Reuters, expressed support for Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza, and for the return of the hostages. Asked if he was in favor of a temporary Gaza ceasefire, Kennedy said, "I don't even know what that means right now," commenting that every previous ceasefire was “used by Hamas to rearm, to rebuild and then launch another surprise attack. So what would be different this time?

"Any other nation that was adjacent to a neighboring nation that was bombing it with rockets, sending commandos over to murder its citizens, pledging itself to murder every person in that nation and annihilate it, would go and level it with aerial bombardment," said Kennedy.

"But Israel is a moral nation. So it didn't do that. Instead, it built an iron dome to protect itself so it would not have to go into Gaza," he added.

Nutty conspiracy theories notwithstanding, so far Bobby Jr. sounds okay on Israel. Perhaps he inherited his views from his father? Bobby Sr. spent time in Pre-State Israel, reporting for the Boston Post and was kindly disposed toward the Jews, and supported their efforts at statehood. Unfortunately, he was murdered because of this support.

Tulsi Gabbard

We come next to Tulsi Gabbard, who is to be national intelligence secretary. It’s hard to dislike Gabbard. She’s a serious person, and is unafraid to change her mind when changing her mind is called for. But she backed the Iran deal, and that’s a huge problem. Gabbard also voted against a House resolution to condemn the U.N. Security Council resolution regarding Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, saying, "While I remain concerned about aspects of the U.N. resolution, I share the Obama administration's reservation about the harmful impact Israeli settlement activity has on the prospects for peace."

Seriously?? Jews building homes has a harmful impact on “prospects for peace?” That’s just reprehensibly antisemitic, and I don’t care how popular it has become to repeat the canard that Jewish families building homes, threaten peace. It’s a disgusting and stupid thing to say no matter how many people say it and no matter how often it is said. It’s just, pardon my French, total crap.

I hope that Gabbard will now be able to take a step back and examine the issue from a more commonsense position with good people to take her through it. Maybe now, as part of the Trump cabinet, she’ll educate herself on Israel. In her past, however, she has taken some problematic positions.

Gabbard defended Ilhan Omar, for example, when Omar tweeted that US support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins.” Speaking to CNN, Gabbard said, "There are people who have expressed their offense at these statements. I think that what Congresswoman Omar was trying to get at was a deeper issue related to our foreign policy, and I think there's an important discussion that we have to be able to have openly, even though we may end up disagreeing at the end of it, but we've got to have that openness to have the conversation."

Gabbard also voted for House Resolution 246, which expressed House opposition to the BDS movement and affirmed support for a two-state solution. When asked to explain her vote, Gabbard said she supported "a two-state solution that provides for the rights of both Israel and Palestine to exist, and for their people to live in peace, with security, in their homes. I don't believe the BDS movement is the only or best way to accomplish that. However, I will continue to defend those who choose to exercise their right to free speech without threat of legal action."

The two-state solution is a naïve and unworkable concept, and always was. Neither of the parties want it. So why do pols continue to push the two-state solution down the throats of people who do not want it, and do not see it as the solution it is touted to be? Why does Tulsi Gabbard, who is clearly a clear-thinking person, think the two-state solution makes any sense at all?

There can only be two reasons for supporting the two-state solution: 1) Anti-Jewish prejudice, that is to say, a desire to take land away from the Jews and give it to the people who want to kill them, and 2) Ignorance on the part of people who have never actually studied the matter. “Two-state solution” is just something people say. Endlessly. Meaninglessly. One would hope that Tulsi would know better.

But we have all watched Tulsi Gabbard evolve in her politics. We watched her leave the Democratic Party, become an Independent, and finally, become a staunch, pro-Trump Republican. Perhaps Tulsi’s views will evolve on Israel and antisemitism.

There is reason to be optimistic about Gabbard. Tulsi Gabbard criticized Biden and Harris for not joining a solidarity March for Israel as the Jewish State fights the war forced on it by Hamas. She is clear in that she supports a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. When Gabbard was still a Democrat, in 2015, unlike 58 other Dems, she did not boycott Netanyahu’s address to Congress, stating that “It’s unfortunate that an issue as important as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons has been muddled by partisan politics. This is an extremely serious issue, at a critical juncture, that should not be used as a political football.”

Gabbard also said that it was important to “rise above the political fray, as America continues to stand with Israel as her strongest ally.”

Nice words and a real show of support for Israel.

Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth

Now we come to Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth. I know what you’re going to say. Why are they included in this list of potentially problematic Trump candidate members? Both are staunch friends of Israel. They don’t fall prey to propaganda, don’t use terms like “Palestinian” or “West Bank.” They don’t have a problem with Jewish sovereignty, or Jews building homes in their indigenous territory.

Take for example Mike Huckabee, who is slated to become the next ambassador to Israel. Asked whether he would stop using the terms “Judea and Samaria” to describe what most of the world now calls the “West Bank,” Huckabee said, “I can’t be what I’m not. I can’t say something I don’t believe. As you well know, I’ve never been willing to use the term ‘West Bank’. There is no such thing. I speak of Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no ‘occupation.’ It is a land that is ‘occupied’ by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500 years, since the time of Abraham.

“A lot of the terms that maybe the media would use, even the people who are against Israel would use, are not terms that I employ, because I want to use terms that live from time immemorial, and those are the terms like ‘Promised Land’ and ‘Judea and Samaria’. These are biblical terms, and those are important to me, and so I will continue to follow that nomenclature unless I’m instructed otherwise, but I don’t think that’ll happen.”

Huckabee has also said plainly that there is “no such thing as a ‘Palestinian.’” Being that there was never an Arab state called “Palestine,” that makes perfect sense. As Huckabee rightly stated during his 2008 failed presidential campaign, the assertion of the existence of a “Palestinian” identity, is only “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

So far, there is not one thing here with which this writer disagrees.

Of the moronic idea known as the “two-state solution,” Huckabee commented in a 2015 interview on Israeli TV, that it is “irrational and unworkable,” and also said that “there’s plenty of land” outside of Israel in the “rest of the world” for a Palestinian state.

All true.

Pete Hegseth, picked for secretary of defense, says all the right things when it comes to Israel. At a 2018 Israel National News conference Hegseth spoke of the right of the Jewish people to claim their indigenous territory for themselves, and themselves alone.

"I, and others, had a chance to go see the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall Tunnels, and so much of the Old City," said Hegseth. "When you stand there, you cannot help but behold the miracle before you."

"It got me thinking about another miracle I hope all of you don't see as too far away. 1917 was a miracle, 1948 was a miracle, 1967 was a miracle, 2017, the declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was a miracle, and there's no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the Temple on the Temple Mount is not possible. I don't know how it would happen, you don't know how it would happen, but I know that it could happen, that's all I know," he said.

"A step in that process is the recognition that facts and activities on the ground truly matter. That's why going to visit Judea and Samaria, understanding that the very sovereignty over Israeli soil, cities, locations, is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land for Jews, and the land of Israel," concluded Hegseth.

So why are Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth included in an article on Trump cabinet picks who might not be good for the Jews/Israel? Both men are respectful of Jewish beliefs and rights. That respect springs out of their Christian faith, which is fine. What would not be fine is if either the two men or Israeli officials began to speak about “shared values” or “Judeo-Christian values,” as if that were a thing.

Judaism stands alone. We Jews have our own faith, our own laws, and a religious narrative we do not share with Christians or those of other faiths. We should not want Christians telling us they are like us, and we should not want Israeli leaders to do so, either. That should be and must be a red line that is respected on both sides.

We can see the good in these two men without searching for nonexistent religious common ground. It is hoped that Huckabee and Hegseth understand these sensitivities and will remain as respectful to the Jewish people as ever. On the other hand, will official Israel be able to control itself—to refrain from slobbering over these men? It’s a problem.

It is so rare for Israel to have staunch friends, people who understand us, and believe in our right to our rights. Their sincere friendship makes us Jews feel like we actually belong to the family of man—at last there is someone who sees us.

Within this warm circle of cozy coexistence lies a temptation—the temptation to assert that we are alike. But we are not, and it is wrong to say otherwise. Hegseth, despite the allegations against him in the media, seems like a nice person. Huckabee, too. And that’s where the similarities start and end.



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!

 

 

Monday, November 18, 2024


By Forest Rain

Sirens throughout the day, but not here. It was a beautiful Saturday (November 16th) and we were trying to enjoy the wonderful weather, lovely people, interesting things – although we knew that others were not.

I was hearing the sirens and interceptions in the distance. Israelis closer to the border with Lebanon were hearing sirens and rockets exploding. Huddled, waiting to see if the rockets would hit them. Or the shrapnel. Waiting for the bombing to end.

I was waiting for the bombing to begin. Eventually, it would come to Haifa too.

And in the evening, it came. Sirens. Down to the shelter.
Explosions, so loud they shook the house.
Not just interceptions. Impact too.
But where?

We got videos of the impact site on our phones. Something was on fire. A different neighborhood in Haifa, about a 10 minute drive away.

A cousin lives there. We called to ask if he was ok – he wasn’t at home but was worried about his dog. Neighbors had called him to say that his house was damaged. We promised to go to see what had happened until he could arrive.

Getting into our car, we could smell the fire.

When we got to the neighborhood the police had already closed off the section of the street where the missile hit. It smashed the beautiful Templar-period building used as the neighborhood synagogue – directly across the street from his house.

Firefighters were there, dealing with the fire. Ambulances were evacuating people. I hoped that no one was injured too badly. The Electric Company was there too. I didn’t know if the darkness was because the trees that had fallen in the blast pulled down lines or because the electricity needed to be turned off to keep people safe. Or both.

Instead of going through the crowd – people who lived there, rescue workers, media both foreign and local, and the curious – we approached the apartment from the back.

We walked through the darkness, the only lights from the rescue teams. Glass from the windows that had blown out of the houses crunching on under our feet. The sound of water pouring down from the roofs. Water tanks had been destroyed by the explosion… thank goodness the electricity was off for the area.

We got to our cousin’s house a moment before the Home Front Command rescue workers broke down his door. Their job is to go door to door, make sure no one is trapped inside, and help evacuate people. If they knock and there is no answer and they can’t contact the owner, they break down the door.

We told them that he wasn’t home and no one else was inside, that he was on the way. They marked the apartment as cleared and went on to check the rest of the building.

Neighbors who had been out came to check their apartment. As they surveyed the damage one of them broke down from the shock, crying, “Everything is broken. The walls, my paintings, my piano, I don’t have anything left.”

The blast broke the windows of their apartments and flung large pieces of shrapnel inside. There were holes in the walls, even in the piano. It was hard to see the full extent of the damage in the dark. Everything was covered in dust, smelled of the fire outside, and felt like the end of the world.

Objectively, not everything was damaged. A lot of cleaning up needed to be done. Windows and holes need to be fixed. Original artwork cannot be replaced but we told him over and over until he could breathe again: “It’s just property damage. Thank God you weren’t home when it happened.”

He nodded in understanding but still had a hard time shaking the hysteria. There’s something deeply shattering in having your sanctuary smashed. You have to pull yourself together, grit your teeth, and begin an uphill battle to put the pieces of your life back together. It’s hard to even know where to start… 

Our cousin arrived. We were all relieved to see that the dog had taken shelter under the bed so she wasn’t hurt when the windows blew out. She came out shaking but wagging her tail.

We made a quick survey of the damage and helped him pack some things. It would take at least a few days to make the place livable again.

As we left the building, we saw others leaving. An exodus of people carrying small bags with some things, their cats and dogs.

In the morning it would be possible to come back, understand the true extent of the damage, and begin repairs. Thank God it was “just” property damage.   






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, October 30, 2024



Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Kamala Harris didn’t actually call Trump a Nazi, but she might as well have. Echoing allegations by disgruntled Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, she declared that Donald Trump wants a military that will be "loyal to him personally" and "obey his orders even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the constitution of the United States."

Vice President Kamala Harris continued on, saying, "It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is."

And there it is, Godwin’s Law. The longer the election dragged on, the more inevitable it had been that someone would bring in the Holocaust. Not in the sort of, “We must never forget the Holocaust,” kind of way, but in the sort of, “He’s the author of the Final Solution, Adolf Hitler himself,” kind of way.

Harris running mate Tim Walz was happy to run with it, remarking that Trump’s alleged comment regarding Hitler’s generals “makes me sick as hell.”

“Folks, the guardrails are gone. Trump is descending into this madness — a former president of the United States and the candidate for president of the United States says he wants generals like Adolf Hitler had,” said Walz, who has lied about his military service.

Walz said he was a retired command sergeant major, but he wasn’t. He claimed he carried weapons “in war,” but never saw combat. In truth, he skipped out on his battalion only months before they were deployed to Iraq. J.D. Vance, among many others, condemned these falsehoods as “stolen valor.”

This is something to keep in mind when weighing the credibility of those Walz “orange Hitler”-style slurs. But it gets worse with Walz. Much worse, in this Jewish writer’s opinion.

From The Hill:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, compared former President Trump’s Sunday rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden in to a 1939 pro-Nazi event.

“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden,” Walz said at an event in Henderson, Nev. “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden.”

An American Nazi Party held a rally at Madison Square Garden in February 1939 that lured 20,000 supporters to the iconic New York City landmark.

“And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there,” Walz said.

When Walz speaks, he draws a picture. We can see that pro-Hitler rally in our minds. It hits you right in the kishkes.

Up next is Hillary Clinton. The former (failed) 2016 presidential candidate picked off where Walz left off, continuing on with the same “Trump is a Nazi” narrative, claiming that Trump with this rally was reenacting the infamous Nazi rally, held in that very same space. “Trump [is] actually re-enacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939,” said Clinton to CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.

“President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazis, fascists in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany,” said Former President Clinton’s wife never-to-be-president Clinton.

"It is clear from John Kelly's words that Donald Trump is someone who I quote 'certainly falls into the general definition of fascist.' Who in fact, vowed to be a dictator on day one, and vowed to use the military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendetta,'" said Clinton.

Harris, meanwhile, is not better than Walz or Clinton, only more boring—she doesn't believe her own rhetoric but is determined to get to the top with her gleaming eyes and maniacal laugh. She’s not even original. In fact, she’s a yawn. And frankly, unintelligent. 

“I invite you to listen and go online to listen to John Kelly … who has told us Donald Trump said, why — essentially, ‘Why aren’t my generals like those of Hitler’s, like Hitler.'

 “The American people deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate … and certainly not comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler.

“This is a serious, serious issue. And we know who he is. He admires dictators.

“The American people deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate, works across the aisle, not afraid of good ideas wherever they come from, but also maintains certain standards about how we think about the role and the responsibility, and certainly not comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler.”

Asked if Trump were a fascist, Harris' bluffed right on through. “Yes, I do,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

There was something in her smile. Something sly in it for that tiny split second.

Well, what else could Kamala Harris, famous for her word salads, do to win at this point but smear her opponent? She wants to be president, but has done so little to articulate her policies. Or rather, she’s articulated many words that go good with Thousand Island dressing.

As November 5 draws nearer, Harris seems to have stopped even trying to outline what it is she intends to do if elected president. Instead, she has begun this slow crescendo of hateful tropes, each day ranting and raving about Donald Trump ever more vigorously, insistently and repeatedly telling us that Trump is a very bad person.

There is a name for this. It’s called negative campaigning. Whether or not smearing one’s opponent is an effective strategy is up for debate, but it certainly seems the coward’s way out of articulating an actual policy. Something Harris can’t and hasn’t done.

We have seen Kamala Harris a lot these past weeks, Tim Walz, less so. I think they hide him. He’s scary. He has crazy eyes. And I did not like the look of hatred that flashed on his face, that downturn of the mouth when Walz was asked by a reporter about the hostages in Gaza—it was so quick I had to watch the exchange a few times to confirm it. Then the mask came down and Walz was Mister Friendly Guy once more—all smiley like he didn’t hear the reporter’s question. But we all saw it. I saw it. I saw Mr. Evil Man rear his ugly head for that little almost undetectable blip in time.

I dread the thought of Walz in a position of influence. Kamala is a power-hungry puppet who will not be kind to Israel should she win, but she is too stupid to craft or carry out policy, and that’s where others come in.

Will Walz distinguish himself as an advisor? Will he have a voice? More likely Walz is a signal to Israel-hating voters: Here is someone in Kamala’s corner.

Someone who hates the Jews.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Wednesday, August 28, 2024



Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Donald Trump has many times reiterated the claim that what happened on October 7 in Israel would not have happened had he won the 2020 election. I completely agree. Which is why, to a degree, I blame Donald Trump for what happened on and in the wake of October 7.

If Trump hadn’t been such a rude bully, perhaps Joe Biden would not now be pretending to be executive in chief with Kamala Harris waiting in the wings while contemplating the great significance of the passage of time (why Joe wasn’t pushed down a flight of stairs and said to be dead from COVID long ago, I have no idea).

You don’t need me to tell you that Trump is (in)famous for his ad hominem attacks on his opponents. Trump delights in inventing creative attack nicknames for his competitors, among them:

·        Little Marco

·        Lyin’ Ted

·        Crooked Hillary

·        Ron DeSanctimonious

·        Low Energy Jeb

·        Pocahontas

·        Crazy Joe Biden

·        Sleepy Joe

·        Comrade Kamala

·        Tampon Tim

 

The mean nicknames no doubt delight many Trump voters. For them, it’s all a part of Donald Trump’s charm. But what about those who take offense at the name-calling? They also vote. If Donald Trump really cares about America, shouldn’t he want their votes, too?

Aside from the rude and childish name-calling, there was his mockery of the way the now-deceased John McCain used his hands. Love or hate Donald Trump, you have to admit that making fun of the disabled is repugnant, pure and simple. But it’s even worse when that disabled person is a former prisoner of war and war hero, whose disability is the result of maltreatment and torture. Is someone who mocks the disabled, someone who behaves in this fashion, worthy of being elected to the highest office in the land—a land that John McCain defended with his body?

 

The name-calling, crude references to manhood/menstruation, and public mimicry of the disabled are all problematic and, it must be acknowledged, at least in part to blame for Trump’s loss to Biden in 2020. Many are now warning Trump that here too in 2024, he stands to lose voters because of his coarse behavior. And then we’re really in trouble, because God forbid, we’d end up with two YUGE antisemites running the show, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

As Victor Davis Hanson explains it, there is only a short window for Donald Trump to define himself for the voters. When Trump calls Harris “stupid” without saying why, he only looks churlish. It’s a missed opportunity to present his case at a time when time is running out, or as Hanson put it, “No time for invective.”


Despite his at times unpresidential behavior, Trump was a damned good president according to just about every measure this author can think of. Think back to what your grocery cart looked like then compared to now, under the Bidenomics of which Kamala is so proud. Picture the signing of the Abraham Accords, and then see in your mind’s eye how Biden, instead of fostering peace, gave Iran the wherewithal to finance Hamas brutality while staying Israel’s hand from its own defense:

“I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created, including the horrible war with Russia and Ukraine — which would have never happened if I was president — and the war caused by the attack on Israel, which would have never happened if I was president,” said Trump at the RNC.

“Iran was broke. Iran had no money. Now Iran has $250 billion. They made it all over the last two and a half years,” he adds, saying the Biden administration has provided Tehran sanctions relief.

“I told China and other countries if you buy from Iran, we will not let you do any business in this country.”

These are not empty boasts. I believe Trump when he says these things. And he’s right; Hamas would not have attacked Israel on October 7 had he been in office. They wouldn’t have dared; and now they remember all too well how things were when Trump was in office—and tremble. As they should.

Trump starved Iran of money, making it impossible for the Ayatollah to support his proxies, including the one in Gaza, Hamas. Joe Biden, on the other hand, has fed Iran a constant diet of cash, even as he stays Israel’s hand from obliterating this cruel enemy. There’s no reason to think this policy of emboldening those who murder, rape, and brutalize Jews won’t continue under a Kamala Harris presidency. And by now we must acknowledge that Joe cannot possibly be running the show. The unseen handler of Joe is likely to become the handler of Kamala Harris as well, if Trump fails to make his case.

Here in Israel, we feel the terrible strain of the hostage situation. We pray for the best, but anticipate the worst, and it is unbearable. That makes me—and I’d venture a lot of other Israeli Jews—feel kind of desperate about the American presidential election. We are desperate for Donald Trump to win. And angry that this might all have been avoided, had Trump behaved a little better in the run up to the last election. Who knows how many lives would have been saved had Trump kept a civil tongue in his mouth? It makes me ache to think of it. A good president who won’t behave, and people died.

And still, it is a pragmatic fact that Trump must win, because he is the president who will act decisively, and extract a price from Hamas for what it did and continues to do to Americans and American allies both dead and alive in Gaza. In spite of his rough behavior, it’s obvious that Trump has a strong sense of right and wrong. He feels the disgrace of what it means for Biden to have allowed this state of affairs to continue even as Joe helps it along—helps the terrorists along. Trump also feels the disgrace of America throwing an ally, Israel, under the bus.

Kamala, on the other hand, will be worse than Joe. She has expressed sympathy for supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah, again and again.

So we watch and worry. We worry that Trump will say more nasty, childish thing and that this will affect his chances at the polls. What will be of our hostages if Trump can’t shut his mouth and restrain himself. “Save it for Putin!” we want to shout.

Yet we know that in spite of any mean-spirited behavior to the contrary, in the bigger scheme of things, Trump has more morality in his little finger than there is in the entire Biden White House.



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, August 21, 2024



Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Jessica Tarlov is the snotty token Democrat on the Fox News political talk show, “The Five.” The petulant downturn to her mouth is annoying, as are her righteously angry rhetoric and whiny voice. But in some ways, Tarlov’s most important quality is that she always comes armed with facts with which to debate the far more numerous conservatives weighing in on the discussion. Tarlov interprets that data from her liberal perch and bias, but at least the Democratic Party political strategist is using facts.

Or so I thought.

In a discussion regarding the anti-Israel protesters and their new nickname for Kamala Harris, “Killer Kamala,” Tarlov remarked that “The majority of American Jews, and also Israelis, favor a peaceful two-state solution.”

70% of American Jews vote for the Democrats and I believe that number will be the same come November 5th. I don’t think any of this is going to make a substantial difference, but I think Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have firmly stood with Israel. They have given all the arms Netanyahu has asked for. He has said multiple times that he thanks the administration for it.

If people think Donald Trump is going to be better for Israel, they have another think coming. Because guess what? The majority of American Jews, and also Israelis, favor a peaceful two-state solution and Donald Trump doesn’t care about that at all.

 

Now, I listen to The Five on my phone with half an ear as I do everything I play on Youtube to keep me company as I prepare lunch or cook for Shabbos. But when I heard that last bit about the two-state solution, my ears perked up. “That’s not true,” I said to myself, mentally making a note to check the numbers on Google.

It was conceivable to think that a majority of American Jews would be in favor of a two-state solution, but I didn’t know this absolutely. Since she was wrong about the Israelis, I thought, maybe she’s wrong about the Americans, too. Even if the majority of Israelis were in favor of a “peaceful two-state solution” whatever that means—it’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one—they sure aren’t in favor of it now, after October 7. That ship has sailed.

Gallup did a survey of Israelis between Oct. 17 and Dec. 3, in the weeks and months following October 7. What they found is that “Israelis no longer support a two-state solution”:

One in four Israeli adults currently support the existence of an independent Palestinian state, while most (65%) oppose it. This is almost a complete reversal of where they stood on the issue a decade ago, when twice as many Israeli adults supported an independent Palestinian state (61%) as opposed one (30%).


So there you have it. A majority of Israeli Jews do not want a two-state solution. And if that were true it meant that Tarlov was wrong—or at least using way outdated figures. That’s if we are to give Tarlov the benefit of the doubt and assume that she made an innocent mistake as opposed to telling an out-and-out lie. The truth is, it makes no difference. Tarlov’s recitation of false facts robs her of credibility.

Fact-checking Tarlov’s claim that the majority of American Jews favor a two-solution, brought mixed results. A March Pew Research Center survey found that 46% of Jewish Americans think a two-state solution is the best possible outcome, while 22% support a one-state option, preferring all the land to be one country under Israeli rule. 46% of anything, by definition, cannot be a majority—a plurality, yes—but not a majority. That’s an important distinction. 46% of American Jewry does not represent even half of that sector.  

A May survey by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), on the other hand, does indeed find that a majority of American Jews, 60%, support a two-state solution. I consider the JCPA to be an absolutely credible organization, whose august panel of experts includes Dr. Dan Diker, Khaled Abu Toameh, and Amb. Alan Baker. The survey offers a snapshot of “the viewpoints of 511 American Jews regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.”

“Conducted between May 9-11, 2024, the survey provides critical insights into the attitudes and concerns within the American Jewish community during this turbulent period. The survey has a margin of error of ±4% and includes a balanced representation by gender and age.”

Of course, the Pew survey had a sample of nearly four times that size, with 1,941 Jewish American respondents weighing in. And I really doubt that the progressive-leaning Jessica Tarlov went digging around on the ‘net, like I did, and stumbling on the JCPA survey, decided to use it as a statistic more to her liking than the one from Pew. Why the suspicion? Aside from the JCPA luminaries already mentioned above is Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s advisor on none other than . . . drumroll please. . .

Israel.

It is difficult to believe that Jessica Tarlov would cite, unless by accident, the results of a survey published by a think-tank with a Trump appointee as its senior director of Arab-Israeli diplomacy. More likely, Jessica Tarlov was thinking of the March Pew survey. In which case, we really need to wonder at the conflation of “majority” with “plurality.”

Not that anyone did at “The Five.” No one among full-time cohosts Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Jesse Watters, and Jeanine Pirro said a thing in response to Tarlov’s erroneous statistics about Jews and the two-state solution. They must have figured that yet again, they, the non-Jews have been caught flatfooted, undercut by actual Jews when non-Jews try to speak up for them. They certainly wouldn’t have been splitting semantic hairs over “majority” and “plurality.”

At any rate, there wouldn’t have been a way for the cohosts to verify Tarlov’s claims on the spot, while they were live on air, even if some unseen guy were feeding them facts through some gewgaw in their ears. I, on the other hand, had the luxury of time and a laptop to actually investigate Tarlov’s wide-of-the-mark assessment of Jewish attitudes in regard to the stupidest, most unworkable concept on earth: the two-state solution.

The main thing for me, at any rate, was that I learned a lesson, or at least had one reinforced by the exercise. Don’t easily accept stats, especially when it comes to Israel and the Jews. Always question further, even when the one citing those stats seems like a serious person, even if you do disagree with them. Which was how I’d seen Tarlov until now, someone I respected, even if I disagreed with her. Now, even the respect is gone.

Tarlov may be snappy with the stats, but she isn’t being either careful or accurate, playing fast and loose with the numbers as she apparently does. In my eyes, going forward, Tarlov is forever tarnished, and by extension, so is everyone else.

I’ve lost trust.

Can you blame me?



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

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