Showing posts with label Soviet Union. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soviet Union. Show all posts

Monday, August 14, 2023

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: Not Everything Is Tisha B’Av
It is with this in mind that we must approach the reaction of many when the Knesset, three days before Tisha B’Av, approved limitations on the Israeli Supreme Court. The Times of Israel immediately presented us with the remarkable headline: “Judicial overhaul opponents see parallel to Tisha B’Av, saddest day in Hebrew year.” Indeed, comparisons to the destruction of the Temple abounded. A meme with the words shisha b’av, “the sixth of Av,” was circulated on the Internet, with the comparison to Tisha B’Av being made even by prominent Israeli writers. Some Israelis announced that though they did not usually fast on the Ninth of Av, they would do so this year to mourn what the Knesset had wrought.

I do not wish to discuss the merits or flaws of the government proposal. Rather I want to make one point only: One cannot compare the tragedies of the Jewish past to a democratic vote by the Israeli Knesset, however mistaken one might believe that vote to be. To make this comparison is to recommit the sin of the spies and their audience among the Hebrews, and to repeat the error of our ancestors in the desert millennia ago. Sharing a meme with the words shisha b’av dangerously demonizes a vast part of the Israeli electorate by comparing voters to the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem. And one can react only with horror to the statement by a Jew that a vote by the Knesset is more worthy of mourning than the deaths of Jews throughout history.

In arguing that the memories of Tisha B’Av obligated him to protect the physical well-being of the Jewish state, what Begin was also implying was that in the story of Israel, some—though not all—of what the Romans had wrought had been undone by the rise of the State of Israel and the miracles that followed. The Temple is not yet rebuilt, and hatred of the Jews still festers, but a rebuilt, united Jerusalem stands under Jewish sovereignty. If those who suffered in the events marked on the Ninth of Av would have been shown images of our own age—a united Jerusalem featuring a Jewish government, a Judean desert in bloom, and Jewish homes rebuilt throughout the Holy Land—they would have rejoiced at this vindication of Jewish yearnings. And if they would have been told that during all this, the parliament of the Jewish state would then vote to limit the ability of a Supreme Court to pronounce administrative decisions as “unreasonable,” their awe would not be diminished by an iota, no matter the flaws or virtues of this vote.

And so it must be stressed—though as I type these words, I still cannot believe that it must be stressed—that however much one might disagree with the Israeli coalition’s agenda, it is not Tisha B’Av. It is not the Holocaust. It is not the destruction of the Temple. It is not the expulsion from England, or Spain. It is not the auto-da-fé. It is not the massacres of the Crusades. To argue otherwise is to desecrate the memory of the martyred and the murdered, the exiled and the expelled, those who died with faith in the future of Jerusalem on their lips, and who would react with wonder at the miracles of our age.
Obama’s Calculated Tolerance of Black Anti-Semitism
I believe Sheila Miyoshi Jager’s account; she has nothing to gain by such a story, while the calculating Obama, determined to leave her because he was sure that as a white woman, she would be a political liability as his wife, made sure in his own memoir, Dreams of My Father, to leave out the Cokely episode, including his failure to condemn Cokely for his charge that “Jewish doctors” were deliberately committing “genocide” on “black babies.” This variant on the medieval blood libel about Jews killing Christian children so as to use their blood in making matzos, was a charge so explosive that it could well have resulted in murderous attacks by credulous African-Americans on Jewish doctors. When Sheila Miyoshi tried to convince Obama to denounce Cokely, he refused. He had decided that if he condemned Cokely, he would lose more support among black antisemites than he would gain in Jewish support. Clearly, Obama did not share the anguish of Jews at such charges, an updated version of the medieval blood libels. He was perfectly willing to pass over in silence Cokely’s disgusting and absurd charge of “genocide” by “Jewish doctors” of “black babies.” Sheila Miyoshi was appalled at Obama’s indecent political calculus, and told David Garrow so; that, she said, was her reason for the breakup. Obama, ever the calculating arriviste, determined to rise high, felt no need to reassure Jews that he stood with them. Instead, his silence about Steve Cokely’s charge suggested he had no interest in condemning even the worst antisemitic charges if to do so might hurt him with a black electorate that was also predominantly antisemitic.

Obama’s betrayal of a longstanding American commitment to veto all anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Security Council, when instead of a veto he had Samantha Power abstain from voting on UN Security Council Resolution 2334, that declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where a half-million Israelis lived, to constitute a violation of international law, was bad. An American veto would have killed the resolution. With the Americans not vetoing it, UNSC 2334 passed by a vote of 14-0. But Obama had done worse than that, when as a thrusting young Chicago politician he refused to do the right thing; he never denounced Steve Cokely for his extreme antisemitism, reflected in his charge that “Jewish doctors” practiced “genocide” on “black babies.” Obama’s tolerance of the worst kind of antisemitism was then, and remains, a form of antisemitism.
Antisemitism Still Haunts the European Left
Why the double standard? Why identify and condemn antisemitism from the right but not from within the left’s own ranks?

A large part of the answer sheds light upon a problem for the left not just in France, but in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom—the other countries covered by the ADL report—as well. In essence, antisemitism is not seen as a pernicious ideology targeting Jews as the root of the world’s ills, but rather as an instrument to be deployed in political conflicts. If antisemitism comes from a source that you would have no truck with anyway—in this case, an organization that believes fervently that Catholic doctrine should lie at the foundations of law and public policy—then there is no hesitation in condemning it, particularly when, as was true with the Civitas episode, there is no mention of Zionism or the State of Israel. But if antisemitism comes from an ally, like Corbyn, then you are duty-bound to deny it and dismiss it as a smear. In such an environment, any analytical consistency and certainly any attempt to point out the glaring overlap between far-left and extreme-right antisemitic tropes—dual loyalty, financial clout, disproportionate political and cultural influence—becomes impossible.

While the ADL report highlights the differences between the four countries under the microscope, there are also some key commonalities. “In all four countries, the two dominant findings were that antisemitism was used in anti-Israel contexts and in anti-capitalist contexts,” it observed. “In anti-Israel contexts, antisemitic themes included (1) accusations that Jewish cabals control politics and media and prevent either criticism of Israel or support for Palestine; (2) Holocaust trivialization as a means of arguing that Palestinians are no less victims today than Jews were during the Holocaust; (3) equating Israel with the Nazi regime, thus demonizing Israel; (4) accusations of antisemitism are in bad faith and employed to silence criticism of Israel. In anti-capitalist contexts, antisemitic themes included (1) Jewish control of financial markets; (2) Jewish obsession with money; and (3) Jewish exploitation of workers.”

The point, however, is that large swathes of the European left are either incapable of recognizing these themes as antisemitic, or they believe that the upsurge in hatred against Jews is solely a result of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians. “They have learnt nothing from what happened to them in Europe. Nothing,” ranted Tariq Ali, a British far-left leader, at an anti-Israel rally in May 2021. “Every time they bomb Gaza, every time they attack Jerusalem—that is what creates antisemitism. Stop the occupation, stop the bombing and casual antisemitism will soon disappear.”

Ali did not spell out the lesson that he believes the Jews should have learned from the Nazi era, but the implication of his words is that they are receiving their just desserts for dispossessing the Palestinians. And that their choice now is to either give in—and thereby suddenly and miraculously banish antisemitism from public discourse, or to carry on fighting and accept antisemitism as an inevitable consequence. Until this mode of thinking is banished from the left, Jews will have little reason to trust its representatives, even on those occasions when they do condemn antisemitism.

Wednesday, November 02, 2022

From Ian:

President Isaac Herzog: Honor the Election Results – Regardless of the Outcome
Election day for the 25th Knesset has arrived, and the fifth election campaign in less than four years is coming to an end. Although the election repetitiveness is likely to lead to despair among some Israelis, we must all remember: exercising our right to vote is most prominent expression of democracy in its simplest and most necessary sense – and we must not give up our right to be part of a process in which Israel's sovereignty is realized before our eyes.

I call on the entire Israeli public, from all communities, sectors, beliefs, and ways of life – to go out and vote and exercise your ability to influence our lives here.

Just as it is important that we all show up at the ballot boxes and choose the faction that reflects our views, it is important that we, the country's citizens, show up and stand behind the democratic process as well. Each and every one of us, from all walks of Israeli society, must assist - and not harm, God forbid – the optimal implementation of this process, in all its stages, and those who carry it out. Of course, it is no less important to honor the results of the election – whatever they will be. It is a fundamental obligation for us as a civilized society, the kind that not only creates common ground for us but also prevents chaos and anarchy.

Sadly, the months of the election campaign led to a disturbing increase in the extent of physical and verbal violence – in the field and on social media. Now is precisely the time to alter course, take a deep breath and adopt moderation, responsibility, and respect.

We must not forget, even for a moment: those who think differently from us are not enemies. Those who support a party that represents views and opinions we disagree with is not a traitor or fifth columnist. True, disagreements are and will always be an integral part of the democratic landscape. Still, we must ensure that they are conducted in a respectable manner and give room to others and their opinions.
Johnathan Tobin: Biden shouldn’t try to ‘save’ Israeli democracy from election victors
The votes in Israel’s latest Knesset election are still being counted, but the exit polls confirmed the worst fears of the Biden administration. While Israel isn’t getting the same kind of obsessive attention it has received at times in the past, there’s no question that President Joe Biden and his foreign-policy team have strong opinions about who should be running the Jewish state that are echoed by most Democrats and the liberal mainstream media.

They liked interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid and feared the possible return to power of Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.

The prospect of not only a victory for Netanyahu and his Likud Party, but the formation of a government with a prominent role for the Religious Zionist Party and one of its controversial leaders, Itamar Ben Gvir, is enough to set the hair of Democrats and the foreign-policy establishment on fire.

Ben Gvir was a supporter of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane’s in his youth and has a well-earned reputation as a right-wing provocateur who often clashed with the police. The attorney/activist moderated his views somewhat however, as he became more politically viable. But he is still treated by both Israeli and American liberals as anathema and a mortal threat to democracy.

That sets up a situation where the temptation for Washington to try to influence the coalition negotiations that will follow the counting of the votes may prove irresistible.

It wouldn’t be the first time American administrations had tried to play that game. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both sought to defeat Netanyahu and then aid his opponents in their quest to thwart his efforts to form governments. But this time, the motivation is slightly different.

In the past, those attempts to topple Netanyahu-led governments were primarily part of a campaign to promote the peace process with the Palestinians. Now, the main focus of American intervention—which may well be seconded by many leading American-Jewish groups—will be an effort to prevent the Religious Zionists and Ben Gvir from being part of a governing coalition.

The same group of Democratic foreign-policy hacks have largely staffed the Clinton, Obama and now Biden administrations. They all refuse to acknowledge the reality that Palestinian nationalism is inextricably tied to century-old Arab war on Zionism. That renders them incapable of accepting the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders might be drawn.
Israel Elections 2022: Netanyahu’s bloc appears primed for victory with nearly 86% of votes counted
With more than 4.1 million votes officially counted, or 87.6% of the total ballots cast in Israel’s elections on Tuesday, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-religious bloc appears primed for a victory.

According to Central Elections Committee (CEC) figures released on Wednesday, Netanyahu’s bloc will pick up 65 seats, though this number and the prospective electoral map could still change if the far-left Meretz and anti-Zionist Arab Balad parties enter the Knesset.

Both parties are currently sitting below the minimum 3.25% electoral threshold to enter the next parliament, although the CEC still needs to count some 500,000 “double envelope” ballots. These are essentially absentee ballots, cast primarily by diplomats, soldiers and prisoners outside of assigned polling stations, which are determined automatically in the voter registry based on one’s place of residence.

As things stand, Netanyahu’s Likud Party was projected to receive 32 seats, with his likely coalition partners the Religious Zionist Party, Shas and United Torah Judaism receiving 14, 11 and eight mandates, respectively.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid was predicted to garner 24 seats, followed by Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity at 12. Yisrael Beytenu, the Islamist Ra’am and the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al were all sitting at five seats. The Labor Party would take four seats.

Thursday, September 15, 2022

By Daled Amos

In the Middle East, allies and adversaries can change back and forth.

This is true not only among the states in that area but also among the outside countries that vie against each other to either gain a foothold or secure access to resources and technology.

Russia is one example.

When it was the Soviet Union, it was one of the first countries to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran. But it also was a major supplier of weapons to Iraq during that country's war against Iran, while at the same time providing some weapons to Iran. After the war, the USSR agreed to help Iran complete its nuclear reactor in Bushehr.

Today, Russia is still in the middle of things. It has inserted itself into Syria, which helps Iran's strategy of exploiting that country to supply Hezbollah while also establishing a base of operations against Israel. Yet at the same time, despite its advanced missile systems in place to defend Syria, Russia has an agreement with Israel allowing it to take action against Iranian positions in Syria.

It's complicated.

Ksenia Svetlova, an Israeli politician and journalist, differentiates between Russia's relationship with Iran and Israel:

The Iranians are not Russia’s friends, they’re partners.
We’re not partners (referring to Israel).

Left unsaid is just what Russia's relationship with Israel actually is.

A 2005 Middle East Forum article on Putin's Pro-Israel Policy, noted similar interests between Russia and Israel in the fight against the threat both countries faced against terrorism:

While the United States and other Western governments criticized Russian operations in Chechnya, the Israeli government did not. Rather, Sharansky offered strong support for Putin's hard-line policy of not negotiating with terrorists but defeating them militarily instead. Parallels between Russia's conflict with the Chechens and Israel's struggle with the Palestinians have resonated strongly with the Putin administration.
...Like Palestinian terrorists, Chechen rebels have launched a number of attacks on civilian targets in Russia, including attacks on hospitals in southern Russia during the first Chechen war (1994-96), the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, and a series of attacks in the summer of 2004 that culminated in the death of hundreds of school children in Beslan. This similarity in predicament seems to have increased sympathy for Israel in Russia.

But beyond the common enemy of terrorists, there is another tie between Russia and Israel which exists even when the issue of Chechnya is not front page news. When Ariel Sharon visited Russia in 2001,

Putin referred to the fact that many Israelis originally came from Russia and other ex-Soviet republics, stating that he wanted them to "live in peace and security," and denounced terrorism, even as he also referred to Russia's "traditionally good" relations with the Arab world and the Palestinian Authority.

When Israel confined Arafat to his headquarters in Ramallah, the terrorist leader turned to Putin to pressure Israel to back off. Instead, Putin was reported to have told him that "combating terrorism and extremism is the most urgent task facing the world community today."

Another angle to keep in mind is that in 2005, Russian ties with Israel were worth in the neighborhood of $1 billion annually.

But on the other hand, Russia still has to deal with the millions of Muslims who live in Russia. That gives Russia a strong motivation to temper its ties with Israel.

But at the same time, that is a danger for Russia as well.

In 2011, Lt. Colonel James Zumwalt criticized Putin's connection with Iran, noting at the time that based on the disparity between Russian and Muslim birthrates, by 2050 Muslims would outnumber native Russians.

More than that is the issue of Iran itself:

Putin naively believes in a non-existent Russian/Iranian bond that places Moscow outside Iran’s crosshairs. But Iran eventually has in mind for Russia the same fate it has for other non-Islamic states—a fate shared by the Caucasus Emirate: i.e., to make the country subservient to shariah law.


As the Soviet Union was falling apart, Ayatollah Khomeini wrote Gorbachev, offering Islamism as a way to "easily help fill up the ideological vacuum of your system."

What about today?

Capt. (res.) Alexander Grinberg of the IDF Military Intelligence writes that there is no love for Russia among the Iranians themselves:

the vast majority of Iranians traditionally despise Russia and support Ukraine. Countless Iranian youth hate Russia because they see parallels between the Russian and Iranian regimes. Given this context, it is understandable that Iranian leaders dislike being portrayed as Russia supporters.

That is not to say that Iran has particularly friendly relations with Ukraine right now either. Back in 2020, Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 people on board.

Ukraine is an impediment to ties between Russia and Israel as well, as Israel has carefully supported Ukraine against the Russian invasion while being careful not to do anything that might threaten the freedom Russia has been granting it in its flights over Syria. Russia has even told Iran to move from its positions in Syria in order to avoid giving Israel targets that are close to Russian positions.

Meanwhile, from a business perspective, the governments of Russia and Iran are in competition with each other as they try to find markets for their oil at a time when Russia is being isolated because of its invasion of Ukraine while Iran is trying to find a way around sanctions.

Partnerships in politics do not necessarily extend to partnerships in business.

And yet it is undeniable that the isolation of Russia and Iran is drawing the 2 countries together:

In July, Iran became the world’s largest buyer of Russian wheat. This month, Russia launched an Iranian satellite into space in a rare success for Tehran’s space program. And last week, Iran’s military hosted joint drone exercises with Russian forces, as the U.S. warns Moscow is preparing to receive Iranian drones for use in the war in Ukraine.

This interaction is going beyond an inter-governmental level:
Russians have been flocking to the Islamic Republic in recent months, often to discuss ways to circumvent sanctions, say Iranian businessmen. Russian is often heard in Tehran’s shops and hotels these days, as Iran remains open to Russian travelers who have been cut off from much of the West.

At the city’s grand bazaar, Hossein, a carpet seller, said the number of Russian customers has doubled since February and now make up half its customer base. In the lobby of a luxury hotel in Tehran, the only Europeans were Russians who brought their laptops for a business meeting with Iranians in black suits.

This almost sounds comparable to the descriptions of Israelis traveling to the UAE and investigating possible business ventures and opportunities for commerce.

But unlike the Arab-Israeli friendship that we read about, Russians visiting Iran are doing so out of desperation. 

Svetlova's description still rings true: "The Iranians are not Russia’s friends, they’re partners." 

Predictions over the years that Israel would face isolation and have no friends were wrong. The same cannot be said about Russia and Iran. And the fact that they find themselves in the same boat creates a partnership that will only go so far.





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!

 

 

Thursday, June 09, 2022

From Ian:

Mark Regev: Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestinians, Al Jazeera and press freedom - opinion
The accusation of a willful murder is made when among the nations of the Middle East it is in Israel alone that a free and critical press thrives. Israel’s famously boisterous and pugnacious media is always ready to expose a misbehaving politician, government wrongdoing and the IDF’s mistakes. This while the practice in the PA and Al Jazeera falls into a very different category.

Press freedom in the PA, Qatar
Although a PA basic law theoretically guarantees a free press, in reality such freedom is nonexistent: the media is severely constrained, critical platforms are shut down and journalists arrested when the authorities object to their work. Reporters have been beaten while in custody, blogger Nizar Banat ended up dead. When Abbas was angered by an Al Jazeera story, he ordered the closure of the network’s Ramallah offices.

The Palestinian president might have championed the deceased Abu Akleh as a martyr, but live Palestinian journalists know what may happen if they incur the wrath of the PA.

For its part, Al Jazeera likes to present its reporting as hard-hitting independent journalism, but the Qatari government-funded channel’s hundreds of employees never report about matters that could embarrass their patron.

Consequently, Qatar’s ongoing systematic mistreatment of the country’s migrant worker population of more than two million (similar in size to the entire population of Gaza) does not make it to Al Jazeera’s newsroom. The network has been equally silent on the kingdom’s discriminatory sexist male guardianship laws, on the criminalization of criticism against the emir’s leadership and on the lack of press freedom.

Even more problematic, following last year’s war in Gaza, the channel was presented with an award from Hamas for its reporting of the conflict. Hamas acclaim for Al Jazeera is not new, the network has a history of glorifying the perpetrators of terror attacks and broadcasting material that incites violence; its recent regurgitation of erroneous claims that the Jews somehow threaten al-Aqsa Mosque just the latest example.

Ultimately, like with its Kremlin-controlled sister channel RT, the Qatari state furnishes a television news station with a highly tendentious agenda.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European democracies banned RT broadcasts deeming them a “direct threat” to the “public order and security” of the EU. Yet, despite Al Jazeera’s record of affinity with a terrorist organization sworn to Israel’s destruction, Jerusalem takes no analogous action, media freedom being sacrosanct.

While Shireen Abu Akleh’s untimely death warrants thorough examination, allegations that Israel deliberately targets the press deserve no credence. They are cheap propaganda and should be dismissed as such.
Daniel Greenfield: Liberating our Jerusalem
In 1966, Jerusalem was a city sundered in two, divided by barbed wire and the bullets of Muslim snipers. Diplomacy did not reunite it. Israel pursued diplomacy nearly to its bitter end until it understood that it had no choice at all but to fight. Israel did not swoop into the fight, its leaders did their best to avoid the conflict, asking the international community to intervene and stop Egypt from going to war. Read back the headlines for the last five years on Israel and Iran, and you will get a sense of the courage and determination of the Israeli leaders of the day.

When Israel went to war, its leaders did not want to liberate Jerusalem, they wanted Jordan to stay out of the war. Even when Jordan entered the war, they did not want to liberate the city. Divine Providence and Muslim hostility forced them to liberate Jerusalem and forced them to keep it. Now some of them would like to give it back, another sacrifice to the bloody deity of diplomacy whose altar flows with blood and burnt sacrifices.

As we remember Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, it is important to remember that the city is united and free because diplomacy failed. The greatest triumph of the modern state happened only because diplomacy proved hopeless and useless in deterring Muslim genocidal ambitions. Had Israel succumbed to international pressure and had Nasser been as subtle as Sadat, then the Six-Day War would have looked like the Yom Kippur War fought with 1948 borders– and Israel very likely would not exist today.

Even as Jews remember the great triumph of Yom Yerushalayim, the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices are busy searching for ways to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, out of towns, villages and cities. This isn’t about the Muslim residents of Jerusalem, who have repeatedly asserted that they want to remain part of Israel. It’s not about peace, which did not come from any previous round of concessions, and will not come from this one either. It’s about solving the Jewish problem.

As long as Jews allow themselves to be defined as the problem, there will be plenty of those offering solutions. And the solutions invariably involve doing something about the Jews. It only stands to reason that if Jews are the problem, then moving them or getting rid of them is the solution. There is less friction in defining Jews as the problem, than in defining Muslims as the problem. The numbers alone mean that is so.

Yom Yerushalayim is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

Only then will we have liberated our Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of the soul. It is incumbent on all of us to liberate that little Jerusalem within. The holy city that lives in all of us. To clean the dross off its golden gates, wash the filth from its stones and expel the invaders gnawing away at our hearts until we look proudly upon a shining city. Then to help others liberate their own Jerusalems. Only then will we truly be free.
The Soviet origins of left-wing anti-Zionism
Ironically, Soviet anti-Zionism itself drew extensively from Nazi rhetoric and imagery. Many prominent contributors of propaganda material, such as Trofim Kichko, Yuri Ivanov, Lev Korneev and others unabashedly recycled ideas directly from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf. They even blamed the Jews for the extermination of both Jews and non-Jews during World War II. Today, anti-Zionist groups keep that legacy alive by routinely comparing Zionism to the Nazis. For example, Shahd Abusalama, a professor at Sheffield University in the United Kingdom, found it acceptable for a first-year student to compare an Israeli operation in Gaza to the Holocaust.

One of the Soviet propaganda machine’s greatest victories was the United Nations’ 1975 adoption of the “Zionism is Racism” resolution. Its revocation in 1991 had little effect on the U.N.’s stance on Israel. Statistics from 2020 are particularly illustrative: Israel was targeted by 17 U.N. resolutions, while all other countries combined, including regimes like Iran and North Korea, received six. On campus, Israel is frequently attacked in the same language. For example, at a Cornell SJP poetry reading, one participant designated Israel a “racist, exclusivist, supremacist state.”

Throughout their entire anti-Zionist campaign, the official Soviet line was that anti-Zionism was not anti-Semitism. A 1979 article in TheWashington Post noted, “Although the number of anti-Semitic books and denunciations has grown continuously [in the Soviet Union] since the Six-Day War in 1967, recent months have brought remarkable new additions to this genre. Officially, they are labeled ‘anti-Zionist.’ Soviet bureaucrats vehemently reject suggestions that ‘anti-Zionism’ means ‘anti-Semitism.’ To many Soviet Jews, it is a distinction without a difference.”

Today, this is one of the most popular talking points among left-wing anti-Zionists and anti-Semites. Indeed, it is telling that anti-Israel groups have repeatedly attempted to block universities and municipalities from adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, which defines certain kinds of anti-Israel rhetoric as anti-Semitic. At the City University of New York (CUNY), for example, former president of CUNY’s SJP chapter Nerdeen Kiswani tweeted: “#IHRAoutofCUNY we know all too well that this purposeful conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism is used against Palestinians and organizers for Palestine. We must protect our right to organize and speak out against oppression.”

There is no doubt that today’s left-wing anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism can be directly traced to the Soviets’ anti-Zionist propaganda campaign. Knowing this is the first and perhaps most important step toward creating a more balanced and honest dialogue on the issue.

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Tonight is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

The usual reasons given for this day are so that we won't forget the evils of antisemitism, and we solemnly pledge "never again."

Unfortunately, much of the world already has forgotten the lessons and support the rights of those who want to see it repeated.

Today's antisemites who style themselves as being merely "anti-Zionist" or "pro-Palestinian" say that they have learned the lessons of the Holocaust, so much so that they can give instruction to the Jewish state as to how it hasn't learned those lessons. They strenuously deny being antisemitic, and they have lots of "proof:" they have Jewish friends, they have Jewish members, they have seders, they are acting according to Jewish morality, they quote "Justice, Justice thou shalt pursue." 

And for the most part, the world that claims to be horrified by the Holocaust believes their denial of being motivated by Jew-hatred.

But they aren't the only ones who have denied being antisemitic.

This 1990 Canadian news story shows that a neo-Nazi skinhead also denied hating Jews:


He didn't hate Jews. He just didn't want them around anymore.

The Soviet Union also denied hating Jews. Soviets were only anti-Zionist, and they defined “international Zionism” as a “shock detachment of imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism" that happened to be led by the "Jewish bourgeoisie." 

Nazis denied discriminating against Jews as well. In the run-up to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, they claimed that they would allow any Jewish athletes to compete. The only problem was that sports clubs in Germany didn't allow Jews, and they didn't want to interfere with their decisions.

And one couldn't expect Germany to support Jewish sports clubs, because they were...Zionist! 

"It is hardly fair to expect that state support be given to purely Jewish organizations, which, being composed almost exclusively of Zionists, are even today in sharp political conflict with the government," said Hans Von Tschammer und Osten, the German minister of sport.

Like the Soviets, the Nazis were merely anti-Zionist, not anti-Jewish!

Father Charles Coughlin amassed a huge radio audience in the 1930s and emphasized that Jews were behind the Communist revolution. He published a magazine, Social Justice, which serialized the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But he denied being antisemitic as well. (NYT, November 28, 1938)


Henry Ford, who also published the Protocols, strenuously denied having any negative feelings towards Jews as well. He only pointed out how Jews were behind all wars and the Jew is "the money maniac." (NYT, October 29, 1922):



It turns out that of you take them at their word, there are no antisemites at all. Palestinians don't hate Jews, they just want to ensure Jews have no political power. Louis Farrakhan isn't antisemitic, he's just pointing out that most Jews belong to the Synagogue of Satan - but not all of them.The Arab nations didn't hate Jews, they say that all their Jews left voluntarily after listening to Zionist lies. 

Most of these can point to Jews who support them and who agree that they are not antisemitic, only misunderstood.

By the same token, Haman didn't hate Jews, he was just concerned that they have different laws than the rest of Persia. Pharaoh didn't hate Jews, he was just concerned about a fifth column in ancient Egypt.

It is easy to laugh at the denials of antisemites from decades or centuries past; their lies are transparent. Yet today, a large percentage of people are more than willing to accept the current denials of antisemitism from the anti-Israel crowd, as if their current excuses for singling out most Jews have any more validity than those of the antisemites of the past. 

It isn't only today that antisemites dress up their hate in the garb of nationalism, or social justice, or morality, or science, or protecting the interests of "victims" of Jewish actions. 

They've always done it. 




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 10, 2021



From BBC Russian:

The Russian Ministry of Justice has included in the list of extremist materials the Soviet propaganda film "Secret and Explicit. Aims and Deeds of the Zionists." The film was shot in the 1970s on the wave of "anti-Zionism" in the USSR, but it never made it to the wide screen because of the fears of the Soviet authorities.

The decision to ban the film was made by the Syktyvkar City Court in July this year, but it was only on November 8 that it was officially included in the list of extremist materials.

The documentary black and white tape was released in 1973 by the Central Documentary Film Studio. 
[T]he script for the film was approved at the highest level - in the international department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a whole group of reputable consultants from the USSR Academy of Sciences, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the KGB were assigned to work on the picture. The filmmakers were even allowed to travel to Europe to collect material.

The well-known historian of the Soviet era Yevgeny Dobrenko wrote: "This film was the Soviet version of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion ," so odious and wild even by Soviet standards that it was assessed as anti-Semitic and banned even by the KGB and the Central Committee."
I found a version of the film where it appears that someone added clips from the 1990s (Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak). But it seems to include the original complete film.

I don't understand Russian but the antisemitism is obvious - scenes of Jews praying, shots of Jewish books that are almost certainly being claimed to demean non-Jews, accusations that Jews collaborated with Nazis on the Holocaust. 

 

Leftist anti-Zionism started off indistinguishable from classic antisemitism. After missteps like this film, the Left learned to hide their Jew-hate a little better, always insisting that they weren't anti-Jew but only anti-Israel. 

That doesn't change the fact that the anti-Zionists are still motivated by the same hate for Jews that they always were. Hiding it better doesn't make that any less true.





Wednesday, May 22, 2019



Apparently, they are not exactly clear on what the word "Independent" means...
 A representative of the “Independent Jewish Voices” (IJV) fringe group admitted Saturday that the organization takes its direction from Palestinians and not members of Canada’s grassroots Jewish community.At an anti-Israel protest at Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto, an IJV spokesperson concluded her speech by saying: “I’m really grateful that Palestine House is rejuvenating also, and that we continue, as Jews, to take direction from Palestinian leadership.”As previously revealed by B’nai Brith Canada, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), a Damascus-based terror group, took credit for winning the Palestine House elections earlier this month. The DFLP staged the 1974 Ma’alot Massacre, in which 31 Israeli civilians were murdered, most of them children.It continues to support terrorism to this day.
 “This admission demolishes any credibility IJV could ever claim as a so-called Jewish organization,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “Real Jewish groups take direction from within the Jewish community, and certainly not from outside groups with a history of celebrating anti-Jewish terror.”
On its website, IJV describes itself as “a grassroots organization grounded in Jewish tradition.” However, a landmark 2018 survey of Canadian Jews showed that only 6 per cent of Canadian Jews believe that Canada is too supportive of Israel, which is the position taken by IJV.
The screenshot above is of the woman who said this, whose name appears to be Beverly.

I grabbed video of the admission as well as the mindless chanting that followed, where the Orwellian newspeak continued. "Stop the killing stop the hate, Israel is a racist state" they chant, when the only hate being expressed is from the protesters themselves.




In a similar vein of Jews taking direction from others in fomenting hate, notice the socialist flags at this event. At Fathom Journal is a really well done article discussing the history of Soviet pre-Internet fake news where they made up anti-Zionist and antisemitic lies and spread them around the world as news stories, along with other disinformation that even fooled CBS News and Dan Rather. There is a direct line between the Soviet propaganda and today's far-Left antisemitism. 

A particular trick of Soviet anti-Zionism, according to the Israeli historian Kiril Feferman, was that it ‘proposed a version of antisemitism to Western audiences that did not have obvious antisemitic overtones.’ It did so by substituting anti-Zionism for antisemitism in its propaganda, which made it passable for the many well-intentioned, idealistic individuals who otherwise would have recoiled in disgust from this rhetoric. Yet, underneath the relatively benign covers, the messages of the campaign packed a powerful antisemitic charge.
The messaging emanating from today’s far-left anti-Zionist camp is strikingly similar to the messaging of the Soviet anti-Zionist campaigns. From the claims of Zionist collaboration with the Nazis in the Holocaust, to the idea of Zionism as an inherently racist and oppressive ideology, to the concept of Israel as a settler-colonialist state that engages in genocidal behavior and apartheid – all of these ideas were part and parcel of the Soviet anti-Zionist narrative.
(h/t Josh K., Aidan)



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