US to rejoin antisemitic UNESCO. Why is the WJC praising this?

I'm in the middle of reading "Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership,"  collection of essays edited by Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser:

This book—perhaps the first devoted to this topic—documents the devastating failure of the Jewish establishment, including its leaders and major donors, to defend and protect American Jews as anti-Semitism surges across the country....Betrayed by their leaders, the essayists argue, American Jews require new, strong leadership.

While it is not an American Jewish organization, the World Jewish Congress - led by Ronald Lauder - may be a perfect example of this problem.

The World Jewish Congress issued this statement this morning:

World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder issued the following statement praising the return of the United States to UNESCO: 

“The World Jewish Congress welcomes the decision by the United States to rejoin UNESCO after a five-year absence.   

“Under the leadership of Director-General Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO has made an immeasurable impact on the world stage by safeguarding history amid tumultuous and complex global events, so that current and future generations can be exposed to and better understand the lessons of the past.   

“WJC, a longtime UNESCO partner on Holocaust remembrance and interfaith initiatives, is hopeful that the agency will now be able to share its critical work with even broader audiences.”

One of the themes of this site is Jewish unity, and infighting among Jews is one of the organized Jewish community's worst problems. I do not like to attack Jewish organizations. But this statement is outrageous.

The entire reason the US left UNESCO in 2017 was because if its anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias. That bias was consistent for years, with UNESCO regularly issuing biased reports and statements:

Denying any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and even the Western Wall

Deploring Jews visiting the Temple Mount

Ignored Israeli casualties in the May 2019 Gaza war

Complimenting Jordan's plan for rebuilding the public ramp to the Temple Mount while condemning Israel's

Calling Maimonides a Muslim named Moussa ibn Maïmoun and refusing to apologize

I'm not saying that there might not be good reasons for the US to rejoin UNESCO. After months of lobbying by current UNESCO director-general Audrey Azoulay where she tried to reassure Israel she won’t allow anti-Israeli bias in the organization, Israel told the Biden administration last year that it wouldn't oppose the US re-joining.  The US is concerned that China is now leading UNESCO in ways against US interests.

All this may be true, but: 

The WJC claims that it "protects Jews everywhere and constantly defends the State of Israel against these threats." But Jews and Israel are missing in this press release. Instead, it is cheerleading an organization with a history of horrifying antisemitism and anti-Zionism. 

How could it welcome the US decision, and praise UNESCO, without saying a word about UNESCO's antisemitic history? This is not the time for celebratory press release, but for a warning that UNESCO will be watched closely to see if there has been any significant change in its anti-Israel, antisemitic bias. 

But the WJC is not saying that UNESCO is on its radar. On the contrary, WJC is giving UNESCO a kosher certification. 

It is true that UNESCO has become less noxious under the leadership of Azoulay, but it has hardly ended its bias. Every year UNESCO reaffirms all previous resolutions minimizing the Jewish connection to Jewish holy sites (although it has returned to including the non-Muslim names of the Temple Mount, Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb) as it condemns every Israeli move at all those sites. All the bias and hate are still there, but "softer." 

This is hardly reason for celebration. 

This is not Jewish leadership. This is capitulation. This is giving the message to world Jewry that their self-appointed leaders care more about access to powerful people than actually fighting for Jewish interests. 

Real leaders tell the truth even if that will upset the powers that be. Ronald Lauder is a billionaire - he can say what he wants without any fear of personal consequences. This episode shows that he is no Jewish leader.

(Graphic courtesy of @iTil972)

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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The US Jews who opposed Orthodox rabbis pleading to save European Jews

On October 6, 1943, a group of hundreds of Orthodox rabbis came to Washington DC to plead for the lives of their brethren in Europe.

They presented a letter to Vice President Wallace asking for a government agency to help save the remaining Jews from the Holocaust. The letter demanded that the US open its doors to Jewish refugees, that the UN create a passport that could be used for Jews to travel, and for Britain to "open the doors of Palestine."

Some of the details about this trip are outrageous. 

Historian Alex Grobman writes:

Dressed in long, dark rabbinic attire, the rabbis walked from Union Station to the Capitol Building. There, Rabbis Eliezer Silver, Israel Rosenberg and Bernhard Louis Levinthal led a recitation of Psalms. Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook), who was head of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, introduced them to Vice President Henry Wallace and a number of Congressmen.

Bergson enlisted the rabbis and the American Jewish Legion of Veterans for the march. He expected American clergy would join, but none did. Only the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada, the Union of Hassidic Rabbis and a commander of the Jewish Legion participated. The modern Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America sent Rabbi David Silver, Rabbi Eliezer Silver’s son.

White House adviser Judge Samuel Rosenman told the president that those “behind this petition” were “not representative of the most thoughtful elements in Jewry.” The “leading Jews” Rosenman knew opposed the march, but he admitted failing to “keep the horde from storming Washington.”

A number of Jewish congressmen had attempted to dissuade the rabbis from marching. This backfired when Congressman Sol Bloom, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that “It would be undignified for these un-American looking rabbis to appear in the nation’s capital.”

At the Lincoln Memorial, the rabbis—who had declared a fast day—prayed for the welfare of the armed forces and the Jews of Europe and a quick Allied victory. Then they walked to the White House and prayed outside the gates. Though they expected to meet with the President, they were told he was unavailable. Later they learned he went to Bolling Field Air Force Base for a minor ceremony to avoid meeting them.

Rafael Medoff adds:

The era’s most prominent American Jewish leader, Rabbi Stephen Wise, criticized the march in somewhat similar terms. Wise, who headed the American Jewish Congress, the World Jewish Congress, and the American Zionist movement, wrote that “the orthodox rabbinical parade [ sic]” was a “painful and even lamentable exhibition.” He derided the organizers as “stuntists” and accused them of offending “the dignity of [the Jewish] people.”

The oh-so-dignified Jews were aghast that Orthodox rabbis would make a scene while pleading for the lives of Jews in Europe.  

And these self-appointed leaders were dead wrong. They thought that since they had their own access to corridors of power, they had influence in those corridors. In fact, Roosevelt didn't want to meet the rabbis specifically because he didn't want to be pressured to help save the Jewish refugees from Europe. FDR knew the power of public pressure. (His schedule that afternoon was remarkably open.) 

The vice president issued a vague, meaningless statement of support meant to get rid of these strange Jews.

And there was a more than a little self-hating from the American secular Jews in this event, as these supposed defenders of Jews in America did not want to be associated with people who looked like their grandfathers did. The Orthodox embarrassed them. Public tears to help save millions of lives is not the image they want Americans to see. 

They thought of themselves as superior, at having left their visible Judaism behind. And their conceit that they are better, and know better, than other Jews, indirectly resulted in more European Jews being murdered.

It is the same conceit that kept the daily attacks on Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn out of the news cycle for so long.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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WJC president Ronald Lauder acts chummy with antisemite Mahmoud Abbas. He has lost the plot.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is in New York to give his annual anti-Israel speech filled with lies to the UN. 

This comes on the heels of his Fatah party bragging about its terror wing attacking Israel in recent weeks. It has been only a month since Abbas said that Israel has inflicted 50 "holocausts" on Palestinians, only the latest of his many explicitly antisemitic statements he has made publicly.  

Abbas' Wafa news agency has hundreds of articles trying to make Abbas look like a statesman, reporting breathlessly on his sending letters of congratulations to various world leaders on their national days and every meeting he has in Ramallah with even minor officials from countries or NGOs. For the New York visit, Wafa has a bonanza of photo ops trying to make Abbas look important showing him meeting with major officials. 

One of the featured photos is with Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, smiling while putting his arm around Holocaust denier Abbas.

Compare with with Abbas' publicity photos with other dignitaries in New York.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez:

President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Peter Maurer:

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres:

No other official gives Abbas more than a handshake. 

But the head of the WJC, which is committed to fighting antisemitism worldwide, puts his arm around a dyed in the wool antisemite like Mahmoud Abbas. While smiling. As if it is an honor to be in the same room as a supporter of terror. 

The WJC issues several statements a week, but it did not condemn Mahmoud Abbas' "holocausts" statement, even though it was widely reported.

I have no problem with the head of a Jewish organization meeting Abbas, as a means to convey messages from the Jewish community or to encourage moves towards peace and away from terror. But it needs to be accompanied with a public message of what the meeting is meant to accomplish and a strong statement of condemnation of Abbas' antisemitic statements. 

In this case, as in other meetings between Lauder and Abbas, the subject matter is opaque - and all we see are the photo-ops which the Palestinians use as propaganda to pretend that they have no problem with Jews, but only with Israel. 

When the leader of a Jewish organization seemingly goes out of its way to treat an antisemite with more respect than anyone else does, we have a problem with our Jewish leadership.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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There's been a "Marshall Plan" for Palestinians for decades. It didn't work.

World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder made a splash earlier this month when, in Arab News, he suggested a new "Marshall Plan" for Palestinians to help bring peace.

It might seem counterintuitive, given the decades of failed peace efforts, but I believe this is exactly the right time to offer the Palestinians a new initiative — one that they cannot turn down. What I am suggesting is a “Marshall Plan” that would offer the next generation of Palestinians a future of wealth, success and self-reliance, rather than the dismal prospects of the past.

Just as the Marshall Plan put Europe on a sound financial footing, the Palestinian plan should focus on the creation of small businesses, home building, hotels, restaurants and job creation that would offer a positive future to the next generation.

A fixed sum of money could be given to young entrepreneurs to create new businesses, which would be closely monitored. If they prove to be viable but need a financial boost after a year, another small infusion could be given. In other words, provide Palestinians with all the things that made Israel and other countries financially viable, which would help create a new and successful Palestine.

Within three-to-five years, I believe per capita wealth would double annually. The wealthier a future Palestinian nation becomes, the more likely it is that it could be the viable, successful country it should be — and every country in the region would benefit from this change.

This is short-sighted, for a number of reasons.

First of all, for decades, the per-capita aid to the Palestinians has dwarfed that of every other nation. In other words, they have already been the recipients of the most extensive "Marshall Plan" in history - and it has not moderated them one bit.

Notice that even in 2019, when the US has sharply reduced aid to the Palestinians under Trump, they still received nearly double the aid per capita of the next highest recipient and quadruple that of #3.

In 2009, they received some six times what the next highest recipient was. But that didn't stop three more wars from Gaza.

Throwing money at the problem doesn't solve anything when it comes to Palestinians.

Secondly, while the PA budget is in very bad shape, a lot of that is because the government itself insists on giving a significant percentage of its budget to reward terrorism. As long as that is happening, the PA cannot and must not be a recipient of aid, directly or indirectly.  The message from the world must be that this is unacceptable - not that we will send yet more money.

Thirdly, the Palestinians themselves ridicule the idea. They want Jerusalem and Hebron to be Judenrein, they demand "return" to destroy Israel demographically, they think that the ICC and UN and "human rights" NGOs will destroy Israel given enough time so they can sit back and wait. 

What about aid to individual entrepreneurs, as Lauder suggests? That is also already happening. The US, Canada and private initiatives are already investing tens of millions to help Palestinian businesses. And it is not a bad idea. Palestinians high tech teams are already partnering with their Israeli counterparts. Israel is expected to increase 4G wireless networking in the territories during Biden's visit, which should help Palestinian high tech firms find partners worldwide. The Palestinian Authority does not seem to recognize that services that could be done remotely like coding should be a national priority.

Creative Palestinians will find ways to build up their businesses anyway. But they aren't the problem that needs solving.

The main problem is that the majority of Palestinians think that terrorism is the best Palestinian strategy, as the most recent poll shows.

Throwing money at people who believe in terrorism is not how to bring peace. The PA, Hamas and those who support the goals of destroying Israel should be getting less money, not more. The linkage should be explicit. 

Which is what Israel is already doing. It links work permits to calm. When there is relative peace, more Palestinians can enjoy the benefits of being neighbors with an economic powerhouse. As soon as a rocket is shot towards Israel or a Jenin terrorist stabs someone in Tel Aviv, the borders get sealed - an obvious and logical response to a country under attack. Palestinians can see the linkage between their actions and consequences, and they don't want to suffer the consequences. Even Hamas has been acting to keep things calm.

This is not peace. With the current Palestinian mindset, it will never bring peace. But it brings calm, and that is the best we can hope for.

Throwing money at the problem gives a disincentive for Palestinians to cooperate with Israel. It gives the false impression that they don't need to think about working together with Israel because the cash is coming in anyway. 

Linking their actions with immediate consequences - both positive and negative - is the best and most effective way to save lives, and, ultimately, to allow both sides to prosper.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

Read More