08/14 Links Pt2: The Jews in Defiance of History; Obama’s Calculated Tolerance of Black Anti-Semitism; Antisemitism Still Haunts the European Left

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.

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New antisemitism survey still asks the wrong questions, and does not disprove the "horseshoe theory"

From The Forward:

A new study is casting doubt on the idea, held by some but not most American Jews, that antisemitism is just as prevalent on the far left as it is on the far right. Though far more American Jews consider the far right as the greater antisemitic threat, some academics and Jewish leaders have embraced horseshoe theory — the idea the opposite ends of an ideological spectrum are similar — and applied it to antisemitism.

Though the Anti-Defamation League, for example, has identified the far right as far more threatening to American Jews, its leader, Jonathan Greenblatt, has compared far-left critics of Israel as the “photo inverse” of the extreme right.

While antisemitism on the right tends to focus on conspiracy theories about Jews being disloyal to white people or rejecting conservative values, on the left it’s often tied to blaming Jews for actions undertaken by Israel.

A paper published in June in the journal Political Research Quarterly found that anti-Jewish beliefs are far more popular in right-wing circles, particularly among young people. 

The results show that “there’s a problem on the young right,” said study author Eitan Hersh, an associate professor of political science at Tufts University. “It’s very interesting and, I think, concerning that we have this rare form of prejudice that is more common among young people and old people. It’s kind of shocking because if you look at other forms of prejudice, like racism, sexism, anti-gay attitudes, they’re just way higher among older people than younger people.”

For the study, a survey was sent to 3,500 American adults, 2,500 of them between the ages of 18 and 30. Respondents were asked to reply to a series of questions, such as whether they believe Jews are more loyal to Israel than the U.S.; if it’s appropriate to boycott Jewish-owned businesses to protest Israeli policies, and whether Jews have too much power. They were also asked questions to test for a double standard. For instance, one question would ask whether Jews who want to participate in activism must first denounce Israeli actions against Palestinians, and then a similar question was posed about Muslims denouncing a Muslim country’s actions. 

Hersh said he was surprised by the results. Those on the left were less likely than even political moderates to believe Jews were more loyal to Israel. They were also less likely than moderates to think Jews have too much power or that boycotting Jewish businesses to protest Israel was acceptable. Young adults who held the most conservative views were almost five times more likely to say it was acceptable to boycott Jewish businesses than those on the farthest left and almost 10 times more likely to say Jews had too much power. 

I'm not quite sure why this is being published now - the survey was published nearly a year ago.

The people behind the survey, while trying hard to make it as scientific as possible, are still missing the nature of modern antisemitism of the Left. So is The Forward.

The far-Left (in the US) is conditioned to be against traditional antisemitism. They know "hating Jews" is a bad thing. They know the Holocaust was a horrible event. Their visceral hatred for Nazis means that are never going to say that they will boycott Jewish-owned businesses or that Jews have too much power.

That is because they have replaced the object of their irrational hate from "Jew" to "Zionist."

The surveyors should have asked the identical questions across the same groups with the word "Zionists" instead of "Jews:"

1. US Zionists are more loyal to Israel than to America.

2. It is appropriate for opponents of Israel’s policies and actions to boycott Zionist American owned businesses in their communities.

3. Zionists in the United States have too much power.

Even though they don't want to admit it - certainly not to a survey - "Zionist" has become a useful replacement for "Jew" in their own bigotry. "Zionists" are excluded from progressive clubs, not "Jews" - but there is essentially no difference between the two. Jews are expected to denounce Israel as a precondition to being accepted in some campus spaces, but members of other religions aren't given the same demands. 

If the far-Left were given similar questions to those the ADL asks about Jews in their antisemitism surveys but using the word "Zionists" instead, then we would learn how congruent their hate is with right-wing antisemitism. In addition to the questions above, they should specify whether the responders agree:

Zionists have too much power in the business world

Zionists have too much power in international financial markets

Zionists talk too much about the Holocaust

Zionists don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind

Zionists have too much control over global affairs

Zionists have too much control over the United States government

Zionists think they are better than other people

Zionists have too much control over the global media

Zionists are responsible for most of the world's wars

People hate Jews because of the way Israel behaves

If far-Left responses to classic antisemitic tropes repurposed as "anti-Zionist" are similar to far-right answers to those tropes with Jews, that would be strong proof that the "horseshoe theory" is correct - and that the Left has simply recast Jews as "Zionist" while denying any connection between the two. The crazed prejudice is the same, just recast as a rational, political position rather than an irrational racist position. 

My theory that the far Left tries to bury antisemitic attitudes behind other concerns is supported by a survey done in 2021 that showed a correlation between education and antisemitism, using a brilliant methodology where the people being polled would not know that their answers would indicate prejudice - something the Left is sensitive to. 

I'm not saying that the far Left is just as antisemitic as the far-Right. We don't have the data. I'm saying that the methodologies in the surveys we know of that make the claim that there is little far-Left antisemitism have all been flawed. 

It would be similarly instructive to see the far-Right responses to the same questions on "Zionists," because while the Left tries to paint the right-wing antisemites as Zionist, the reality is, I believe, quite different (just look at David Duke's writings about Israel for an example.) 

Maybe I should raise the money for a proper survey to see if I am right or not. Because the professionals and academics are still missing the boat.

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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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"Human rights orgs" give the world permission to hate Jews again

In 2001, Barbara Perry wrote a book called "In the Name of Hate: Understanding Hate Crimes." Chapter 7, "Permission to Hate: Ethnoviolence and the State" says:

[H]ate-motivated violence can flourish only in an enabling environment. In the United States, such an environment historically has been conditioned by the activity-and inactivity-of the state. State practices, policy, and rhetoric often have provided the formal framework within which hate crime-as an informal mechanism of control-emerges. Practices within the state-at an individual and institutional level-that stigmatize, demonize, or marginalize traditionally oppressed groups legitimate the mistreatment of these same groups on the streets. This chapter examines the ways in which state rhetoric, policy, and practice provide the context for violence against minorities.

She brings examples of how political figures, by invoking or dog-whistling tropes against oppressed groups, enable hate crimes against the same groups.

The theory seems to have merit. After all, when bigotry is normalized, then the environment is riper for people who want to act in a bigoted way. They don't feel like they are outliers and they believe that there would be fewer consequences for their actions. 

There was a cottage industry of people warning that Donald Trump's alleged bigotry would increase hate crimes, and then magically finding such correlations. (The increase in hate crimes began in the second term of the Obama administration, but for some reason no one seems to blame him.) 

Relatively few people noted that there was a similar increase in hateful speech from the Left in the same time period - much of it directed at Trump voters.

To be sure, hate from the Left doesn't usually translate into direct hate crimes, while far-Right hate sometimes does. But hate is always directed at the Other - and it is just as reprehensible when the Other is black or gay, or whether The Other is Republican or live in flyover states.

A major barrier to having feelings of hate is that no one wants to believe that they are bigots. They want to believe that their hate is a righteous hate towards a group of people who richly deserve it. It just so happens that groups like Black people, gays, or women are easily categorized and hate towards them is more easily analyzed than hate for political opponents. However, the emotions are the same, and just as destructive - the same feeling of superiority versus the Other and the same imperative that the Other not have the same rights as those of the hater. 

Which brings us to modern hate of Jews.

Jews are indeed a defined group with a rich history of victimhood. Outside of the fringe that are white supremacist or neo-Nazi, people don't want to think of themselves as having the label "antisemite.". The Holocaust is still in living memory and no one wants to be on the side of the Nazis. 

But lots of people are itching for an excuse to hate Jews without being called antisemitic, indeed while claiming that they are against antisemitism. They want someone to give them permission to hate in a way that they can still look themselves in the mirror - or better yet, to consider themselves paragons of morality.

The UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other "human rights organizations" have been happy to jump in and provide exactly that permission. 

Have you ever noticed that the thorough, multiple debunkings of the "apartheid" slander against Israel get no attention? It is partially because the modern antisemites aren't looking for real reasons to hate Israel and Israeli Jews - they are looking for permission to act on the hate they already had beforehand. Once an Amnesty or a UN gives them that permission, by giving Israel a label of "racist" or "Jewish supremacist," they can pretend that their hate is not toxic Nazi-style bigotry but righteous moral indignation. They have no desire to look beyond the modern slanders of accusing Jews of moral crimes - they have "experts" on their side, and that is all they need to legitimize this new bigotry. The 200 page papers don't need to be read or analyzed; they are meant to simply give permission for the masses to hate Jews eight decades after Auschwitz. 

This is the same permission that Barbara Perry noted for bigotry on the Right. NGOs fulfill the functions of the Perry's state-supported hate - in fact, they are in some ways more respected because they position themselves as having no political agenda, only a moral one. 

Apologists might argue that this Leftist antisemitism, if they even admit it exists, is still much less serious than far-Right antisemitism. The neo-Nazi antisemites are more likely to have guns and to directly murder Jews, while the Leftist antisemites are merely boycotting Israel. If you define the consequences of antisemitism merely by counting the bodies killed directly by the bigots, they would have a point.

However, we have seen in recent years that while the Leftist version of the world's oldest hatred might not directly attack Jews, it encourages Palestinians and Iranian proxies to attack them - and gives them their own moral cover.

They have created an additional false intellectual framework that claims that Palestinian terrorism is legitimate self defense, and that Israel has no right to defend itself or its citizens from Palestinian terror. They push lies that US military aid to Israel has no oversight and that US arms are being used for war crimes - with the intent to destroy Israel's ability to defend Jews from Palestinian terror. They fund "charities" and Palestinian NGOs that are tightly tied to, and often fronts for, terror groups like the PFLP. 

This is simply another layer of looking for, and finding, permission to hate and dehumanize.

Jews killed by right-wing crazies in a synagogue in the US are just as dead as Jews killed by Palestinian Jew-haters while driving in their cars in Judea or exiting their synagogue in Jerusalem. But the Left doesn't consider the latter to be victims of antisemitism - the cognitive dissonance would be too painful  So they construct yet another castle in the sky, backed up by academics, pretending that the Palestinians who openly admit and publish their hatred for Jews don't really hate Jews and that they are the victims, not the dead Jews. 

The entire house of cards of Leftist justifications for hating Jews (and only Jews) in Israel would collapse in an instant if the "progressive" anti-Zionists would spend five minutes looking at the critiques of the "apartheid" slanders and absurd arguments justifying murdering Jews. Or ten minutes to compare Israel's supposed "crimes" with the acts of any other country in the history of warfare. But truth isn't their goal - they only want to have permission to engage in the same kind of bigotry that they claim is exclusive to the Right. Facts get in the way of their deep desire to put those uppity Jews in their place.

Today, in the streets of London, you can get a crowd of thousands to openly cheer the idea that Palestinians have the right to target and murder Jews, and only Jews, in Israel. They just change the word "murder" to "resistance" and terrorism magically transforms from a crime against humanity into a heroic action. 

These bigots have permission from the UN, from Amnesty and HRW, from The Nation and Electronic Intifada, from Peter Beinart and Marc Lamont Hill and dozens of other "intellectuals,"  to hate Jews - and from there to incite the murder of Jews.

People wonder how the Holocaust could have happened. How, centuries after the Age of Enlightenment that normalized the concepts of human rights and equality,  could an entire country be so brainwashed to hate Jews? How could such a hate be not only accepted but enthusiastically promoted by ordinary Germans? 

The intellectual groundwork for such an event is being put in place in front of our eyes today. 

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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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"Remember, say Zionists, not Jews"

From Times of Israel:

A pro-Palestinian activist who committed a series of attacks on Jews in New York City in 2021 and 2022 discussed bringing firebombs to a pro-Israel rally, bragged about antisemitic assaults and plotted how to evade law enforcement, according to federal prosecutors.

Saadah Masoud pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit hate crimes in federal court in November as part of a plea agreement. His sentencing for separate attacks on three Jews will be held on Friday in the Southern District Court of New York. He faces up to two years in prison.

In a sentencing submission last week, prosecutors laid out discussions Masoud held with his associates around the time of the crimes that indicated the attacks were planned and targeted people they believed to be Jewish or Israeli. 

In May of 2021, around the time of a conflict between Israel and the Hamas terror group, Masoud discussed disrupting a pro-Israel rally in Manhattan in a group chat on the Signal messaging app.

The group discussed bringing weapons to the pro-Israel rally, including Molotov cocktails, prosecutors said.

One of the participants said, “Remember, don’t chant out Jews, it’s the Zionists,” apparently to evade allegations of antisemitism. Another participant in the group chat said, “Fuck all Jews.”

In a separate exchange, Masoud celebrated violence against Jews, saying, “I beat the shit out of three Zionists yesterday and didn’t even see a jail cell.”

“VIOLENT!! ONLY VIOLENCE… IN PALESTINE THEY WISHHH THEY COULD SMACK A ZIONIST AND NOT GET TORTURED TO DEATH. WE CAN THO!! And we’ll just get a [desk appearance ticket from the NYPD],” he said, according to prosecutors. 

The day after Masoud and his associates held the group chat, they went to a pro-Israel protest and picked out a man wearing a Star of David while he was walking with his wife.

“Are you a fucking Jew?” Masoud asked the man, then punched him in the face. Afterward, he texted his associates, “no videos of me anywhere lmaooo. I’m Gucci. No face no case.”

... Masoud was arrested in June 2022. When he arrived at the courthouse, he asked a detective, “All this for one Jew?” Shortly after, an investigator overheard him saying he didn’t want any “Greenbergs” for lawyers, and when he received counsel, he demanded the attorney recite and spell his last name, apparently to check if he was Jewish.

... Masoud has ties to Within Our Lifetime Palestine, an activist group that regularly calls for an intifada and the destruction of Israel at rallies in New York, and urged the targeting of Jewish groups in the city, including by handing out maps of Jewish organization locations at a protest.

Funny how not one of the people on the Left who claim to be against antisemitism - Linda Sarsour, Mark Lamont Hill,  Rashida Tlaib - have a negative word to say about Saadah Masoud.  

Anyone still want to argue that "anti-Zionism" isn't a dogwhistle for Jew-hatred?

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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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J-Street complains about "right-wing Jewish-American billionaires"

This fundraising email from J-Street is kind of amazing on a number of levels.

Israel is in the midst of a major political struggle.

On one side, those fighting to protect Israel’s founding ideals of democracy, equality and justice. On the other, the new hardline Netanyahu government, bent on centralizing power, circumventing the courts and cementing permanent occupation in the West Bank.

...The government’s radical plan was drawn up by the Kohelet Forum, an increasingly powerful right-wing, pro-settlement think tank that’s funded largely by two right-wing American billionaires. 

They’ve been called “the brains of the Israeli right wing” and helped draft the problematic “Nation-State Law” -- which according to Netanyahu made Israel “the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people.” They were also behind Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo’s tenuous legal argument claiming that Israeli settlements in occupied territory do not violate international law.

The group is funded by two Republican Jewish-American billionaires from Pennsylvania who have also helped fund the campaigns of MAGA extremists like Lauren Boebert. They hope that GOP-style policies and values can come to dominate Israeli society....

We might not have right-wing billionaires backing our work, but we do have thousands of supporters like you. Can you chip in $18, $54, $90 -- or any other amount -- to help us fight back?

Their use of the word "Jewish" here is telling. It is meant to be a dog-whistle, just like "right-wing" and "billionaires" and "Republican." Not that J-Street is against Jews per se, but when you add Jewish to the other terms it makes them sound so much worse - as if Jewish conservatives are traitors to the liberal Jewish people. 

J-Street, of course, takes millions of dollars from wealthy left-wing people (like Bill Benter, who helped fund its start-up.) And of course, only last year George Soros gave J-Street's SuperPAC a million dollars, in addition to his other donations to the group over the years, a significant percentage of their annual budget.

Now, how would it sound if far-right people said that J-Street was heavily funded by a "Jewish left-wing billionaire"? It would sound like a dog-whistle. And that is exactly what J-Street is doing here - trying to raise money from leftist donors to counter the evil influence of "Republican, right-wing Jewish billionaires."

Beyond that, J-Street cannot counter the Kohelet Policy Forum.  What exactly would funds raised be used for? To create left-wing think tank to criticize Israel in Israel?

They are creating a bogeyman to inflame the feelings of people who hate the Right, people who hate Republicans, people who hate billionaires, and people who especially hate Jewish right-wing billionaires. They hand-wave as if giving J-Street money will do something against these nefarious forces, but the entire mailing is simply a lesson in propaganda: "Here are people you never heard of before that you should loathe so much that you will want to give us money to pretend to counter them." The fundraising wouldn't work without the appeal to emotion, and the word Jewish is used as part of that appeal. 

If it looks, sounds and smells like an antisemitic dog whistle....

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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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Palestinian terror attacks come from the Left and the Right. Because antisemitism requires no ideology.

This morning, a 40 year old Palestinian terrorist was killed in a firefight with IDF troops near Hebron. The shooter, Hamdi Abu Dayyeh, used a homemade "Carlo" submachine gun.

It appears that he had also shot at an Israeli bus two days ago. 

He had worked in security for the Palestinian Authority.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine says that he was one of their members.

This marks two PFLP members killed in two days, the other being the 14-year old Omar Lotfi Khumour. Both of them, as well as the 15 year PFLP "comrade"  Adam Ayyad, wrote wills before being killed, indicating that in all of these cases they planned to die.

The PFLP is a secular, socialist organization. The members who write these wills are not religious Muslims. They are not aiming to reach paradise and cavort with 72 virgins. 

Yet they are no less fanatic than Islamic Jihad or Hamas.

From the right or the left, Palestinianism is a death cult. It praises death, it encourages dying, and becoming a martyr is not a religious obligation - it is a political obligation.

The upsurge of attacks in recent months had been initially attributed to new groups, like the "Lion's Den". Then Islamic Jihad apparently became jealous and started ramping its own attacks up, and taking credit. Now the PFLP is joining the fray. And there have been lots of attackers who are from Fatah as well.

Ideologically, they have nothing in common. 

The common denominator is a fanatical hate for Jews and the Jewish state.  

As we know, antisemitism requires no consistent ideology, philosophy or creed. It stands alone as the one hatred that crosses all populations and groups. And the West Bank is now a microcosm of worldwide antisemitism. 

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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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What we can (and cannot) learn about US Leftist antisemitism in the @ADL report

The ADL has released a report, "Antisemitic Attitudes in America," that is making headines today becasue it indicates that antisemitic attitudes in the US are increasing dramatically.

Over three-quarters of Americans (85 percent) believe at least one anti-Jewish trope, as opposed to 61 percent found in 2019. Twenty percent of Americans believe six or more tropes, which is significantly more than the 11 percent that ADL found in 2019 and is the highest level measured in decades.

Many Americans believe in Israel-oriented antisemitic positions – from 40 percent who at least slightly believe that Israel treats Palestinians like Nazis treated the Jews, to 18 percent who are uncomfortable spending time with a person who supports Israel.

There is a nearly 40 percent correlation between belief in anti-Jewish tropes and anti-Israel belief, meaning that a substantial number of people who believe anti-Jewish tropes also have negative attitudes toward Israel.

This is the first of a series of reports by the ADL based on this survey; a future report will compare antisemitic and anti-Israel opinions across the political and ideological spectrum. 

So while the overlap of anti-Israel and antisemitic attitudes would initially appear to show that Leftist anti-Zionism is correlated with antisemitism, we cannot make that conclusion, since traditional antisemites generally also hate Israel (as much as the Left tries to claim that they are Zionist.)  If virtually all far-Right antisemites are also anti-Israel, the 40% correlation could be accurate without any Leftist (traditional) antisemites.

However, even if we assume that the overlap of classic antisemitic and modern anti-Israel opinions occur exclusively on the Right, we can still infer something about Leftist contributions to antisemitic attitudes in the US from the specific questions asked:

Some of these reflect current far-Left antisemitic discourse more than traditional far-Right applying their existing antisemitism to Israel. It may reflect that the far-Left anti-Zionism contributes to far-Right antisemitic rhetoric.

And indeed we have seen that in the past. The most extreme far-Right antisemitic publications enthusiastically and prolifically quote from far-Left sources like Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada and Max Blumenthal.

So while we cannot conclude that the far Left shares antisemitic attitudes with the far Right, there are definitely connections and influences, and this may be one reason the general index of antisemitic attitudes in the US is going up.

But this is in many ways the entire question misses the point.

One reason that my algorithmic  definition of antisemitism is (IMHO) the best out there is that it does not show bias against, even implicitly, the political attitudes of the antisemites. 

The ADL's correlation is important, but it says nothing about causation. 

Since the Left self-defines as anti-racist and socialist, it is emotionally invested in the appearances of treating everyone equally, so certainly their attitudes in any poll will reflect that self-perception. Which means that the ADL methodology, as well-intentioned as it is, has a fatal flaw.

It doesn't take into account the history of antisemitism and how it has changed over the centuries.

It started off as being against a people (this week's Torah portion includes the first expression of antisemitism in history: "“Look, the Israelite people ....may join our enemies in fighting against us....”) Christian antisemitism opposed Jews as a religion and as a people. "Scientific" antisemitism introduced the concept of hating Jews as an inferior race. Conspiracy theory antisemitism groups Jews together as planning to take over the world. And modern antisemitism ascribes all evil to the Jewish state and its supporters.

The commonalities dwarf the differences. For all of them, the "new" antisemites regarded their predecessors with some contempt, as a primitive example of bigotry unlike the newer, enlightened version. 

 For all of them, there were differences in which Jews were included as objects of hate. For all of them, some "good Jews" tried to ingratiate themselves with the new antisemites, and similarly the antisemites would embrace the "good Jews" as a shield to claim that they weren't bigots. For all of them, the Jews represented what the antisemites hated the most in the world. 

And for all of them, the vast majority of Jews in the world by any definition are framed as evil. 

People wouldn't be antisemitic if they didn't get something out of it. Antisemitism is attractive because it is a simple explanation for the ills of the world. It is attractive because the antisemites can use others as scapegoats for their own shortcomings. It is attractive for the simple reason that people want to feel superior to others. For antisemites, modern and classic, Jews represent what they hate most. 

If racism is the biggest evil, then Jews must be the biggest racists - but the new antisemites cannot admit that they are the ones being bigoted. Their hate is different, they want to believe, because it is anchored in ethics. 

But psychically, the hate is the same. It is just as toxic, just as irrational, and just as based on easily provable lies. 

The ADL, by trying to find correlation between the latest flavor of antisemitism and the older versions, does not take into account that the new antisemites specifically define themselves as impervious to bigotry, and will naturally try to avoid appearing to be one of the distasteful types of antisemites that their political enemies embrace. But of one could do a brain scan of their emotional state when they think of Israel, it would be identical to that of the KKK when thinking of Jews. 

The ADL could prove this pretty easily. They could rephrase some of their questions to refer to Zionists, not Jews:

Zionists are not as honest in their business dealings as other businesspeople.

Zionists are not warm and friendly.

Zionists have a lot of irritating faults.

Zionists are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want.

Zionists have too much power in the United States today.

Zionists don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind.

Zionists have too much power in the business world.

Zionists do not share my values.

Zionists are more loyal to Israel than to America.

Zionists stick together more than other Americans.

And this is only a list of tropes that apply to traditional antisemitism. Like all previous versions, modern antisemites have added new antisemitic tropes. The ADL could add:

Zionists tend to be more racist than other Americans.

Zionists support Jewish supremacy in Israel.

Zionists are sympathetic towards right wing antisemites. 

Zionists accuse all critics of Israel of being antisemitic.

Zionists use antisemitism as a means to control Americans.

If the Leftist attitude towards "Zionists" mirror that of the Rightist attitude towards "Jews," then we would have very convincing evidence that anti-Zionism is just a new form of antisemitism. 

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