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In its response, the book review editor, Pamela Paul, submitted to some questions, one of which was why the Times did not ask Walker to account for her odd literary taste. “We never question people on their choices,” Paul said. A sentence later, she added, “The people’s answers are a reflection of their opinions, tastes and judgment.” In other words, anti-Semitism is just another opinion, taste or judgment.New York Times slammed for ‘trumpeting Hezbollah propaganda’ with Christmas story about terror group
Paul went on in that vein, saying that the Review has been down this road before. “We’ve also faced criticism when a writer only named white authors, or male authors. My response to that is the same as in this case: Does that answer tell you something about the subject? I think it does.” But it doesn’t. For some reason, my book group — wearily stuck on Jon Meacham, Michael Beschloss and Doris Kearns Goodwin — never got around to the Icke book. So, not having heard of Icke, I didn’t know that I was being informed that Walker cuddled up nightly with the rantings of a Jew hater. My bad, I suppose.
“Our readers are intelligent and discerning,” Paul added. “We trust them to sift through something which someone says in an interview, whether it’s the president or a musician or a person accused of sexual harassment, and to judge for themselves: Do I agree with this person?” Sexual harassment? The Holocaust? I guess they’re both bad.
In interviewing itself, the Times neglected to ask the Times (Paul) if it even knew that Walker was an anti-Semite. It might also have wondered if that might have caused the Times to feature someone else. After all, anti-Semitism has become something of a common leftist tic, especially among Israel haters, and has even polluted the leadership of the Women’s March. Walker is in that category. She will not even allow “The Color Purple” to be published in Hebrew.
The tone of Paul’s response is appalling. She surely does not mean to, but she manages to treat anti-Semitism as just another point of view — not a hatred with a unique and appalling pedigree that has led to unending slaughter, including the murder of 6 million, pogroms in Kielce in Poland (1946), York in England (1190) and the lynching of Leo Frank in Georgia (1915). What’s lacking from the Times is appropriate shock at Alice Walker’s bigotry and its own refusal to admit a mistake. An apology would be fit to print.
Opinion: Anti-Semitism is not just another opinion. The New York Times should know better. https://t.co/8WKK94gUi8
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 25, 2018
The New York Times was mocked Tuesday for a piece that romanticized efforts by militant group Hezbollah to help spread holiday cheer.Wiesenthal’s top ten list of antisemites includes Pittsburgh shooter
While Hezbollah has been described as an Iranian-backed terrorist organization, the Times' World section sent out the following tweet:
“Even Hezbollah, the Shiite political movement and militia that the United States has branded a terrorist organization, has helped ring in the season in previous years, importing a Santa to Beirut’s southern suburbs to distribute gifts.”
Even Hezbollah, the Shiite political movement and militia that the United States has branded a terrorist organization, has helped ring in the season in previous years, importing a Santa to Beirut’s southern suburbs to distribute gifts. https://t.co/JTbtAgghQ3
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) December 25, 2018
Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor wrote that the Times “does the bidding of murderous Hezbollah cowards.”
Hezbollah was formed in the early-1980s as part of an Iranian effort to counter the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon during that country’s brutal civil war. The U.S. has designated Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization since the State Department list was created in 1997.
The Times' tweet linked to a feature story headlined, “Christmas in Lebanon: ‘Jesus Isn’t Only for the Christians,’” that referred to Hezbollah as “the Shiite political movement and militia that the United States has branded a terrorist organization.” The piece noted that Hezbollah representatives attended a recent Iranian Christmas concert and has helped ring in the holiday season.
“These demonstrations of Christmas spirit seem intended, analysts said, to demonstrate Hezbollah’s inclusivity as a major political and military force in Lebanese society and to highlight its political alliances with Christian parties,” the paper wrote.
The prominent US human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center announced on Tuesday its top ten list of the worst outbreaks of antisemitism in 2018, including a year that saw the most lethal incident of Jew-hatred in America’s history.
The right-wing extremist Robert Bowers, who allegedly massacred 11 worshipers at the Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Congregation and wounded six more people, made the list’s number one spot. The Wiesenthal Center wrote “Bowers was an avowed neo-Nazi,” adding that “only FBI intervention thwarted another deadly attack on a Toledo-area synagogue in early December. This attack was planned by Damon Joseph, a fanatical convert to Islam and ISIS adherent.”
The radical African-American Islamist Louis Farrakhan was listed as number two because of his October speech in Detroit. The Nation of Islam leader said about Jews: “I’m not mad at you because you’re stupid… So when they talk about Farrakhan, and call me a hater, you do what they do: call me an anti-Semite… Stop it, I’m an anti-termite.”
The Wiesenthal Center noted that “Throughout the 1930s, before the Holocaust, Nazi propaganda serially demonized Jews as vermin and rats, seeking to dehumanize German Jews in the eyes of their neighbors.”
US campuses earned the third dishonorable spot because of “Alarming ant-Semitic attacks on American campuses” after the Pittsburgh shooting. Swastikas, antisemitic graffiti and posters were found at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Duke University, Cornell University, Penn State, University of California campuses in Berkeley and Davis, and Vassar and Marist colleges.
The British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn scored the fourth spot because he endangers the existence of Jewish life in Great Britain.
Jewish MP Dame Margaret Hodge told Corbyn in July: “You have proved that you don’t want people like me in the party… It is not what you say but what you do, and by your actions you have shown you are an anti-Semitic racist.”
Israel had plenty of intense moments in 2018, with Gaza border riots, air strikes on Syria, the discovery of Hezbollah tunnels, embassies opening in Jerusalem, an entire warehouse of nuclear documents stolen from Tehran and an ongoing investigation into alleged corruption by Israel’s own Prime Minister.
We cheered for Netta Barzilai, mourned the victims of Palestinian terror attacks and the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and watched with frustration as antisemitism festered in the British Labour Party. Snap elections announced at the end of the year surprised nobody.
So as we wrap up 2018, it’s worth looking back on our 10 most-read posts. What do these articles say about the year that was?
1. The violence
When the first clashes broke out along the Gaza border in April, we cleared the fog of fumbled news coverage. As the violence played out over the year, it became even clearer that the so-called spontaneous March of Return protest was neither “spontaneous” nor a “march,” nor a “protest.” Myths and Facts: Gaza’s Deadly “Protests” was far and away our most-read post of 2018. The myths and facts format identified issues we saw come up again and again.
Actually, I think Birthright SHOULD go to Hebron, to Shuhada Street, and explain exactly why things are as they are - the snipers who used to shoot at Jews with impunity, the Jewish rights to our second holiest city, the 1929 pogrom, the sacrifices Jews make to live there.— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 24, 2018
An op-ed in Haaretz last week by Kobi Niv was headlined, “Shooting at Soldiers of Occupation is Legitimate.” It is sick.Haaretz Op-Eds Argue IDF Soldiers Are Terrorists, Israeli Vandals Are KKK
According to Niv, “Shooting at an occupying army is a legitimate action according to any law. And unfortunately, in Ofra and its sister settlements, in Hebron and its environs and in all the territories occupied in the 1967 war, we are an occupying nation and army. … These areas do not belong to us and not one person in the entire world … recognizes our rights or ownership over these lands. We are a nation, an army, a security service and settlers who are occupiers there.”
He goes on to say that it is the “right of any people around the world who are living under an occupation, … to rebel against the occupier and to try to remove him from their land. Thus, shooting at soldiers of an occupying army, in this case an Israeli one, is a totally legitimate action, by any moral or legal standard.” [Emphasis added]
A phrase mistakenly attributed to Lenin famously referred to those who work against their own people’s best interests — and in support of their enemies’ — as “useful idiots.” There can be no kinder words than this to describe Niv and all those who agree with him.
Within a week, Haaretz has managed to publish two Op-Eds demonizing Israel with main arguments based on blatant lies. Namely, shortly after recent West Bank terror attacks which targeted soldiers and civilians, and which claimed the lives of soldiers and a prematurely born infant, Haaretz argues that Hamas is a legitimate guerilla organization. And after Israelis were apparently responsible for vandalizing Palestinian property, a Haaretz column maintains there’s a “flourishing of the Jewish KKK,” that is similar to the American KKK “at its height.”David Singer: Trump Must Enjoin UN to Condemn Hizballah, UNIFIL and Hamas
In the first Op-Ed, Haaretz contributor Kobi Niv claims that the Dec. 13 terror attack in Givat Assaf, near the settlement of Ofra, in which two IDF soldiers were killed, is “a legitimate action according to any law” because the attack targeted “an occupying army” (“Shooting at soldiers of occupation is legitimate,” Dec. 21).
Kobi Niv is lying. As was widely reported, including in his own newpaper, not only “soldiers of the occupying power” were targeted in the Dec. 13 attack; a young woman who stood nearby, a civilian, was also shot from point-blank range and seriously wounded.
In the second Op-Ed, attorney Michael Sfard today labels Israeli settlers who are apparently responsible for the graffiti on the walls of Palestinian houses and who damaged Palestinian-owned cars a Jewish Ku Klux Klan (“The Flourishing of the Jewish KKK“):
We have to face reality. We are witnessing the flourishing of a Jewish Ku Klux Klan movement. Like its American counterpart, the Jewish version also drinks from the polluted springs of religious fanaticism and separatism, only replacing the Christian iconography with its Jewish equivalent. Like white racism’s modus operandi, this Jewish racism is also based on fearmongering and violence against its equivalent of Blacks — the Palestinians.
Like the members of the KKK, the Jewish rioters throw stones, shoot, and set fire to homes, and in one instance, even burned down a house with its residents inside. And like the American Klan at its height, the Jewish Klan also enjoys law enforcement authorities who turn a blind eye.
Is it possible to equate the actions of “the American Klan at its height,” to those of the “price-tag” perpetrators, however repugnant their actions?
“At its height,” the KKK murdered thousands of innocent people, mostly African-Americans. The lynchings, often hangings, were carried out in central squares and streets, in front of a large, inflamed crowd.
President Trump should urgently enjoin the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to condemn Hizballah and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) following Israel’s discovery of four tunnels dug from Lebanon into Israel.
Trump signed the Sanctioning the Use of Civilians as Defenseless Shields Act (“HR 3342”) into law on 21 December demanding sanctions against Hamas and Hizballah personnel – foreign terrorist organizations proscribed under 8 U.S.C. 1189.
Trump is probably still smarting from the humiliating defeat – by the narrow margin of nine votes – of the American-sponsored Resolution at the UNGA condemning Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza for:
Resubmitting the Resolution to the UNGA would determine whether those countries that voted:
- repeatedly firing rockets into Israel
- using airborne incendiary devices
- constructing military infrastructure, including tunnels to infiltrate Israel and equipment to launch rockets into civilian areas
will be prepared to change their morally-reprehensible decisions.
- against the Resolution (57),
- abstained (33) or
- did not vote (16)
Hizballah and UNIFIL have to be made accountable for creating the current dangerous threat to peace and security on the Israel-Lebanese border in flagrant breach of international law and international humanitarian law.
Amit Meltzer, former chief technology officer for a key Israeli government agency, discussed the application of artificial intelligence (AI) against Hizbullah rockets at a recent conference in Tel Aviv.
Israeli intelligence is constantly surveilling Hizbullah rocket crews and known or suspected locations of rockets. He said AI can collect massive amounts of data about the location of rocket crews before and during their preparations for firing rockets, in order to target those teams before they launch their rockets.
In some cases, AI can identify an operational window precisely for deploying paratroopers to deal with a Hizbullah threat for which aerial strikes may be insufficient.
Moreover, since Israel wants to be ethical and reduce collateral civilian casualties, AI can help calculate when and where a terrorist will be alone with a rate of precision that past intelligence could almost never approach.
Melzer also noted that there is "a big difference between intelligence collection by the Chinese versus the Russians" when they use cyber tools on Israel. Russia could pass on intelligence it obtains to the Assad regime in Syria. But in terms of retaliating, he said, "we also do not want a conflict with Russia."
In contrast, "the Chinese have no interest against Israel. They just collect intelligence on the entire world." The "chance they will give this intelligence to adversaries" of Israel is "much lower than with the Russians."
“Tamika [Mallory] told us that the problem was that there were five white women in the room and only three women of color, and that she didn’t trust white women. Especially white women from the South. At that point, I kind of tuned out because I was so used to hearing this type of talk from Tamika. But then I noticed the energy in the room changed. I suddenly realized that Tamika and Carmen were facing Vanessa [Wruble], who was sitting on a couch, and berating her—but it wasn’t about her being white. It was about her being Jewish. ‘Your people this, your people that.’ I was raised in the South and the language that was used is language that I’m very used to hearing in rural South Carolina. Just instead of against black people, against Jewish people. They even said to her ‘your people hold all the wealth.’ You could hear a pin drop. It was awful.”Later, in an interview with The New York Times, Mallory is quoted patting herself on the back for how she has become more educated about Jews since that meeting:
“Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it.”Apparently, we are supposed to be impressed by her new level of enlightenment.
Tamika Mallory with Farrakhan (Cropped from screenshot) |
As races are invented categories--designations coined for the sake of grouping and separating peoples along lines of presumed difference--Caucasians are made and not born. White privilege in various forms has been a constant in American political culture since colonial times, but whiteness itself has been subject to all kinds of contests and has gone through a series of historical vicissitudes.But while "whiteness" is a fiction, it is a very useful fiction.
There is nothing wrong with reiterating that Ghassan was assassinated because he was committed to the ideas of the original Palestinian movement, which believes in the final belief that the destruction of the Zionist ghetto [Israel] and its removal from existence is a historical inevitability that must be done. Even if it takes a thousand years. ...The stalemate of the Palestinian leadership, especially those who engineered the infamous Oslo Treaty, will only further humiliate the Palestinian people.This explicitly antisemitic organization is who UNRWA partners with.
Therefore, the idea of coexistence with the Jews is an absolutely heretical idea, and it is certainly flawed. In truth, Shylock takes and does not give, nor does he coexist with anyone, and the Palestinian would rather be dead than kneeling.
Put this ingrained idea into the rubbish bins and alert those who kneel to the Jews.
The majority of Christians in Israel will not be celebrating this week, as they are Greek Orthodox, and their Christmas falls on January 7.
But this is still a good time to take stock of religious freedom in our region.
Earlier this month, the head of the Church of England wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that millions of Middle Eastern Christians are on the verge of “imminent extinction.”
“In the birthplace of our faith, the community faces extinction,” Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby wrote, calling it “the worst situation since the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.”
Christians face government harassment in Egypt, leading them to emigrate in record numbers.
Lebanese Christians fear Hezbollah’s growing power in their country, along with an influx of Syrian refugees. Turkish Christians are also facing oppression by their government. And in Iraq, the Christian population has been nearly wiped out, but those remaining are trying to rebuild their lives.
Closer to home, the Christian Palestinian population is in a constant downward trend.
Christians have long been fleeing Palestinian-controlled areas in light of systemic abuse. Terrorists affiliated with then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat famously raided and trashed the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002, holding monks hostage.
Last year, Christians were only 2% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, less than half their numbers a generation ago.
In 1950 in Bethlehem, Jesus’s birthplace, 86% residents were Christians. In 2017, they were only 12%.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Christian members of the Israel Defense Forces on Sunday.
“We are proud of you; the entire nation is proud of you,” Netanyahu told them at a civil New Year event at the Tel Aviv Palmach Museum. “You belong to the most moral army on earth.”
Netanyahu then took a shot at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said on Saturday that “the Jews in Israel kick men, but also women and children, when they’re on the ground.”
“He is obsessed with Israel,” said Netanyahu. “He knows what a moral army is, and he knows what a genuine democracy is, as opposed to an army that massacres women and children in Kurdish villages and a state which, to my regret, is becoming more dictatorial day by day.”
“But there has been an improvement,” he added. “Erdoğan used to attack me every two hours and now it is every six hours.”
Ms. Mallory and Ms. Perez say they categorically condemn anti-Semitism, and that when they asked Ms. Wruble to leave the group, it had nothing to do with her being Jewish. But they acknowledged that the role of Jewish women was discussed in that first meeting.So all white Jews uphold white supremacy. We're all racists. Good to know.
“Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it,” Ms. Mallory said in a statement to The New York Times.
Erdogan has managed to raise this principle to new heights. He complains about Israel, which is fighting jihad, while he also supports this jihad; he has erased the gap (although it is doubtful this gap even exists) between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism; he commits massacres against his own people, while accusing Israel of massacring the Palestinians.Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky (WP): It Wasn't Possible for America to Compete with Russia, Iran and Turkey to Impact Syria's Future
Erdogan's anti-Semitic campaign continues with full force. Last year, Turkish TV aired an anti-Semitic series that included allegations of plots that were allegedly the brainchild the Jew Theodor Herzl, which were "inspired by real historical facts." This was not the first antisemitic series. In Turkey, it's routine.
One cannot easily dismmiss Erdogan, who in the past voiced opposition to Bashar Assad's continued rule in Syria, but soon joined the axis of evil that includes Iran and Hezbollah. There are those who argue that Turkey's economic interests will lead to restraint, but that's a mistake. History proves that leaders of Erdogan's ilk will pick ideological principles, especially those rooted in hatred, over national interests. Erdogan's Justice and Development Party is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose founder, Hassan al-Banna, penned an article on the importance of the "industry of death." That's the idea, those are the principles that Erdogan follows.
It is important to note that the president of Turkey is not the enemy of Israel, he is the enemy of the free world. Europe already detests him; countries such as the Netherlands and Germany refused entry to ministers from his party. But this did not stop Erdogan from becoming the contractor for the project to stop the flow of refugees, for which he gets billions. This helps in the short term, but in the long run, Europe is cultivating a monster who is becoming increasingly racist and anti-Semitic.
Monsters like this must be stopped when they are small and toothless. But Europe has forgotten everything and learned nothing. And the monster continues to grow.
President Trump's move to quickly withdraw U.S. military forces from Syria didn't cause the U.S. to lose in Syria. For all practical purposes, Syria was already lost. Much like his predecessor, Trump's decision is motivated by a calculation that the U.S. can't alter the military or political balance in Syria that has long favored Russia and Iran.
With a modest military footprint and little public support for a larger American role, the U.S. can't really compete with Russia or Iran on the ground. Trump said back in March that "We're knocking the hell out of ISIS. We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon."
Moscow and Tehran had long ago won the strategic fight for Syria. Russian military intervention in 2015 saved Assad. Russia and Iran have been more willing to devote resources toward keeping Assad afloat than the U.S. has been prepared to either remove him from power or stand behind the assorted elements in Syria who've tried and failed to overthrow him.
Americans should let go of the idea that we were ever trying very hard to win.
In contrast to the U.S., if and when Syria and its backers decide to conclusively take on the Islamic State, their approach is unlikely to employ much regard for humanitarian concerns or civilian lives.
Critics of the president's decision are right that the U.S. is once again going to throw its reliable Kurdish allies under the bus. But the Kurds could have foreseen this, both because of their previous experiences with the U.S. in Iraq and Trump's chronic unhappiness with the Syria deployment.
Maybe it’s time to remove Syria from its leadership position on the United Nations Decolonization Committee against “the subjugation of peoples.” https://t.co/pHVir200p8
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) December 24, 2018
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!