The draft resolution from the meeting shows that no real moves have been agreed upon.
The statement condemns the opening of the trade office, calls it illegal, it said it would "seriously harm Arab-Brazilian political, economic and diplomatic interests," it called on member states to summon their respective ambassadors from Brazil, and similar pronouncements.
It did not call for any concrete action, like closing embassies in Brazil or cutting off relations.
Even though very few nations have opened up embassies in Jerusalem, each one makes it that much easier for the next. And Brazil has said it will try to convince other South American countries to follow its lead.
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Zank then goes into his analysis of the EO itself:
The Executive Order on Anti-Semitism does not distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate criticism of Israel. Omitting this sentence from the policy directive opens the door to civil rights proceedings being triggered by entirely legitimate Israel-critical protests on campus.
The EO doesn't mention the words Israel or Zionism at all. Saying there there is an "omission" of any sentence saying that legitimate criticism of Israel is OK makes no sense when the topic is not directly addressed to begin with.
The EO does refer to the IHRA definition, which says explicitly that legitimate criticism of Israel isn't antisemitic. So how did Zank come to the conclusion that the EO opens to door to stopping legitimate anti-Israel speech? Nothing at all supports that conclusion.
Furthermore, the EO states explicitly that it does not affect existing free speech protections under the First Amendment. Zank claims it does.
It appears he didn't actually read the text of the EO and wrote this entire article based on news reports. This is hardly what one would expect from an academic.
He goes on:
But the executive order neither combats white supremacism nor offers law enforcement a useful tool to fight bigotry in its many forms.
Title VI's main text - which Zank quotes - says it "prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin." Doesn't that mean it already combats white supremacism?
The IHRA definition of antisemitism referred to in the EO - which Zank quotes - says "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews." Doesn't that cover white supremacism? Does Zank think that IHRA only applies to left-wing antisemitism and not all antisemitism?
And finally, what does Title VI have to do with law enforcement?
Title VI is not about speech, it is about discrimination. The EO does not change that. Zank's entire thesis that it chills free speech is not supported by a single proof in his article.
And if Zank or other critics are afraid that it chills free speech, then they should be equally concerned that the existing Title VI does the same about free speech that can be considered racist or xenophobic. Yet for the past fifty years, no one has seemed concerned about the free speech implications of Title VI until now.
One must wonder why.
This entire article is based on faulty premises and incorrect assumptions. It is astonishing that an academic can write something so indefensible.
I asked Zank on Twitter to comment on my questions, and I commented on the article itself as well. 24 hours later he has still not responded.
I suspect, because he can't.
My main test for intellectual honesty is when people can admit they are wrong. Academics should be held to a higher standard than even journalists. But this is not the way it usually works - academics can spout their own ideas with impunity because so few people hold them to account.
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The nightmarish prospect of a third election – and worse, the campaign for the third election, will become a reality for Israelis in the next few months, culminating at the ballot boxes on March 2nd. There are several ways in which the outcome could be disastrous, and one way in which it could present a path forward out of the political swamp into which Israel has descended in the past few years, the almost-gridlock that has kept us from solving many long-standing problems.
I have to begin by talking about Binyamin Netanyahu. In my opinion, he is one of Israel’s greatest Prime Ministers, supremely competent and qualified to continue in his job – but mortally wounded, taken down by enemies who exploited his tragic flaws (we all have them) and a broken constitutional structure which does not properly provide for the separation of powers with appropriate checks and balances.
What happened to Netanyahu, destroyed by a multi-year effort to stick criminal charges to him (and to his wife, whose own personal weaknesses didn’t help), an interminable investigation accompanied by a daily barrage of leaks and innuendos gleefully reported in an almost uniformly hostile media, must never be allowed to happen again.
The fact that Netanyahu managed to accomplish anything at all in his last three years as PM – and actually he accomplished quite a lot – despite the harassment tells much about his competence. But this is no way to run a country. And no less important, the degree to which the police and state prosecutor’s office have been dragged into politics sets a dangerous precedent.
I don’t want to discuss the charges against him in detail. Some of them appear justified, although perhaps not rising to what would be called “impeachable offenses” in America; others are based on interpretations of the law that may be strained or novel. Some things were done to witnesses to force them to testify against him that were clearly improper, even criminal themselves. But whatever happens – if he goes to trial and is convicted or exonerated, or if he receives a pardon from the Knesset – he is finished in politics.
I don’t know if he will accept this, or if he will fight to the death. Probably the latter, which will add to the damage that has already been done to the country. I would like to see him get a deal which would allow him to step down in return for a pardon. But Bibi is a tragic hero, and that’s not what tragic heroes do.
Netanyahu’s Likud party will now see a primary election, in which his main opponent is Gideon Sa’ar. It’s too early to tell, but I am hoping that Sa’ar will defeat Netanyahu for the leadership of the party and the candidacy for Prime Minister. I know Bibi has been treated unjustly, and it hurts me to take a stand against him. It is to some extent a betrayal. But the nation is more important than he is.
I mentioned possible outcomes. The best one is that Gideon Sa’ar defeats Netanyahu in the primary, and gets enough seats on March 2 to form a stable government. Sa’ar is ideologically right-wing, and has promised that as PM he would extend Israeli law to the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and to the Jordan Valley (the Left in Israel and America will say that he wants to “annex the West Bank”, but that is wrong).
He would also reform the judicial system in such a way as to improve the balance of powers between the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister, and the Knesset; and he would split up the job of the Legal Advisor to the Government, which now encompasses the functions of Attorney General, Chief Prosecutor, and others. One of the objectives of this reform would be to prevent abuses such as have occurred in the prosecution of Netanyahu.
But there’s more at stake than protecting the PM. The combination of the Supreme Court and the Legal Advisor have arrogated to themselves far too much power. Both are essentially appointed by the legal establishment (the PM appoints the Legal Advisor, but from a short list provided by the Bar Association), and they have stymied important initiatives of the Knesset and the government, like the arrangements to develop Israel’s natural gas reserves and attempts to deport illegal migrants.
If the opposition Blue and White Party were to form the government, that would count as a bad outcome. Blue and White’s leaders are four politicians who have no unifying ideology except a desire to replace Netanyahu. They range from the right-wing Moshe Ya’alon to the left-leaning Yair Lapid. They dislike each other, and their party has already had to work very hard to hide the sharp disagreements between them. If they did succeed in forming a government, it would either have to depend on the support of the Arab parties – leaving them open to blackmail on security issues – or somehow get the “ultra-Orthodox” Haredi parties to sit with Yair Lapid, or Avigdor Lieberman, or the extreme leftists. None of this is a recipe for stability.
A not-as-bad-but-still-not-good outcome would be if Netanyahu succeeded to hold onto the leadership of his party and managed to form a government. It would probably have a very small majority in the Knesset, making it unstable, and Netanyahu would remain preoccupied with getting a pardon from the Knesset above all. He would not be able to reform a judicial system that was prosecuting him.
Davka [just because of this], Netanyahu must be replaced. Only a new right-wing Prime Minister who is not tangled up in the legal system can turn that system upside down, as needs to be done.
Israel needs a government that can act confidently and with one voice to take advantage of the opportunities provided by a pro-Israel administration in the US, something which will not continue forever (it may need to deal with an anti-Israel one, which is a distinct possibility judging by the contenders for the Democratic nomination).
Many people have said that a third election would be no more decisive than the first two, and that the instability will just continue. But if Likud members will put their (understandable) personal loyalty to Netanyahu aside and see what is actually at stake here, it might finally break us out of the paralysis that his gripped the country in recent years.
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Yesterday and this morning, the headlines were about Joan Terrell-Paige, an elected member of the Jersey City Board of Education, who appeared to condone the murder of two religious Jews in Jersey City:
A member of the Jersey City Board of Education unleashed an anti-Semitic, conspiracy-laden Facebook rant appearing to justify the shooting rampage there that left a cop and three hostages in a Jewish market dead.
“Where was all this faith and hope when Black homeowners were threatened, intimidated, and harassed by I WANT TO BUY YOUR HOUSE brutes of the jewish community?” Joan Terrell Paige began her screed, which was apparently deleted but captured by the Reagan Battalion conservative outlet.
“They brazenly came on the property of Ward F Black homeowners and waved bags of money,” Paige continued.
“If we are going to tell a narrative it should begin with TRUTH not more cover up of the truth,” wrote Paige. “Mr. Anderson and Ms. Graham went directly to the kosher supermarket. I believe they knew they would come out in body bags.
“What is the message they were sending?” she continued. “Are we brave enough to explore the answer to their message? Are we brave enough to stop the assault on the Black communities in America?”
The bizarre screed included insinuations that Jews sell body parts and threaten blacks to sell their houses to them or else they will bring in prostitutes and drug dealers, and somehow eliminated community gardens.
While the (Jewish) mayor of Jersey City condemned the statement, the Hudson County Democratic Black Caucus - while pretending to want dialogue with the Jewish community - ended up agreeing with the content - not the tone - of Terrell-Paige. This wasn't the drunken ramblings of an individual but an official press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Hudson County Democratic Black Caucus Issues Statement on Comments by School Board Official Joan Terrell-Paige
The Hudson County Democratic Black Caucus does not condone hatred towards any group. The actions taken by the two individuals on December 10, 2019 were not reflective of our community. While we do not agree with the delivery of the statement made by Ms. Terrell-Paige, we believe that her statement has heightened awareness around issues that must be addressed and should be a topic of a larger conversation by two communities that have already and must always continue to coexist harmoniously. We have begun taking steps to reach out to leaders in the community to work through these pressing issues and feelings in a peaceful and productive way.
Thank you,
Senator Sandra Cunningham
Assemblywoman Angela V. McKnight
Freeholder Jerry Walker
Councilwoman at Large Joyce Watterman
Councilwoman Denise Ridley (Ward A)
Councilman Jermaine Robinson (Ward F)
In other words, the antisemite has a lot of valuable things to say about Jews.
Instead of denouncing antisemitism, this caucus is doubling down.
The Democratic Black Caucus statement on the murders themselves - written the day afterwards - didn't even acknowledge that anyone besides the police officer were killed:
Share. Share. Share.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2019
HUDSON COUNTY BLACK DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS ISSUES STATEMENT ON JERSEY CITY SHOOTINGS
A tragedy has happened in our community and our hearts are heavy. We stand strong today united as a caucus in our heartfelt sympathy for the police officers who responded to yesterday’s shooting incidents. We will not forget the important role that the police has played and the lives that were loss.
Our prayers and condolences go out to the families of the police officers and we stand with the families in the community who have been affected during this tragic time.
Senator Sandra Cunningham
Assemblywoman Angela V. McKnight
Freeholder Jerry Walker
Councilwoman at Large Joyce Watterman
Councilwoman Denise Ridley (Ward A)
Councilman Jermaine Robinson (Ward F)
No condolences for the families of three of the victims, who they knew damn well were all in the kosher grocery. Clearly, they do not consider Jews to be part of the community - or even to have lives worth mourning or mentioning.
There is a problem with black antisemitism in America. As much as we want to believe that the Jersey City black community is disgusted by the cold blooded executions in their midst, there is plenty of this official antisemitism from the actual leaders of the black community there.
It isn't only people who follow Farrakhan. This goes far deeper and is just as dangerous.
Where are the black leaders who will condemn these sickening press releases by elected officials and the antisemitic rant by a seventh?
Only a few miles from Jersey City, where there is a large Jewish community, the NAACP Passaic Branch Facebook page includes this pure antisemitism posted Wednesday:
Finally, just because a Black person, group, or Black organization condemns Jews for the horrendous acts they’ve committed and continue to commit against Black people doesn’t make that person or organization Anti-Semitic and an Anti-Semite. As I asserted and proven here, in order to be correctly classified as an Anti-Semite or Anti-Semitic, one must be anti all of those various peoples whose primary language is a Semitic language. You cannot exclude any of those various people whose primary language is a Semitic language. You must include all of them in order to be anti-Semitic -End of discussion. P.S. For The Record Jeffrey Dye Or The Passaic NAACP Don't Speak A Semitic Language So Please Stop Putting That ( "Propaganda" ) False Claim On Us.
Black antisemitism is almost always swept under the rug. Major media that reported on Joan Terrell-Paige ignored her most antisemitic statements. Just as the liberal media doesn't like to report on Arab antisemitism for fear of being labeled Islamophobes, they really want to stay away from reporting about black antisemitism for fear of being labeled racists.
And if it is not discussed, it cannot be fought.
I found one great black speaker on the topic of antisemitism, apparently speaking at a synagogue. (UPDATE: This is Larry Elder.)
Unfortunately, he seems to be an exception, based on what I can find.
And as long as black leaders don't speak out against antisemitism in all its forms, we will be having more Jersey Citys.
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Simon Wiesenthal Center disclosed its annual top ten list of the worst outbreaks of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents, including lethal Jew-hatred in the US and Germany.
Wiesenthal announced that the now-defeated British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was ranked number one for mainstream antisemitism in the UK. The Center wrote that it ”released its #1 choice for its Top Ten 2019 list five days before the UK election. Corbyn’s Labour was trounced by PM Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in the December 12th elections. Some analysts say that antisemitism impacted the voters. Corbyn has resigned as leader of the Labour Party.”
In fact, Corbyn termed the antisemitic jihadi organizations Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends.”
The Center listed the lethal antisemitic attacks in Jersey City and in Halle, Germany as the next worst outbreaks of Jew-hatred. “In Jersey City, New Jersey, a kosher market was the target of domestic terrorists. David Anderson and Francine Graham were adherents of the Black Hebrew Israelites hate group. Anderson had expressed anti-police and antisemitic sentiments. The shooters first killed a police officer, then unleashed a barrage of gunfire killing three innocent people inside the kosher store. Only quick and heroic action taken by police prevented an even greater massacre, as an adjacent yeshiva [school] would have been their next target,” wrote the Center.
Wiesenthal wrote that “some 80 Jews praying in a German Synagogue on Yom Kippur – Judaism’s holiest day – miraculously escaped certain injury or death at the hands of a neo-Nazi when the attacker failed to break down a security door outside a synagogue in Halle, Germany. After failing to enter the synagogue, Stephan Balliet, 27, armed with a submachine gun and explosives killed 2 civilians nearby and injured 2 others. Balliet admitted that he was motivated by his hatred of Jews.”
The Center lambasted the German authorities for the lax security. “Despite surging antisemitic acts, German authorities failed to post any security outside the synagogue during Yom Kippur services.”
Expressions of antisemitism across the Western world continued to increase during 2019, but it is also important to note achievements in the battle against this hatred. Many of these can serve as examples to follow in similar fights elsewhere.
Systematically exposing and fighting antisemitism is the foundation for this battle. The successes in this combat should be analyzed by category. A few of the main ones are listed below. A precondition of systematically exposing and fighting antisemitism is how to define it. In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) – of which more than 30 Western countries are members – accepted a definition of antisemitism. This text also includes examples of incitement and discrimination against Israel. Although the IHRA definition is not a legal document, it has created a frequently used framework for identifying antisemitic behavior.
Currently, 21 countries have adopted the IHRA definition for internal use. In 2019, Canada, Greece, the Czech Republic, Moldova and Portugal accepted the definition. In addition, many institutions in various countries have also accepted the IHRA definition for their use. For instance, more than 150 institutions in the United Kingdom have done so.
Obtaining data on antisemitic incidents and information on attitudes of Jew-hatred and perceptions of it by Jews are a second category of importance in the combat against antisemitism. A number of new studies were published this year. One important report was a survey by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducted in 18 countries. It found, for instance, that Muslim acceptance of antisemitic stereotypes was almost three times as high as that of the national populations in six EU countries.
The first is his unpacking of the myth that BDS is rooted in nonviolence and an effort to work for peace. Those who rationalize BDS claim that its founder, Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, had as his goal an effort to work for coexistence, rather than violence between Israelis and Palestinians. This is false. Barghouti’s goal has always been the elimination of the one Jewish state on the planet. Its purpose has never been merely to pressure Israel to withdraw from the West Bank or to change Israeli government policies. Despite the claims that BDS activists are working for human rights, those who support BDS are working for a goal that is a formula for endless war, not peace.
Second, the report also details the troubling overlap between Palestinian groups funding and supporting BDS, and those who also promote terrorism. It’s not just that American pro-BDS activists engage in anti-Semitic invective and work for an anti-Semitic goal, they have also aligned themselves with Palestinian groups that are both violent and themselves engaged in the spreading of Jew-hatred.
The third and equally sobering fact that Greendorfer brings to light is the way the BDS movement has found strange bedfellows on the far Right of the political spectrum. This is hardly surprising since left- and right-wing extremists have historically always found common ground when it comes to anti-Semitism. However, it’s more than a bit ironic in this case since those who disparage Trump’s efforts to counter campus anti-Semitism often claim that attention paid to left-wing anti-Semitism is a distraction from the threat coming from the far Rght. Yet the BDS movement is receiving strong support from right-wing hatemongers like David Duke, racist media sites such as Stormfront, and neo-Nazi groups in the United States and in Europe.
Far from representing resistance to right-wing hate, the BDS movement is merely providing it with talking points and bolstering its efforts to delegitimize Jews and Israel.
The New Anti-Semites should make for sobering reading for Jews and other Americans who may dislike Trump, yet still want to support the fight against anti-Semitism. There is no way to defend or rationalize the BDS movement without being compromised by its anti-Semitic purpose, discourse, and conduct. Those who oppose Trump’s order may claim they are defending the moral high ground and free speech, but they are actually rolling in the mud with the worst sort of anti-Semites and supporters of terrorism.
The late Charles Krauthammer was a wise man, but the wisdom of our elders doesn't always inoculate us against the sudden shock of antisemitism. An essay on the movie Borat, in Things
That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics, may be the proof. Violent American antisemitism? Krauthammer, wise as he was, never saw it coming.
The book, a compendium of decades of essays, lays bare Krauthammer's fearful grasp of medicine,
social science, and politics for all to see. But it's not just what Krauthammer knows. It's that he informs his topics with the force of his own convictions. He's a man of integrity. He's likable.
So you nod as
you read the essays slowly, with a dictionary and a cup of tea nearby. Krauthammer was
mostly right in the things he wrote over the decades. But he was wrong in thinking that antisemitism quiescent, was antisemitism gone. Like so many, Krauthammer was lulled into thinking that America was safe from the kind of antisemitism we've now seen at Tree of Life, Poway, Jersey City, and Brooklyn.
Near the end of the 2015 book, we come to several Krauthammer essays touching on Jewish topics, including the November
2006 Washington Post op-ed, “Borat the Fearful.” Here, Krauthammer takes Sacha Baron Cohen to task for whipping up the crowd in an Arizona bar with "Throw the Jew Down the Well."
Baron Cohen could easily have found what he seeks closer to
home. He is, after all, from Europe, where synagogues are torched and
cemeteries desecrated in a revival of antisemitism—not “indifference” to but
active—unseen since the Holocaust. Where a Jew is singled out for torture and
death by French-African thugs. Where a leading Norwegian intellectual—et tu, Norway?—mocks “God’s Chosen
People” (“We laugh at this people’s capriciousness and weep at its misdeeds”)
and calls for the destruction of Israel, the “state founded . . . on the ruins
of an archaic national and warlike religion.”
Yet, amid this gathering darkness, an alarming number of
liberal Jews are seized with the notion that the real threat lurks deep in the
hearts of American Protestants, most specifically southern evangelicals. Some
fear that their children are going to be converted; others, that below the
surface lies a pogrom waiting to happen; still others, that the evangelicals
will take power in Washington and enact their own sharia law.
This is all quite crazy. America is the most welcoming,
religiously tolerant, philo-semitic country in the world. No nation since Cyrus
the Great’s Persia has done more for the Jews. And its regard is to be exposed
as latently antisemitic by an itinerant Jew [Baron Cohen] looking for laughs
and, he solemnly assures us, for the path to the Holocaust?
Look. It is very hard to be a Jew today, particularly in Baron
Cohen’s Europe, where Jew-baiting is once again becoming acceptable. But it is
a sign of the disorientation of a distressed and confused people that we should
find it so difficult to distinguish our friends from our enemies.
Krauthammer gives an accurate depiction of
the state of antisemitism in Europe and in the United States respectively, at the time when Borat hit the theaters. Then it seemed the overt antisemitism of France or Norway was something that could never happen in America. Yet nine years later, when Krauthammer published "Things" he still couldn't have foreseen the spate of violent American antisemitism that would begin with the Tree of Life Massacre.
Krauthammer understood some things about American antisemitism even in 2006. He saw the insistent belief, the mantra of liberal Jews, that the threat of antisemitism could come only from religious freaks and white supremacists, from those on the right. Then, as now, there was society-wide denial that antisemitism might also come from the left.
This concept, the idea that antisemitism can spring only from the right is a message
that continues to be amplified by the progressive left, even when proven wrong. This is what happened with Rashida Tlaib’s recent tweet in regard to the Jersey City shootings. Tlaib found the tragedy tweet-worthy only when she
thought it a case of white antisemitism. Once Tlaib discovered that the perpetrators of the Jersey City shootings were black, she deleted*
her tweet.
Going back to 2015, when Krauthammer
published “Things that Matter,” violent American antisemitism was still largely mythological. There was the 1991 Crown Heights murder of Yankel Rosenbaum; the exception that proved the rule. But American antisemitism wasn't about killing people. That was something that didn't happen in America.
It wasn’t only Krauthammer who
thought that way, of course. And this is what makes American antisemitism, “surprise” antisemitism. It's something we thought could never happen in America.
Krauthammer's essay embodies that false sense of security.
This is not to say that Krauthammer is wrong, therefore Baron Cohen is a
prophet. It's doubtful that Baron Cohen saw Tree of Life coming, and the entire subsequent string of attacks. But perhaps what he saw and meant to convey is that antisemitism can be sudden with no lead up, no signs or warnings.
Once one knows of Tree of Life and the way the act burst onto the screen, we must stipulate that it's one of the ways it can happen, antisemitism without warning. That there can really be no such thing as "surprise antisemitism" because when it happens, as it happened at Tree of Life, it turns out it's just one more manifestation of the beast.
This may be what Krauthammer missed, and what Sacha Baron
Cohen tried to show us in a bar in Arizona. "Surprise antisemitism" was always a myth. Antisemitism can happen without warning. Even in America.
Antisemitism, in fact, can lie dormant for the entire almost 250 years of a young country’s existence, then come
roaring forward without warning, like a sudden clap of lightning from the sky.
Krauthammer never would have seen it coming. Not Tree of Life, Poway, or Jersey City. Because even a wise man like Krauthammer won't see the signs of antisemitism when they aren't even there to be seen.
And this is the real lesson we learn from that Arizona bar: that when it comes to antisemitism, we won't always get a warning. It may be we'll never see it coming.
And the thing about antisemitism is that it's tricky like that. It can show up on your American doorstep, a complete surprise. Which is what makes "surprise antisemitism" a terrible and misleading misnomer.
A completely imaginary concept.
*Follow the link to see Elder
of Ziyon’s excellent scoop on the subject of Tlaib's deleted tweet.
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There's another, unspoken issue that is implied by the critics of the Trump executive order on combating antisemitism.
Even if the order violated the First Amendment and forced universities to act against anti-Israel speech defined under the IHRA - which it manifestly doesn't - the critics are implying that it is impossible to advocate for Palestinian rights without falling foul of the IHRA definition.
Is it?
It is not antisemitic, under IHRA or any other definition, to say Palestinians deserve a state. Or that Israel doesn't treat them fairly. Or that they are oppressed. Or that the Nakba was terrible. Or that they aren't treated equally as Israeli citizens. Or that settlements are an obstacle to peace. Or that Israel kills civilians unfairly. Or that the separation barrier hurts Palestinians. Or that Israel uproots olive trees. Or that settlers treat Palestinians badly. Or that Israeli soldiers don't respect Palestinian human rights.
Zionists might not agree with statements like that, and many of them are flat-out false, but they aren't antisemitic.
But critics of the IHRA definition are saying that Palestinians must be allowed to say that Israel is a Nazi state, or that Israel is an apartheid state (which they would never say about Lebanon even though they treat Palestinians worse than Israel does) or that Israel is a racist endeavor from the start, or that the Nakba is worse than the Holocaust. These statements are not only false but they cross the line into antisemitism because they treat Israel to a standard that no other nation is held to, and in the case of a Nazi analogies, they are meant directly to attack and hurt Jews by saying they are as bad or worse than those who killed 6 million of them.
Is it really so hard to advocate for Palestinian rights without descending into antisemitism? Those who have written against the EO apparently believe that - so instead of defending Jews from antisemitism, they are defending the right of anti-Zionists to be antisemitic.
Again, the EO does no such thing. People can spout on campus that Israelis are Nazis because that is free speech; they cannot harass Jews on campus and block them from joining organizations based on their supporting Israel.
But isn't it strange that the critics of the EO, all of whom profess to be against antisemitism, are arguing for the right of anti-Zionists to be antisemitic?
Few of them would make a similar argument that the existing Title Vi has a "chilling effect" for white supremacists on campus to say racist speech on free speech grounds. But it is exactly the same.
The critics are defending antisemitic speech in ways that they would never dream to defend racist or sexist speech. If there is a moral or legal difference between antisemitic speech and racist speech, let them explain exactly why.
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When Romantic-era nationalism came about, it got termed that because it was the idea that a people should determine its own government and life, and “nation” is a word for people. All kinds of nations decided that they didn’t like being a population within countries that were large, multinational empires and that they wanted to separate off and form their own nation-states — countries populated largely by one people. We use “nation” sloppily to mean “sovereign country” or “state” now because following the rise of nationalism, the nation-state became the sort of default idea of a country in our heads. Why is the term “nation-state” not redundant? Because a state is a politically sovereign area, and a nation is a group of human beings with some shared, binding history, culture, language ... whatever, so long as they understand themselves to be a people and/or are understood by others to comprise one.
Poles are a nation, and they wouldn’t stop being one if Poland stopped being an existing sovereign country (this thesis has been rather repeatedly and dramatically stress-tested). Greeks are a nation, Greece is a country. Armenians, like Jews, were in the 19th and early 20th centuries not a majority in any area, so the ethnic violence surrounding nationalism didn’t turn out very well for them during the period of the breakdown of the great empires. The Armenian people were nearly destroyed in a genocide during a world war and only after that was given the area that is now the sovereign country of Armenia with its capital in Yerevan. The idea was that having a nation-state is a matter of survival for a people.
In this sense, neither Jewry nor Israel is unique or special at all, except in being late to a party that most other nations occupying the former great Imperial Zone of Europe threw in the previous century. Only in 1948, after the same sort of thing happened to Jews that happened to Armenians, did they succeed in the nationalist project to get a state, Israel, for the previously existing people, Jews. That’s why the obsession with Israel and Palestine seems like a matter of Jew-hatred to people who understand this history and these words: It’s one piece of a historical process involving dozens of basically identical situations, and the Jewish one is what gets all the condemnatory United Nations resolutions and ranting by Noam Chomsky.
So, Trump’s executive order on Jews as a nation only affirms the idea of Jewish peoplehood that is, first, totally coherent within the ordinary framework of how we understand nations, and second, only doing about Jews what Title VI already does for other demographic categories. Suddenly a lot of people don't like the constitutional implications of applying the Civil Rights Act the day it extends to Jews? Well, that seems odd. Debate the policy all you like, but this is not the Wannsee Conference, and everybody pretending it is has revealed that they do not understand the very elementary issues here and should read more and seethe less.
Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer has thanked US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order to fight antisemitism on college campuses.
"Last week, President Trump used his executive authority to confront Jew-hatred on college campuses, which have become ground zero in the shameful attempt to defame and demonize the Jewish state and where many Jews feel unsafe to express their identity," Dermer said on Tuesday during a candle lighting event ahead of Hanukkah at the embassy of Israel in Washington.
"I found it interesting that when President Trump made that decision, a debate broke out on social media about whether Jews are a people or merely a faith," he added.
"For over a century, anti-Zionists, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have sought to deny that Jews are a people. Anti-Zionist Jews have denied that Jews are people out of a genuine fear that non-Jews would persecute them for being part of a separate nation," he continued.
“Anti-Zionist non-Jews have denied that Jews are a people in order to deny the Jewish people the right of self-determination that all peoples enjoy. Either way, regardless of what one's motives are and what nonsense goes on in the Twitter-sphere, the fact is that the Jews are both people and a faith,” he remarked.
A new narrative is emerging in the Middle East. The anti-Semitic craze to destroy Israel was powerful in the 1960s, but now, Sunni Arab neighbors are changing course. Islamist leaders are losing their appeal - at a time when Iran, with its brand of theological fascism, poses a threat to Israel and the Arab world alike.
Polls show that the percentage of Arabs expressing trust in Islamist parties has fallen by well over a third since the uprisings of 2011. The number of young people who say they're "not religious" is also on the rise. This generation wants Arab leaders to increase economic prosperity, minimize political conflicts, and build alliances, including with Israel.
I regularly meet Egyptians and others who desperately want to normalize relations with Israel and they offer three reasons. First, the events of the Arab Spring exposed the fanaticism of the Muslim Brotherhood and other related Islamists, with the hardliners now being viewed as a threat to both Islam as a faith and Muslims as a people.
Second, the need to stand firm against Iran is becoming a cause that unites Israel with Sunni Arabs and anti-Tehran Shiite Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The mullahs in Tehran support Hizbullah, which is dedicated to destroying Israel, but they also meddle in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
Finally, and most intriguingly, Israel is being seen by moderate Arab governments as a trade and security partner as the West sends mixed signals. As one Arab prince said recently at a private meeting: "Who else will fly in joint missions against Iranian targets with us?"
For 70 years the Arab world was driven by an anti-Semitic ideological craze to wipe out Israel. But before that came a far-longer history of coexistence and respect. The people of Israel are honored repeatedly in the Quran, which confirms that Jews have every right to settle in and around Jerusalem. It was Omar, a friend of the prophet, who invited Jews back into Jerusalem in 637 after five centuries of being banished by the Romans.
Elan Carr, the State Department’s special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism, told a group of Israelis and Americans Tuesday night that in order to combat anti-Semitism, teaching the Holocaust is not enough. The U.S., he believes, needs to “educate on philo-Semitism.”
This is too much for Zonszein, who then articulates a still new concept of the Left that loving Jews is antisemitic:
Philo-Semitism, which is sometimes referred to as “positive anti-Semitism,” is an inverse form of anti-Semitism that views Jewish stereotypes — including that Jews are smart, rich, and cunning — with admiration. While on its face, philo-Semitism appears to cast Jews in a positive light, it effectively affirms the beliefs of anti-Semites while tokenizing and exceptionalizing Jews, often conflating them with the State of Israel. In its essence, philo-Semitism, like anti-Semitism, sets the Jews apart as a group distinct from society at large, which is precisely what makes it so dangerous.
So, according to the geniuses of the far Left, it is just as bad for people to go to Jewish doctors or lawyers as it is to boycott them. People who want Jewish neighbors are just as bad as those who try to keep them out of their neighborhoods.
In fact, people who love Jews for their perceived scholarship, charity and morality are dangerous, just as bad as those who hate Jews for their perceived greed or ambition.
(There was once an All in the Family episode where bigot Archie Bunker insisted on getting a Jewish lawyer. That kind of "philosemitism" may exist but it is very rare, and even where it exists, it is far better than antisemitism - a true antisemite would refuse to deal with any Jew.)
Zonszein alludes to those who admire Israel as a bastion of success, morality and strength in an ocean of bigotry and hate. And this seems to be the real reason that Leftists hate philosemitism - because loving Israel is inseparable from philosemitism. And loving Israel is the cardinal sin of the far-Left, so it must be redefined into a form of bigotry, the worst insult possible.
The most ridiculous, and telling, criticism of philosemitism is that it "sets the Jews apart as a group distinct from society at large." Judaism itself sets Jews apart from the rest of the world!
Jewish law and tradition itself ensures that while Jewish survival depends on a separateness - hence Jewish dietary laws, the prohibition of intermarriage, and countless other examples. It doesn't mean that Jews cannot exist in the larger non-Jewish world or must live in ghettos; Jews have always been part of the larger society. As a minority, it is important for preservation of the religion and the peoplehood of the Jews to establish some separation.
According to the leftist anti-philosemitism doctrine, Jewish law and tradition is antisemitic.
It gets more absurd. Its says explicitly in the Jewish scripture (Deuteronomy 14:2): "Thou art a holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be His own treasure out of all peoples that are upon the face of the earth."
God Himself is antisemitic.
(Extending things a little more, the NAACP is racist.)
Obviously, these leftist arguments are ridiculous. Yet is also ironically proves that the Jewish Left is eminently unqualified to speak about antisemitism.
Because, you see, if they are against any sort of Jewish distinction from any other person, that means that they cannot speak as Jews on any topic. They have abrogated their own Jewishness, since their fervent hope is to be indistinguishable from non-Jews. Eating bagels and lox on Sunday mornings is distinction and therefore antisemitic. Synagogues that cater to Jews are antisemitic. Hillels on campus are antisemitic. Being proud of being Jewish is antisemitic.
They want Judaism to disappear so that there is no longer any distinction between Jews and non-Jews. They do not want to consider themselves Jewish at the risk of distinguishing themselves and contributing to antisemitism, in their twisted worldview.
Therefore, since they are against a separate Jewish existence, they have abrogated the right to use the "As A Jew" argument - since the very words "As A Jew" makes them different from non-Jews. The phrase itself is antisemitic according to them. They only use it cynically to bolster their arguments against Judaism and a Jewish nation.
In short, the Jewish Left argument that philosemitism is as dangerous as antisemitism is, by definition, antisemitic.
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Palestinian misdeeds, including Jew-hatred, can’t be acknowledged. Nor can the Jew-hatred coursing through Muslim society in general.
And that’s because the Islamic world is given a free pass on the grounds that it is the historic victim of the west. So any such criticism is silenced by the claim it is “Islamophobic”.
Shockingly, some Jewish leaders have gone along with this travesty, even equating “Islamophobia” with antisemitism.
This displays a quite stunning ignorance and naivety. Of course, true prejudice against Muslims should be condemned, just like prejudice against Hindus, Sikhs or anyone else.
But the taunt of Islamophobia is used to silence any criticism of the Islamic world, including Islamic extremism. This is the second issue which ties people up in knots over antisemitism.
“Islamophobia” was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood to mimic antisemitism, the concept which these Islamists falsely believe immunises Jews from criticism — itself an antisemitic belief.
So “Islamophobia” appropriates to itself the unique attribute of antisemitism — that it is deranged — in order falsely to label any adverse comment about the Islamic world as a form of mental disorder.
The concept of “Islamophobia” is thus profoundly anti-Jew. To equate it with the dehumanising, insane and essentially murderous outpourings of Jew-hatred is obscene.
In response, the Board of Deputies of British Jews tweeted:
.@JewishChron's fearless journalism has been at the forefront of tackling antisemitism & its denial. The publication of this piece was an error. Anti-Muslim prejudice is very real & it is on the rise. Our community must stand as allies to all facing racism https://t.co/V2H7iVGHuz
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) December 17, 2019
I'm not certain of the origins of the the term "Islamophobia" as currently used - I've seen claims that it was created by Iran, not the Muslim Brotherhood - but Phillips' main point is true: the term is used to shut down debate in much the same way that Israel-haters claim that Jews use antisemitism. Except in the case of Islamophobia, it is true.
Notice that Phillips was very careful to distinguish between actual anti-Muslim bigotry, which she rightly condemns, with the far more expansive idea of "Islamophobia," where any criticism of Islam or how Muslim nations act are considered a form of bigotry. This was lost on her critics, who cannot distinguish between the two - thus proving her point by attacking her in order to appear liberal and woke.
What seems to be lost in this discussion is the history of the "phobia" part of "Islamophobia."
For 150 years, there has been a dance between Western fears of Islam as a strange, exotic but potentially deadly ideology and Muslim stoking of those fears to bend Western diplomacy to their will. Here's a typical example, the first and last paragraphs of an article from 1882:
The West has been afraid of a pan-Muslim jihad ever since the concept entered general knowledge. Muslims were regarded as exotic and unpredictable, seemingly walking around with scimitars which were always ready to be used against infidels, and as such deserving of a wide berth.
It didn't take long for Muslim nations to realize this and use this Western fear of Islam to their advantage. The sheer unpredictability of fatal Muslim anger keeps Westerners on edge and wanting to appease Muslims in order to stay on their good side. Whether it is the British reacting to Arab pogroms in Palestine by limiting Jewish immigration, or Western newspapers refusing to publish images of Mohammed that caused murderous rampages, Muslims have realized that their occasional
eruptions have political advantages.
Palestinian leaders have used the threat of Arab anger and the "Arab street" literally every day for decades in order to gain political advantage. An example from today: Mahmoud Abbas' spokesman said, "Without Jerusalem there will be no state, no peace and no stability for anyone." This is an implicit promise to the world of a permanent state of Islamic terror if Palestinians don't get their way, but it is still taken seriously by the West instead of being treated like a mob-style threat it is - which would be rejected if uttered by anyone but a Muslim.
The fear of Islam is not bigotry. It is a tango between a fearful West and a politically astute Muslim world that takes advantage of that fear.
The modern flavor of what is called Islamophobia is a slight variation of that fear - the fear of liberals of being labeled bigots, so they bend over backwards to ensure not the slightest possibility of offending Muslims - many of whom are more than happy to adopt the role of a thin-skinned people for whom every criticism of their religion or their countries is evidence of hate. Many Westerners themselves now work hard to forestall even the slightest possibility of potential offense, what Richard Landes calls "proleptic dhimmitude." The US wants to move its embassy? No, the Arabs worldwide will have massive deadly demonstrations - so don't do it!
To a large extent, this Western fear of Islam contributes to the infantilizing of Muslims and Arabs. The underling logic behind it all is that they are not assumed to be normal, rational people. The true irony of the leftist attitude towards Islam is how patronizing it is. This is why, for example, human rights groups will not hold Muslim nations to the same standards as they hold Israel and the US.
The real solution is to treat Muslims and Arabs like adults, who must take responsibility for their actions - whether it is sexism in the form of hijab laws, or calling them out on threats of riots to affect Western foreign policy, or any of dozens of other examples. Psychologists know that students will act the way teachers expect them to act and it applies to the wide world as well. As long as the West treats Muslims to a lower moral standard than themselves, the Muslim leaders will do everything they can to make their people live down to those expectations.
Is it really so radical to treat everyone by the same moral standards? Isn't that what liberalism is meant to be?
It takes two to tango, and the West can end the dance.
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For the first time, Gaza farmers are shipping strawberries to England, Qatar and the UAE.
Five tons were exported so far.
This is the very beginning of the strawberry season, and some 2500 tons are expected to be shipped to Western European and Gulf countries.
What doesn't get much attention is that Israel is helping the process. Gaza cannot export directly so it all goes through Israel, and the strawberries earmarked for Europe are flown through Ben Gurion Airport.
Which is not the sort of news you see reported in the media.
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What with anti-Semitism on both left and right, economic stagnation, and demographic decline, European Jewry faces dim prospects, writes Joel Kotkin:
Perceptions of Jewish success combined with a weak economy and the shrinkage of the middle class have ignited a resurgence of right-wing populism across the continent. In some countries, notably Russia, Poland, Belgium, and parts of Germany, anti-Semitism of the traditional right-wing variety has been mainstreamed, often by nationalist parties such as the AfD in Germany, the Freedom Party in Austria, and Jobbik in Hungary.
This development is most notable in Eastern Europe, where economic conditions are less than ideal. Asked whether “Jews have too much power in the business world,” according to a recent Anti-Defamation League survey, 72 percent of Ukrainians agreed, as did 71 percent of Hungarians, 56 percent of Poles, and 50 percent of Russians. . . . [A] third of Austrians, according to a recent CNN Poll . . . complain Jews have too much influence in finance, as did a quarter of French and German respondents.
Contemporary leftist hatred of Jews has its roots in the post-Stalin alliance with Arab nationalist and Islamist regimes seeking to obliterate Israel. . . . As the famous Nazi-hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfield told me and my wife over two decades ago in Paris, French leftists would see huge potential in appealing to Muslims who now outnumber Jews by roughly ten to one. Although often out of sync with the very liberal social agenda of the European left, Muslims increasingly constitute a powerful constituency for French socialists, who have been losing ground among their traditional white working-class base in recent elections.
Over the long term, if current trends hold, the Jewish future will be essentially that of Israel. . . . Many in these countries may well say “good riddance” to the Jews, but it represents a tragedy not only for the Jewish people but for Europe and the world.
History tells us that anti-Semitism is often just a form of gateway racism, the proverbial “canary in the coal mine of intolerance.” As Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, noted in his recent Human Rights Council report on anti-Semitism: “Anti-Semitism, if left unchecked by governments, poses risks not only to Jews, but also to members of other minority communities. Antis-Semitism is toxic to democracy and mutual respect of citizens and threatens all societies in which it goes unchallenged.”
Until now, the absence of a legal definition of anti-Semitism has been an Achilles’ heel for those who expect colleges and universities to take a stronger stand against campus anti-Semitism. Valid monitoring, informed analysis and investigation, and effective policy-making all require uniform definitions. While there can be no exhaustive definition of anti-Semitism, because it can take many forms, the IHRA definition has been an essential tool for identifying contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism.
While some object to the idea that the Jewish people fall under Title VI’s rubric of race, color or national origin, such objections are misplaced. First, the OCR has placed Jews, Muslims and other religious groups under Title VI’s jurisdiction since 2004. Second, as any proponent of intersectionality theory should agree, Jewish people can see themselves as a lot of things — a race, nation, religion, ethnicity, culture, etc. Clarifying that for purposes of anti-discrimination provisions is entirely not problematic.
Jewish students need protection; at this writing, more than a half-dozen states are considering similar legislation. As one of the primary drafters of these state bills, I applaud the Trump administration for demonstrating leadership and sending a message that intolerance is unacceptable.
Government officials and institutions have a responsibility to protect citizens from acts of hate and bigotry motivated by discriminatory animus, including anti-Semitism, and must be given the tools to do so. President Trump’s executive order is one such tool, and as such it should be celebrated.
Someone should ask Obama for his response to the consensus judgment by Washington Post, NY Times, CNN et al that his admin's 2010 guidance on protections under the Civil Rights Act was literally equivalent to the Nuremberg Laws and Soviet purges.
With no viable deradicalization program in place, we can be reasonably confident that many terrorists being released from prison will leave the same as they entered, or worse. Radical ideology is not changed by a mere stint in prison. Deception is often used to disguise true beliefs.
A clear example of this is recently-released terrorist Kevin James, who was caught posting on social media his current view of non-Muslims. “Getting ready for Jum’ah in the land of dogs and pigs,” he wrote. “May Allah free me from it soon.”
Prosecutors argued that James “has shown he cannot be taken as his word that he will abide by the terms and conditions of his supervised release. … He lies about where he intends to go; he lies when confronted about his conduct; and he lies about the underlying facts that result in his discipline.”
Proven, effective conditions of supervised release are needed to protect us from another violent attack by a released terrorist. We know from the Khan attack that electronic monitoring by itself is insufficient. Khan was wearing a monitoring device when he carried out his attack. He chose a place — a public conference on prison rehabilitation — where he was allowed to be in order to carry out his attack.
Several steps must be taken to contain the threat of terror attacks by released offenders and those radicalized in prison. First, early release of incarcerated terrorists must be discontinued. Second, those who are released when their sentence is completed must be placed under stringent supervision by specifically trained personnel. Monitoring must include not only the ex-offender’s geographical location, but his or her Internet and telecommunications use, especially social media. Finally, a national registry for convicted terrorists is essential for providing local authorities with the information they need to protect their communities.
A similar registry has been effective with released sex offenders, and it will work with released terrorists.
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Weekend long read
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1) The FDD provides a briefing on ‘The Many Faces of the Muslim
Brotherhood’. “The Brotherhood has scores of national branches across the
globe....
The ...
Weekend long read
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1) The FDD provides a briefing on ‘The Many Faces of the Muslim
Brotherhood’. “The Brotherhood has scores of national branches across the
globe....
The ...
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Thursday, December 19, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
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