Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 19, 2019

12/19 Links Pt2: Progress on 'the Jewish question'; Boris Johnson’s Government Pledges to Take Action Against BDS Movement; Toxic left-wing antisemitism: Australia, UK and the USA

From Ian:

Clifford D. May: Progress on 'the Jewish question'

Though opponents of the EO charge that it threatens free speech, the EO states plainly that government agencies "shall not diminish or infringe" the First Amendment. And when the legislation that this EO is based upon was introduced, former Solicitor General Paul Clement and former White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler – representatives of the Bush and Obama administrations respectively – wrote opinions stating it did not violate the First Amendment, nor raise other Constitutional issues.

The other criticism being leveled at the EO is that, in the words of a New York Times news story, it "effectively interprets Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion." Untrue. The EO simply says that, "Discrimination against Jews may give rise to a Title VI violation when the discrimination is based on an individual’s race, color, or national origin."

Also: Is The Times suggesting that anti-Semitism is only about Judaism, the religion of the Jewish people? When the Nazis were ascendant in Europe, millions of Jews – secular and observant alike – were sent to concentration camps and ovens. Following World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jews – not all religious – were forced to flee Arab lands.

Identity is a puzzle – one we’re unlikely to solve anytime soon. For now, suffice to say that such terms as people, nation, tribe, ethnicity, and even race have fluid meanings.

An example: In 1939, when Bernard Lewis joined His Majesty’s Armed Forces, he was asked his race. He didn’t know what to say – until the presiding sergeant explained that there were only four choices: English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish.

Sixty years later, established as a great historian, Professor Lewis would write that in America, "Every citizen, in addition to his US citizenship, has other identities, defined by race, by ethnic origin or, often, origins, and by his personal or ancestral religion."

At issue now is what in past centuries was called "the Jewish question." Should the government turn a blind eye to discrimination based on this identity? Or do Jews, like other minorities, deserve protection? President Trump’s decision, coupled with the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn, adds up to an encouraging week – at least if you happen to be an anti-anti-Semite.

British PM Boris Johnson’s New Conservative Government Pledges to Take Action Against Anti-Israel BDS Movement

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new Conservative government will take action against the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, it was officially announced on Thursday.

“We will stop public institutions from imposing their own approach or views about international relations, through preventing boycotts, divestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries and those who trade with them,” the background briefing notes on the Queen’s Speech that was delivered on Thursday read.

“This will create a coherent approach to foreign relations from all public institutions, by ensuring that they do not go beyond the UK Government’s settled policy towards a foreign country,” the notes went on to say. “The UK Government is responsible for foreign relations and determining the best way to interact with its international neighbours.”

Such a policy would prevent “divisive behaviour that undermines community cohesion,” the notes pointed out. “There are concerns that such boycotts have legitimised antisemitism, such as Jewish films being censored and Jewish university societies being threatened with bans.”

In remarks in Parliament on Thursday, Johnson — fresh off his decisive victory over the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour party in last week’s general election — said, “When it comes to standing by our friends…one innovation that this Queen’s Speech introduces…is that we will stop public bodies from taking it upon themselves to boycott goods from other countries, to develop their own pseudo foreign policy against a country that with nauseating frequency turns out to be Israel.”

Liar academic Juan Cole really upset at Jeffrey Goldberg for pointing out facts about Jews

Juan Cole, the twelfth rate academic whom I have shown to be a tendentious liar many, many times, is very upset at Jeffrey Goldberg:

Phil Weiss at Mondoweiss, the most lucid and informed voice on the American Jewish left doing journalism critical of right wing Zionism, reports on remarks of The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg at a Jewish Community Center forum in Manhattan.

In Weiss’s telling, Goldberg argued to his audience that Israelis are like the Seminole indigenous people of Florida, and the Palestinians are “the cowboys.”

This framing of the issue is completely ahistorical and frankly ignorant, and is offensive on all sides.

It's worth reading the entire section that Weiss quoted from Goldberg, because it is quite accurate, which is why it bothers the serial liar Cole.

Many Palestinian leaders understand the conflict not as the conflict between the cowboys– the Jews– and the Indians– the Palestinians.

But the Jews are the Indians, and the Arabs, the Palestinians, the cowboys, in the following sense. What happened in the Middle East– this is not a political commentary about what should actually be done leading to a fair and equitable solution to the challenge here– but what happened here is the equivalent of the Seminoles sitting in Oklahoma or wherever they are today, scattered around the United States– Seminoles coming together and deciding that they’re going back to Florida. And going back in such numbers and telling the whites and blacks and Hispanics of Florida, Oh by the way, we’re home and we’d like a state, and we’d like to take over Florida.

The people of Florida would probably say to them, you haven’t been here in 200 years. This isn’t your home. And the Seminoles would say, Actually, it is our home. This is where our people are buried. This is the center of our religion, this is where we were expelled from.

That [discussion] doesn’t happen; and people need to understand that – what’s happened is, it’s really interesting from an analytical perspective. As Israel has become more and more powerful as a country, and every year it becomes more powerful, it becomes bigger, it becomes more militarily powerful, economically powerful, it’s lost more and more control of its own narrative. The narrative is of an indigenous people coming home to its homeland and to some degree, to a large degree, to some degree, willing to share that homeland or at least parts of that homeland with the people who moved in after. Right? But they lost total control of that narrative, because the people who were opposed to Israel’s existence are very very powerful and clever narrators as well.

In order to understand what’s going on historically you need to understand history…

It is completely natural that the people of Florida would say to the Seminoles who are walking back 200 years after the Trail of Tears, coming back to Florida, What the hell– what do you mean? You don’t live here, your father wasn’t here, your grandfather, your great grandmother, nobody was here, you can’t claim this as your own, but that’s because we don’t really understand and privilege historical memory, among other things.

Cole can't handle the truth, so he sputters. The next sentence in his article is that "Goldberg apparently can’t bring himself to say the word 'Palestinian,' as though all Arabic-speakers are indistinguishable." As you can see above, Goldberg used the word Palestinian and didn't use the word Arab. Cole apparently knows that his brain-dead followers won't bother clicking on the link that proves he cannot help making things up.

Cole then goes on an extended pseudo-history of Jews with cherry picked (and possibly made up) facts where he strenuously tries to say that Jews aren't from Palestine - he doesn't seem to subscribe to the Khazar myth but something close - and that Jews hardly ever controlled Palestine, and that Jews weren't interested in living there anyway.

As an example:

The Crusaders killed or expelled most remaining Jewish populations. From about 1100 until the early twentieth century there were virtually no Jews in Palestine. Oh, there were a handful here and there– a few Kabbalist mystics at Safad, retirees in Jerusalem. But I wrote a book about Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of the Middle East and the French report that they only found 3,000 Jews in geographic Palestine in 1799.

That's an interesting and counterfactual view. Jews were the majority in Palestine until the Muslim invasion - yes, the Arabs were colonialists, even though Cole falsely claims that most Palestinians have been there for millennia. (Research shows that the only truly indigenous Palestinians are the Christian community, and most of them were originally Jews.)

Since the Muslim invasion, the Jews that lived there went through an astonishing number of massacres and expulsions from both Christians and Muslims. Yet through it all, they kept coming back. Dozens of major rabbis kept immigrating with their students, often to be slaughtered again (with a few major earthquakes that also killed hundreds.)

This Wikipedia article fills in the gaping historic holes that Cole doesn't want you to know. The overwhelming conclusion is that Jews were always spiritually tied to their land despite it having very few ways of supporting them. This is the exact opposite to what Cole wants you to believe.

What about the 3000 Jews that Cole says he found out about? Well, his book on Napoleon says it - without a citation.

However, it was estimated that there were 4000-6000 Jews in Jerusalem alone in 1815, only 16 years later. This doesn't count Jews in Hebron, Safed, or Tiberias. Perhaps the French person Cole refers to, whoever that is, isn't so trustworthy.

Cole continues to lie:

The European Jews were brought to Palestine by British imperial policy during the early twentieth century heyday of colonialism, and by the rise of Fascism in Europe that drove out or killed millions of Jews. Because of the complications of the Holocaust, Jewish migration into Palestine is not exactly like the voluntary settler=colonialism of the Pieds Noire in Algeria,

Cole, the self described expert, apparently has never heard of the Perushim, the First Aliyah, the Second Aliyah. He thinks that somehow the British brought the Jews to Palestine, even though practically none of those were from Britain. He pretends that most Jews came to Palestine post-Holocaust not because they wanted to but that they were forced to. As someone who has looked up the Holocaust archives for my parents and relatives, I can tell him that the refugees filled out forms where they were offered where they would like to emigrate to. My parents chose America, they weren't forced to go to Palestine; one of my uncles and his mother chose Palestine.

In other words, Cole is a liar. Nothing new about that.

And by denying Jewish history including how fundamental Israel has always been to Jews and Judaism, Cole is proving that he is dabbling in antisemitism as well.

(h/t Dan, who reads Cole so I don't have to)

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Organizers Shocked That Bethlehem Christmas Tree Not Supposed To Have Bombs Underneath (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Bethlehem, Palestinian Authority, December 19 - Nonplussed community and government officials expressed puzzlement and surprise today upon encountering the fact that the public display of yuletide symbols includes no traditional elements geared toward violent opposition to Jewish sovereignty.

Municipal and national leaders initially refused to believe a reporter who questioned whether bombs belonged underneath the large Christmas tree in Manger Square here in the town Christian tradition associates with the birth of Jesus. A brief flurry of internet research disabused the officials of their error, which led them to express again and again disbelief that no such practice exists.

"I could swear that's what the tree is for - I mean, what else do you stow under it? Non-explosive toys? Don't be ridiculous," stammered a confused Deputy Mayor Issa Fashla. "The Christmas tree has always been a symbol of Palestinian resistance to Zionist aggression."

"Next you're going to tell me the ball-like things you hang from the tree aren't hand grenades," challenged Palestinian Authority representative Fadikha Majnoun, referring to decorative baubles. "Wait, you're serious. They're not? No way. No way," he continued, interjecting a profanity into the phrase.

Ignorance of authentic Christmas traditions surrounding the ornamental tree stems in part from the rapid decline in the Christian population of Bethlehem under Palestinian rule, says analyst Rich Ewell. "There are only a few thousand left, whereas there were tens of thousands of Christians in the town when it was under Israeli rule" prior to the Oslo Accords of 1993 that granted Palestinians self-rule, he explained. "Muslim intimidation and mistrust have driven many Christians from the cradle of their faith, leaving a token presence there that dares not speak ill of the majority population or its official anti-Israel positions. They obviously haven't felt it was their place to inform the organizers that Christmas is a time of peace and goodwill, or at least haven't felt they could do so safely."

Discovery that traditional Christmas displays such as the tree or Nativity scenes contain no violent elements or messages of enmity toward Jews and Jewish sovereignty will not change official Palestinian plans, declared Fashla. "Let's get real," he stated. "Everything gets subordinated to the national struggle, especially the truth. You think I don't know it wasn't Yasser Arafat who established the custom of setting up a fir tree to mark the holiday? But some values are more important. Believe me, I know it was actually the Prophet Muhammad."

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12/19 Links Pt1: Palestinian terrorist leader's arrest highlights 'extensive overlap' between BDS, terrorism; Historic Palestine – An Anachronistic Term; Russia Feud Continues as 2nd El Al Plane Delayed in Moscow Airport

From Ian:

Palestinian terrorist leader's arrest highlights 'extensive overlap' between BDS, terrorism

The announcement on Wednesday by Israel’s Shin Bet security agency that it has arrested some 50 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) capped off a monthslong targeting of the terror group for its role in the deadly terror attack on Aug. 23 that killed an Israeli teenager hiking with her father and brother.

Rina Shnerb, 17, died as a result of an explosion near the town of Dolev in Samaria; her brother, Dvir Shnerb, 19, was injured, along with their father, 46-year-old Rabbi Eitan Shnerb. According to Israeli reports, the explosive device included 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of explosive material, making it an "unusually powerful bomb."

The arrests coincidentally provide evidence of further links between the PFLP and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. Among those arrested by the Shin Bet include Khalida Jarrar, 56, who the Israeli security service noted was the head of the terror group’s operations in the West Bank. Until recently, Jarrar also served as the vice chairperson, director and board member of the BDS organization Addameer.

"With regard to Jarrar, this is really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the BDS/terror connection," said Marc Greendorfer, president of the Zachor Legal Institute and author of The New Anti-Semites: The Radicalization Mechanism of the BDS Movement and the Delegitimization Campaign Against Israel.

"Jarrar is simply one example of the extensive overlaps between terror organization leadership and BDS, going all the way to the top, where the organizing and operational leadership of BDS [the BDS National Committee, or BNC] includes a coalition of groups designated as foreign terror organizations by the United States and other countries," Greendorfer told JNS.

Last February, Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry released a report titled Terrorists in Suits that found that Hamas and PFLP activists had infiltrated organizations that call for boycotts on, divestment from, and sanctions on Israel.

The report, which examined 13 international BDS organizations, discovered that senior positions were held by 30 terror activists – 20 of whom who had actually spent time in prison for their crimes, including murder.

PMW: It's official. It's a Palestinian "value" to murder Israeli men on their way to prayer. It depends on who you kill.

Two Israelis, Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi and Aharon Bennett, were stabbed to death in October 2015 by 19-year-old Palestinian terrorist Muhannad Halabi. The terrorist attacked the Bennett family on their way to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Halabi murdered the father and another man, and also stabbed and seriously wounded Bennett’s wife, Adele and their 2-year-old son.

In the eyes of senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki, murderer Muhannad Halabi was following Palestinian “values,” when he only killed the father and “spared” the mother and the son. Zaki’s claim is false on two accounts.

1. PA ideology does not limit its support for murder to Israeli/Jewish men but supports murder of women and children as well.
2. Murderer Halabi did in fact try to murder the mother and the son, however they miraculously survived with stab wounds.

Although the PA’s policy of promoting and rewarding the murder of Israeli men, women, and children has been documented thousands of times by Palestinian Media Watch, it is unusual for a senior Palestinian leader to admit in front of cameras that murdering a rabbi is a Palestinian “value” because the murderer did not also kill his wife and infant child: “We don’t kill people as we please. There are values, customs.”

It depends on who you kill. Murdering a man in front of his wife and 2-year-old son, and not killing the wife and son, shows Palestinian “values,” says Fatah leader Abbas Zaki

Read more about this here: https://t.co/lRNgJYW7ro pic.twitter.com/9LzVbELtw9
— Pal Media Watch (@palwatch) December 19, 2019

Today the Arab League held an emergency meeting to discuss reactions to Brazil's opening up a trade office in Jerusalem and their announced intentions to open an embassy there.

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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Jewish Studies academic writes about the Title VI Executive Order. Apparently, he never actually read it.

Michael Zank is a College of Arts & Sciences professor of religion and director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies at Boston University.

Which makes the op-ed he wrote for the BU newspaper attacking the Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism all the more perplexing.

The article's first sentence already shows that facts are not too important to Professor Zank, an avowed expert on Jewish studies:

Most of us think of Judaism as a religion, rather than a “race, color, or national origin.”

Really? Because Jews and non-Jews have traditionally thought of Jews as a people and a nation. Jewish prayers and the Jewish scripture itself never refers to Jews as a religion but usually as a people (Am Yisrael), sometimes a nation. A third of Jews born after 1980 identify themselves as Jews but also as having no religion. While some clearly do think of Judaism as merely a religion, there is no support for the assertion that most of us do.

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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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

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 2^nd. 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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Stop ignoring black antisemitism! Elected black officials double down on antisemitic rant by school board member (update)

What the hell is going on in Jersey City?

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:

And they posted this Tuesday:

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.

(h/t WoMenFightAntisemitism)

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12/18 Links Pt2: Wiesenthal releases ten worst outbreaks of antisemitism; Republicans and Democrats unite in Chicago to condemn Holocaust denier; Call to boycott Israeli cheese backfires

From Ian:

Wiesenthal releases ten worst outbreaks of antisemitic/anti-Israel cases

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.”

2019’s achievements in the battle against antisemitism

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.

Jonathan S. Tobin: The ugly truth about campus anti-Semitism and BDS

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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The "chilling effect" of not being allowed to compare Jews to Nazis

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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12/18 Links Pt1: Word of the Week: 'Nation'; Islam's Reformation: An Arab-Israeli Alliance Is Taking Shape in the Middle East; Turkey allowing Hamas to plot attacks on Israelis from its soil

From Ian:

Word of the Week: 'Nation'

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.

Ambassador Ron Dermer: 'Jews are both a people and a faith'

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.

Islam's Reformation: An Arab-Israeli Alliance Is Taking Shape in the Middle East

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.