Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, April 01, 2021

04/01 Links Pt1: Saudi Journalist: Arabs And Jews Should Stop Fighting, Start Cooperating; Australian Labor recognises state of Palestine; PA Tortured Participants in American-Led 2019 Bahrain Conference

From Ian:

Walter Russell Mead [WSJ]: How to Bring Peace to the New Middle East

The old Middle East peace process is dead: The Israeli-Palestinian dispute no longer dominates the regional agenda. The old peace process developed at a time when the U.S. had no serious rival for world leadership, the Middle East mattered more to the global economy than it does today, and Arab states were more powerful in the region than they are now. Under those circumstances, promoting the peace process was a necessary aspect of America's diplomatic balancing act that helped maintain Washington's alliances with the Arab world while supporting Israel.

Since then, the leading Arab states have either fallen into chaos (Syria and Iraq) or become so worried about Iran that they have little energy to devote to the Palestinian cause. At the same time, Israel's attractiveness as a trading partner and source of technology and investment has dramatically increased. Any signal that the Biden administration intends to return to President Obama's Middle East policy would likely drive the Arabs and Israelis more closely together and increase the Arab states' willingness to overlook the Palestinians.

A new peace process would entail engaging the increasingly robust Israeli-Arab entente to resolve the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, with a credible U.S. commitment to regional security against Iran as the cornerstone of a new Middle East reality.

Saudi Journalist: Arabs And Jews Should Stop Fighting, Start Cooperating

Against the backdrop of the normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states, Prof. Safouq Al-Shammari, a Saudi physician, researcher and journalist, published a two-part article in the government daily Al-Watan, in which he called to stop the wars between the Arabs and Jews, strengthen the ties between them and cooperate with them in improving the state of the Middle East. Al-Shammari noted that, despite being a small minority in the world, the Jews have made great scientific achievements and significant contributions to mankind, including to the Arab world. Stressing that, throughout history, there was friendship between Arabs and Jews, and that today the conflict between them is confined to the issue of Palestine, he called to distinguish between Zionism and the state of Israel on the one hand and the Jewish people on the other, and to renew the historic ties between the Arabs and their Jewish cousins - in particular the Jews of the U.S. and Europe. This is especially crucial today, he said, in light of Iran's threat to perpetrate a second holocaust against both the Arabs and the Jews. Al-Shammari added that economic cooperation between the Gulf and the Jews of America - who include many of the world's largest tycoons - could boost the economic revolution that is already taking place in the Gulf, and this, in turn, could benefit the region at large and accelerate the resolution of the Palestinian problem.

It should be noted that Al-Shammari's first article sparked angry reactions from Arabs on social media who spoke against the Jews and urged him to support the Arabs rather than the Jews.

The following are excerpts from Al-Shammari's two articles.

Inventions Of Jewish Scientists Have Saved Billions Of Lives
In the first part of his article, Al-Shammari wrote: "Jews constitute 0.2% of the world's population, but 20% of the Nobel Prize winners, [that is,] 100 times their proportion in the population. Some 40% of the Nobel winners in economics are Jews, and 26% of the Nobel winners in physics and medicine. [Many people] are perhaps unaware that [the Jewish] Ernst Chain was a partner of [Alexander] Flemming in discovering the antibiotic properties of penicillin and thereby saving the lives of millions, or that the discoverer of the hepatitis C virus was a Jew. [They may also be unaware] that many inventors of vaccines were Jews, as was the discoverer of blood types, and the list goes on and on. Some assess that Jewish medical scientists saved the lives of 2.8 billion people with their discoveries and inventions. In the field of physics, the [world's] greatest physicist was Albert Einstein. And lest you think that [this list merely proves that] the West panders to the Jews, [let me add that] a quarter of the winners of the Japanese Kyoto Prize - one of the most prestigious prizes in science and literature - have [also] been Jews.

"The conflict between the two cousin peoples, the Jews and the Arabs, is relatively new… The resentment built up over decades of wars between the Arabs and Israel forms a kind of barrier… [but] we must distinguish between the Jews and Israel, and between the Jewish people, who are [our] cousins, and the Zionist political movement. There is a difference between people and political [movements]. There are [surely] Arab political movements that [you, the reader,] disagree with, but this does not mean that [you] disagree with all Arabs. This is also true with regard to the Jews.

"Sadly, this resentment, and the confusion between Jews and Zionists, caused the Jews to emigrate from the Arab countries after [living there] for centuries…and we [thus] lost an important component [of our societies]. Iraq lost its Jews, including the first finance minister of modern Iraq, Sassoon Eskell… who served five terms in this capacity, and is known, among other things, for refusing to grant the Iraqi king 20 dinars for building a fancy residence on the grounds that the parliament had not approved this. Some Arab countries have Jewish ministers and officials even today, such as Serge Berdugo, [a former Moroccan minister of tourism and a leader of the Jewish community there], and André Azoulay, [a royal advisor] in Morocco.

"Know that Arabs and Muslims respected their Jewish cousins throughout history. Abdelkader Ben Ghabrit, founder of the Muslim Institute of the Paris Mosque, saved hundreds of Jews from the Nazis by providing them with [forged] papers certifying them as Muslims. Hundreds of thousands of Jews lived for centuries in the Arab countries [and were treated well there], in contrast to the humiliation they suffered in the Western ghettos in those days…

Understanding the Abraham Accords is pretty straightforward and its benefits appear to be real.

On the one hand, the agreement unites Israel with Arab states that feel threatened by Iran, creating an alliance that allows them to counter that enemy and defend themselves against it.

On the other hand, there is also an economic component as well, creating all kinds of opportunities for business and investment that are beneficial for all sides.

Peace based on both military and business interests.

Foreign Policy magazine has its own understanding of the first component. According to one of its articles, the Abraham Accords is not a defensive reaction to a powerful threat, creating a binary Israel/allies vs Iran/proxies dynamic. Instead, according to the article, there is a 3-way struggle going on in the Middle East -- and the Arabs are not even part of it.

Vali Nasr, a professor of Middle East studies and international affairs at Johns Hopkins writes that The Middle East’s Next Conflicts Won’t Be Between Arab States and Iran. Nasr believes that the key competition in the Middle East is no longer between the Arab states and Israel or between Sunnis and Shiites. Instead, the key power struggle in the Middle East will be among 3 non-Arab "rivals," namely Israel, Iran and Turkey.

While Iran has been getting most of the attention in the Middle East, Turkey has also been busy, expanding its influence and presence in the region. As Nasr describes it, Turkey:

o occupies parts of Syria

o has influence in Iraq

o  is pushing back against Iran’s influence in both Damascus and Baghdad

o  has increased military operations against Kurds in Iraq

o  has inserted itself in Libya’s civil war

o  intervened in the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh

o  are eyeing expanded roles in both the Horn of Africa and Lebanon

o  supports for the Muslim Brotherhood

o  claims to have a say in Arab politics.

Against this background of Iranian and Turkish expansion, Nasr writes that the Abraham Accords -- instead of setting the Middle East on the road to peace -- actually signal that the competition of these 3 countries is going to become more intense:

In fact, it could lead to larger and more dangerous regional arms races and wars that the United States neither wants nor can afford to get entangled in. So, it behooves U.S. foreign policy to try to contain rather than stoke this new regional power rivalry.

An interesting twist on what are intended as peace accords.

While Iran is working on expanding its power, influence and the number of proxies acting on its behalf as Turkey is pursuing its dream of a new Ottoman Empire -- how does Israel fit in?

According to Nasr:

Israel, too, has expanded its footprint in the Arab world. In 2019, Trump recognized Israel’s half-century-old claim to the Golan Heights, which it seized from Syria in 1967, and now Israeli leaders are planning out loud to expand their borders by formally annexing parts of the West Bank.

Compared with everything Turkey is up to while Iran is inserting itself into Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Libya -- we have Israel in comparison inserting itself into...the Golan Heights?

This is an area with security implications that Iran itself has shown an interest in for its strategic position overlooking Israel. The West Bank, formerly known as Judaea and Samaria, is an area with a long Jewish history where Jews lived for thousands of years, except for the 19 years it was illegally controlled by Jordan and ethnically cleansed of Jews. Not only was the "annexing" actually an issue of applying Israeli law and not physically taking it -- Israel put a hold on the idea anyway as a condition for the UAE agreeing to the Accords.

Nasr's case for Israeli expansion is less than overwhelming as he compares Israel with Iran and Turkey.

Perhaps that is why Israel alone does not comprise the 3rd component of that 3-way rivalry between Iran, Turkey and Israel. It is the addition of other Middle East countries:

Turkey’s current regional posture—extending into Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and the Horn of Africa while staunchly defending Qatar and the Tripoli government in Libya’s civil war—is in direct conflict with policies pursued by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt.

Taking all of the alliances and overlapping interests into account is what actually makes the situation so combustible.

But also confusing:

This all suggests that the driving force in the Middle East is no longer ideology or religion but old-fashioned realpolitik. If Israel boosts the Saudi-Emirati position, those who feel threatened by it, like Qatar or Oman, can be expected to rely on Iran and Turkey for protection. But if the Israeli-Arab alignment will give Iran and Turkey reason to make common cause, Turkey’s aggressive posture in the Caucasus and Iraq could become a worry for Iran. Turkey’s military support for Azerbaijan now aligns with Israel’s support for Baku [Azerbaijan], and Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have found themselves in agreement worrying about the implications of Turkey’s successful maneuver in that conflict.

As these overlapping rivalries crisscross the region, competitions are likely to become more unpredictable, as will the pattern of tactical alliances.

The analysis starts off with a description of Turkey and Iran making common cause against Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but ends with Israel and Turkey with a common interest in Azerbaijan while Iran worries -- along with the Saudis and the UAE -- about Turkey.

The inclusion of Russian and Chinese interests in the area only makes it harder to keep a scorecard.

And Biden may not be making matters any easier.

In an article by Anchal Vohra, a Beirut-based columnist for Foreign Policy, the Biden administration might be following in Obama's footsteps in strengthening the alliance against Iran:

Biden’s animus toward Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and in general over human rights violations in the kingdom as well as the UAE and Egypt, is actually cementing ties.

Or he may be undercutting what Israel can offer potential Arab allies:

Other Israeli analysts said they worried Israel may lose its leverage in the Gulf under Biden’s presidency. For decades, Arab nations have eased ties with Israel to seek U.S. pardons for their excesses at home. But as Israel itself is under the Biden scanner now, it can hardly put in a word for them.

Nasr concludes that the best way to achieve some kind of stability is for the US to step in. He makes the intercessionist argument that in order for the US to be able to remove itself from the Middle East and avoid future engagements, it will have to "counterintuitively" first invest more diplomatic resources now.

Of course, one could argue that it is the diplomacy that led to the JCPOA and the billions that were given to Iran that may have had a destabilizing effect on the region, to begin with -- and that the Abraham Accords are a way to address past decisions made by the Obama in the region.

The calculations of interests and cross-purposes of the various parties may be accurate, but if Biden wants to help stabilize the regions, perhaps he should just support the Abraham Accords and encourage other Arab states to join it.

No, the State Department 2020 human rights report does not refer to "occupied territories" (UPDATE)

Times of Israel reports:

In a partial return to a pre-Trump-era norm, the US State Department’s annual report on human rights violations around the world published on Tuesday referred to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as territories “occupied” by Israel.

This is highly misleading.

In the Obama era, the very title of the annual report, as well as the contents of the report, referred to all the territories as "occupied territories" as their official name:

Under Trump, "occupied territories" was replaced with "West Bank and Gaza":

Now, under Biden, the territories are still referred to as West Bank and Gaza:

The only difference is that the 2020 edition says, in the West Bank and Gaza section, only once, that the territories were occupied in 1967: not that they are considered occupied today, as the Obama reports said repeatedly.

This section of the report covers the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem territories that Israel occupied during the June 1967 war. In 2017 the United States recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Language in this report is not meant to convey a position on any final status issues to be negotiated between the parties to the conflict, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the borders between Israel and any future Palestinian state.

Saying that Israel occupied the territories during a war - which it did - is not at all the same as saying that these are "occupied territories" today, and the report avoids using that phrase completely, except in quotes from NGOs.

During the press conference announcing the report, Acting Assistant Secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Lisa Peterson was asked about this specifically:

QUESTION: I want to know, do you guys believe that the West Bank is occupied by Israel or not?

AMBASSADOR PETERSON: So we have presented the section as we have stated in previous years. This Human Rights Report refers to the commonly used geographic names of the area the report covers. So Israel, West Bank, and Gaza. This is intended to delineate geographic areas and puts them in alignment with – puts these reports in alignment with the rest of the report.

In other words, it is biased to refer to a geographic area with a contested political term, especially when no other region in the world is referred to that way.

This doesn't mean that the US does not consider the territories to be occupied, or partially occupied. That question has not been answered by the Biden administration, as far as I can tell. But it does mean that the US is no longer using the Obama-era and the UN formulation of automatically referring to them as occupied territories, which is clearly false in the case of Gaza or Area A by any sane definition of "occupied."

This is a very good thing. It shows that the Biden administration is not reflexively accepting the Palestinian position that they are living under "occupation" as the UN and Europe do, and as Obama did.

UPDATE: In a State Department briefing, the spokesperson did say explicitly that the United States considers the West Bank to be occupied today:

It is a historical fact that Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights after the 1967 war. That’s precisely why the 2020 Human Rights Report uses that term in the current context of the West Bank. It has been the longstanding position of previous administrations of both parties over the course of many decades. Do we think that the West Bank is occupied? Yes.

So it seems that the Biden administration position is that the West Bank is occupied - but neither Gaza nor the Golan Heights is.

The Congressional Research Service is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. it provides research services for members of Congress and it periodically updates its documents with new information.

It doesn't seem to keep the older versions of its research online, but various archive services keep older copies. And therein lies a tale.

Their document on the Palestinians, Background and US Relations (RL34074) has been revised several times.

In January 2010, the document said this:

Historians have noted that the concept of Palestinian national identity is a relatively recent phenomenon and in large part grew from the challenge posed by increased Jewish migration to the region during the eras of Ottoman and British control in the first half of the 20th century. Palestinian identity emerged during the British Mandate period, began to crystallize with the 1947 United Nations partition plan, and grew stronger following Israel’s conquest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.

The footnote for the first sentence comes from Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. Palestinian identity was very weak before 1967, and, by any measure, and there was no serious desire to build a Palestinian state. Palestinians didn't even refer to themselves as Palestinians before the 1960s. (The 1964 PLO Covenant consistently says "Palestinian Arab people.") It certainly wasn't grassroots but a reaction to Zionism - the desire to stop a Jewish state more than building a Palestinian Arab state.

In 2012, the paragraph remains, but a new part was added that essentially contradicts it:

Since the early 20th century, the desire to establish an independent state in historic Palestine has remained the dominant Palestinian national goal.

This is doubly false.

I would argue that the Palestinians never had a goal of an independent state. They have had the opportunities to do that many times, from the Peel plan up through negotiations that they abandoned during the Obama years. Their goal, which used to be explicit and now is only mentioned in Arabic, is to destroy the Jewish state. But even if you have a more charitable view of Palestinian nationalism, it was practically nonexistent before the establishment of the PLO in 1964 (which only wanted the land controlled by Israel before "occupation") and only gained steam after 1967 when the Arab goal of defeating Israel militarily faded. There was little interest in an independent Palestinian state when Jordan annexed the west bank of the river and when Egypt controlled Gaza.

Secondly, the phrase "historic Palestine" is also a fiction. Historic Palestine, if you look at any map before 1922, is the land controlled by the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel in Biblical times - it includes large swaths of what is now Jordan, parts of Lebanon and very little of the Negev.

In November 2018, the paragraph that said that Palestinian national identity is recent and a reaction to Zionism disappeared from the report. All we see now is how it was dominant in Palestinian circles throughout the 20th century, which is simply false.

Oddly, all of these reports were written by the same person: Jim Zanotti, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs.

The 2007 edition, written by a different person, doesn't even mention any history of Palestinian nationalism at all. It briefly mentions Arab nationalism: "During the 1950s and 1960s, as the winds of Arab nationalism blew across the region, radical Arab leaders in Egypt and Syria pressed for military action against Israel."

In eleven years, Palestinian nationalism went from nonexistent to a recent phenomenon to the dominant Palestinian idea since the early part of the 20th century.

No new footnotes have appeared to defend the new narrative.

Is this history, or political correctness?

It’s All About Bibi (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

The whole story of Israeli politics today is Binyamin Netanyahu.

I won’t bore you with countless scenarios, most of which are about as likely as the one in which I become Prime Minister. Everything is contained in six numbers:

Number of Knesset seats needed to form a government: 61.
Number committed to join a coalition with Netanyahu: 52 (Likud, Shas, UTJ, Religious Zionism).
Number opposed to Netanyahu: 57 (seven parties).
Uncommitted: 7 (Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party).
Committed to supporting Netanyahu from outside the coalition: 4 (Ra’am party of Mansour Abbas*).
Number considered “right-wing”: 72 (Likud, Shas, Yamina, UTJ, Religious Zionism, Tikvah Hadasha).

What this tells us is that if it were not for the contentiousness of Binyamin Netanyahu, there would be a natural right-wing government. It’s what the majority of Israelis want. Bibi’s Likud party received almost twice as many seats (30) as his nearest competitor, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party (17). The Center, Left, and Arab parties (except Ra’am) amount to only 44. The right-wing-but-not-Bibi group has 20.

The ideological differences between this last group and Netanyahu are small to nonexistent. It’s personal to a great extent: Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) and Gideon Sa’ar (Tikvah Hadasha) were all formerly members of the Likud who were squeezed out by Bibi, who does not tolerate even theoretical competition for leadership of the party. Lieberman and Bennett had cabinet positions in several previous coalitions in which they were prevented from exercising their supposed authority by a micro-managing Bibi.

Netanyahu is presently on trial on several charges of corruption, and if he is convicted he will have to step down as Prime Minister. A great deal of what has happened in Israeli politics in the past two years revolves around his opponents’ attempts to bring him down by means of these charges, and his struggle to stay in power – and out of jail. The charges are a mixed bag: the ones considered most serious by the prosecutors are called by some “invented crimes” that are merely politics as usual. On the other hand, it seems clear that he (and his wife – who is a big part of the problem) took expensive gifts from foreigners who had business with the government.

Bibi is so hated by the Left that there have been demonstrations with thousands of participants going on outside his homes and in other locations every Saturday night for at least a year. They accuse him of “destroying democracy and the rule of law” for his attempts to rein in the judiciary, including the Supreme Court and the state prosecutor’s office. But while, obviously, he is pursuing his personal interest, it is still true that the left-leaning legal establishment has arrogated to itself almost unlimited power and has destroyed the balance of powers between the legislature, the government, and the judiciary that is essential for a truly just regime.

There is no question that Bibi jealously hoards his power, and does not delegate it in areas that he considers important. He breaks promises repeatedly, both to his constituents and to other politicians. He has on occasion been responsible for ugly campaigns of innuendo against his opponents, such as a rumor that Naftali Bennett’s wife worked as a chef at a non-kosher restaurant (Bennett is an observant Jew as are many of his supporters), and that Benny Gantz (Blue and White) had an affair with another government minister.

And yet…

And yet, Bibi has been a great Prime Minister, arguably Israel’s greatest. His reign, the longest in the history of the state, has been remarkably peaceful. Some say he has only “kicked the can down the road,” but others argue that he has managed the covert war against Iran and its proxies very effectively, preventing Iran from going nuclear and interdicting the supply of improved weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. He has been criticized (unfairly, I think) for the poor relationship with former US President Obama (I blame Obama for this) but he presented Israel’s case to the US Congress forcefully, and galvanized opposition to the Iran deal, even if its opponents were ultimately outmaneuvered. On his watch the US finally moved its Embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights, and exited the Iran deal. Bibi achieved improved relations with numerous countries, including the ground-breaking Abraham Accords with several Arab nations that were formerly counted among our enemies.

He has been criticized for the handling of the airport during the pandemic, as well as being too easy on the Haredim, who kept schools and yeshivot open and held massive weddings and funerals against government rules. But he did the one thing that was most important with respect to the Coronavirus: he brought us the vaccines that made Israel one of the most successful countries in the world in dealing with it. Yes, it is annoying that he constantly brags about it, and how it was a personal accomplishment, as if he himself vaccinated millions of Israelis. But as a matter of fact, it was – he truly did “obsessively” call the CEOs of the vaccine manufacturers. He did take the difficult decision to pay a premium price for the vaccine and provide data to the manufacturers. He did this. He had help of course, from the HMOs and the Health Ministry that set up the distribution system, but he is right in taking credit for it. Thanks to Bibi, today we are reopening our economy and returning to ordinary life, while Europeans are still struggling with lockdowns and shortages of vaccine.

I did not vote for him. Although his accomplishments are many, I am convinced that it’s time for new leadership. I voted for Bennett, whom I believe is smart enough and creative enough, as well as ideologically committed to strengthening Israel, including the Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan valley, areas that are both the spiritual heartland of the nation as well as essential for its defense. And he has the moral qualifications, too. Is Bennett tough enough? Time will tell, although I think so.

But Bennett, whose party has a total of seven seats, is probably not going to be Prime Minister this time. I will go out on a limb and predict that Bibi will manage to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat once again, and Bennett and Sa’ar will join his coalition. He will either persuade the necessary two members of the Knesset from other parties to jump to his side, or he will convince the other members of his coalition to accept the support of the Ra’am party – an Arab Islamist party led by Mansour Abbas, who for pragmatic reasons will support Netanyahu and Likud.
If this happens, it will prove once again that in addition to being one of Israel’s greatest Prime Ministers, he is also an incredibly adroit politician. If he is also smart enough to understand that now is the time to step back and start thinking about retirement, that would also be good.
_____________________
* An Israeli Arab politician, not to be confused with the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.

03/31 Links Pt2: Lies in the cognitive war against Israel; Combating Antisemitism Benefits the Arab World; Coronavirus: The Appropriation of Holocaust Symbolism; The Disintegration of the ACLU

From Ian:

Lies in the cognitive war against Israel Part 1

In the cognitive war against Israel, supporters of what historian Bat Ye’or called "Palestinianism" have come to accept the fact that Israel will not be defeated employing traditional tools of warfare. Instead, the Jewish state’s enemies, abetted by the academic and media elites in the West, have been using different, but equally dangerous, tactics to delegitimize and eventually destroy Israel in a cognitive war.

By dressing up old hatreds against Jews and transforming it into what comprises the “new anti-Semitism,” combined with a purported goal of seeking social justice for the oppressed and repackaging ugly biases as academic scholarship, professors, student activist groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and Israel’s other ideological foes have found an effective, but odious, way to ensure that the Jew of nations, Israel, is still accused of being:
-a racist, apartheid oppressor of an indigenous people;
-white European Jews with no historical connection to the Holy Land who are colonial usurpers of Muslim land;
-the main impediment to Middle East peace;
-a brutal military occupier of land on which illegal “settlements” are built as a way of subjugating an existing innocent population in the quest for a Great Israel that will swallow even more territory to which the Jews have no legitimate claim.

This is the current narrative in what Melanie Phillips has called “the world turned upside down,” an inversion of truth and fiction, calumnies and lies targeting the Jewish state in an effort to elevate the Palestinian Arab cause, delegitimize Israel, and make Israel a pariah in the world community.

This narrative is based on a presentation of lies, a series of repeated tropes about the malignancy and illegality of Israel that has little to do with facts, history, or reason. These lies are repeated promiscuously until they accepted as fact, a Goebbel-esque tradition which creates a new truth through the unrelenting repetition of falsity, disingenuity, and distortions of reality.

What follows are some of the major tropes which together serve to perpetuate the false narrative about Israel:

BESA: Combating Antisemitism Benefits the Arab World

Deep-rooted and persistent antisemitism is one of the central reasons for the Arab world’s lack of innovation and development relative to Israel and the Western world. The problem of antisemitism in the Arab world needs to be addressed before attempts are made to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, not postponed until after a solution is found.

The Abraham Accords marked a historic turning point after decades of Arab and Muslim antisemitism. This year, for the first time, International Holocaust Memorial Day was observed by Arabs from the Accords states as well as other Arab activists who work to combat antisemitism.

In the 1,300 years since the rise of Islam, when Jews were broadly accepted as part of the Islamic-dominated Middle East, if in the socially and legally-institutionalized inferior status of “a protected religious minority” (or Dhimmis), the region flourished. Conversely, there is an observable correlation between the rise of more widespread and virulent Islamic and Arab antisemitism and a pattern of instability, terrorism, and lack of development.

Pan-Arabism and Islamism created an enemy to explain away their failures. The Jews became the scapegoat for the inability of Arab states to keep pace with Western scientific and creative development. Pan-Arabists and Islamists spent decades feeding Arabs a steady diet of conspiracy theories to convince them that the Jews were to blame for all that ailed their societies.

Despite the campaign of hatred directed at it by the Arab world from its earliest days, Israel developed rapidly and has won 12 Nobel Prizes—more per capita than the US, France, and Germany—to the Arab world’s six since 1966. Israel is a high-tech superpower and one of the world’s largest arms exporters, with annual arms sales of approximately $6.5 billion. Despite Israel’s small size, about 4.5% of its GDP is spent on research and development, double the OECD average. Of this amount, about 30% goes to military R&D. By contrast, only 2% of German R&D and 17% of US R&D are devoted to the military.

The Disintegration of the ACLU

Puzzling, that is, until you realize that—like so many other institutions whose worthy missions we naively assumed to be inviolable—the ACLU is no longer itself. The organization known as the ACLU is now led by people beholden to an ideology purporting that the essential function of the Constitution has been to serve as a blueprint for white supremacy, and that its broad free-speech protections are not a tool of emancipation for society’s underdogs but rather the handmaiden of their oppression.

The capture of elite institutions by those in thrall to this dogma is how the movie industry can simultaneously venerate victims of the Hollywood blacklist while instituting its own content guidelines in the friendly guise of “representation and inclusion standards.” It’s how you get the bizarre phenomenon of journalists braying for censorship, and a newspaper union abandoning one of its members to the tender mercies of a corporate human resources minion out of Kafka. And it’s how a star attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that once prided itself on sending Jewish lawyers to defend the constitutional rights of neo-Nazis, issues a public call for a digital book burning.

Another casualty of the new dispensation is the intelligent yet civil debate between ideological adversaries modeled by Buckley and Glasser. For over three decades, Buckley invited the most significant left-wing politicians, activists, poets, intellectuals, comedians, and rabble rousers onto Firing Line. It took confidence to debate a man as well-read and rhetorically ambidextrous as Buckley, but his guests—Glasser prominent among them—gave as good as they got. Watching their spirited conversations, and comparing these with the dreck that fills our television airwaves today, is like an anthropologist discovering a lost tribe. If Buckley were still alive, many of today’s leading progressive heavyweights would not only refuse to debate him; they’d organize a petition to boot him off the air. Some of Glasser’s successors at the ACLU would probably sign it.

Much as it tries to inspire hope for the future of free speech and open inquiry, Mighty Ira stands as an elegy to a world that no longer exists—a world in which professional sports teams contributed something actually meaningful to the advancement of racial equality rather than ritualized grandstanding, the most famous conservative in the country was an almost parodically civilized intellectual and not some bloviating demagogue, personal affinity wasn’t contingent upon ideological affinity, and the American Civil Liberties Union stood for principles instead of party. Alas, for the rulers of our brave new world, those principles are as exotic as a Spaldeen ball.

“Exodus” was a fitting selection for Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day feature for March 28, the first day of the Jewish festival of Passover (Pesach). Pesach, after all, celebrates the miraculous Jewish exodus from Egypt, where the Jews were subject to the worst human rights abuses and constrained from observing their religion for 430 years. Perhaps less fitting than the selection of that particular word on that particular day, were the two word definitions on offer, neither of which, it might be said, referred to the event as such: the Jewish Exodus from Egypt, the anniversary of which is celebrated on Passover. Aside from this omission, the first definition conflates “Jewish and Christian Scripture,” in effect, robbing the event of its distinct Jewish character and identity on the day commemorating the Exodus, Passover.

Definition

1 capitalized : the mainly narrative second book of canonical Jewish and Christian Scripture

2 : a mass departure : emigration

The first Merriam-Webster definition tells us that capitalized, "Exodus" refers to a book of shared provenance. The Jewish name for this book, however, is not "Exodus" but "Shmot," a Hebrew word meaning "Names," as the book begins with the names of the first group of Jews who went down to Egypt. "Exodus" on the other hand, is a word that has its origins in Greek and Latin, one more apparent attempt at erasing that book's Jewish provenance.

For believing Jews, the Torah was given only to Jews, and the Exodus, referred to by Jews in Hebrew as "Yetziat Mitzrayim" (liberation from Egypt) was a miracle performed for the sole benefit of the Jewish people, with God’s direct, divine intervention: "Va-yotzienu Hashem Elokeinu misham be-yad chazaka u-be-zeroa netuya u-be-mora gadol u-be-otot u-be-moftim" – "God liberated you with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with impressive revelation, and with signs and miracles."

Despite the fact that the Exodus is a singular event that is specific to the Jewish People, Merriam-Webster suggests (on Pesach Day!) that Jews and Christians share the same book and apparently the same event as equals. This flies in the face of basic Jewish theology, displaying what some might call a callous disregard for Jewish history and belief. The second Merriam-Webster definition for "Exodus" milks the meaning out of the word still further, by leaving the Bible altogether and making generic reference to mass emigration.

In effect, Merriam-Webster tells us what "Exodus" means on Passover Day, without actually telling us what it means. Some might call this "goy-splaining." Merriam-Webster supplies the general public with two definitions for the word "Exodus," with neither referring to the Jewish miracle. One could argue that these two definitions are therefore offensive, as they serve to erase the special Jewish character of the day. This Word of the Day feature, in its seeming innocuousness, is an expression of cultural and religious appropriation.

But back to "Exodus." Having read the definitions, we arrive at the “Did You Know?” word trivia section. Here, the idea is introduced for the first time that the Exodus relates to the Jewish liberation from Egypt. It is explained to us, however, that the word has evolved, and now refers to "any mass departure."

Did You Know?

The Biblical book of Exodus describes the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, so it's no surprise that the word has come to refer more generally to any mass departure. The word itself was adopted into English (via Latin) from Greek Exodos, which literally means "the road out."

Merriam-Webster then helpfully offers two contemporary examples to show how the word no longer means what it once meant: the Jewish liberation from Egypt:

Examples

"Much has been made of the 'Silicon Valley Exodus.' The conventional wisdom holds that the discovery of feasible remote work arrangements during this pandemic has employers—and their employees—fleeing the Bay Area for more affordable destinations." — Sam Liccardo, The San Francisco Chronicle, 6 Feb. 2021

"Throughout the pandemic, there has been an uptick of people vacating the city in exchange for more space in the suburban and rural outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area…. According to a report from Statistics Canada, from July 2019-July 2020, Toronto saw an exodus of 50,375 people moving to other regions and provinces." — Natasha Philpott, Bradford (Ontario) Today, 7 Feb. 2021

To summarize, only in the trivia section appended to this Word of the Day feature does Merriam-Webster at last deign to tell us that the Exodus was an event specific to the Jewish people (though the word "Jewish" is not actually there). We are informed moreover, despite a millennia of the annual Passover seder performed by Jewish people all over the world to celebrate the event, that the word “Exodus” now refers “more generally to any mass departure.” Examples of how the word "Exodus" is applied today, relate to contemporary events, such as the pandemic, and how people have fled to better work opportunities and more affordable conditions. (What they aren't doing: fleeing from cruel taskmasters who work them to death building pyramids out of mud while denying them religious freedom.)

It is of course true that words evolve. But the word "Exodus" still signifies the Jewish liberation from Egypt, even today. This is not a footnote appended to a word definition, but a Jewish reality. We reference yetziat mitzrayim several times a day in our daily prayers. Every Jew is commanded, moreover, to tell the story of yetziat mitzrayim on Passover: וְהִגַּדְתָּ֣ לְבִנְךָ֔ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַה֖וּא לֵאמֹ֑ר בַּעֲב֣וּר זֶ֗ה עָשָׂ֤ה יְהוָה֙ לִ֔י בְּצֵאתִ֖י מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃ And you shall explain to your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the LORD did for me when I went free from Egypt.’ (Shmot 13:8)

That is, in fact, the entire purpose of the Passover seder. To suggest that yetziat mitzrayim no longer has the same (read Jewish) meaning is cultural appropriation, today a most sensitive subject. From Wikipedia:

When cultural elements are copied from a minority culture by members of a dominant culture, and these elements are used outside of their original cultural context—sometimes even against the expressly stated wishes of members of the originating culture – this is cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation is not only a sensitive subject, but a popular one, and the reason Reem Kassis was paid by the Washington Post to write a piece called “Here’s why Palestinians object to the term ‘Israeli food’: It erases us from history.”

Kassis concludes that Israeli Jews, in an act of cultural appropriation, obscure the true origins of such Middle Eastern standbys as hummus and falafel by calling them “Israeli”:

Dubbing these dishes Israeli in name does not erase the origin of their components or that most of them still come inside or alongside a Palestinian culinary artifact. The irony, though, is that the newly constructed Israeli food culture prides itself on being a byproduct of many influences and immigrant forces while failing to highlight the most important influence — that of the local Palestinian food culture.

It matters little that there was never a sovereign state called "Palestine" and therefore, there can be no such thing as "Palestinian" nationality or heritage. Because Kassis is using sleight of hand. The writer is using the language and words of cultural appropriation to assert a lie with the end goal of appropriation: in this case, the appropriation of Jewish land.

Shivani Persad wrote an op-ed for Cosmopolitan called “You Can’t Say Black Lives Matter if You’re Still Appropriating Black Culture.” Persad, reminiscing over a Twitter thread in the days following the murder of George Floyd says that white people “actively appropriate Black culture” when they post about police brutality “as if they are not also implicated in this system of oppression.”

Persad, in effect, is telling us that there are separate rules for white people, for white behavior, for the words white people are allowed and not allowed to use. And scores of white people believe her, falling in with her suggested mode of behavior and speech. They are no longer allowed to protest brutality, because they are white.

Like Kassis, Persad stands as the accuser, the morality police, dictating a new behavior while accusing others of cultural appropriation, inventing the language as she goes along, but using those words with authority and picking and choosing the acceptable definitions. In both cases, accusations of cultural appropriation are bogus. We are allowed to call the melting pot cuisine that developed during thousands of years of dispersion: "Israeli." Whites are allowed to speak out against police brutality. Neither is a case of actual cultural appropriation.

Language, it is clear, is probably the most important tool in the arsenal of cultural appropriation, whether that appropriation is actual or tactical. We have, for example, the issue of individuals appropriating Holocaust language for the purpose of referring to any event deemed onerous or unpleasant. Anti-vaxxers like to say, for example, that in "forcing” people to be vaccinated, this or that government is "just like the Nazis." The Never Trumpers like to say that "Trump is Hitler," referencing his policies on illegal immigration and the wall he built, as if the policies and the construction of a wall were at all comparable to the predicament faced by the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust (P.S. They are not.)

Appropriating the language of the Holocaust is offensive because the Holocaust was a singular event. It was the only time millions of one people were rounded up and shoved into ovens, gassed and burned. And if something is “like” the Holocaust, then the Holocaust must not have been all that special or horrific, after all. Not to mention that the Holocaust had the effect of nearly decimating the Jewish people. The Holocaust was the Final Solution. It was Jewish genocide,

In a similar vein, albeit with a much happier outcome, yetziat mitzrayim, the "Exodus," was a singularly Jewish event. Using the Greek/Latin word, and superimposing a new meaning over even that word, on the holiday that commemorates that day, is a terrible thing--if we will only have the courage to tell the truth. A Jewish person would be within their rights to find it unacceptable to refer to "Exodus" as a shared book--our book is Shmot--or as a general mass emigration from Silicon Valley for economic reasons. This is the language of cultural appropriation. It's taking something Jewish and making it about something else, with the authority of the language people: Merriam-Webster.

But one could also argue that cultural appropriation, as an idea, is only a pop trend. Something that serious people don’t spend even five minutes of their day to consider. And yet, perhaps we Jews should consider this issue of cultural appropriation by others, from a perspective of Jewish strength and pride, to assert and protect our rights as a people with a distinct culture and tradition. This leads to still more intriguing thoughts and questions:

Are Jews allowed to take umbrage when the word “Exodus” is used to refer to both Jewish and Christian Scripture? Or is that just silly?

Is it permitted for us to take offense when people unwittingly refer to “shared Judeo-Christian heritage?” Or should we shut up and adopt the accepted norm: that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

May we take exception when the language of the "Exodus," a miraculous Jewish event, is used by Merriam-Webster to refer to mass emigration from Silicon Valley for economic purposes—and on Pesach, of all days? Or should we just wave this away as an insignificant and unintended faux pas?

But the most important question is this: At a time when other minorities are standing against the perceived injustice of cultural appropriation, when do the Jewish people get to do the same? Should everything that is ours be shared and generalized for public consumption? Are our history and our miracles free for the taking?

When do the Jews get to stand up for themselves. When do we stand up for our history, and our culture?

Or is cultural appropriation something that Jews alone must never be allowed to protest?

03/31 Links Pt1: In return to pre-Trump norm, State Dept report refers to ‘occupied’ territories; IDF’s Point Man on Iran Says Israel ‘Definitely’ Has Capacity to Destroy Nuclear Program

From Ian:

Vic Rosenthal: The Invisible War

I’ve written before about the European Union’s intervention in Judea/Samaria, how our “friends” in Europe pour massive amounts of money into illegal Palestinian development in Area C – the part of the territory that is supposed to be under full Israeli control according to the Oslo Accords. Control of these areas is absolutely critical for the defense of the State of Israel, both against Palestinian terrorism and against invasion across our borders.

Area C had very few Arab residents, and contains virtually all of the Jewish communities outside the 1949 armistice lines. Although President Trump’s “Deal of the Century” encouraged Israel to extend Israeli law to much of this area, it did not happen – to a great extent because of the chaos brought about by successive elections, and PM Netanyahu’s preoccupation with his legal problems.

Palestinians and their supporters typically falsely accuse Israel of precisely the evil intentions that they themselves hold toward us, and this is no exception. One hears no end of talk of “creeping annexation,” in which Jewish settlements are said to be inexorably capturing “Palestinian land,” while Israel torpedoes attempts to reach a negotiated settlement to end “the occupation.” But the reality is precisely the opposite: the Palestinian Arabs are increasingly appropriating land and building illegal settlements in Area C.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant European-funded left-wing Israeli NGOs like B’Tselem and others, with the cooperation of Israel’s Supreme Court and other elements of the judicial system, there has been very little, if any, growth in the area occupied by Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria for decades. But Palestinian construction, agricultural development, and conversion of state land into what the courts will declare “private Palestinian land” is flourishing in Area C, paid for by money from Europe and Qatar.

The motivations of the EU, which has adopted the Palestinian cause as its own, are manifold. There is the influence of Europe’s growing Muslim population. There is the lingering effect of decades of Soviet anti-Israeli propaganda. There is the residual guilt over European colonialism (the European Left is wedded to the view that Israel is a colonial power), and of course over their cooperation with the Nazis. By equating Israel with the Nazis that they allowed (and sometimes helped) to murder the Jews of Europe, and then opposing us, they expiate their guilt.

But regardless of its causes, this is war, a war to conquer and occupy territory, and part of a long-time campaign to end Jewish sovereignty altogether. It is being fought with money and not guns, but ultimately it will come to that. It’s a war that doesn’t make headlines, and a war that’s invisible to most of our people and politicians. Our opponent is an axis that includes some of the richest nations in the world, who are allied with our bitterest enemies. And it appears that the new government of our formerly most important ally, the US, is sympathetic to their cause.

In return to pre-Trump norm, State Dept report refers to ‘occupied’ territories

In a partial return to a pre-Trump era norm, the US State Department’s annual report on human rights violations around the world published today refers to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as territories “occupied” by Israel.

However, the Biden administration does not go as far as to title the specific chapter in the 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices “Israel and the Occupied Territories,” as had been the custom for decades until the Trump administration, led by former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman, pushed to have it altered to say “Israel” followed by a list of the disputed territories.

In the 2017 report, the chapter was titled “Israel, Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza. After then-US president Donald Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the 2018 and 2019 reports dropped that territory from the section title.

The 2020 report — the first during the Biden administration — uses the same chapter label from the previous two years, “Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.”

In addition to changing the chapter title, the Trump-led State Department dropped almost every mention of occupation from the 2017, 2018 and 2019 annual reports. The 2016 report was published in the early months of Republican administration, while the more moderate Rex Tillerson was secretary of state and before Friedman began his stint as ambassador. The 2020 chapter states that it “covers the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem territories that Israel occupied during the June 1967 war.”

Debunking the Fake History of Palestine & Israel

Ever wondered where the Palestinians came from and when the term “Palestine” was first used to refer to the land of Israel? Find out on today’s show.

Experience the Aaronic Blessing live from the Western Wall during Passover. Get a tour of the Temple Mount with former Knesset Member and Rabbi Yehuda Glick during Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits.

Afterwards, Joshua and Luke dive into a hard-hitting segment on the real history of the land of Canaan. Who was here first, the Arab or the Jew? When do we first hear the term Palestinian and Palestine?

You might be surprised that “Palestinians” did not refer to Arabs in the 1940s and 1950s.

Want to equip yourself with the facts of the land of Israel and the history of her people? This show can do just that.

Israel haters want a definition of antisemitism that allows Palestinians to be antisemitic

The reaction of the BDS crowd to the "Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism" - which was embraced by actual antisemites and their enablers - was that, while it is much better than the IHRA that they hate so much, it isn't enough.

The BDS Movement is upset that JDA says “Portraying Israel as the ultimate evil or grossly exaggerating its actual influence” might be a “coded way of racializing and stigmatizing Jews.” According to BDS, in "the absolute majority of cases related to defending Palestinian rights such inference would be entirely misplaced."

Meaning, Israel really is the ultimate evil, and how dare anyone disagree!

“Applying the symbols, images and negative stereotypes of classical antisemitism … to the State of Israel” is perfectly OK according to the BDS Movement, and it is offensive to say otherwise.

“Denying the right of Jews in the State of Israel to exist and flourish, collectively and individually, as Jews, in accordance with the principle of equality” is also not antisemitic according to BDS. Really! They say that Jews have no rights to live in the land because it is all Palestinian Arab land, and therefore any talk about "equality" between Jews and Arabs is really a code word for colonialism. Jews have no rights to live in their ancestral homeland, according to these bastions of liberalism.

Perhaps the best summary of the immorality of the BDsers on justifying antisemitism comes from this quote:

In English, this means that Palestinians should have the right to call Jews Nazis, baby-killers, genocidal maniacs, poisoners of wells, and people who harvest Palestinian organs and blood for satanic rituals - because if that is what Palestinians believe, it is legitimate opinion and cannot be called antisemitic.

In the end, the Israel haters want a "get out of jail" free card to engage in the most vile Jew hatred, because there is a Palestinian exception to antisemitism.

Lately, it seems, everyone wants to define antisemitism.

For years since the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance issued its Working Definition of Antisemitism, which accurately included examples of antisemitism that manifested itself as hatred towards Israel, that definition has been under attack from anti-Zionists. But only recently has that crowd attempted to come up with their own definition - the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.

Meanwhile, another group - the Nexus Task force - tries to replace the IHRA definition with a more watered down version that, like the JDA, focuses nearly as much on what they say antisemitism isn't (criticism of Israel) rather than what it is.

The three definitions referred to each have a core component, yet each one of those definitions are lacking, hence the need for each of them to add explanations and examples.

The IHRA:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

This is lacking. It is not at all obvious that this includes attacks on Israel as a Jewish state - it would be a stretch to say that Israel is community institution or religious facility. The IHRA's examples are excellent but the definition itself doesn't cover them.

JDA:

Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).

This is worse. Attacks on Judaism aren't covered. Although listing "discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence" is an improvement over IHRA's "hatred."

Nexus Task Force:

Antisemitism consists of anti-Jewish beliefs, attitudes, actions or systemic conditions. It includes negative beliefs and feelings about Jews, hostile behavior directed against Jews (because they are Jews), and conditions that discriminate against Jews and significantly impede their ability to participate as equals in political, religious, cultural, economic, or social life.
As an embodiment of collective Jewish organization and action, Israel can be a target of antisemitism and antisemitic behavior. Thus, it is important for Jews and their allies to understand what is and what is not antisemitic in relation to Israel.

This is lengthy and it also treats hate of Israel as a special case of antisemitism, when it is a core example.

I decided to enter the fray.

I wanted to create a definition that could stand alone without examples and that would be short enough to fit in a tweet, a definition that includes all kinds of antisemitism and excludes what isn't, one that doesn't treat hatred of Israel as a special case of antisemitism with different rules than other types.

Here is what I came up with. (The line breaks are deliberate to make it easier to read and understand.)

Antisemitism is
hostility toward,
denigration of or
discrimination against
Jews
as individual Jews,
as a people,
as a religion,
as an ethnic group or
as a nation (i.e., Israel.)

Some Jews identify as being part of the Jewish religion, some are atheists but identify with the Jewish people, some as an ethnic group, some as Zionist - part of the Jewish nation. All of these are legitimate aspects of Jewishness, and attacking any one of them is antisemitic, no matter how individual Jews identify.

Judaism is multifaceted, and unfair attacks on any of these facets is antisemitism, no matter how individuals feel.

Attacking Jews as a religious group is clearly antisemitic even to Jews who don't adhere to the religion. Likewise, attacking the Jewish state is just as antisemitic as attacking Jews as a people. Why distinguish between different aspects of Jewishness? A thoroughly secular Israeli who only identifies as Jewish through his Zionism is as much a Jew - and as much a target for antisemitism - as an atheist Jew in America whose Jewish ties comes from lox and bagels. An attack on one is an attack on all.

People who reject Israel as the Jewish state have no right to exclude Israel as an expression of Jewishness and target for anti-Jewish hate any more than people who reject Judaism as a religion can exclude religious Jews from a definition of what Jewishness includes. Roughly half of all Jews now live in Israel and the vast majority of the rest support Jewish nationalism, so the rejection of Zionism by a small minority has no bearing on the fact that Israel is just as much a component of Jewishness today as keeping Shabbat or speaking Yiddish.

The word "denigration" is important. Denigration specifically means unfair criticism. It excludes legitimate criticism - not only of Israel but of Judaism as a religion, or Jews as a people. Israel is not a special case - it is a specific manifestation of Jewishness today and should be treated no better or worse than any other manifestation. No further caveat or example is necessary.

Hostility towards Israel as a state is no more legitimate than hostility towards Jews as a people or as individual Jews. Hostility towards Israel is not about legitimate grievances - which would be anger at decision makers or leaders, not the entire state.

Discrimination against Israel is no different from discrimination against Jews as an ethnic group or as a people. Saying that Israel cannot be on certain UN committees, or considered a part of Asia in international forums, or that it is the only nation whose supposed crimes make it and its people subject to boycotts, or that somehow Jewish nationalism is pernicious when every other ethnic nationalism is accepted - all of those are discrimination and bigotry. When seen through this lens, it is obvious that all of those are antisemitic attacks on the Jewish state because it is Jewish.

Perhaps I didn't spend months with dozens of experts to come up with this definition, but I (modestly) think that this has great advantages the others.

I welcome all constructive criticism.

UPDATE: I modified this definition slightly to include Holocaust denial, the Khazar theory and other historical lies that pretend to be legitimate research. That is now on the graphics above.

The good news from the Gallup poll: America loves Israel as much as ever

Israel haters are ecstatic over one result of a recent Gallup poll that shows that, for the first time, a majority of Democrats support the US pressuring Israel to resolve the conflict.

It is a significant result, but other parts of the poll are quite a bit better for Israel than the haters want you to realize.

Some other results:

75% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Israel - a steady rise from 47% in 1992 (although in 1991 there was a huge bump for Israel during the first Gulf war, the only year that more than 75% of Americans had a favorable opinion of Israel - for not defending itself.)

64% of Democrats have favorable opinion of Israel, far more than the 38% who have a favorable opinion of the Palestinian Authority. This is most definitely not something that Mondoweiss or IfNotNow wants to trumpet.

If you look at enthusiasm, the people who love Israel (very favorable opinion) outnumber those who hate Israel (very unfavorable opinion) by 26%-6%. This is opposite to the Palestinian Authority, where only 5% love it and 24% look at it very unfavorably.

As Gallup summarizes:

Israel enjoys an enormous advantage over the Palestinian Authority in Americans' favorable ratings toward the two groups. Against that backdrop, Americans are also inclined to say they sympathize more with the Israelis than the Palestinians in the Mideast conflict. This aligns with decades of U.S. foreign policy that has stood by Israel at the United Nations and with foreign aid.

So when the haters cherry pick one statistic from many, it is important to remember that the United States remains very pro-Israel - and in some ways it is the most pro-Israel it has been in three decades.