Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 09, 2018

Are you disgusted by Ben & Jerry’s political ice cream? Try Forest’s flavors of yum! (Forest Rain)

Ice cream is something I used to think of as a luxury item. I needed someone else to make it. I had to pay the prices they dictated. I was glad that it’s not cheap because it made it easier not to have the delicious fat-making stuff around.

Now there is ice-cream in my house all the time. I make it myself.

Even before Ben & Jerry’s “PeCAN Resist” I saw some research about ice-cream and it turns out that most of the ice cream brands on offer in the stores don’t have a lot of actual ice cream in them. They are full of sugar and chemicals and sometimes there is no cream at all!

In Israel Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs are the higher quality brands that are actual ice-cream. Both are expensive and come in small containers that if you have three grown men in your house is a completely irrelevant portion size.

Recently the always political Ben & Jerry’s went over the top. It is one thing to be left-leaning in politics. Ben & Jerry have the right to infuse politics in their business as much as they please but for Jews concerned with the rise of Antisemitism around the world and particularly in America, this step was too much.

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Director of Special Projects Elizabeth Berney, Esq. released the following statement:

Appallingly, Ben and Jerry’s has given the public a new reason to not buy their fat-and-sugar-laden and unhealthy ice cream: A new Ben and Jerry’s flavor called “PeCAN Resist” supports unsavory hate-promoting, violence-promoting, anti-Semitic political groups, including: the Israel-bashing “Women’s March” along with its Jew-hating, violence-promoting, anti-Israel boycott-promoting leaders Linda Sarsour and Farrakhan associate Tamika Mallory; “Color of Change,” which is running a campaign promoting Maxine Waters’ call for harassment and incivility; and a subsidiary of “Progress Texas” which is demonizing pro-Israel Senator Ted Cruz as a subhuman monster. This is frankly sickening and frightening, especially so soon after the Pittsburgh Synagogue massacre and other appalling anti-Semitic and violent incidents.

It is deeply painful that Ben & Jerry’s heads Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield – who are Jewish – are promoting, financially supporting and taking a smiling picture with Jew-haters such as Linda Sarsour, who promote massacres (the intifada) and boycotts against Ben & Jerry’s fellow Jews. Ben & Jerry’s insensitive, alarming and downright dangerous promotion has been correctly widely criticized, including in Israel and by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

So, here’s the thing. You don’t need Ben & Jerry’s in order to have good ice cream. If you have a mixer in your house, you can make your own ice cream, any time you want.

You don’t need an ice cream maker. You don’t need anything special at all. This is what you need:

· 1 mixer

· Whipping cream

· Concentrated milk

· Your choice of flavoring

Flavors:

The favorites in my house are coffee and vanilla chocolate chip. We also make chocolate with Oreos and rum and raisins. You can make any flavor you like, add fruit or whatever is yummy in your tummy.

The base for every ice cream is the same. You control how sweet it is according to the proportions of ingredients you use.

This is how it’s done:

Whip cream until firm – I use a container of 500ml.

Mix in condensed milk – I use 1/3 of this 397gr tin (see photo).

*Amounts make 1 liter of ice cream

The principle of the proportions is -
Condensed milk is very sweet, the more you add the sweeter your ice cream will be.

It also effects the texture of the ice cream when it’s frozen. The more condensed milk, the softer the ice cream will be after it’s frozen.

When these are whipped together, you have the base of your ice cream. Now it’s time to add your flavor of choice:

· Vanilla extract + chocolate shavings makes vanilla chocolate chip.

· Cocoa powder makes your base chocolaty and then you can add cookies, chocolate, nuts or anything else you like.

· Add instant coffee to make coffee flavored ice cream – we like ours strong so I add 3 tablespoons.

· For rum & raisins I make a vanilla base and then add raisins that were presoaked in rum (or rum extract).

Try it! If you make a different flavor, let me know how you did it!

Warning: readily available yummy ice cream can make people fat.

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Unbelievable photos of Kristallnacht

From a Twitter thread by Elisheva Avital. Click to enlarge photos.
(I posted this without first asking her permission, and I apologize for that. I asked her if she wants me to remove this post.)

Today is the 80th anniversary of #Kristallnacht.

A personal story:
My grandfather fought in WWII. He never spoke about it, so we didn't know much about his time in the service, but based on the patches on his uniform, we think he did something in intel.

The next part takes place two years ago.
He died, and I'm cleaning out his house with my mom and sister.
We find a photo album.
When I open it, I feel like it might burn a hole in my hands.

The first few pages have pictures of Jewish homes being ransacked; people are in robes and pajamas. Several are bleeding.

Here, some jolly Nazis stealing Jewish holy books, later to be burned.

Now we move on to the stores:

The next section is like a gut-punch. They enter a synagogue, overturn everything. You can see prayer shawls strewn everywhere.

Then they get to the holy ark, and pry it open to steal the silver and burn the Torah. At this point I feel tears welling up in my eyes.

Then they pour accelerant, and set the whole thing ablaze. I had never before seen pictures of a shul on fire from the inside.

At this point, I take out some of the pictures and turn them over. This is what I find: November 10, 1938. Nuremburg.
A shiver goes through me. When I google the names, I find they were Nazi photojournalists.

These are behind-the-scenes pics of happy Nazis on a rampage, presumably on Kristallnacht.
What they were doing was COMPLETELY LEGAL.

You tell us "never again."
I'm not so sure.
#Kristallnacht #kristallnacht80

For those who have asked, I forgot to add: we have NO idea how he came to own these

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11/09 Links Pt1: Who speaks for the Democrats on Israel?; Gallant: We’re ready for peace with Arab states; The PA Moves to Take over Area C with European Financial Support

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: What America chose on Tuesday

Recognizing this state of affairs, Linda Sarsour, the rising antisemitic star of the progressive grassroots movement, bemoaned the election results.

Speaking at an Internet forum sponsored by the far-Left website Intercept and the far-Left activist network Democracy Now, Sarsour said: “This was not a blue wave, this was a blue dribble. We didn’t win overwhelmingly and it doesn’t look good if we don’t get our act straight for 2020...”

Sarsour then turned to Israel.

“What Democrats do immediately when there’s politics of fear coming from the opposition is they cower. They stay away from the Palestinians, they stay away from the leftists, and they stay away from the socialists. They stay away from those of us who are actually creating the momentum and the energy that is on the ground.

“The Democratic Party doesn’t have a foreign policy platform that... works for people like me... and then the minute that positioning comes in with fear politics, we cower, right? We go, ‘Oh, AIPAC is mad at us. Oh, those folks, the pro-Israel groups are mad at us.’”

She then made a pitch for ignoring the lessons of Tuesday’s poll by saying, “If you’re not willing to go all the way progressive, you’re just not going to win against Donald Trump in 2020.”

For the past two years, and indeed, for the better part of the past twelve years, the Republican Party has been divided between moderates and conservatives while the Democrats have seen the consistent rise of radical actors at the expense of their party’s moderates. Tuesday’s election unified the Republican Party along conservative principles behind Trump and it empowered moderate Democrats at the expense of the until-now ascendant radicals.

While everything is possible, Tuesday’s results have the potential to reduce the rage in US politics. They portend well for a revitalization of bipartisan support for Israel and for Trump’s reelection prospects.

Jonathan S. Tobin: Who speaks for the Democrats on Israel?

Opponents of Israel will have something to celebrate in January.

Rashida Tlaib will become the first Palestinian-American to serve in Congress. Tlaib, who will represent a suburban district outside of Detroit with a large Arab-American population, is an avowed opponent of Israel’s existence and a supporter of the BDS movement. She will find a kindred spirit in fellow freshman Democrat Ilhan Omar, who will be first Somali-American in Congress when she takes the oath to represent Minneapolis. Omar is a fierce critic of Israel, who has called it an “evil” country that has “hypnotized the world”—a standard anti-Semitic meme—and an “apartheid regime.”

Both are allied with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a socialist who will represent Queens, N.Y. Ocasio-Cortez said she wanted to end the “occupation of Palestine,” though she didn’t seem able to say whether that meant the West Bank or, as Palestinians define the term, all of Israel.

This trio of congressional newcomers is also allied with the Women’s March, whose leaders combine anti-Zionism with a soft spot for anti-Semitic hate-monger Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam.

We can expect them to unite with other Democrats to undermine the U.S.-Israel alliance, such as the dozens who signed letters last year championed by figures such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) calling for the lifting of the blockade of the terrorist Hamas regime that rules Gaza.

Intersectional ideology, which falsely analogizes the Palestinian war on Israel’s existence with the struggle for civil rights in the United States, has become fashionable in progressive circles. But those running the Democratic caucus are still firmly in the pro-Israel camp.

House Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—and the presumptive Speaker of the House next year—has been a fairly reliable friend of Israel, though not necessarily a fan of the Netanyahu government. The No. 2 Democrat in the House, current Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is an even more ardent supporter of Israel who has done his best over the years to keep left-wing members of his caucus in line with respect to the Middle East.

US Jews feel more positively towards Israel despite religious pluralism rift

Contrary to popular belief, American Jews’ feelings toward Israel have grown more positive in recent years, according to findings of a new poll conducted by the J-Street lobbying organization this week.

The poll, taken on the day of the US mid-term elections, apparently contradicts the frequent dire warnings heard from elements in the North American Jewish leadership that Diaspora Jews are becoming increasingly alienated from Israel because of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians and on matters of religious pluralism.

The survey, conducted by the GBA Strategies research organization for J-Street on a sample of 903 Jewish voters with a margin of error of 3.3%, found that 65 percent of respondents felt either very or somewhat emotionally attached to Israel, compared to 35 percent who felt not very attached or not at all attached to the Jewish state.

Asked if, compared to 5-10 years ago, they felt more positive or negative, or the same, towards Israel, 55% said they felt about the same, 26% said more positive and only 19% felt more negative.

The survey did note however that Jewish millennials are more evenly split on their attitudes towards Israel than Jews 35 years old and upwards, but full analysis of those results has not been published yet.

Questioned specifically on how Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians has affected their attitudes, a potent issue that is often believed to have alienated US Jews from Israel, the responses were similar.

From Jewish News:

A vigil held by pro-Israel activists in London for Jews murdered in Arab countries was dispersed violently by men shouting about killing Jews in Arabic.

The event on Wednesday by the Israel Advocacy Movement on Speaker’s Corner saw a few people holding Israeli flags and candles ahead of Kristallnacht.

Joseph Cohen, an Israel Advocacy Movement activist, filmed the event as about 20 men drowned his talk, shouting: “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.”

The cry relates to an event in the seventh century when Muslims massacred and expelled Jews from the town of Khaybar, located in modern-day Saudi Arabia. Some of the men shouted about “Palestine,” surrounding the pro-Jewish activists and shoving them.

“As if on cue, before we’d even begun an extremist began screaming a death chant of Jews,” Cohen said. “The vigil went from bad to worse, they shouted us down, they would not allow us to remember our dead until we had to call off the vigil,” he added. The occurrence “goes to the heart of the matter we’d gathered to commemorate in the first place,” he also said.

A German woman who witnessed the event said: “A Christian was preaching and the atmosphere was friendly, a Muslim was preaching, and there were shouts but the atmosphere was still friendly but as soon as Jews wanted to honor their dead a whole of crowd appeared out of nowhere, as soon as the flags appeared, the cursing began against people who only wanted to honour their dead.”

She added: “I think what we just saw was anti-Semitism.”

Here's video:

The Arab said to the Jews "you are a killer of the prophet" and then claimed he had nothing against Jews. He then denied the Holocaust occurred, using the "proof" of "there are six million people in London" and therefore it is impossible for so many Jews to be killed.

I could not find this story in one mainstream news outlet even though it happened on Wednesday night.

Antisemites interrupting a Jewish memorial event is newsworthy - but only when the antisemites are white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

When they are Arabs - silence.

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"...I'm afraid that you [Jewish people] will come to regret the day that I offered you a chance to let us sit down together and dialogue and you, in your emotional reaction, rejected that offer...You will [regret it] because if my influence and growth and power in America does not diminish and it will not, by the help of God, then what benefit would it be to you not to sit down and dialogue with me when the racial problem is not getting any better..."
Louis Farrakhan, Fox News Sunday interview, 3/30/97. Source: Jewish Virtual Library

That is the question -- just how influential is Louis Farrakhan, the Antisemitic leader of The Nation of Islam?

We know that he is influential enough that the likes of Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez (msladyjustice1) and Linda Sarsour have no compunction about associating with Farrakhan and praising him.

Farrakhan is influential enough that he got a front row seat at the funeral of Aretha Franklin, along with Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson -- and Bill Clinton.

Farrakhan is influential enough, that while the video of his calling Jews "termites" was banned by Facebook, Twitter continues to allow it:

But if you click on that link to watch the video on YouTube, you see this:

It's hard to understand how when the media claims to be dedicated to rooting out racism and Antisemitism, and people are being banned on social media for less -- Farrakhan roams free and untouched.

An article asking "Who Is Louis Farrakhan and Is He Still Relevant?" presents both sides of the case as to whether Farrakhan is relevant, let alone influential.

Though 20 years ago Farrakhan's Million Man March brought hundreds of thousands of black men to Washington, DC, putting him in the public spotlight, his events today draw thousands. -- and Farrakhan’s 2015 demonstration on the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March was not as large.

The article quotes Jay Tcath, executive vice president of the Jewish United Fund in Chicago, who says that Chicago’s Jewish institutions don’t see Farrakhan's hate as a major threat:

“He has not grown the movement, he has not graduated to a larger venue, he has no public policy agenda, the number of mosques under his domain are not increasing,” Tcath told JTA. “That’s not to diminish his bigotry, but it’s to recognize that of the many challenges our community faces, including anti-Semitism, his brand is not contagious among many others.”

But on the other hand, the article quotes Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, who says the fact that Farrakhan can still draw thousands makes him the most popular peddler of hate in the US -- more influential than the likes of Richard Spencer and other white supremacists. After all, for all their publicity, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, in August drew only 500 people.

The influence of Farrakhan and The Nation of Islam is deceptive:

“Its influence is broader than its individual members. Farrakhan has been sort of marked not only as an anti-Semite for many years, but given a pass by some in the mainstream in ways that others don’t get a pass.”

Which puts Farrakhan on the level of Al Sharpton. Journalist Jeff Jacoby notes that despite Sharpton's incitement of hatred and violence in the case of Tawana Brawley, Crown Heights riots and Freddy's Fashion Mart -- the latter two of which led to deaths:

If Sharpton were a white skinhead, he would be a political leper, spurned everywhere but the fringe. But far from being spurned, he is shown much deference. Democrats embrace him. Politicians court him. And journalists report on his comings and goings while politely sidestepping his career as a hatemongering racial hustler.

The secret to Farrakhan's success is The Nation of Islam's positive messaging and work within the African-American community. While Farrakhan incites hatred of Jews, he stresses family values and encourages his followers to avoid drugs.

How successful that "positive messaging" is remains unclear or how successful a leader he really is. The fact remains that Farrakhan has to continually fall back on periodically relying on Jew-hatred to rally and unify his flock.

Meanwhile, hatemongers like Farrakhan and Sharpton will continue to wield influence out of proportion to any actual accomplishments, put on a pedestal by the same media that claims to be the guardians of human rights and values in society.

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Saeb Erekat says no Arab state will normalize relations with Israel, as Bahrain invites Israel's Economy Minister to a conference

PLO official and self-admitted liar Saeb Erekat reassured whoever is still listening to him that the Arab world will not normalize relations with Israel without prior, comprehensive implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative.

Ironically, he made these statements in Amman, Jordan, which has been at peace with Israel since 1994.

Erekat, the Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO, said that talks about normalization are "merely hallucinations of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu."

Erekat dismissed the meeting between Netanyahu and Oman's sultan, saying that Oman only wants to help negotiate a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines.

He insisted that President Trump's "Deal of the Century" was a non-starter because the US was so biased against the Palestinians, and that no Arab country would be involved.

Oman's Foreign Minister explicitly said that he supports Trump's Middle East peace efforts in a conference in Bahrain.

Meanwhile, Yedioth Ahronoth reports that Israel's Economy Minister Eli Cohen was invited by the Bahrain to participate in the "Startup Nations Ministerial" conference.

That conference is part of the Global Entrepreneurship Conference scheduled for April in Bahrain.

The PLO has been bitterly opposed to all contacts between Israel and the Arab world, including issuing a statement berating Gulf countries for allowing Israeli athletes to compete in international competitions.

Erekat is, as usual, doing everything he can to avoid reality so Palestinians can continue to live in a fantasy world where their issues are still considered to be front and center on the world stage, eventually pressuring Israel to surrender without any concessions on their part. It hasn't worked for the past 25 years, but that hasn't caused them to rethink their strategy.

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11/08 Links Pt2: NYU, SJP and a response to ‘the 10 Common Misconceptions About BDS’; Trudeau issues apology for Canada’s refusal to let in Jews fleeing Holocaust

From Ian:

David Collier: NYU, SJP and a response to ‘the 10 Common Misconceptions About BDS’

NYU and the ‘ten common misconceptions about BDS’

‘Washington Square News‘, is an ‘Independent Student Newspaper’ at NYU. Three days ago they published an article written by SJP ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’. It was titled ‘10 Common Misconceptions About BDS‘ and set out to reassure the reader that the boycott movement against Israel (BDS) is a legitimate, credible, successful and ethical tool with which to bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians. I thought I’d take a look:
1 BDS is antisemitic

This is an easy one. BDS is clearly antisemitic. SJP argue that ‘BDS targets the nation-state of Israel, not any religious or ethnic group’, which is half-true, but they fail to address the lies and hypocrisy inherent in the movement. In their argument they bring up historical Jewish anti-Zionism in the shape of the Labour Bund. The logic is this – if some Jewish people were against the formation of Israel in the 1900-1940’s, it is okay to oppose Zionism today. That’s pretty twisted. The Bundists opposed Zionism because they believed Europe could provide safe haven in the shape of Jewish autonomous regions. They were wrong and Bundism burnt in the fires of Auschwitz. SJP are cynically using Holocaust victims to shield criticism of an attack against Jews.

Yet the real issue with BDS is in its selectivity. Notice how BDS ‘target’ Israel. Why not Lebanon? Inside Lebanon are descendants of the 1948 Israel /Arab conflict, perpetually held under a real Apartheid system. These ‘refugees’ are explicitly referenced by BDS, yet BDS does not target those guilty of oppressing them. Why not? If human rights of Palestinians is key here, then BDS should cross borders, but it doesn’t. This shows that promoting the ‘human rights’ of Palestinians is an excuse. BDS is a movement set up to exclusively target the ‘Jewish state’ for reasons beyond those officially stated. Picking exclusively on Jews sounds pretty antisemitic to me.
2 BDS is too extreme

The SJP article doesn’t even put forward arguments to oppose this statement, it just suggests that such a label can be used against any movement. The extremist label ‘is just a convenient way to shut down all avenues of resistance’. This is merely a deflections that doesn’t address the issue. Of course BDS is too extreme. There is one nation in the whole of that region that provides all of its citizens with a voice, protects its minorities and has a respected judicial system. It has 9 million citizens. BDS seeks to destroy that nation. How is that not ‘too extreme’?
3 The way forward is through dialogue, not boycotts.

‘This is not an issue of communication, but of violent occupation’. Even if true that only explains away 33% of BDS (BDS have three goals, the 1967 ‘occupation’ is only one of them). Unless of course they wish to suggest *ALL* of Israel is ‘occupied’, which they don’t like doing because it exposes the extremism of the movement (see misconception number two). If you read the SJP response, it suggests dialogue is a negative thing. This is the core pillar upon which the case for Israel is silenced. They don’t want people to talk because they know their lies, hypocrisy and inconsistency will be exposed – hence – no to dialogue. What type of justice movement doesn’t give the ‘accused’ an opportunity to defend itself?

JCPA: The Sky Is Not Falling in Washington: The U.S. Mid-Term Elections

Despite the habitual Jewish gevalt expressions of anxiety, the results of the 2018 U.S. elections do not foretell any change in congressional policy toward Israel, the Middle East, and Iran.

2. Do the elections of Arab Americans and progressives augur bad times for Israel?
An Emphatic No.

I have watched Arab-American and progressive Members of Congress over the last 50 years. Some were often strong critics of Israel, but their impact was negligible, and their national parties tended to limit their exposure. Examples of Arab-Americans include Senators James Abourezk and James Abdnor, and Representatives Nick Rahall, John Sununu, and Mary Rose Oakar.

Muslims: At least two were elected on November 6, 2018: in Michigan, Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American, and Ilhan Omar, a hijab-wearing Sudanese-American in Minnesota. Tlaib had been endorsed by J Street, but the Left-wing organization took the unprecedented step of rescinding its endorsement after she came out in favor of a one-state solution. Omar takes the place of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress, who won the race for Minnesota’s Attorney General. Leaving Washington and the limelight is probably good for Ellison, who faced domestic abuse allegations.

Progressives and anti-Israel Members of Congress: Don’t forget that the progressives in the Democratic Party have been active for years. Jesse Jackson and Arab-American leader Jim Zogby were frequent speakers before the party’s platform committee, where they criticized support for Israel. The only flag that flew at the last Democratic Convention in 2016 was the Palestinian flag after it was decided no American flags would fly because they bothered some delegates.

There have always been anti-Israel members of Congress (political correctness requires us to say “critical of Israel”), such as Senators William Fulbright and George McGovern (Democrats), and Representatives Paul Findley and Paul “Pete” McCloskey (Republicans). Despite McGovern winning the Democratic Party nomination for President in 1972, none was particularly influential in their parties or the Congress.

Arab op-ed, upset over Oman, says "Bibi is the sultan of the region"

The editor of As Safir (Lebanon) wrote a scathing and frustrated op-ed against the Arab countries who are becoming friendlier with Israel.

It is lunacy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has the right to boast that he is now the "Sultan" of this region, formerly called the "Arab homeland", which has become the "Middle East" ... whether by direct occupation, as in Palestine and Egypt, or under the pretext of the legitimacy of the Jews of the West to occupy occupied Palestine, who are now called "Israelis".

The Israeli occupation and foreign hegemony have caused the collapse of the "nation state" from this region. They have lost their identity and have become cardboard states, kingdoms, emirates and republics under American-Israeli protection.

Netanyahu, along with his wife, stood in front of the Sultan of Oman, who gave him great respect and affection. Then the talks took place between two old friends, and then the Prime Minister of Israel came out to declare frankly: We have accomplished the occupation of this region, We have relations now with various countries, we can roam freely, and go anywhere.

...
Are the Arabs tired of their Arabism and they migrated from it to another identity?!

...It seems as if the Arabs are narrowing their land and want to get rid of the huge land areas, offering it to those who want it, begging to "old colonialism" to return in his modern name: imperialism, which is Zionism!

The Arabs nowadays have trampled on the martyrs and the blood of their wounds who fell on this blessed land from the 1920s until today, through the revolution of 1936 to the Nakba of 1948, to the tripartite aggression of 1956, to the 1973 war, to the war against the Israeli occupation in Lebanon Eighteen years later, to the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006.

His newspaper has a cartoon of the figure ("Handala") that represents Palestinians next to a pen/flame, with the caption that the Palestinian cause will not be extinguished, the purpose of the newspaper.

To even say that out loud shows how nervous they are that this is indeed what is happening.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

America is under (cognitive) attack, almost certainly by Russia. The threat is very real and has already done a great deal of damage. Americans have almost certainly already died as a result, and the eleven Jewish victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre could be the latest.

The liberal media likes to suggest that Russia has “intervened in US elections” to benefit Donald Trump. Conservatives tend to say that the whole thing is a story made up by liberals. Both are likely wrong.

But something else is going on, and has been for decades, something more dangerous than trying to influence an election (even Obama did that to Israel). There is a serious effort being made by Russian actors to influence the social and political atmosphere in the US. I have seen no evidence that the intent is primarily, or even at all, to elect a particular candidate or party. Rather, the objective of the campaign is to destabilize the country by encouraging extremism of both the Right and the Left, to exacerbate racial, religious, and class conflict, to stoke anger, increase polarization, encourage violence, and ultimately bring about the virtual or actual secession of segments of the population from the USA.

In other words, to make the country fly apart.

The Russians are the world’s experts in cognitive warfare. The Soviets deployed it against the US starting in the 1930s, but their recent weaponization of social media has served to make it a hundred or a thousand times more effective. Eric Frank Russell’s 1957 science fiction novel “Wasp,” which I described here, written long before social media was a gleam in anyone’s eye, explains how it works.

Let me quote a recent Reuters report describing the campaign against the US being waged today. I have deleted some references to alleged intervention into elections, which make it harder to see the overall pattern:

One clear sign of the continued Russian commitment to disrupting American political life came out in charges unsealed last month against a Russian woman who serves as an accountant at a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency. …

The indictment said the Internet Research Agency used fake social media accountsto post on both sides of politically charged issues including race, gun control and immigration. The instructions were detailed, down to how to mock particular politicians during a specific news cycle. …

If the goals of spreading divisive content have remained the same, the methods have evolved in multiple ways, researchers say. For one, there has been less reliance on pure fiction. People have been sensitized to look for completely false stories, and Facebook has been using outside fact-checkers to at least slow their spread on its pages. …

Instead, Russian accounts have been amplifying stories and internet “memes” that initially came from the U.S. far left or far right. Such postings seem more authentic, are harder to identify as foreign, and are easier to produce than made-up stories. …

“They are baiting Americans to drive more polarizing and vitriolic content” …

One of their objectives is to widen the black/white divide. Blacks are sent the message that they are oppressed, and whites that blacks unfairly get special treatment. There is some truth in both of these contentions – there always is, in good propaganda – but the nature of the messaging is to create anger, indignation, and alienation on both sides.

Almost any controversy can provide an opportunity to fan the flames of anger and hatred. Automated Russian social media “bots” even targeted the debate about vaccinating children against disease.

Jew-hatred is another area that has received a great deal of attention by social media bots. One study indicated that almost 30% of antisemitic tweets in the past year came from bots. Were they Russian-operated? It’s not known for sure, but Russia has been using Jew-hatred as part of its cognitive warfare arsenal since The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was promulgated as a tool to discredit the Bolsheviks around the turn of the 20^th century.

Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh terrorist, was furious about what he believed was a Jewish conspiracy to bring illegal immigrants into the US. His last social media post on Gab (a Twitter alternative that catered to racists, Jew-haters and similar types who would be likely to have their real Twitter accounts shut down) mentioned HIAS, a Jewish organization that aids the resettlement of immigrants in the US. Another congregation that met in the Tree of Life synagogue building had hosted a HIAS event a few weeks prior to the attack. In a sense, the meme about a Jewish plot to dispossess the white race by flooding the country with immigrants provided the ideological impetus for the mass murder.

The meme is a continuation of a theme that may be as old as Jew-hatred itself: the Jew is seen as “mongrelizing” whatever racial or ethnic group the Jew-hater belongs to. Sometimes, as in Nazi Germany, it was the Jew himself that wanted to “pollute” the “pure” German race, and so laws needed to be passed to forbid intercourse between Jews and “Aryans.” During the civil rights movement in America, “Jewish agitators” were accused of supporting integration because it would inevitably lead to interracial sex and marriage, which would be a tragedy for “Southern white womanhood.” Today the alien elements are Hispanics from Central and South America, or Muslims from the Middle East or Africa, but the idea is the same. And its power to evoke violence is apparently undiminished from 1964, when it impelled Klan members in Neshoba County, Mississippi, to brutally murder civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner (the latter two, of course, being Jewish).

The idea of racial pollution did not need to be introduced by a Russian bot, but Bowers and likeminded friends spent a lot of time bouncing ideas like this off one another on social media, which has been turned into an echo chamber for extremists of all kinds – to a great extent by careful prodding from the cognitive warfare experts based at the Russian Internet Research Agency or similar institutions.

While Bowers ultimately bears responsibility for his act and may receive a well-deserved death sentence, there is a sense in which the eleven Jews who were murdered in Pittsburgh were casualties of cognitive warfare directed at the US by a foreign enemy.

Unfortunately for Bowers, “the bots made me do it” is not recognized as a legitimate excuse in federal court.

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