Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, July 17, 2020

07/17 Links Pt2: Want to fight racism? Begin by resisting BLM ideology; Soros’s Multi-Front War Against Israel; Zach Banner Tackles Anti-Semitism and Racism

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Want to fight racism? Begin by resisting BLM ideology

Indeed, the recent surge of anti-Semitic comments from some African-American athletes and celebrities like DeSean Jackson, Nick Cannon and Ice Cube were largely ignored by BLM activists rather than condemned. While there were some blacks who did speak out, like basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabaar and sports commentator Jemele Hill, they were the honorable exceptions who proved the rule and testified to the acceptance of Jew-hatred among many blacks. Jewish groups, some of which are diffident about confronting African-Americans about anti-Semitism, aren’t likely to rally BLM advocates to confront this issue, let alone seek its sources, such as the widespread influence of hatemonger Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam.

Unfortunately, many liberal Jews are not only failing to see the inherent problems that arise from backing radical BLM ideas like demonizing all police, but they are also buying into the group’s dangerous ideas about the perils of “whiteness,” which represent a particular threat to Jews as well as undermine black aspirations for advancement.

Accepting the ideological constructs behind the idea of White Fragility—the bestselling book that is a modern patent nostrum of foolishness about race—sends well-meaning people down a rabbit hole of rigid racialism that discards Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s hopes for a race-blind society. And yet that is exactly what many Jews are doing in this overheated post-George Floyd atmosphere.

In the past, Jews have played a constructive role in the struggle for civil rights—whether by marching with Dr. King or funding African-American education precisely because their efforts were aimed at raising up African-Americans, not abasing themselves at the altar of race.

That is why rather than jumping on the BLM bandwagon, those who claim to represent Jewish interests should be holding that movement to account for its damaging ideology, as well as its anti-Zionist connections and passivity about the growth of anti-Semitism among African-Americans.

Racism is real. But so is the danger of aligning with a movement whose goals are antithetical to the values that are responsible for the tremendous advances towards a better society that the civil-rights movement supported by blacks and Jews in the past achieved.

A Saudi scholar, Muhammed, and the Jews of the Arabian Peninsula

Let’s begin by referring to the following excerpts from what appears to be a ground-breaking development:
“…In what is being hailed as an “unprecedented” event, a senior Saudi Arabian researcher has had an article published in an Israeli journal--in Hebrew.

The essay aims to correct what its author, Prof. Mohammed Ibrahim Alghbban, head of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Hebrew Studies at the Department of Modern Languages and Translation at King Saud University in Riyadh, calls 'erroneous misperceptions about the origins of Islam and distorted understanding of manuscripts’ written by the Prophet Muhammad…Alghbban writes that Islam’s founder did not clash with Jews on religious grounds, rather only on politics…”

While it certainly is good news to hear about Arab scholars learning the Hebrew language, teaching it to others (for perhaps good and not-so-good reasons), and more, Alghbban’s assessment appears to be a whitewash of the actual Jihad waged against Medina’s (the second holiest city in Islam) founders--Jews--who fled the earlier Roman wars for their independence in Judea and escaping into the nearby Arabian Peninsula for refuge.

Jews had a long history in the Arabian Peninsula prior to the birth of Muhammad in the 7th century C. E.

Yemen had several Jewish kings in the centuries leading up to Muhammad’s era, and over a thousand years earlier, the Queen of Saba--Sheba--who visited King Solomon, legends say, married him, ruled over southern Arabia and Ethiopia as well.

The Saudi professor claims that Muhammad’s problems with the Medina Jews stemmed only from political concerns.

The problem is that any student of Islam knows, however, that Muhammad was as much a political as a religious leader--and those who opposed him, in either of those categories, often wound up beheaded or enslaved.

George Soros’s Multi-Front War Against Israel

The comparison with coverage of Adelson, likewise discussed by Feinreich in the article noted above, also illustrates how much the media enable Soros in his cynical use of accusations of anti-Semitism to silence criticism. They parrot his complaints in this vein even as they themselves use anti-Semitic tropes to attack Adelson.

Among the many examples of such attacks, a number of which are cited by Feinreich, are The Huffington Post’s 2015 headline, “Tonight’s GOP Debate: Sheldon Adelson’s Malignant Tentacles,” and the op-ed under the headline. Author Richard North Patterson asserts in the piece that “...Adelson means not only to pick the party’s nominee, but to dictate his thoughts.” And: “More than anyone else, it is Adelson - not voters, candidates, or experts on the Middle East - who dictates what Republicans dare to think and say about our relationship to Israel, the Palestinians on the West Bank, and the complex government of Iran.” And, “To Adelson’s God, Israel’s solution to the Palestinians is biblically ordained: annexation of the West Bank and subjugation of its peoples.” And, “...he’s ‘the richest Jew in the world’ and, as such, determined to bend the world to his views.” It is not hard to imagine the charges of anti-Semitism that comparable statements about Soros would elicit from him and his circle and the media outlets that support his activities. But such attacks on Adelson apparently fail to merit such a response.

One can cite similar statements about Adelson from, for example, The New York Times. Times columnist Thomas Friedman, for whom attacking Adelson, and Israel, is something of a personal obsession, wrote in 2015, under the title “Is it Sheldon Adelson’s World?” “...it is troubling that one man, with a willingness and ability to give away great sums, can now tilt Israeli and American politics his way at the same time.” And in a 2014 column: “Adelson personifies everything that is poisoning our democracy...” In a more generic invoking of an anti-Semitic trope, Friedman in a 2011 column explained that the standing ovation Benjamin Netanyahu had recently received in Congress was not a reflection of agreement with his views but rather “was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

While apparently having no problem with the use in its pages of anti-Semitic tropes directed against Adelson or “the Israel lobby,” the Times has run a number of news articles and op-eds on Soros as a victim of anti-Semitism. A Times op-ed by Soros’s son Alexander in October, 2018, asserts that his father’s liberal philanthropic exertions have exposed him to “the poison of anti-Semitism.” He characterizes anti-Semitism in America as coming exclusively from the Right, “white supremacists and nationalists,” regurgitates the absurd but often heard association of the anti-Semitic Right with President Trump, and says nothing of the much more mainstreamed anti-Semitism emanating from the Left, including from groups and individuals supported by him and his father.

The Times has for much of the last century ignored anti-Semitism and has written of it recently only in the service of some political objective, as in its promotion of politics of Soros’s variety. And Soros, again, is no less cynical in his invoking of anti-Semitism, doing so to silence critics even as he deploys it to advance his own agenda.

And, once more, central to that agenda is his hostility to Israel. His jaundiced attitude towards other Jews is not as monochromatic as his anti-Zionism. As indicated in the list of anti-Israel organizations and individuals he supports, there are Jews and Jewish groups among them, the major test being that they share, and act upon, his anti-Israel animus. There is little such nuance, however, in that animus.

It is not hard to comprehend why some Jews would be eager to distance themselves from an identity that has been and continues to be so vilified and that not long ago marked its holders for slaughter on an unprecedented scale. Each individual is free to choose his or her communal affiliations, or at least such freedom ought to be an element of any truly open society. But to move from disassociating oneself from the Jewish quest for national self-determination and its realization in Israel to supporting those who would undermine and ultimately annihilate the Jewish state, and to do so while claiming a higher purpose, to take the path that Soros has forged for himself, is not a course that would be chosen by any truly moral human being but rather the mark of a moral cripple.

Daniel Paul Rubenstein found an interview that Jeffrey Goldberg had with Peter Beinart when he released his “Crisis of Zionism” book. (I’m sure that a new book is in the works.)

It is interesting to read what Beinart said then – already part of the progressive Zionist Left before he went full blown anti-Israel.

I disagreed with Tony Judt's essay in 2003 arguing for a binational state. That should be evident from my essay, which is all about saving liberal Zionism.

…In general, I think American Jewish leaders and commentators have become far too promiscuous about throwing around words like anti-Israel. In my mind, you're anti-Israel if you want Israel to disappear as a Jewish state. Being a harsh critic is something very different, and even if you believe someone is insufficiently attentive to Israeli security, that merely makes them wrong, not anti-Israel, unless you can prove that they are inattentive because they would not mind if Israel ceased to exist as a Jewish state.

There certainly are leftists (and for that matter) rightists who focus so disproportionately on Israel's failings as to raise questions about their true motives.

Sound familiar?

I'm not asking Israel to be Utopian. I'm not asking it to allow Palestinians who were forced out (or fled) in 1948 to return to their homes. I'm not even asking it to allow full, equal citizenship to Arab Israelis, since that would require Israel no longer being a Jewish state. I'm actually pretty willing to compromise my liberalism for Israel's security and for its status as a Jewish state. What I am asking is that Israel not do things that foreclose the possibility of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, because if it is does that it will become--and I'm quoting Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak here--an "apartheid state."

It is interesting that even then, Beinart believed that Arab Israelis were not equal citizens under the law –of course they are - but he was willing to throw them under the bus to keep Israel as a Jewish state!

And foreclosing the possibility of a Palestinian state is exactly what the current Israeli coalition wants to do. You ask what has changed. First, year after year of settlement growth at triple the rate of the Israeli population…The more the settlements expand, the more settlers--including fanatical settlers--take over parts of the Israeli bureaucracy and become integral to the Israeli army and rabbinate, all of which makes the prospect of removing them without outright civil war more remote.

This was Beinart in 2010. Since then, what has changed? Netanyahu is still prime minister, Abbas is still the PLO head, the amount of land for settlements is virtually identical and the percentage of Israelis living in the territories has gone up only marginally (4.1% to 4.8%.)

However, Hamas still controls Gaza and has more weapons, Hezbollah has more rockets than it did, the Palestinians rejected a peace framework from the most pro-Palestinian president ever, they initiated a new terror spree of cars and knives, and the current president is offering them billions of dollars to accept a contiguous state – admittedly smaller than the previous ones they rejected, but still a state = and they don’t want to talk to him.

And with all that new data, Beinart changed from Zionist to anti-Israel – by his own 2010 definition.

Nothing changed for Israel or for Palestinians. Only Beinart changed. Anything else he says about why suddenly Israel must cease to exist as a Jewish state is not in response to changed circumstances, but his own bizarre slide to the side of Israel’s enemies.

There is nothing moral about it. Just ask 2010 Beinart.

07/17 Links Pt1: David Collier: Peter Beinart, a one state solution and the Jewish far-left; Melanie Phillips: The Jewish surrender to the West’s eclipse of reason

From Ian:

David Collier: Peter Beinart, a one state solution and the Jewish far-left

Peter Beinart recently wrote an article of Jewish surrender that was published in Jewish Currents. Falling over itself, the New York Times rushed to publish an abbreviated version to ensure the piece was given a much wider audience.
Beinart

The thrust of the Beinart argument is simple. Beinart used to believe in a Jewish state – he doesn’t anymore, and as he lives in his comfortable home in the US, he believes Israel should dismantle itself and embark upon a utopian one state existence with the Palestinians. Thus ending 100 years of conflict.

There is nothing new inside the article. It is a silly proposition, a notion that the answer to the conflict between Israel and its neighbours is for the Jews to to put away their guns, remove the walls that protect them, surrender their right of self determination – have faith – and create what would eventually become another Muslim majority state in the Middle East.
Beinart and privilege

The article and Beinart’s position is historically and politically illiterate. Beinart pushes a solution with all the privilege of a person sitting under the umbrella of US citizenship, 1000s of miles away from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Or as Benjamin Kerstein put in his response in the Tablet – “Peter Beinart thinks Jews don’t need Zionism. That’s because he’s never needed it himself.”

Beinart, like many of those who dabble in such utopian theory, pushes immature politics. The secular democratic one state solution is a privileged imperialist western answer to a problem they have with ignorant natives in a far-off land. Nobody on the ground wants it – not the Israelis and not the Palestinians.

The simple truth is that Israel looks the way it does – because it reflects the reality of the Middle East. The 1947 partition plan was not written into the British Mandate, but developed as reality took over. The civil war and regional conflict became inevitable. Israel is a natural product of its people, history and neighbourhood. And this simple fact – that Israel is a Middle Eastern nation, is what lies at the heart of the problem.

For some western Jews, the Israel of reality is not the Israel of their dreams. These people tend to view Israel’s growing religious population with horror, they look down on the ‘arsim‘ of Bat Yam and they are quite derogatory about many aspects of Israeli culture. They don’t like the way many Israelis think or behave and clearly they have no respect for the way Israelis vote.

Perversely they show understanding for Israel’s enemies, including those like Hamas – but as is frequently pointed out – they never have any empathy for Israelis with different opinions to their own.

They openly display that they are fundamentally disappointed with Israeli people. Beinart’s position can be described thus: – Israelis don’t deserve their state because of the way they have developed and behaved.

So I was unsurprised by the article. Every few months we are presented with a similar article written by someone who says that they have supported Israel all their lives but because those pesky Israelis have just gone and ******* (fill in the blank with whatever has just occurred – with Beinart it is the ‘annexation’) they must now publicly state that Zionism is in tatters and doomsday is coming. Immature virtue signalling that sells out the millions of Jews who live in Israel.

But what interested me most about this episode was not another of the liberal Zionists falling off the ideological cliff. It was how our own Jewish fringe groups responded.

A Eureka moment: Peter Beinart and the One State Solution

Beinart buttresses his argument for a one state solution by citing Yousef Munayyer and Edward Said, who support his view that “Equality could come in the form of one state that includes Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.”

In the November/December 2019 edition of Foreign Affairs, Yousef Munayyer, director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, (USCPR) said the “only alternative with any chance of delivering lasting peace: equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians in a single shared state.” He argues “The Palestinians [are] a population struggling and surviving under decades of Israeli oppression.”

NGO Monitor reports “USCPR is a national coalition of hundreds of groups working to advocate for Palestinian rights and a shift in US policy and is a leader and mobilizer of anti-Israel BDS campaigns.” According to its “Common Principles,” “We oppose U.S. military, diplomatic, financial, corporate, and all other forms of support for Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies toward Palestinians.”

On March 6, 2019, the Jerusalem Post reported Munayyer appeared “to condone the efforts of PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] on his Twitter feed, including retweeting a PFLP announcement of a terror attack in Jerusalem on June 16, 2017.”

The late Edward Said, a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and Palestinian Arab activist, postulated that underlying cause of “the conflict between the two peoples has always been about possession of and sovereignty over the land.”

He accused the Zionists of being a “tool of imperialism” who usurped their land, established settler colonies and a sovereign state whose only means of preservation is by aggression and expansion.

In a September 29, 2015 ~~interview~~ [an article] in the Washington Post entitled “The one-state solution and the brutal honesty of Edward Said,” he said “… the only feasible alternatives to Zionism… have a majority Arab state in which Jews are, at best, a suppressed minority, or force all six million Jews living in Israel to flee to whatever countries (if any) will accept them, or some combination of the two. "

The idea that giving up on 'Zionism' makes you a 'liberal' is false, unless creating yet another Arab dictatorship in what is now Israel at the cost of six million Jews’ lives and liberty, and of by far the most liberal state in their region, is somehow a “liberal” option.” [originally from a Ha'aretz inteview from 2000, source]

So far, Nick Cannon has done the right things

The Nick Cannon story is evolving quickly.

I have expressed my doubts that a conspiracy theorist could listen to facts and respond to pain from others, but so far – and it is still very early – Nick Cannon is doing the right things.

On his Instagram, it shows that he brought Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center as a guest on his program – and some of his fans are not happy about it, like the comment shown here where the commenter calls Cooper a member of the “Synagogue of Satan.”

Inviting articulate Jews onto his program is exactly what I asked Cannon to do before he made any apology. I did not expect him to actually do what I asked him on Monday.

Cannon has also said that he is taking off time from his popular radio show in order to process what happened. He sounds genuinely contrite.

Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, Cannon sees how many of his fans are turning against him for his apology and his seeming journey towards understanding – and while it pains him, he is not dissuaded.

But he is frustrated by his fans turning on him when he wants to do the right thing.

I have criticized Nick Cannon quite a bit this week for his unforgivable attacks. But if he has truly changed, if he is really committed to learning, and if he will use his huge platforms to educate his community and help bring down tensions between Jews and Black people, he is a much better person than I am.

I look forward to see what he does in the coming months.

We need a digital dashboard of threats to Jews worldwide

Businesses use “dashboards” as a convenient way to keep track of critical issues, with the top information they need from multiple sources placed on a single screen and with the ability to drill down into the details.

Given that the Left and the Right disagree strongly as to what constitutes a danger to Jews worldwide, I think it would be helpful to create a digital dashboard of threats, with at least an attempt to objectively compare threats based on various criteria.

To use a tiny example, the Left always says that the threat from white nationalists is much higher than any other threat in the US. I have been very concerned over Nation of Islam-inspired antisemitim in recent weeks. Which is a bigger danger?

White nationalists are truly fringe (although the Left wants to paint every Republican as a member.) As I tweeted last night, the combined Twitter following of the biggest names in white nationalism is dwarfed by the fans of Ice Cube, who has tweeted multiple antisemitic memes in recent weeks.

Last week Twitter removed 67 white nationalist accounts totaling 140,000 followers.
David Duke has 54,000 followers.
Richard Spencer has 81,000 followers.

Ice Cube alone has 5.4 MILLION followers.
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) July 17, 2020

White Nationalists have a history of extreme violence and direct incitement, NOI itself does not directly encourage violence but its philosophy has inspired murderous attacks and the increasing violence in major cities can become a specific threat to the Jewish community as we saw in Los Angeles and elsewhere during the George Floyd riots.

We need to take all these factors for all the threats and quantify them so they can be compared and ranked. Potential countermeasures should be listed and their expenses calculated. Once all the data and data sources are compiled then we can use modern data mining techniques to dive deep into the information and see where it makes sense to use limited resources to fight these threats.

Here is a very ugly, quick and dirty mock up of some core information; a real dashboard would have interactive maps and links to be able to see the current state of both threats and countermeasures, by type and target country. (By “magnitude” I mean “number of threat actors, but the data isn’t the point, rather the concept.)

Everything on that screen would be clickable to drill down, all columns would be sortable, the level of detail could be set up to be as general or specific as possible.

A reasonably objective dashboard, with its underlying logic publicly available so one can change the assumptions, could be a great tool for funders and major Jewish organizations to get on the same page and prioritize accordingly.

Bari Weiss, the centrist opinion page editor at the New York Times, resigned from her position on Tuesday with a blistering resignation letter that went viral and was damning to the newspaper.

Many people have been writing about the resignation; her critics are cheering and criticizing her letter and her fans doing the opposite. But nearly no one has explained exactly why she had to resign.

Instead, we see accusations like Alex Shephard’s at TNR:

Weiss wants to frame her resignation as a consequence of this supposed hostile takeover—that she’s a free thinker cast out by an intolerant, illiberal regime. But her letter, while long on invective (and just plain long), is short on evidence, and what she’s done instead amounts to auto-cancellation: quitting, then blaming her peers for driving her out. It’s a rhetorical mode that many of her fellow travelers in the “Intellectual Dark Web” are familiar with.

The “short on evidence” accusation is strange; her resignation letter has plenty of examples of why the work environment was difficult but is hardly an appropriate place to show screenshots or name names. However, the accusation of her “quitting and them blaming her peers for driving her out” is worth examining. In order to do that one must understand how the Opinion section works at the New York Times.

At the NYT, there are many opinion editors whose jobs are to find and encourage good opinion pieces, all working under a managing editor. Historically, most of these editors have been blatantly anti-Israel, and it was therefore easy for anti-Israel op-eds to get published – often with little regard to fact checking. Up until a few years ago, most of the pro-Israel pieces would be from far-right Israelis (who could be easily dismissed as lunatics) or Israeli government officials. Those pieces would be assigned by the managing editor who is responsible for the overall tenor of the page and who would feel an obligation to run some unpopular pieces every once in a while to appear even-handed. Before 2017, the ratio of anti- to pro- Israel opinion pieces was typically 5-1. For a decent pro-Israel piece to be published the writer would need to find an editor who was not hostile to Israel to begin with and then the piece would be sent back numerous times for edits – while anti-Israel pieces would sail through the process.

Weiss was hired specifically to add different voices to the Times in the wake of Donald Trump’s unexpected win. While Bret Stephens was hired at the same time, he was hired as a columnist; Weiss was an editor. Both Weiss and Stephens dislike Trump immensely. But Weiss was there to increase the number of thoughtful op-eds from conservative and other voices that would normally not be heard. From all the evidence, she succeeded.

Weiss was always disliked at the Times, mostly because her views – while solidly liberal and centrist – were far to the right of the other opinion editors. Those other editors were also jealous of her success (one of her own columns became a Saturday Night Live sketch, and her book on antisemitism was a best seller as she appeared on numerous TV shows.) Of course, Weiss is also a Zionist and a proud Jew, not shy about calling out antisemitism, and the other editors were unhappy with both of those – she mentioned in her letter that she heard negative comments that she was “writing about the Jews again.”

I am told that even NYT workers who are perceived to be friends with Weiss and Stephens are looked down upon by the intolerant Leftist employees.

Weiss’ letter describes a hostile work environment with very specific, outrageous examples. However, that is not the major reason why she was forced to leave. Weiss had to leave because she literally could not do her job.

After the Tom Cotton op-ed controversy, where there was a virtual revolt at the NYT resulting in managing opinion editor James Bennett’s ouster, a new policy was implemented at the Times called the “red flag” system, which allows even junior editors to “stop or delay the publication of an article containing a controversial view or position.”

This truly stupid policy allows any editor to veto the work of any other editor on the op-ed page.

If a piece is deemed too controversial or microaggressive, it would be stopped or delayed. Editors can now refuse to edit pieces they are assigned, something that would have resulted in being fired not that long ago. The young millennials have essentially taken over the op-ed page and they are so far Left – and have so little regard for tolerating others’ ideas – that the entire op-ed section is a disaster.

There was another side effect of the policy, though: it ensured that unpopular editors like Bari would be censored. Since she wasn’t liked, any of her co-workers could silence her.

Suddenly, every single opinion piece that Weiss would spend hours working on with promising writers would be quashed by her coworkers who disliked her. Anything she would write herself would be rejected by the crowd.

She was drawing a salary but could not do what she was hired to do. And obviously the new woke managing editor who is herself hostile to Zionism was not going to protect the proudly Zionist Weiss from this bullying the way a supervisor in a normal job is supposed to.

Weiss had no choice but to quit if she ever wanted to be heard again.

From all indications, Weiss was an excellent editor, better than most there. This can be seen by this letter that Weiss wrote to Marisa Kabas rejecting her op-ed idea and making constructive suggestions on how she can be published. Kabas, instead of recognizing that most editors wouldn’t spend any time trying to groom a young writer for success, tweeted this very nice letter as if it was a negative!

So many writers responded that the letter makes Weiss look good and Kabas look like a self-centered idiot that Kabas deleted her tweet.

That tweet is the New York Times op-ed department in a nutshell – the young know-it-alls saying they know better than the people with skill and experience. The millennials who have taken over the Times op-ed page cannot distinguish between diversity in hiring and diversity in thought, and they think that their supposedly fresh ideas can replace skill and competence.

Bari Weiss will land on her feet. She is smart and talented. Meanwhile, the inmates have taken over the asylum at the New York Times op-ed department.

07/16 Links Pt2: The Alignment of BDS and Black Lives Matter: Implications for Israel and Diaspora Jewry; Ice Cube Compares Kareem Abdul-Jabbar To Judas For Condemning Anti-Semitism

From Ian:

The Alignment of BDS and Black Lives Matter: Implications for Israel and Diaspora Jewry

International protests over the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd while in police custody on May 25, 2020, led by the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM), have generated expressions of sympathy and support from Western prime ministers, legislators, law enforcement officials, and local government.

American Jewish leaders unequivocally condemned the Floyd killing. World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder denounced it as a “horrific racist act.”2 The Union for Reform Judaism issued a statement that read, “Black Lives Matter Is a Jewish Value.”3 The Orthodox Jewish Union (OU) declared, “Racism is not a thing of the past or simply a political issue. It is a real and present danger that must be met head-on.”4

Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) organizations have ratcheted up racial tensions and anti-Semitic agitation by accusing Israel of complicity in the Floyd murder.5 The BDS strategy is not new. The Jewish State has, for some years, been recast as an illegitimate “white oppressor” state.

Ongoing demonstrations across the United States have reenergized the intersectional solidarity between those protesting anti-Black racism in America and BDS organizations’ demands to “Free Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea” – a clarion call to dismantle the State of Israel.

The BDS-BLM convergence, then, as it relates to the Palestinian issue, has removed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from its territorial framework and has recast the Jewish nation-state as a racial issue – “apartheid” and illegitimate by definition.

Israel adversary Linda Sarsour applauded longtime Israel critic Peter Beinart’s recent disavowal of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. She praised Beinart for legitimizing Palestinian rejectionism of Jewish sovereignty, saying, “Maybe Zionists will listen to one of their own. Peter has evolved over the years, and I welcome his evolution.”

This new radical discourse demands that American Jews be neither liberal nor progressive. Those affiliations accept the existence of the Jewish State, yet are deemed unacceptable according to the “virtues” of a more drastic American dialogue.

The blatant anti-Semitism of Bill de Blasio

Those targeting Jews were other minorities, mainly black and Hispanic New Yorkers. De Blasio did not push back against the dangerous new bail-reform law, which essentially gave a slap on the wrist for criminals and those who did end up in jail ended up being released shortly after committing crimes. He did nothing to protect his Jewish residents.

When the Iranian-backed, terrorist-in-nature Al-Quds Day event was held last year in Times Square, the anti-Israel groups participating had to get a permit; that was allowed. Not even a few weeks ago, a "Day of Rage" protest/march was held in Brooklyn, these events explicitly target Israel which directly is an attack on Jews and often times leads to anti-Semitic incidents. Yet were there any neo-Nazi marches in New York City? Not that those should ever be encouraged, of course, but de Blasio would not give such an easy permit to white supremacists, as he does to every other Jew-hater.

When New York was in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, only the Hassidic Jewish community was the target of de Blasio's ire. Yet there were overcrowding issues in the Bronx and house parties in Harlem. Being vigilant was all in the name of beating the virus, so most Jews did not say much. However, when a legitimate Chassidic funeral on April 28 was planned not only with the approval of the New York Police Department but with pre-approval of the Mayor's Office, de Blasio showed up, "shocked" at the crowd size, and immediately fired off an anti-Semitic tweet directed at the Jewish community. The Jewish community in New York is not cohesive; dozens of vibrant groups make up the proud fabric of Jewry in New York, so to blame "all Jews" due to one pre-arranged funeral, while ignoring other groups who were gathering in large numbers, was absolutely anti-Semitic.

One would think that letting Hassidic children play in neighborhood playgrounds would be far less a crime than thousands marching, many without face masks, but no. De Blasio ordered the police to fine parents whose children went without masks. This behavior towards the religious Jewish community was an injustice when such hypocrisy was on full display during the height of the BLM protests and interwoven riots.

De Blasio's anti-Semitic culture extends beyond himself. Earlier this year, Democrat Councilman Kalman Yeger pointed out the poison of anti-Semitism permeating within the City Council. And mere days ago, a City of New York tweet reminded residents to fill out the 2020 Census. It included a "Palestinian" flag among other flags representing the homelands of the city's residents, but omitted the Israeli flag, despite nearly 2 million Jews living in New York City. To not call out de Blasio as a dangerous anti-Semite is a farce.

Former NYPD commissioner warns US Jews: Protect your communities

Jewish communities in America should follow the example of those in Europe and put security measures in place in synagogues, Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has said in an interview, as he warned that “we are in a dangerous place in history.”

Budget cuts due to the coronavirus lockdown and an erosion of respect for police officers are creating a perfect storm that will see safety decline in New York and elsewhere, Kelly told Matthew Bronfman, chair of the International Steering Committee of Limmud FSU during an online interview.

“In the US the Jewish community needs to be more alert about who is entering community premises,” Kelly said, warning that in today's environment, synagogues cannot be fully open environments.

Kelly, who now heads the Anti-Semitism Accountability Project (ASAP), has visited ten European countries to meet with government and faith leaders to examine how antisemitism is being tackled on the Continent in comparison with the US, he said.

“Antisemitism there is not new. Neo-Nazis have never gone away, and populism is helping them flex their muscles,” Kelly noted. He acknowledged that the threat was slightly different in the two areas - in France, for example, antisemitism is driven by the left's support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and the Muslim community, combined with a government which, thanks to a national culture of secularism, is slow to recognize the religious rights of minorities. Consequently, people can walk around with openly antisemitic messages on their t-shirts without consequence, he said.

Hen Mazzig: How Jewish Twitter users and celebrities took down a virtual anti-Semitic mob

When I saw "#JewishPrivilege" was trending on Twitter last week, I cringed. White nationalists had created the hashtag to spread anti-Semitic conspiracies about Jews being "privileged" - that we control the media, the banks and the world. Seemingly progressive Twitter users soon piled on with false claims that Jews don't face any discrimination, while also suggesting they are responsible for the discrimination and other ills many minorities face. This felt like an organized attack - as if everyone was in agreement that Jewish people are to be blamed for all that is wrong in the world.

The virtual mob of anti-Semites sparked flashbacks to my Iraqi grandma retelling stories of surviving the Farhud, a massacre in which a real-life mob of Iraqis murdered all the Jews they could in Baghdad back in 1941. So I urged Jews on Twitter to share their personal stories to refute the #JewishPrivilege falsehood. In a matter of hours, Jews shared their experiences of discrimination, violence, exile and mass murder.

The notion that Jews of any background are the oppressors rather than the oppressed erases our history - including the Holocaust and pogroms of many decades past, as well as more recent chapters, like the plight of the Ethiopian Jews who escaped persecution in Ethiopia by airlifts to Israel in the 1980s and '90s. Seeking to deny the entire Jewish people's generational struggles and erase us from the collective of minority groups denies our humanity and identity, and is thereby an act of deep-seated anti-Semitism.

Poor, Hungry Israelis Unaware They Part Of Global Banking Cabal (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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money money money B'nei B'rak, July 16 - Residents of this entirely-ultra-orthodox city, the second-most-impoverished in the nation according to Central Bureau of Statistics data, possess no knowledge that by dint of their membership in the Jewish people they control global finances, and media, a new study reports.

B'nei B'rak, population just under 200,000, boasts many of the poorest households in Israel, lagging just behind Jerusalem - which only accounts for so many more poor households because of its much larger overall population. Researchers at Bar Ilan University observed that none of the hundreds of random B'nei B'rak residents surveyed displayed any awareness that as Jews they enjoy a share of the cabal that dominates entertainment, news, banking, and other crucial industries all around the world.

"It's a little bizarre," noted lead researcher Adel Sheldenson. "You'd think that as members of a tribe that has sat at the crux of global finance for generations, they might have some clue as to their status, but none seem to. And so many of them live lives of abject poverty."

"Some of that poverty is a function of lifestyle choice," explained researcher Ed Rothschild. "These communities value simplicity and sacrifice for the sake of full-time Torah study. Still, you'd think that, given what everyone out there assumes about the Talmud and the evil stuff it contains, at least some of the folks here might have caught on to its teachings about dominating the subhuman goyim by whatever means, and whatnot. But none of them seem to know about those parts of the Talmud, either."

The same holds true in other poor cities where Haredim form the majority of the population. Jerusalem, as noted, features tens of thousands of poor ultra-orthodox families, though large-scale studies of their involvement in international banking and rootless cosmopolitanism have not taken place. Smaller Haredi population centers, however, such as the towns of El'ad, Kiryat Sefer, and Beitar 'Illit, show identical numbers of Jews who know they and their cohorts have controlled global finance for hundreds of years: zero. That figure surprised researchers as well, given the relative prosperity of those towns compared to the ultra-orthodox in B'nei B'rak and Jerusalem, and thus the greater chance, researchers had assumed, that some might have a hand or tentacle in the vast Jewish-Zionist conspiracy to rule the world.

Researchers intend to follow up the current study with an exploration of how scholars with encyclopedic knowledge of Talmud appear completely unaware of passages in that set of documents that antisemites are fond of quoting.

Lebanon’s Maronite leader and the Israel Exception

From Naharnet:

Maronite Patriarch Beshara el-Rahi again on Tuesday renewed calls for Lebanon’s neutrality towards regional conflicts, stressing that Lebanon has become isolated and is losing its original identity.

“We said nothing new when we demanded Lebanon’s neutrality from regional conflicts. We want back our basic identity, a neutral Lebanon, a civil state, pluralism and coexitence,” said Rahi in a statement from the patriarch's summer residence in the northern town of Dimane.

“Lebanon was open to all countries, east and west, except Israel which occupied our land. Lebanon was Switzerland of the east ... Today, Lebanon has become isolated from the whole world. This is not our identity. Our identity is positive and constructive neutrality, not a warrior Lebanon,” added the Patriarch.

Lebanon wasn’t open to Israel before Israel went into Lebanon and it hasn’t been open to Israel in the two decades since it left. So what is the exact reason el-Rahi says Lebanon doesn’t want to deal with Israel again?

And then he said it again a day later:

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Wednesday met President Michel Aoun in Baabda, following resounding calls that the spiritual leader voiced in recent days for turning Lebanon into a “neutral” country.

…He explained: “Neutrality is to commit to the joint Arab causes without engaging in political or military conflicts or joining axes. It is to be rather the first defender of justice, peace and understanding in the Arab causes, except for what relates to Israel.”

It must be exhausting to say platitudes all day about how your country wants peace and good relations with everyone, and always have to add “except Israel.”

07/16 Links Pt1: Why Palestinians can’t sign an end-of-conflict pact; The ICC: A court that consults with terrorists

From Ian:

JCPA: Amb. Dore Gold: Setting the Stage for a Peace Process that Can Work

The current initiatives that are being tried by the Trump administration are important because they are trying to liberate us from all the failed peace plans of the past.

Most of the architects of peace in the past envisioned a mass removal of Israelis from Judea and Samaria - from the West Bank - and that is simply not going to happen. We pulled out 8,000-9,000 Israelis from the Gaza Strip and we created a scar in the memory of many Israelis from having done that, because we were willing to try to set the foundations of some kind of peace. And what we got was a dramatic escalation of rocket fire shot at Israel.

So having tried that in the past, it would have made no sense to develop a peace plan predicated upon the mass removal of Israelis. You shouldn't try and forcibly remove Palestinians either. A peace plan - to be just and to be fair - has to be based on these populations staying in their homes, which is what the Trump peace plan tries to do.

We have a horrible experience with how architects of peacemaking have worked. Therefore, in this case, what you have is an effort to create a territorial compromise where Israel remains in areas that are of strategic importance to its future defense.

Our position is one that has a firm basis legally, a firm basis morally, and a firm basis for setting the stage for a peace process that can work. We have to give this larger peace plan a chance, as we have in the past, and right now there's nothing else on the table that has any chance of working.

A Better Chance at Peace

The same U.S. plan that would give the green light for Israel to extend its sovereignty over some parts of the West Bank - an intangible change that would be hard to see on the ground - would simultaneously give the Palestinians unprecedented and very tangible concessions to bring the long-sought two-state outcome closer than ever.

The dividends of the U.S. plan for the Palestinians include the express intention of creating an opportunity for establishing an independent state, subject to sensible conditions. Moreover, the Palestinians would receive massive investment and economic opportunity to help ensure the success of that state.

Despite their concerns, most Israelis do support the U.S. plan as a basis for negotiations for a two-state outcome with their Palestinian neighbors. The plan's proponents have called it a way to "break the logjam" in the moribund peace process. The context for the initiative is the fact that the Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate directly with Israel for more than a decade, after repeatedly rejecting reasonable statehood proposals from Israel in 2000, 2001, and 2008.

Given the longstanding impasse in the peace process - driven in no small part by the Palestinian refusal to accept the legitimacy and permanence of Israel's very existence - knowledgeable and realistic supporters of an eventual two-state outcome should be strongly urging the Palestinian leadership to use the opportunity presented by the U.S. peace plan to return to serious negotiations.

Why Palestinians can’t sign an end-of-conflict pact

If peacemakers truly want a sustainable peace, they have to acknowledge that Israel has legal rights over the 1949 armistice lines if an eventual deal includes land swaps. Just like with the refugee issue, if it is not completely spelled out, no matter what agreement is signed, Palestinians will always have a pretext to say Israel stole Palestinian land with land swaps, and once again, preach and prepare for a new war.

The pro-Palestinian Middle East Monitor said it the best. “ Palestinians will continue to seek a just peace that will provide future generations with their birthright; their land will be returned, one way or another.” Naïve Westerners hear the words “just peace” and assume it means two states for two peoples. What it actually means is the unlimited right of return for every Palestinian forever to Israel, as no Palestinian government can give up an individual Palestinian descendant’s claim to be a displaced owner of what is now Israel.

The annexation debate has obscured the true paradigm of the conflict. The question is not if Israel annexes 30% of the West Bank, would it end the dream of a Palestinian state. The question to ask is, would the Palestinians accept the West Bank with land swaps that ensure Israel’s security, sign an end-of-conflict resolution and accept a Jewish state? The answer for the foreseeable future is no. This is not a territorial conflict or else this would have ended long ago.

If this hill for a comprehensive agreement is too high to climb at this time, so be it. What is needed is honesty, so a putative peace agreement is not just a recipe for fruitless concessions by Israel.

If all the Palestinians are capable of doing is negotiating a better status quo with more economic development and investment in exchange for nonviolence, then that should be the path for this generation.

The Trump peace plan or any other agreement will never have any staying power if it doesn’t include an end-of-conflict agreement, a recognition of two states for two peoples that clearly states that one of those states is Jewish, and an absolute end of any right for descendants of original Palestinian refugees to return to the State of Israel.

In the wake of the Nick Cannon story, I’m seeing lots of people say that the only reason he was in trouble is because Jews control the entertainment industry.
Jewish influence in Hollywood is legendary, but is it still true?
According to this 2019 Investorpedia article, the top ten entertainment companies are Comcast,
CBS, DIRECTV, Dish Network, Netflix, Time Warner, Fox, Viacom, Disney and Wanda Media.
Since then, Viacom and CBS have merged but I am counting them separately for this purpose.
How many of these companies’ CEOs are Jewish? As far as I can tell, here’s the answer at the moment:

Company	CEO	Jewish?
Comcast	Brian L. Roberts	Yes
Disney	Bob Chapek	No
ViacomCBS	Robert Marc Bakish	No
CBS	Joseph Ianniello (acting CEO)	No
Netflix	Reed Hastings	No
Time Warner	Jason Kilar	No
Fox	Suzanne Scott	No
DIRECTV	Manuel Abelleyra	No
Dish	W. Erik Carlson	No
Wanda	Wang Jianlin (chairman)	No

Some antisemitic websites claim Bob Chapek is a Sephardic Jew but I see no evidence of that.
Perhaps it is time to retire this myth of Jews controlling the media.

Nick Cannon issued two apologies to the Jewish community on his social media:

First and foremost I extend my deepest and most sincere apologies to my Jewish sisters and brothers for the hurtful and divisive words that came out of my mouth during my interview with Richard Griffin. They reinforced the worst stereotypes of a proud and magnificent people and I feel ashamed of the uninformed and naïve place that these words came from. The video of this interview has since been removed.

While the Jewish experience encompasses more than 5,000 years and there is so much I have yet to learn, I have had at least a minor history lesson over the past few days and to say that it is eye-opening would be a vast understatement.

I want to express my gratitude to the Rabbis, community leaders and institutions who reached out to me to help enlighten me, instead of chastising me. I want to assure my Jewish friends, new and old, that this is only the beginning of my education—I am committed to deeper connections, more profound learning and strengthening the bond between our two cultures today and every day going forward.

Followed by:

I just had the blessed opportunity to converse with Rabbi Abraham Cooper director of global social action @SimonWiesenthal My first words to my brother was, I apologize for the hurt I caused the Jewish Community. On my podcast I used words and referenced literature I assumed to be factual to uplift my community, but instead turned out to be hateful propaganda and stereotypical rhetoric that pained another community. For this I am deeply sorry, but now together we can write a new chapter of healing.

As celebrity apologies go, these are excellent. It comes across as much more authentic and heartfelt than the usual “I apologize if anyone was offended” garbage we are used to seeing from celebrities. His tone was completely different than the non-apology he issued a mere 18 hours earlier:

As for Viacom, who is now on the wrong side of history, I will continue to pray for you. I don’t blame any individual, I blame the oppressive and racist infrastructure. Systemic racism is what this world was built on and was the subject in which I was attempting to highlight in the recent clips that have been circulating from my podcast. If I have furthered the hate speech, I wholeheartedly apologize.

But now I am the one making demands. I demand full ownership of my billion dollar “Wild ‘N Out” brand that I created, and they will continue to misuse and destroy without my leadership! I demand that the hate and back door bullying cease and while we are at it, now that the truth is out, I demand the Apology!

And, of course, only a day before that Cannon said to Fast Company:

“To me apologies are empty. Are you forcing me to say the words ‘I’m sorry’? Are you making me bow down, ’cause then again, that would be perpetuating that same rhetoric that we’re trying to get away from,” Cannon says. “What we need is healing. What we need is discussion. Correct me. I don’t tell my children to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ I want them to understand where they need to be corrected. And then that’s how we grow.”

“You can say sorry in as many different languages as you want to, and it means nothing,” Cannon continues. “But until someone truly understands where they may have been wrong or where they may have offended someone, then that’s where growth occurs.”

His talk about growth and education is consistent between the interview and his new apologies. The recent posts capture his voice and appear sincere.

I hope he is.

However, you cannot disconnect his turnaround from his being fired by ViacomCBS. Both Cannon and Fox desperately needed for him to stay on as host of the hit show The Masked Singer. The apology came only after a day long discussion with Fox, as Variety reports the network’s statement:

“When we were made aware of Nick Cannon’s interview with Richard Griffin on YouTube, we immediately began a dialogue with Nick,” the network said in a statement. “He is clear and remorseful that his words were wrong and lacked both understanding and context, and inadvertently promoted hate. This was important for us to observe. Nick has sincerely apologized, and quickly taken steps to educate himself and make amends. On that basis and given a belief that this moment calls for dialogue, we will move forward with Nick and help him advance this important conversation, broadly. Fox condemns all forms of hate directed toward any community and we will combat bigotry of any kind.”

Cannon’s apology may or may not have been written by him, but it was certainly vetted by Fox’ PR department to ensure it checked all the boxes before he released his statement, freeing Fox to release their own.

Well, maybe not all the boxes.

ViacomCBS’ statement when they let Cannon go concentrated on his antisemitic statements and it downplayed his racist statements. The “Rothschilds control the world” and “Blacks are the real Jews” themes are very offensive, but the worst part of the Cannon’s Class episode was his long racist monologue about how a lack of melanin causes “them” to be rapists, murderers and savages – and he identified “them” to include all white people (“Europeans”) as well as “Jewish people” and the “Illuminati.”

Because ViacomCBS fired him for antisemitism, Fox crafted his apology to only mention Jews – and not every white person on the planet.

Which, ironically, helps promote the antisemitic trope that Jews control the entertainment industry.

There is a bigger issue here, though. The comments section for his apologies are a disgusting tire fire of Black antisemitism and racism. By at least a 10-1 ratio, Cannon’s fans look at the apology as being proof that Jews and the white devils have forced an outspoken Black man, in Cannon’s own words the day before, “to put the young negro in his place.”

I hope that Nick Cannon learns something in the coming months. But unless he takes a principled position to actively counter the hate that his fans have – partially because of him – then it is a drop in the bucket. The problem isn’t Nick Cannon’s hate or ignorance; it is the hate and ignorance of the larger community that he identifies with and that identify with him. In the hundreds of comments I’ve read on his Facebook, I have not seen one Black person say that his racist and antisemitic statements were wrong. Some are sympathetic to his apology and many are angry, but I didn’t see any who learned a thing from Cannon’s quick conversion.

Cannon’s apology, however manufactured, is a good first step. The only way to know if it is sincere is to see what Cannon says in the coming months - not to the Jewish community but to his Black community.

Are the stories about the remaining Jews being ethnically cleansed from Yemen true?

To my knowledge, on Monday I was the first to write in English about reports that the few remaining Jews in Kharif, Yemen were being imprisoned and being forced to sign over their property to the Shiite Houthi group with the intention of expelling them.

The news reached Israel and the media and government has questioned whether it was true.

The report has yet to be confirmed by any official source, leaving questions about the report’s validity. The fate of the Jews in Yemen if the report is true is uncertain.

When asked by The Jerusalem Post about the matter, Israel's Foreign Ministry said it had been queried about the report many times and it appears to be false.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder responded to the reports, saying, “Though the horrific reports we are reading about the persecution of Yemeni Jews are unconfirmed, the international community has a responsibility to investigate the situation and to protect this vulnerable population.”

There appears to be at least partial confirmation from Asharq al-Awsat, a news outlet with a pretty good reputation. it reports:

With tears in their eyes, a Jewish Yemeni left Yemen this week and arrived in one of the Arab capitals, following the instructions of the Houthi militia, which gave the head of the family a choice between staying in prison or leaving his hometown in Amran Governorate (north of Sanaa). The presence of the Jewish community there is nearing its disappearance from this region that has historically represented one of the most important centers of their presence in Yemen.

Asharq Al-Awsat traced the journey of suffering incurred by the Saeed Al-Na’ati family since the beginning of this year, as he was harassed, abused and pursued, before he was imprisoned for more than a month and then told to either leave the Houthi militia-controlled areas, or to remain in prison.

The Jewish community currently does not exceed 33 persons of both sexes. Only five of them live in the Kharif area of Amran governorate and the Arhab district of Sana'a governorate, as the Houthi gunmen intentionally harass the residents of the new market area in Amran governorate, which was a mostly Jewish area before the emergence of the Houthis, who compel them to emigrate and buy their homes and properties cheaply so that there is no presence of the followers of the Jewish religion in their areas.

Last May, the Houthi militia arrested a Jew named Youssef and also imprisoned Sa`id al-Na`ti. After a month and a half of prison as his family pleaded with tribal elders, al-Na`ti was released after he signed an pledge to sell his house and leave the country. This month, the group allowed him to sell some of his belongings and household items, while his mother and three daughters left for the city of Aden before they reached one of the Arab capitals in search of a new homeland.

Members of the sect told Al-Sharq al-Awsat that Al-A’ati had been forced with his family to leave while they were crying, and they did not want to leave their country. One of them said: “There is nothing left in Imran except for an old woman who takes care of her brother who lost his mind, while there are three others in the district of Arhab.”

The sources talked about how the family told the Houthis that they might be prevented from passing through the checkpoints scattered along the road leading to the temporary capital of Aden, but the Houthis answered them, saying, "Travel, and nothing should concern you. We will give you a pass at all points, and the most important thing is that you leave."

Until before the Houthis invaded Amran Governorate, the "New Market" area was like a closed neighborhood, most of whom were Jews who worked in iron workshops, carpentry and car repair,where they coexisted with the Arab population. With the emergence of the sectarian organization of the Houthis in the governorate of Saada in mid-2004, systematic targeting of Jews began, and Yemen saw the first wave of forced internal displacement of the followers of this religion, according to one of its members.

He added: “When the Houthis stormed the Al Salem area they sent a written warning to the Jews to leave the province; the attacks and targeting continued, and the number of these people dwindled from more than five thousand to today it is slightly more than 30 people, most of whom reside in a city owned by the Ministry of Defense near the American embassy in Sana'a.”

This appears to be an accurate account of at least one family of at least 5 people – perhaps 15% of the remaining Jews in Yemen.

The Government Fiddles while the People Burn (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

There is reason to believe that the present government of Israel is not only bloated and venal, but that it is staggeringly incompetent.

The Prime Minister acts almost exclusively to protect himself, and not on behalf of the country. The evidence for this is the absurdly fat and expensive “unity” (one has to laugh) government with its 35 ministers and 8 deputy ministers. This structure exists so that Binyamin Netanyahu can continue to be Prime Minister. There is no other reason.

There are countless difficult issues facing the government, but here are three major ones. In each case, the government has – through laziness or indecision, and by its members seeking political advantage for themselves, failed to deal with them. They are:

The Corona crisis. The numbers of newly diagnosed cases, the percentage of positive test results, and the number of seriously ill are all rising precipitously. The recommendations of the Health Ministry are passed through a political filter so that various constituencies are protected from inconvenience. The 35-minister government has created a 20-member “Corona Cabinet,” supposedly to make quick decisions. But there is also a Knesset Corona Committee which needs to approve them.

The Ministry is trying to find someone who will accept the job as “project manager” [the Hebrew word is “projector”] for the fight against the disease. But so far, nobody has agreed to take the job, because they don’t believe that they will be given the necessary authority. Even the Health Minister, Yuli Edelstein, has complained that the recommendations of his ministry are “gnawed away” by the politicians.

The objective that everyone pays lip service to is to stop the spread of the disease without killing the economy. So far, the effect of the government’s actions has been to not stop the disease, although they have done an effective job of crushing the economy.

The extension of sovereignty. The offer of American support for the extension of civil law to the Jordan Valley and to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria was an unprecedented opportunity for Israel. The window, however, is closing every day. PM Netanyahu first promised that he would act almost immediately after the election; then he said it would be at some point after 1 July. Now it seems that it has receded to an undetermined future date. The main reason seems to be the lack of agreement in the “unity” government. If this does not occur before the pre-election period in the US, it will probably be on ice until the next Republican administration (if we are lucky).

The Iranian threat. This is probably the most serious of all, even more than the epidemic. As everyone knows, Iran has been developing a murderous ring of proxy militias armed with what Maj. Gen. [res.] Yitzhak Brik estimates as 200,000 rockets and missiles in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Gaza. Several hundred of them may also have already been converted to precision-guided missiles that can strike within a few meters of a selected target. Hezbollah also has been training ground forces to invade Israel and capture civilian towns near the border.

The scenario of accurate missiles hitting our runways, refineries and chemical plants, power stations, desalination plants, military headquarters, nuclear reactors, cities – I could go on – is frightening, especially since such an attack could cripple our ability to retaliate. For this reason, the IDF has been carrying out the so-called “War Between the Wars,” a campaign of attacks on Iranian bases and supply lines in Syria and Iraq, to prevent the transfer of equipment to add precision guidance to the inaccurate rockets and missiles that make up their arsenal. Possibly some of the recent mysterious explosions in Iran are also part of the campaign to pull Iran’s teeth (including nuclear ones) before the outbreak of hostilities.

But no matter how hard we try, we can’t totally prevent the upgrading of Hezbollah’s weapons; we can only slow it down. We can bomb truck convoys in Syria, but (at least as far as I know) we have not dared to shoot down Iranian civil aircraft flying to Lebanon. Brik calls Israel’s campaign “a drop in the ocean.”

We have various missile defense systems in place, but they are limited. We do not have the ability to defend against a sustained mass attack, even with inaccurate rockets, from Hezbollah, which could launch thousands of rockets a day. Precision-guided missiles tip the balance even more in the direction of our enemies.

Brik argues persuasively that the fact that we are able to pursue the “War Between the Wars” with very little retaliation from Iran is not an indication of strength, but rather a danger sign. Iran, he says, is displaying restraint so as not to provoke a larger conflict until they are ready. Meanwhile, every day, more of their weapons are fitted with precision guidance systems.
Such a conventional attack would not justify a nuclear response; and in any event, most of the missiles would be coming from Lebanon, and even vaporizing Tehran wouldn’t stop them. The IDF, Brik believes, has not sufficiently upgraded either its offensive or defensive capabilities to counter such an attack. And if Iran succeeds in obtaining its own nukes (which it might even buy from another rogue regime), then Israel would be deterred from using its nuclear option.
Brik has been criticizing the IDF’s level of preparedness for some time, and the response has always been “don’t worry, we have it covered.” I am not so sure.

The citizens of Israel have an implicit contract with its government: we pay heavy taxes and allow the government to control many aspects of our lives. In return, it protects us against attacks from outside and responds to natural disasters like epidemics. We accept a certain amount of waste and even graft, because the alternative of anarchy would be far worse.
But the feeding frenzy of the politicians that accompanied the formation of the “unity” government, the gobbling up of salaries, offices, staffs, cars, and more by the unnecessary ministers, as well as the personal greed shown by the Prime Minister, has brought us to a historic moral nadir. Combined with the fumbling of the major issues facing the state, it’s clear that fundamental change is needed.

But what change, and how, and – importantly – who?

I don’t have the answers. But neither do the morons who rioted in front of the PM’s residence in Jerusalem last night and threw eggs (and worse) at the police. I am sure that any cure they would propose would be worse than the disease.

07/15 Links Pt2: The Attacks on the Uniqueness of the Holocaust; Israel’s outgoing U.N. ambassador: ‘We have to fight anti-Semitism on all fronts’; Israel's law against slavery

From Ian:

BESA: The Attacks on the Uniqueness of the Holocaust

The last decade has seen an explosion of attacks on the memory of the Holocaust. This expresses itself in many ways, including the casting of doubt on the Holocaust’s uniqueness. This version was aired in recent public debates in Germany and can also be found in historical manipulations by academic scholars.

The memory of the Holocaust has been under assault for decades from all sides: the extreme right, the extreme left, and parts of the Islamic world. A common tactic is to assert that the Holocaust was not unique, contrary to the Jewish claim.

Looking at the question on a purely empirical basis, the Holocaust was unambiguously a unique event. While some elements are comparable to other genocides, its combined characteristics are not. Several criteria collectively make the Holocaust an unprecedented event: the totality of the targeting (all Jews everywhere), its priority (all branches of the German state were involved in the effort), its industrial character, and its impracticality (instead of exploiting Jews for labor purposes, they were killed.)

Leading Holocaust philosopher Emil L. Fackenheim noted that the Armenian genocide was confined to the Turkish Empire. And even within that empire, not all Armenians there were targeted—for instance, those living in Jerusalem were spared. Geographical confinement also applies to the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Sudan.

As Fackenheim pointed out, the Nazis, by contrast, set out to exterminate every last Jew on the face of the earth. He said that while the Holocaust does belong to the species “genocide,” the planned and largely executed borderless extermination of the Jews during the Holocaust is without precedent and, thus far at least, without sequel. It is thus entirely appropriate to call it “unique.”

Israel’s Centrist Consensus

So “Left” and “Right” mean only one thing in the Israeli context: where you stand on relinquishing territory in the Land of Israel, particular regarding the territories of Judea & Samaria (the mountainous regions overlooking the coastal plain) and the Jordan Valley, liberated from Jordan’s 19-year illegal occupation (1949-1967) in Israel’s 6-Day War of defense of June 1967.

Radical Leftists promote immediate and unilateral, unconditional withdrawal from what they term “occupied” territories (misrepresenting the Geneva Convention of 1949); the less extreme Left supports a negotiated withdrawal from most of these disputed territories. Both support – with more or less enthusiasm – the idea of the establishment of a “Palestinian” state in those territories.

Extreme Rightists claim all of the biblical Land of Israel and historical Mandatory Palestine as Israel’s patrimony, based on various international legal instruments like the San Remo treaty, and reject any notion of an Israeli withdrawal; they dismiss a “Palestinian” identity separate from wider Arab nationalism, oppose vigorously the idea of a Palestinian state, and would like to see most Arabs who identify as Palestinian move to neighboring Arab states. The less radical Right grudgingly acknowledges a “Palestinian” movement but insists this can be accommodated within existing nation-states in the region, promoting various forms of autonomy, and focuses on Israel’s security needs and the belligerence of the Arab and Palestinian leadership, noting the unlikelihood of any real peace possibilities in the near future.

The middle ground – incorporating various aspects of the more restrained concepts of both the Right and Left in Israel – is actually the ‘high ground’ held by a majority of Israelis, proven in polls and at the ballot box over the past few decades. This is what I call the moderate Center in Israel, and it is far more powerful, and widespread, than most people realize – not least as it doesn’t get the headlines with pithy media phrases like “Peace Now” and “Annexation”, or “Destroy the terrorists” and “Disengagement” and the like. Ironically but significantly, every government and prime minister of Israel, with perhaps the exception of Ehud Barak in 1999-2000, has followed the policy lines of this centrist trend – even ‘Leftists’ like Shimon Peres (who used conservative economic policies to save Israel’s economy in the ‘80s) and ‘Rightists’ like Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon (who were the only Israeli prime ministers to withdraw from territories with Israeli civilian communities living in them).

Where is the ‘Center’ marked? For English speakers’ reference, Rabbi Daniel Gordis is right there, as are journalists/commentators like Yossi Klein Halevi and Haviv Rettig Gur, and historian Gil Troy; former minister and human rights activist Natan Sharansky and former Labor party MK Einat Wilf; and many of the politicians and thinkers and supporters of Blue & White (Benny Gantz, and Moshe Yaalon, less so Lapid’s Yesh Atid), Likud (which has also right-wingers of course in it), and Labor (which has also left-wingers, mostly in fact, of course).

But forget the political parties and labels: read anything by Amotz Asa El (he writes a column in the JPost called “Middle Israel”)… or for that matter anything I write. 🙂 There are Centrists in almost every Israeli political party and movement, except the hard Left and the hard Right, both of which are peripheral in Israeli society though they receive substantial press coverage. Even most of the 1.4 million Arab Israelis, some 20% of Israel’s population, can be included, perhaps ironically, in this category (though for historical, social, religious and cultural reasons many of them unfortunately vote for the most radical, anti-Israel, antisemitic and belligerent politicians to represent their sector in the Knesset). This is clear from both their behavior and polling data. (h/t Yerushalimey)

Phyllis Chesler: Israel's law against slavery

Bravo, Kudos, every kind of Kol Ha Kavod, to all those Knesset members, on both the right and the left, especially former Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, and Gilad Erdan, then-Minister of Internal Security (now Israel’s new Ambassador to the United Nations), who worked on the new legislation that criminalized customers ("Johns"), not prostitutes; who understood that prostitution is violence against women; and who were wise enough to also pass a funded enforcement provision which has just gone into effect.

This is a revolutionary law because it recognizes that prostitution is violence against women.

Although the issue is hotly debated, especially among feminists (“sex workers have to eat, they can’t starve’), I stand with Knesset member, Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) who stated: “The war against prostitution is like a war to free the slaves.”

Oddly enough, many anti-capitalist feminists rarely glorify mind-numbing factory, agricultural, or low-level office work. They are clear that the “workers” are being oppressed. When it comes to prostitution, the alleged “work” is often viewed as a form of resistance, rather than as a forced choice, as a “job” which they actually say allows women greater independence than marriage ever can.

If caught, the newly criminalized customers (“Johns”), will have to pay a fine of 2,000 shekalim ($580.00). Repeat offenders might face criminal charges.

This is not the first time that I’ve been called upon to write about the Israeli heroes who were and still are fighting violence against women.
Dr. Anat Gur is a pioneering Israeli therapist, the founder of the Women’s Wisdom Center, a professor at Bar Ilan, and an author (Women Abandoned: Women in Prostitution, Foreign Bodies: Eating Disorders, Childhood Sexual Abuse, and Trauma Informed Treatment), has worked with women prisoners, incest and eating disorder victims, and prostitutes since 1984.

According to Dr. Gur: “Prostitution is not a job or a livelihood for women. In addition to the severe violence, humiliation, and ongoing rapes, it is not ‘easy money’ for anyone but the pimps and traffickers of women, not for the girls and women who are exploited as prostitutes. Prostitution is the direct continuation of the exploitation of the most vulnerable women in society, those who have already been ‘groomed” by childhood incest, and are ready to be exploited as prostitutes.”

Dr. Gur independently confirmed the important, and also long-time research of Dr. Melissa Farley, namely that the complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorders among prostitutes are more severe than the Stress experienced by many combat veterans of more recognized wars. Dr. Gur told me: “While exploited in prostitution, they are completely disassociated and disconnected and cannot afford to tell what is really happening to them.”