Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Heaven Forbid That Jewish Survival Should Depend On IfNotNow! (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Last August, there were protests after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man. The protests turned angry, and the words “Free Palestine” were spray‐painted on the driveway of the Beth Hillel Temple.

On August 27, 2020, IfNotNow condemned this as antisemitism:

They even followed up that tweet, making it very clear that the left also has to be held accountable for antisemitism:

One day later, after the far-left let IfNotNow know they had gone too far in standing up for Jews, the group weaseled out of their condemnation of antisemitism:

Of course, IfNotNow's mistake was not that the "phrasing" fell short -- their condemnation enraged their left allies because it went too far. And worse, they think their condemnation of the defacing of a synagogue was a "distraction" by focusing on an attack on Jews and away from police violence and Black Lives Matter.

But INN was not finished yet.

Just as IfNotNow refuses to take any kind of stand on Israel ("We do not take a unified stance on BDS, Zionism or the question of statehood."), they avoid actually spelling out just what was wrong with their condemnation, to begin with.

Instead, they retweet others, under the guise of "uplifting" other viewpoints.

By backtracking, IfNotNow gave legitimacy to the idea that a synagogue showing an Israeli flag with a Star of David warrants a response, like defacing the synagogue with "Free Palestine".

Which raises some questions about what Jews should be allowed to do, and what protesters should be allowed to do in response:

o Is burning down a synagogue also OK? ("America's synagogues are burning: A turning point for U.S. Jews").
o  Are Jews allowed to wear a Star of David? ("New York Jewish man assaulted for wearing Star of David necklace" "What is that around your neck? Does that make you a f**king Zionist?" the attacker reportedly shouted before punching the victim in the face)
o  Are Jews allowed to wear a kippah out of doors? ("Some American Jews are taking off their kippahs and Stars of David amid a wave of antisemitic incidents")
o  Are Jews allowed to keep kosher? (Pig's Head Among Kosher Food in South African anti-Israel Protest)
o  Are Jews allowed to speak in Hebrew, the national, indigenous language of Israel? (Israeli student in Paris says he was beaten unconscious for speaking Hebrew)

Just how far does IfNotNow feel they have to go to make excuses for their far-left allies?

Other tweets by INN are also problematic.

IfNotNow is just as desperate to make excuses for the "Palestinian freedom movement" as it is to stifle its own criticism of the far-left:

It's an odd tweet: the Palestinian Arabs are no threat to Jews -- but the only way Jews will be safe is for the Palestinian Arabs to get equal rights, i.e. dismantle Israel. Thanks, but those guys attacking Jews on the street beat you to that message.

Just how clueless is IfNotNow?

Even when the far-left gives INN permission to sympathize with the Jews, they still are deaf to what is being done and are unable to identify with their fellow Jews:

Put aside their apparent ignorance of the Hamas Charter (or IfNotNow's dishonest attempt to avoid the hadith the charter quotes about killing Jews). IfNotNow deliberately understates the danger facing Jews from those 'freedom-living' Palestinian Arabs and their allies as being merely "isolated."

This did not go unnoticed.

There is a thread on Twitter, from May 20, that lists multiple recent attacks on Jews, with video.
Just to summarize:

o London: Palestinian activists use a bullhorn to tell people the rape the daughters of Jews
o  Russia: a man walks up to a Jew who is minding his own business and casually kicks him just for being Jewish...like assaulting a Jew is no big deal.
o Winnipeg: a man walks up to some jews, spits on their flag, wipes his feet on it, and then proceeds to push and threaten them when they try to get him to stop.
o  Toronto: an "anti-zionism" protest turns violent and a Jew is beaten with sticks...in broad daylight...in Canada
o Los Angeles: Jews getting attacked
o  More Jews being attacked in Los Angeles, where outdoor dining is totally safe unless you are a Jew
o  If the beatings don't make the point, a caravan of verbal abuse will make sure to make the point.
o  Germany: Rioters surround a synagogue and break the windows with rocks while chanting "shitty Jews" in German\
o  New York City: Jews are attacked and have things thrown at them, in the middle of the city, in broad daylight.
o  Jews get chased by cars trying to run them over
o  a Jew are taunted and verbally abused by "anti-zionists" while a Jew lays unconscious on the sidewalk
o Toronto: a Jewish catering service has its windows smashed
o  Jews are attacked with some kind of small explosive projectile (maybe a firework), in a busy city in broad daylight.
o  Dearborn, Michigan: yelling “intifada, intifada” - a call for rioting, violence and death against Jews.
o  London: they chant in battle cry in Arabic that translates as “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.” It refers to the Muslim massacre of Jews of the town in the 7th century.
o  Model Bella Hadid chanting "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free" a slogan Hamas uses to call for Genocide.

No, these attacks are not isolated, and they are still going on.

All of which makes IfNotNow's deliberate attempt to cover up the danger that Jews around the world are facing from the far left all the more appalling:

IfNotNow just doesn't get it.

It is one thing for them to pursue their agenda.

But to pursue it at the expense of the Jewish community, to deliberately play down the increasing danger facing Jews around the world and in the US and to turn their backs on Jews while claiming that other issues are more urgent?

Yes, Hillel did say "If not now, when?

But he also said "Do not separate from the community."

05/26 Links Pt1: Why western mobs are now sticking it to the Jews; Hamas Does Not Build Bomb Shelters Because It Needs Dead Children To Keep Its Cause Alive

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Why western mobs are now sticking it to the Jews

It is not the case, as head teacher Roper suggested, that some antisemites have hijacked the Palestinian cause for their own ends. Palestinianism is in itself innately and inescapably anti-Jew. Writing the Jews out of their own history and denying them the right to self-determination in their own historic land — a presence within that land that is intrinsic to Judaism — is profoundly anti-Judaism and anti-Jew. The Palestinians’ insignia and maps which excise the whole of Israel and replace it by “Palestine” are profoundly anti-Judaism and anti-Jew. Their educational materials which teach their children to hate Jews and steal Israel from them, their hysterical incitement against Jews as a conspiracy against the world and their Nazi-style antisemitic blood libels which pour out of their preachers and media are profoundly anti-Judaism and anti-Jew.

Which is why anyone who supports Palestinianism is supporting a cause that is profoundly anti-Judaism and anti-Jew.

Those of us who point out such things are routinely called “Islamophobes” or “racists” and dismissed. Instead the falsehoods, distortions and libels of Palestinianism are accepted as axiomatically true. So anyone who makes any criticism of the Palestinians — or who even merely vouchsafe, like the hapless Roper, that some people abuse that cause for other ends altogether — are damned as racist, Islamophobic, Nazi and so on.

This closely parallels the Black Lives Matter movement. Its odious mantra of “white privilege,” that white society is innately racist and colonialist, is nothing other than racial bigotry against white people. But to point this out, or indeed to question any part of that racially bigoted narrative, is to find yourself labelled as a racist instead.

It’s no surprise that Black Lives Matter activists and other anti-white bigots are now busily equating BLM with Palestinianism. This is intersectionality in action — the presentation of racial and even murderous bigotry and falsehoods as axiomatically and undeniably true, and the damning of those who call out this vileness for what it is or even dare question any part of it as racists and colonialists.

Palestinianism and Black Lives Matter have not been hijacked by anti-Jewish and anti-white bigots. They are intrinsically anti-Jew and anti-white movements. Until and unless this is acknowledged, the horrendous madness through which we are now living will continue to worsen.

NRO Editors: Time for Democrats to Address Their Anti-Semitism Problem

There is little political upside for Democrats to call out the Squad. Polls show a party that has lurched leftward and become increasingly antagonistic towards the Jewish State. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently noted, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict feeds into many of the progressive left’s ideological biases: “the narrative of the oppressor versus the oppressed, of the coloniser versus the colonised, of the genocide perpetrator and system of supremacy.”

Those few Democrats who unapologetically defend Israel, such as Ritchie Torres, a freshman congressman representing New York’s 15th district, find themselves ostracized. “The moment I sent out a statement denouncing the terrorism of Hamas, I was swiftly demonized by extremists as a white supremacist, as a supporter of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide,” Torres told an audience at a recent United Jewish Appeal–sponsored event.

Surely, condemning those who instigate anti-Jewish violence should not undermine the cause of Palestinian statehood. And if it does, then there is something wrong with that cause.

After Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene recently made an ignorant and intellectually lazy historical analogy, comparing the campaign for vaccination passports to the Nazis’ forcing of Jews to wear gold stars, reporters began chasing down Republicans to get their reactions. Minority leader Kevin McCarthy and other members of the House leadership eventually issued statements condemning the Georgia congresswoman.

When it comes to Ilhan Omar and Co., where is Nancy Pelosi? Where is Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin? To this point, nowhere to be found. It is, of course, true that neither Left nor Right has a monopoly on anti-Semitism. These days, however, one party is increasingly under the sway of a noxious, all-encompassing hostility to the Jewish State.

Remembering George Washington’s Letter To The Hebrew Congregation Of Newport As Jews Find Themselves Surrounded By Those Who Want To Make Them Afraid

It was doubtlessly intentional of Washington to reference Hebrew scripture while speaking with a Jewish congregation on the subject of religious freedom from persecution and discrimination. The unprecedented embrace of Jewish religious freedom at a time when Jews were widely despised across the world simply cannot be missed or under-appreciated.

While those words were unbelievably meaningful when they were first written, their significance grows as the Left aims to destroy the very foundation of the country. After all, it is no mistake that while the Left attempts to redefine every element of American life, they are simultaneously erasing those whose unmatched moral genius built the unparalleled system of freedom we enjoy today.

Jews — both secular and religious — have thrived in the United States because of the ideology promoted by the Founding Fathers. Washington’s desire — that Jews live free and unafraid — became a reality solely because of this ideology. However, because others have forgotten their words, this reality is under threat.

This is why it is not enough for Jews alone to value and protect the sentiment expressed in Washington’s letter. Non-Jews who also respect and love the United States must acknowledge and understand that if Washington were to witness the violence being committed against Jews in the streets of today’s America, he would correctly conclude that Jews cannot sit safely beneath their own vines or fig trees, and there are those who stand to make them afraid, and that this represents a pivotal change in the nation’s moral trajectory.

We simply cannot allow Washington’s words to be erased by the hungry claws of a radical Left in their bid to redefine what it means to be an American. The very notion of true religious freedom exemplified by the words, “Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid” is at stake, and God forbid we ever discover what will befall Jewish Americans if we fail.

Hamas members putting their families at risk - with fatal results

As with the last war, a large number of the women and children who were relatives of the intended target. Even though Hamas members know that they are often targeted in their homes, they remain with their families during war - with often tragic results.

PCHR reported the airstrike this way:

At approximately 20:20, Israeli warplanes launched a missile at a 3-storey house belonging to Yousif Ibrahim al-Rantisi (‘Azarah) and his brothers in al-Juneinah neighborhood. As a result, the mother, her grandson, her son and his wife were killed. Those killed were identified as Siham Yousif Mohammed al-Rantisi (66); her 2-year-old grandson Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim al-Rantisi; her son Ra’ed Ibrahim Khamis al-Rantisi (29) and his wife Shaimaa’ Diab Mohammed al-Rantisi (21.) Moreover, 15 others were wounded variously, including 7 children and 3 women. All of them were taken to Abu Yousif al-Najjar Hospital to receive treatment.

Whenever PCHR lists an entire family killed, look for any males of military age - in this case, Ra'ed Ibrahim Khamis al-Rantisi.

Sure enough, he is Hamas.

Clearly, he was the target. Otherwise, the IDF would have warned the family to leave the building, as it did many other times during the operation.

I do not have the information as to how important Rantisi was within Hamas. His age. 29, indicates that he had at least ten years experience and was probably a fairly senior terrorist. Only Israel knows what specific intelligence they had on him at the time the decision was made to kill him - probably knowing that there were children and elderly in the same apartment. The military commander must make that decision as to whether the killing of family members would be proportionate to the value of the target.

Israel knew in this case who the target was and who else would probably die. People may disagree, but one thing is certain: Ra'ed Rantisi chose to put his family in danger.

He isn't the only one. We already looked at Iyad Fathi Sharir, who most definitely was a high value target as the commander of the Hamas anti-tank missile unit, who was killed along with his wife, teenage and toddler daughters.

When the smoke clears, it will be seen that the IDF engaged in the most pinpoint campaign in the history of warfare. The number of civilians can never be zero, and from initial indications it looks like they are less than one third of the total casualties. That is unprecedented in any war in urban areas where the terrorists embed themselves with civilians.

US @StateDept starting to erase "Israel" from Jerusalem press releases again

In 2011, in response to an article in the Weekly Standard that noted that government press releases routinely referred to events in "Jerusalem, Israel" while the US was arguing that it had the right to say that a US citizen born in Jerusalem was not born in Israel, the White House scrubbed nearly all references to Jerusalem being in Israel on its website.

Later, in 2016, the White House issued a press release for Obama attending Shimon Peres' memorial service on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem. The release which originally said "Israel" but was then "corrected" to remove reference to Israel, literally crossing it out:

Anyone who thought that the Trump administration 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as being the capital of Israel would end this nonsense was optimistic.

During Secretary of State Blinken's visit to the Middle East now, three out of four State Department press releases refer only to "Jerusalem" with no country - contrary to standard practice - and only one mentions Israel.

Only when meeting embassy staff does it say Israel, perhaps because it is the US embassy in Israel and it would really be egregious to pretend that the US embassy isn't in the correct country.

This is no oversight - the same pattern is in Blinken's daily schedule, where the name of the country (or, in the case of the Palestinian Authority, the "West Bank") always follows the name of the city - except for Jerusalem, except for that one meeting with embassy staff:

Under the previous administration, events in Jerusalem routinely said "Israel."

It is a little too early to say - the State Department website still says (inaccurately) that the US was the first country to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital - that but it sure looks like the Biden administration is anxious to roll back all of Trump's accomplishments and go back to the absurd situation where the US considered all of Jerusalem - on both sides of the Green Line - to be a final status issue up for negotiations.

There are two groups that attend anti-Israel rallies.

One group styles themselves as being liberal, open-minded, very concerned about human rights, only wanting peace and so, so concerned over Palestinians who are killed during a war their side started. These people swear up and down that they are non-violent, against antisemitism and that they want Israel to go away quietly and peacefully as a result of world pressure and boycotts.

The other are young Arab men who grew up with pure Jew-hatred. They are intolerant of women, of gays, they don't care about the environment. They share none of the supposed principles of the kumbaya crowd, with the exception of wanting to see the Jewish state destroyed and of the role they take of eternal victims with no agency.

The latter group is behind the torrent of antisemitic attacks we see happening every day in the West. They are the ones who are driving around in gangs, looking for Jews to intimidate or attack. They are directly threatening Jews on social media thousands of times a day.

This is unprecedented.

For decades, Jews have been able to walk around safely in most major cities without fear, without even considering hiding their kippot or Star of David necklaces. Jews used to be most afraid of being attacked by Blacks, but over time that has become much less of an issue with the exception of the recent uptick of attacks in Brooklyn. Antisemitism has always been there but it definitely lessened. ADL statistics has seen it go down steadily since the 90s.

But this is different than even the '60s. Now Jews have to worry about gangs who are targeting them because they are Jews.

Why have these Arab gangs suddenly become so emboldened to form posses to attack Jews?

Because of the first group.

The fine distinctions that Leftist Israel haters try to make between anti-Zionism and antisemitism are completely invisible to Arabs. They hate Israel because, not despite the fact, it is filled with Jews. Antisemitism is the entire source of the conflict. Their parents and preachers don't teach them to hate Zionists but Jews. They look at their Jewish allies as tools and as dhimmis, not as role models.

The attackers find strength in numbers, they see that they have the Left on their side, they are riled up by thousands of lies about Israel by speaker after speaker and tweet after tweet, they get validation from members of Congress and other liars and bigots who say that Israel is guilty of genocide and apartheid and ethnic cleansing, they are primed to violence from lurid and often faked photos of dead kids, they are whipped up into a frenzy from the hypnotic anti-Israel and antisemitic chants.

And they are in large cities with lots of identifiable Jews all around, who must pay for these crimes.

It is a recipe for violence.

The Arab gangs are engaged in what they know best: terrorism. After all, the point of terrorism isn't the attacks themselves but the feat that the attacks create among the targets. These Arabs are importing terror from their Middle Eastern cousins, doing everything they can to frighten Jews. They feel, correctly, that they have reached a critical mass with fellow Arabs in their respective Western countries.

Crucially, they are being given cover by the secular Left, publishing articles that justify terror and the idea that Palestinians are justified in doing anything they want to Jews because all's fair in "resistance."

Arabs are sensitive to being shamed. They have not acted like this before in America because the idea of wanton violence against Jews was shameful. Now, and their Leftist allies give them intellectual cover - and they will never, ever shame them.

The Leftist anti-Zionists could shame them into stopping their attacks. They could make it clear that they want nothing to do with the antisemites. They could stand up and say that they will not be allies with Jew-haters and will not march with bigots. They could demand that mosques and Muslim leaders clearly denounce the attacks (they certainly will not do that on their own.) But these people who claim to speak truth to power will never, ever call out violence by Arabs They refuse to do that, because they are all about solidarity and allyship and, let's face it, they don't want to say anything negative about people of color who want to attack Jews.

The Leftist enablers also know that the Arabs would turn on them next if they say anything negative about their antisemitism.

Instead, the "progressives" issue weak statements against antisemitism and then return to their "From the river to the sea" chants to incite the next round of attacks.

The only solution is to shame the attackers. The only people who can do that are tacitly condoning the attacks.

This is a nearly perfect storm that is bringing up an entirely new class of Jew-hatred to America.

First the @NYTimes publishes an op-ed supporting terrorism. Then it publishes The Map That Lies.

Yesterday, the New York Times published an op-ed by a resident of Gaza, Basma Ghalayini, who wanted to tell the world that it wasn't only Hamas that was fighting Israel, but all Palestinians. And they have every right to use terrorism:

[T]o focus on Hamas is to miss the point, and to reinforce the myth that the conflict is, in some fundamental manner, about the group. The conflict is about the Israeli occupation.

To focus on Hamas is also to sanitize the conflict, and in that way become complicit in it. It allows people to express sympathy for ordinary Palestinians while blaming a few people at the top of the Palestinian leadership. But the right to self-defense against Israel’s continued aggression belongs to all Palestinians; legitimate resistance cannot be a right only for those Palestinians who believe exclusively in nonviolent self-defense — not in the face of the violence we endure. We, Palestinians, are in this together.

She also said that Hamas' thousands of rockets were "rickety" and no threat to Israel, only an excuse for Israel to attack Gaza.

This is justification not only for shooting rockets at Israelis, but also to do literally anything. Using this logic, it could be "legitimate resistance" to rape Israeli women or to kidnap and butcher Israeli children (both of which have happened.)

Palestinians can and have done anything under the banner of "legitimate resistance" from bus bombs to car rammings to stabbing any Jews that can be found. The New York Times is agreeing that this is a legitimate viewpoint worthy of debate and consideration.

And anyone who thinks that there is no relationship between this vile mentality and the scenes we've seen of Palestinian youth attacking and targeting Jews in Western cities is a fool.

Today, the NYT published another anti-Israel op-ed, by Diana Buttu, that justifies the recent pogroms against Jews by Israeli Arabs as a natural reaction to being second-class citizens, and says that coexistence is a "myth." That point could be argued.

But the graphic for this article is thoroughly offensive - it is a version of "The Map That Lies," the graphic that misrepresents Jewish and Arab control of land since the 1940s, commissioned by the New York Times!

MSNBC apologized for displaying this fake map on the screen. McGraw-Hill apologized for publishing it in a textbook - and withdrew the book from circulation. But years after it has been thoroughly debunked by many, the New York Times not only publishes it - but makes its own custom version!

This is unconscionable. The New York Times op-ed page is a cesspool of lies and slander against Israel where facts are demeaned and perversions are celebrated.

05/25 Links Pt2: The Rise of Woke Anti-Semitism; The Cowardice of Chuck Schumer; Remembering the Farhud pogrom and its lessons for today

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: Anti-Zionism Isn’t Anti-Semitism? Someone Didn’t Get the Memo.

In this storm of hate, political leaders such as Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain have issued appropriate statements of condemnation. On CNN, correspondent Bianna Golodryga called out the anti-Semitism of Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, when he cited “deep pockets” and “control [of] media” in terms of Israel’s influence on public opinion. Good for her.

But if there’s been a massive online campaign of progressive allyship with Jews, I’ve missed it. If corporate executives have sent out workplace memos expressing concern for the safety of Jewish employees, I’ve missed it. If academic associations have issued public letters denouncing the use of anti-Semitic tropes by pro-Palestinian activists, I’ve missed them.

It’s a curious silence. In the land of inclusiveness, Jews are denied inclusion.

One response to the attacks that I have seen coming from the left is that attacks on Jews are wrong because an American or British or German Jew should not be held responsible for the actions of the state of Israel. That’s true, and fine as far as it goes.

But it doesn’t go far enough. Would the assaults in Los Angeles and New York have been more justifiable if the victims had been Israeli citizens — even, say, Israeli diplomats? Is hatred of an entire country and threats or violence to its people acceptable as long as the hate is untainted by some older prejudice?

Just pure Jew hatred and antisemitism from @sarahleah1 here. https://t.co/tF8tOb97u7
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) May 25, 2021

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: How influencers have legitimised anti-Semitism

Indeed, Jewish communities across the world are already experiencing the fall-out from a new wave of anti-Semitism that has been legitimised by celebrity activists. This month, for example, has also seen the rise of a second frequently misunderstood slogan: a version of “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return”, which dates back to the massacre of the Jews by Muhammad and his army in Khaybar, northern Arabia, in the 7th century.

Today, it remains a battle-cry used by Muslims when attacking Jews or Israelis; in the past month alone, it has been used not only in Istanbul, Casablanca, Kuwait City, Doha and Karachi, but in western Europe, too: in Utrecht, Warsaw, Vienna, Rome, Munster, London, Brussels, Berlin and Amsterdam.

The resurgence of anti-Semitism Europe, in many ways, is unsurprising; it has been simmering under the surface for over a decade. Yet despite a number of terrible anti-Semitic attacks in recent years, America, by comparison, has felt relatively immune — immune, that is, until now. Indeed, I have friends who moved to the US from Europe a decade ago to escape anti-Semitism. This month, for the first time, they are now questioning whether it is safe to walk to synagogue or wear their kippahs.

And is it really so hard to see why? Last Saturday, a man was arrested for attacking Jewish diners outside a restaurant in Los Angeles “on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon”. Two days earlier, a Jewish man, Joseph Borgen, was attacked by a group of pro-Palestinian activists in New York City’s Times Square. They reportedly beat him with a crutch, sprayed him with mace, called him a “dirty Jew” and explained that “Hamas is going to kill all of you”. Remarkably, a photo of one of the men accused of assaulting Borgen, Waseem Awawdeh, recently appeared in a now-deleted Instagram photo posted by Bella Hadid from a pro-Palestinian protest.

Yet what I found most disturbing was how Awawdeh’s comments following the attack mirrored those of Mohammed Bouyeri’s after he killed Theo van Gogh. Just as Bouyeri refused to apologise, Awawdeh reportedly proclaimed from his jail cell: “If I could do it again, I would do it again.” A video has since been released, purporting to show Awawdeh leaving prison on bail; his friends welcome him outside, put him on their shoulders and proclaim that he was a “hero”.

And herein lies the problem: when such odious acts as Awawdeh’s can be represented as heroism, you suddenly see how easy it is for false narratives to turn into deadly fantasies.

WSJ: The Rise of Woke Anti-Semitism

There's something especially unsettling about the newest eruption of the oldest hatred - anti-Semitism. We live in an age of heightened awareness of ethnic and racial victimhood, but in the quarter-century the FBI has kept records, hate crimes against blacks have declined by more than a third between 1996 and 2019. By contrast, the number of anti-Semitic crimes - which are, proportionate to the share of Jews in the population, much more frequent than anti-black crime - has scarcely changed.

In the past, most of the anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. have been the product of the usual depraved minds: white supremacists or sick individuals deciding to take out their pathologies on the group most often blamed for society's flaws. But mostly they haven't occurred as the kind of street-level response to geopolitical events that is too common among political activists in Europe. This latest outbreak, however, has come about in direct response to the recent conflict in Gaza.

The wider political and cultural environment is what makes this outbreak of anti-Semitism especially unsettling. The latest conflict in the Middle East has been made to fit the binary classification of the human race into oppressor and victim on the basis of identity. The wide penetration of this notion into the consciousness and discourse of prominent elected figures is new.

Chelsea football club condemns antisemitism. Arabs are very upset.

A tweet from Chelsea FC:

Naturally, this is very upsetting to antisemites.

05/25 Links Pt1: Arab States Are ‘Washing Their Hands’ of Palestinians; How the UN Stole Jewish Homes in Occupied Jerusalem and Set Off the Latest Conflict; UNRWA director says IDF strikes were 'precise', 'did not target civilians'

From Ian:

Analysts: Arab States Are ‘Washing Their Hands’ of Palestinians

By contrast, Gulf states seemed more interested in military alliances among themselves and with Israel to counter threats like Iran, said Soliman. “The idea of an Arab-Israeli NATO” goes back to President George W. Bush, and “we are getting there. It’s not a fancy idea anymore; however, it is going to take time.” Webinar moderator Joyce Karam, Washington correspondent for The National, noted that an “Arab NATO” was an “idea that was first started with Harry Truman” with initiatives that led to the failed 1955 Baghdad Pact.

Elgindy additionally cited the practical realities that facilitated Israel’s relations with Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the UAE. Unlike Egypt and Jordan, which made peace agreements with Israel in 1979 and 1994, respectively, this Arab quartet had never engaged in military hostilities with Israel. Correspondingly, several of these states have had “under-the-table relations with the Israelis anyway” and now merely “are consecrating an existing geopolitical order.”

Meanwhile, Arab states “will continue to pay lip service to two states because everyone needs some place to hang their hat” concerning a strategy for the Palestinians, observed Elgindy. Yet international actors are increasingly practicing “conflict management” and “risk aversion” towards the Palestinians, United States Institute of Peace Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Program, explained director Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen. In tandem, she added, Israeli “trends are clear that the body politic has moved very much and largely to the right,” to the detriment of concessions to the Palestinians. This trend has only accelerated with the latest eruption of violence.

Yet even before Hamas’s latest jihad, Elgindy correctly faulted Palestinians for their plight, as the Palestinian Authority’s recent cancellation of long overdue elections—the first since 2006—further exposed the corruption of the P.A. dictatorship. The cancellation “is another sign of a, I don’t any other way to put it, but a bankrupt leadership, that has no strategic vision, that is incapable of even minimally doing what is required to put its own house in order.” “You can never really underestimate the Palestinian leadership’s dysfunction,” he added.

How the UN Stole Jewish Homes in Occupied Jerusalem and Set Off the Latest Conflict

The fundamental issue at stake in Shimon HaTzadik and Sheikh Jarrah are crystal clear. Unlike some parts of Israel where territory changed hands in more complex ways, we know exactly what happened and why it happened. And those simple facts tell a story of the UNRWA’s complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Jews, not just today when it serves as a storehouse for Hamas missiles and an employment agency for Hamas propagandists, but back in the 50s.

Jews were ethnically cleansed from Jerusalem after an invasion and occupation. The United Nations, through UNRWA, violated international law by taking part in population transfer by an occupying power which had expelled the indigenous population. This is the charge that the UN and the anti-Israel politicians and media have repeatedly lobbed at Israel.

And they’re the ones guilty of it.

Their Sheikh Jarrah argument is that ethnic cleansing and occupation are moral and legal when Arab Muslim armies do it. It’s that Arab Muslim squatters who moved into Jewish homes in 1956 had gained an immutable moral right to live in them by 1967 that outweighed those of the Jewish trusts which had owned them since the 19th century.

There’s no better way to show the hypocritical double standards of an anti-Israel movement that cries about occupation, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid while practicing those very things.

AOC, Sanders, Warren, the UN, the Quarter, the EU, and the Biden administration are demanding that the Arab Muslim occupation of Jerusalem continue. They are ordering a free country to overturn the legal ruling of a court in case that goes back to the 1970s because they believe that Arab Muslim occupiers have a right to live in Jerusalem… and Jews don’t.

That’s what this was about in 1948. That’s still what it’s about in 2021.

The occupiers cry about the “occupation” and the ethnic cleansers cry about “ethnic cleansing” as they fight to bring back the state of apartheid that drove the Jews out of Jerusalem.

Much of the narrative around the Sheik Jarrah property dispute is based on the myth that the law discriminates against Palestinians. Prof. Avi Bell's detailed legal @KoheletForum explainer demolishes that claim https://t.co/HUzaqHjvI6
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) May 24, 2021

Refuting 15 Anti-Israel Lies

As Hamas fired deadly missiles at Israel for 11 straight days, Israel’s critics fired one verbal salvo after another.

Unable or unwilling to distinguish between a terrorist organization seeking Israel’s destruction — Hamas — and a democratic country trying to deny the group’s wish, the anti-Zionists and antisemites went for the jugular.

Here are 15 of the most memorably outrageous accusations:
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, discussing Israel’s actions in Gaza on CNN, stated, “They’re losing the media war despite their connections…” CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga laudably pushed back, “What are their connections?” The minister laughed and said, “Deep pockets.” The anchor followed up: “What does that mean?” The minister replied, “Well, they’re very influential people, they control media.” (May 20)

This is classical antisemitism — the spurious notion of Jews “controlling” the media (see AJC’s Translate Hate Glossary). By the way, if Jews did control the media, we’re doing a pretty lousy job, judging by the daily fare we’ve witnessed from the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, MSNBC, etc

Chinese Communist Party-affiliated Chinese TV Host Zheng Junfeng: “Some people believe that US pro-Israeli policy is traceable to the influence of wealthy Jews in the US and the Jewish lobby on US foreign policy.” (May 16)

Another egregious example of classical antisemitism, alleging that “wealthy Jews” wield inordinate influence on the policies of a government. This simply echoes the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which attributed demonic powers to a Jewish “cabal.” Incidentally, Jews are two percent of the US population, hold a multiplicity of views, and, like fellow Americans, are active on many sides of many causes. And please take note: Unlike the case in some other notable countries, the American Constitution invites citizens to “petition the government.”

Member of Irish Parliament Richard Boyd Barrett: “We must demand the dismantling of the Israeli state.” (May 15)

There are 193 member states of the United Nations. Mr. Barrett is proposing the dismantling of Israel. Are there any other UN member states he is proposing to dismantle? If not, which appears to be the case, could it possibly have something to do with the fact that Israel is the lone Jewish-majority nation on Earth?

PCHR has lots of fake civilians in Gaza

As we've seen in previous wars, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights happily spouts lies about the civilian status of the people killed in wars with Israel, accusing Israel of targeting civilians when it simply isn't true.

Here's a sad story PCHR made up:

At approximately 23:50 (May 14), Israeli warplanes launched at least 15 missiles at ‘Abed al-Razeq Qlaibo Mosque and its surrounding near Qlaibo Hill in Beit Lahia. As a result, the mosque was completely destroyed. Five minutes later, the residents of the area thought that the targeted house belonged to Hatem al-Mansi, which is to the southern side of the mosque, so they ran to evacuate al-Mansi family members. When the residents arrived at al-Mansi’s house and entered it, an Israeli drone fired a missile at the house garden. As a result, 3 civilians, including 2 brothers, were killed while 5 others, including a woman, were injured. One of those injured sustained serious wounds. Those killed were identified as: Ahmed (34) and Yousef (22) Hatem Mahmoud al-Mansi (34) and Ahmed Mohammed ‘Abed al-‘Aziz Sabbah (28). Moreover, 4 houses near the targeted mosque from the western side, other nearby houses and electricity and communication networks sustained severe damage

Ahmed Hatem Al Mansi:

Ahmed Mohammed Sabah:

Chances are that Al Mansi's brother Yousef was a terrorist too, but Hamas has only released a small percentage of its martyr photos. At any rate, these two were obviously not civilian.

PCHR wrote:

(On May 13). the Israeli artillery fired 2 shells at a group of farmers in their land near the American Hospital near Beit Hanoun Crossing, north of the Gaza Strip. As a result, one of the farmers namely Suhaib ‘Abed al-Raheem ‘Awad Ghanem (25) was killed while another namely Yehia Mansour Ghaben (24) was seriously injured, both are from Beit Lahia.

Here's one of the "farmers," Yahya Mansour Ghaben:

You know how NGOs love to say that Israel's blockade is responsible for Gaza's water crisis?

You hardly ever hear them blame the actual rulers of Gaza.

Here is a music video from Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades showing them manufacturing weapons - from existing water pipes that they dig up from the ground.

Terror groups have been bragging about this lately:

In the conflict's final days, Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Al-Nakhala boasted about his group's ability to improvise weapons from everyday materials.

"The silent world should know that our weapons, by which we face the most advanced arsenal produced by American industry, are water pipes that engineers of the resistance turned into the rockets that you see," he said.

They were taught by Iran how to convert the pipes into missiles.

So now, Hamas is eager to get an international "reconstruction conference" together to help rebuild its arsenal with new pipes and cement.

And the world will continue to blame Israel for Hamas redirecting humanitarian aid to weapons and tunnels.

From Jordanian news site Sawaleif:

No one in the world, whether individual, group or state, dares to harm or annoy the evil Jews, despite their crimes, massacres, and fires that they ignite in various parts of the world.

There is an exception to this rule: Muslims are the only nation that God blessed and Almighty has entrusted with punishing Jews for their crimes against God Almighty first, then against the prophets, peace be upon them, and then for the rights of people, especially the Palestinian people.

And because Muslims are not able to reach this evil gang that is scattered in various parts of the world, God has brought them today to live in Palestine in order to make it easier for Muslims to subdue them by crawling towards them from every direction in order to punish them and take revenge on them and eliminate them completely, to rid the world of their evils.

The exercises or maneuvering with live ammunition that are now taking place between armed Zionist terrorists and unarmed peaceful Palestinians who were displaced by the evil and armed Jewish gang from their homes to the Gaza Strip are rather preparatory exercises for the holy march of the return of Palestinians from all refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza to their homes, their land and their homeland, to eliminate this armed Jewish division supported by the United States, and to implement the true Holocaust against these evil people in a well-deserved way.

Many indications indicate that the hour of the divine promise to implement this Holocaust is approaching.

Sawaleif has a history of crazed Jew-hating articles, but this may be the worst one.

The author's previous article says that the only way that the world can ever have peace is by getting rid of all the Jews from Israel.

05/24 Links Pt2: Matti Friedman: The Americanization of the Israeli-Palestinian Debate; How to halt the criminalization of Israel; Street Violence as a Political Tool

From Ian:

Matti Friedman: The Americanization of the Israeli-Palestinian Debate

The story of the Jewish minority in Europe and in the Islamic world, which is the story of Israel, has nothing to do with race in America. My grandmother’s parents and siblings were shot outside their village in Poland by people the same color as them. If you stand on a street in the modern state of Israel and look at passersby, you often can’t tell who’s Jewish and who’s Arab. Many Israelis are from Arab countries, and for the 6 million Jews living in the heart of the Arab world (300 million people) and in the broader Islamic world (1.5 billion people), the question of who’s the minority is obviously a tricky one. Most Black people here are Jews with roots in Ethiopia. The occupation of the West Bank is supported by many Israelis mainly because they have rational fears of rockets and suicide bombings, tactics that weren’t quite the ones endorsed by the American civil-rights movement. All of this is to say that although Israel, like America, is deeply messed up, it’s messed up in completely different ways.

Nonetheless, the belief in a fundamental similarity has caught on. While following the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, which to me seemed just and necessary, I saw a sign that read From Ferguson to Palestine. This was puzzling: American soldiers still occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, and American aid money was flowing to repressive regimes throughout the Middle East and beyond. If activists were seeking foreign inspiration for a domestic movement, they had hundreds of ongoing ethnic conflicts to choose from. But something about Palestine struck Americans as relevant to their own experience.

That sentiment has moved into elite opinion. In 2019, The New York Times published an op-ed by the respected scholar Michelle Alexander, the author of an important book on incarceration, that described Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians as “one of the great moral challenges of our time,” the scene of “practices reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow segregation in the United States.” The essay didn’t explain why this conflict constitutes one of the great moral challenges or offer any indication that the author had ever visited Israel. Last year the Times ran an essay by the author Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a college professor in Los Angeles, that ridiculed “white writers” for their “white privilege,” identified the American dream as “settler colonialism,” and then segued into an attack on Israelis as settler colonialists.

For these Americans, distant Jews have become an embodiment of the American evil, racial oppression. People have always projected fantasies onto other places and groups, but this particular type of projection, in which Jews are displayed as the prime symbol of whatever’s wrong, has a long history. When it surfaces, it usually heralds an impatience with logical analysis and normal politics, and a move toward magical thinking.

Think the woke are not antisemitic? Think again.
Watch me raise money for Hamas to kill Jews from students in Portland! pic.twitter.com/osIVUKNk80
— Ami Horowitz (@AmiHorowitz) May 24, 2021

Straight up incitement from the NY Times. An entire article claiming that the problem is Jews moving from one city to another city in the Jewish state.

Jewish lives are considered themselves a provocation. This is some mid-20th-century-Poland horsecaca https://t.co/lehEoedYuS
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 24, 2021

Noah Rothman: The Radicalization of the University of California Press

On May 21, a prestigious activist organization expressed its “solidarity and support for Palestinians in their fight for liberation.” In accordance with the radicalism of this organization, it pointedly did not refer to Israel by name, placing the Jewish state instead within “historic Palestine.” This activist organization encouraged us to donate to “local organizations,” like the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), presently celebrating what it takes to be a “courageous victory” over the Zionist regime and its “Zionist settlers” across “all of Palestine.”

The activist organization in question is the University of California Press, the “nonprofit publishing arm of the University of California system.” Because it is associated with a university system, it dutifully notes in its solidarity statement that it will “prioritize pedagogies that reflect intersectional, anti-colonial, anti-racist action.”

This statement is not exactly a departure for the press, which includes a commitment to “drive progressive change” in its mission statement. On the Israel front, it published Sunaina Maira’s Boycott, which risibly asserts that there is a virtual ban on “pro-Palestinian” speech in the academy. The assertion is risible because her book is part of a UC Press American Studies series, co-edited by scholars prominent in the successful effort to win the American Studies Association over to boycotting Israel. If there was any doubt that they had a home in one of the biggest university presses in the country, the Press has now invited them to leave a toothbrush and offered them a drawer.

In recent months, defenders of academic freedom have worried about the ham-fisted and, in some cases, unconstitutional, GOP-led legislative efforts to combat left-liberal “social justice” ideology on state university campuses. State legislators hold the purse strings and are a formidable threat to academic freedom. Perhaps that threat is more deserving of our attention than student op-ed writers. But the defense of academic freedom rests in no small part on the university’s claim to be a center of “the free search for truth and its free exposition.” When the publishing arm of a state university system decides that it is also the publishing arm of anti-Zionism, it undermines that defense.

Is the problem in Israel rooted in 1967 or 1948?
?@DanielGordis? joins our podcast from Jerusalem — as the ceasefire is being negotiated — to take us through a longer view of the recent crisis. https://t.co/J7m18YsZ7y pic.twitter.com/qBmkm15uIh
— Dan Senor (@dansenor) May 21, 2021