This morning I sat down with my newspaper, my coffee, and my cat, to read that the IDF held a ceremony on Tuesday to mark the completion of the massive and sophisticated barrier on the border (or whatever it is) with the Gaza Strip.
They call it an “iron wall,” 65 km long, with a fence that rises to a height of 6m above the ground and a concrete barrier below it whose depth is not specified, but is said to go deep enough to stop the tunnels that Hamas loves to dig. There is also a barrier that extends into the sea at its northern end. The whole system is rich in various kinds of sensors, radar, cameras, and even remotely controlled weapons. The IDF reports that numerous tunnels were discovered and destroyed during the construction of the underground barrier.
The system took three and half years to build at a cost of 3.5 billion shekels, or more than US$ 1.1 billion. That is a lot of money that could be used for many other purposes, but given the situation it was necessary.
There is nothing quite as frightening for civilians living near Gaza or on the northern border near Lebanon than the prospect of a terror tunnel opening up a few meters from their homes. In some cases, residents heard sounds of digging and voices speaking Arabic before a tunnel was discovered. Hamas had plans to kidnap civilians and execute mass casualty attacks through these tunnels, and during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, some 14 tunnels that crossed the border into Israel were destroyed, plus several more inside the strip.
You may recall that Hamas terrorists infiltrated through a tunnel back in 2006, attacked an IDF post near Kerem Shalom at the southern end of the strip, killed two IDF soldiers and wounded several others including Gilad Shalit, who was carried back through the tunnel to Gaza, where he was held for more than six years. He was ultimately released in exchange for 1,027 prisoners in Israeli prisons, many of them murderers serving long sentences. These prisoners represented both Hamas and other terrorist factions, and many returned to terror activities.
But barriers in general have not proven effective deterrents to attack, because ways are almost always found to bypass or neutralize them, as happened with the Maginot and Bar-Lev lines. And while Hamas may not be able to go over or through the new barrier, they can still launch rockets and fire mortar shells over it, as well as release incendiary and explosive balloons to be carried by the prevailing winds into nearby fields and Jewish communities. The inexpensive rockets, even when most of them are intercepted by Iron Dome, comprise an effective form of economic warfare, with each Iron Dome launch costing some $40,000 (usually at least two interceptors are fired at each incoming rocket at a cost of $40,000 each).
Just as the mounted cavalry was neutralized by the machine gun, and the machine gun made less effective by the tank, Hamas rockets are presently neutralized (except economically) by Iron Dome. But the advent of precision-guided rockets and drones can change the equation. Today we know that Hezbollah has some quantity of them, and probably Hamas has some or will get some soon.
The new barrier also doesn’t prevent Hamas from exporting subversion to sympathetic Arabs in Judea/Samaria and even among Arab citizens of Israel.
Those of you who regularly read my columns know what’s coming. Pure defensive measures, building the ghetto walls higher and stronger, can only hold an enemy at bay, not defeat him. And technological advances by the aggressor, like precision-guided rockets, can tip the balance quickly. The only way to defeat an enemy is by moving from defense to offense. So while defensive technology, like the barrier, may be necessary for survival, it is not sufficient for victory.
Everything I’ve said so far deals only with the tangible or kinetic aspects of the conflict. The psychological aspect is another story entirely. The message that we send to ourselves, our friends, and our enemies, by our reliance on defensive technology and tactics, is that it is if not acceptable, it is still understandable that savage Jew-haters will continue to bombard our country with the intent to kill as many of us as possible. And soon – this, actually, has already happened – many people begin to think that it is acceptable after all. We become the guy at the carnival who sticks his head through a canvas sheet and dodges balls thrown by the patrons.
For the sake of our national honor as well as to maintain deterrence, such a situation cannot be allowed to stand.
Hamas is a deadly infection, and it has turned Gaza into a pocket of pus on the side of our country. Walling it off is only a temporary expedient; curing the disease will require wiping out the bacteria that cause it. The danger to our citizens in the south and ultimately in the entire country can only be ended by crushing Hamas as a military and political force, which calls for an intensive campaign, including a ground incursion.
It’s sometimes suggested that if Israel destroys Hamas, then what will arise in its place will be worse. The answer is that in that case, we’ll need to destroy the replacement as well. It is also said that the expense and difficulty of ruling the strip in the event that there is no acceptable autonomous leadership will be too great.
But keep this in mind: in January of 2009 Israel was poised for a ground invasion of Gaza, which was called off after Tzipi Livni was summoned to the US and apparently given an ultimatum by officials of the incoming Obama Administration (the same one that supported Hamas’ parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt). Since then, we have found it necessary to have four small but costly wars, and to spend 3.5 billion shekels on a barrier – and the threat remains. What if we had gone ahead and conquered Gaza and killed the war criminals leading Hamas?
Or go back further, to 2005, before Hamas had control of the strip. What if Israel had not withdrawn, if we had not destroyed numerous successful Jewish communities and displaced 8,000 people? What would the situation look like today? Would it be better or worse? Would it have been more “costly and difficult” than a series of wars and the building of a massive barrier?
I think the answer is clear. Cowering behind the walls of the ghetto is a poor idea both practically and psychologically. Rather, we must bring Hamas to total defeat, like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas, a Holocaust film from 2008, is one I’d never seen before. I didn’t
really want to watch it. I’ve seen enough Holocaust movies to last a lifetime,
if you’ll excuse the inappropriate idiom. But like vegetables you eat for your
health and not your palate, I figured I was due for a serving.
Anyway, it’s not like one can really shy away from learning
about and remembering the Holocaust. Or maybe you can, if you are a non-Jew.
You can just choose to stick your head in historical sand and live your life
blind to the implications of so many millions of Jews hunted down, herded into
gas chambers, and incinerated into ash.
But not only non-Jews become ostriches when faced with the
catastrophe that is the Holocaust. Jews worldwide say, “Never again,” and then
do very little when actually faced with a huge spike in antisemitic incidents
and attacks as is currently the case. For this reason alone, the rest of us are
tasked with the heavy responsibility of refreshing our collective memories, and
continuing to educate ourselves on this subject. This work will never be over.
Watching The Boy in
Striped Pajamas is a part of this work, only because it teaches a lie. Which
is why it is unsurprising that The Boy in
the Striped Pajamas is on Netflix. After all, Michelle and Barak “randomly
shoot a bunch of folks in a deli” Obama, are hard
at work destroying long-accepted societal norms. They are getting the big
bucks to teach us that whites have privilege, America is not exceptional,
and the Jews are nothing special:
Back in 2018, the [Obamas] first signed a groundbreaking
multi-year deal with Netflix through their production company, Higher Ground
Productions. "We created Higher Ground to harness the power of
storytelling," President Obama told The Hollywood Reporter. "That’s why
we couldn’t be more excited about these projects. Touching on issues of race
and class, democracy and civil rights, and much more, we believe each of these
productions won’t just entertain, but will educate, connect and inspire us
all."
Of course, I wasn’t really thinking of any of this when I
clicked play. Netflix had shown me the preview; I had some free time; and I
realized that I had never watched this movie and thought I probably should. I
steeled myself for the “lesson” I was about to absorb.
The first thing I noticed was the lush cinematography. The
scenery and clothing are realistic, the colors rich. As time went on, I
realized that beautiful colors and fine film work can be as deceptive as it is
effective in strengthening the message a movie is intended to impart. In the
case of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,
that message is: Not all Germans are bad and not all Jews are good.
The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas then, is one more in the pantheon of Holocaust movies calculated to
show good Germans where few to none would have or could have existed. The
movies are well made and full of pathos. The main purpose of these films,
however, is not to teach the Holocaust but to suggest that there were the same
number of good Germans as bad—and as many Germans who refused to serve in the
Nazi army as those who served, an outlandish and shocking fiction.
Watching these movies, anyone ignorant of what really
happened will be waiting for it: the moment where a good Nazi does a kindness
for or saves a Jew. Because that is what filmgoers like best. That is what
moves them. This is not, however, what happened in the Holocaust. For the
approximately 7 million (and still counting) Jews who were murdered, there were
no good Nazis, no good Germans waiting in the wings to save a Jew just so viewers
could pass around that box of tissues as they delicately dab their eyes (and
eat popcorn).
The Jews had no Saviors
The Jews had no saviors. They were murdered, their lives and
future generations lost forever. It is as coldly horrible as that.
But inversion of truth is a theme that is evident throughout
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The roles
are reversed, and a little German boy and his family are the victims. This is
what students are meant to absorb as they watch this “educational” film.
This is actually no different from the message imparted by the
BBC today about Jewish victims of Arab terror. The BBC works hard at skewing
the truth for its audiences. Typical consumers of BBC fare have no idea that
many Arabs are terrorists and that they specifically target Jews. The BBC has
told them, and they believe, that the Jews have no right to any territory
within the borders of the modern State of Israel. BBC viewers believe that the
terrorists are victims, and the victims, evildoers, because the BBC has told
them so.
Humanizing Nazis
“Humanizing Nazis echoes the trend of humanizing terrorists.
It serves the purpose of diminishing the brutality of their intentions by
claiming a justifiable ‘cause,’ says Dr. Elana Heideman, Holocaust scholar and
Executive Director of The Israel Forever Foundation. “As a result, one who
feels the humanity of the Nazi can examine the victims of that brutality with
increasing callousness, disregard and, specifically for Jews, increased
dehumanization.”
This kind of disregard for and even dismissal of the plight of the Jews is evident in The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas. The movie does not teach the Holocaust—instead it whitewashes genocide for an
audience so ignorant of history, it doesn’t even know it is watching a lie. Or
perhaps it simply doesn’t want to know, and prefers fiction to reality.
As I watched The Boy in
Striped Pajamas, I came to understand that I was not so much getting a
lesson on the Holocaust, as on the futility of war. This is galling, and a
misdirection. The Holocaust is about Jewish genocide. Look at it straight on, I
angrily told the screen. Stop co-opting it for your flavor of the month ideology.
Not that anyone would listen. Just as they wouldn't listen in my Facebook meme group when I asked them not to use Holocaust and Nazi terminology or imagery in reference to vaccination mandates and programs, or anything and anyone they do not like.
A Joking Reference
“Nazi, now a word used to refer to anyone who may
demonstrate some version of stringency in their behavior or attitude, has
become a form of a joking reference, removing the severity of the murderous
truth behind the name,” says Dr. Heideman. “The potential benefit of humanizing
Nazis would be if it were to teach others how easy it is for any individual to
give in to their basest human tendencies for evil and cruelty when the matter
of responsibility is taken away.
“Unfortunately, this is not the result as more and more
become enamored with the idea of power, strength, pride that the humanized Nazi
represents,” says Heideman.
Perhaps that is why we find Bruno so sympathetic. The little German boy, son of a Nazi commandant, is
the main characterin The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. His grandmother is against Nazism and war in general. Her punishment for speaking out is that she is
killed—though we are told she died in an Allied bombing. We know, however, that
she was killed, because her husband, a Nazi sympathizer, was there with her and was left completely
unscathed. This is one of many pointed revelations that Bruno and his mother confront
as they wrestle with understanding what is actually happening.
It is a very slow reveal. And no one who really knows the
history of the Holocaust would believe that everyday Germans learned only with
time that evil that was all around them. Even little boys like Bruno would have
known full well that the Jews were being hunted down and killed like rats. But
in the context of the fiction that is this movie, Bruno remains clueless
throughout the movie. Which is why *SPOILER ALERT* he blundered into a gas
chamber and died.
Bruno isn’t the only character who doesn’t get it. His
mother, too, seems to have little awareness of the Holocaust until it is waved
under her nose. His father, of course, is a prototypical Nazi brute. There
needed to be at least one. (Ralf is there to represent!)
The Real Drama Begins
It’s when Bruno’s family moves next door to a fictional
Auschwitz that the real drama begins. There’s a terrible smell. We see the
chimney of the crematorium belching Jewish smoke. Bruno’s mom figures it out
and has a nervous breakdown. The subtle message here is that “not every German”
took part in the atrocities. Some, like Bruno’s fictional mom, were either
married to Nazis, making it complicated for them to leave, or were simply
unaware of what was happening all around them. Which is simply not possible.
We learn that the maid and a handsome blond Nazi
soldier named Kotler are probably Jews under cover. They overact the part of “Good
Germans” and Nazis, in order to save their skins. One of them is unsuccessful.
Bruno, against his mother’s directive, goes to explore
what he thinks is a farm next door. He comes to an electric fence where he
meets Shmuel, a little Jewish boy imprisoned in the camp who is stealing a few
precious minutes of leisure. After they spend a few minutes getting acquainted,
Shmuel takes up a wheelbarrow and goes back to work. Which makes no sense. In a real concentration camp, he
would have had no ability to take a break to play at a fence. He would have had
no will of his own to resume work at his leisure.
The friendship between the two deepens on Bruno’s daily
visits to the fence, sometimes with food that is subsequently wolfed down by the Jewish boy.
The storyline as presented made me angry. What Jewish boy, in such a scenario, would have had the energy
to play?
Equal Danger
Also: instead of worrying about Nazi brutality, the viewer spends most of the movie terrified that one of the little boys will make a mistake and be electrocuted
at the fence. This is part of the lie that the producers shove down our
throats: Jew or German, it matters not. Both are in equal danger, both boys are willing to sacrifice everything--their very lives--for friendship (as if the Jewish boy had a choice or anything to say in the matter).
Eventually, Bruno risks his life to go under the fence. We
are made to believe this makes him brave. The little boy is not a Nazi, just a
regular German hero. But in actual fact, there was no such thing.
Bruno’s characterisation perpetuates the belief that most
German civilians were ignorant of what was happening around them. In fact the
general public in Germany and in occupied Europe were well aware that Jewish
people were being persecuted, forced to emigrate and eventually deported. There
were also many who knew that Jewish people were being killed. Many Germans
profited from the Holocaust as Jewish properties and belongings were
‘Aryanised’, which meant they were taken from their Jewish owners and given
instead to ‘ethnic’ Germans. A minority of German civilians resisted Nazi
ideology. Nazi authorities stamped out resistance to the regime quickly and
brutally . . .
As an audience we learn a lot about Bruno, so he becomes a
real little boy in our imaginations. However, Shmuel is only ever depicted as a
one-dimensional victim. Shmuel has no personality or individuality, so
the audience doesn’t build an emotional connection with him. This means it is
harder for the reader to empathise with Shmuel and his situation. . .
Shmuel’s story is also historically inaccurate. For readers
of the book it is clear that the camp is probably the Auschwitz concentration
camp complex as Bruno calls it ‘Out-With’. If a young boy like Shmuel had
entered Auschwitz-Birkenau then it is very likely he would have been sent
straight to the gas chambers on arrival, just like the majority of children who
arrived there, as the Nazis didn’t consider them useful as forced labour. A
small number of children were chosen for medical experimentation but these
children were kept away from the main camp. Even if Shmuel had been selected
for forced labour he would not have had the opportunity to spend most of his
days sitting on the outskirts of the camp.
The story’s conclusion leaves many readers upset. Bruno digs
a tunnel under the wire, crawls into the camp, then he and Shmuel go looking
for Shmuel’s missing father. Both boys are swept up in a group of prisoners
being taken to the gas chamber, where all of them are murdered. The emotional
focus of the story is on Bruno’s family and their distress as they realise what
has happened to their son. The reader’s attention remains with the experience
of the concentration camp commandant and his wife whose son has been killed in
what is portrayed as a tragic accident.
Because the focus of the story remains on Bruno’s family,
the book does not engage with the main tragedy of the Holocaust: that none of
the people in the gas chamber should have been there. Due to the way in which
Shmuel’s character is portrayed in the novel, his character doesn’t engage the
reader’s sympathy in the way that Bruno does. Shmuel represents the 1.5 million
children murdered by the Nazi regime in Auschwitz-Birkenau, in the death camps
of occupied Europe and in the killing fields where millions of civilians were
shot into mass graves, yet the reader’s sympathy is directed towards a Nazi
concentration camp commandant and his family.
A British
study on student reactions to Holocaust films including The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,
illustrates some of the main takeaways from the film:
"[The movie] made me feel more compassionate towards
both sides in this kind of issue between maybe Jews and Germans, although I'm
only using those kind of terms to, to categorise ... if anything, I've taken
away ... a grander understanding of not just the Jewish people and the problems
they faced but the German people and the problems that they faced, too, and
then these things coming together" (Peter, 26, dance practitioner).
"Yeah, pretty much, erm, don't let your kids climb
under fences ... I suppose, try to explain these things, like kind of bad
things in the world to your children, don't keep them in a complete innocence
... He didn't know what was wrong with going ... to the other side ... if he
had known, maybe he would have been a bit more standoffish but then you kind of
think, well, the fence, that, that whole thing shouldn't have existed anyway,
the concentration camps, so it's, it shouldn't have existed and he, like as a
child, shouldn't have to know about it, shouldn't have to burdened with these
kind of terrible, terrible events and emotions and stuff, so it's, it's, I
don't know, it's very hard to reconcile what I think towards the movie, I
think” (Sam, 19, student, when asked if he thought that the film held a "message for today").
The study author writes:
The arguably loaded question that I asked him, which
presupposed that the film does indeed have a "message", did not surprise
Sam. His response was immediate and detailed. It reflects what [some have] warned
of in relation to The Boy in the
Striped Pyjamas: that Bruno's death "becomes less a consequence of
prejudice and more a bizarre health and safety incident. If Bruno had been
properly instructed about the camp (as would have been the case in reality) he
would not have gone inside.”
Sam realised that this "message" is flawed as the
concentration camps "shouldn't have existed", but his concern is,
nonetheless, reserved for Bruno (as the one that should not be burdened) rather
than Shmuel. [Other experts have argued that "we are supposed to be
somehow devastated, along with the Nazi commandant that the wrong boy died.”
Among the English pupils interviewed . . . we similarly find
"a perspective of widespread German ignorance of the Holocaust" and
"a marked tendency to shift their locus of concern from the victims of the
Holocaust onto the bystanders and even, to some extent, to the perpetrators.”
It is an awful thing that the book on which this movie is
based and the movie itself are considered Holocaust "classics" and are used as
educational materials in classrooms all over the world. As more and more states
mandate Holocaust education, we must have proper oversight to ensure that what
is taught reflects the actual horror of the Holocaust. It is critical to ensure that children
understand that there were no good people saving the Jews.
The enormity of the
catastrophe deserves to be seen head on without historical embellishments or distortions. No one has the right to exploit and abscond with the Holocaust for their own purposes. No
one has the right to minimize or distort the truth.
AP has an article about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan chiding Israel by saying that it should show more "sensitivity" towards Palestinians, by - for example - not letting Jews pray in their holiest place.
A few paragraphs down, it mentions:
Israel, for its part, is upset by Erdogan’s warm relations with Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. Israel considers Hamas a terror group.
The implication is that only Israel considers Hamas a terror group.
However, much of the free world considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Canada, the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States all agree with Israel that Hamas is a terror group, and Australia, New Zealand and Paraguay have designated its Al Qassam Brigades only as a terrorist organization.
Why would AP imply that it is only Israel that makes this designation?
There is really no way to look at this and not conclude that AP wants to downplay Hamas terrorism and subtly make Israel look paranoid for calling out Hamas for what it is.
And when a major wire service shills for Hamas, that should set off alarm bells for everyone.
A group of Republican senators led by Tom Cotton on Monday introduced a bill that would allow the US government to sanction foreign banks using the American financial system to facilitate so-called “martyr payments” to families of Palestinian terrorists.
“Radical Islamic terrorists shouldn’t be rewarded for killing innocent people, and banks should be held responsible for processing any sort of ‘martyr payments,’ Cotton stated at a press conference Monday introducing the new bill.
The bill, named the “Taylor Force Martyr Payment Prevention Act of 2021,” seeks to ensure “Palestinian terrorists don’t benefit financially for committing these senseless murders,” Cotton added.
The legislation builds on the Taylor Force Act, which was passed with bipartisan support in 2018 to restrict non-humanitarian US aid to the Palestinian Authority if it continues to make payments to security prisoners and their families.
The Act was named in memory of a former American army officer stabbed to death in 2016 by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv.
“The legislation has made a difference, but our work is not yet finished. Reporting has revealed that foreign banks in the Middle East in the Mediterranean, continue to process the so-called martyr payments, sometimes in US dollar-denominated transactions,” Cotton said. “They have escaped sanctions by avoiding an official US presence, while maintaining correspondent accounts in the United States.”
There is no set date or event for when the Second Intifada ended, with some saying the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip was the ‘end date’ while others say that the death of Yasser Arafat led Palestinians to stop the violence.
Ten years later, the 2015 “stabbing intifada” began with Palestinians – mainly youth – stabbing, running over and shooting Israeli soldiers, civilians and even tourists in a wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel. There were almost daily attacks in the winter of 2015-16 before the violence decreased.
There have been sporadic waves of violence since and all, if not most of them, were carried out by lone-wolf Palestinian youths.
Unlike during the first two intifadas, the challenges that the army faces during the current wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel are completely different.
The Palestinians who were involved in the violence during the first and second intifadas were much older than the average attacker that the army currently faces. The IDF’s intelligence-gathering capabilities have also increased dramatically since the prior two intifadas.
Another change that’s less apparent but just as important is the increased communications between the two sides which did not exist before.
But while the IDF does not consider the recent attacks as a significant rise in violence, or another “wave” of attacks, the military must admit that the lone-wolf attacker is a threat that they have yet to control.
Jonathan Schanzer: US Media Coverage on Israel is 'insane'
Author and Middle East analyst Jonathan Schanzer joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin to discuss his new book "Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War."
The two discuss how the myths about the conflict spread by Palestinian terror groups and picked up by the media have impacted opinion about Israel and how the conflict between Fatah and Hamas and their opposition to peace with the Jewish state is ignored by the Jewish state’s critics.
An op-ed in Kuwait's Al Rai Media by columnist Sultan Ibrahim Khalaf starts off with:
Zionists are inherently prone to be blackmailers. Perhaps the famous play "The Merchant of Venice," written by Shakespeare, gives the best examples of this bad quality that was represented by the Jewish merchant Shylock in the play.
This characteristic still accompanies the Zionists in their relations with the countries of the world.
Yes, Shylock is the ultimate blackmailing Zionist.
Khalaf goes on to use Israel's dispute with Poland over Holocaust restitutions as proof of the "Zionist" blackmailing nature, and then he says, "The accusation of anti-Semitism is used by the Zionists at any time and for any reason."
"Zionists" are genetically disposed to be blackmailers as is proven from a piece of antisemitic fiction. Even worse, they falsely accuse righteous people like this author of antisemitism!
Every week, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency publishes an unintentionally funny list of articles in the Israeli media that they claim show Israeli "racism and incitement."
Practically none of their examples ever show actual incitement or racism.
Examples from this week's edition include an article that quoted a Jew who lives in Judea and Samaria who says that there is a 50% chance of him being hit by a stone when he passes by the Al Lubban school. Another article in Israel Hayom called for a law against teaching terrorism in schools, in the wake of an Arab teacher murdering a Jew in Jerusalem and the discovery that he taught his students to hate Jews.
Perhaps the craziest example of "racism and incitement" was a TV report from Kan that described the recent unearthing of a building in Yavne from the era of the Sanhedrin immediately after the destruction of the Temple. The story showed evidence that Jews lived in the building.
To Palestinians, anything that proves that Jews lived in Israel before the 20th century is clearly incitement against them, because it shows that Jews were there before Arabs.
For more than two decades, Texan civil engineer Rasmy Hassouna was a contractor for the city of Houston. Hassouna has consulted the city on soil volatility in the nearby Gulf of Mexico – a much needed service to evaluate the structural stability of houses and other buildings.
He was gearing up to renew his government contract when a particular legal clause caught his eye: a provision that effectively banned him or his company, A&R Engineering and Testing, Inc, from ever protesting the nation of Israel or its products so long as his company was a partner with the city of Houston.
For Hassouna – a 59-year-old proud Palestinian American – it was a huge shock.
“I came here and thought I was a free man. It’s not anybody’s business what I do or what I say, as long as I’m not harming anybody,” he told the Guardian. “Were you lying all this time? If I don’t want to buy anything at WalMart, who are you to tell me not to shop at WalMart? Why do I have to pledge allegiance to a foreign country?”
A governmental entity may not enter into a contract with a company for goods or services unless the contract contains a written verification from the company that it:
(1) does not boycott Israel; and
(2) will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract.
All it says is that the State of Texas will not do business with companies that boycott Israel or Israeli products.
It doesn't say that Texas has a "ban on boycotting Israel," as the Guardian headline claims.
Rasmy Hassouna can boycott Israel all he wants. He can protest Israel all he wants. His company can put a giant picture of a swastika on an Israeli flag in its lobby if it wants and still remain a legal contractor for the State of Texas. It is certain that his company doesn't have any bylaws that say "we will never buy Israeli products" so, as company president, he can even sign the provision saying the company doesn't boycott Israel without doing anything wrong.
And if Hassouna insists that his company must boycott Israel, then he can no longer bid on Texas contracts. The company would not be banned or declared illegal.
Is this a freedom of speech issue? No. Boycotts aren't speech, they are actions. Texas could say they won't do business with companies boycott Black-owned businesses without that being considered a violation of the companies' freedom of speech.
Texas contractors must agree to a host of other legal requirements to obtain business, like not being allowed to discriminate against others based on national origin, or not being allowed to do overtly religious actions. They have to display civil rights posters if they deal with clients. They can't discriminate against anyone based on sex, race, color, disability, religion and other criteria. No one says that this is a violation of freedom of speech. These requirements are no easier than asking businesses to say they won't discriminate against Israel or Israeli products.
The Guardian's anti-Israel bias could not be clearer.
With the BBC having doubled down on its claim of “a slur about Muslims”, and with more and more people listening to the video and failing to hear any such slur or indeed make out any words at all, disgust and dismay in the Jewish community are growing. Parents of the teenagers have accused the BBC of “demonising” their children. The Board of Deputies has called on the BBC to apologise. It said: The BBC thought that they heard a slur in English. What they were actually hearing was a distressed Jewish man speaking in Hebrew appealing for help.
Oh — and while the BBC website reported as fact a slur about Muslims can also be heard from inside the bus
(which no-one else seems to have heard), it described the antisemitic attack itself (which everyone watching the video can clearly see) as merely allegations [my emphasis] of antisemitic abuse directed at Jewish passengers on a bus.
Today, the ever-decent former Labour MP Lord Austin writes in the Telegraph: I have always defended the BBC, but can’t imagine an incident involving any other group being reported in this way. It needs to listen to people from the Jewish community and look at this very carefully. We can’t have people thinking that incidents of racism are handled differently depending on who the perpetrators and victims might be.
The demonisation of Israel leads to racist attacks against Britain’s Jewish community. Our national broadcaster should be shining a spotlight on that, exposing the racists and standing up for the victims, not bending over backwards seemingly to find an equivalence where none exists.
As Ian Austin rightly says, the BBC (itself no slouch, alas, when it comes to demonising Israel) has questions to answer about this. If it persists in its claim of an anti-Muslim slur from within the bus, it must produce the evidence for this that everyone can hear for themselves. Otherwise it must take action — and be seen to take it — against those responsible for what looks horribly like an attempt at moral equivalence between Jewish victims and their attackers to diminish the reality of the antisemitism that continues so brazenly to cover Britain in shame and disgrace.
A week is ample time to correct its report and apologise to the victims. That it has not yet done so is irresponsible.
If there's one thing white supremacists and the far left agree on, it's hating Jews
Why did the BBC insist that Jews who were abused during Chanukah must have incited the violence?
The sad fact is that for most Jewish people the idea of being attacked in the street isn’t that outlandish
Yesterday ‘godfather of grime’ Wiley was back spouting off about his favourite hate subject; Jews. In a rambling YouTube video, the British star, who was thrown off of Twitter and YouTube for antisemitism, but is back on both, asked, as if he had come to some amazing new realisation: ‘Why did that happen between them and Hitler? Why? Why did Hitler hate you? Exactly.’
Antisemites always think Jews deserve to be hated. It is baked into Christian culture – the Jews killed Christ and deserve to be punished. We may be a largely secular society but that view persists in some quarters. Perhaps its clearest expression can be found in The Great Replacement theory being spread by white supremacists. Coined by the French writer Renaud Camus, who has been found guilty in his home country of inciting racial hatred, the theory posits that because Jews fought for more immigration rights, feminism and the decriminalisation of homosexuality, they want to replace white Christians. It was adherence to this warped ideology that led a white supremacist to kill 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
On much of the contemporary left, Jews are seen as fair game because of Israel. Only the ‘good Jews’ – the ones who openly denounce the only Jewish majority state in the world will be allowed to be part of their ‘progressive’ circles and even then, they will be viewed with suspicion. For the hard left in particular, Jews deserve to be punished for speaking up against the sainted Jeremy Corbyn’s antisemitism. Indeed, people with ‘anti-racist’ or ‘peace and love’ in their Twitter bios are still remarkably keen to tell me, a Jewish writer, that ‘the Jews deserve what is coming for attacking Jeremy Corbyn’.
So when a group of religious Jewish kids, who had been singing and handing out doughnuts in celebration of Chanukah, were attacked by a group of people in Oxford Street last week, while most people were simply outraged, some – including in a BBC newsroom – asked: ‘What did they do to deserve it?’.
*New*@metpolice published some grainy images of the suspects abusing Jews on Oxford St. We’ve extracted some clearer images from the video footage
Over 1/3 of American Jews have experienced an anti-Semitic incident. This issue is not about Israel, nor is it a political issue. This is a civil rights issue. Jew-hatred has now become systemic in the United States and we must put an END TO IT.#EndJewHatredpic.twitter.com/2mg9ymLmhg
Last March, 140 faculty members in Canada signed a statement against the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
As with literally every other criticism of the IHRA Working Definition, they do not mention that it explicitly contradicts what they claim it says.
We write as Jewish faculty from across Canadian universities and colleges with deep concern regarding recent interventions on our campuses relating to Israel and Palestine. Addressing all forms of racism and discrimination, including antisemitism, is imperative at this historical moment. Among the signatories, many share family histories profoundly and intimately shaped by the Holocaust. We write out of a strong commitment to justice, which for some of us is vital to an ethical Jewish life.
We add our voices to a growing international movement of Jewish scholars to insist that university policies to combat antisemitism are not used to stifle legitimate criticisms of the Israeli state, or the right to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We recognize that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a legitimate, non-violent form of protest. While not all of us endorse the BDS movement we oppose equating its support with antisemitism. We also are deeply disturbed by the upsurge of antisemitic acts in recent years which display painfully familiar forms of antisemitism.
We are specifically concerned with recent lobbying on our campuses for the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. This definition offers a vague and worrisome framing of antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” and that may be “directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property.” The most serious problem however is that the definition is tied to a series of examples of which many are criticisms of the Israeli state.
Notice that these people who claim to be mainstream Jews have a hard time saying the word "Israel," instead making up something called "the Israeli state."
The IHRA working definition says as clearly as possible that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." It also says that the examples given are dependent on context. Beyond that, it states that the definition is non-legally binding.
These signatories knowingly lie about it.
If this group, and the many critics of the IHRA, really cared about antisemitism and freedom to criticize Israel, they would highlight the parts of the definition that support their views if - as they claim - it is used to silence them. But they support the idea that one should be allowed to criticize Israel out of proportion to criticism of every other state. They deny that left-wing antisemitism even exists. They deny that Arab antisemitism exists.
To them, antisemitism is the Holocaust, Nazis, the KKK - and not much else.
It takes a great deal of hate to create an organization dedicated to minimizing the definition of antisemitism.
The ironic part is that IHRA could support legitimate criticism of Israel. These efforts to quash it show that legitimate criticism is the last thing they are interested in.
People who really care about antisemitism don't try to minimize the definition of antisemitism, just as people who really care about racism wouldn't exert effort to limit what is considered racist. These Jews want to enable most types of modern antisemitism, not fight it.
The letter came and went with little notice but the faculty members' hate of Israel didn't disappear. So they now decided to create an entire organization dedicated to telling the world that they aren't that kind of Jew who supports the existence of a state that is a safe haven for Jews.
So they are relaunching their "network" that was already launched in March, and scheduled a press conference for Thursday.
Notice that they chose a name, "Jewish Faculty Network," to make it appear like they have the support of most Jewish faculty. This is especially ironic since they say as one of their principles, "we oppose the intervention on campuses that level spurious charges of antisemitism from organizations claiming to represent a singular 'Jewish community.' Not in our name. " Yet they are doing the same thing! Their claim to represent Jews is their very claim to legitimacy.
JFN is just another group of hypocrites who hide their hate behind claims of caring about justice, peace, academic freedom and fighting antisemitism.
The term “West Bank” was coined in 1950 to designate 4% of the territory of former Palestine west of the Jordan River - called “Judea and Samaria” for the previous 3000 years - which was unified with an additional 78% of the territory of former Palestine east of the Jordan River - called Transjordan - to form a new territorial entity renamed “Jordan”.
Wennesland’s use of the stand-alone term “West Bank” without any reference to its 3000 years old historic name indicates the immoral depths to which the UN and its officials have sunk.
After all - the UN itself had used the term “Judea and Samaria” in Resolution 181 (II) on 29 November 1947: “The boundary of the hill country of Samaria and Judea starts on the Jordan River at the Wadi Malih south-east of Beisan”
The UN Special Commission on Palestine also used the term “Judea and Samaria” in its 1947 Report: “...the interior of the country is very mountainous with the hills of Judea and Samaria in the centre”
Removing any possible identification with Jews and Jewish history by expunging any reference to “Judea and Samaria” – the Jewish People’s ancient and biblical heartland – exposes the UN’s anti-Jewish bias in papering over Jewish claims to this disputed territory in favour of an invented fake pro-Arab claim made for the first time in history in the 1964 PLO Charter.
“The Palestinian Authority”
On January 3, 2013 - the term “Palestinian Authority” was replaced by the term “State of Palestine” - when Mahmoud Abbas, acting in his capacities as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed “Decree No. 1 for the year 2013.”
Article 1 of the decree states: “Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name ‘Palestinian National Authority’ whenever it appears by the name ‘State of Palestine’ and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine.”
Article 4 states: “All competent authorities, each in their respective area, shall implement this Decree starting from its date.”
What motivates the UN and its officials to still turn a blind eye to this official name change after almost 9 years?
The UN continues to lose its credibility, neutrality and impartiality as it and its officials use language and terminology which is antithetical to seeking an end to the Arab-Jewish conflict.
Sticks and stones won’t break the UN’s bones– but waging semantic warfare against Israel is certainly doing just that.
The Czech Republic took a stand against antisemitism when it changed its voting pattern and for the first time rejected the United Nations General Assembly’s Jerusalem resolution, the country’s Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhánek told The Jerusalem Post.
“There is a rising tide of antisemitism around the world,” said Kulhánek, who, during his seven months in office, has been a staunch ally of the Jewish state.
He was one of a small number of European foreign ministers who made a solidarity trip to Israel during the Gaza war in May.
Last week at the UN he took another important step in Israel’s defense when it came to the Jerusalem resolution, which refers to the Temple Mount solely by its Muslim name of al-Haram al-Sharif.
Already back in 2016, Kulhánek said, “The EU foreign ministers agreed on using both terms when referring to the holy sites in Jerusalem.”
This includes the Temple Mount, which, as the location of the ancient Jewish Temple, is the most holy site in Judaism. As the place from where Muhammad ascended to heaven on his night journey, it is the third holiest site in Islam.
The holy site should be referred in UN documents as “Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif,” Kulhánek explained. The EU has attempted to push for the site to be referenced this way, but “needless to say, we have not been very successful,” Kulhánek said.
In 2018, the Czech Republic, along with the entire 28-member European Union bloc, supported the UNGA text, which was approved 148-11 with 14 abstentions.
When Holocaust deniers are not going around denying that the Holocaust ever
happened or claiming that it is exaggerated, they like to make comparisons
between Israel and Nazis.
Renowned Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt says that American and Israeli
politicians who invoke the Holocaust for contemporary political purposes are
engaging in “Holocaust abuse”, which is similar to “soft-core denial” of the
Holocaust...
“When you take these terrible moments in our history, and you use it for
contemporary purposes, in order to fulfill your political objectives, you
mangle history, you trample on it,” she said.
[emphasis added]
Strong words. And Lipstadt knows what she is talking about.
After all, this past July Biden nominated Lipstadt as Special Envoy to Monitor
and Combat Anti-Semitism.
So how did Lipstadt react a little over a month later, when Biden was on the
presidential campaign
and said about Trump:
He’s sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it,
repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge
Goebbels was very successful at what he did, and I think the comparison by
Vice President Biden was a very apt comparison because we’re seeing a lot of
this now.
In a tweet that she later deleted, Lipstadt went further, claiming that
had VP Biden — or anyone else — compared him to what Hitler, Himmler,
Heydrich, or Eichmann did, she/he would have been wrong. But a comparison to
the master of the big lie, Josef Goebbels? That's historically apt. It's all
about historical nuance.
Goebbels was more than a master propagandist. He was a supporter of the Final
Solution. Nuance only goes so far.
But it wasn’t apt at all. The comparison was indefensible. Not only was it an
egregiously unjustified smear against Trump; more importantly, it downplayed
the evil of Goebbels and grossly disrespected the memory of those who were
slaughtered in the Holocaust.
For it wasn’t simply that Goebbels
was a lying propagandist. It was that he was a Nazi committed to the
extermination of the Jews. To compare Trump to such an individual was
ridiculous and shameful, and should have been robustly condemned.
But in the current era, Lipstadt said,
the key to acceptable Holocaust comparisons is precision and nuance. Is
it the Holocaust? No. But does the current era presage an authoritarian
takeover? Maybe.
“People ask me, is this Kristallnacht?” she said.
“Is this the beginning of pogroms, etc.? I don’t think those comparisons are
correct. “However, I do think certain comparisons are fitting … it’s certainly
not 1938,” when Nazis led the Kristallnacht pogroms throughout Germany. “It’s
not even September 1935, and the Nuremberg Laws” institutionalizing racist
policies.
“What it well might be is December 1932, Hitler comes to power on Jan. 30,
1933 — it might be Jan. 15, 1933.”
[emphasis added]
So contrary to her comment in the tweet she deleted, Lipstadt actually does draw a
connection between Trump and Hitler.
Nuance, indeed.
Now that Lipstadt has helpfully established that Holocaust comparisons are
permitted when they adhere to "precision and nuance," are the people most
likely to exploit Holocaust comparisons really going to care -- and how would
Lipstadt as Antisemitism Envoy condemn Holocaust comparisons without those
doing it laughing at her for her double standard?
The European Jewish Association (EJA) reacted with outrage to the image of a
yellow star, symbol of Nazi persecution of Jews, used by protestors during a
demonstration in Brussels against the governmental corona measures on
Sunday.
In a statement, EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin said: “It is hard to
know where to begin with how wrong this is.’’
Rabbi Margolin goes on to point out how comparisons with the Holocaust
demonstrate a lack of understanding for the magnitude of what the Holocaust
was:
It makes me sick to think how little people understand the hurt that such
banners cause, and how little people have a true understanding and
appreciation of the sheer scale and magnitude of the Holocaust. To those who
marched today with a huge Yellow star, I say this: “just don’t. No matter
how you feel about covid restrictions, nobody is tattooing your arms, nobody
is herding you onto cattle trucks, and nobody wants you, your families and
all your loved ones to die. Above all, educate yourselves and learn what
this yellow star truly represents.”
Would Lipstadt echo Rabbi Margolin's words? Probably.
But how does someone who compares a president of the United States with the Nazi Goebbels ("60 percent of [the Jews] will have to be liquidated, while only 40 percent can be put to work...A judgment is being carried out on the Jews that is barbaric but thoroughly deserved") go on to lecture others who use a yellow star to describe what they consider draconian corona measures?
Another question is: what about Democrats -- has Lipstadt been as critical
of them?
President Biden’s nominee to serve as U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and
Combat Anti-Semitism once blasted Rep. Ilhan Omar’s controversial statements
criticizing Israel.
Adam Rubenstein: As you begin to define antisemitism in your new
book, Antisemitism: Here and Now, you write that “Antisemitism is
not simply the hatred of something ‘foreign’ but the hatred of a perpetual
evil in this world.” So on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s recent comment about “foreign
allegiance” in the context of pro-Israel Americans, and in discussion of
her Jewish colleagues; what do you make of it? Is this textbook
antisemitism?
Deborah Lipstadt:
Sadly, I believe it is. Dual loyalties is part of the textbook accusations
against Jews. They are cosmopolitans, globalists, not loyal to their
country or fellow citizens.
Further on in the interview, it becomes clear that Lipstadt neither
"blasts" nor "smashes" Omar's comments. Instead, she manages to criticize the
statements, without condemning the person -- a far more judicious approach -- unlike in her comments about
Trump.
But she bent over backward to excuse Omar:
AR: In your view, are Rep. Omar’s statements antisemitic or are
they simply anti-Israel? Antisemitism and anti-Zionism aren’t in theory
the same thing, but they often have connection points. Is what Rep. Omar
says, her “foreign allegiance” comment, her support for BDS, and that
support for Israel in Congress is “about the Benjamins,” i.e. Jewish
money, simply “critical of Israel” or does it cross the line into
antisemitism?
DL: This is such a nuanced topic and I
deal with it in depth in the book. But simply put, (and giving her the benefit of the doubt… which is harder to do each time she engages in one of these attacks),
she may think she is only criticizing Israel and its policies but one
cannot ignore the fact that she is relying on traditional antisemitic
tropes to do so...
Lipstadt goes even further in this comment, putting Omar in a select
category of antisemitism:
What it suggests to me is that, at best, these people exist in a place
where antisemitism is out in the ethosphere; they hear it, breath it in,
and don’t even recognize it as antisemitism.
Similarly, in the case of Rev. Raphael Warnock, during the special
election for senator of Georgia -- despite the anti-Israel sermon he gave
in 2018, Lipstadt defended Warnock's later claim 2 years later in 2020 that he was
pro-Israel.
Warnock’s 2018 sermon was delivered shortly after the opening of the
U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. “It’s been a tough week,” Warnock noted. “The
administration opened up the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Standing there
[were] the president’s family and a few mealy-mouthed evangelical
preachers who are responsible for the mess that we found ourselves in,
both there and here — misquoting and misinterpreting the Scripture,
talking about peace.”
Warnock went on to compare the struggle for Palestinian rights with the
Black Lives Matter movement. “Meanwhile, young Palestinian sisters and
brothers,
who are struggling for their very lives, struggling for water and
struggling for their human dignity stood up in a non-violent
protest, saying, ‘If we’re going to die, we’re going to die struggling.’
And yes, there may have been some folk who were violent, but we
oughta know how that works out,” Warnock said. “We know what it’s like to stand up and have a peaceful demonstration
and have the media focus on a few violent uprisings. But you have to look at those Palestinian sisters and brothers, who
are struggling for their human dignity and they have a right to
self-determination, they have a right to breathe free.”
“We need a two-state solution where all of God’s children can live
together,” Warnock proclaimed in the 2018 video before proceeding to
charge Israel with shooting innocent Palestinians.
“We saw the government of Israel shoot down unarmed Palestinian
sisters and brothers like birds of prey. And I don’t care who does it, it is wrong. It is wrong to shoot down
God’s children like they don’t matter at all. And it’s no more
antisemitic for me to say that than it is anti-white for me to say that
Black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter.” [emphasis added]
Faced with his past remarks accusing Israel of killing peaceful
Palestinian Arabs, Warnock's campaign gave an evasive response that posting the video showed that the other campaign was rummaging around videos to
'misrepresent' his actual views.
But just one year before the Georgia election, in March 2019, Warnock signed onto the Group Pilgrimage Statement on Israel and Palestine, which featured common distortions about Israel, including associating
it with apartheid:
j. We saw the patterns that seem to have been borrowed and perfected from
other previous oppressive regimes:
i. The ever-present physical walls that wall in Palestinians in a
political wall reminiscent of the Berlin Wall. ii. Roads
built through occupied Palestinian villages, on which Palestinians are
not permitted to drive; and homes and families divided by walls and
barriers. iii. The heavy militarization of the West Bank,
reminiscent of the military occupation of Namibia by apartheid South
Africa. iv. The laws of segregation that allow one thing for the
Jewish people and another for the Palestinians; we saw evidence of
forced removals; homes abandoned, olive trees uprooted or confiscated
and taken over, shops and businesses bolted with doors welded to close
out any commercial activities. [emphasis added]
Yet Warnock's stand on Israel just a year after that is supposed to show
that he did an about-face, now supporting Israel.
How, I wondered, could someone who had said that, show up at AIPAC? To
answer this question, I read his policy paper on Israel. In it, he
expressed unequivocal support for Israel, for a strong U.S.-Israel
relationship, for a two-state solution, and for the $38 billion Memorandum
of Understanding, which when signed in 2016 constituted the largest pledge
of bilateral military assistance in U.S. history. He also unequivocally
opposed conditioning aid to Israel, as some have proposed.
Lipstadt says that Warnock's new support for Israel answers the question
of how he could appear at AIPAC. One might argue that such an abrupt
change just one year later only deepens the questions.
Lipstadt said Warnock had come around on Israel-related issues — never
mind that he did not apologize or repudiate his past statements and
activities on that issue — such as opposing conditioning U.S. assistance
to the Jewish state. She argued, "It would be hard for Warnock to
repudiate his most recent views as expressed in his Israel policy paper
and numerous interviews."
Except it would not have been hard to offer a sincere apology.
It's an odd argument for Lipstadt to make -- vote for Warnock, because even if he is
not sincere in his current pro-Israel position, at least he won't be able
to easily go back to his previously anti-Israel position.
But all this talk about Lipstadt being Antisemitism Envoy may be for
naught, anyway.
Not because her nomination has stalled in the Senate. But who's to
say that Biden will pay any attention to Lipstadt anyway when it is
politically inconvenient?
When Fox News wanted to report on the White House reaction to Lipstadt's criticism of
Omar -- there wasn't any:
However; when asked if the administration agreed with its nominee’s views
on Omar’s comments, the White House was silent, not responding to Fox
News’ request for comment.
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Wednesday, December 08, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
