Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, June 17, 2022

06/17 Links Pt2: Kontorovich: Israel, Armenia and Presbyterians; ‘What is your nation, if I may ask?’: Antisemitism and Zionism in James Joyce’s Ulysses

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Israel, Armenia and Presbyterians

The PCUSA is fully within its rights to support Armenian settlements. Nothing in international law requires boycotts or sanctions against such communities. It is understandable if, as Christians, the PCUSA’s members are touched by the plight of one the most ancient churches in Christendom. It shouldn’t be a crime for members of a particular ethnic group to live in part of its historic homeland, and surely the PCUSA would be scandalized if third parties boycotted Armenians for returning to Karabakh.

Yet that is exactly what the PCUSA urges when it comes to the Jewish state. It has made Armenian nationalism a funding priority while treating Zionism as a horrible crime. The PCUSA is far from alone. As I have written in these pages, vocal critics of Jewish settlements in the Holy Land on the far left, such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib and senior officials at Human Rights Watch and CodePink, have been active supporters of Armenian settlements.

The PCUSA says anti-Semitism doesn’t drive its obsession with the Jewish state. Instead, it acts under pretense of upholding international law, which it claims Israel violates by allowing Jews to live in parts of the West Bank. Doubtless the PCUSA’s role in supporting settlers in occupied territory will not lead it to disavow its Karabakh projects. Nor will it drive a wedge between the denomination and the many other progressive “anti-occupation” groups with which it makes common cause. This highlights how “settlements” and “illegal occupation” are not general terms of international applicability. Rather, they are part of special vocabulary, a kind of neutral euphemism, designed to discuss only one particular people.

The church sees itself as progressive, but its views on Israel are a throwback to something very old.

Barbara Kay: Lawyers target anti-Israel double standard over product labels

Goldstein and Kontorovich are determined that Israeli products be treated by the same standards as others. They are the lawyers who filed a complaint with the CFIA regarding olive oils labelled as made in “Palestine.” The label of one, Al’Ard Extra virgin olive oil, seen in an Ottawa Marché Adonis shop, says “Product of Palestine.” The label of the other, Zatoun Fair Trade Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which retails at the Nuthouse in Toronto (as of June 1), and doubtless elsewhere in its network (Zatoun did not respond to my media query), describes the oil as being “from Palestine,” and displays the flag of the Palestinian Authority. Its Country of Origin (CO) is stated as “Product of West Bank PS,” although the West Bank is not a country, and PS is an ISO abbreviation for “State of Palestine,” which Canada does not recognize as a country.

The complaint rests primarily on the Safe Food for Canadians Act, which requires that all food products must be labelled in ways that are not “false,” “misleading” or “likely to create an erroneous impression,” reinforcing its claim with the precedent set by the CFIA’s Psagot ruling.

In the legal analysis attached to the complaint, they note that not only is the “State of Palestine” a nonexistent entity unrecognized by Canada, the government of Canada had voted against a United Nations General Assembly resolution claiming there was such a state. Moreover, Canada’s labelling regulations require that the CO be either a country or a World Trade Organization member, which includes non-sovereign customs territories like Hong Kong. Israel is both. “Palestine” is neither.

As in the Psagot case, in which they acted for the winery, Goldstein and Kontorovich are open to a reasonable solution. They demur from the proposed approach recently entertained by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to label such wine products “of the West Bank,” since the West Bank is “neither a country, nor a customs entity, nor a governmental authority of any kind.” In any case, “West Bank” is a misleading label because, as prescribed by the Oslo Accords, the West Bank is divided into three Areas: A and B are under the Palestinian Authority, and Israel controls C. The complainants suggest a model which designates the relevant administering authority, such as “Product of Palestinian Authority – West Bank,” or the even more clarifying “PA administered territory.”

Consumer confusion is not the issue here. The complainants stipulate that both Psagot wine and the Palestinian olive oils are marketed almost exclusively to people who know the origins of the products, and who purchase them expressly as a gesture of support. They have no problem with Palestinian activists providing support vehicles for their sympathizers. They do not seek any advantage for products made in Israel, inclusive of those areas Israel administers. They are asking only that — unlike in the EU — the CFIA continue to recuse itself from the internal political conflicts of other nations, and stick to their mandate of providing the same level regulatory playing field for all. A reasonable demand, objective observers would agree.

Amnesty International UK ‘institutionally racist’, inquiry concludes

Amnesty International UK is “institutionally racist” and faces bullying issues within the organisation, an inquiry into the charity has concluded.

The findings of management consultancy Global HPO’s inquiry, which were published in full on Thursday, also accused Amnesty of failing to embed principals of anti-racism into “the DNA” of the organisation.

In a damning indictment of the charity, the 106 page document suggested white applicants were more likely to be appointed to roles within the charity than all other groups, with black people least likely to be given a job.

Amnesty has repeatedly sparked anger with the Jewish community over recent years by publishing a series of reports into Israel that have concluded it to be an apartheid state.

But the independent report into Amnesty concluded:”“A perception that has not been addressed and as such manifests in the negative cultural paradigm of exclusion and racism at AIUK.

“There is a need for the impact of this legacy to be acknowledged and addressed as part of the transition to becoming anti-racist.”

It continued:”“Our view is that ‘white saviour, middle class and privileged’ is a perception that forms an important part of the AIUK narrative about its history and legacy.”

The inquiry called for training to improve equality monitoring at the organisation, with attention needed on retaining staff from black Caribbean and black African staff.

The report also describes the charity as having “a culture that bullies” and points out that it had repeatedly failed to take action following a number of similar reviews in the past.

Shabbat shalom

Last minute travel before Shabbat which I never do. Life is always interesting.

Consider this an open thread for the afternoon.

And here's what an artificial intelligence program came up with when I asked for a family Shabbat meal.

Have a wonderful Shabbat!

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

06/17 Links Pt1: A New Diplomatic Era: 5 Days. 6 Countries. No Palestinians; Ruthie Blum: A textbook case of EU funding; What is the “Status Quo” on the Temple Mount?

From Ian:

A New Diplomatic Era: 5 Days. 6 Countries. No Palestinians

The Israeli prime minister cannot ignore the Palestinian issue, but Naftali Bennett made clear from day one to his coalition partners that he would maintain the status quo.

Bennett resolved to rebuff any diplomatic contact with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. His view was that nothing good can come of such an initiative because there is no one to talk to and nothing to talk about. And Hamas, clearly, is a non-starter.

Bennett later learned, to his surprise, the degree to which Arab states in the region had also given up on the Palestinians.

“Everyone understands,” a senior diplomatic source explained to me recently, “that there’s nothing to do. The Palestinians are divided. Half went with terror and the other half with corruption. With whom do you negotiate?”

But in Israel, it is also understood that for all the good that is happening, the momentum can only continue for only as long as there is calm on the ground.

The violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan and the spike in terror attacks in recent months could well change the equation and give rise to a sense of instability – both inside Israel and in regional relations.

“This whole summit miracle took place when there was almost complete quiet on the security front,” a senior Israeli source familiar with regional diplomatic developments told me. “The Palestinian issue wasn’t bubbling over. Until now, everyone in the region is very happy with how we are handling the Palestinians, because they understand there’s nothing that can be done with them. But everyone also demands that the economic situation of the Palestinians be improved. This government has done a lot in that area, but if the security tension keeps rising – it will become increasingly complicated.”

And then, there is the very volatile political situation in Israel. The Bennett-Lapid government is in serious peril, and its continuance depends significantly on security developments.

Everything can change in a flash.

At the Kedma Hotel on March 28, the participants were certain that there would be a second summit. The foreign ministers had only to agree on a location. The jocular exchange on this topic was ultimately resolved in Blinken’s favor: Las Vegas was the chosen venue.

Desert. High risk. Long odds. Who knows?

Then again, as Ben Gurion famously said (and no doubt he kept a watchful eye on the Kedma gathering): “Anyone who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.”

5 lessons from Netanyahu's 30 years of strengthening Israel - opinion

Lesson 1: Paying a price
The first and most evident lesson is the willingness to pay a personal price for national achievements. Netanyahu could not have remained as relevant and strong as he is today without the achievements he has brought to Israel, fortifying its security and its economy, fighting indefatigably the Iranian threat and proving that peace can be made with Arab states, without first solving the conflict with the Palestinian Arabs.

Netanyahu is the one who made Israel’s economy, a small country in international relations, one of the most advanced and powerful economies in the world. Netanyahu turned the Israeli economy into a free-market economy, promoting competition, lowering prices and free trade lifting foreign exchange controls. He paid a personal price for this when he was Finance Minister. He made difficult economic decisions and thus dragged himself into opposition.

At the same time, Netanyahu led Israel to the best security decade Israel has ever known. As Prime Minister, he led an aggressive policy against the enemies of Israel, especially Iran. He paid a personal price for his relations with the United States. Still, thanks to his determined actions, both in the political arena and in military decisions, Iran does not have nuclear weapons to this day.

NETANYAHU HAS turned Israel into an emerging world power in the international arena. When Netanyahu said Israel would become a global cyber power, his political opponents mocked him. Today, Israel is a leader in the cyber field and is considered one of the world’s leading forces in high-tech.

Lesson 2: Innovation
The second is innovation. Netanyahu is the first to identify trends. If he was an advertiser, he would be a billionaire. Netanyahu was the first Israeli leader to understand the transition to multi-channel media and the first to use social networks. Whereas in 1992, there was only one television channel in Israel; whereas, currently there are a hundred outlets, more newspapers, many more radio stations and our social networks are thriving. Most importantly, he knows that the world moves forward constantly, and those who do not move ahead are left behind. So, he keeps reading and thinking about the next thing in policy and branding.

Mohammed Khalid Alyahya: The Young and the Restless

Adjusting to this new regional reality in which the firebrand conservative revolutionaries of the past have become octogenarian impediments to a more hopeful, youth-oriented future has taken many Western experts by surprise. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, young people throughout the 1980s and 1990s bought into reactionary-revolutionary clerical rhetoric and looked toward the Iranian regime as a beacon of hope in a region plagued with poor governance and corruption—turning the region’s religious conservatives into the odd bedfellows of would-be revolutionaries in the West. Yet both the Islamic Revolution in Iran and its Islamist counterparts in Egypt and Gaza have manifestly failed to deliver what young people in the region actually want: jobs, economic prosperity, and opportunities for personal growth.

Today, professors in Middle Eastern studies departments in American universities, and Western policymakers who see Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah or the leadership of Hamas as revolutionary icons representing the aspirations of the youth, are manifestly behind the times. On the ground in the Middle East, these figures are widely reviled by the people whose hopes and dreams they have shattered—especially the young. The shift is perhaps most noticeable among young Shia Arabs in Iraq and Lebanon who chant against the Iranian regime and its representatives among their own leadership. In Babel, in Iraq, young protesters defaced the image of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In Nabatea, Lebanon, protesters chanted “all of them means all them, Nasrallah is one of them,” implying that Hezbollah is just as venal and brutal as all the other Lebanese political factions.

The Iranian model is destined for failure, and any chance that the regime reforms itself is slim. The Iranian ruling order’s raison d’etre is to fight the West around the world, starting by dismantling American regional security order, putting it at odds with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the other Gulf States, and Israel. The regime’s most violent efforts are reserved for the Iranian people, on whom it must make war in order to sustain its grip on power.

The kingdom, on the other hand, is betting on its young people and a strong relationship with the West. It has sent hundreds of thousands of young people to study in Western universities, mostly in the United States, as it embarks on a visionary plan to open Saudi Arabia to the world by building new high-tech cities, allowing women unprecedented freedoms, encouraging large-scale concerts and sporting events that are attended equally by both men and women, and by promoting other cultural and social innovations that a decade ago would have seemed like sheer science fiction to outside observers of Saudi society.

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) was the famed 20th century Greek writer whose novels included Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ.

In 1926 and 1927, he traveled to Palestine and wrote of his experiences.

He had a very telling conversation with a young Jewish woman where he - less than a decade before the rise of Nazism - claimed that Zionism was a disaster in the making because Jews belong in the diaspora, forever.

Even though he professed his love for Jews, he proved himself to be a racist and, in hindsight, his young adversary bested him.

-----------------------------------

We walked along the broad, dusty road bordering the Valley of Josephat at the foot of the Mount of Olives. The tombstones on the Jewish graves, deeply imbedded in the ground, were drowned in the glaring noonday light. The little village of Gethsemane, just two paces ahead, was blotted out in darkness, so blinding was the brilliance of the sun. Unexpectedly, there among the graves, two camels filed silently by, one behind the other, their necks swaying slowly. For a moment their patient black eyes, with the long lashes, gazed at us gently and my heart lightened as I felt the presence of a warm living thing moving through this inhuman wilderness.

Walking and breathing easily beside me in this furnace was a young Jewess, a teacher named Judith, who had come to show me a garden for Jewish children. She was about twenty years old, short, lissom, with hooked nose and restless jet-black eyes. Her hair was curly and coarse, her chin broad, firm, wilful.

“How did you happen to become a Zionist?” I asked.

“I was studying medicine. I had no ties to either religion or country. People had always interested me. I felt compassion and pity for all mankind, knowing how every one shares in illness and joy and grief. But I was restless. All of Europe seemed old and familiar and archaic to me. I was thirsty for something new. And so I came to Palestine.”

“Why didn't you go to Russia? They say a new world is being created there . ."

“Because there's no freedom there. A small, harsh circle governs all the others. The fact that this circle is the proletariat didn't comfort me at all. I wanted freedom.”

“And you found it here in Palestine?”

“Here we work free. We try, we experiment, we search to find. You can meet people here and work together according to your individual temperament - from the most revolutionary to the most conservative. Freedom. Here, for the first time. I feel alive, strengthened, able to love the earth that I had never even noticed in Europe, and able to feel joy that I am from the Jewish race.”

“You are beginning, in other words, to lose your freedom. You're beginning to tie yourself down to a certain corner of the Earth, and to constrict your heart; first it had room for all the world, now it's beginning to distinguish and choose and to accept only the Jews. Don't you feel the danger?”

The Jewess protested angrily, slightly fearful:

“What danger?”

“What danger? I'll tell you: The leader of the gypsies forbids his people to build houses or plant trees or put up fences. They prop up their tents on the ground for a while and then move on freely. One day, as they were taking down their tents, a young girl was bending over the earth and tarrying. The leader approached and saw the girl had broken his order and had planted a sprig of basil at the entrance of her tent. And now the little sprig of basil had blossomed and the young girl was crouched over it crying, reluctant to leave it. In a rage, the leader uprooted the basil and trampled on it. He struck the girl with his riding whip and shouted: ‘Why do you break my order? Don't you know that whoever builds a house is tied to it and whoever plants a tree is tied to that tree?'

“We don't want to be Wandering Jews any longer!” the Jewess cried out.

“But that is exactly the danger I'm talking about; you don't want to advance any longer. If the purpose of life is happiness - to eat well, to sleep in peace, to live in security - then you are justified in wanting to escape the persecutions and scorn and take roots finally in your own country. Although I'm encouraged by the belief - thank God - that you will not find happiness and security here in Palestine!

“But if the purpose of life, and especially the purpose of a people, is much harder: to struggle to convert as much matter as possible into action, thought and beauty; to climb upward with agony - then, without a doubt, the Zionist movement is contrary to the highest interest of your race.”

“Why don't the English or French or Greeks undertake this role of the Wanderer? Or could you possibly think that their contribution to the Whole was lessened because they had a country?”

“Every race has its special virtues and vices and, consequently, its special road to reach its summit. The Jews have this supreme quality: to be restless; not to fit into the reality of the time; to struggle to escape; to consider every status quo and every idea a stifling prison. With this poignant quality of theirs they save mankind from his contrived efforts at contentment - that is to say, from his impasse. This spirit of the Jews shatters the equilibrium, pushes evolution further, sparks off the proudest element of life: never to be satisfied, never to stop anywhere, to leap from plants to animals and from animals to man and again to torment man, as though wanting to go further still.”

“Our fathers in the land of Canaan were farmers; rooted to their country they created their civilization.”

“That was the nature of your race then. The Jews didn't always have the Lucifer quality of rebellion. They acquired it. The persecutions, slaughters, scorn, exile, all the things you call Diaspora, hammered away at the Hebrew race for two thousand years and forged it, against its will, by force, into the leaven of the earth.”

“By force?”

“Does the word annoy you? Isn't it true that force is the most secret law of history? Many races would have wanted to escape their bloody and glorious fate and live without History, happily - clandestinely. But economic necessities, wars and some prophets who are born in their midst don't leave them alone. With force and with the lash, they prod them upward.

“Thus, scattered over the world for so many centuries, the Jews suffered, trembled and were killed. And this dyed their soul indelibly and created in them the hatred for every tyranny - either from individuals or from systems or ideas. This is why they agitated nations, undermined the status quo and set fire to all the old ideas. This is their fate; without them the world would rot.”

Judith laughed. “Thank you for the role you assign us. I must confess we are greatly honoured to be slaughtered, to be forever restless, to make others restless. But we don't want to any more.”

“You're tired? But the historical necessity that pushes the races doesn't ask you. It prods you relentlessly, whether you want it or not. And this modern Zionist movement, too, is a mask that your unsmiling Pate wears to deceive you for an instant. This is why I don't fear Zionism: how many of the fifteen million Jews will be able to squeeze themselves in here? You will never find security here. Behind you, don't forget, you have the dark fanatical swarm of Arabs.

“And so, like it or not, you will become the instruments of the spirit of our age. And our age is an age of revolution. That is, a Jewish age. Someone once said: “The twenty-second of March, 1832, when Goethe died, an era closed and a new one opened: the era of the reigning of the Jews.” And it's true. Goethe was the last complete representative of Harmony; after Goethe our contemporary age truly begins the violence, which is equally valuable, to rupture the old harmony and create a new one. This is why the Hebrew race prevails today, because its substance is precisely this rupturing of every harmony. This is why the highest intellects and leading men of action are Jews. Why all this flowering? Because you are restless, scattered all over the world in a transient age that destroys. Diaspora is your country. In vain you struggle to escape your Fate and you seek out happiness and security in this out-of-the-way province. I hope I hope, because I love the Jews - that sooner or later the Arabs will drive you out of here and again scatter you all over the world.”

We had finally arrived at the children's garden. Blond, brunette and raven-haired Jewish youngsters were playing beneath the trees, chirping away like birds. I caressed their soft curly hair with unexpected emotion; a sudden, tragic foreboding overwhelmed my heart.

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His foreboding was misplaced - anticipating (and also cheering) a slaughter of Jews by what he considered a "dark fanatical swarm of Arabs," when it was the sophisticated Europeans who were preparing the slaughter of the Jews he pretended to love.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Amnesty UK has an annual meeting where they vote on resolutions about various worldwide political issues. Nearly all of them pass with a huge majority, since they don't ask for funding - just vague commitments to "lobby" for the issue.

In 2015, one seemingly routine resolution was put up for vote to condemn antisemitism in the UK and lobby the British government to do more to protect Jews from attacks, which had increased dramatically in the previous year. That was the only resolution that year that was defeated by the Amnesty-UK crowd.

The excuse that Amnesty-UK used to justify not opposing antisemitism was "we can't campaign on everything."

Compare that to a similar 2020 resolution saying "AIUK should campaign against practices which discriminate against Ahmadi Muslims." That one easily passed 748-116.

Amnesty-UK has exhibited double standards against Jews on other occasions. They have a public space that they rent out to nearly all organizations who request it, and they have allowed virulent antisemites to use the space. But when a Jewish umbrella group representing many political opinions wanted to lease it, Amnesty refused to allow it.

In 2012, an Amnesty-UK leader tweeted a joke about Jewish MKs supporting bombing Gaza, even though plenty of non-Jewish MKs supported Israel's actions to stop rocket attacks.

The antisemitism is endemic. Which is why this story from The Independent is not surprising:

Amnesty International UK is “institutionally racist”, “colonialist” and faces bullying problems within its own ranks, a damning inquiry has concluded.

Initial findings of Global HPO’s independent inquiry into the charity were published in April but now the scale of the organisation’s issues with race have been laid bare in their final report.

Released to Amnesty staff members on Thursday, the 106-page document explains that equality, inclusion and anti-racism are “not embedded into the DNA” of the organisation.

“White saviour”, “colonialist”, “middle class” and “privileged” were among the words most used during the testimony and focus groups to discuss Amnesty.

Examples of racist incidents that left black and Asian staff uncomfortable include:

- Being regularly mistaken for other colleagues with similar skin tone
- Negative comments about fasting during Ramadan
- Treating black skin, hair and appearance as matters of fascination and touching hair without consent
- Rude comments about minority celebrities, politicians or events

The same "white savior" complex that permeates the so-called "human rights community" is closely related to the left wing antisemitism we've seen from Amnesty and Amnesty-UK. The mostly white leadership of Amnesty pretends that Palestinians are "people of color" under attack from white "Jewish supremacists" and as such have no responsibility for their own actions - the same kind of infantilizing of non-white people that this report highlights under the pretense of being anti-racist itself.

In short, groups like Amnesty are the pot that call the kettle black.

Yesterday, the head of Amnesty International Agnes Callamard lashed out against accusations of antisemitism in its report accusing Israel, the most diverse state in the Middle East of "apartheid." She claimed that calling out the obvious double standards and antisemitism in Amnesty are "weaponizing antisemitism."

Just as the previous probes finding that Amnesty-UK is systematically racist were dismissed by its leadership, so are the provable accusations of antisemitism.

Their objections in both cases are the same: we are the leaders in human rights, we are against discrimination, we work hard to hold others accountable for their racism, how dare you accuse us!

But accusations of racism and apartheid against Israel, falsely claiming that it deliberately targets Arab children, are the 21st century equivalent of accusations of Jews deliberately killing Christian children in medieval times.

Accusing those who call out leftist antisemitism as "weaponizing antisemitism" is as offensive as saying that those who document Amnesty-UK's racism are "weaponizing racism."

Groups like Amnesty hide behind the pretense that they fight some kinds of bigotry to justify their own.

Antisemites are racists, and racists are antisemites.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Did you know Obama was pro-Israel?

Did you know that Jews controlled the 1992 election electing Clinton, and the 1980 election electing Reagan?

The claims are ludicrous - but Mondoweiss makes them.

In an article doubling down on support for the Boston Mapping Project, which apes the classic right-wing graphics showing how Jews supposedly control the media or the banks, Mondoweiss made the claim that this is only meant to expose the truth that Jews really do control America.:

Jimmy Carter was a one-term president in part because he took on the Israel lobby over settlements. Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s liaison to the Jewish community and later Hillary Clinton’s, wrote recently that Carter ascribed his loss to the opposition of “New York Jews” who had formerly supported him but were alarmed by his criticisms of Israel’s settlements.
...
Indeed, in 1992, Bill Clinton won the presidency and ran to Bush’s right on Israel issues, and gained the blessings of the lead Israel lobby organization AIPAC.

AIPAC had unfettered access to the White House under Barack Obama, too. Obama’s top foreign policy aide, Ben Rhodes, has said that he spent more time dealing with 10 to 20 Jewish groups than anyone else, and those groups were piping the Israeli government line. “It’s not a conspiracy, it is what it is.”

What we are describing here is political clout at the highest levels of the American political system (surely having a lot to do with campaign contributions). It is in our country’s best democratic traditions to examine such corruption and give it sunlight. Pro-Israel Jewish groups want that sunlight to go away.

The 1980 election was a landslide, with Carter getting only 49 electoral votes compared to Ronald Reagan's 489. The margin of the difference in popular vote was over 8 million - far more than the total number of Jews (not Jewish voters, Jews) in America. And Carter still attracted more Jewish votes than Reagan did - 45% to 39%.

The 1992 election was similar - Clinton won easily, 370 to 168 electoral votes, and the 80% of Jews who voted for him did not swing the election.

And Obama was the most antagonistic president towards Israel, ever - yet he received the vast majority of the Jewish vote and was re-elected.

Is there any difference between what Mondoweiss says and what the neo-Nazis say?

I already once showed how eagerly the neo-Nazis quote leading "anti-Zionists" of the Left.

Maybe we should create a mapping project showing the (hyper)links between the antisemitic Left and the antisemitic Right.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

06/16 Links Pt2: You don’t need a map to find antisemitism; Unilever shareholder sues over Ben & Jerry's Israel boycott; Gaza aid worker guilty of funneling millions to Hamas

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Condemning the 'mapping project' isn't enough

It may be more open in its willingness to label anyone remotely connected to Israel – as is the case with the entire Jewish community other than anti-Zionists – as criminally complicit with the effort to defend the Jewish state and to an America that they see as a bastion of racism. But there is no real difference between this map, and the labeling of Jews and Israel as examples of "white privilege" that is the engine of oppression that is part of CRT indoctrination and intersectional propaganda heard elsewhere.

It is those ideas that helped motivate 83 House Democrats to sign a joint letter last month demanding that the United States oppose the demolition of an illegal encampment in the West Bank that has been upheld by the Israeli Supreme Court. Weeks before, 57 members of the Democrats' Progressive Caucus signed a similar letter demanding an "independent" investigation into the death of a Palestinian journalist who was killed in the crossfire during an Israeli counter-terrorism operation in Jenin.

Both efforts illustrate the way increasingly large numbers of Democrats are taking up Palestinian propaganda attacks against Israel. These letters, promoted by anti-Israel groups, show how the same ideological arguments that back up CRT and intersectionality have resonance on the political left when applied to Israel.

If pro-Israel Democrats want to go on the offensive against anti-Semitic BDS groups, they shouldn't be satisfied with a few statements condemning one map. Instead, they should be joining with centrists and conservatives in attacking the ideas that make such efforts possible. But so long as that means confronting both the BLM movement and the way CRT and intersectionality grant a permission slip for anti-Semitism, then most liberals and left-wingers want nothing to do with it. And as long as that is true, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism will continue to make inroads on the political left and the Democratic Party.

Jonathan Greenblatt: You don’t need a map to find antisemitism

To be fair, these are very different threats. As I said in the speech and as ADL has documented for decades, far-right extremism is a singularly lethal and dangerous threat to the Jewish community and to our country. For years, individuals have been driven by white supremacist conspiracy theories to murder Jews along with other minorities. From Pittsburgh to Poway to Buffalo, it is a violent danger that should not be underestimated.

At the same time, we also must recognize the growing threat posed by the organized anti-Zionist movement, which – despite its effort to wrap itself in the progressive cloak of solidarity with oppressed minorities – is no less conspiratorial and antisemitic. Left unchecked, the demonization, vilification, and conspiracy theories from anti-Zionists will lead to more – and even deadly – violence.

This is not a paranoid abstraction. Rather, it is what Jewish communities in Europe have experienced over the past several years, and it is what we see happen to other minority groups such as Asian-Americans in the US in the wake of COVID, to name just one example.

Let’s be clear: this does not mean that Israel should be exempt from critique.

There are a host of Jewish groups in and out of Israel that criticize the actions of the Jewish state, such as, Ameinu, J Street, and T’ruah. Unlike the anti-Zionist groups who think pro-Palestinian solidarity compels an anti-Jewish racism, these groups believe that Zionism does not compel being anti-Palestinian. In fact, they – along with ADL — often condemn those politicians, groups, and commentators who incite violence against Israeli Arabs or Palestinians and advocate for a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state of Israel.

Equally importantly, these critics inside and outside the Jewish community – many who are proud progressives – level their critiques without demonizing Jews, calling for violence against Jewish organizations, or calling for the eradication of the Jewish state.

These organizations know that words have consequences. Words lead to actions, so they choose them carefully. The leaders of SJP, JVP, and CAIR know this too. And so we have no choice but to take what they say seriously. And by judging those words, it is clear that these anti-Zionist groups represent a growing antisemitic threat in the United States, a threat that ADL will redouble its efforts to counter.

WaPo Editorial: BDS detours into old-school antisemitism

There is no place in civilized society for such acts — nor for rhetoric that motivates the unstable to do the terrible. Nor is there a place for a BDS movement if it is going to use (justified) anger with Israel’s policies to foment antisemitic conspiracy theories and to implicitly call for violence against “agents of oppression,” including Jewish entities.

The Mapping Project is ludicrous in its attempt to implicate Jews. It includes JewishBoston, a publication of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, because it “pushes propaganda which glories Israel.” Such as? “JewishBoston helped promote ‘Taste of Israel 2022’ … which featured Boston area restaurants serving and promoting ‘Israel’s diverse culinary landscape.’ ”

The long list of groups “systemically connected” with supposed Zionist oppressors includes: the AFL-CIO, Apple, Google, the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute, the Boston Globe, the City of Boston, Democratic Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, the FBI, the Harpoon Brewery, the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Pfizer and Moderna, an interminable collection of businesses, universities and police departments, and seemingly every Jewish group under the sun.

If the broader movement isn’t willing to step in and condemn those among them fanning antisemitic conspiracy theories and violence against Jews, then BDS will become nothing more than BS.

In June, 1962, the American Jewish Congress sponsored a conference in Jerusalem about maintaining the relationship between American Jews and Israel, which they were afraid would fray within 10-20 years.

American Jews remain overwhelmingly Zionist even 60 years after those dire predictions.

Not to say we should be complacent, but it is interesting to see what the perspective was then,

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

We Don't Specifically Want To Genocide Jews From Palestine - We Just Want Nobody To Interfere If We Do (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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We Don't Specifically *Want* To Genocide Jews From Palestine - We Just Want Nobody To Interfere If We *Do*

By Marwan Shibli, Palestinian activist

man smoking hooka Gaza City, June 19 - Too much misunderstanding and willful distortion of the Palestinian position pervade the rhetoric surrounding the issue, to the point that many people wrongly assume we aim to kill every Jew between the River and the Sea, along with whoever gets in the way. In fact we plan no such set of operations once we remove the colonialist pig-dog usurper invader Jews from our land - rather, in the eventuality that we do conduct such operations, we insist that everyone stay out of the way.

A casual reading of our statements and literature might convey the incorrect impression that, upon achieving the longed-for liberation of our land, we will continue the same treatment of Jews that we have demonstrated for a hundred years. Such an attitude ignores the fact that we will be sovereign, not under the - sometimes nominal - boot of Israel, the British, the Ottomans, or whoever. That means we will enjoy the power to choose our own method of dealing with the Jews, unencumbered by occupiers' preventive policies. Of course genocide will be on the table - but the point is not that we intend specifically to round up the Jews, plunder their property, rape the women and girls, and yeah, the men and boys too, all while we beat, stab, shoot, what have you; we just want the *power* that represents, to play the oppressor instead of the victim. The specifics of whom we victimize and how are less important.

For this reason and others, we Palestinians sometimes object to comparisons between our movement and Nazis. Yes, our leadership allied with Hitler during the Second World War; yes, Nazis trained our fighters; yes, we fought the immigration of Jews fleeing extermination at the hand of the Nazis; yes, we fly the Nazi swastika and openly admire Hitler and his goals. None of those points, however, get at the true kernel: it's not so much the desire to destroy every Jew while subject them all to fear and pain; it's more that it's the best way we can feel the power and control we feel we deserve, especially once we could no longer lord it over the lowly dhimmi Jew no matter how low we ourselves fell in society.

Our aim isn't genocide of the Jews per se, in other words. We just want you to stay out of our way when we end up doing just that.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

06/16 Links Pt1: The UNHRC's diplomatic terrorism; From Peace Deal to Military Pact: Congress Wants Israel, Arab Allies To Unite Against Iran

From Ian:

Danny Danon: The UNHRC's diplomatic terrorism

The bias and absurdity of the report are made clear by a simple scan of the contents and the observation that throughout 18 pages of Israel-bashing only a handful of paragraphs are allocated to the atrocities committed by Arab terror organizations such as Hamas, which publicly declares that one of its goals is the complete destruction of the State of Israel. Given that the council has been outed time and again for its anti-Israel bias, it is unsurprising that the UNHRC report perpetuates and even intensifies this hostility towards the Jewish state.

For example, the report completely disregards the more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israel over the course of the 11-day conflict last May. Not only does it ignore this crucial issue, but it goes further. It undermines and criticizes a democratic country whose only "crime" is to defend itself against this barrage of rockets launched at an innocent civilian population.

Instead of rallying to Israel's defense against a brutal attack by bloodthirsty radicals, the UNHRC report sides with the aggressive Arab terrorists who injured not only Jewish citizens but Arabs in Israel and the Gaza Strip. Instead of aligning itself with a democracy that had no alternative but to defend itself and its citizens, the report collaborates with terrorists.

This does nothing to promote peace. In fact, it does precisely the opposite. It nurtures terror and simultaneously attempts to penalize a sovereign state for exercising its right to fight terror. No one gains from this. Not the innocent Israeli Jewish or Arab civilians who were killed, wounded or suffered stress and trauma as a result of rocket attacks. Certainly not the Palestinian Arabs whose lives were harmed during Hamas's senseless assault. The only victors are the terrorists and radicals whose goal is destruction and devastation no matter the human cost.

The UNHRC inquiry and its report are flagrant diplomatic terrorism against Israel. The investigators responsible for it should themselves be investigated for aiding and abetting acts of terrorism and violence against innocent civilians.

The UN vs. Israel, Yet Again

This year, the U.S. rejoined the UN Human Rights Council to try to advance fundamental values and address political corruption. Exhibit A of this corruption is the UN's unparalleled misuse as a propaganda tool against Israel, a country of fewer than 10 million people, barely the size of New Jersey, which is excoriated more than all other countries.

In the new UNHRC Commission of Inquiry report, relentless Palestinian violence - and rejection of sweeping overtures for two-state coexistence in 1947, 2000 and 2008 - does not register as a "root cause" of the conflict. The commission claims "Israel has no intention of ending the occupation," ignoring Israel's sacrifice of territory for peace with Egypt and Jordan, and its surrender of land to the Palestinians. It also ignores Israelis' dramatically worsened security following their total withdrawal from a security zone along the Lebanese border in 2000 and pullout from Gaza in 2005.

Nor does the commission even feign interest in Palestinians' endemic dehumanization of Jews, denial of their equal legitimacy and glorification of violence. There is talk of past "Gaza conflicts," as if the conflicts didn't involve indiscriminate bombardments upending the lives of millions within Israel.

Clifford May: Is international law dead?

According to the United Nations, Gaza remains "occupied territory" even though every Israeli soldier, farmer, synagogue and cemetery was withdrawn in 2005.

Hamas's subsequent takeover of Gaza in 2007 following a civil war against the Palestinian Authority, and the multiple wars that it's launched since, have led most Israelis to conclude that relinquishing more land without a peace agreement in place may not be a great idea.

Future COI reports will attempt to build the false and libelous case that Israel is an "apartheid state" committing "crimes against humanity" and that the "root cause" of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is – can you guess? – Israel's very existence.

It will follow that taking steps to terminate Israel's existence is justifiable. That message will resonate – not least in Tehran.

Could that lead to a repeat of what happened in Europe in the 1940s (genocide) or in the Middle East over the years that followed (expulsion of Jews from Iraq, Egypt and other Muslim lands)? Were that to happen, would the COI shed salty tears? Or would it say the Israelis had it coming? Would it matter?

Here in Jerusalem, I had a long conversation about these issues with a prominent international lawyer.

"What we're seeing in regard to Israel," she told me, "is not really the application of international law. It's 'lawfare' " – the use of tendentious and politicized interpretations of international law as weapons of war.

Combined with the inability or unwillingness of the "international community" to hold the world's most brutal tyrants accountable for their ongoing crimes, we may have the answer to Zelensky's question.

If we are returning to a world order in which, to paraphrase the Athenians to the Melians, despots do what they will and small nations suffer what they must, the consequences are enormous. Western leaders – if they are leaders – will give this possibility serious consideration.

I always see the Forward find Jewish angles in the most goyishe seeming parts of pop culture, so I'll do one too - from decades ago.

"Bewitched" was a hugely popular TV series about a witch Samantha, who marries mortal man Darrin Stevens. Most plots involve her magical relatives meddling in her marriage, especially her disapproving mother, Endora.

The show was created by Sol Saks under executive director Harry Ackerman and director William Asher. Saks and Ackerman were Jewish, Asher's father was Jewish and he married Bewitched's star, Elizabeth Montgomery.

Many people see the show as an allegory for the Jewish American experience. Samantha comes from the old country but wants to assimilate in American society, while her relatives disapprove of her mixed marriage to a mortal. Endora looks very "foreign."

Darrin loves her but wants her to be a "normal" woman and not perform her strange rituals. He's tolerant - but not that tolerant.

In the pilot episode, when Darrin marries Samantha, the theme of prejudice is made explicit. Endora says, "You’re still very young and inexperienced. You don’t know what prejudice you’ll run into!" And later, when Samantha first tells Darrin her secret, he exclaims, "Okay, if you're a witch, where's your black hat and broom and how come you're out when it isn't even Halloween? Samantha answers, "Mother was right, you're prejudiced!"

There is one other telling incident in the pilot. Darren's ex-girlfriend Sheila invites the newlyweds to a party, where she attempts to demean Samantha as not being sophisticated while making snide comments. At one point, Sheila engages Samantha in a conversation - about nose jobs:

“Do you know Dr. Hafter, dear? Samantha?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Dr. Hafter, do you know him?”

“No.”

“The plastic surgeon. Does beautiful nose work.”

"No, I don’t know him.”

”Funny, I could have sworn…”

In the 1960s, nose jobs were considered de rigueur for young, upwardly mobile Jewish women.

In the end, as much as Samantha tries to assimilate and stop doing her magic, she can never deny her witchhood.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

I mentioned yesterday that the founder of Bellingcat, Eliot Higgins, started insulting my research about the Shireen Abu Akleh while refusing to actually say what my mistakes were. This pattern continued throughout the day on Twitter as people pressed him that an OSINT researcher should take criticism seriously.

Higgins has been ignoring my responses, but he started answering others today. Here are his few specific critiques of my research as he engaged with tweeter Jonah Balfour, who is a fine researcher:

EH: The interpretation of the "sniper" videos are a real tell when it comes to the author's biases.

JB: In what way? He had someone translate the video in which one of the witnesses points to “snipers” in houses towards the southeast. Again, you criticize his interpretation without saying what’s wrong with it. Screenshot of his transcript below:

EH: Does that transcript state they were IDF or Palestinian snipers? Are they pointing directly at snipers or the approximate direction they believe them to be in? Do they claim they were shooting at the group of journalists?

This is an amazing response. First of all, the people in the video definitely mention "shabab," the Jenin Islamic Jihad members. But even if they weren't, this video is proof that there were other gunmen in the general area that almost certainly had a line of sight to the journalists. There is zero evidence of IDF activity in the area. These gunmen that we have witnesses for, as well as the gunmen that we do have video of, are ignored by Bellingcat.

It is especially jarring that Bellingcat spends lots of time disproving that the militants to the south of the IDF could have shot Shireen - but none on the militants who we have video of who were to the southeast between 175-195 meters away! (Again, I don't think that they were the shooters without finding line of sight, but Bellingcat prefers to not even admit they exist.)

How can anyone trust open source research from an organization that deliberately ignores multiple pieces of evidence that counters their thesis?

Not only that, but while the Bellingcat analysis painstakingly tries to tease out facts that seem to support IDF culpability, suddenly the standards of proof skyrocket when dealing with evidence of Palestinian culpability. Higgins implies that this video conversation is worthless unless there is direct video of the snipers shooting towards the journalists, and otherwise is hearsay. Yet there is no such video of the IDF shooting at journalists, and the witnesses Bellingcat refers to in its report are no more reliable than these witnesses to gunmen are. In fact, the witnesses in Bellingcat's report have incentive to lie, a random conversation between Jenin residents in Arabic is not likely to be disinformation.

JB: And again, the strongest evidence showing it wasn’t the IDF is the evidence you uncovered in the Bellingcat report. The forensic audio analysis is solid. But the IDF was too far away, according to your analysis, to be the shooter.

EH: It's an estimate that can be effected by a number of environmental factors, so the claims it's a hard limit is false, which is why I'm saying it's bad analysis because it ignores those details to make its point.

I didn't ignore that detail at all. I asked Rob Maher explicitly whether the environmental conditions could make that much of a difference, and he said no:

I asked the expert used by CNN and Bellingcat, Rob Maher of Montana State University, if there were any circumstances like weather or wind that could stretch the 195 meter estimate to 210 or 215 meters. His answer was, "I think that if the average bullet speed is assumed to be at least 760 m/s , the effect of wind and temperature would only move the estimated distance by a few meters, not tens of meters."

It was not a windy day and it was not a very hot day that would even move the estimate a couple of meters.

[760 m/s which is the slowest known speed for a 5.56mm bullet at 100 yards, which would be the slowest average speed at ~200 meters - the scenario where the estimated distance would be the maximu, of 195 meters.]

The only ways that the IDF could be within the range of the audio analysis would be if they moved much closer and no one noticed, or if they are using a gun with 5.56mm bullets that go much slower than anyone if aware of. Both of those are highly unlikely.

EH: It doesn't need to be, it's still in range

JB: How is it still in range? According to the estimates in your report the IDF was 20-25 meters outside the range given. Even according to CNN and WaPo’s estimate it’s ~15 meters out of range.

The total range given in your report was 177-184, that’s a 7m margin. The IDF was 20-25 m outside that margin, so about 3x the margin itself. How is that not relevant? Especially when there WAS an armed group within the range you identified??

EH: We measured the lead vehicle being about 190m away from the location, which puts it in range.

...I'd also note the expert WaPo spoke to gave a longer range, which also puts the IDF in range.

Bellingcat said that the lead IDF vehicle was 190 meters from where Abu Akleh was shot. This is not correct.

Their picture shows Abu Akleh in a location about 8 meters south of the tree that she collapsed next to. With a massive brain injury, she didn't stagger 8 meters. You can see where they say she was shot and the tree to the north.

The tree is the most obvious landmark. Bellingcat gives no reason - video, photo or otherwise - to place Abu Akleh in that position to the south of the tree.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Bellingcat researcher tried to fit the data to make the IDF as close as possible to the their audio forensics estimate of 177-184 meters (Bellingcat and CNN gave different assumptions to the audio expert, so he gave different responses).

Interestingly, Higgins seems to realize that Bellingcat's estimates simply do not add up, so he refers to the Washington Post estimates from their different audio expert of between 175-195 meter range. That's fine - I think that is more accurate based on my research of the types of weapons used by both the IDF and militants.

Even at 195 meters, the IDF is way out of range because none of the analysts, Bellingcat included, are measuring between the IDF and the microphone - they all measure based on their own assumptions between the IDF and the journalists.

The IDF - based on Bellingcat's own map of their position - was 210-216 meters from the microphone.

It is virtually impossible for a gunshot from 210 meters to have the audio signature in the videos. Which means it is virtually impossible for the IDF to have shot Abu Akleh. And no one has managed to disprove that.

We have now seen several sleights of hand by Bellingcat and Higgins: fudging Shireen's location, referring to the longer audio forensics estimate when theirs doesn't make sense, seemingly purposefully ignoring evidence of gunmen anywhere besides south of the IDF, and insisting on far higher standards of proof of the existence of Jenin gunmen in the potential band of firing than they use to "prove" IDF fire.

They are accusing me of bias - but could they be the biased ones?

I admit that I am pro-Israel. That is why I am trying to be as scrupulous and transparent as possible. But what about Eliot Higgins own biases? He presents himself as an OSINT expert, does bias enter in Bellingcat's analyses?

His tweets over the past couple of days, where he makes assumptions that not only am I biased but so are my readers, indicate more than a little projection. (My readers are not shy about calling out my mistakes!)

Finally, there is a huge irony in Higgins claiming that I have no credentials and am not an expert like he is.

I am not prone to bragging. As an anonymous writer, I need to make up for my lack of credentials by doing....OSINT. Like most Bellingcat articles, I show my work and anyone can reproduce my methodology. (I generally don't issue reports, though, since I write multiple articles a day - I show my work even as I'm doing it. And I correct when I'm wrong.)

But once Higgins wants to bring in qualifications, let's do it.

I have been doing what can be defined as OSINT since at least 2007. I have broken more stories than I can count based on open sources that the media ignores - video analysis, databases, statistics, photo analysis. I do not only rely on the experts - as much as possible, I try to reproduce their methodology. I do my own math. I test different assumptions. In this case, I did my own audio analysis to confirm the physics of the gunshots. I verified the geolocation. I may be a little rusty but my college education is in engineering and science. Higgins, on the other hand:

The very person who encourages ordinary people to do their own research, who has no education in the topic of OSINT, who dropped out of college and who never had a professional job, is saying that I am unqualified to do what he does.

That is bias. That is ego. And those are the enemies of objective OSINT research.

I am not fond of attacking people - I want to prove the truth about Shireen Abu Akleh and that's it. But if this person is attacking my objectivity and my methodology, then it is fair game to point out his hypocrisy and his bias.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa has an article claiming that Hamas is stealing land in Gaza from its proper owners.

According to the story, Hamas continually seizes thousands of dunums of land by force of arms in Gaza.

It turns around and gives some of this land either to its own members, or to employees in lieu of paying salaries.

It has evicted hundreds of families from their homes, including some who were allotted land back when Egypt controlled Gaza.

An investigative report by journalist Muhammad Othman, published in 2021, revealed that Hamas seized 42 dunams of land belonging to Al-Azhar University in Gaza and gave it to "others ."

According to Othman’s investigation, Hamas granted some to Hamas sports clubs and other plots of land totaling about 8 dunums for the benefit of the Young Muslim Women Association of Hamas .

Hamas regularly send notices to residents telling them to evict, because the land belongs to the government, as it scours old records looking for an excuse to steal their land.

One journalist tweeted sarcastically, "[Hamas] is looking through the old books...it wants the right of lands from the days of the Egyptians...soon they get to the lands from the days of the Ottomans, and eventually they will claim Canaanite land records as well."

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

06/15 Links Pt2: Gazan aid worker convicted of embezzling millions for Hamas; We must stop sweeping woke antisemitism under the rug

From Ian:

We must stop sweeping woke antisemitism under the rug

How effectively is the Jewish establishment confronting intolerance?
In a recent editorial, Morton Klein and Elizabeth Berney of the Zionist Organization of America criticized the ADL’s latest report on radical violence, “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2021,” arguing that it focused on white supremacism but downplayed threats from minority extremists.

Similarly, critics of the secular liberal establishment lament its tendency to understate progressive bigotry and excess. Indeed, politics seems to set the tone for those communal leaders who appear restrained when social justice warriors target Jews and their institutions, leftist professors malign Israel on college campuses, or progressives promote global conspiracy theories on their social media platforms.

This begs the question of whether cultural survival is possible when Jewish identity is conflated with partisan politics. Or whether invoking tradition in name while equating it with modern progressive values – many of which contravene traditional Judaism – will instead facilitate assimilation.

Those who believe political progressivism is synonymous with Jewish prophetic tradition are just as misinformed as evangelicals who claim Jews can only be “completed” by accepting Christianity. Neither view has any foundation in Jewish Scripture or tradition.
The more confounding question is whether activists who equate Jewish advocacy with jingoism or ethnocentricity can honestly claim concern for Jewish continuity. While many liberals pay lip service to heritage, they also support organizations hostile to traditional Jewish priorities. Can they be effective guardians against antisemitism if they ignore Jew-hatred from the left? Is it chauvinistic to rebuke antisemitism in minority communities?

Incredibly, some progressives claim Jews are part of the power structure and that, accordingly, anti-Jewish bias in minority communities is understandable or even justified. The insidiousness of such woke drivel, however, has finally alarmed some within the liberal mainstream and spurred protest resignations from radical synagogues where anti-Israel activists are validated.

Jonathan Tobin: Cancel culture isn't just for academics anymore

For a lot of people, the phrase "cancel culture" is still a theoretical concept. They know it refers to people being punished in various ways for saying things others don't want to hear, but they have little personal experience of it. Indeed, up until not all that long ago, the idea of being "canceled" was something that was largely limited to the rarified world of academia.

College campuses were the beachheads for those seeking to spread toxic ideologies about intersectionality and critical race theory. Inevitably, that meant that they were also the places where intolerance for differing opinions incubated from an outlier position into mainstream practice.

We have gotten used to seeing stories about colleges canceling appearances from guest speakers whose views on a variety of subjects might offend someone. The offended parties were almost always left-wing students, often egged on by leftist professors, who considered the enunciation of opinions they deemed beyond the pale unacceptable. We were told that hearing ideas that challenged these students' pre-existing opinions and prejudices would "trigger" them, causing them to feel "harm" or to be "endangered."

H.L. Mencken, the great skeptic and cynic of American journalism, once defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." The woke left has embraced its own brand of rigid orthodoxy in which they are haunted by the idea that someone, somewhere may be questioning their ideas about race, gender, government power, and above all, whether open debate about these issues should be tolerated.

But dust-ups about guest speakers at colleges have now morphed into ongoing controversies about whether institutions of higher learning ought to allow those guilty of wrong-think about affirmative action or the notion that America is an irredeemably racist nation to continue teaching. Social media, which was once believed to be the method by which free speech would proliferate even in repressive nations and cultures, became the vehicle for detecting and then enforcing violations of the new orthodoxies.

Gazan aid worker convicted of embezzling millions for Hamas

An Israeli court on Wednesday convicted Mohammad el-Halabi, a Gazan aid worker, of transferring millions in funds to the Hamas terror group, on all but one of the counts against him.

Israeli forces arrested Halabi, who worked at World Vision — a highly respected Christian humanitarian organization that operates around the world — in 2016 and charged him with transferring millions of the nonprofit’s funds to Hamas. Since then, he has been held under arrest.

The aid worker’s extended detention, combined with little publicly released evidence of his guilt, saw Israel’s justice system draw international condemnation

Halabi intends to appeal the ruling to Israel’s Supreme Court, according to his attorney. His sentencing has been set for July 10.

The 254-page ruling, like much of the evidence against Halabi, is classified. In a condensed version released to the press, the Beersheba District Court leaned heavily on Halabi’s confession to Shin Bet security agents, which he has since withdrawn.

“The defendant’s confession, given in various ways, is detailed, coherent, with signs of truthfulness,” Justice Natan Zlotchover wrote in the decision, adding that it was corroborated by additional confidential evidence.

Halabi and World Vision have both emphatically rejected the charges against him. The aid worker, who hails from Jabaliya Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip, is a member of the Fatah group, Hamas’s enemy, according to his family.

According to the ruling, Israeli authorities determined Halabi had been recruited in 2004 by Hamas’ military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. His handlers later sent him to World Vision in order to “gain influence at an international organization.”