Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, October 02, 2022

10/02 Links: The importance of combating antisemitism on campus and educations; When does anti-Zionism become antisemitism? - Barbra Streisand, Twitter

From Ian:

The importance of combating antisemitism on campus and educations

On a sunny afternoon at Pembroke College, Oxford, I had the pleasure of interviewing Natan Sharansky, who is the former head of the Jewish Agency and the current president of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) on the importance of combating antisemitism on campuses and within academia. Sharansky sums up the common struggle of several, if not most, Jewish students on Western campuses today: “Many Jewish students on campus feel they have to choose between their connection to Israel and staying as an accepted part of student society.”

This choice that Mr. Sharansky proposed in his interview is the same one I had to make while completing my undergraduate degree in small-town Halifax, Nova Scotia. The same decision led to me working full-time towards combating antisemitism on university and college campuses. ISGAP's leadership management

Under the leadership of ISGAP management, I had the pleasure of co-organizing two events over the summer. First, an international conference on Jew Hatred at Cambridge followed by a two-week Summer Institute for Curriculum Development in Critical Antisemitism Studies at Oxford. Throughout the events, I had the privilege of learning from some of the world’s greatest scholars of antisemitism.

The lectures covered a wide range of topics, from antisemitism in Southeast Asia to human rights and lawfare, but the presentations I was most drawn to focused on the indoctrination of antisemitism in social sciences, particularly intersectionalism.

As a young Jewish immigrant from Brazil studying in Canada, I entered the liberal arts secure that my core values as a staunch zionist, feminist and progressive would be accepted. However, the more outspoken I became about Zionism, the less welcomed I was by my peers and professors.

The choice between Israel and acceptance presented itself to me in my final year of university, when I decided to branch my areas of study into social sciences. I met with an adviser who had been recommended to me by one of my friends due to their kindness and helpfulness in mapping out courses. In my meeting with her, I explained that I wanted to focus on certain topics to prepare myself for the master’s degree. I wanted to complete in Israel the following year.

Rather than helping me find adequate classes, the adviser provided me with a list of readings and courses she and other professors in the department taught about the Palestinian cause. Before I exited her office, she warned me not to tell the powerful Jewish lobby in Canada about the meeting, otherwise, they would hunt her down and try to destroy her career.

How normalized must antisemitism be, that upon the first meeting with a student, a university professor felt comfortable enough to make accusations about the powerful Jewish lobby in Canada?

Professor William Kolbrener from Bar-Ilan University, who presented and participated in both events, details why antisemitism has become integral in intersectionality: “It is not just an accidental or incidental exclusion [within intersectionality], the exclusion of the Jew is the basis of the thought. Anti-Zionism is the tell for being progressive.”

When does anti-Zionism become antisemitism? - Barbra Streisand, Twitter

"When does anti-Zionism bleed into broad antisemitism?"

This question was posited by Jewish-American singer and actress Barbra Streisand on Saturday in a Twitter post in response to the decision by student groups at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Law to ban Zionist speakers from the campus.

Indeed, this question reflects an often debated topic of when criticism of Israel and Zionist ideology ends and Jew hatred begins.

Several prominent members of Jewish Twitter (JTwitter) were quick to respond to Streisand's question, and many were of the opinion that anti-Zionism itself is antisemitism.

"Pretty early," noted Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum.

"Anti-Zionism, the belief that the State of Israel should not and must not exist as a Jewish state, is antisemitism. Either in intent, in effect, or both," explained Jewish activist and recent Israeli immigrant Blake Flayton.

He also added: "When does anti-feminism bleed into broad sexism? Spoiler alert."

"Denying the Jewish right to self determination is by definition, antisemitic," tweeted the watchdog NGO StopAntisemitism.

"In the end they always come for all of us. Modern day antisemitism just has a new target: Zionism."

Said former MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh: "When Zionist = code for Jew after systematic process to demonize, delegitimize & apply double standards; & ‘traditional’ antisemitism barring individual Jew from equal place in society mutates to ‘modern’ form, barring Jewish state from equal place among nations."

The full results of the latest PCPSR poll of Palestinians has been published, and it finds a consistent pattern.

86% of Palestinians say there is corruption in the Palestinian Authority and 73% say there is corruption in institutions under Hamas’ control in the Gaza Strip.

That is truly overwhelming majority - and it is a story that the Western media continuously downplays. After all, if the Palestinian leadership cannot be trusted to take care of their own people, how can anyone expect them to adhere to agreements with Israel?

Another telling statistic: A majority of Palestinians under both Hamas and PA rule say that they cannot criticize their leaders without fear. 58% of West Bankers think people in the West Bank cannot criticize the PA without fear and 54% of Gazans say they cannot criticize Hamas without fear.

Again, Western media will uncritically quote Palestinian media and citizens without mentioning that people are likely to self-censor to parrot what their corrupt leaders want them so say. This results in reporting on the region that is inherently inaccurate.

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!

Over the weekend, anti-Israel voices tried to claim that the international community was hypocritical by condemning Russia's illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory and not doing the same about Israel's annexation of the Golan and "East Jerusalem."

Here is why Israel's annexations are legal, from a paper by Professor Eugene Kontorovich: (Italics his, bold emphasis mine.)

Whatever the current status of an absolute prohibition on territorial change resulting from war, there was certainly no such blanket prohibition in 1967, when the territory came under Israeli control. At the time, international law only prohibited acquisition of force in illegal or aggressive wars. This is evident from the source of the prohibition in the UN Charter, post-Charter state practice, and the understandings of international jurists at the time. There is simply no precedent or authoritative source for forbidding defensive conquest in 1967.

The U.N. Charter prohibits war for most purposes. When the use of force is illegal, it is natural to conclude that any territorial gains from such aggression cannot be recognized as well. Thus the illegality of conquest arises from the presumptive illegality of the use of force. But crucially, the U.N. Charter does not make all war illegal. Indeed, it expressly reaffirms the legality of a defensive war. Since defensive war is not illegal, it follows that the defender’s territorial gains from such a war would not be illegal.

The fundamental legal question is whether the law as it stood in 1967 clearly barred territorial changes resulting from the legal use of force. To answer that, we must see how the state practice, and leading jurists, answered that question after the adoption of the U.N Charter and before 1967.

1. The International Law Commission and leading scholars

The legality of defensive conquest was endorsed by the International Law Commission, a body created by the General Assembly, and tasked with providing fuller explanations of the legal significance of the U.N. Charter and related documents. Composed of some of the most distinguished jurists of the time, its work in the immediate post-War period is seen as providing highly authoritative explanations of the UN Charter. In the ILC’s drafting of their influential Draft Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1949) and Draft Code of Offenses Against the Peace and Security of Mankind (1954), the question of the permissible scope of territorial conquest came up repeatedly. The ILC repeatedly recognized that not all territorial changes in war are illegitimate. Not all annexations were bad, the U.S. delegate argued. All agreed that post-war frontier adjustments were justified to help protect the victim of aggression. There was broad consensus territorial change was only impermissible in a war of “aggression.” Thus the final document provided that states have a duty “to refrain from recognizing any territorial acquisition by another State acting in violation” of the U.N. Charter or other international law rules. But Israel’s use of force in 1967 was defensive – certainly the U.S. is entitled to view it as such – and thus explicitly lawful under the Charter. Thus there is no obligation to refrain from recognizing it.

Furthermore, the leading international law treatises immediately prior to 1967 reveal a disagreement between leading authorities such as Hersch Lauterpacht and Robert Jennings on whether defensive conquest was proper under the UN Charter. The majority opinion seems to side with the permissive view, but both sides acknowledged that the matter was disputed, and a clear rule had not emerged.

2. State practice, 1945-67

The views of the U.N’s International Law Commission and most scholars in finding defensive conquest as lawful under the U.N. Charter should not be surprising given that it simply reflected broad state practice under the Charter. In the years immediately following the adoption of the Charter, many of the victorious Allies took territory of the defeated nations. All these annexations have been recognized, without controversy by the U.S. and international community. To mention only a few of these instances, Holland unilaterally annexed parts of Germany in 1949; Greece and Yugoslavia took parts of Italy; the U.S.S.R and Poland annexed large parts of Germany. The ILC in its deliberations specifically addressed the legal basis for these annexations: because the underlying use of force was lawful (defensive), the acquisition of territory can be permitted.

... An examination of state practice and international legal opinion shows that international law did not prohibit, and may even have affirmatively sanctioned, defensive conquest as of 1967. The lack of clarity is itself important, because in international law there is a meta-principle dealing with situations where it is not clear whether a rule has emerged. Known as the Lotus Principle, the rule is that when it is not clear whether an international law rule has emerged, states remain free to act. That is, the burden of proof is on those seeking to demonstrate the existence of a rule that would limit sovereign action. That which is not clearly prohibited is permitted. It is not necessary to consider whether any norm prohibiting defensive conquest emerged subsequently to Israel’s actual conquest of these territories. Under the doctrine of intertemporal law, subsequent developments in international law do not change the status of developments that occurred before those changes. That is, international law is non-retroactive, and this is most emphatically true for questions of territorial sovereignty and conquest, where any other principle would lead to chaos in international relations.

Policy Arguments

...The policy arguments for allowing for defensive conquest are compelling. Without such a possibility, an attempted aggressor is insured against significant negative consequences. Territorial expansionism becomes a no even. In short, the lack of any self-- lose game, because aggressors will always at least break help sanctions serves as a license and inducement to aggressors, especially in the absence of a unified international security regime of the kind the Charter originally envisaged.

Of course, no one is addressing the actual international law aspects of the situations - they just make up a facile analogy and assume that the audience is too ignorant to know otherwise.

See also "International Law and the Arab-Israel Conflict" by Julius Stone, edited by Ian Lacey, which concludes that Israel's capture of Jerusalem is legal:

For those who disagree with this analysis, the question remains - who has a better legal right to Jerusalem than Israel? It cannot be Jordan (who gave up its own legal claim,) it cannot be the UN for the reasons given above and it cannot be a nonexistent Palestinian Arab state or entity which didn't even exist when Israel captured it.

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!

On Saturday, Hamas organized a "grand festival" in the Gaza Strip called the “Al-Aqsa is in Danger Festival”. Officials from different Palestinian factions participated.

Thousands of Gazans came to listen to speeches about how Israel is supposedly attacking Al Aqsa.

It turns out that a festival with the same title was held every year from 1996 to 2015 by the Islamic Movement -Northern Wing of Israel in the city of Umm al-Fahm.

Al Aqsa has been in "danger" for more than a century. Somehow, it still stands.

And Arabs make grand festivals to celebrate it's supposed being in danger.

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!

10/01 Links: Palestine: A story of Colonialism through the ages; The new loyalty oath imposed on Jews; Ayaan Hirsi Ali: What Western feminists can learn from Iran

From Ian:

Palestine: A story of Colonialism through the ages

I shouldn’t have to write this: others, better educated about this than me, people with deeper insight into world history and geopolitics should: historians should document this, journos should flood the internet with articles, politicos of every left or right shade, from the continent and across The Pond should clamour to support this, educators should educate on this.

Yet, here we are: this truth that needs to be said remains, apart from the odd internet article - of which this one has great chances of ending up being too - hidden, sidelined, forgotten and ignored.

Better still: we should not have allowed this atrocity to be committed, this falsehood to spread and take root, this deeply unjust thing to exist. Yet here we are: just do an internet search and you’ll see. The worst is when Israelis support it.

The thing I refer to is, of course, the notion of ‘Palestine’.

‘Palestine’ is, at core, a colonial endeavour, a malign intention of domination, control and dispossession, a false flag operation, a deception, (the oldest) piece of fake news, a grotesque masquerade of peoplehood, a trivial pursuit of individual enrichment, a geopolitical stratagem, a ruse hidden in plain sight, an unambiguous expression of fundamental disregard for humanity and for human rights, a deeply antisemitic thing, a profoundly inhumane thing.

As its apologists like to point out, the name ‘Palestine’ is ancient. Indeed this hateful thing is, probably, if not world’s oldest political machination, certainly its longest.

The name ‘Palestine’ is an English word, based on a Latin one that it turn has its roots in a Greek one. Somewhere in-between it has been adopted in Arabic and a handful of other languages.

Whatever the origin of this word may be, one thing it certainly is not: indigenous to the land it purports to describe. No political entity, local to the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea has ever - ever, ever - called itself so. It remains, from time immemorial to present day, an exonym, a name given by Greek, Roman and Arab colonial powers to the lands they conquered; and it is specific to an etic discourse of domination and epistemic violence. In every shape and form, linguistically, ‘Palestine’ is a foreign thing.

As ‘Palestine’ is a neologism to the language of the individuals who supporters say it politically represents - the Arabs - no decent person, organisation or entity can accept its claim of indigeneity. But more: the land purported to be designated by this misnomer has no natural borders but those drawn by colonial powers and are so upheld as to not impinge on their successors, particularly the Kingdom of Jordan.

The new loyalty oath imposed on Jews

On college campuses, in progressive organizing spaces, in some professional contexts, and even among friends, Americans are increasingly being told their Zionism is disqualifying. For many Jews, that means an aspect of their own identity makes them persona non grata in spaces where left-wing views are paramount. For non-Jews, maintaining until-recently mainstream, pro-Israel opinions means risking social stigmatization and professional harm. Although this problem has begun to gain some visibility, it’s time Americans understood the extent of the social pressure to self-censor or else face the mob.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jews keeping their Zionism hush-hush weren’t eager to be interviewed. However, 32 Jewish and non-Jewish students and young alumni, academics, communal and advocacy group figures, governmental leaders, activists, and creatives contributed to this article. Taken together, what follows is a portrait of profound societal changes.

These changes, it must be noted, affect all Jews in these spaces because they are greeted with suspicions and assumptions about their support for Israel that they must either dispel or confirm. And this manifests in various ways.

In 2015, University of California, Los Angeles, student Rachel Beyda was expecting to be confirmed without incident to the student council’s judicial board but was met with a bizarre question from a member of the council: “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community,” Beyda was asked, “how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?” After a lengthy discussion of Beyda’s Jewish identity, from which Beyda was excluded, her nomination was voted down. (This was only reversed when a faculty adviser to the council stepped in.)

The incidents that make national headlines give the public a rare window into the discrimination regularly wielded in left-of-center institutions. For example, there was an explosive controversy about whether one can be both a feminist and a Zionist, which the Women’s March's then-leader Linda Sarsour answered firmly in the negative. Jewish lesbians were ejected from Chicago’s Dyke March for carrying a Pride flag emblazoned with a Jewish star because some attendees were uncomfortable with the symbol’s association with the Israeli flag. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) was “demonized by extremists as a white supremacist, as a supporter of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, [and] genocide” for condemning Hamas’s terrorism. The Washington, D.C., chapter of the environmental group Sunrise Movement refused “to participate in a voting rights rally” alongside three Jewish groups. An undergraduate at the State University of New York, New Paltz, was expelled from a “sexual assault awareness group” she co-founded over an Instagram post describing Jews as indigenous to Israel. And the list goes on.

Each time a particularly egregious case broke through, though, it quickly faded from the news, as true inclusion was quietly eroded yet again.

Support for Israel, of course, is mainstream among American Jews. In 2019, Gallup found that “95% of [American] Jews have favorable views of Israel,” and in 2021, the Pew Research Center reported that 82% of American Jews consider Israel “‘essential’ or ‘important’” to their Jewish identity, one of the highest markers of commonality among famously fractious co-religionists.

Yet younger Jews are feeling compelled to camouflage that piece of themselves. A 2021 Brandeis Center poll found that “50% of Jewish [college] students hide their Jewish identity and more than half avoid expressing their views on Israel.” A 2022 survey by the American Jewish Committee reported that “28% of American Jewish millennials say that [the] anti-Israel climate on campuses or elsewhere has damaged their relationships with friends” and “23% reported that the anti-Israel climate on campus or elsewhere has forced them to hide their Jewish identity.” These are nontrivial numbers.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: What Western feminists can learn from Iran

Is this it? Could this, finally, be the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran? As huge crowds of women and men surge through the Iranian streets, burning hijabs and calling for “Death to Khamenei!”, is an impossible dream finally about to come true?

The prospects certainly look better than in 2009, when the country’s protestors were primarily middle-class and more narrowly focused on the issue of Ahmadinejad’s election victory, rather than on dismantling the oppressive system in its entirety. Today, men and women, rural and urban, affluent and poor are all marching to bring down the Islamic Republic. Khamenei is also reported to be in very poor health, so the chants might just come true.

Yet senior US officials I have spoken to have cautioned against blind optimism. As they explained, we’ve seen many moments in recent Iranian history where the tide seemed about to turn, only to be disappointed. The same officials also warned that America is trying not to become too involved: the Biden administration isn’t supporting the protestors, but it isn’t explicitly discouraging them, either.

This isn’t an example of craven politics: I also fear that the end of the regime might not herald a brave new world, but rather a bloody mess, where Khamenei’s death is followed by internecine fighting for power between various Iranian factions. Would the overthrow of the regime lead to civil war, a military coup, or liberal democracy? Nobody knows.

None of this is to say that, faced with a possible uprising in Iran, America should avert its gaze. Perhaps more than anything, the wave of protests now sweeping the country is a perfect moment to remind ourselves of the shameful stupidity of US policy in the region in recent years. Take the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, which gave the regime time and space and money to strengthen its morality police and security infrastructure, as well as extend its regional influence. If no deal had been signed, perhaps the regime’s current crisis would have come sooner.

Nor should we forget the fact that Iran has recently tried to abduct and kill several American citizens on American soil; or that a number of senior US officials believe Iran is to blame for the attempted assassination of Salman Rushdie last month. It’s a national disgrace that America’s politicians saw fit to break bread with the butchers of Tehran in the first place. And still too many think we can politely sit down with them again to re-negotiate the nuclear deal. I wouldn’t blame the brave men and women of Iran if they never forgave us for such short-sighted idiocy.

Still, while the response of the West should be limited to cautious optimism, there is one other conclusion we can draw, no matter what happens: the current protests are a unique, and uniquely inspiring, phenomenon. Nowhere else in the Muslim world — and I mean, literally, nowhere else — would we see what we are seeing right now in Iran: men and women, together, standing up for each other, the men demanding justice for the regime’s murder of a woman who dared to let her hair show. It bears repeating: the men of Iran are standing alongside women as they burn their hijabs.

09/30 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Why "progressives" can’t deal with antisemitism; Auschwitz Was Not Bombed Because the World Didn’t Care

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Why "progressives" can’t deal with antisemitism

Ruth Wisse, an emeritus professor of Yiddish literature at Harvard and an unfailingly impressive commentator on the Jewish world, has uttered a desperate cry about the moral and spiritual state of American Jews.

Writing in Mosaic, she ponders the effect of liberal ideologies espoused by the media and the universities which are promoting antisemitism and damaging foundational American values.

The flourishing of American Jews, she says, lies at the heart of American pluralism. But she warns: “The surest sign of an America in retreat would be a Jewish community in retreat from its own Jewish heritage”.

This baleful development is what she now sees happening, largely as a result of widespread ignorance among American Jews of their own ancient culture.

Last January, more than 200 rabbis signed a statement expressing their concerns about the “shrinking space of ‘permissible’ discourse,” self-censorship and burgeoning antisemitism and anti-Zionism. This, they wrote, had arisen from an ideology about issues such as race and gender that “in its most simplistic form sees the world solely in binary terms of oppressed versus oppressor, and categorises individuals into monolithic group identities”.

These rabbis have been left aghast by the all-too visible harm being done by the “social justice” agenda that has been embraced by the majority of American Jews. But since these are mostly rabbis from progressive denominations, it is unclear whether they also acknowledge the harm embodied by that agenda itself.

For in signing up to it, “progressive” Jews have embraced a set of values that are inimical to Judaism. More devastating still, they have convinced themselves that these are in fact authentic Jewish values updated for the modern age.

There could hardly be a more graphic illustration of this fundamental error than the current period of introspection for the Jewish world culminating in next week’s Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur.

Bernard-Henri Lévy: Zelenskyy's choice: Rectifying the crimes of Babi Yar

Today, September 29, 2022, people in Ukraine and indeed across the world will commemorate the 81st anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar.

It will be a moment of mourning and remembrance, but also an occasion to examine the tremendous progress made by Ukraine, which today, almost a century later is able to elect by a vast majority, a young Jewish president, the descendent of a family of Holocaust victims – Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine's efforts to recall its historical crimes was the theme of the address I gave in Kyiv, in 2016, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the massacre, at the very site where it took place.

That night, I spoke after then-Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu as well as the leaders of Germany, Ukraine and Poland – the forces that make up the new Ukraine.

In the address, I used my own words, of course, but I also spoke on behalf of the president of the Republic of France, who had sent me to represent him at this occasion. Some of the reasons that drive me, a French Jewish intellectual, to support Ukraine as I do, are contained in this speech:

President of Ukraine, presidents, ambassadors, rabbis and representatives of the various religions, ladies and gentlemen.

There is always a moment in the destiny of a great nation when the darkest pages of the Book of the Dead and the Living come face to face with the light of insight and remorse. For Ukraine, such a moment has arrived today.

Eighty years after the massacre of the multitude of Ukrainian Jews at Babi Yar, in this eternally cursed and damned ravine, over three-quarters of a century after the destruction of 34,000 men, women, and children, whose only crime was being born Jewish, the time has come for contrition, repentance, and for this heinous crime to become an integral part of the great memorial of the universal consciousness. It is perhaps no coincidence that this moment has occurred on the eve of this extremely special period, referred to by Jews across the globe as the "Days of Awe."

'Uncaged Sky': How a woman survived 804 days in an Iranian prison - review

British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert is imbued with scholarly brilliance, energy and a burning desire to fight. The fire in her belly helped her survive the Iranian regime’s penal colony, where she was held hostage for more than two years – 804 days – between 2018 and 2020. Her book The Uncaged Sky: My 804 days in an Iranian prison joins the pantheon of profoundly important books chronicling the crimes of totalitarian regimes.

For those who follow Moore-Gilbert on Twitter (and I recommend that Middle East observers follow her), she writes and works tirelessly to secure the release of Iranian political prisoners and foreigners used as hostages who are tossed into the vast prison system of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In September, she joined a high group of Iranian dissidents and former Western hostages to file a federal civil lawsuit in New York City against the president of the Islamic Republic, Ebrahim Raisi.

The plaintiffs allege violations of the Torture Victim Protection Act. “Iranian President Raisi was the head of judiciary during my sham trial and bogus conviction for ‘espionage’ in a Revolutionary Court in 2019,” Moore-Gilbert tweeted. “[I] and other victims are suing him in New York under the Torture Victim Protection Act.”

Raisi, who has earned the pejorative moniker “Butcher of Tehran” because of the mass murders he allegedly carried out, is slated to speak at the UN in September. The Trump administration sanctioned him for his role in the massacre of 5,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988, as well as his complicity in the slaughter of 1,500 Iranian protesters in 2019.

Back to Moore-Gilbert’s imprisonment and torture. I strongly suspect her book will pique the interest of many Israeli readers and Jews in the Diaspora. I hope her book swiftly finds a Hebrew publisher, for it is riveting non-fiction that conjures up the works of the legendary spymaster author John le Carré and the spellbinding interactions among governments and intelligence services. “Spellbinding” is an overused work in the world of book reviews, but it authentically applies to Moore-Gilbert’s work.

She delves into the psyche of the wild conspiracy theories that occupy the minds of the ruthless men who wield power in the theocratic state.

A film-maker comments on Ken Burns' Holocaust documentary (Martin Ostrow)

By Martin Ostrow

Ken Burns’s advance interviews for his new Holocaust film provided much material for public discussion. Now that PBS has broadcast the six-hour series, how does the film measure up?

The answer, unfortunately, is that it’s a disappointment. “The U.S. and the Holocaust” misrepresents some key historical issues and entirely omits crucial information. Ultimately, Ken and his producer partners, Sarah Botstein and Lynn Novick, have failed to deliver the kind of film that we would have expected, given their track record.

I write not as a historian, but as the producer and director of a previous PBS film on America’s response to the Holocaust, “America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference,” which first aired in 1994.

Inevitably, both my film and Ken’s cover some of the same ground. We both describe the context in which America’s response to the Holocaust evolved, such as the racism, isolationism, and antisemitism in the United States in the 1930s. Ken handles those themes and the unfolding of the Nazi genocide quite well, worthy moments of Holocaust education.

It is one thing, however, to acknowledge the disturbing trends in public and congressional opinion in those days; it is another to make it seem as if President Franklin D. Roosevelt was captive to them, as Ken does. FDR, after all, was a masterful leader. When he cared about an issue, he knew how to fight for it. But he made no real effort concerning the plight of Jewish refugees, not even to let them stay temporarily in a U.S. territory such as the Virgin Islands.

One might argue that Ken’s series is so broad and complex that it’s easy to lose Roosevelt in its massive story. Perhaps that was his intention. Ken certainly has the skill to render his subjects with vivid three-dimensional effect. Yet in this vast work, FDR is at times ghost-like—a hapless, impotent figure. The film offers excuses for the president’s inaction and shifts almost all the blame to Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long. Viewers could easily forget who actually hired Long, and who could have fired him if he had wanted to. Long served at the pleasure of the president, not the other way around.

It's a shame the series brings nothing new to understanding Roosevelt’s troubling decisions and motivations. Ken had a major advantage in making this new film. He could have drawn on significant information scholars have uncovered in the past two decades about FDR and America’s response to the Holocaust. I’m puzzled and disappointed he did not. For example:

— FDR’s Private Feelings About Jews. Historians have uncovered more than a dozen private statements made by Roosevelt in which he disparaged “Jewish blood,” advocated quotas on Jews in various professions (and college admissions), and even accused the publishers of the New York Times of using a “dirty Jewish trick” to gain a tax advantage. While President Roosevelt’s private feelings about Jews may or may not offer a clue to his policies concerning Jewish refugees, they at least need to be part of the conversation. Yet they are not mentioned in the film.

— The James McDonald Diaries. The discovery of the diaries of the late refugee advocate and diplomat James G. McDonald shed new light on his efforts to help the Jews—and the refusal of the Roosevelt administration to assist him. Remarkably, McDonald is not even mentioned in the film.

— The George McGovern Interview. In a revealing 2004 interview with filmmakers Chaim Hecht and Stuart Erdheim, George McGovern, the former senator and presidential nominee, recounted his experiences as a World War II pilot who bombed the oil factories in the slave labor section of Auschwitz. McGovern’s eyewitness recollections about the feasibility of bombing the railways leading to the camp tell us much more than Ken’s commentators, who offer confusing speculations about why neither the railways nor the gas chambers were ever bombed.

Admittedly, a disadvantage Ken suffered was that in the decades since my film, some of the remaining principal figures in the story passed away. For example, unlike Ken, I had the opportunity to personally interview John Pehle, the first director of the War Refugee Board.

Recalling the British-American conference on refugees held in remote Bermuda in 1943, Pehle told me it was “a conference set up to not accomplish anything, and the people who represented the United States there were given those instructions.” Yet the Bermuda meeting, a crucial event in the history of the U.S. response to the Holocaust, was not even mentioned by Ken.

Regarding the failure to bomb Auschwitz, Pehle says in my film, “After we recommended to the War Department that the extermination facilities at Auschwitz be bombed, we were told [that] this would involve bombers being sent from England…and therefore, it was not possible to do this. Later, perhaps after the war, we discovered at the very time we were recommending this, bombing all around Auschwitz was going on from Italy, and we had been misled.” Pehle’s powerful words should have been in Ken’s film. They are not.

As with every Ken Burns film, "The U.S. and the Holocaust” includes affecting cinematography, touching moments, and memorable music--although the decision to appropriate the precise Bach violin concerto passage from the most poignant moment of my film, is certainly questionable.

But the film's strengths do not make up for the fact that this Burns production stumbles when it comes to the most important parts of the historical record. Ken promised "The U.S. and the Holocaust" would answer many of the lingering questions about our nation’s response to the Nazi genocide. But after watching all six-plus hours of the film, I can only imagine that many people are still asking the same questions. They certainly should be.

[Martin Ostrow has been an award-winning documentary producer, writer and director for public, commercial and cable television for more than 30 years.]

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!

Independent Arabia reports that Hadash MK Aida Touma condemned Israel making injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera available to Bedouin women in the Negev. She said it is “dangerous and falls within the appalling racist policies,” adding that this Israeli policy aims to control and restrict childbirth in the Bedouin community in the Negev.

It quotes Israel's Liberal magazine:

Inside a women’s clinic in the city of Beersheba, the largest city in the Negev desert region in Israel, Fatima Abu Al-Qia’an (30 years old) and a group of her married companions are standing in queues, anxiously waiting for their turn for an urgent medical examination.

This is just like the fake controversy over Israel supposedly forcing Ethiopian Jewish women to take Depo-Provera.

As I reported at the time, in more patriarchal societies, women who want to take birth control prefer to covertly use the Depo-Provera injection without their husbands knowing. Husbands might want huge families but many of their wives do not.

Israel is giving these women the option of birth control, giving them more control over their own bodies. Which means that the "progressive" crowd will report this as the exact opposite.

What about the side effects of Depo-Provera, which Touma says outweighs any benefits, specifically its effect on bone density? Well, the Royal Osteoporosis Society of the UK quotes the World Health Organization:

More recent advice however from The World Health Organisation (WHO) 2007 recommends that there should not be any restriction on the use of Depo-Provera if you are aged between 18 and 45 nor on the length of time you can use it (if you are eligible to use this method).
It recommends special consideration if you are under 18 (when bone density is being built up rapidly) or over 45 (when you are approaching the menopause) although it is felt that the advantages will generally outweigh any concerns about the theoretical consequences (fractures) of long term Depo-Provera use. This is in part due to emerging evidence that has shown that bone density tends to recover over time once Depo-Provera is stopped. However with continuing use of this contraceptive it recommends that the overall benefits and risks are periodically reviewed.

Other pro-women measures, like anti-polygamy laws, laws promoting female employment and laws against child marriages, are also meant to empower Arab women in Israel - and they also peripherally discourage the Arab women having families as large as they were forced to when their husbands didn't allow them to work. They too have been spun as "anti-Arab,"

Israel's attempts to modernize Bedouin society and empower Bedouin women is twisted as being racist.

Because when you are an antisemite, everything Israel does is assumed to be racist.

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!

09/30 Links Pt1: ‘You little boy’: Abbas says he scolded Blinken for not pressuring Israel; PA envoy: Israel has committed most terrible massacres since WWII

From Ian:

‘You little boy’: Abbas says he scolded Blinken for not pressuring Israel

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a group of Palestinian Americans last week that he scolded US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for failing to pressure Israel to make peace.

While Abbas has not shied away from publicly vocalizing his frustration with the Biden administration over the past year, his remarks during a private meeting with representatives of the Palestinian diaspora on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York appeared to go further and included the belittling of the United States’s top diplomat.

In a recording of the September 22 meeting obtained by The Times of Israel, the PA leader recalled a recent phone conversation with Blinken during which Abbas said he grew frustrated with what he called a recurring US practice of claiming that Israel is not interested in peace, while refusing to use the American bully pulpit to pressure Jerusalem into moving in that direction.

“I told Blinken, ‘You little boy, don’t do that,'” Abbas told the Palestinian Americans, speaking in Arabic. Some details of the meeting were first published by the Haya Washington Arabic news site.

Abbas said he then recalled to Blinken how during the 1956 Suez Crisis, Israel agreed to withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip after US president Dwight Eisenhower ordered prime minister David Ben Gurion to do so.

“I know your history,” Abbas said he told Blinken, detailing a string of phone calls that Eisenhower held with Ben Gurion at the time. In one of those conversations, the PA leader said the US president called the Israeli prime minister and asked, “David, have you gotten out of [Gaza]? Tonight, you’ll withdraw and you’ll tell me yourself that you’ve done so.'”

“Ben Gurion wrote in his memoirs that he withdrew that same night,” Abbas said, seeking to prove that the US has the power to press Israel when it wants to.

Commenting on the testy conversation with the US secretary of state, the PA president said he told Blinken: “The lesson [from this] is not to say, ‘My beloved, do this or don’t do that,'” when dealing with Israel, but rather to use the “red phone” and the authority of the president’s office to strong-arm Israel into changing its policies. He claimed the US deals with “190 countries” in this manner, but not Israel.

Abbas told the meeting attendees he used to believe US administrations that claimed that Israel does not want peace. However, he now realizes that “it’s not that the Israelis don’t want peace but the Americans don’t want peace.”

PA envoy: Israel has committed most terrible massacres since WWII

Israel has executed the worst humanitarian massacres since World War II ended in 1945, Palestinian Authority Ambassador Ibrahim Khraishi charged in a speech he delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday.

"Israel has committed the most terrible crimes and massacres against humanity since WWII," he said.

"So, Israel is the primary [nation] responsible for the international legal chaos supported by the positions of a number of countries led by America," he said, as he accused the Biden Administration of "blind bias" toward Israel.

The UN, he said, must work to deter "Israeli aggression" and to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law.

Khraishi spoke under Agenda Item 7, during the 51st session of the UNHRC, which began on September 12 and is slated to end on October 7.

The UNHRC is mandated to debate alleged Israeli violations of international humanitarian law at each one of its three annual sessions. Such a mandate has not been leveled against any other country. Israel routinely boycotts Agenda Item 7, arguing that it is an example of UN bias against Israel.

Khraishi's speech to the council fell in line with the increasingly hostile PA rhetoric against Israel. His words were delivered in Arabic and translated into English by the UN.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas was condemned in August when he compared Israel's actions against the Palestinians with those of the Nazis, which sought to exterminate the Jewish people and who killed six million Jews during the Holocaust.

Seth Frantzman: Nord Stream sabotage will permanently shift global trade

Headlines on September 29 painted an increasingly worrying picture. CNN said that European security officials say Russian ships were in the waters near the pipeline when the leaks occurred. A fourth leak was discovered on Thursday. According to Reuters, “NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday attributed the leaks on the Nord Stream pipelines to acts of sabotage and said he had discussed the protection of critical infrastructure in NATO countries with the Danish defense minister.”

Reports say that seismic meters recorded the explosions that damaged the lines. Now there is concern that a new phase of “hybrid war” may be coming, and Russia could use these kinds of incidents to upset the global order.

It’s worth thinking about what this means globally. Nord Stream was seen as an important project worth tens of billions of dollars, mostly financed by banks in Europe and by Gazprom. Reports said that Gazprom’s investments were driven by Moscow’s interests and geopolitics.

Russia was not only working on these lines – bypassing Baltic states and trying to literally get Europe addicted to the line from Moscow directly – but Russia was also moving ahead with Turk Stream, a project under the Black Sea to Turkey. This means that Turkey was also angling with Russia to make Europe dependent.

How does this impact Israel?
This matters also for Israel and the Middle East because Israel, Greece and Cyprus wanted to partner on an East Med line. It’s not a coincidence that Iranian-backed Hezbollah has threatened the Karish gas field off the coast. Iran has exported drones to Hezbollah, which has tried to use them to threaten the infrastructure working the field. Russia is also acquiring Iranian drones and using them against Ukraine.

The threat that Hezbollah poses to offshore gas platforms – and that Russia apparently poses to undersea pipelines going to Europe – links to related aspects of this hybrid war and shows how non-Western regimes may work together to wreak havoc on energy supplies.

The realization that Russia cannot be trusted to supply gas securely to Europe is leading to an earthshaking, once-in-a-generation event. Global economies, which have been marching zombie-like in one direction toward globalization and knitting everyone together, are now moving in a new direction.

This regional protectionism is embodied not only by Europe’s shift away from relying on Russian gas, but also by forums like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, where Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and other regimes recently met. Those countries want to work together and they are almost all authoritarian regimes.

Meanwhile, the US, Europe and Western states, and their allies in Asia such as Japan, South Korea and India, also want to work together. Israel’s growing ties with the United Arab Emirates and with South Korea, with free trade talks recently resulting in a new deal, represent an important step for the global economy and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Connecting the dots between Europe, the US, Israel, the UAE, India, Australia and other countries makes economic sense – but it also showcases how global trade networks are shifting.

Israel's gamble with Hezbollah on Mediterranean natural gas

From the perspective of negotiations, Hezbollah has effectively won the dispute with Israel over ownership of disputed areas of the Mediterranean.

This map (my additions to a map from Alma) shows the four major positions:

Line 1 has been Israel's position as to the maritime border with Lebanon. Line 23 has been Lebanon's traditional position. The "Hof Line" was the compromise suggested by US Special Envoy to Syria and Lebanon, Frederic Hof, during the Obama administration, rejected by Lebanon.

In 2021, Lebanon suddenly claimed that Line 29 was really the proper border. This new area includes part of the Karish field which no one ever disputed before was part of Israel.

This allowed Hassan Nasrallah to threaten that Hezbollah would attack the Karish field if Israel starts extracting gas from there, and he sent drones there this past summer that were shot down by Israel.

From all indications, the Lebanese claim to Line 29 was a bazaar bargaining tactic. It was never formally approved by the government nor formally claimed in international forums.

Yet it has worked. The Hof line is no longer even being considered, and reports indicate that in current negotiations with US envoy Amos Hochstein, Lebanon will get virtually everything up to Line 23, their original maximalist position.

Hezbollah's threats seem to have paid off. Yesterday, Arab Tawhid Party leader Wiam Wahhab tweeted after a meeting with Nasrallah that “Lebanon is on the verge of obtaining its full rights” in the dispute, meaning that even Hezbollah never seriously claimed that Line 29 was the Lebanese maritime border.

The latest news is that Israel would agree to leave the specific position of the seashore border unresolved, which would allow Hezbollah to continue to provoke Israel the same way it does in the (supposedly) disputed Shebaa Farms land border.

So why is Israel apparently conceding the border issue and leaving this uncertainty?

It appears to be a gamble: Lebanon needs the revenues from offshore gas extraction very badly, and Israel wants Lebanon to be a stable state. Israel also wants to show that negotiations with Lebanon can bring results, and not war.

Part of the calculation is an illusion of mutual deterrence: if Hezbollah attacks Israeli gas fields, Israel could destroy any Lebanese gas infrastructure in response. But this isn't true: Lebanon can claim that Hezbollah was a rogue actor and Israel's response would be regarded as aggression by the international community, as it usually is.

Lebanese economic stability and a calm between Israel and Lebanon would be of great value to Israel. But this agreement seems to be conceding Israeli claims without any real guarantees that Hezbollah will ever stop its own claims - or threats.

And as long as Hezbollah effectively controls the southern Lebanese border with Israel and has the ability to attack Israel's own gas platforms, I don't see a way that Israel's security interests are being taken into account with the current reported outlines of the deal.

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 Jews are the real antisemites" is not a new argument by antisemites

Modern antisemitic groups like Electronic Intifada, IfNotNow and others like to claim that they aren't antisemitic - the real antisemites are the Jews (they say "Zionists.")

It turns out that even that argument was used by the classic antisemites of history.

This op-ed in The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, October 03, 1941 shows that this argument was used by the antisemitic "America First Committee."

This op-ed shows a methodology of antisemitism that remains popular today.

"That's the trick, the technique and the plan of the anti-Semite. Blame the Jews for everything bad, then deny that it is anti-Semitism, and then blame the Jews themselves for bringing up the subject at all."

Nothing has changed in 80 years.

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!

Tell Marvel to stop promoting the antisemitic Arab terrorist Scarlet Scarab! (spoof)

An Arab pop-culture writer named Tariq Raouf wrote a ridiculous screed about why Marvel should not introduce the Israeli character Sabra into their cinematic universe, claiming that she insults Arabs with her name that makes them think of Sabra and Shatila, because she is a racist who hates Arabs because her daughter was killed in a terror attack, because the actress to play her is Israeli - the usual litany.

That same Raouf is however enamoured with another Marvel cinematic universe character who was introduced this year on Disney Plus: The Scarlet Scarab.

I will now write an article "proving" that The Scarlet Scarab is an antisemitic, terrorist bigot using the exact same methods and illogic that we have seen in dozens of anti-Sabra articles. This is a spoof, it is not what I believe.

_____________________

Marvel's introduction of The Scarlet Scarab in its Moon Knight series has proven that it supports a worldwide anti-Jewish, pro-Palestinian, pro-Nazi conspiracy.

Scarlet Scarab's origin story is told in Marvel Comics Invaders #23 and #25, from 1977. During World War II, an Egyptian archaeologist named Abdul Faoul manipulates the Invaders superheroes to help him recover an ancient artifact known as the Ruby Scarab, which turns him into the Scarlet Scarab with the usual array of superhero/supervillain capabilities like superhuman strength.

When Scarlet Scarab is introduced, he is allied with the Nazis, protecting Egypt from the British and fighting American and British superheroes.

Scarlet Scarab leads a gang of terrorists known as the Sons of the Scarab. He eventually turns against the Nazis - but not because of their genocides or racism. He only opposes them when he realizes that they will not support an independent Egypt. His temporary alliance with the Invaders on the Allied side is one of convenience, not ideology. The genocide of millions of Jews doesn't bother him in the slightest.

Scarlet Scarab is clearly an antisemite, as most Egyptians were in the 1940s. His archaeologist persona reminds one of famed Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass who has said that "Jews control the entire world" and, as head of Egypt's antiquities ministry, said that he would not allow any Jews to pray in any restored Egyptian synagogues.

Scarab is also described as an Egyptian nationalist, which reminds Israelis all too well of the genocidal intent of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the most famous of Egyptian nationalists, who swore to destroy Israel.

The Sons of the Scarab, by definition, are symbolic "brothers." This appears to be a deliberate echo of the Muslim Brotherhood which has spawned terror groups like Hamas and Al Qaeda.

Even worse, the actress playing the now-female Scarlet Scarab, May Calamawy, is an Egyptian-Palestinian. The vast majority of both Egyptians and Palestinians are rabidly antisemitic according to multiple polls, and Calamawy must be assumed to be a racist antisemitic bigot unless she says anything pro-Israel.

It’s hard to see how any of Scarab's origins can become a “great Hollywood blockbuster story” for entertainment. Even though the new Scarlet Scarab is a woman, there is no “new approach” that could paint a terrorist with that background as a model hero.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to put an Arab hero in the MCU. However, putting Scarlet Scarab, a one time Nazi ally and terror group leader, into the world’s biggest blockbuster franchise is a problem. It certainly feels like the powers that be are ignoring the real-life atrocities happening to Israelis every day. There are so many other ways to whisk audiences away into a thrilling story without this problematic character. For Marvel Studios to go forth with using an antisemitic and Arab-supremacist character like Scarlet Scarab would be a shame and an incredible insult to Jewish and Israeli comics fans all around the world.

A Nazi-allied, antisemitic terrorist leader is hardly the type of superhero that Marvel should be promoting.

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!

09/29 Links Pt2: The tragedy of Jews who can’t stand with Israel; Over half of BDS-exposed US students support boycott; Berkeley Develops Jewish-Free Zones

From Ian:

Combatting anti-Semitism must include emancipating Zionism

Knowing the real-world harm that excludes Zionists from equal access and participation—in university book clubs, in support groups for victims of sexual harassment, in class, etc.—is an unacceptable reality. The mutation of anti-Semitism enabled by the appropriation and weaponization of foundational principles to demonize, delegitimize and apply double standards to Israel (the “three D’s”) finds multi-dimensional, escalating expressions. In a blurred-boundary reality, they manifest on digital platforms and on the streets, peddling and echoing modern renditions of ancient toxic anti-Semitic tropes as defined in the IHRA definition that includes, as it must, the three D’s, if it is to fulfil it role to comprehensively identify and combat anti-Semitism.

The “trigger” for the creation of the IHRA definition, a non-legally binding resource, was the 2001 Durban Conference “Against” Racism, the pretext for what became an anti-Semitic hate fest, a milestone in the systematic appropriation of human rights to advance and conflate Israel with apartheid South Africa. A mutation of the 1975 “Zionism is racism” U.N. resolution, revoked decades later, it is part of the recognition that where conventional warfare failed, a war for hearts and minds, implementing a systematic strategy, can gain traction. Appropriating Zionism, a 140-year-old progressive national liberation movement built on a millennia-old identity integral to the character, heritage and ancestry of Jews worldwide, most of whom identify as Zionists, has rendered their identity synonymous with the gravest of human crimes, enabling to “legitimately” include it in the list of “isms,” excluding and denying Zionists from equal access, rights or participation in digital and real spaces.

In order to ensure equal access to opportunity, safety and protection from harm for all, including those who identify as Zionist and regard it as an integral part of their identities, it must be added to existing, detailed lists of “protected characteristics” in the social media platforms’ hate policies. Transparency of the policies and their application is critical, as transparency is an antidote to growing distrust that threatens the fabric of societies, ensuring safety and protection from harm is extended to all, equally and consistently. Selective application or any appearance of double standards not only fails to protect one category, but undermines the entire infrastructure created to protect all categories.

The case study of the toxic mutation of anti-Semitism enabled by systematic appropriation, weaponization and selective application of foundational principles, institutions and mechanisms of international law and human rights, expose and shed light on processes that undermine and collapse the foundations of democracies. It can serve to enhance vital understanding of the processes that enable and empower terror regimes and organizations committed to the destruction of democracies that identify and utilize their strengths as weaknesses. In a digital reality, the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism is a critical resource, informing and enabling to identify and combat its current, mutated form, and empowering to predict, prepare and prevent real world violence and harm. As a first critical step needed to address rising real-world harm and compromised safety of Jews, for most of whom Zionism is an integral part of their identity, as well as non-Jews who identify as Zionists—it is imperative to add “Zionist” to the list of protected characteristics in existing hate speech policies, affording Zionists the very same treatment as any and every other protected characteristic.

The tragedy of Jews who can’t stand with Israel

I thought back to the Cold War and it occurred to me that people under 40 probably don’t remember the Berlin Wall. While the Wall stood, there were fools, many teaching in universities—and some still doing so—who lauded the virtues of communism. The communism that was so wonderful a wall had to be built to keep people from escaping it. It was hard to find anyone tunneling under the wall to get into East Germany.

I realized that this is analogous to Israel. For all its faults, there is no mass exodus from the Jewish state. On the contrary, people are clamoring to get in. If you believe the student rabbis, the U.N. Human Rights Council and other detractors, Israel is the worst country in the world. Yet thousands of Ukrainians fleeing war and Russian domination are seeking Israeli citizenship. If Israel is exactly like Afrikaner South Africa, please tell me why so many people are flocking to live under such a system.

Ah yes, the detractors say, but it’s only the privileged white Jews who feel that way. This ignores the hundreds of thousands of non-white Jews who came to Israel fleeing persecution in Muslim countries. Having experienced life in those societies, these Jews reject American liberal suggestions that they should be happy to live under the rule of Palestinian Muslims. They do not dismiss the threat posed by a nuclear Iran and Islamist terrorism in general.

But, of course, those who can’t stand with Israel claim that it’s Palestinians who are treated like black South Africans. But they’re not.

When Israel built its security fence, it was meant to keep terrorists out, not keep its people in—unlike the Berlin Wall. And in which direction did Palestinians choose to go? Did they want to be on the side controlled by the Palestinian Authority? No. Most of them wanted to be on the Israeli side of the barrier.

A declining number of Israeli Arabs support a two-state solution, and few would move to a Palestinian state if it were established. Whenever peace negotiators have suggested incorporating the “Arab triangle” in the Galilee—where most Israeli Arabs live—into “Palestine,” the residents have ferociously objected. Polls have found that most Israeli Arabs are proud to be Israelis. When asked how they identify themselves, only 7% said “Palestinian,” a majority said “Arab-Israeli” and an even larger percentage said they feel like a “real Israeli.” According to a Palestinian poll, 93% of Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem prefer to remain under Israeli rule.

Can you imagine blacks in Afrikaner South Africa expressing such views?

What does all this say about Jews who can’t stand with Israel? Who have less regard for the Jewish state than Palestinians and Israeli Arabs?

I stand with Israel. You should too.

A White House summit tackles right-wing extremism with talk of security, hugs — and Christian forgiveness

Katz said she was unsettled by a session called “Healing the Soul of the Nation.” It featured a number of survivors of racist and homophobic attacks who forgave their attackers. It was especially jarring before the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, whose major theme is personal and communal accountability, not learning to forgive others.

“There was definitely a theme that forgiveness is good, and that the act of forgiving can help someone move through their journey. And I think people who have experienced trauma don’t owe their perpetrator anything,” Katz said in an interview during a break.

“We’re not obligated to forgive people who cause us harm,” she said. “It’s on the person who causes harm, to do the work and to be accountable.”

At least four of the six people speaking in the session on “healing” dwelled on forgiving their attackers and even advocating for them once they were captured.

“We have to do a better job of listening to pain and that includes the pain of those who are exhibiting or even perpetuating hate and violence,” said the moderator, Lisa Ling.

Joseph Borgen, the only Jewish participant on the panel, subverted the narrative of unsolicited forgiveness. Borgen, who wears a kippah and was beaten by pro-Palestinian activists in New York during the May 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict, said accountability was paramount.

One of his assailants, Borgen told the room, “was released the next day on minimum bail when he said he would do it again to another individual just like me, and it’s just unfathomable for me that someone in this situation can just be let out.”

Borgen’s presence was significant for another reason: He was one of the few victims who was not targeted by the extreme right. The session in which he appeared immediately followed two sessions focused on the extreme right, including one featuring Bill Braniff, the director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Braniff, a University of Maryland professor, said the focus should properly be on the far right because that was where the overwhelming number of attacks originated.

Ling introduced every speaker except for Borgen with details of why the person was attacked. Turning to Borgen, she said, “Joseph, you are also a survivor of an antisemitic hate attack that happened just last year in New York,” without elaborating that his attackers were pro-Palestinian protesters, as CNN itself has reported. She asked Borgen to explain how his attack made him more sensitive to attacks on Asians.

By Daled Amos

Just two weeks ago, I wrote about the bond between Russia and Israel, the result of their shared experiences with terrorist attacks against their civilians and because of the large number of Russians living in Israel.

Now it turns out that on September 10, a delegation of Hamas terrorist leaders -- led by leader Ismail Haniyeh -- visited Moscow at the invitation of the Russian government. As a matter of policy, Russia does not see Hamas as a terrorist organization and hosted it back in 2020 and Grigory Karasin, chair of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee, has described Haniyeh as "one of the most moderate and prudent leaders of Hamas."

In 2017, the Russian ambassador to Israel -- Alexander Shein -- explained in an interview why Russia does not recognize either Hezbollah or Hamas to be terrorist organizations:

We do not consider these organizations to be terrorist. True, they are radical organizations, which sometimes adhere to extremist political views...Russian law - the Supreme Court, following an appeal by the prosecution - defines terrorist organizations as such when they intentionally conduct acts of terror in Russian territory, or against Russian interests abroad - installations, embassies, offices, or citizens. [emphasis added]

Apparently, it escaped Shein's notice that the large number of Russians with dual citizenship living in Israel would qualify as "Russian interests" according to his own definition.

Israel and Russia restored full relations between the 2 countries in 1991, 24 years after Russia broke off relations following the Six Day War. During that time, the US displaced the then-Soviet Union as the major power broker in the region. Since the renewal of relations, Russia has not been silent when Israel was targeted by Hamas.

In 2014, Russia came out in support of Operation Protective Edge, Israel's response to Hamas targeting Israeli civilians with its rockets:

“I am closely tracking what is happening in Israel,” Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked in a meeting on Wednesday with a delegation of Chief Rabbis and representatives of the Rabbinical Center of Europe.

...“I support Israel’s battle that is intended to keep its citizens protected,” he [Putin] said about the Israel Defense Forces’ operation to restore quiet to the region and stop Hamas terrorism.

“I also heard about the shocking murder of the three teenagers,” Putin added about the kidnapping and murder of Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach and Gilad Shaar, three Yeshiva students in Israel. “This is an unconscionable act and I ask that you bring my condolences to the families.”

Despite the condemnation, Russia has not dumped Hamas as a "friend," instead keeping all ties open, much in the same way that China maintains relations simultaneously with both Israel and Iran.

But what is the point of Russia's personally inviting the Hamas leaders for a visit?

JNS hosted a discussion of the possible reasons for the invitation.

One suggestion was that this was Putin's way of dispelling the current image of Russia as an isolated pariah:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has no one who wants to play with him. So he’s happy to invite anyone. And, not surprisingly, it’s going be someone with whom no one wants to play either.

But that can hardly be the whole answer, since hosting Hamas is hardly a way for a leader to establish his legitimacy and demonstrate that he is in demand.

Another, possibly additional, motivation for the invitation could be a rebuke of Israel. Back in May, Hamas was invited to Russia, shortly after then-Foreign Minister Lapid accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine. But if so, it was not clear what Israel did this time to provoke the invitation this time around.

A third possibility, suggested by Jonathan Schanzer of Federation for Defense of Democracies, is that the invitation is part of a growing alliance that Russia is building:

It appears that Putin is building an axis of like-minded governments and entities, Schanzer said. “It really does look like he is working to create a new revisionist axis that already includes the Iranians, includes China potentially, and includes North Korea.”

“The question is whether this is an effort to legitimize and recruit Hamas to be part of that broader coalition. Or is this for show, or something else entirely?”

For its part, Hamas thinks there is a shift taking place among the world powers, and it wants to get in on the ground floor. At a conference this past June in Gaza entitled Palestinian Sovereignty, the Strategic Variables and Future Paths, Haniyeh spoke about 4 variables towards a new strategic vision:

o The "success" of the Sword of Jerusalem campaign during the fighting of May of last year
o  America's withdrawal from the area, a sign of its declining power and influence
o  The Russia-Ukraine war, which supposedly is actually between Russia and the West
o  The Abraham Accords, specifically the military and security alliances with Arab countries

The key variable, according to Haniyeh, is the 3rd one -- the war in the Ukraine:

"This is the broadest and most significant war in the struggle between the world's camps since the end of WWII." Stressing that "after this war the world will no longer be the same," he added: "It will undoubtedly become a multipolar world, and the currently prevailing unipolar era in international and global policy will end. This will certainly be a very important change, and it will impact both our Arab and Islamic region and our [Palestinian] cause and our struggle with the occupation."

Haniyeh is very keen on this up-and-coming multipolar world:

"Haniyeh stated that the Zionist narrative is no longer current, that Israel's status is not what it once was, and that there are important variables to be based on, including openness to large and influential countries such as China and Russia as well as Islamic Iran and all the countries that are confronting the Israel-U.S. policy in the region... [emphasis added]

Haniyeh's speech seems to dovetail nicely with the suggestion that this new multipolar world is something that Russia itself may be pursuing.

But if Haniyeh was expecting a confirmation of his goals against Israel during his visit to Russia, he was disappointed. The statements issued separately by the Russians and Hamas were very different.

Russia's statement emphasized the need to settle the conflict on the basis of a generally recognized legal framework, but Hamas emphasized that all negotiations with Israel have failed and that "resistance" was the only realistic option remaining:

According to the official statement of the Russian foreign ministry, the talks between the ministry officials and the Hamas delegation focused on "the developments in the Middle East, with emphasis on Palestinian affairs. The Russian side stressed the importance of quickly restoring the Palestinian national unity on the basis of the PLO's political program, as well as the need to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of generally-recognized legal framework, which is rooted in the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and General Assembly and the Arab peace initiative."

...The Hamas statement, on the other hand, emphasized that the delegation had informed the Russian officials of "the Israeli violations" against the Palestinian people and had stressed the Palestinians' right to "resist the occupation by every possible means, until liberation and return [are achieved]."...The statement said further that Hamas "is working to strengthen its ties with its Islamic and Arab surroundings and with influential international elements that support our people," and added: "The hegemonial status of the U.S. in the world order has harmed the Palestinian cause, and we believe that the shift to a multipolar world order based on just principles will benefit our people and our cause."

Publicly, at least, there seemed to be very little to indicate that Russia considered Hamas to be an asset -- let alone a valued ally. Hamas may very well see the value of a "multipolar world," but that does not mean it will get to sit at the same table with these other countries.

But if that means that this whole exercise of hosting Hamas was intended as a rebuke and warning to Israel, it doesn't appear to have had the desired effect.

Just this week, Israel had its own rebuke for Russia in response to its attempt to annex parts of Ukraine

Israel's Foreign Ministry stated on Tuesday that Israel "recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," as Russia holds its fifth and last day of referendums as a prelude to it annexing four Ukrainian regions.

Israel "Will not accept the results of the referendum in the Eastern districts of Ukraine," the Israeli statement said, in a rare rebuke of Moscow.

Considering the sensitive agreement between Israel and Russia regarding Israeli flights into Syria in response to Iranian threats, the statement was somewhat unexpected -- especially since it preceded any official statement by Russia and the statement itself was apparently not the result of US pressure.

Israel seems to see Russia hosting Hamas as a rebuke -- nothing more.

As for Haniyeh, he may be jumping the gun when he compares the Russia-Ukraine war favorably to WWII as an opportunity for Hamas to reap the benefits of a new world order. He seems to have forgotten about the other world war, WWI.

That was when the Ottoman Empire also saw a new world order in the making -- and joined against the allied powers.

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