Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 10, 2024

05/10 Links Pt2: The rage against Israel at Eurovision is disgraceful; South Africa asks World Court to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah; How Princeton got burned by Iran

From Ian:

The entitlement and intolerance of the campus Gaza camps

Thankfully, some students are bravely challenging the protesters. One third-year Cambridge student held an Israeli flag aloft just across the road from those blocking Peter Thiel’s talk.

But what about those in charge of our universities? When students behave like toddlers, refusing food, demanding hot-water bottles and yelling ‘genocide’, where are the adults? Far from condemning the actions of the students, over 300 members of staff at Oxford University have signed an open letter in support of the protesters. It describes their camp in grandiose terms as ‘a public-facing global education project’. One signatory is Vernal Scott, Oxford’s head of equality and diversity. Last month, Scott made headlines after he publicly praised the Belgian authorities for trying to close down the National Conservatism Conference in Brussels. This support for free speech sounds hollow when it comes from those only interested in hearing views they endorse.

When a high-profile senior manager and hundreds of academics take a public stance on an issue, their view risks becoming, by default, the institutional position. It is only a small step away from saying ‘The university thinks…’. When it is clear what ‘the university thinks’, then academic freedom is rendered meaningless. Anyone who thinks differently knows they are putting their neck on the line if they challenge the consensus. At universities, where the Transgender Pride flag is flown from buildings, toilets are gender-neutral and staff training is provided by activist groups such as Gendered Intelligence, gender-critical feminists know they may technically have academic freedom, but also that expressing gender-critical views will come at a high price.

Earlier today, university leaders went to Downing Street to meet with the UK prime minister to discuss how to balance supporting free speech while preventing harassment of Jewish students. Good. But the fact that this meeting was even necessary shows that many university managers need reminding not just that academic freedom is important, but also what it actually entails.

Academic freedom demands tolerance. It calls on us to allow viewpoints we disagree with to be heard and to use our intellectual muscles to challenge ideas we find offensive. However, academic freedom does not give protesters the right to shout down or silence other people, physically bar people from buildings or intimidate students into staying away from campus. Defending academic freedom means stopping students from engaging in these activities.

Academic freedom also means students and scholars have the right to question every intellectual, moral and political orthodoxy. For this reason, adopting an institutional position on an issue is not an expression of academic freedom, but rather a means of restricting it.

In a university that truly values academic freedom, students should have the right to protest. But this is a limited right. It stops when other people’s freedom of speech, freedom of movement and right to disengage from politics and pursue scholarship are curtailed. It is good that Rishi Sunak is meeting vice-chancellors. But there is much further to go if we are to truly defend academic freedom.

South Africa asks World Court to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah

South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah as part of additional emergency measures over the war in Gaza, the UN’s top court said on Friday.

In the ongoing case brought by South Africa, which accuses Israel of acts of genocide against Palestinians, the World Court in January ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians.

Israel did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It has previously said it is acting in accordance with international law in Gaza, has called South Africa’s genocide case baseless, and accused Pretoria of acting as “the legal arm of Hamas.”

In filings published on Friday, South Africa is seeking additional emergency measures in light of the ongoing military action in Rafah, which it calls the “last refuge” for Palestinians in Gaza. Israel says the operation in the southern city is crucial to defeating the remaining Hamas battalions holding out there.

South Africa asked the court to order that Israel cease the Rafah offensive and allow unimpeded access to Gaza for UN officials, organizations providing humanitarian aid, and journalists and investigators.

According to South Africa, Israel’s military operation is killing the Palestinians of Gaza while at the same time starving them by denying them humanitarian aid to enter.

“Those who have survived so far are facing imminent death now, and an order from the Court is needed to ensure their survival,” South Africa’s filing said.

Prominent legal blog: Anti-IHRA statement from 1,000 Jewish professors ‘bizarre, ultimately dishonest’

A statement signed by more than 1,000 Jewish professors denouncing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism for “conflating antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israel” is “bizarre and ultimately dishonest,” David Bernstein wrote on the popular legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.

Bernstein, a university professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School and executive director of its Liberty and Law Center, wrote that much of the opposition to the Antisemitism Awareness Act over its codification of the IHRA definition “has been hysterical and counterfactual.”

“If one had hoped an academic letter would be more reality-based, one would be disappointed,” he wrote.

The 1,000-plus faculty members say that the IHRA definition considers criticism of Israel to be necessarily antisemitic.

“The IHRA definition of antisemitism, however, never says that criticism of Israel, etc., is ‘in and of itself’ antisemitic. Indeed, it specifically says ‘criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic,’” Bernstein writes.

“Not only have Jewish critics of Israel, indeed Jews who don’t think Israel should exist, not been silenced, it seems like they never shut up,” he added. “The latter group is a tiny fringe of the Jewish community, but they appear disproportionately in both mainstream and social media.”

Bernstein added that he expects “very little from the academy these days,” so he’s not surprised to see so many signatories of “this (at best) hyperbolic letter.”

“I am at least a little disappointed to see some prominent law professors on the list,” he added. “But maybe I should reduce my expectations of the legal academy, too.”

The New York Times describes why the US is against Israel going into Rafah.

To Biden — and many leaders of other countries — the destruction of Hamas is simply not a realistic goal. The group’s fighters are in deep, fortified tunnels that could take months if not years to eliminate, U.S. intelligence officials say.

This is ridiculous. Israel already effectively destroyed most of the Hamas battalions in Gaza. They were in the same, deep, fortified tunnels in Gaza City and Khan Younis.

If Israel gets cuts Hamas off from incoming aid - probably one for the goals of seizing the border with Egypt - Hamas will be starved out from the tunnels.

Even if Israel killed most remaining fighters, new ones would emerge.

Some might but if Hamas is defeated, and recognized as having lost, it would not attract new recruits. There would be other terror groups but they take time to build. It took Hamas 15 years to build its tunnel infrastructure. Those days of impunity are over.

Not only might the benefits of trying to wipe out Hamas be small, but the costs seem large, U.S. officials believe. The hostages Hamas still holds — who are likely being kept alongside the group’s leaders — could die. And the humanitarian toll in Rafah, where many Gazan refugees have fled, could be horrific. “Smashing into Rafah,” a Biden aide said yesterday, “will not get to that sustainable and enduring defeat of Hamas.”

Besides being wrong, the implication is that Israel must live with a terror group next door that has shown the will and capacity to murder thousands of Israelis. The US would never tolerate another Al Qaeda or ISIS across a land border, and within two hours drive of major American cities, no matter what the cost. Demanding Israel do that is simply hypocritical.

Already, Israel’s initial operation in Rafah has had costs. After Israeli forces took over one side of a border crossing with Egypt, Egyptian officials temporarily closed the crossing, preventing aid from entering, U.S. officials say. Egypt — which has long blocked Gazans from entering, partly out of fear of Hamas — worries that a battle for Rafah could lead to an unstoppable flow of refugees.

So pressure Egypt! The US gives it billions a year. If the US is eager to use aid to Israel as leverage, why won't it do the same to Egypt to force it to provide aid and to accept Gazans who wish to take refuge there? If the US cares about the lives of Gazans in Rafah, then isn't that the logical response?

But blaming Israel for Egypt's treating Gazans like dirt is....well, it is what antisemites do to Jews.

An invasion could cause rifts beyond Egypt, too. Saudi Arabia has previously signaled an interest in a diplomatic deal with Israel, which could solidify Israel’s position as part of an anti-Iran alliance alongside Arab countries and the U.S. But a surge in civilian deaths in Gaza could make it hard for Saudi Arabia to justify any deal. (Thomas Friedman, the Times Opinion columnist, has argued that Israel must choose between Rafah and Riyadh, the Saudi capital.)

Look at all those "could"s. Saudi Arabia is not exactly subject to pressure - they do what is best for them, and they won't hurt their Saudi Vision 2030 initiative because Hamas has made Gazans into human shields.

And Friedman has never predicted anything accurately, as far as I can tell. Unless he accidentally quoted a smart taxi driver.

Seriously, none of the things mentioned here adds up to anything real. I hope that the people making this inane analysis are not the same people that make decisions on US defense matters.

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!

05/10 Links Pt1: Shapiro: Biden Sides With Satan; The West is proving that Islamist terrorism works; UNGA votes 143-9 to upgrade Palestinian statehood status

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Biden betrays Israel for the feeling of a few clueless college students

What a difference a day makes.

On Tuesday President Biden was speaking at the Holocaust Memorial Museum commemoration at the Capitol in Washington.

There he drew a direct comparison between the events of the Holocaust and the attacks on Israel of October 7th.

That is not my comparison. It was President Biden’s. Talking about the phrase “Never Again” he said:

“Here we are not 75 years later but just seven and a half months later, and people are already forgetting. They’re already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. It was Hamas who brutalized Israelis. It was Hamas who took and continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten, nor have you. And we will not forget.”

As I say, what a difference a day makes.

Within hours the same President who uttered those words was attempting to prevent Israel’s victory in Gaza. By withholding arms shipments to Israel Biden made it clear that he does not want Israel to achieve its military objectives in the final battle of Rafah.

Opponents of the war have briefed for months about the need for a pause or a ceasefire. But there has been an effective pause for months as Israel has waited for this push into Hamas’s final stronghold.

It is believed that Rafah is the place where the remaining Israeli hostages are being held, and the place where Yahya Sinwar — the mastermind of the October 7th attacks — is hiding.

Most likely surrounded by “the best” hostages — which to his sick mind would include the remaining child captives.

“Never again” indeed.

If the Israeli army does not destroy Hamas in Rafah then the war is effectively for nothing, and all the pain and grief on all sides might as well not have occurred.

As I have said before, there is no point in putting out 80% of a fire. Until the Israeli army can clear Hamas out of Rafah the fire of Gaza is not out.

But Biden seems to be bowing to pressure from some of his own base. As someone joked a few months back, Biden does indeed want to focus on a two-state solution, but the two states are Minnesota and Michigan.

He is desperate to chase the few tens of thousands of voters who might turn on him because they care about Hamas more than they care about America.

Bret Stephans: President Biden Just Made His Biggest Blunder

The munitions cutoff helps Hamas.
The tragedy in Gaza is fundamentally the result of Hamas’s decisions: to start the war in the most brutal way possible; to fight it behind and beneath civilians; to attack the border crossings through which humanitarian aid is delivered; and to hold on cruelly to Israel’s 132 remaining hostages, living or dead. Whatever else the arms cutoff might accomplish when it comes to Israel, it is both a propaganda coup and a tactical victory for Hamas that validates its decision to treat its own people as human shields. And it emboldens Hamas to continue playing for time — especially in the hostage negotiations — with the idea that the longer it holds out, the likelier it is to survive.

It doesn’t end the war. It prolongs it.
No Israeli government, even one led by someone more moderate than Benjamin Netanyahu, is going to leave Gaza with Hamas still in control of any part of the territory. If the Biden administration has ideas about how to do that without dislodging it from Rafah, we have yet to hear of them.

That means that, one way or the other, Israel is going in, if not with bombs — and the administration is also considering barring precision-guidance kits — then with far-less accurate 120-millimeter tank shells and 5.56-millimeter bullets. Other than putting Israeli troops at greater risk, does the Biden administration really think the toll for Palestinians will be less after weeks or months of house-to-house combat?

It diminishes Israel’s deterrent power and is a recipe for a wider war.
One of the reasons Israel isn’t yet fighting a full-blown war to its north is that Hezbollah has so far been deterred from a full-scale attack, not least from fears of having its arsenal of an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles decimated by the Israeli Air Force. But what if the Lebanese terrorist group looks at reports of Israeli munitions’ shortages and decides that now would be an opportune time to strike?

If that were to happen, the loss of civilian life in Tel Aviv, Haifa and other Israeli cities could be immense. Biden would have no choice but to authorize a massive airlift of munitions to Israel — reversing this week’s decision. And the United States might have to even more directly support Israel militarily.

Jake Wallis Simons: The West is proving that Islamist terrorism works

What would be the worst foreign policy message imaginable? There are many contenders, but the frontrunner has to be simply that “terrorism works”. Once this lesson has been learnt, the door will be open to years of violence against us. It’s called appeasement, and history has taught us where it leads.

If you, like me, are concerned by the rise of Islamist extremism around the world, the danger it poses to Jewish communities everywhere, and the way it threatens both the firmness of liberal values and our national security, the inconstancy of Western support for Israel in its mission to destroy Hamas – including here in Britain – should fill you with dread.

Most voters want our country to stand up for democracy, not capitulate to the terrorist forces rising to menace it in the most brutal manner imaginable. Why can’t our leaders express without equivocation that backing Israel in its fight to destroy Hamas completely was, and is, the right thing to do? Why do they stay silent, giving succour to our enemies.

Instead, seven months on from October 7, Western politicians seem intent on pursuing what Ronald Reagan called the “utopian solution of peace without victory”. As he put it during the Cold War: “They call their policy ‘accommodation’ and they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us.” Of course, the opposite is true.

Literally calling for genocide: The campus protesters' literature says that every Jew in Israel is a legitimate target "under international law"

Within one day of the October 7 massacre, the National Students for Justice in Palestine issued a call for a "National Day of Resistance" to be held on October 12. Along with that announcement they issued a "Day of Resistance Toolkit" where give talking points to their members nationwide.

The document says \that every single Israeli Jewish community is considered an "ilegal settlement' And every single Israeli Jew is a "settler,"no matter where in Israel they live.

On the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war, the resistance in Gaza launched a surprise operation against the Zionist enemy which disrupted the very foundation of Zionist settler society....Referred to as Operation Towfan Al-Aqsa (Al-Aqsa Flood), the resistance has taken occupation soldiers hostage, fired thousands of rockets, taken over Israeli military vehicles, and gained control over illegal Israeli settlements....What we are witnessing now is a heightened stage of the Palestinian struggle–through tearing down colonial infrastructure and liberating our colonized land from illegal settlements.

Among those points, in the "Messaging and Framing" section, they say this:

Settlers are not “civilians” in the sense of international law, because they are military assets used to ensure continued control over stolen Palestinian land.

Arab Israelis are never referred to as settlers. Only Israeli Jews are.

The most visible organization behind the campus protests call for the murder of every single Jew in Israel as legitimate "resistance." They make no distinctions: women and children are "settlers" as well and as such they are considered military targets.

All the students who think they are calling fo ran end to genocide are literally calling for the genocide of seven million Jews.

Here is the genocidal call to murder virtually every Jew in the Middle East:

When students are asked why they are protesting, they usually refer the person to the organizers. These are the organizers.

While most student protesters are unaware of this genocidal desire by the organizers, some of them must know a little. "By Any Means Necessary" is not ambiguous. Yet how many people who sincerely care about Palestinians for human rights would quit the campus protests if they knew the truth about what was being demanded and how they justify October 7?

SJP is not using euphemisms here - it says that the worst forms of terrorism are justified. Would the ignorant students at the protests change their minds if they knew this?

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!

By Daled Amos

In 2012, a video of Norman Finkelstein made the rounds. It was touted as a rebuttal of the BDS movement by Finkelstein, which is odd since he makes it very clear he fully supports BDS.

Here is what Finkelstein had to say:

YouTube provides a transcript of the video, here edited for brevity and clarity:

I've earned my right to speak my mind, and I'm not going to tolerate what I think is silliness, childishness, and a lot of leftist posturing.

I mean we have to be honest, and I loathe the disingenuous. They don't want Israel. They think they are being very clever; they call it their "three-tier":
o We want the end of the occupation,
o We want the right of return
o We want equal rights for Arabs in Israel.
And they think they are very clever because they know the result of implementing all three is what, what is the result? You know and I know what is the result. There's no Israel!

Finkelstein's first point is that the BDS movement's claim of using peaceful, non-violent means toward an equitable solution is just a front, a lie. The goal of BDS is not a two-state solution; the goal of BDS is the elimination of the state of Israel,

How successful has the BDS movement been in spreading its false narrative? According to Finkelstein, not very. But he has a solution:

Israel says no, the BDS movement is not really talking about rights. They're talking about how they want to destroy Israel. And, in fact, I think Israel is right; I think that's true. I'm not going to lie. But this kind of duplicity and disingenuous by BDS, "Oh, we're agnostic about Israel." No, you're not agnostic! You don't want it! Then just say it!
But they know full well: If you say it, you don't have a prayer reaching a broad public. Because that's where the public is right now. I support the BDS. But I said it will never reach a broad public until and unless they're explicit on their goal. And their goal has to include the recognition of Israel or it's a nonstarter...They won't mention it because they know it will split the movement. Cause there's a large segment of the movement that wants to eliminate Israel.

The BDS movement's dishonesty is their refusal to admit their goal to eliminate Israel. They know that broad public opinion supports Israel, its defense, and its security. Coming out publicly and calling for Israel's destruction -- back in 2012 -- would have been absurd. As Finkelstein saw it, the only option for the movement was to acknowledge the two-state solution. BDS would have to actually recognize Israel's right to exist. But like Finkelstein, Omar Barghouti -- the face of BDS -- admitted that the two-state solution is "the big white elephant in the room...a return for refugees would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state."

Times have changed.

In 2024, just twelve years after Finkelstein's video, those who seek Israel's destruction don't seem to care about public opinion. They are emboldened, aggressive, and well-funded. They protest openly with their chants, tents, and increasingly violent attacks on Jews both on university campuses and on city streets.

They are more brazen.

But the fact that these protestors don't care about public opinion is not because they are changing it. An article in the Wall Street Journal last week made it clear that US opinion still favors Israel:

A CAPS/Harris survey finds 80% of Americans side with Israel against Hamas. Pollster Mark Penn told the Hill that figure has “not budged” since campus protests began. Seventy-eight percent say Hamas must be removed from running Gaza; 67% say Israel is trying to avoid casualties; a majority in every group 35 and up says a cease-fire should happen only after Hamas has released hostages and been removed from power. Few Americans feel a connection to indulged college students directing invectives at Jews and erecting “intifada halls.”

And where is Norman Finkelstein?

Finkelstein can be found advising the protestors, just like he did when he offered his advice to the BDS movement back in 2012. And he thinks times have changed:

[He] advised the protesters to reconsider the use of slogans that can be used against them. Finkelstein went to Columbia to praise the students for raising public consciousness about the Palestinian cause but he advised them “to adjust to the new political reality that there are large numbers of people, probably a majority, who are potentially receptive to your message.”

Norman Finkelstein at Columbia (YouTube screencap)

Finkelstein is still going around giving advice on how to fine-tune the anti-Israel message. But now, he is no longer concerned with sounding more accepting of Israel and its existence. Contrary to the CAPS/Harris survey, Finkelstein thinks public opinion is now more open to the anti-Israel message than it was twelve years ago. And because of that possibility, he advises that the students eschew chants that advocate outright for the destruction of Israel.

And how was Finkelstein's advice about toning down the chants received?

Once Finkelstein has finished speaking, a protester took the microphone and led a chant of “from the river to the sea”.

A student protestor explained that he respected Finkelstein, but “this is not a top-down movement. We cannot dictate slogans from the top down. We can’t tell people you can say this, you can’t say that."

Based on what we have seen of students who don't know what "from the river to the sea" means, of students who cannot explain what they are protesting for, of non-students who are organizing the protests and left-wing groups providing funding -- we know that the idea that this is a grassroots movement is absurd.

But the degree of violence and willingness to harass Jews on a personal level seem to put this new agenda beyond what Finkelstein can influence.

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!

Ironically, the antisemites are the ones that ensured Israel's Eden Golan makes it into the #Eurovision semifinals

Here is Israel's Eden Golan's performance at the Eurovision semifinals yesterday:

Despite the massive anti-Israel demonstrations outside the venue, she earned a place at the Grand Final on Saturday.

Normally the voting percentages are not revealed, but an Italian broadcaster showed the results, where Israel received what seems to be an astonishing 39% of the vote, far ahead of second place Netherlands with 7%.

What explains this lopsided vote count? Her performance was strong but not that much better than the competition.

Antisemites are saying that this is evidence of corruption, or Israeli hacking of the system. But the real reason is the well-known phenomenon of vote splitting.

In any election with a lot of candidates, the candidates who seem similar tend to split the vote between them and the ones who stand out do best.

Everyone in Europe sees the large anti-Israel demonstrations against Eden Golan. It is a big story.

The demonstrators have made Golan into the most famous and different contestant from the others. Many Europeans who disagree with those trying to subvert a popular song competition will be more likely to vote for the person the protesters hate.

Eden could have recited the phone book and she still would have gotten 20% of the vote because the protesters made her stand out from the competition. Voting for Golan was the only choice for Europeans who were sickened by the haters.

Without the protests, her vote percentage would certainly have been in line with all the other singers, less than 10% of the vote. The antisemites were the ones who made it certain that she would advance, and they very possibly will be the reason she might win the entire competition.

They tried to politicize Eurovision, and they succeeded - causing it to backfire on them.

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!

A new way to look at antisemitism - and how to fight it

Last night I made this meme.

Even though the antisemitic image in the glasses is associated with the white supremacists, it is a near perfect characterization of how Israel and Israelis are described by the antisemites on the Left. They are seen as being just as evil, scheming, ruthless, and conceited as the neo-Nazis think of Jews.

I have been studying antisemitism for many years now. I have described the major four strains of antisemitism nowadays: Progressive, far-Right, Black and Arab/Muslim and how each of those requires a different approach since they are based on different myths.

But as we see Jew-hatred in the US at levels that we hadn't seen for at least sixty years, it occurs to me that it is important to identify the common denominators between each of these classes of antisemites.

Antisemitism is an obsession for the haters in all of those groups. So much so, that they will try to find ways to mainstream antisemitism within their larger populations.

It looks like hating Jews and trying to make everyone else hate Jews is the only thing that these four disparate groups of antisemites have in common. Antisemitism appears to be a completely independent variable. As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks observed, it acts as a virus, one that has no apparent vaccine. The four groups are not exhaustive - they are just representative, but it seems that anyone can become an antisemite,

How does one fight antisemitism when it manifests itself in such wildly different, disparate ways among such different kinds of people?

Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question. Perhaps we are looking at the entire problem backwards.

Just as there are lots of antisemites in all of those four populations, there are also plenty of decent people who courageously fight antisemitism from within those groups - people who do not see a contradiction between their political viewpoints and self-identification and admiring the Jewish people, within and outside of Israel.

Is there any commonality between the philosemites of the Right, the Left, the Arab/Muslim world and the Black community?

Maybe that is the question that needs to be asked. Instead of looking at what antisemites have in common, look at what the defenders of Jews have in common. That might be the seed for the antidote.

Those who support Jews admire a people that have survived the worst that humanity has to throw at them. They admire a people who not only survived, but managed to thrive in the face of every obstacle put in their way. After all, from leadership in the monetary system to medical research expertise to entertainment to building defensive weapons today, Jews have turned the attempts at limiting their options into becoming the best they could become within the more limited options available - or even creating entirely new industries.

Philosemites admire the attributes that Jews have shown throughout the ages: from creating the moral code that underlies the Western world, to creativity, smarts, resilience, flexibility, pride, a strong sense of self and individuality, and self-reliance. And these attributes also apply to Israelis - no one can deny their creativity, brilliance and how well they have thrived under adverse conditions.

If this is the case, then the best way to fight antisemitism is to teach all other groups of people to admire these same attributes.

Let's look at self-reliance as an example. Most of the people who hate Jews, in general, also tend to believe that they have been treated unfairly, that the world owes them (or the less advantaged) something. No matter what one thinks about the government giving people a social safety net, everyone should agree that the ideal is for people to make the best of their circumstances - we should admire those who overcome their misfortunes despite the cards being stacked against them, and try to emulate them, not sit back and wait for others to give them what they think they deserve. If that attitude is taught from birth, then antisemitism would be reduced, since Jews are the role models for self-reliance. (It wouldn't be eliminated, as antisemitism does morph - Louis Farrakhan is the exception that proves the rule, as he needs to make naked antisemitism a key message to overcome his self-reliance message.)

And the same goes for the other attributes I listed. If people are taught to value creativity and morality (as opposed to virtue signaling), self-worth and hard work, and to think for themselves rather than mindlessly follow a herd, they would not be as likely to become obsessed with hating Jews.

We need to create a world where the things that make Jews admirable are goals for all of humankind. Anytime that people start to value things that contradict these worldviews, antisemitism cannot be far behind.

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!

05/09 Links Pt2: I've Read Student Protesters' Manifestos. This Is Ugly Stuff. Clueless, Too; At 76, Israel’s population stands at 9.9 million

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Amichai Chikli’s rescue remedy

The current pandemic of vicious antisemitism targeting both Israel and Diaspora Jews has prompted many to wonder what can be done to tackle a deranged prejudice that is frighteningly out of control.

It has also prompted many to wonder yet again why Israel is so ineffective at putting its case across.

I raised this a few days ago with Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli. A combative member of the Likud Party, Chikli has socially conservative views that have caused Diaspora hackles to rise. This reaction is myopic. His thinking is sharp, coherent and insightful.

What did he make of the antisemitism and incitement in the anti-Israel encampments on campuses in America and Britain and at the massive street demonstrations over the Gaza war?

While acknowledging the involvement of the hard-left and several revolutionary anti-West and pro-Palestinian funders, Chikli stressed the role played by Islamic radicals.

Unlike Muslims who don’t have imperialist aspirations, Islamists treat Islam as a political movement whose aim is to impose Islamic rule across the world. This is the philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood, which developed in the early decades of the last century and in the late 1980s spawned Hamas.

For Chikli, this is the link not just between Gaza and the demonstrations and encampments but with the progressive Islamization of the West.

The Brotherhood, he said, is a diffused, decentralized movement. It’s not controlled by one body. It operates through mosques, community centers, charities and welfare services. Its subversive agenda is therefore difficult to pin down. But it certainly exists.

Documents from Israel’s civil command of Gaza in the late 1980s, said Chikli, observed that the greatest threat came from these Brotherhood groups, but they were small and difficult to erase because they were spreading throughout society. Today, the Brotherhood links Gaza to Minnesota and Michigan, London and Leeds.

We learn this, said Chikli, from their identical language, ideology and texts. The spiritual guru of Hamas, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, was based in Qatar, which today remains Hamas’s patron and funder. It was Qaradawi who said Muslims don’t need to fight to dominate Europe because Sharia law would come to dominate British society in any case.

Seth Mandel: The Post-Biden Flood Is Already Here

It’s true that Biden is the last Democrat of his kind and therefore this moment always seemed close at hand. But every political battle that Biden won against his party had a measurable effect on the power balance between the radicals and the moderates. To abandon that fight is to surrender to the barbarians at the gate, ensuring the post-Biden transition is not only imminent and irreversible (in the near term, at least) but chaotic, authoritarian, and baldly anti-Semitic.

Even if you believe the battle to be all but lost you still go down fighting. The alternative is to live as a cog or a figurehead without honor. Exhaustion is not a crime. But surrender is a choice.

One of the few beliefs shared across the partisan divide is this: après Biden, le deluge. After Biden, the radicals prophesied and the moderates feared, comes the flood. It is both bitterly appropriate and bone-chilling that this moment would come at a time when the “flood” metaphor is the animating call-to-arms of America’s domestic extremists.

Al-Aqsa Flood was the name of the pogrom that started all this, when Hamas murdered and raped and tortured its way through more than a thousand innocents, including children and the elderly, and then took hundreds hostage.

It was this barbarism that lit a fire under progressive and Islamist demonstrators in the West. Left-wing protest culture had never been so inspired as it was when witnessing the most depraved human behavior possible. Cosplaying trust-fund radicals got high from seeing civilization at its low. The post-October 7 protest movement that sprang forth from hell named itself after the Hamas operation: “Flood [x] For Gaza” became the template for the months of protests, in major cities and across college campuses, in celebration of the Hamas attacks. The conscious decision to name themselves after a campaign of child murder and sexual torture was the first but by no means the last indication that what we were seeing was not an antiwar movement but the wildfire spread of homegrown extremism.

And this is who Biden has surrendered his policy to. The argument in Biden’s favor was always that as long as he was in office, at least, he could stem the tide. But now the difference between Biden being president and some other Democrat being president is negligible. We are, functionally, after Biden. And the flood is here.

Bret Stephens: A Thank-You Note to the Campus Protesters

Dear anti-Israel campus protesters: Supporters of Israel like me have reasons to give thanks to militant anti-Zionists like you, who demonized anyone who supports Israel's right to exist - which includes a vast majority of Jews - as modern-day Nazis?

For every student who became ardently pro-Palestinian during the protests, another one, perhaps a Jewish student with previously indifferent feelings about Israel, finally saw the connection between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. For every professor who lent support, you've lost a fair-minded liberal with your Maoist-style sloganeering and your arrogant disdain for the genuine fears of some of your Jewish peers.

And for every commencement ceremony whose cancellation you've effectively forced, or which you intend to spoil, thousands of apolitical students have taken an intense and permanent distaste to you and everything you stand for. In short, the game you're playing is paying bigger dividends for my side than it is for yours.

I am a Zionist for the most personal of reasons: because I see Israel as an insurance policy for every Jewish family, including mine, which has endured persecution and exile in the past and understands that we may not be safe forever in our host countries. That kind of insurance is one Jews can't afford to lose. What happened on Oct. 8 - the moment your protests began - gave me a glimpse into what America might yet become for Jews if people like you were to gain real power.

I get that many if not most of you see yourselves as dedicated idealists who want to end suffering for Palestinians. There are ways you could do that without making common cause with people who hate Jews, want to kill us and often do. You are my daily reminder of what my Zionism is for, about and against.

Expanding Definition Of 'Al Aqsa' On Track To Include Entire Levant By 2034 (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, May 9 - Experts have calculated the rate at which pro-Palestinian activists have applied to an increasing area a term that once referred to a specific building, and concluded that it will take only ten years for the inflation to swallow all of Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Turkey.

Al-Aqsa, literally "the farthest," Mosque, began its rhetorical life in a Qur'an passage describing a journey Mohammad undertook; while scholars debate whether that passage, 1400 years ago, refers to the current Islamic house of worship at the southern end of the Temple Mount, or to a location in Arabia, in practice the Islamic world at large applies the nomenclature to the site in Jerusalem. However, over the last century, agitators expanded the term beyond its strict sense, and now call the entire Temple Mount compound - Haram al-Sharif, or "noble sanctuary" in Islamic terms.

More recently, many of those antisemitic partisans have begun to refer to the Western Wall Plaza, below the western side of the plateau, as the "courtyard of Al Aqsa." With the inflation of the term accelerating, now including areas long considered entirely separate neighborhoods from the core locale, mathematic models now predict that certain Muslim countries and organization will label the whole region "Al Aqsa" by 2034.

"The model makes certain assumptions," cautioned researcher Darrell Harb. "It's impossible to pin down with reliable accuracy whether the expansion will take place uniformly in all directions, or whether it will vary in ways we cannot foresee. Initially, the expansion went primarily north, but also slightly east and west. Now it seems to have moved west, but only along the few hundred meters of the southern end of the compound's western edge. But several important factors weighed in following this model."

"For one thing," he continued, "Al Aqsa only seems to expand in directions associated with the presence of Jews. That observation guided us. We realized that the path of expansion will therefore move exclusively west, through the mostly-Jewish parts of Jerusalem, and then expand north and south, as well - more or less from the river to the sea. But since the Palestinian cause has a way of swallowing every other cause in its path, we also determined that the Al Aqsa nomenclature expansion will follow the same path, as the other elements of the Palestinian cause have also wrought havoc in the neighboring countries and worsened the ethnic tensions in those places. In fact that process moves eight times faster than the one associated with Jews."

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!

05/09 Links Pt1: Murray: I witnessed Israel choosing life as it fights against a 'death cult'; Biden Withholds Bombs to Spare Hamas in Rafah

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: I witnessed Israel choosing life as it fights against a 'death cult'

Adapted from Douglas Murray‘s speech Monday as The Post columnist accepted the Manhattan Institute’s Alexander Hamilton Award.

I think, finally, of the extraordinary evening in November last year.

I was at the Schneider Children’s Hospital when the helicopters came returning the first hostages, the first children who Hamas had stolen from their homes in the south.

But when the helicopters emerged in the night sky, the people of Tel Aviv realized what was happening, and every car stopped.

And I noticed there was applause from the citizens, the Tel Avivians, and then there was singing, all the way through the streets of Tel Aviv.

They were singing “Haveynu shalom aleichem”: We brought you peace.

Now there’s millions of stories like this across Israel.

The country rings with them, it resounds with them.

The thing is, perhaps it does require life to become serious again.

Perhaps the students that we see at these destroyed universities, perhaps they just need a dose of reality someday.

I always pray that that day never comes to them because it’ll be the biggest wake-up call anyone has ever had.

But all I would say is that any country should be so lucky as to have a young generation like that in Israel.

They were weighed in the balance since October the 7th, and they’ve been found to be magnificent.

What Israel has been up against is not just a people of death, but a cult of death, a cult, which wishes to annihilate an entire race, and which after dealing with that race has made very clear what it wants to do with Christians, everyone in Britain, everyone in America.

I want to dedicate my acceptance of this award to the people of Israel who in the face of death, choose life.

John Podhoretz: Biden’s Shameful Betrayal

Joe Biden deserves nothing but condemnation, censure, and withering contempt for his announcement tonight that he will withhold significant amounts of the recently approved aid to Israel should the government begin a full-on siege of the last Hamas redoubt in, around, and under Rafah.

For seven months now, I have defended Joe Biden. On our podcast and on this website, I have repeatedly said that while the president may have felt—wrongly, in my view—that he needed to maintain some rhetorical space from Israel because of the imagined need to keep young people and Arab-Americans in his electoral camp, the actual policies and support he was offering and providing the Jewish state were consistent and solid. For months, for example, he pushed for a significant aid package even as he criticized tactics and strategies employed by the IDF to fight in Gaza. And he supplied important logistical support to protect Israel—first by deploying ships to the Lebanese coast to deter Hezbollah and then in the air campaign that rendered the direct Iranian attack all but harmless.

That was then, this is now. That aid package he fought for? He’s now blocking much of it himself—and is promising to do worse in days to come. That support for Israel? He is now pursuing policies that are designed to keep Hamas alive. This long-time friend of Israel? At an incredibly critical moment, he is giving Barack Obama a run for his money as a singularly destructive American “ally.” We’re told the decision to act this way came last week but that Biden wanted to keep it quiet until he delivered his speech commemorating the Holocaust.

That disgraceful and two-faced effort to earn emotional plaudits from speaking strongly about the greatest historical tragedy of the Jewish people even as he was working to cripple the Jewish state suggests Biden possesses a level of chutzpah that would make even the man who kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court for being an orphan say “Now you’ve gone too far.”

WSJ Editorial: Biden Withholds Bombs to Spare Hamas in Rafah

The Biden Administration confirmed this week it is blocking the delivery of weapons to its main ally in the Middle East.

The message from the White House is that Israel shouldn't have large bombs or small bombs, dumb bombs or smart bombs, and let it do without tank shells and artillery shells too.

Now isn't a good time to send the weapons, you see, because Israel would use them.

U.S. officials explain that the goal of the embargo is to prevent a wider Israeli attack on the Hamas stronghold of Rafah, home to Hamas leaders, hostages and four military battalions.

If Israel can't complete its invasion of Rafah, Hamas wins.

No matter how fiercely the President trumpets his "ironclad" support for Israel, his denial of weapons now puts the Jewish state in danger.

Israel is at war, assaulted on multiple fronts. Denying it U.S. arms is an invitation to its enemies to take advantage, in hostage talks and on the battlefield.

It hasn't been four weeks since Iran attacked Israel directly, in the largest drone attack in history, plus 150 ballistic and cruise missiles, while Hizbullah fires dozens of rockets each day, depopulating the north of Israel for seven months and counting.

Israel needs to be ready now, and its enemies need to know the U.S. stands behind it. That's why Congress approved military aid to Israel in April, 79-18 in the Senate and 366-58 in the House.

The 74th FIFA Congress be held in Bangkok, Thailand, on May 17, and the Palestinian team is trying to get Israel banned from the organization.

The campaign to have Israel thrown out of FIFA over the Gaza crisis will be stepped up at the world governing body’s annual congress next month.

The Palestine Football Association is urging FIFA’s 211 member federations, when they meet in Thailand, to impose “appropriate sanctions, with immediate effect, against Israeli teams” on the grounds of human rights and humanitarian law violations.

“All the football infrastructure in Gaza has been either destroyed or seriously damaged, including the historic stadium of Al-Yarmuk,” the Palestinian FA motion says.

Article 4 of the FIFA statutes strictly prohibits “discrimination of any kind against a country … or group of people” on any grounds, and says any breach of this non-discrimination obligation is punishable by “suspension or expulsion”.

The chances of success are slim, but that isn't the point. The Palestinian football federation, headed by Jibril Rajoub, has made no secret of using sports as a means to demonize Israel.

After an important win in January by the Palestinian team, Al Jazeera asked Rajoub what the victory meant. His answer explains how everything is about demonizing Israel politically, and not to teach about sportsmanship, or giving people something to root for, or brotherhood:

Al Jazeera: What does the success of the Palestinian team mean to the people in Gaza?

Jibril Rajoub: We, the Palestinian football family, believe that the sport can be a good tool to expose the suffering of the Palestinian people and to highlight their determination and commitment to achieving their goals.

Rajoub told Wafa things like this:

The draft resolution also includes a demand for Israel to stop the genocide it is committing against the Palestinian people, which includes sports and athletes, as 256 sports martyrs have been counted, including 5 in the West Bank, players, administrators and technicians, whom Israel has killed so far, in addition to dozens of people missing under the rubble. "We have not been able to count them yet, hundreds of detainees, destroying all sports facilities, and converting some stadiums and facilities into interrogation centers similar to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib .”

While Rajoub has attempted to push similar resolutions for more than a decade, the only action FIFA took was against...him.

ESPN reported in 2018:

The president of the Palestinian Football Association has been banned from all football activity for the next year after calling on fans to burn jerseys and pictures of Barcelona star Lionel Messi.

Jibril Rajoub made the comments about Messi in advance of the planned friendly match between Argentina and Israel in Jerusalem before this summer's World Cup. The game was ultimately cancelled amid political pressure.

In addition to a 12-month match suspension, Rajoub has also been handed a fine of 20,000 Swiss francs (€17,500) for breaching article 53 of FIFA's disciplinary code.

"The disciplinary committee held that Mr Rajoub's statements incited hatred and violence, and consequently imposed the above-mentioned sanctions," FIFA explained in a statement on Friday.

Rajoub does nothing else but incit hate and violence, including by using FIFA procedures themselves.

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!

Logical fallacies that Israel haters use, part 5

I gotta say, I'm amazed at how many of these I've seen and heard.

63. The Narrative Fallacy. This one could fill up several posts on its own. "Historic borders of Palestine," "The ancient Palestinian people," "Palestinians welcomed the persecuted Jews," up to "Israeli soldiers sexually abuse Palestinian women in prison." All of them with extended "witness" testimony.

64. No Discussion. Zionists: "Let's discuss your issues with Israel." "Response: "Globalize the Intifada!"

65. Non-recognition: "We do not speak to the Zionist entity."

66. The Non Sequitur: Responding to "Palestinian government is corrupt" with "Occupation!"

67. Nothing New Under the Sun "The Jews cannot be trusted to hold to agreements, as we see in the Quran."

68. Olfactory Rhetoric: “I can sniff you, we can all sniff you...We can smell the Zionist on you.”

69. Othering/Dehumanization:

70. Overgeneralization. "Antisemitism is no different from all other forms of bigotry and does not deserve to be treated uniquely."

71. The Passive Voice Fallacy: "A Jewish settler was killed in the West Bank yesterday."

72. The Plain Truth Fallacy. "I don't want to hear an entire history lesson about the conflict. What's happening in Gaza today is all that matters."

73. Playing on Emotion: "Israel is killing babies! Babies!"

74. Language Control: "Israel Occupation Forces," "Zionist Entity," "Al Quds," "Tal ar-Rabeea" (for Tel Aviv.)

75. The Pollyanna Principle/Projection Bias: "Palestinians don't support terror; they just want freedom. They're just like us!" "Like Americans, the overwhelming number of Palestinians support a state side by side with Israel!"

76. Prosopology/Reciting the Litany: "Remember their names!" (with a list of names of people killed/imprisoned)

77. The Red Herring: "History didn't begin October 7."

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!

From CNN:

President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt some shipments of American weapons to Israel – which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza – if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett in an exclusive interview on “Erin Burnett OutFront,” referring to 2,000-pound bombs that Biden paused shipments of last week.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden said.

The president’s announcement that he was prepared to condition American weaponry on Israel’s actions amounts to a turning point in the seven-month conflict between Israel and Hamas. And his acknowledgement that American bombs had been used to kill civilians in Gaza was a stark recognition of the United States’ role in the war.

He said he had conveyed to Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders that American support for operations in population centers was limited.

“I’ve made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet: They’re not going to get our support, if in fact they go on these population centers,” he said.

Most people commenting on this are concentrating on the political aspect, as it signals a serious rift in US-Israel relations.

Far more important is that this policy shift, if applied uniformly, would not save lives nearly as much as it further endangers civilians.

The message that Hamas, ISIS and every terror group and autocratic regime like Iran is hearing is that human shields are a legitimate and impregnable defense, one that Western countries cannot counter. As long as terrorists and their enablers place their military assets in the midst of civilian areas, they are untouchable.

This has never been the US position. Nor is it the position of most Western democracies, nor is it the position of international law. Civilians are protected by the principle of distinction between military and civilian objects, and the principle of proportionality to limit damage to civilians and civilian objects as much as possible while attacking valid military objectives. And as we have seen, Israel is more restrictive on calculating proportionality to protect civilians than international law requires.

Every civilian death in Gaza is the result of Hamas choosing to hide behind and underneath civilians. If Hamas separated every military object from civilians as international law requires, there would not be a single civilian death in Gaza. The implication that Israel is not being careful enough in protecting civilian life when Hamas is cynically using them as its own Iron Dome is slanderous.

Destroying Hamas is a valid, moral and necessary military objective. But Biden is proposing an alternative that he claims, without any evidence, would accomplish the same goal: assassinating Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

“I said to Bibi, ‘Don’t make the same mistake we made in America. We wanted to get bin Laden. We’ll help you get Sinwar,’” he said, referring to the Hamas leader in Gaza. “It made sense to get bin Laden; it made no sense to try and unify Afghanistan. It made no sense in my view to engage in thinking that in Iraq they had a nuclear weapon.”

Yet even though President Obama prioritized killing Osama bin Laden, he didn't abandon the major aim of destroying Al Qaeda altogether. He said in 2009, “Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.” And even after killing Bin Laden, he said, "We must finish the work of defeating al Qaeda and its associated forces." Killing Bin Laden was important but not sufficient to eliminate the threat against US civilians.

Why is the US morally obligated to destroy Al Qaeda but Israel has no right to do what is necessary to destroy Hamas? Why is the US pushing Israel to stop the war and allow Hamas to survive, where it can declare victory, rebuild, attract more members and allies and strengthen Iran's "axis of resistance" that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean?

Biden's message is that terrorists have a "get out of jail free" card: Surround themselves with civilians and live to kill another day.

With the full support of the United States.

This policy runs counter to the United States' own historic policy towards terror groups. It is paternalistic, telling Israelis who are directly threatened by Islamist terror in their own cities that the US knows what they need to do better than they do. Not only that, but it is not even effective: it endangers the very civilians that Biden is pretending to care about because it encourages other groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah to actively position their missiles and members among and underneath schools and mosques and hospitals even more than they already are.

Encouraging immoral acts in the name of morality is nothing but hypocrisy.

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!

President of SUNY Purchase College caves to antisemitic bullies

Anti-Israel protesters at Purchase College celebrated as they announced that the president of the college, Milagros (Milly) Peña, had caved to every single demand they made.

Over the weekend, it appeared that the college administration was growing a small backbone in the face of disruptive protests:

SUNY Purchase released a statement, saying students participating in protests were reminded over the past several days that they may assemble protests, vigils, rallies and other free speech activities but only up to the start of quiet hours.
In a statement the school said in part, "Quiet hours are especially important during finals as they respect the rights of Purchase students to sleep, prepare for finals, and complete their final projects."
The statement went on to say, "Protestors were also invited multiple times to meet with the president and cabinet members to voice their concerns, as long as campus rules were followed, including dispersing at midnight from the protest last night. The protestors chose not to take the offer."

But all of that meant nothing, Pena met with the group, "Raise the Consciousness" - which is not a recognized campus student group - and the group announced last night that "we got every single demand!"

“After five-and-a-half hours of negotiating, after five days of working in an encampment at SUNY Purchase for the freedom of Palestine, we were able to get Mili Pena to agree to all of our demands in some capacity and we were able to get everything we wanted,” the speaker says.

Milly Pena

That was an exaggeration, but not much of one. Pena released a statement describing what the college agreed to with the illegal student group:

A commitment that a committee of students will meet with the relevant board to discuss ethical investing;
A commitment to hold in abeyance any disciplinary consequences for those arrested on 5/2 contingent on the students committing no further actions that go against the student code of conduct or local, state, or campus policies;
A commitment to a full review of the incidents of 5/2 by an entity outside of the campus;
A commitment to transparency regarding the companies that engage in business with Purchase College;
In the coming days I will share my thoughts with the campus community recognizing the loss of all innocent lives and how we can further the cause of lasting peace.

Our progress together must be built on a relationship of trust. As was clear from the email from Faculty Presiding Officer Andrew Salomon below, at no point did the college agree to divest from Israel or take any ‘BDS action, (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) nor did we agree to any proposals beyond those described above.

Why didn't the college agree to boycott Israel?

Not because of academic freedom. Not because BDS is antisemitic.

The reason is because New York State has laws against BDS by publicly funded institutions.

The president caving to the demands of students who treated the college with such disrespect is only the tip of the iceberg of the rot at Purchase College.

The president of Hillel, Esti Heller, wrote a letter to President Pena describing how badly Jews have been treated on campus since October 7. It is a long read but very important.

To President Milagros "Milly" Pena: I have spoken to you many times before. I've met with you. You even came up to congratulate me at my senior showcase. I genuinely believed that we had a good relationship. As a Jewish leader through Hillel, StandWithUs, and the JewishOnCampus student union, I have talked to you countless times about providing a safer community for Jewish students since the first antisemitic incident of this year on September 20, and especially after October 7. Time and again, you assured me you would take action. Time and again, I received no follow up.
I am writing to you now out of sheer disgust and disappointment at your appeasement of Raise the Consciousness (RTC) after the repeated disruptions, vandalism, and conduct violations they have committed throughout the year, while failing to give any measurable credence to the harassment and bullying consistently reported to you and your senior leadership. You have effectively rewarded bad behavior and offered nothing in the form of support or protection to victims under your purview who have repeatedly asked for your help. Despite all of this, while I was disappointed in your lack of action in support of Jewish students, I had been sure that you would not actively create a hostile environment for us. Now I see that I was wrong.
Over the course of this year I have brought specific examples of antisemitism from student groups on campus, abuse of power and discrimination from within the student government, and harassment and demonization of Jewish students at Purchase College. I have informed you and your administrators about the organization Samidoun, which is banned in Germany for hosting anti-Jewish rallies and funding the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), being invited to our campus. I sat with you as an elected student representative accused my friend and I, Hillel board members, of "controlling the student government;" a classic antisemitic trope which you failed to address in the moment, nor since that March 5 meeting. I have forwarded every recorded reference of "intifada", "from the river to the sea", and "isra-hell has got to go" documented from protests held on our campus. I have urged you to take action, whether by adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism, providing bias training, or simply establishing a safe, moderated space for students of all backgrounds to respectfully discuss their opposing views. Your response to the vitriol that Jewish and Israeli students have been subjected to was to host a healing circle. Out of the approximately thirty students who showed up, only four were there to attend rather than protest. Those four students were all Hillel members. During this event we were jeered at by our peers, taken photos of, and tossed around like props for your photo opportunity. We received no follow up afterwards, even as we were told that we had blood on our hands by our peers.
President Pena, my senior year should have been spent enjoying my last few moments on the Purchase College campus that I loved. Instead, I spent countless hours responding to antisemitic incidents, comforting Jewish students who were afraid to leave their dorms, and strategically planning a way forward as you refused to do for the affected Jewish students. In the past few days alone I have set aside all of my final exams in order to solely comfort my Jewish and Israeli peers as they navigated this new reality which you enabled; a reality in which their classmates can call for suicide bombings targeting them as well as the death of their ancestral homeland and/or home country with no consequences. I'd like to ask you, President Pena—is this what "think wide open", our school's motto, looks like? Your establishment of "free speech zones" in which these students can protest during finals week, in violation of your own campus policy, has created no go zones for Jewish students. The few of them that are left on campus have been forced to spend hours mapping out their route to class in order to avoid that area due to fear for their safety. Your leadership has caused an exodus of responsible Jewish students who have been unable to exercise their right to education in a safe environment.
As much as I had faith in your leadership, despite many disappointing meetings throughout this year, I must say your decision making during this time has been nothing short of abysmal. The overwhelming and overly hostile force that you sent the encampment's way on Thursday night, leading to seventy arrests (several of whom were not participants in the protest), only led to an increased support for Raise the Consciousness. Your complete lack of response the following day when the encampment returned only emboldened them to become more radical in their actions. And now, your appeasement of their unrealistic, antisemitic, and illegal demands has shown this campus that as long as one is loud, any action is on the table.
On Sunday morning at 4:00 am, after hours of calming Jewish and Israeli students, I sent you one last email urging you to take action. The student government, one you oversee, unanimously had approved a BDS resolution and condemned you for denouncing Hamas following the October 7 massacre. They then immediately began to endorse RTC and promote their events, despite the fact that they have never been a registered student organization. This action on account of the student government was exclusionary, divisive, and removed any pro Israel Jew or Israeli from the campus life at SUNY Purchase. I sent you a detailed account of what Jewish and Israeli students were going through. I called upon our past meetings, email exchanges, and begged you to prove to me that you were still an ally. To this day I have not received a response. Instead, I received an email detailing your negotiations with RTC and your agreements to discuss auditing campus vendors in alignment with their calls to divest.
I have been a Jewish student at SUNY Purchase for four years. I have loved my time on this campus. I was proud of its diversity, commitment to the arts, and the many communities available for students. Now, on this day, I do not recognize it and cannot help but feel a profound sense of disillusionment. My senior year here has been marred by the specter of antisemitism, a scourge that has only grown in strength due to your consistent inaction. I carry with me the heavy weight of disappointment and betrayal, because despite my countless pleas and tireless advocacy, the safety and well-being of Jewish students have been delegitimized. My final days on this campus should have been filled with joy and celebration, but instead, they have been overshadowed by fear and uncertainty. I leave behind a community torn apart by hatred, where we have been forced to flee, to seek refuge elsewhere, because our voices went unheard and our safety was compromised. Until real action is taken to combat antisemitism, my faith in the integrity of this institution remains shattered, and I will continue in my unrelenting fear and concern for the future of Jewish and Israel students at Purchase. Ultimately, you had the power to stop this from happening. I hope you are asking yourself why you did not.
Respectfully, Esti Heller

The letter is chilling.

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!