Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

09/17 Links Pt2: Bad News for the Jews; Beware distinguished professors rewriting history; Fetterman rips NYTs for spreading Hamas propaganda

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Bad News for the Jews

What ought an American Jew think when reading the news every day? It is a discouraging way to start a Monday morning. But we are way past that. Because this type of news consumption is also a Tuesday morning thing, and a Wednesday morning thing, and on and on. If you spend Shabbat offline, it is getting difficult not to wince when turning the phone back on each Saturday night.

Which is, I think, a point that goes ignored outside the Jewish community. There isn’t a particularly outrageous story that has singularly instilled fear in the Jewish community. There is, instead, an unlifting smog blanketing public life. It’s ugly, it’s unhealthy, and it narrows a person’s scope of vision.

It’s also selective. Take tomorrow’s congressional hearing on hate crimes. Republicans in the House hold the majority, so they have been able to hold House hearings exclusively on outbreaks of institutional anti-Semitism, such as those that occurred at universities around the country. GOP senators would like the upper chamber to follow suit, but Democrats hold the Senate majority so any focus on anti-Semitism must be watered down to an insulting degree.

“Tuesday’s hearing is a first for the Senate since Oct. 7 and the proceedings are not shaping up as a bipartisan effort,” reports Jewish Insider. “Judiciary Committee Republicans have been urging Democrats for months to convene a hearing on how the uptick in antisemitism on college campuses is violating the civil rights of Jewish students — similar to their House GOP counterparts’ hearings with embattled university presidents earlier in the year.”

You’d think it would be a no-brainer, but you’d be wrong. Every single instance of anti-Semitism listed above is the result of progressive ideological activism, and therefore Democrats have decided to make the hearings about the “rise in hate incidents across the country, particularly targeting the Jewish, Arab, and Muslim communities.”

There is no trend of hate crimes against any community that is comparable to what the Jewish community has been experiencing. Jews and only Jews are seeing their civil rights come under relentless attack on campus. Tomorrow, thanks to Democratic leaders such as Dick Durbin, the United States Senate will invent a false equivalence between the victims of anti-Semitism and the perpetrators, so that criticizing anti-Semitism itself will be seen as a violation of Americans’ rights.

So that’s where we are: Monday’s news was full of reports of Jews being attacked with little or no concern expressed by the authorities. Tuesday’s news will be about the Senate making a public mockery of Jewish concerns. What’s the forecast for Wednesday? Expect more smog.

It’s absurd that anybody would be comfortable with this being Jews’ daily experience in America for even a week. It’s now been that way for nearly a year. Let’s not get used to this.

Why Bernard-Henri Lévy thinks supporting Israel is a matter of human rights

Despite the sobering title of his new book, Israel Alone, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy does not truly believe the Jewish state is lacking in friends. In fact, he thinks all democrats — with a lowercase “d” — should be aligned with Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks as the Jewish state stares down an increasingly tangible Iranian threat.

“It is not only the Jews who are concerned. It is really in the existential interest of the West. But not only the West — the Global West,” Lévy told Jewish Insider in an interview on Monday amid a spate of public appearances in the United States to promote his new book’s publication in English.

That’s not because Lévy expects people around the world who support democracy to reflexively back Israel. He knows that would be naive. Instead, he thinks supporting Israel is needed because Hamas’ murderous incursion into southern Israel last year represents a turning point for the cadre of anti-democratic forces gaining ground around the world.

“I knew that there was a constellation of forces which were aligning with each other — Iran, China, Russia, Turkey, radical Islam like the Taliban and [the] Muslim Brotherhood. But I was not sure that the process was so advanced,” Lévy explained. By “Global West,” he means supporters of democracy anywhere, even those living under authoritarian regimes.

Israel’s battle against Hamas in Gaza is more than a small regional fight against a terror group, Lévy argues. It’s an existential battle for all of the West against Iran, and the other authoritarian nations with which Tehran aligns itself.

“I think of my friends, Iranian women who go to Tehran and Isfahan with fire in the wind, if I think of my friends — lawyers in jail in Turkey — I’m really concerned for them if Iran wins,” said Lévy. “If Israel happens to lose, it will be a disaster for all of them, for all the militants of human rights all over the world.”

Israel Alone is a relatively slim volume, using sparse prose to describe the horrific events of Oct. 7 and their world-shattering impact on Israelis and Jews and, Lévy hopes, for democrats the world over. Lévy, who first traveled to Israel in 1967, flew to Israel on the morning of Oct. 8. At the time, he didn’t know that a book would come from it; that decision came a few days later, after visiting Kibbutz Be’eri and, later, a meeting with Yoni Asher, whose wife and two young daughters had been taken hostage. (They were freed in November.)

“I realized with a chill that the world had just witnessed an event whose shockwaves and blast effect would change the course of all our lives — including my own,” Lévy wrote toward the start of the book.

The book raises several questions stemming from the Oct. 7 attacks: Why Israel? What to make of the settler-colonial narrative targeting Israel? Why has there been such fierce denial of the attacks? And, most painful for Lévy, how should Israel’s backers make sense of the innocent Gazans killed in the ensuing war? Lévy attempts to answer them with a philosophical precision, placing the events of the past year in a broader historical context.

This moment, Lévy argued, should be one of moral clarity. “Even during the Cold War,” he stated, “we have never been in such a critical situation, we democrats.”

$1M offered to LGBTQ advocacy groups to host Pride parade in Gaza, West Bank

A watchdog group that aims to expose hypocrisy announced Monday that it would donate $1 million to “Queers for Palestine” or any US LGBTQ advocacy organization to host a gay pride parade in Gaza or the West Bank.

Anti-Israel groups such as “Queers for Palestine” have surfaced across America since the Hamas terror group attacked Israel on October 7, but homosexuality remains deeply taboo in the Palestinian territories.

Gay and transgender people in Gaza and the West Bank face a significant level of persecution and are often subjected to horrific acts.

New Tolerance Campaign (NTC) President Gregory T. Angelo, who is gay and the former president of Log Cabin Republicans, said the campaign is a “wake-up call” to anyone who identifies as part of the “Queers for Palestine” or “Gays for Gaza” movements.

“I don’t want people to just shrug off this campaign as some kind of publicity stunt or something that is supposed to be comical. It actually is a legitimate offer,” Angelo told Fox News Digital.

“This campaign emerged to call out these purported advocates of LGBT equality and put our money where their mouths are,” he continued. “I think that this is a real opportunity for these groups to legitimately step up and host an event that would either highlight the fact that the Palestinian territories are not indeed a good place for LGBTQ individuals to be living, or it could be a breakthrough moment for pluralism and peace in the Middle East.”

The New Tolerance Campaign said it secured commitments for the $1 million prize and will begin publicizing the offer with mobile billboards circulating around Columbia University in New York City, the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C. and UCLA in Los Angeles.

“Obviously, the $1 million prize is something that is flashy. It was designed to get attention; it was designed to turn heads. But the greater drive behind this project is one of equality and broad human rights,” Angelo said.

09/17 Links Pt1: Paging Hezbollah.....Lebanese authorities raise death toll in pager blasts to 11, 4,000 injured; Hezbollah has no idea what hit it

From Ian:

Lebanon pager blast: Hezbollah has no idea what hit it

Tuesday’s events occurred only hours after the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed that Hezbollah had tried to assassinate a top Israeli ex-defense chief. Shortly before the explosions, there were reports of a special meeting between Mossad director David Barnea and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Given the juxtaposition in the timing and the last few hysterical hours in Israel about a security situation with Lebanon, is it possible that Israel carried out its second attack on Hezbollah in Beirut? And, could this be in direct retaliation for Hezbollah’s failed assassination attempt, or rather, on the heels of nearly a year of the origination firing at Israel?

The last time the Jewish state attacked Beirut was on July 30, when it assassinated Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in retaliation for the Majdal Shams rocket attack, which killed 12 Druze children.

This nearly exploded into a full-scale war between the sides on August 25. Still, the IDF managed a preemptive strike that substantially reduced Hezbollah’s ability to fire more than a fraction of the rockets that it had intended to direct at Israel, including at northern Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has pledged that any attack on Beirut would be met with a massive counter-strike.

Will he keep his promise, or will Hezbollah back down, given that it started this round with an attempted assassination, and given the IDF’s success against Hezbollah on August 25?

Another question that remains is: What is the endgame for the entity standing behind the explosive devices incident in Beirut? Will this be a knock-out punch on its own, or will this be a bloody hit that will leave Hezbollah still standing, the dilemma of war between Israel and Lebanon still reaming up in the air, though possibly closer than ever?

Seth Frantzman: Hezbollah’s worst nightmare: Chaos in its ranks

In essence, Hezbollah is a more successful military structure, even though it is a terrorist army in Lebanon, than many Arab armies in the region. This is evident from how it has not only been able to confront Israel but also stockpile more rockets, missiles, and drones than many armies in second or third-world countries. Hezbollah has pioneered drone threats against Israel and carried out numerous attacks in this war, for instance.

The chaos that will follow the exploding pagers is already evident in Lebanon. Reports say the Iranian-backed terrorist group is scrambling to tell its members not to use communications devices. Hospitals have numerous injured men. The group will have to scramble to put its organization back together.

Effective groups, whether militaries, terrorist groups, cartels, gangs, or corporations, need to have good communication. A group like Hezbollah needs this to mobilize people and coordinate attacks. It can’t coordinate the launch of large numbers of missiles if it can’t get men to the launchers. Hezbollah requires a way to get in touch with its fighters. It will need to scramble now to replace its pagers or other devices.

It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hezbollah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes. This reminds us of the story of the penetration of the KKK in the film Mississippi Burning. It took time for the FBI to cause the “rattlesnakes to commit suicide,” but in the end, the KKK was defeated. Similarly, when the US-led coalition defeated Saddam’s army in Iraq in 1991, it set about destroying its command and control nodes. This is how terrorist groups and militaries are defeated.

Hezbollah faces a difficult challenge now. It is in chaos. It may want to lash out and strike back. But it has suffered a major setback. This is also an embarrassing setback. Hezbollah rests on its allure, its sense of being an elite group that is not vulnerable. Now, it feels vulnerable.

Pager explosions hint at shift in strategy against Hezbollah

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said months ago that Israel has new capabilities that will surprise Hezbollah and Israel’s enemies. This comment was lost among endless other “we-will-send-Lebanon-back-to-the-stone-age” threats he has issued since Hezbollah began attacking Israel on October 8.

Yet this attack, if carried out by Israel, shows that Gallant’s words about surprises were not empty.

The level of pre-planning involved is also significant. Given that this war of attrition has dragged on for months and the government has now declared its readiness to go to war to change the situation in the North, Israel has lost the element of surprise in any conventional attack on Hezbollah.

In other words, if the IAF were to strike Beirut tomorrow or tanks rolled into southern Lebanon, it would neither be surprising nor preemptive. The enemy is expecting something.

Tuesday’s pager explosions, however, show that there are other, non-conventional ways to surprise the enemy and gain a tactical advantage. And this leads to a third lesson: the next war is never fought like the previous one.

Following the security cabinet’s declaration Tuesday night, the mind immediately went to tanks moving into Lebanon like they did during the First Lebanon War in 1982, or planes bombing Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh stronghold in Beirut as they did in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. And all that still might materialize if a full-blown Third Lebanon War now erupts. But those are both elements of yesterday’s war.

Monday’s action shows that the next war with Hezbollah will be fought differently and in an innovative and creative way: two traits with which Israel has been amply blessed.

Hezbollah pagers explode all over Lebanon; Hezbollah claims they were used by "civilians"

From the Wall Street Journal:

Pagers carried by hundreds of Hezbollah operatives exploded Tuesday, leaving many of them injured in an unprecedented event that struck across Lebanon.
The affected pagers were from a new shipment that the group received in recent days, people familiar with the matter said. A Hezbollah official said hundreds of fighters had such devices, speculating that malware may have caused the devices to heat up and explode. The official said some people felt the pagers heat up and disposed of them before they burst.

Some potential victims said they felt the pagers heat up beforehand and got rid of them before the explosion.

So far, according to Lebanese health authorities, is 8 killed, 200 critically injured and 2,750 injured to some degree. 7 more were said to be killed in Syria.

When I first saw the story, I assumed that "somebody" had found a vulnerability in the pager software and fond that a set of commands could cause them to heat up and explode. But the WSJ report makes it sound more like a supply chain attack -"somebody" knew about this shipment and sabotaged it, perhaps even installing small explosives inside the devices that could be triggered by commands or heat, or more likely replacing the batteries with versions that would explode when exposed to a certain stimulus like a series of signals.

Almost certainly, and ironically, Hezbollah demanded that its many members communicate only with pagers because they felt that they were more secure than cell phones that could be hacked or eavesdropped on. One can be certain that everyone who had one of these pagers in their pocket or their belt was a Hezbollah member, making this attack as perfectly aligned with international law as is possible.

Hezbollah predictably is pretending that they were killing civilians - as if normal people would walk around with pagers instead of phones.

Hezbollah is only claiming that civilians were killed - claiming the death of a girl. What they don't say is that her terrorist father with the pager was next to her at the time, or whether he is alive.

Other details are coming out - a Hezbollah MP who was killed, a son of a Hezbollah leader said to have been killed.

One can be certain that the only people using that brand of pager in Lebanon are Hezbollah members. While there are still some some pager manufacturers, they re only for niche markets.

Like terrorists.

Here are two videos apparently of explosions.

And photos of victims:

To no one's surprise, every photo and video that have been published show the victims are military aged males. Not nurses.

This may be the first truly fatal cyberattack.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

We reported in March about a number of people in Gaza who pretended to provide Gazans with food or medical supplies, with no proof whatsoever that they did anything at all.

There is another scam going on as well using GoFundMe - people asking for money to leave Gaza via Egypt even though Egypt hasn't allowed anyone to leave since May.

Many GoFundMe fundraisers were created well after Egypt closed the Rafah crossing, yet they still claim that the money would go towards paying (exorbitant) Egyptian fees.

"Lana" from Gaza started her GoFundMe in August, asking for money to leave via Egypt, and raised $20,000.

"Mosbah" started his GoFundMe in September, saying, he wants his family to escape Gaza. He's already raised $6,500.

Mahmoud Jehad says, "Your generous donations will assist me in leaving Gaza to pursue my education." he started the page in August. He's raised $3,700 so far.

Nareman is a fashion designer did manage to escape Gaza early in the war but now wants to bring the rest of her family - which she knew was impossible when she started her fundraiser in August. She raised $5,600 so far.

Mohran listed out why he was asking for $90,000 CAD in July after Rafah was closed - knowing these are not possible:

- $25,000: Travel expenses to Egypt for my family – The high cost is detailed in these sources: [VOA News](https://www.voanews.com/amp/egyptian-firm-offers-escape-from-gaza-for-5-000-a-head/7572715.html) & [Sky News](https://news.sky.com/story/the-price-of-freedom-the-company-making-millions-from-gazas-misery-13081454).
- $5,000: GoFundMe's fundraising fees.
- $5,000: Bank transfer fees for relocating to a new country.
- $7,000: New Mac device including assets needed for work.
- $24,000: Egypt allocation cost for 6 month~$4000 per month for 5 family members at least—contains food, medicine and rent and schools for the children’s.

If they were asking for money to survive in Gaza to buy food or rent a place to stay, there would be no problem. But they are telling donors that the money is going towards a goal that cannot happen because Egypt closed the crossing and has no plans to re-open 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!

Iranian media: Peaceful in English, warmongering in Farsi

The Iranian Defa Press site, associated with Iran's military, gives quite different messages in English and in Farsi.

Yesterday, it featured a story in English about Iran's president saying Iran is a peaceful nation:

"We are not warmongers"

Pezeshkian during a news conference said that Iran does not seek war. He continued that we are and will be subject to international laws.

Iran's President said: The Zionist regime is the only one who wants to start a war not us. We are not even in the idea of having a nuclear bomb. If you want peace in the region, then firstly disarm the Zionist regime because they want to light the fire of war in the region.

The Farsi site didn't even report on this "news conference" as far as I can tell. Instead, it featured stories like this promise to attack Israel:

Chief of Staff and Deputy Coordinator of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army, Amir Dariyadar Sayari...pointed to the operation of "Sadiq's Promise" [Iran's attack on Israel in April] and the support of some countries in the region and the Western allies of the Zionist regime to neutralize the operation of "Sadiq's Promise" and said: "Operation Sadiq's Promise is only to show Iran's ability to harm Israel. But America, France, Germany, England and Jordan all came and used their air defense systems to help the Iron Dome of the Zionist regime and resist Iran's attack. But can they always be prepared to deal with surprise attacks? They can't."

Admiral Sayari further discussed Iran's definite reaction to the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh, the former head of Hamas's political office, and stated: "The reaction to the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh is definite, but this time, it will not be announced. After the martyrdom of Haniyeh, more than a dozen messages came from the West and the United States, demanding that Iran not react, but the answer to martyring Haniyeh is certain, but the timing will be completely in our hands. This answer should be prudent and wise."

Other stories emphasize the importance of Iranian proxies in Iraq and Lebanon for attacking Israel.

Iran understands the importance of propaganda that they can feed to the West. In fact, Defa has a story about exactly that topic:

The CEO of the Islamic Revolution Publishers Association emphasized that the narrative of Palestine is of great importance and stated: "After the field and struggle of the brave and heroic fighters of Gaza, nothing is as necessary as the narrative of Gaza and the narrative of Palestine. ...If we can strengthen and intensify the narrative of Gaza, we have dealt a more deadly blow to the Zionist regime, and this is more effective than the weapons of the resistance groups."

If we learned anything since October 7, it is how easily the Western world can be played by anti-Israel propaganda.

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 All-In podcast is a popular video series hosted by four venture capitalists who generally talk about technology and the economy, but they deal with other topics as well.

They did a live show recently where they interviewed two Israel haters, John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs.

In a venue like this, these academics can spout out any nonsense without any fear of the hosts knowing enough to push back. And the audience is treated to a one-sided narrative without realizing they are being played.

Both Sachs and Mearsheimer live in a world where there was no second intifada, where there have been no barrages of rockets for the past 15 years onto Israeli population areas, where there was no October 7, and where Hamas barely exists.

In that world, Sachs can start off by saying that he often speaks to ambassadors around the world and everyone agrees that Israel must be forced to allow a terror state to be created on the 1949 armistice lines and every Jewish holy spot must be under Palestinian control. This is, he assures the audience, "international law." Only the evil Israelis and the US are standing in the way of this wonderful world where Hamas and Islamic Jihad don't exist and Israel lives in peace with Palestinians who will give up on terror (just as they claim to have done in 1993). In Sachs' world, Iran doesn't exist either.

Later, with just as much assurance, he says Israel is guilty of genocide and that the ICJ will certainly rule that way.

Then Mearsheimer goes on his own fantasy journey where the only aggressor is Israel, which is doing everything it can to entrap the US into a war with Iran. The only solution, he says, is for the US and Iran to collude against this plot. Because both of them would benefit by opposing Israel, in Mearsheimer's world.

Sure, Iran is on the cusp of nuclear weapons, but that is not a concern at all. Hezbollah is not a problem. The Houthis are not a problem. Only warmongering Israel.

It doesn't appear to be a coincidence that they chose a podcast with people who aren't Middle East experts. Sachs has charged Israel with genocide on another podcast - that specializes in Bitcoin.

Both of them claim not to hate Israel; on the contrary, they know what is best for Israel better than Israelis do.

Sachs and Mearsheimer create a framework where there is not even an option to question the many false assumptions they make. But they choose venues where no one who knows they are full of rubbish is available to push back.

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!

09/16 Links Pt2: Britain and the BBC are partners in terror and antisemitism; The transparent mob attack on theJC; Greta Thunberg named ‘Antisemite of the Week’

From Ian:

Britain and the BBC are partners in terror and antisemitism

Why, at a time when Israel is engaged in a war with Hamas, and while terrorists are committing war crimes and continue to hold hostages, is British Prime Minister Keir Starmer abandoning Israel?

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson directed this pointed question at Starmer in light of the suspension of 30 licenses for arms exports to Israel, including essential equipment such as components for helicopters, fighter jets, and drones.

A partial answer to Johnson's question can be found in the words of Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who stated that Britain saw a "clear risk" that the military equipment might violate international humanitarian law.

Lammy is considered a controversial politician. Many believe he was wrongly appointed, given a series of past statements and misdemeanors.

When he was shadow foreign minister, Lammy claimed that the International Criminal Court's (ICC) request for an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated war crimes had been committed.

The current British government has changed its stance, relying on left-wing parties that are, to say the least, not as supportive of Israel as the conservative governments of Johnson and Rishi Sunak.

Without the votes of Muslims, who make up about 7% of British citizens, Starmer’s party would not have been elected.

Mr. Starmer needs to understand that he must continue to support Israel, which is fighting a terrorist organization that, alongside Iran, threatens not only the sole democracy in the Middle East but also the free world of which Britain forms an important part.

Just as Britain waged a heroic battle against Nazi Germany in World War II, it must prevent terrorist organizations from carrying out their plans to destroy the Jewish state.

Are U.S. Airlines Effectively Boycotting Israel?

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, defines his campaign against Israel as being won as much through economics and psychological coercion as through victories on the battlefield. And nearly a year into the Jewish state’s war with Hamas, Iran’s military proxy in the Gaza Strip, Khamenei’s strategy appears to be advancing—with an assist from the U.S. airline industry.

For most of the past year, none of the three major American carriers—United Airlines, American Airlines, or Delta—have flown to Israel, citing the Gaza war and the security threats posed by Tehran and its military allies. And none of these airlines have offered definitive time frames for when their flights might resume. This has left Israel’s national carrier, El Al, as the only direct connection between the country and its closest ally and economic partner on the other side of the world, and has sent airfares between the U.S. and Israel skyrocketing.

In recent days, the cost of a round trip economy flight to Tel Aviv from New York on El Al is around $2,500, according to Israeli travel agencies, up from around $899 before October 7, 2023. United, American, and Delta previously all had at least one daily flight to Israel from New York or Newark, and together served Israel three times a week from Boston, Dallas, Miami, Chicago, and Washington D.C.

The suspension of the American flights is feeding into the economic and diplomatic isolation that Iran’s leaders are seeking, according to Israeli political and business leaders. “The American carriers are playing into Iran’s game,” said Eyal Hulata, who served as national security adviser to two Israeli prime ministers, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, from 2021–2023.

Jerusalem’s allies in Washington are urgently seeking to establish clearer U.S. government guidelines for when U.S. airlines should halt traffic to Israel, and when it can resume. If not, they warn, American carriers risk bolstering, even unwittingly, the economic coercion that Iran and Israel’s critics in the West are pursuing, often under the banner of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, or BDS.

“In my view, unless there’s an objective process put in place to prevent the politicization of air travel, I predict that in the future the BDS movement will try to weaponize air travel as a new means of boycotting Israel,” U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-New York) told The Free Press. “And a travel ban has the potential to be the most potent weapon in BDS’s war against the Jewish state.”

Torres wrote the presidents of American, Delta, and United in August asking them to map out the guidelines they followed in deciding to suspend their routes to Israel. None of the three airlines issued an official response to Torres’ letter, and his staff says they have communicated with the U.S. carriers’ government affairs teams, but didn’t disclose the result of these discussions.

Current and former Israeli officials told The Free Press they’re particularly confused by the U.S. airlines’ decisions as a number of Middle Eastern, African, and European carriers are currently flying to Tel Aviv despite these security threats. That includes three airlines from the United Arab Emirates—Etihad Airways, FlyDubai, and Wizz Air Abu Dhabi—whose government only normalized diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020 as part of the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords. These pacts seek to integrate Israel economically and diplomatically into the wider Arab world.

Bari Weiss bullish on Jewish allies: ‘Our job is to show up for them, so they can show up for us’

When the world saw a swell of support for Hamas after the terror organization attacked Jewish communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, it was a “secondary catastrophe,” the journalist Bari Weiss, founder of the Free Press, told about 3,000 people at an event in Toronto.

“You’ll see some of the most educated, prestigious, elite members of our society standing on the side of the terrorists,” Weiss, 40, a Jewish native of Pittsburgh, said at the Sept. 11 event, during which the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto launched its 2024 annual fundraising campaign.

The elite siding with terrorists has been “the major transformation to understand that we’re living in an age of just unbelievable moral confusion,” Weiss told attendees. “The most basic case for our civilization—and its fundamental goodness—has to be made.”

Weiss added that one could never imagine something “so morally depraved” as people supporting Al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

“The gift of the darkness of this year has been the clarity of that—the absolute clarity of this moment,” said Weiss, who hosts the podcast Honestly, and who formerly was an opinion editor at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times who caused a national stir after she resigned from the Times in 2020, claiming an antisemitic backlash in the workplace. “Clarity about what it requires from us and a sense of purposefulness in the fight that we’re in.”

Rabbi David Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles and a former member of the antisemitism advisory group at Harvard University; and Israeli actress Shira Haas, of the popular three-season series Shtisel and four-part docudrama Unorthodox, also spoke at the event.

“The year made me much more binary,” Wolpe told attendees. “It’s like, if you’re a non-Zionist or an anti-Zionist, you’re in a different category in my Marvel kingdom.”

“The year was, in fact, both painful and clarifying, which are two things that often go together,” the rabbi added.

It is essential for Jews and for Israel to have allies in the battle between good and evil, he said.

“We have more friends than we think, and when you see any public figure standing up for Israel or standing up for Jews, all I can tell you is try to find out how to send them a note of appreciation,” he said. “We have a lot of building to do with other people who really are well-disposed towards us, and it’s incredibly important.”

09/16 Links Pt1: For lasting peace, Hamas must be destroyed; Iran using Houthis’ Yemen as weapons ‘testing ground’; Trump defiant after 2nd assassination attempt

From Ian:

‘The world will respect Israel when it respects itself’

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s new book, One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, currently being launched and distributed, presents a coherent political doctrine aimed at shifting approaches and perceptions.

In it, he argues that Israeli rule over the entire territory not only aligns with Israel’s historical, biblical right to the land but will also benefit all parties involved, both Jews and Arabs.

Friedman has drawn on his years of policy experience, which played a significant role in key actions such as relocating the American embassy to Jerusalem and securing U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory, to write his book addressing a wide range of political, security, civil and economic issues. Friedman is well aware of the multifaceted challenges involved in such a political plan.

We held a three-way conversation about this topic with him and Knesset member Ohad Tal, a key figure in advancing President Donald Trump’s plan within the Israeli political arena.

At the outset, Friedman summarizes the main points of his plan, which views the application of sovereignty as a step towards achieving the political goal of securing two things.

“No. 1 to bring stability, safety, security, prosperity for the State of Israel. No. 2 is to be faithful to the will of God with regard to the way in which the Jewish people should hold the Land of Israel. These are achieved through sovereignty. But it’s not about achieving sovereignty. It’s about achieving these two goals.”

Friedman outlines the path to his goal in several stages. “I don’t think it can happen overnight. The most important thing is for the State of Israel, by a meaningful consensus, to decide this is the right thing for the State of Israel before any other country gets involved. The State of Israel has to decide that. And I think the State of Israel should decide that through a process, which is deep and robust and thoughtful. I mean, I think people really need to discuss it.”

Friedman cautiously adds that while he doesn’t mean to offend anyone, the discussion around such a move needs to be approached somewhat differently from the hasty manner in which the judicial reform was promoted “by a narrow majority that created a lot of dissension. This issue is much bigger and if it’s going to go forward, it must do so with the support of a significant majority of the people in Israel.”

For lasting peace, Hamas must be destroyed

Decisive victory is the breeding ground for lasting peace and stability. Take, for example, the end of World War II. When the war was over, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were utterly crushed, their regimes disbanded, and their capacity to wage war and genocide obliterated. When Allied forces released German and Japanese prisoners of war, there was no concern that they would rise again to rebuild the military might of their former nations. Why? Because those powers had been completely defeated. There was no Nazi war machine left to restart. Imperial Japan no longer had the resources to continue its brutal campaigns. It is unthinkable to imagine, say, a negotiated agreement with Nazi Germany where their army was left intact or their weapons were untouched.

This brings us to Gaza. Thousands of Hamas militants currently sit in Israeli prisons. If any number of those prisoners were released without the utter decimation of Hamas’s capacity to wage terror against Israel, what would stop them from rearming, regrouping and reigniting the same bloody cycle of violence? How could negotiating a settlement with Hamas in this stage of the war ensure that Israel can live without fear of Hamas terrorism? For there to be any hope of peace in Israel and Gaza, Hamas must be thoroughly dismantled and their infrastructure of terror obliterated so that they no longer have the means to fight.

In fact, Israel may need to go even further. A portion of Gaza itself may need to come under Israeli control for a set period—think of China ceding Hong Kong to the British for 99 years in the aftermath of the First Opium War, which ended in 1842. This model could allow for a new generation in the coastal enclave to grow up free from Hamas’s tyranny and radicalization, paving the way for a society that values peace, culture and economic prosperity.

Another historical model is that of the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. Rome, recognizing Carthage as a continuous existential threat, ultimately decided that Carthage had to be destroyed. While the level of destruction used by Rome is not appropriate today (the Romans leveled Carthage and salted the ground), the lesson remains: Existential threats must be defeated so completely that they can no longer pose a danger. Gaza, under Hamas, remains a threat to Israel’s existence, and only through Hamas’s defeat can that threat be neutralized.

Additionally, we must understand the cultural dimension at play. In the Arab world, shame and honor are powerful forces. A thorough and humiliating defeat of Hamas would bring shame to the movement in the eyes of the Arab people—much in the same way that Germans still carry the weight of the Nazi era. Hamas must become an emblem of failure and disgrace, not resistance and heroism.

If Hamas were to be defeated, Gaza itself could have a future of prosperity. There’s no reason it couldn’t evolve into a cultural and economic beacon in the Middle East, akin to Tel Aviv. The people of Gaza deserve the chance to build a future free of terror. But for that to happen, Hamas must first be removed from the equation entirely.

In the end, wars end with victory or defeat, and for peace to flourish in Gaza and Israel, Hamas needs to be soundly, unequivocally defeated.

Trudeau Liberals buying Hamas 'lies': author/soldier John Spencer

John Spencer, the world’s foremost expert on urban warfare, has choice words for the Trudeau government: “Do your homework.”

At a lecture at a Toronto synagogue late last week, he said that the federal Liberals, “believe lies” coming from Hamas, and “base their policies on them,” including withholding weapons from Israel needed to fight the terror group. (Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced on September 10 that Canada suspended about 30 permits for arms shipments.)

A 25-year veteran of the U.S. Army, Spencer has been on fact-finding missions in Gaza three times since last December, where he was embedded with the Israel Defense Forces.

He claimed that “you have national leaders just repeating the talking points of Hamas,” including their casualty numbers, and the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing in Gaza City on Oct. 17, 2023, that turned out to be an errant rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Contrary to the reports coming from Hamas – believed by NGOs and many world leaders – Israel is not exercising disproportionate or excessive force, and takes “every step possible” to avoid civilian casualties, he said.

Their enemy is doing the reverse: “That’s called human sacrifice, not human shields, when Hamas wants its entire population getting in the way of battle.”

When asked by moderator Amir Epstein, director of Tafsik, whether there was a genocide in Gaza, Spencer’s simple answer: no.

The International Court of Justice, which called on Israel to “take all measures” to prevent a genocide of the Palestinians, “did not make a ruling to tell Israel, in the meantime, stop the operation,” Spencer said. The UN’s definition of genocide, he continued, includes a list of specific criteria – including intent to systematically erase a culture, identity, nationality and people – which Israel is not guilty of. This is clear, to him, everywhere from the aid flowing in, “a flood of vaccinations,” and Israel “doing everything it can to avoid innocent casualties,” he said.

The Associated Press has reported that Israel’s offensive following the Oct. 7 attack has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, forced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to flee their homes, AP reports.

South Africa last year accused Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention. Israel has strongly rejected the claim and has argued that the war in Gaza is a legitimate defence against Hamas for the attack that killed around 1,200 people and took 250 hostages.

Spencer served two tours in Iraq, advised four-star generals and Pentagon officials, and serves as a colonel in the California State Guard as director of urban warfare training. He is also chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

It is his belief that “international pressure had caused Israel to slow down,” the counteroffensive, similar to past campaigns in Gaza, where the Jewish State was “not allowed to win wars.”

But once Hamas is defeated, the next step is deradicalization, that could take “a decades-long” process. “But it cannot start until you get the radicalizer out.”

One of those purges should be United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), that to his mind is anti-Israel. “There is enough data” to show how the NGO and Hamas have a symbiotic relationship. “You can’t have someone working in Gaza without Hamas accepting it,” he said, also noting how UNRWA schoolbooks preach incitement against Jews.

With the discovery of Hamas tunnels beneath UNRWA facilities, including a substantive data centre, “that alone – UNRWA has to justify it. Explain how a number of employees were involved in Oct. 7. Explain the number of UNRWA facilities where Hamas has turned into military headquarters.”

Guest post: A lifelong Jewish Democrat holds his nose and will vote for Trump

[The author asks to remain anonymous, and explains why - EoZ]

Why I have requested anonymity for this piece:

There is intense social pressure on American Jews to be against Israel, especially on campuses. I am a professor at a liberal arts college where there is intense hostility to Israel; my Zionism has already caused me to be an outcast on my campus. Were I to publicly take the next logical step—conclude that drastic political changes are required to stem the public tide of Jew-hatred, even as drastic as supporting the presidential candidate “they” all uniformly despise—I sincerely believe my personal safety would be in question. That is why this essay both needs to be published, and to be anonymous. The situation is that dire.

As a Lifelong Jewish Democrat It Pains Me to Say This: Put Your Own Oxygen Masks on First!

That somber moment when the flight attendant says, “Though we do not anticipate a change in cabin pressure,” so heavy with portent (at least for those of us with darker dispositions), and then the sage advice: “If you’re traveling with someone who may need assistance, put your own oxygen mask on first.” Sage, if perhaps unnecessary, given the normal human instinct for self-preservation: I’m reminded of the Seinfeld episode in which a fire breaks out at a children’s birthday party and George knocks children and elderly out of the way in order to escape. A moment of levity back then, the final calm, perhaps, before the storm, back when being Jewish was still somewhat cool.

This may just be my darker disposition speaking, but I believe the cabin pressure has changed.

If you don’t already know this, or perhaps have been out of the country—or off the planet—for the past year, a brief survey should catch you up. Franklin Foer summed it up back in March with his Atlantic article, “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending.” That title, though perhaps optimistic in using the present continuous rather than past perfect, nails it. Combine it with Jacob Savage’s 2023 article, “The Vanishing: The Erasure of Jews From American Life,” documenting the disappearance—a euphemism for “exclusion”—of Jews from academia, from all sorts of leadership positions, cultural institutions, activist organizations, legal positions such as judgeships, prestigious fellowships like Guggenheims and MacArthurs, and so on. An article from just last week by Joshua Hoffman is entitled, “American Jews are increasingly excluded from leadership positions—because they are Jewish.” Being Jewish is also increasingly uncomfortable—another euphemism—in medical schools, law schools, and (anecdotally, though not yet well documented) business schools. The vanishing is complete in the CUNY system, once extraordinarily friendly to Jews in the American city with the largest Jewish population, now the largest urban university in the country with some 25 campuses and approximately 230,000 people—where “of the Top 80 senior leadership positions including campus presidents, as of April 2023, there were ZERO Jews remaining.” Five years ago the ever-prescient Liel Leibovitz urged Jews to “Get Out” of the elite American university system, where they were so clearly unwelcome; well that call has been heeded, if not by the Jews themselves then by the administrators and admissions officers who have kept them out, as the percentages of Jews in the Ivy League has plummeted over the last decade or two. As Armin Rosen’s article last year put it, we have witnessed an “Ivy League Exodus.” Back to “The Vanishing”:

Eric Kaufmann finds that just 4% of elite American academics under 30 are Jewish (compared to 21% of boomers). The steep decline of Jewish editors at the Harvard Law Review (down roughly 50% in less than 10 years) could be the subject of its own law review article.

Put it all together and we have seen what can only be called a purge, a purge of Jews from public life, from leadership, from elite institutions, and, most forebodingly of all, from the pipeline itself. If Jews are being hounded out of medical, law, and business schools, the next generation of physicians, lawyers, and businesspeople will be sparse with Jews. If Jews are being hounded out of elite universities and graduate programs—if the past year of relentless demonstrations and riots expressing hatred and sometimes violence toward Jews on major campuses doesn’t convince you, then nothing will—the next generation not just of leaders but specifically of professors will be sparse with Jews. If that is the case then universities will only continue becoming less and less friendly (euphemism for more and more hostile) toward Jews, and that Jew-less pipeline will propagate itself and intensify, becoming ever emptier of Jews as Jews nearly entire disappear from all aspects of public life.

This is not just my darker disposition speaking.

It seems to me an objective fact that, while we were distracted, living it up with our bagels and schmears and Curb Your Enthusiasm bingeing, the cabin pressure itself plummeted—and now, like George Costanza, we need to follow Leibovitz’s advice, and get out.

What getting out looks like in practice can take many forms in many contexts, but there is one immediate, pressing way it should manifest itself.

I am, like so many largely secular American Jews, a lifelong Democrat. There are many obvious reasons for this. So many such Jews see themselves as “liberal,” as caring and empathetic, they stress Judaism’s concern for the oppressed and marginalized, they are attracted to at least their own conception of Judaism’s famous notion of tikkun olam (“repairing the world”), yes they were largely all in on supporting BLM, #MeToo, the various rainbow coalitions, and they see all that as better aligned with the traditional Democratic party than by the Republican. These Jews want to be good people and do good things. True to that, they haven’t merely made major contributions over the years to science, medicine, education, business, and culture, throughout our “Golden Age,” but, given their nature and ambitions, used their success and status in these endeavors to become philanthropists and benefactors. We are all aware of the disproportionate number of Jewish names on hospitals and university buildings, just for a start. America has been good to the Jews, and the Jews returned the favor, in being good citizens, in being good for America. Jews want to continue to do good, and so many, as I myself have for years, see the Democratic Party as the better fit to do that good.

But now, my fellow Jews, we can only continue to do that good, as Jews, if America allows us. If, within the next generation, we are excluded from leadership positions, from medical, law, and business schools, from elite colleges, from all areas of public life, where exactly will we be? In the past year we have seen so many of those university buildings with Jewish names being vandalized, graffiti’d, having hostile messages projected on to them, even getting renamed by rogue students. What Jewish benefactors will there be to donate those buildings and support their programs, if there are no Jews among the leaders in American society?

Jews can only do all the good they like to do, they are driven to do, which their Judaism teaches them to do, if they are allowed to flourish in society. We’re not asking for a handout or any “privilege”—the code word that has been weaponized to motivate the purge—but the same opportunity to work hard for what we achieve that we seek to afford to others. Nor are we asking for it all. We are not the fictional, defamatory Elders of Zion that used to be the exclusive delusion of right-wing antisemitism but has increasingly been coopted by the left. We are very big on sharing, on diversity, on inclusion. We are very big on fighting injustice, on helping the marginalized and the oppressed improve their situation and status. Most of us were all in on the social justice movement of the past decade, even as we were increasingly aware that we were among its primary targets. I remember deciding to continue supporting the Black Lives Matter movement even after reading the vile antipathy to Israel included on its online platform.

But now: Never mind the obvious concern about our being excluded, ghettoized, discriminated against, and marginalized ourselves; we cannot be expected to contribute to the general good at the cost of our committing collective suicide.

We simply cannot do all the good we want to do if we are vanished.

And it is precisely all this that is in play across the spectrum.

As a lifelong Democrat it pains me to say this, but it seems obvious to me that the assault against Jews will only get worse under a Harris administration. I won’t fully make that case here, though others have, for example here and here; I’ll only say that the social and political forces that the Biden-Harris administration has succored, the far-left wing of its party that it continually appeases, the numerous Jew-unfriendly political appointments and policy decisions they have made, and the continuous hostility to Israel that goes along with the occasional proclamations (and sometimes appreciated gestures) of support strike me as the upper cabins opening up and the oxygen masks dropping down. Where has the Biden-Harris Justice Department been as university, and K-12, antisemitism have exploded over the past year? Just this week twenty-four state Attorneys General issued a letter warning Brown University of legal and fiscal consequences should Brown choose to divest from Israel; twenty-two of the twenty-four work for Republican administrations, while Democratic administrations seem almost universally disinterested in combatting the antisemitic divestment movement sweeping over dozens of campuses. Add to these concerns the fact that all indications are that Harris atop the ticket will be even less friendly to Israel and to American Jews than Biden-Harris, starting with her personnel choices and her regular expressions of compassion and empathy toward the pro-Hamas cohort of her constituents.

I now ask every liberal Jewish Democrat to honestly confront the facts about the Jewish purge presented above, begun some years ago but deeply accelerated during the Biden-Harris years and especially during the past year, and honestly ask themselves whether a Harris administration will likely slow, simply accept, or accelerate that purge. As a lifelong Democrat I share the antipathy to Trump, both on the personal level and the political, and though it pains me to say this I must admit: Trump just stated that “there has never been a more dangerous time since the Holocaust if you happen to be Jewish in America,” and for once I agree with the man. As a lifelong Democrat I find Trump to be profoundly flawed, not to be trusted, and far from a panacea regarding the problems above—but it also seems obvious to me that on this one question, at least, the question of Jewish life and status in America, a Trump administration is less likely to accelerate the purge and possibly might slow it, or at least try.

I have a close friend, another lifelong Democrat, a fellow secular liberal Jew, a committed Zionist whom I deeply respect but whose antipathy for Trump (like many) outweighs the concerns just sketched. His response to these concerns was to say that he cares deeply about several issues: the environment and climate change, upholding democracy, and Israel and American Jewish life, among others. Though he agrees with my analysis he plans to vote for Harris, saying that he will vote on the first items and lobby hard on the Israel-Jewish item.

I understand that, and even respect it, but I think it’s shortsighted.

That so many Jews want to “do good,” to give back to the country that gave them so much, to support the oppressed and the marginalized, is wonderful, a true reflection of the second rhetorical question of Hillel’s famous saying: “And if I am only for myself, what am I?” But we cannot forget the first part of it as well, which, in my view, not only chronologically but logically and necessarily must come first: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” Nobody can be asked to help others at the cost of committing collective suicide. Nobody can help anybody else unless they have the resources to help. You cannot be for others unless you are first for yourself, even if you see being “for yourself” as the means toward the end of being “for others.” That’s of course why you must put your oxygen mask on first, because you cannot be of assistance to anyone else if you are dead.

This friend is a lawyer, a committed Zionist but one who must keep his Zionism on the down-low because, you know, it could cause complications for him, both professional and personal. He wants to continue doing all the good things we as Jews are prone to do, save the environment, save democracy, support the marginalized, which traditionally manifested itself through the Democratic party and liberalism. But the way things are going, the way the purge has accelerated especially since October 7, if word of his Zionism gets out—he may well be out of a job, if not on the receiving end of one of the pogroms—yes pogroms—that have already occurred in his (by the way very Democratic) city.

Not a whole lot of good you can do when unemployed, or beaten up, or ostracized into the ghetto—or dead.

For the greater good, for all the good you admirably want to do: you need to save yourself first.

Hillel of course concludes, “And if not now, when?” Well, apparently, we do for the moment have an answer to that otherwise rhetorical question: November 5, 2024. I can’t help but think that, for the greater good, secular liberal Jews like me, lifelong Democrats, might be best advised to hold our noses and vote for—no, I can’t bring myself to say it, and I feel so bitter at the Democrats for putting me in the position that I find myself actually preferring the victory of that man.

But say it I must: If you can vote for that man, then do it. But if you cannot—at least do not vote for Harris.

It appears I am not alone in reaching this difficult conclusion, as there are reports that Jewish voters are gravitating away from the Democratic nominee in unprecedented numbers. But for those remaining Jews, still perhaps the majority, please consider, lastly, that the fact that I must publish this anonymously for my own safety is itself the best argument for its conclusion.

The purge tolerates no dissenters.

An earlier version of this article appeared here.

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!

My algorithmic, short and useful definition of antisemitism has been discussed in an academic conference and in a scholarly book.

This definition has been included in the syllabus of the course "Antisemitism: A History" being taught at Brown University as part of their Judaic Studies curriculum. Here's the course description:

Antisemitism: A History
Antisemitism is sometimes called the "longest hatred," and from Pittsburgh to Paris it is on the rise. This course will examine the history of antisemitism and antisemitic tropes; theoretical approaches to its persistence; and individual case studies. Topics will include: Christian and Muslim anti-Judaism; racism; economic stereotypes; and modern manifestations in the U.S. and Europe.

The course is being taught by Michael L Satlow, Dorot Professor of Judaic Studies and Religious Studies. The syllabus says:

All I can ask for is that my definition is debated and compared to the others. I think mine has great advantages - brief, accurate, precise, and the easiest one (by far) to be used to answer the question of whether some event or statement is antisemitic or not. If people find shortcomings in my definition, I'd love to hear them.

I don't know Michael Satlow, but I thank the professor for including my definition in his course.. I hope other universities and academic papers do the same.

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!

Evidence mounts that Hamas was manipulating polls in Gaza: Only 6% of Gazans would vote for Hamas; half want to leave

Last month, the IDF reported that they uncovered a memo written by Hamas about how the terror group had manipulated a PCPSR poll in March to make Hamas appear much more popular in Gaza than it really was. Moreover, the memo indicated that Hamas' information manipulation of all data in Gaza is far more extensive than anyone had realized.

As usual, Israel haters are skeptical about any IDF claims, pretending that the Israelis are making things up.

And as usual, the IDF claims are supported by other facts.

In this case, a more recent poll by AWRAD, the Arab world for Research and Development, shows that contrary to PCPSR polling, Hamas popularity in Gaza is lower than it ever was.

In the poll taken last month and released on September 8, AWARD found that only 6% of Gazans would vote for Hamas if legislative elections were held today.

Gazans hate Hamas, but they are still in fear of the group.

One other interesting finding: Half of Gazans would like to leave Gaza if they could.

Gazans who can leave are no in danger. yet "human rights" groups are adamantly against allowing Gazans to take refuge in other countries.

You will never find any human rights group against anyone leaving any country for safety, economic or any other reason especially in wartime. With the only exception of Gaza.

Of course, they frame that refusal to allow Gazans to be able to make their own decision as to where they want to live as "human rights," too. Funny how human rights groups can contradict themselves so easily without anyone calling them out.

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!

Hypocrisy: CAIR supports "safe spaces" for Muslims; opposes them for Jews (@CAIRNational)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in 2021 that "Mosques should serve as a welcoming safe space for EVERY member of the community. "

In 2022, CAIR wrote, “It is important that school officials recognize Ramadan is a very special time for their Muslim students and work to create safe spaces for students fasting and praying – now and throughout the year. "

Earlier this year, it extended this desire: "All houses of worship should be a beacon and a safe space for the community."

But CAIR emphatically does not want synagogues to be safe spaces.

In June, there were violent anti-Israel protests that blocked Jews from entering the Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. Even President Biden called those protests antisemitic. In response, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to consider ordinances establishing a “bubble zone” that protects individuals entering or exiting healthcare facilities, places of worship, public facilities, community centers, and "other locations where identity-based gatherings are conducted, or services are administered." The ordinance would make it a misdemeanor for anyone who obstructs or blocks another person from entering or exiting synagogues and other facilities and would prohibit a person from harassing anyone entering or exiting such a place.

In short, the proposed ordinance would create safe zones for Jewish and other communities.

CAIR doesn't like that - at all. While they want to ensure Muslims are free of harassment, they consider harassing Jews to be a First Amendment right.

CAIR-LA Policy Manager Basha Jamil said:

“It is deeply concerning that, after nearly a year of witnessing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the LA City Council not only remains silent, but also continues to introduce measures designed to stifle the voices of those speaking up for Palestinian human rights and criminalize their constitutional right to free speech and assembly. By penalizing peaceful protests simply based on their proximity to geographic landmarks, this motion threatens to push protesters out of sight, effectively chilling their speech, further disenfranchising already vulnerable groups.

The laws, or course, would not criminalize protests, but just ensure that they do not infringe on the rights of others. There is no First Amendment right to protest anywhere one wants. CAIR is arguing that they have the right to harass Jews directly outside their synagogues and community centers and that they have every right to intimidate Jews and make them feel unsafe in their own places of worship.

Disgustingly, CAIR frames the right to harass Jews as something that makes Muslims feel safer themselves. In May, protesters targeted the heavily Orthodox Jewish town of Jackson, NJ. The mayor said that they had not applied for a permit for the protest, and CAIR-NJ said that this response was anti-Islamic and made the antisemitic protesters feel unsafe:

CAIR-NJ condemns Jackson Township and its mayor’s hostile treatment towards individuals wanting to exercise their first amendment rights. Their treatment of protestors as threatening and dangerous is harmful and puts them at risk. By telling the community to remain vigilant in the face of peaceful assembly creates the harmful rhetoric that pro-Palestinian protestors are dangerous, violent and even implicitly criminal.

CAIR-NJ urges Jackson Township to aid in providing a safe space for individuals wanting to exercise their right to peacefully protest for any reason.

To CAIR, mosques must be safe spaces for Muslims. Schools must be safe spaces for Muslims. And even protests targeting Jews must also be safe spaces for Muslims.

But for CAIR, there cannot be any safe spaces for 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!

The Borat-style guerilla documentary "Am I Racist?" shows conservative commentator Matt Walsh attending a DEI (Diversity, Equity sand Inclusion) training program then going undercover as a pony-tailed woke progressive to actually become a DEI "expert" and ultimately trainer himself.

It does a nice job exposing the inanity of DEI and how racist the anti-racists are. Beyond that, he shows how the top DEI speakers, like "White Fragility" author Robin DiAngelo, get caught up in their own stupidity when asked sincere-sounding questions.

While there are laugh-out loud moments, it was a bit too long for my tastes - I think it would have been a good one-hour film.

One of the best parts of the film was halfway through. Walsh, after hearing numerous "experts" claim that white people are irredeemably racist and must feel guilty forever, not to mention that America itself is a terrible country that should be taken down, then interviews both the stereotypical racists and their victims. He visits a biker bar with muscular Trump posters on the wall and asks the people about their whiteness and how racist they are, and they all say that they don't give a damn about skin color when they interact with people. He then goes to a poor southern predominantly Black town and asks residents if they feel that they are victims of racism, and they agree they are not - and they love America.

By the end of the movie, Walsh becomes a DEI trainer himself, making up absurd exercises for people to eliminate their "whiteness" and even being a guest on local TV shows to discuss his class. He makes thousands of dollars charging people to feel white guilt. (To their credit, several people leave the class when he goes over the top, but most stay at least until the "self-flagellation" exercise.)

While it is easy to laugh at the real DEI training sessions Walsh films, I was troubled by thinking how Jews would be and probably are treated in these sessions. It is impossible for the sessions to not be hostile towards Jews, because they consider Jews to be privileged whites who cannot possibly imagine what it is like to be discriminated against, when antisemitism predates racism by, oh, about 3,000 years.

I couldn't help wondering whether I would face consequences from my employer if I would challenge this false narrative of the lives of my ancestors, my Holocaust survivor parents or myself. The "microaggressions," not to mention real aggression, that the DEI classes complain about are part and parcel of the daily lives of visible Jews. Wearing a yarmulka outside New York City and several heavily Jewish towns makes one the object of curiosity at the workplace, at the market and on the street. I did grow up with people throwing pennies at me or stealing my yarmulka. A sukkah I built in college was found destroyed when I returned on the intermediate days of the holiday. (It didn't even occur to me to call the police. No one talked about "hate crimes" in those days.). Today, Hasidic Jews have to tolerate "oppressed" youths stealing their hats or knocking them to the ground and beating them, for fun.

Jews only became considered white at roughly the time that whiteness became considered oppressive.

So for me, the movie was not as enjoyable as it should have been because, to Jews, DEI is not just something to be mocked but something dangerous. It is used to justify modern antisemitism.

I don't blame Walsh for not bringing up this topic, because that is not the point of the movie, but it is a little harder to laugh when I can easily see how these sessions would target Jews as the most guilty of white, colonialist, oppressive people.

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!