Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, November 12, 2018

11/12 Links Pt2: At Antisemitic Conference In Tehran, Iranian Presidency Official Denies Holocaust; Roger Waters’ anti-Israel message ignites ‘wish you weren’t here’ campaign

From Ian:

Anti-Semitism watchdog Canary Mission exposes Jewish Voice for Peace in new report

As we’ve highlighted in several prior posts, Canary Mission has come under attack and its been controversial from the start with accusations that its website echoes “long-discredited and horrific blacklists of the McCarthy era” and that publicizing the outrageous rhetoric and conduct that BDS-affiliated college students engage in could damage their careers if prospective employers found out about it.

As a result, there have been multiple attempts to deplatform Canary Mission and to discredit those who fund it:
Twitter suspends anti-Semitism watchdog Canary Mission after campaign by anti-Israel activists (UPDATE)
Anti-Israel blacklisters complain they are unfairly being blacklisted

But as we noted, Canary Mission is reviled precisely because it’s so effective:
It shines a bright light on the dirty underbelly of the anti-Israel movement in the most shattering way possible: By quoting what they actually say and showing what they publicly post online.”

Released last week, the group’s new report covering the fringe radical group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is a perfect example of the “huge public service” that Canary Mission provides by pulling the mask off so-called social justice groups and activists who profess to work for peace and human rights but in reality do little to advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution or to improve the lives of Palestinians and just work to “make life hell on campus for Jewish students.”

JVP Week begins now! Each day this week, we will be releasing new information, blogs and profiles dedicated to @jvplive; their ties to Israel-haters, their obsession with BDS and their quest to ruin Birthright- all will be exposed this week! #JVPWeek https://t.co/jfUOc14OQ7 pic.twitter.com/xnr50tPxKL
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) November 5, 2018

Below I provide a short overview of Canary Mission’s new report on JVP and its two accompanying videos. I also flag some JVP activities that Canary Mission’s new report missed, but that we’ve covered in earlier LI posts.
Canary Mission’s Report on Jewish Voice for Peace

Canary Mission released its “long-awaited, exhaustive, and biggest campaign yet” covering JVP this past week, posting to its website and social media accounts a new short blog post each day from Monday, November 5th through Friday, November 9th.

Each blog post exposes a different aspect of JVP’s activism with the aim of “proving that they truly are not for ‘Peace’.”

Here’s the five-part series:

JVP’s Funders: Promoting an Anti-Israel Narrative

JVP and SJP: Supporting BDS, Supporting Each Other

JVP and Anti-Semitism

The Anti-Birthright Coalition

JVP’s Connection & Collaboration with INN

Hebron observer force fails to meet its own code of ethics, official says

The international observer mission in Hebron is tainted with corruption, which its officials are ‎tirelessly working to cover up, a former officer ‎with the organization recently alleged.‎

The Temporary International Presence in Hebron, or ‎‎‎TIPH, is a civilian observer mission that was established ‎‎‎in the wake of the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs ‎‎‎massacre, in which Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein ‎‎‎killed 29 Muslim worshippers and wounded 125 others ‎‎‎as they gathered for a prayer service inside the ‎‎‎holy site. ‎

The TIPH mission, which comprises personnel from ‎‎‎Italy, Norway, ‎Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey, was ‎‎‎originally launched at the invitation of the Israeli ‎‎‎government and the Palestinian Authority, with the aim ‎‎‎of monitoring and recording any violation of ‎‎‎international humanitarian law.‎

Recently, however, there has been a growing number ‎‎‎of complaints alleging its members are ‎violently targeting the Jewish ‎‎‎community in Hebron. ‎These allegations have been ‎compounded by accusations made by a former TIPH ‎officer, suggesting that mission officials are embroiled in fraud and perjury, which they spare no ‎effort to cover up, including by smuggling TIPH ‎members out of Israel to evade punishment.‎

Last week, Bennet Nygaard Solum, who served as ‎TIPH's chief procurement and financial officer twice in the last decade, testified before an Oslo-based notary ‎that "the TIPH fails to meet its own code of ethics. It ‎disregards Israeli and Palestinian law in Hebron and ‎prefers to protect its own members from any ‎allegations of wrongdoing, with all that that ‎entails."‎

Roger Waters’ anti-Israel message ignites ‘wish you weren’t here’ campaign by Latin American Jews

Jewish institutions in Argentina have launched a campaign against former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters over his support for the boycott Israel movement.

Waters’ “Us +Them” tour has been traveling throughout Latin America for the past month and will continue into December.

The Argentina Zionist Organization’s online campaign urges residents of the region to reject the British singer’s presence and upcoming concerts. The campaign calls Waters “one of the great anti-Semites of our time” to protest what it called his hate speech.

“We, Latin Americans, say to Roger Waters – we wish you weren’t here!” – echoing the Pink Floyd song “Wish You Were Here,” its Change.org campaign says.

Officials at the Simon Wiesenthal Center officials called on the tour’s corporate sponsors, including Entel, Cencosud, Grupo Aval and Bac Credomatic y Citibanamex, to withdraw their financial support. The center also said Waters’ Latin American hosts should denounce his abuse of their hospitality and his message of hate.

On Friday, Waters participated in an event of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel in Buenos Aires, a day before performing there.

“We must insist to our local governments to pressure Israel, in favor of the human rights of the Palestinians,” he said at the program titled “A World Without Walls,” organized by BDS Argentina.

Waters at his shows has displayed a pig with a Star of David.

The first sentence of this article in Al Madenah News, by Dr. Mustafa Yousef Alddawi, to mark the centennial of the end of World War I, is one of the most absurd things I've ever read in Arabic media. And that's saying a lot.

"There is no doubt that Palestine was the greatest victim of the First World War," it begins.

During WWI, Palestine had a population of 800,000.

The number of people killed during the war was between 15-19 million.

The Ottoman Empire, Germany, France, the British Empire, Russia, Italy and Austria each lost more people than the entire population of Palestine.

Obviously he is claiming that the division of the Arab world by the victors of the war, which included allowing Jews to return to a sliver of land where they are the indigenous people, is the most catastrophic thing to ever happen to anyone, ever.

Palestinians are the masters of making everything about them. They are the biggest victims of the Holocaust, they are the biggest victims of both world wars, they are the biggest victims of "colonialism," they are the world's biggest victims, period.

They actually used to be able to make headway with these arguments in the Arab world. Those days are gone.

The article ends with a threat against the world:

The Palestinian cause will be the cause of future wars, the effects of which may be no less than the world wars.... It has been a hundred years since the founding of the Palestinian cause, and it is still burning and burning, and it will remain so until the Palestinians regain their rights and return to their homes.

Yes, this Palestinian writer is saying that unless the world gives the Palestinians what they demand - the destruction of Israel - we can expect a World War III that could dwarf the others.

I've seen lots of mob-style threats from Palestinians, but this one takes the cake.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

One of the best books of 2018 provides some answers to those bewildered by the crazy happenings on college campuses, Israel-related and not, over the last few years.

The Coddling of the American Mind, written by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt expands on an article the authors wrote for The Atlantic in 2015, proposing an explanation for anti-free-speech phenomena they then saw metastasizing on college campuses.

Lukianoff is the President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an organization created to fight attempts to stifle free speech at colleges and universities. Historically, the group supported students dealing with campus speech codes being imposed by college administrators. But starting in the early 2010s, Lukianoff began to notice that many demands to limit what people could say or think were coming not from those attending, rather than running, schools.

Such attacks on free speech have taken on many forms, from attempts to label impolite or insensitive behavior as “microagressions” that required redress (and sometimes punishment), to “trigger warnings” alerting students that dangerous ideas were about to be read or discussed, to “de-platforming” speakers with controversial things to say.

Lukianoff also noticed how explanations students provided in their demands for controls of (and over) what could be uttered were couched in the language of safety. “Safe spaces” where students could protect themselves against ideas they didn’t like is one example of what he observed, but he also noticed how controversial ideas were being branded as a form of violence, against which students needed protection.

In addition to his professional work, Lukianoff spent years working through depression with the help of a technique called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Part of CBT involves identifying “cognitive distortions” that adversely impact reasoning. These include “catastrophizing,” magnifying the significance of small setbacks in ways that maximize personal psychological damage, or “jumping to conclusions” interpreting other people’s behavior in the worst possible light. As anti-speech activists on campus talked about words as a form of violence, or interpreted simple rudeness as punishable bigotry, Lukianoff and his co-author began to see destructive cognitive distortions playing out within whole communities, rather than individuals.

That co-author was Jonathan Haidt, best-selling author of The Righteous Mind and The Happiness Hypothesis, who was just the person to elaborate on the broader meanings behind the kind of misbehavior we have seen unfold at school after school during the last decade. A thoughtful social-science researcher struggling to help society move past the “we vs. they” mentality that is destroying individuals and institutions, Haidt shares his co-author’s goal of containing and, ideally, turning back the tide of horribles currently infecting centers of learning.

“Why now?” the authors ask as they searched to discover the source of behavior not seen before start of this decade. What happened that might explain not just student actions but the language of danger, violence and safety ascribed not to acts but to ideas?

The generation of students who entered college during this period were not Millennials, but a post-Millennial generation that had grown up with different historical touchpoints than most of you reading this. Infants and toddlers at the time of 9/11, this generation understood the War on Terror as a slogan that seemed to have gotten American into intractable, inexplicable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Cold War was history, not a living memory, much like World War II is to my generation. If political identity begins to form during adolescence, this generation’s identity evolved during an era of increasingly heated rhetoric and uncompromising ideology Haight warns could destroy democracy.

This generation also grew up when parenting practices were changing to embrace what the authors call a culture of “Safety-ism” in which keeping children safe at all cost spread from protecting them from physical harm (such as being kidnapped or hurt in a fight) to protecting them from psychological dangers (like poor grades or the fallout from interpersonal disputes between peers). Previous generations had to suffer the consequences of their actions, but in an age of Safety-ism, adults and authority figures were there to smooth the way if anything went wrong in a young person’s life.

Changes in parenting behavior led to changes in what this generation experienced during childhood as free, self-organized play was replaced by “playdates” scheduled between parents, and activities where children got together to engage in sports, arts or other fun planned and supervised by adults.

The Internet fits into the story as well. As careful researchers, Haidt and Lukianoff are not ready to propose theories beyond what early research shows about the impact smartphones and social media are having on the young. But it’s hard to not notice how many stories they tell involving “thought-crimes” originating in Facebook postings and mobs being organized on Twitter.

Moving from this background, the authors tap a number of ideas I’ve written about previously, such as a Culture of Victimization trying to supplant a Culture of Dignity. For in a victimhood culture, people are fighting for as high a position in the hierarchy of victimhood as possible, while also being ready to turn to authority figures (such as college administrators) to provide them the protection other adults have afforded this generation their entire lives.

In addition to providing cogent analysis, the authors also include a detailed appendix of recommendations for parents, universities and the wider society to help kids develop the kind of anti-fragility that should be the nature of all young people hoping to become genuine adults.

Fights over Israel and the Middle East that have roiled campuses for several decades are not addressed specifically in the book, but the insights of Coddling can be combined with other analysis to help better flesh out what’s happening on campuses and, ideally, what can be done to solve this problem. And it is to this analysis that I shall turn to next.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

11/12 Links Pt1: Israeli special forces officer killed, another injured in Gaza raid; At Least 10 Israelis Wounded in Massive Gaza Rocket Barrage; Netanyahu says Israel ‘shielding’ Europe from terrorism

From Ian:

Israeli special forces officer killed, another injured in Gaza raid

An Israeli special forces officer was killed and another was moderately wounded during a night-time operation in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the army said. The incident sparked intense clashes between the Israeli military and the Hamas terror group.

At least seven Palestinian terrorists were killed in the firefight and airstrikes that followed the Israeli raid, including a senior Hamas commander, according to Palestinian officials. Six of the Palestinian fatalities were said by Hamas to be its members. The seventh was a member of the Nasser Salahdin Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, Hamas said in a statement.

Israeli officials later indicated that the incident was an operation that went awry but not an assassination attempt.

The military censor barred news of the IDF officer’s death and the second officer’s injuries from being published for several hours until their families could be notified. The names of the soldiers were not immediately released.

The fighting set off a massive round of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, and by morning 17 rockets or mortar shells were fired at southern Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late Sunday he would cut short an official state visit to Paris and return to Israel immediately.

Israeli Fire Kills Seven During Undercover Raid in Gaza, IDF Officer Killed

Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in air strikes and an undercover raid that Hamas said targeted one of its commanders and the Israeli military said left one of its officers dead.

The Israeli incursion and air attacks drew rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled enclave, with sirens sounding in Israeli communities along the border. The military said its defenses intercepted two of the launches. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage on the Israeli side of the frontier.

The violence prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut short a visit to Paris, where he had been gathering with world leaders for a World War One commemoration.

Hamas said the incident began when assailants in a passing car opened fire on a group of its armed men, killing one of its commanders. Hamas gunmen gave chase as the car sped back towards the border with Israel, Hamas said in a statement.

During the pursuit, Israeli aircraft fired more than 40 missiles in the area, according to witnesses.

Medics and Hamas officials said at least seven people were killed, four of them militants, including Hamas commander Nour Baraka. It was unclear if the other fatalities included gunmen.

"Seven Palestinians" were killed in #Gaza last night, but who were these people? #Hamas knows, and you should know too: These were certainly not civilian casualties. pic.twitter.com/kQ6LMPu8D7
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 12, 2018

Following the discovery on October 22 of a mail bomb that was sent to the home of financier George Soros, the media responded with the claim that opposition to Soros was based on Antisemitism.

The Guardian headline was 'Dripping with poison of antisemitism': the demonization of George Soros'

The Guardian article quotes from a post on the ADL blog, written 11 days before the attack - "The Anti-Semitism Lurking Behind George Soros Conspiracy Theories."

In that post, The ADL warns against:

well-worn anti-Semitic tropes such as control of the media or banks; references to undermining societies or destabilizing countries; or language that hearkens back to the medieval blood libels and the characterization of Jews as evil, demonic, or agents of the antichrist.

The Washington Post joins the chorus with Conspiracy theories about Soros aren’t just false. They’re anti-Semitic.

And the New York Times?

Already last year The New York Times came out with Israel’s War Against George Soros, an op-ed contributed by Mairav Zonszein, a journalist who blogs at 972mag.com.

In the op-ed, Zonszein writes that Soros is pro-Israel, yet is attacked because of his criticism of Israel:

“For years Mr. Soros largely avoided Israel-related philanthropy, but he became involved in 2008 when he contributed to J Street, a moderate pro-Israel, pro-peace lobbying group based in Washington, after it was founded.”

George Soros, from a screen capture of a YouTube video

Well, that's one way of putting it.

Ira Stoll responded to the op-ed in The Algemeiner, highlighting Nine Flaws With New York Times ‘Israel’s War on George Soros’ Article. Stoll noted a pattern:

o Already back in 1995, Soros admitted to the New Yorker how detached he felt from Israel: “I don’t deny the Jews their right to a national existence — but I don’t want to be part of it.”

o In 2003, Soros publicly blamed Israeli and American policies for antisemitism. For its part, Commentary Magazine noted that “Soros likened the behavior of Israel to that of the Nazis, invoking some psychological jargon about victims becoming victimizers.

o Soros described himself in a 2007 piece in the New York Review of Books as neither a Zionist nor “a practicing Jew” -- and he denounced denouncing Israel as bloodthirsty:

“The current policy of not seeking a political solution but pursuing military escalation — not just an eye for an eye but roughly speaking ten Palestinian lives for every Israeli one — has reached a particularly dangerous point.”
o Far from becoming involved in Israel-related topics only since 2008, as Zonszein claimed, Soros is a longtime and major funder of Human Rights Watch - an organization so critical of Israel that its founder abandoned it.

The actions Soros takes and the organizations he supports derive from that attitude toward the Jewish right to a national existence:

"I don't want to be a part of it"

This distance sheds light on what groups Soros pours money into and what kinds of groups he creates.

In 2016, Tablet Magazine came out with an article on Soros Hack Reveals Evidence of Systemic Anti-Israel Bias. Soros' network of philanthropic organizations -- The Open Society Foundations -- was hacked and its confidential reports made available on the website DC Leaks.

o the Soros network has given $2,688,561 in 14 grants since 2001 to Adalah, which accuses Israel of war crimes in international forums, and has called on governments to sever their diplomatic relations with Israel.
o $1,083,000 went to I’lam, a Palestinian media center which accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, claiming that “the practical meaning of the Nakba undermines the moral and ethical foundation of Zionism and, hence, of the State of Israel.”

Then there is the OSF's Arab Regional Office (ARO). A 2014 document reviewed ARO's Palestine/Israel international advocacy portfolio:

According to a leaked report, the Arab Regional Office was motivated by

“a particular shift in political dynamics particularly in the US reflected by the publication of the Walt and Mearsheimer article ‘The Israel Lobby’ in Spring 2006 which pointed out the lobby’s role in, among other things, influencing the Iraq invasion.” Another encouraging shift, according to the report, is the rise of the international movement to boycott Israel: “A number of factors make this a good moment to review this portfolio,” it reads, “including some new or improved opportunities we may choose to exploit. In recent years there’s been heightened international solidarity around Palestinians’ rights, the rise of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and other economic levers, and increased use and traction of arts and culture by Palestinians as a means to raise awareness of violations and the impact of the conflict.” [emphasis added]

Soros and the OSF decided not to work with the concerned parties -- Israel and the Palestinian Arabs -- but instead to work on exerting external pressure on Israel, forming various groups in the US and the EU, and in Washington DC to be trained in advocacy.

Groups were also formed in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza,

creating a web of small organizations supporting each other’s goals in the media, vis-à-vis foreign governments, and elsewhere. This, traditionally, is how an echo chamber works: by creating an enclosed system of like-minded partisans that appears sufficiently diverse in scope, it is often able to amplify its messages and lend them credibility. A number of the Soros-funded organizations, for example, including Adalah and others, have been key in promoting the false accusation that the Israel Defense Forces wantonly massacred innocent Palestinian civilians in Jenin in 2002. Coming from a plethora of well-funded Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, all geared exclusively towards communicating with European and American government and lobbying groups, these false accusations were reported extensively in the international media and were widely considered factually true. [emphasis added]

Soros is not some Israel-related philanthropist involved in moderate pro-Israel, pro-peace lobbying.
Neither is he evil incarnate.

He has the money and the means to push his agenda.

There is nothing wrong in pointing out what that agenda is -- and pushing back.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

List of Louis Farrakhan's antisemitic statements demolish his apologists' arguments

One of the more bizarre attempts to whitewash Louis Farrakhan's antisemitism comes from Tim Wise, whose article I mentioned in my last post.

The Nation’s theology is not steeped in anti-Jewishness. Most of Farrakhan’s speeches, of which there are thousands, make no mention of Jews at all.

See? He's not so bad! He sometimes talks about other stuff besides Jews!

Here is a list from Jewish Virtual Library of some of Farrahan's statements over the years. Seeing them in one place is a bit sobering, and anyone who tries to downplay his antisemitism after reading this is part of the problem.

Notice also that Wise's article pretended that Farrakhan's problem with Jews has nothing to do with the reasons neo-Nazis hate Jews. And yet here we see him say that Jews control the media, Jews control the banks, Jews control the governments of the world. There is literally no difference.

“Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.”

Sermon, 5/27/18

“The Jews have control over those agencies of government. When you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door.”

Saviour’s Day Speech, 2/25/18

“Powerful Jews are my enemy.”

Saviour’s Day Speech, 2/25/18

“Jews were responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out, turning men into women and women into men…. White folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled a cover off of that Satanic Jew, and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through. You good Jews better separate because the satanic ones will take you to hell with them because that’s where they are headed.”

Saviour’s Day Speech, 2/25/18

“It is now becoming apparent that there were many Israelis and Zionist Jews in key roles in the 9/11 attacks. Israelis had foreknowledge of the attacks... We know that many Jews received a text message not to come to work on September 11”

Saviour’s Day Speech, 2015

"They [the Jews] are the greatest controllers of Black minds, Black intelligence. They write the scripts -- the foolish scripts on television that our people portray. They are the movie moguls that feature us in these silly, degrading, degenerate roles. The great recording companies that portray our people in such a filthy and low-rating way, yet they would not allow such a man as Michael Jackson to say one word that they thought would besmirch their reputation, but they put us before the world as clowns and as purveyors of filth. No, I will fight that."

Meet The Press interview, 10/18/98

"Of course, they [the Jews] have a very small number of people but they are the most powerful in the world, they have the power to do good and they have the power to do evil...Now what do the Jews do best? Well, they have been the best in finance that the world has ever known...They finance a lot of stuff in the world, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they are not good politicians, they are the worst politicians because they don't recognize really their friends and as well their enemies..."

Saviours' Day Speech, Chicago, 2/22/98

"I believe that for the small numbers of Jewish people in the United States, they exercise a tremendous amount of influence on the affairs of government...Yes, they exercise extraordinary control, and Black people will never be free in this country until they are free of that kind of control..."

Meet The Press interview, 4/14/97

"To continue to point out the truth of that control and how that control never will allow us to be full and completely men, free, justified, and equal. Why should we be controlled by the power, influence, and money of others? We should not be under that kind of control...going to Jewish philanthropists, begging them for money to support our causes, and through that money, there is control, and that kind of control limits the freedom of our people to speak freely, write freely, think freely, and act as free men..."

Meet The Press interview, 4/14/97

"And you do with me as is written, but remember that I have warned you that Allah will punish you. You are wicked deceivers of the American people. You have sucked their blood. You are not real Jews, those of you that are not real Jews. You are the synagogue of Satan, and you have wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government, and you are deceiving and sending this nation to hell. But I warn you in the name of Allah, you would be wise to leave me alone. But if you choose to crucify me, know that Allah will crucify you."

Saviours' Day Speech, Chicago, 2/25/96

"I don't own Hollywood. Who depicted Black people? Who writes the books? Who writes the plays, the songs that make us look less than human? Do you mean to tell me that Jews have never done any evil to Black people?...Were they not involved in the slave trade? Yes, they were...and to the extent that they were involved, somebody has to bring them to account. And I believe that has fallen on me."

Interview with New York Amsterdam News, 1/8/94

On “Jewish Conspiracies ”

“The false Jew will lead you to filth and indecency. That’s who runs show business. That’s who runs the record industry. That’s who runs television.”

Sermon, 5/27/18

“The Jews have control over those agencies of government. When you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door.”

Saviour’s Day Speech, 2/25/18

“White people running Mexico are Mexican-Jews.”

Saviour’s Day Speech, 2/25/18

“They [Israel and Jews] have been working for years to control your representatives in Congress, in the Senate, in the House of Representatives. They don’t fear America because they control it from within”

Saviour's Day Speech, 2015

Mentioning National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and presidential advisor Rahm Emanuel, Farrakhan said, "Every Jewish person that is around the president is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States of America...And sometimes, we have to raise the question, 'Are you more loyal to the state of Israel than you are to the best interests of the United States of America.'"

News conference at the National Press Club, 10/19/98

"I look at Lucianne Goldberg, Linda Tripp, Monica Lewinsky, and I ask myself, 'Why was this introduced at this time when Netanyahu was being pressured by the president to give up more land on the West Bank,'...I think we need to look deeper into this than just what appears on the surface."

Meet The Press interview, 10/18/98

"Don't be afraid of the Zionists. Don't be afraid of their power, Mr. Clinton. Stop bowing down."

Speech at Howard University, Washington DC, 10/16/98

"They call them [Hezbollah] terrorists, I call them freedom fighters...No one asks why they would do such a thing. Why would they do such a thing? What has driven them to this point? That's what the UN, the U.S. and Europe doesn't want to deal with because the Zionists have control in England, in Europe, in the United States and around the world."

Speech at the District Council 33 Union Hall,
Philadelphia, PA, 4/22/96

"How did we get into World War II? You say Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Yes, they did, but what were the forces that created in Japan the desire or the need to force them to attack America? You don't know that. But when America went to war after the attack on Pearl Harbor, she had to borrow money. There were the international bankers again. They financed all sides. And how many millions of Americans lost their lives? Suppose Hitler was trying to destroy the international bankers controlling Europe, but he went about it by attacking a whole people. All Jews are not responsible for the evil of the few who do evil...But certain Jews have used Judaism as a shield."

Saviours' Day Speech, Chicago, 2/26/95

On the Holocaust

"The Jews have been so bad at politics they lost half their population in the Holocaust. They thought they could trust in Hitler, and they helped him get the Third Reich on the road."

Saviours' Day Speech, Chicago, 2/22/98

"German Jews financed Hitler right here in America...International bankers financed Hitler and poor Jews died while big Jews were at the root of what you call the Holocaust...Little Jews died while big Jews made money. Little Jews [were] being turned into soap while big Jews washed themselves with it. Jews [were] playing violin, Jews [were] playing music, while other Jews [were] marching into the gas chambers..."

Mosque Maryam, Chicago, 3/19/95

On Jewish Involvement in the Slave Trade

"[U]ntil Jews apologize for their hand in that ugly slave trade; and until the Jewish rabbis and the Talmudic scholars that made up the Hamitic myth -- that we were the children of Ham, doomed and cursed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water -- apologize, then I have nothing to apologize for."

Interview in Swing magazine, 9/24/96

"How did I get to be an anti-Semite...What have I done? I told the truth about Jewish involvement in the slave trade. Your own writers say the same thing. Well, if they're not anti-Semitic for writing it, how the hell am I anti-Semitic for reading what they wrote and then saying it?...I didn't write your history, you wrote it. And then the sad thing, when you confront them with what their scholars have said, they say, 'Well is this part of the old conspiracy talk?'"

Mosque Maryam, Chicago, 3/19/95

On Israel

"They [Israel] wouldn't allow me to go to Jerusalem. If I had gone they might have stoned me. I didn't want to repeat history. I know they stoned Jesus. I know they've killed the prophets of God there."

Saviours' Day Speech, Chicago, 2/22/98

"I believe that for the small numbers of Jewish people in the United States, they exercise a tremendous amount of influence on the affairs of government. ... Mr. President, Mr. Clinton, instead of exercising the strength of a man whose country contributes at least $4 billion every year to the state of Israel, America has influence in Israel but is not using that influence in a constructive way, but, rather, pays lip service to the Palestinians while she bows to the dictates of Netanyahu and the strong political Jewish lobby."

Meet The Press interview, 4/14/97

At the end of a talk to students at the University of Tehran law school, Farrakhan led the chanting of the common Iranian refrains “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” and was joined by members of the audience.

Tasnim News Agency, 11/4/2018

On Dialogue with Jews

"I want to sit down and dialogue with members of the Jewish community with no preconditions. That demand for me to apologize comes out of an arrogance that makes one feel that if I am critical of Jewish behavior relative to Black people, that all of a sudden I have to apologize for being critical...I don't think that I should have to apologize unless I am shown that there is something that I have said that is not correct. Then I would have no problem...to ask for forgiveness..."

Meet The Press interview, 10/12/97

"...I'm afraid that you [Jewish people] will come to regret the day that I offered you a chance to let us sit down together and dialogue and you, in your emotional reaction, rejected that offer...You will [regret it] because if my influence and growth and power in America does not diminish and it will not, by the help of God, then what benefit would it be to you not to sit down and dialogue with me when the racial problem is not getting any better..."

Fox News Sunday interview, 3/30/97

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In the wake of #MeToo icon Alyssa Milano saying that the leaders of the Women's March have not distanced themselves enough from antisemite Louis Farrakhan, faux person of color Linda Sarsour recommends an article at Medium as a "must read for white sisters."

Written by Women's March coordinator Cassady Fendlay it claims that Milano is a racist by her showing concern for antisemitism.

Really.

This moment, with Alyssa Milano, is exactly the type of thing black women were expecting. Alyssa is acting in accordance with the tradition of white women who use the labor of women of color when it’s convenient for them, and then use their power to trash those women when it becomes more expedient. Without being invited to speak at all, Alyssa brought up a 7 month old controversy in an attempt to force women of color to do exactly what she wants them to do.

Wow.

The article goes on to say, sure, Farrakhan says things that are antisemitic, but look at all the wonderful things he does! Using the same words we've seen of anti-Zionists defending Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, we are told:

If you spend any time working inside of prisons — which most white people will never even see — you would also observe the Nation of Islam providing services and support to black people who are incarcerated. Their prison ministry is focused on people getting out and becoming productive members of the black community, often through roles in providing security and peacekeeping.

Didn't Bill Cosby also do some wonderful things? Does that make up for his being a rapist?

Somehow, inciting people against Jews is not "bad enough" to make up for the "good things" Nation of Islam does.

The article goes on to say that no Jew needs to worry about Nation of Islam rhetoric:

All of this isn’t to say that hate speech doesn’t matter. It does. But white supremacists are not joining the Nation of Islam, not now nor ever. And because of their proximity to power in our society — literal access to the highest office in the nation — real white supremacists are who we all need to be focused on, together. As Tim Wise insightfully writes, there is a history here.

So somehow Farrakhan's hate speech isn't bad because - try to follow this logic, folks - white nationalists don't support him.

The Tim Wise article referenced was another that tried to minimize Farrakhan's hate as no big deal. But that article inadvertently explained exactly why it matters:

For Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, and random black folks who sometimes say foul shit about Jews, the context is quite different. Indeed, in those cases, the context seems akin to what James Baldwin (who was, in many ways, quite the Judeophile) wrote in his famous essay, “Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White.”
As Baldwin explained, black antipathy toward Jews, when it manifests, is rooted in a few very specific and historically contingent forces. First, too often the “white people” whom black folks had to deal with (especially in Northern urban areas), and with whom many had negative interactions, were Jewish. Not because Jews really held power, but because Jews have long been the middlemen between real power and the most powerless (blacks and other people of color in the U.S.).
So, as Baldwin noted, Jews were often the landlords or property management folks (though not building owners) who would shake down tenants for excessive rent on dilapidated apartments, or the pawn shop owners to whom blacks had to turn for high-interest loans when banks shut them out, or the shop owners who overcharged them for out-of-date food.
And additionally, he explains, black folks resent the way that Jewish suffering is recognized “as part of the moral history of the world and the Jew is recognized as a contributor [to] the world’s history,” something he notes, “is not true” for blacks.

Wise is saying that black antisemitism is somehow less toxic than neo-Nazi antisemitism because it has different roots - and it is at least somewhat justified.

But what Wise doesn't quite realize he is saying is that there is a relationship between Farrakhan's rhetoric to the black person who resents Jews for reasons real or imagined.

As we have seen, in New York - one of the few places we have statistics - antisemitic violence is in a large part done by blacks. Blacks are attacking Jews in New York all the time. The videos that have been publicized of black people attacking random Jews have been horrific.

And for each physical attack, there are more cases of black people berating Jews in subways and on the streets.

There is a direct line from Farrakhan's antisemitic slanders and black people attacking Jews, as in the recent incident where a follower of Farrakhan screamed at a Jew in a subway while onlookers did nothing.

But Wise, Fendlay, Sarsour and other Farrakhan and Women's March apologists are claiming that blacks attacking Jews are somehow justified. Jews are the property managers! Jews are pawnbrokers! Jews take advantage of black people and when they attack Hasidim, they have a valid reason (as opposed to neo-Nazis.)

This is sick logic. The apologists for Farrakhan all say, sure, his antisemitism is not to be celebrated, but...in the end, he has a point, you know? Blacks attacking Jews has a rich historical justification. And neo-Nazis are the real enemy of Jews. A few Hasidim who are the target of beatings and shootings and mobs seemingly daily are hardly worth mentioning. They really should be worrying about white nationalists. It's almost racist for them to be in fear of people of color.

Just as long as the Jews of New York don't look so Jewy, they won't have any problems.

If one is going to blame the Republican party for creating an atmosphere where white nationalists can attack Jews, then one can and should certainly blame Farrakhan for directly inciting his tens of thousands of followers to hate Jews. Moreover, no mainstream conservative is justifying white nationalist antisemitism, but these articles by mainstream leftists indeed justify black antisemitism by comparing it with neo-Nazis and finding that it has more "logic" behind it.

To Wise, Fendlay, Sarsour and apparently many others on the left, Jewish lives really don't matter, unless they are attacked by white nationalists.

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11/11 Links: Kristallnacht and the Righteous Australian aboriginal William Cooper; Armistice Day and Jewry: The Centennial; German NGO rescinds award to Women's March due to antisemitism

From Ian:

Kristallnacht and the Righteous Australian aboriginal William Cooper

Otto Jontof-Hutter, was arrested in Stuttgart during the German state sponsored pogrom of 9-10 November 1938, which became known as Kristallnacht.

What went through his mind as he was marched away with thousands of others, is anyone’s guess, but the twice wounded Mr Jontof-Hutter, a German hero of the First World War who had also won the Iron Cross, was sent to Dachau Concentration Camp, guest of the NS regime elected in 1933. People who knew him described him as kindly, loyal, hardworking, with a keen sense of humour.

Mr Jontof-Hutter never saw himself other than a patriotic and proud German, overlooking that he was a Jew belonging to an indigenous people that had roamed the plains of the Sharon and hills of Judea and Samaria some 3500 years ago. His family had been Germans for many hundreds of years and the idea of his origins— far down the mists of time—probably was not something he consciously thought about. He was a German of the Mosaic faith and that was that. Quite simple.

He did not look different from other Germans nor was his lifestyle any different from his middle class compatriots. In winter, he enjoyed langlauf skiing with his wife Flora, and their two sons Erich and Werner. Sundays they generally liked to go for a walk and perhaps enjoy some coffee and cake. Monday it was back to work at his master tailor business that had, until Nazi laws were promulgated, supplied ceremonial uniforms to the German military.

On the other side of the world in Australia, William Cooper, also from an indigenous community, grew up in an aboriginal mission station near Moama in the Riverina in New South Wales. Mr Cooper, a member of the Yorta-Yorta people made a living as a sheep shearer and fencer. Later he also opened up a fishmonger shop in nearby Mulwala—almost unheard of for an aboriginal in the days of the early 20th century. William Cooper not only sold the fish, but caught the fish himself in the mighty Murray River, that runs 2375 km through south- east Australia.

Otto, a Jew in Stuttgart and William, raised a non-Christian (though converting later in life) Aboriginal in a small Australian settlement lived far apart, both in distance and in culture. They had only two things in common—being members of an ancient culture and their decency. They never knew each other but in one way, their lives crossed by virtue of circumstances.

Armistice Day and Jewry: The Centennial

On November 11, at 11:00 a.m., 1918, the guns which had pounded the Earth into oblivion in search of human targets for four seemingly interminable horrendous years, were finally laid down. Humanity could breathe again.

The German surrender signified the end of the most destructive war up to this point in history. Forty-two million troops fought for the Entente, whose original forces included France, Russia and Great Britain, and 23,000,000 for the Central Powers, which primarily comprised Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

Of the over one and a half million Jews who served, one hundred and seventy thousand fell in the war.
Over nine million troops died on the battlefield. Many more were wounded and scarred for life. Millions of civilians also perished.

The Jews were caught in the middle.

Of the over one and a half million Jews who served, one hundred and seventy thousand fell in the war.

Jews also suffered as refugees. Well over one million faced expulsions in Eastern Europe. Many Jews were forced to endure devastating pogroms. With the armistice, despite all hopes, the suffering was far from over. Two and a half years earlier, the editor of the journal, The Jewish Advocate, Jacob DeHaas correctly observed, “The rising tide of chauvinism is everywhere promoting a fresh anti-Semitism. The reward of the Jews for bravery and patriotism will, within Europe, be hatred. This is not prophesy. The facts lie too near fulfillment for any such claim.”

Indeed, the sacrifices and loyalty displayed by Jewry to their respective nations was to little avail in the pursuit of equality.

Netanyahu joins world leaders marking 100th anniversary of WWI in Paris

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departed for France to join more than 70 world leaders gathering in Paris on Sunday to mark the centennial of the end of World War I.

This included Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump.

"We are going to a very important ceremony marking the centenary of the end of World War I. This was A bloody war that claimed millions of lives," he said at the airport before his departure.

"It was also of great importance in the history of our people," the Prime Minister explained. "First of all, there were hundreds of thousands of Jewish fighters involved, which marked the next turning point in our ability to defend ourselves. In addition, it brought to an end to the Ottoman Empire that ruled our country, and paved the way for Zionism.

"I will meet dozens of leaders from around the world," he continued, emphasizing that "there are many important issues that need to be discussed. I, as usual, will represent the State of Israel with great pride."

Netanyahu had initially hoped to hold a substantive meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the international event, but France discouraged such sidebar talks.

On Sunday, Netanyahu will attend a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe and a luncheon with international leaders. On Monday, he will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.

"Our No. 1 agenda item is to do whatever we can in Congress to act as the president’s blocking back."
J Street co-founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, "The New Israel Lobby," September 9, 2009

And in order to do whatever they could in Congress to support Obama, J Street took -- and continues to take -- a different approach than AIPAC.

AIPAC supports the policy of whoever is elected to lead Israel. In order to do that, AIPAC backs the idea of bipartisan support:

AIPAC is not a political action committee (PAC) and we do not rate or endorse candidates for elected or appointed office. AIPAC members in all 50 states are encouraged to be politically active and develop relationships with their members of Congress to help educate them about the importance of U.S.-Israel ties.

J Street is different on both counts:

o J Street does not support the policy of Israel's elected leaders. Instead, they follow their own agenda
o J Street has their own Political Action Committee, supporting only Democrats - Democrats who support the "two-state" solution:

JStreetPAC was established in 2008 as the first-ever federal political action committee (PAC) to explicitly promote American leadership to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Also, as part of their agenda, J Street has deliberately discarded the idea of bipartisan support for Israel in favor of support for their agenda, by supporting only Democrats in Congressional elections.

The one-sided approached has, of course, resulted in some lopsided endorsements.

For example, there is Rashida Tlaib, whom J Street endorsed despite the fact that Rashida Tlaib

o supported Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh
o supported Islamic Relief, which has links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
o criticized California’s Kamala Harris for discussing cooperation between California and Israel on water management, agriculture, and cyber security
o accused Harris of “racism” for meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
o retweeted a post from Linda Sarsour supporting Ahed Tamimi, who was jailed for incitement and assaulting an IDF soldier -- and upon release voiced support for suicide bombing.

Rashida Tlaib. Public Domain

J Street did end up withdrawing their support for Tlaib.

Why?

Not because of her anti-Israel views or support for terrorists.

In their statement about withdrawing support for Tlaib, entitled "J Street Will Not Endorse Candidates Who Do Not Endorse a Two-State Solution," J Street makes clear what their priorities are:

While we have long championed the value of a wide range of voices in discussion of the conflict and related issues, we cannot endorse candidates who conclude that they can no longer publicly express unequivocal support for a two-state solution and other core principles to which our organization is dedicated.

The statement then continues:

Rashida Tlaib’s election as the first Palestinian-American woman Member of Congress will be a historic milestone for the Palestinian-American community and for the United States as a whole. We strongly support and are encouraged by her commitment to social justice, and we are inspired by her determination to bring the voice of underrepresented communities to Capitol Hill. We wish her and her campaign well, and we look forward to a close working relationship with her and her office when she takes her seat in Congress next year.

Other questionable Democrats that J Street has supported include Representative Mark Pocan, who last year anonymously reserved official Capitol Hill space for an anti-Israel forum organized by organizations that support boycotts and Representative Hank Johnson, who referred to Israelis living in Judea and Samaria as 'termites'

But at least they supported J Street's two-state solution!

In last weeks midterm elections, the Democrats regained control of the House, helped in part by the $5 million dollars that J Street used for Democratic candidates.

And what was J Street's reaction?

J Street president Jeremy "blocking back" Ben-Ami wrote an email to supporters that:

"After last night's victories, we can finally begin to retake the reins of America's foreign policy and make gains in our fight for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians."

Jeremy Ben Ami. From YouTube Video

That's one statement you will not hear from AIPAC.

But this is the same J Street that

o despite their repeated denials to the contrary, in 2008 and 2009 received funding from George Soros,

o in 2009, claimed it "refuses to embrace" the Goldstone Report, which criticized Israel on its conduct during Operation Cast Lead. Yet when a resolution was sponsored in Congress condemning the report, and Goldstone circulated a document defending it, the source of the report was traced back to Mort Halperin of the J Street advisory council. In fact, J Street went so far as to facilitate visits for Goldstone to the Hill

o already in 2009, had connections with NIAC, a pro-Iranian advocacy group that would become instrumental in pushing the Iran deal -- which J Street still supports.

o brought "Breaking the Silence" to speak at Princeton University during Yom HaZikaron and Yom Haatzmaut.

And now J Street blatantly tells its supporters that their goal is to control foreign policy?

J Street is not pro-Israel.
J Street is not pro-Peace.

J Street is just pro-J Street.

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Euronews bizarrely publishes tweet by antisemite Latuff that undercuts story about antisemitism in France

Euronews covered the recent startling statistics showing how antisemitism has skyrocketed in France this year.

The video accompanying the report notes that the rise is mostly due to Muslim attackers.

(I haven't see anyone blame Trump for this yet.)

Euronews chose two tweets to illustrate the article. The first one comes from StandWithUs and describes how armed guards are now necessary to protect Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers in Europe.

Security is important, but only part of the equation. 🇮🇱 🇫🇷 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 🇳🇴 🇸🇪 🇩🇰 🇳🇱 🇺🇸
It's time for a zero tolerance approach to #antisemitism.#usa #germany #france #sweden #israel #norway #denmark #pittsburgh pic.twitter.com/SkeGfMFrrk
— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) October 29, 2018

It is quite appropriate for the article.

But then it embedded a tweet by antisemitic cartoonist Carlos Latuff, praising a French graffiti artist for reproducing one of his cartoons where Jews supposedly label everything antisemitic when it is really "merely" anti-Israel.

I commented:

What the hell prompted you to illustrate this with a tweet by antisemitic artist Latuff?

He has compared Jews to Nazis many times in his artwork, and he was a runner up in Iran's cartoon contest to lampoon the Holocaust.

There is no doubt that the attacks against Jews in France in recent years have nothing to do with Israel, yet you choose to push this disgusting artist's tweet that praises graffiti in France that minimizes real antisemitic attacks as somehow being the Jews' fault?

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Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah, gave a speech on Saturday for "Martyr's Day."

As usual, the man who no longer appears in public out of fear of being assassinated by Israel spoke about how Israel should be frightened of him.

He described how integral Hezbollah's missiles are to the movement.

Experts estimate that Hezbollah has as many as 140,000 missiles aimed at all of Israel, and according to a recent report by retired US military experts, “Today, Hezbollah possesses more firepower than 95 percent of the world’s conventional militaries, and more rockets and missiles than all European NATO members combined.”

Nasrallah, responding to recent reports that Israel warned Lebanon that it might strike Hezbollah's missile factories, said the “the source of our strength are our missiles because the Lebanese army is not allowed to acquire advanced missiles.”

Moreover, in a section of the speech not translated to English, he said that neither intimidation nor sanctions against Iran, Hezbollah's sponsor, would affect Hezbollah's missile arsenal. "If we must sell our homes" to maintain the missile force, we will do so, he said.

No sovereign nation on Earth would tolerate an independent military that is far more powerful than its own. Lebanon has lost its sovereignty to Iran a long time ago.

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11/10 Links: Glick: J Street, NIF Accused Trump of Antisemitism While Boosting Antisemitic Terrorists; Middle Eastern Christians Are Under Threat. How do They Feel about Jews and Israel?

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: J Street, NIF Accused Trump of Antisemitism While Boosting Antisemitic Terrorists

Having made his unsupported accusation, Ben-Ami proceeded to make a pitch for donations for J Street and for Democratic candidates supported by J Street.

Whereas there is no evidence that Trump has incited or empowered or otherwise engaged in actions that provided any support for Bowers, there is direct evidence that Ben-Ami and his organization have tolerated antisemitic mass murderers.

Just a week-and-a-half before the massacre in Pittsburgh, on October 17, Ben-Ami and the senior J Street leadership met with and expressed support for the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. Among those they met was the PA’s Minister of Civil Affairs, Hussein al-Sheikh.

As Stephen Flatow reported, before assuming his current position, al-Sheikh was a senior terror commander for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade of Fatah, the PA’s ruling faction, headed by Mahmoud Abbas. In the framework of his duties, al-Sheikh paid for and provided arms to terrorists who used the money and the arms he provided to murder and maim Jews – including American Jews.

On March 21, 2002, a Palestinian suicide bomber from the Aksa Martyr Brigades detonated in downtown Jerusalem. Three people were killed in the blast, including Tzippi Shemesh, who was five months pregnant with twins. A hundred people were wounded. As Flatow relates, among the seriously wounded were U.S. citizen Alan Bauer and his seven-year-old son Jonathan. Bauer was hurled twenty feet by the force of the explosion.

“Two screws that were packed into the bomb ripped clear through his left arm. … Jonathan suffered severe shrapnel wounds and fell into a coma. Jonathan subsequently underwent numerous operations to remove nails and screws from his head, including one that was lodged in his brain.”

Elliott Abrams: American Jews and Israel

Everyone knows that American Jews are becoming increasingly distant from and disenchanted with the State of Israel. Articles and books expound on this subject regularly. And everyone knows why: Israel's right-wing government and its policy of expanding settlements, and Israel's maltreatment of non-Orthodox strains of Judaism are repeatedly mentioned as the key explanations.

But it seems that what everyone knows is simply wrong--and oddly enough we learn this from none other than the left-wing Jewish group called J Street. J Street has for several elections cycles done a post-election survey of American Jews, and this year's is found here. The poll found that Jews called themselves Democrats rather than Republicans by a 76-19 percent ratio, which is close to what many other polls have found. What did respondents say about Israel?

The survey asked "Compared to 5-10 years ago, do you feel more positive, more negative, or about the same toward Israel?" The result: 55 percent said about the same, 26 percent said more positive, and 19 percent said more negative. Respondents were asked "Does the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank make you feel positive about Israel, negative about Israel, or have no impact on how you feel about Israel?" The result: 48 percent said not had no impact at all, 32 percent said a negative impact, and 19 percent said expansion of settlements had a positive impact on them.

Perhaps most strikingly, respondents were asked "How much have you heard about Israeli policy towards the non-Orthodox population, such as who can pray at the Western Wall, who can perform marriage ceremonies, who can grant divorces, and who can convert to Judaism?" This has been a source of constant controversy, especially with the largest denomination among American Jews, the Reform movement. Only 14 percent of respondents had heard "a great deal" about all of this, and another 21 percent said they had heard "a good amount" (whatever that actually means). But 32 percent said they had heard only "a little" about it and a remarkable 34 percent had heard nothing at all. J Street's poll adds those numbers up and notes in bold print that 35 percent say they have heard a good or great deal about the great controversy, while 65 percent have heard little or just plain nothing.

Those numbers cannot have made J Street's publicists very happy, nor can they cheer the propagandists who are constantly telling us that such Israeli actions (or more narrowly, Netanyahu policies) are simply ruining relations between the American Jewish community and Israel. But relations are not ruined and more people said they felt more positive about Israel now than said the opposite--with most saying their views had not changed. And the impact of the great brouhaha about treatment of non-orthodox Judaism turns out to be exaggerated. Of the 35 percent who have heard a lot about the matter, half say it makes them feel more negative toward Israel; the other half are divided between 22 percent who say it makes them feel more positive and 28 percent who say it doesn't matter. Do the math: while the treatment of non-Orthodox angers some American Jews, the great majority don't know and/or don't care.

How an Iranian asylum seeker raised over $1,000,000 for the Pittsburgh synagogue

Khashayar “Shay” Khatiri doesn’t like taking too much credit for the money he raised for the Pittsburgh synagogue where a shooting took place last month.

“It’s not my fundraiser,” Khatiri, 29, said in a phone interview with JTA on Thursday. “It’s the fundraiser that I started, but it belongs to everybody who donated.”

The Iran native and Washington, DC, resident has made headlines across the country for helping to raise over $1 million in the aftermath of the shooting, in which a gunman killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Congregation.

Khatiri, who is not Jewish, says that he was moved to action shortly after learning about the shooting. The graduate student was staying at a Jewish friend’s apartment on the morning of the deadly attack.
A Jewish emergency crew and police officers at the site of the mass shooting that killed 11 people and wounded 6 at the Tree Of Life Synagogue on October 28, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images/via JTA)

“I woke up, and she gave me the news and it was very upsetting,” recalled Khatiri, who is seeking political asylum in the United States due to his political activism against the Iranian government.

Khatiri, who is studying at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, initially told his friend that he wanted to donate directly to the synagogue.

“I told her I was going to give a little money, a small amount, to the congregation, but then I thought to maybe do this in the hope of it going viral and actually have a big impact,” he said.