What might actually be effective in reducing global anti-Semitism? Reoccupying Gaza

...So if anyone really thinks Israeli policy should be blamed for global anti-Semitism, the data shows there’s only one policy change that might actually be effective: reoccupying Gaza. Somehow, I doubt that’s what the Bruce Shipmans of the world really want.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
10 September '14..

A Yale University chaplain recently resigned “on his own initiative” over a letter to the New York Times blaming Israel and the Jews for anti-Semitism. Clearly, nothing Israel does or doesn’t do justifies attacks on Jewish citizens of other countries, but even if did, Rev. Bruce Shipman’s reasoning would have been fallacious. According to Shipman, “the best antidote to anti-Semitism would be for Israel’s patrons abroad” to pressure Israel “for final-status resolution to the Palestinian question.” Yet based on the evidence, the Israeli policy change most likely to reduce anti-Semitic outbreaks isn’t ending its “continuing occupation of the West Bank,” but reoccupying evacuated Gaza.

After all, every major upsurge in anti-Semitic attacks in recent years has coincided with a war that began when terrorists attacked Israel from territory it had vacated: spring 2002, when Israel reinvaded parts of the West Bank it had left under the Oslo Accords to stop a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings; summer 2006, when Hezbollah sparked a war by launching a deadly cross-border attack from south Lebanon, which Israel had vacated six years earlier; and two ground operations in Gaza, one in winter 2008/09 and one this past July and August, both launched in response to the incessant rocket fire from that territory ever since Israel withdrew every last soldier and settler in 2005. During the intervening years, incidents of anti-Semitism were hundreds or even thousands of percent lower, despite Israel’s “continuing occupation of the West Bank.”

The latest Gaza war epitomizes this counterintuitive truth. In July, anti-Semitic attacks were up 130 percent in America, 436 percent in Europe, 600 percent in South Africa, and a whopping 1,200 percent in South America compared to July 2013. To cite one typical example, Scotland recorded more anti-Semitic attacks during the first week of August alone than in all of 2013.

In other words, what really spurs anti-Semites to come out of the woodwork isn’t “the occupation,” but Israeli-caused casualties. And while one might have though withdrawals would decrease such casualties by eliminating day-to-day friction between Palestinians (or Lebanese) and Israeli troops, in reality, the opposite has occurred: Every such withdrawal has resulted in terrorist organizations taking over the vacated territory and using it to launch attacks on Israel, which in turn has produced a sharp rise in casualties, for two reasons.

Glick - Liberal American Jewish suckers

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
24 June'11

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/06/liberal-american-jewish-sucker.php

This week we have been witness to two transparent attempts to sell liberal American Jews a bill of goods. And from the looks of things, both were successful.

The first instance of liberal American Jewish credulity this week unfolded Monday night in Washington. At a five-star hotel, eighty Jewish donors shelled out between $25,000- 35,800 to attend a fundraiser with US President Barack Obama.

As has become his habit, Obama opened his remarks by talking about his commitment to Israel's security. And as has become his habit, Obama went on to say that it is his job to force Israelis to bow to his demands because he knows what is best for Israel.

Speaking of his ongoing efforts to force Israel to concede its right to defensible borders before entering into negotiations with the Hamas-Fatah unity government, Obama said, "There are going to be moments over the course of the next six months or the next 12 months or the next 24 months in which there may be tactical disagreements [between the US and Israel] in terms of how we approach these difficult problems."

Obama went on to say that he expects his American Jewish supporters to take his side in his attacks on Israel.

As he put it, the quest for peace between Israel and the Hamas-Fatah government is, "going to require that not only this administration employs all of its creative powers to try to bring about peace in the region, but it's also going to require all of you as engaged citizens of the United States who are friends of Israel making sure...that you're helping to shape how both Americans and Israelis think about the opportunities and challenges."

And how did the Jewish donors respond to Obama's presentation? They loved it. They were, in the words of Obama donor Marilyn Victor, "reassured."

Glick: Yale, Jews, and Double Standards

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
10 June '11

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/06/yale-jews-and-double-standards.php

Last week Yale University announced its decision to close down its institute for the study of anti-Semitism. The move has been widely criticized as politically motivated. For its part, the university claims that the move was the result of purely academic considerations.

While not clear-cut, an analysis of the story lends to the conclusion that politics were in all likelihood the decisive factor in the decision. And the implications of Yale's move for the scholarly inquiry into anti-Semitism are deeply troubling.

The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA) was founded in 2006. Its purpose was to provide a scholarly approach to the study of contemporary and historical anti- Semitism. It was attached to Yale's Institution of Social and Policy Studies. It was fully funded from private contributions. Yale did not in any way subsidize its activities from the university's budget.

Since its inception, under the peripatetic leadership of its Executive Director Dr. Charles Small, YIISA organized seminars and conferences that brought leading scholars from all over the world to Yale to discuss anti-Semitism in an academic setting. Its conferences and publications produced cutting edge research. These included a groundbreaking statistical study published by Small and Prof. Edward Kaplan from Yale's School of Management that demonstrated a direct correlation between anti-Israel sentiment and anti- Jewish sentiment.

Legal lightweight

Soccer Dad
29 January '10

Judge Richard Goldstone was greeted at Yale University with an article in the Yale Daily News written by Noah Pollak and Adam Yoffie that made short work of his commission's report:

Goldstone accepted a mandate from this council to investigate Israel, and only Israel, over its attack last year on the internationally-recognized terrorist group Hamas. The report he produced is a perversion of human rights and international law. It treats Hamas' allegations with meticulous credulity, but Israeli claims with flippant skepticism. It is riddled with factual errors and twisted accounts of the war. The members of Goldstone's staff have long histories of anti-Israel political activism. The report makes frequent and unsupported editorial declarations against Israel and included testimony from residents of Gaza who feared retaliation from Hamas. Justice Goldstone himself has admitted that nothing in the report would be admissible as credible evidence in a court of law.

However the Pollak/Yoffie op-ed was rather mild in comparison with the treatment Goldstone would receive from Richard Landes in recounting Goldstone's talk later.

Perhaps the single most striking feature of the talk was its staggering superficiality. Goldstone might have a reputation (at least among those familiar with his report) for being biased, but not for being a lightweight. And yet in the less than forty minutes of his formal lecture, at no point did one get the impression that one was listening to a trained legal mind, much less a brilliant one. Most of the lecture could have been written by an undergraduate who combined entries at Wikipedia on International Law, Nuremberg Trials, Geneva Convention, and Rome Treaty, with a warmed over version of "war is not the answer," and "why can't we all just get along and follow the law?"

Landes's account is, at once, entertaining and disturbing. Entertaining because Goldstone's superficiality and acute sensitivity come accross in Landes's telling. Disturbing because of the authority international organizations have invested in this man.

(Read full post)

Yale Intimidated

1. Yale University Press announced that they are censoring a book that they are about to publish. And they said that they had been coerced into taking this action because of having been intimidated by fear and threats of violence.

2. The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms defines terrorism as:

"The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."

3. According to that definition, Yale and other American Universities are victims of terrorism. They are being intimidated by the threat of violence. They are being coerced into aiding in the pursuit of the political, religious, and ideological goals of Islamists.

4. When will the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI take action?

* * *

Idea: If Yale is afraid to publish the Danish cartoons (in a scholarly work about the Danish cartoons) why don't they put the cartoons up on a website and print the web address in the book?

If you haven't seen the 12 innocuous Danish cartoons click here.

If you haven't seen my previous posting about Yale, click on "Dry Bones at Yale?".

* * *Your thoughts?