The reborn state of Israel has effectively settled the matter of the “Jewish Question.” - by Daniel Krygier

Modern-day anti-Semites channel their Jew-hatred into the more politically correct avenue of so-called anti-Zionism. By conflating Zionism with racism and alleged human rights abuses, they attempt to delegitimize the very existence of the state of Israel. But their indignation, no matter how persistently or how shrilly it is expressed, cannot alter the legitimacy of the Jews’ return to their ancestral homeland. The reborn state of Israel has effectively settled the matter of the “Jewish Question.”

Daniel Krygier..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 769..
16 March '18..

The “Jewish Question” was an intense debate during the 19th and 20th centuries that dealt with the status and treatment of Jews in European societies. It was part of a wider discourse that focused on civic and national rights of minorities in emerging nation states. European extreme nationalists argued that Jews constituted an alien people that had no place in Europe. By contrast, liberals often supported equal civic rights for Jewish citizens. However, the price for civic equality was the abandonment of Jewish national identity and assimilation into European societies. The Jews themselves were divided between Western European Jews, who advocated assimilation, and the more numerous Eastern European Jewish Zionists, who worked for the return of the Jewish people to its ancestral homeland.

Seven decades after the Holocaust and the reestablishment of the Jewish homeland, Israel, the Jewish Question remains unsettled among many gentiles. In the past, Jews were mainly threatened by the political Right. Today, the main threat comes from the political Left and its Islamist allies. Yesterday’s liberals advocated civic equality for fellow Jewish citizens. Today, many “liberals” increasingly deny equal national rights for the Jewish people in Israel. The “progressive” international left does not merely oppose specific Israeli policies, but increasingly the very existence of a Jewish state within any borders.

The Holocaust made it politically incorrect to publically embrace anti-Semitism in Western democracies. However, Jew-hatred – termed “the longest hatred” by the late Israeli scholar Robert Wistrich – is far from gone in Western societies. Instead of hating Jews as individuals, 20th and 21st century anti-Semites mainly channel their hatred against the collective Jew among the nations, Israel.

In the 19th century, the German agitator Wilhelm Marr coined the term anti-Semitism in order to make Jew-hatred appear more scientific and “legitimate.” As this term has become severely tainted since the Holocaust, 21st century Jew-haters prefer to call themselves anti-Zionists.

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Anti-Semitism and George Soros' efforts to target the Jewish state - by Dror Eydar

It appears that Soros does not really care much for our support. In that regard, the fight against Soros is also a fight against anti-Semitism.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
12 July '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19401

Over the course of Jewish history, some of our biggest haters have come from within. Hungarian-born U.S. financier George Soros has systematically used his philanthropic activity to undermine important Jewish ideas. This has been especially true in his efforts to target the Jewish state.

Perhaps some of the Israeli organizations he funds are legitimate organizations, but his funds have also been used by those who want to delegitimize Israel and to see that it is no longer defined as a Jewish state.

A comprehensive report by the watchdog NGO Monitor shows that some of the organizations he supports cast Israel as a racist and apartheid state that commits war crimes. They want to isolate Israel in the world and subject it to international sanctions. This activity includes support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Documents from Open Society Foundations, a network of organizations that Soros funds to promote his worldview and lobbying activity, were leaked about a year ago, allowing us to get a glimpse into his priorities. "Human rights defense work remains an important priority for the Iran program, but should not be pursued to the exclusion of all other work, including work on supporting better policy outcomes such as support for a nuclear deal with Iran," reads a document from 2014.

Yes, you read that right. Having thousands of Iranians killed by the ayatollahs was just fine as long as the nuclear deal was implemented. This fabulous production, featuring the smiling Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was brought to you by George Soros.

BDS, Israel and Jew Hatred. Fighting Back Cannot Be Optional - by Jonathan Tobin

...It might be more pleasant to opt out of this battle and to ignore the “Israel Apartheid” smears or accept BDS advocates as misguided but well-intentioned activists. But the ultimate cost of such acquiescence will be far higher than the inconvenience associated with fighting back. When Israel is delegitimized, so, too, will be Judaism eventually. American exceptionalism means that the rising tide of global anti-Semitism hasn’t taken hold on these shores the way it has in Europe or elsewhere. Yet if BDS movements are not labeled for what they are — expressions of anti-Semitic hate — then Americans will be taking a fearful step towards acceptance of the European disease that is making Jewish life increasingly untenable in Europe.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
17 March '16..

Earlier this month, pro-Israel students scored a public relations coup when they managed to steal a little of the public relations thunder from the organizers of an “Israel Apartheid Week” at Columbia University. In response to a faux “apartheid wall” that was supposed to be a representation of Israel’s West Bank security fence that was erected in front of the school’s iconic Low Library steps, members of Students Supporting Israel put up a 12-foot tall inflated Pinocchio to mock the lies of their opponents. However, in an act that was symbolic of the anti-Israel bias of many campuses but especially at Columbia, the student government demanded that Pinocchio be taken down. Yet this act of repression brought more attention to the counter-protest thus serving the purpose of the pro-Israel students.

Yet a JTA report about the battle over Israel at Columbia focused more on the fact that for the most part, Jewish students at the school were “laying low” during the week of protests. Even some Jewish activists on campus seem to think the best strategy in dealing with “Apartheid” week, which has become an annual event throughout academia in this country and elsewhere, is to just ignore it. One Hillel director from another school quoted in the story said the problem wasn’t just that it was impossible to have an elevated dialogue about the Middle East via demonstrations and other events. It’s that they fear that engaging in conflict with Israel-haters, even when they engage in anti-Semitic speech, is a turnoff for most Jewish students.

Most college students are conflict averse. College is such a fun place. When you make a space a conflict space, our fear is that people won’t want to come in.

These sentiments were echoed by Emory University historian Deborah Lipstadt, who spoke on a panel with me at a conference on global anti-Semitism that was held last weekend at Kean University. Lipstadt is worried that too much of Jewish identity in America is bound up with Holocaust observances and fear of anti-Semitism. She thinks that if parents send their children off to school being told to be “on guard” against anti-Semitism that operates under a thin veil of anti-Zionism, they will simply go to ground and discard their Jewish identity.

Lipstadt is right about the way Americans have allowed the Holocaust to define Jewish identity, something that was aptly illustrated by Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. When asked about his Jewish identity in one of the Democratic debates, he responded that he was proud to be Jewish and that it “is an essential part of whom I am as a human being.” But the only example of anything Jewish the famously non-observant socialist would mention, as having meaning to him was the memory of the Holocaust. As Charles Krauthammer aptly observed about what Sanders said, it was the sort of response that summed up the views for all too many American Jews. While there is nothing wrong and indeed much that is important about remembering the Holocaust, the sole focus on that sad chapter of history gives short shrift to all of the myriad gifts and wonders that is the Jewish heritage of faith, religious studies, language, and the miracle of modern Israel. That failure to embrace a positive approach to Judaism is part and parcel of the demographic collapse of non-Orthodox Judaism that was laid bare in the 2013 Pew Survey on Jewish Americans.

But to acknowledge this problem does not excuse a willingness on the part of too many Jews as well as non-Jews to look the other way as a BDS (boycott, divest sanction) movement aimed at Israel establishes a beachhead for anti-Semitism on American campuses. It may not be “fun” to stand up for Israel or to oppose instances of anti-Semitism that are becoming endemic at all too many institutions of higher learning, but silence can’t be an option.

History’s Role in the War on Jews - by Jonathan Tobin

...The point here is that those who wish to speak up for Israel need to understand that it is only historical ignorance and willful blindness that can cause us to fail to notice that those who wish to deny Jews the rights to statehood and self-defense — rights that are not denied any other people — are engaging in an act of bias that is indistinguishable from anti-Semitism. While academic anti-Zionists see themselves as promoting a point of view that is distinct from those who are killing Jews in the streets of Paris or Jerusalem, they are, in effect, attempting to provide the killers with a moral legitimacy they don’t deserve.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
29 February '16..

In recent years, a rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe has called into question the long-term viability of Jewish life in Western Europe. Given the involvement of terror groups in some of the spectacular instances of anti-Jewish violence, much of the discussion about the topic has been on the influence oft immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, who have brought with them a mindset that is rooted in the conflict with Israel. But as much as those incidents are eroding the notion that Western capitals are safe places for those who wear items that identify them as Jews or even shop at businesses that cater to Jews, the problem can’t be pinned entirely on immigrants or radical Islam. What has happened in Europe is that at the same time a movement led by cultural elites has stigmatized the Jewish state and Jews that support it as illegitimate. But the notion that we can separate crude violence from the protests of intellectuals is misleading.

As our Jonathan Neumann pointed out last week recent events at Britain’s two leading universities — Oxford and Cambridge — have started to make “the elemental connection between hostility to the Jewish state and hostility to Jews” apparent to observers. Intellectual thought leaders who have been determined to try to preserve the conceit that their support for isolating Israel is a respectable position that has no connection to traditional Jew hatred are now acquiescing to a cultural shift that treats Jews with contempt. As historian Simon Schama noted last week in the Financial Times, this problem is to be found in the left’s beliefs about Europe’s original sins of imperialism and colonialism. The enthusiasm for the war on Israel among intellectuals is, he believes, to be explained in, “the collapse of the Soviet Union and the retreat of Marxist socialism around world,” that means, “militant energies have needed somewhere to go.”

The ability of the left to sell this fraudulent view of history in which the rights of Jews to their ancient homeland is conflated with European colonialism is, the historian thinks, rooted in the ignorance of the history of the Middle East and the Jews on the part of so many otherwise educated people. They have made the jump from criticism of specific Israeli policies to a belief that the creation of Israel was illegitimate and must be rescinded. Schama, who is a critic of the Netanyahu government, points out that such people are not only ignorant of Jewish rights to historic Palestine and the fact that Jewish ties and settlement there has been continuous throughout history but also the facts about anti-Semitism. Schama is correct when he says Zionism is primarily about Jewish self-determination, a concept that is considered sacred when it is exercised by anyone other than Jews.

“History says” anti-Semitism has not been caused by Zionism; it is precisely the other way round. Israel was caused by the centuries-long dehumanization of the Jews.”

If Jews once feared thugs in brown shirts and jackboots, he now points out that the Jew-haters are to be found elsewhere:

No Playing Nice With a Cesspool of Anti-Semitism - by Jonathan Tobin

...Just as it is not “human nature” but hate and prejudice that drives Palestinian to slaughter random Jews in the streets, there is nothing normal about having to listen to a man that is willing to play the role Ban embraces pontificate about his sorrow about the Holocaust. On the day when the UN ceases to treat Israel as a pariah state and stops enabling Palestinian terror, then we can speak of its leaders’ fine personal qualities and good intentions. Until then, let us hear no more of that and instead concentrate on voicing our full-throated opposition to a corrupt institution that, despite the grand rhetoric about its purpose, currently plays a deeply destructive role in the Middle East and has provided a foundation of support for a political culture bent on the destruction of Israel and its people.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
05 February '16..

This weekend, United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon will join Israel’s ambassador and other notables at a service at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day. Ban is scheduled to speak at the service which should make for some uncomfortable conversations since this comes just a week after he landed in a controversy by saying that the current upsurge of terrorism against Israelis was merely “human nature,” since it was to be expected that Palestinians would rise up against “occupation.” Ban was severely criticized by Israel’s government and others but, rather than back off, he doubled down on his position in a New York Times op-ed in which he claimed his critics were unfairly “shooting the messenger” rather than listening to what he had to say.

Ban will, no doubt, be received politely at the synagogue, whose longtime leader Rabbi Arthur Schneier, has been a leader interfaith work and holds an appointment to a UN group by Ban. Ban is also not without his defenders. Malcolm Hoenlein, the longtime executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, sought to downplay the controversy saying that Ban was “basically a nice guy.” According to the Jerusalem Post, Hoenlein said the secretary general was a “captive of the system” and that the offensive address was the work of a “speech writer or someone advising him.”

Hoenlein is right that the issue here is bigger than one man but wrong to let Ban off the hook. The secretary general is a career diplomat and the product of the system rather than its captive. Moreover, as the leader of the UN, he is the spokesperson for it. He may well be a nice guy in his private life. He may even think he is being sincere about wishing to help save Israel from itself. But in this case, sincerity is a highly over-rated virtue. As I noted when dissecting his self-serving op-ed, even if we were to credit him for having good intentions, that would be irrelevant to the discussion about the way the UN singles out Israel for unfair treatment and privileges the Palestinian campaign to destroy it.

Ban and his apologists say that as long as he continues to include language about supporting Israel’s right to exist and condemning terrorism against the Jewish state and its people, it is wrong to condemn him. But the problem here is that so long as he is prepared to rationalize terror as “human nature” while blaming Israel for not making peace, he is perpetuating myths about the situation that provide a rationale for the murder of Jews and a war against the Jewish state.

The system of which Ban is either the captive or the creature is not something about which words should be minced. The UN is and has long been a cesspool of anti-Semitism. The one Jewish state on the planet is continually singled out for discriminatory treatment. Humanitarian crises abound across the globe, but the only problems that can be counted on to get UN attention are the complaints of the Palestinians about Israel. Next door to Israel in Syria, a war rages in which hundreds of thousands die, millions are made refugees, and unspeakable atrocities carried out by the Assad regime and ISIS are a daily occurrence. Yet only the frustration of the Palestinians about the “occupation” is worthy of consistent outrage, endless meetings, and pointless resolutions. That is true of the General Assembly and Security Council over which Ban presides as well as satellite agencies such as the tragicomic UN Human Rights Council.

The True Face of #BDSfail: Anti-Semitism

...AS the SJP demonstrates, BDS is a vile virus of hate that is as illogical as it is absurd. It must be opposed at every level. Those who fail to understand its malignant nature or treat its activities as acceptable conduct are granting it a legitimacy it doesn’t deserve.

Image by © Bárbara Boyero/Demotix/Corbis

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
27 November '15..

Can there be anything more ludicrous than a movement that is dedicated to isolating the state of Israel than for its website to be built using a platform created by and operated from that same Jewish state? Not really. But that’s the situation the BDS — boycott, divest, sanction — movement finds itself in today as news spreads that once again one of its main organs is using the Israeli company Wix’s services to operate its website. That leaves Students for Justice in Palestine, which got caught doing this two years ago left trying to explain why its okay for them to make use of an Israeli product while trying to compel others to boycott them. But the contretemps over the decision of the SJP chapter at the University of Denver to repeat the actions of its Cornell University group two years ago once again gives us insight not only into the absurdity of Israel boycotts but the psychology of hate at its core. Their embarrassment, along with the growing number of incidents of hate speech associated with BDS and humiliating failures, should inform the decisions of those asked to join this movement as well as members of Congress as they ponder whether to include language prohibiting such boycotts in trade legislation.

The only word in the colloquial dictionary that adequately describes SJP’s excuses for using Wix is lame. BDS’ers work hard to convince the world that Israel should be treated as a pariah state and to refrain from all economic intercourse with it. Their purpose is to wage war on it and, by gradually tightening the economic noose, force its collapse. Yet SJP thinks its perfectly okay for them to avail themselves of the brilliant achievements of the “Start-Up Nation.” Like all those who wish to see Israel eliminated, but are not prepared to give up the benefits that come from employing the products it creates, including medical advances that save lives, BDS groups are forced into the humiliating position of saying that they can decide which kinds of economic interaction with Israelis is acceptable.

In its defense, the Denver chapter cited a statement issued by its Cornell counterpart in 2013 when it was caught doing the same thing. That absurd document says that it is wrong for anyone to think BDS is about an absolute ban on Israeli products or anti-Semitism. Here’s an excerpt:

Let us be clear: BDS is not abstention, nor an absolute moral principle. It is not isolation or withdrawal, and it does not entail a rejection of everything Israeli. It is not anti-Semitic, and it has nothing to do with the merits of Israeli technology. BDS is not the attempt of beautiful souls to avoid contamination with oppression and keep their own hands clean: it is a tactic within a larger strategy, and it is beginning to work.

In other words, they say that by using some Israeli products that proves they are not anti-Semitic. This is utterly illogical and speaks of nothing more than facile self interest. But as laughable as this attempt to explain the unexplainable might be, it’s worth noting two key facts about this kerfuffle.

One is that their claim that they can wage economic war on Israel without being anti-Semitic is a flat out lie. The purpose of BDS is not to change Israeli policies or to adjust its borders, positions that are legitimate, if often wrong-headed points of view about the conflict in the Middle East. Rather, its goal is to eradicate the Jewish state and to deny its people the right to self-defense, self-determination and sovereignty. Without these rights there is no possibility that Jews can live in safety as a free people in their ancient homeland. Israel is the one Jewish state on the planet and this is something that no one would think to deprive of any other people in the world. As such, BDS — the economic face of anti-Zionism — is an act of bias against Jews. And the term of art for such bias against Jews is anti-Semitism.

BDS Movement: We Know Who You Are and Where You Live

...the protest of Williams was a huge embarrassment for BDS, which turned out 500 protesters rather than the 40,000 they were aiming for. But that was not for want of trying. Muhammad Desai, Coordinator of BDS-South Africa had this to say to those who have not stuck with the Woolworth’s boycott: “Those who have gone back to Woolworths, we know who you are and where you live.”

Jonathan Marks..
Commentary Magazine..
28 September '15..

South Africa, because of its experience with apartheid, is a feather in the cap of the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. If South Africans think that Israel is an apartheid state, the reasoning goes, we should take them seriously since they know a thing or two about apartheid.

But as I have written before, the boycott movement in South Africa has been particularly ugly; flirting quite openly with violence, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy theorizing.

Evelyn Gordon has written in these pages about the latest embarrassment to BDS-South Africa, a protest against a performance in Cape Town by the singer, Pharrell Williams. Williams’s sole crime is working with Woolworth’s, a retailer that is inexplicably a boycott target, even though, as Haaretz reports, it “has said it does not source produce from the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, [that] less than 0.1 percent of its food comes from Israel and that it clearly labels every product’s country of origin.” The movement against Woolworth’s in South Africa has already featured the placement of a severed pig’s head in the kosher food section of one store.

As Gordon points out, the protest of Williams was a huge embarrassment for BDS, which turned out 500 protesters rather than the 40,000 they were aiming for. But that was not for want of trying. Muhammad Desai, Coordinator of BDS-South Africa had this to say to those who have not stuck with the Woolworth’s boycott: “Those who have gone back to Woolworths, we know who you are and where you live.”

The BDS Movement’s Very Bad Month by Evelyn Gordon

...The movement to Besmirch, Demonize and Slander the Jewish state is so hydra-headed and so venomous that it can often seem overwhelming. But in reality, it is big and strong enough to win only if nobody else is in the ring: As the past month’s events amply demonstrate, pushback works. Now it’s time to accelerate the pushback and put BDS where it belongs – on the defensive.

Image by © Bárbara Boyero/Demotix/Corbis

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
24 September '15..

The one saving grace about anti-Semites is that, contrary to Barack Obama’s famous claim, they generally are irrational and, therefore, they often overreach. The anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement has been doing exactly that recently. In the past month alone, it has suffered three resounding and damaging failures.

The first, of course, was its “success” in pressuring a Spanish reggae festival to disinvite American Jewish singer Matisyahu unless he issued a statement backing a Palestinian state. Matisyahu, to his credit, didn’t merely refuse; he also made sure the world knew why he wouldn’t be appearing as scheduled. The subsequent public outcry not only made the festival hurriedly backtrack and reinstate Matisyahu in his original slot, but also exposed the truth of the BDS movement’s anti-Semitism, which it has long tried to hide. After all, Matisyahu isn’t Israeli; he was asked to issue that statement, alone of all the artists at the festival, simply because he was Jewish.

Next came last week’s decision to boycott Israel by the mighty municipality of Reykjavik (population about 120,000). Having naively expected applause for this display of moral indignation, the municipality was stunned to be met instead by an outpouring of condemnation, including from Iceland’s own prime minister, and quickly reversed course. But the damage, as Haaretz journalist Asher Schechter lamented, was already done: Reykjavik had provided further proof that the BDS movement, contrary to the widespread belief that it merely targets “the occupation,” is simply anti-Israel.

Then there’s my personal favorite, which occurred this week: the BDS protest against a Pharrell Williams concert in South Africa. When I first read about the planned protest, I couldn’t believe BDS was serious. A black American singer goes to South Africa to perform for black South Africans, and BDS wants to ruin the audience’s fun? Just because Williams’ corporate sponsor is a Jewish-owned retailer (Woolworths) that already boycotts produce from “the occupied territories”? But BDS evidently couldn’t see how bad this looked. It rashly promised some 40,000 demonstrators, “the largest protest event in South African history against any musician or artist.” And it wound up with a measly 500, as many South Africans suddenly discovered that BDS might not be their best guide to international morality.

The Iran Deal and the Boost it Gives to Worldwide Anti-Semitism

...An empowered Iran, then, can be regarded as the most important hub of anti-Semitism in the world today. As scholar Ruth Wisse recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Depending on the outcome of the Iran deal, this outreach to an anti-Jewish regime may one day rival the blot of slavery on the American record.” Staying alert to the threat from Tehran—even as others play it down or even mock its seriousness—is essential if we are to avoid that outcome.

Ben Cohen..
Algemeiner..
11 August '15..

JNS.org – In Europe, Jewish communities are still licking the wounds from a miserable 12 months that saw deadly jihadist violence erupt against them in Paris, Brussels, and Copenhagen. On the old continent, there has also been an unprecedented rise in hate crimes targeting Jews, along with a growing acceptance of anti-Semitic discourse masquerading as fevered, impassioned criticism of alleged Israeli crimes.

These events are entirely consistent with Europe’s trajectory since the turn of the 21st Century. One can now confidently predict that any upsurge of conflict in Lebanon, Gaza, or the West Bank that involves Israel’s military will be mirrored on the streets of Europe’s cities, with Jews subjected to verbal and physical abuse and even terrorist outrages. Indeed, data collected by the Community Security Trust (CST), the official body dealing with Jewish security in the U.K., suggests that even at comparatively quieter times for Israel, Jews are more at risk now than at any other period since World War II. During the first six months of this year, the CST recorded 473 anti-Semitic incidents, a 53-percent increase from the same period during 2014.

As CST’s Dave Rich noted in a recent essay for World Affairs Journal, “Not all anti-Semitic hate crime is perpetrated by Muslims, but enough of it is for Jews, and others, to connect it to wider issues of extremism and cohesion that can sometimes feel as if they undermine the very basis of society itself.” Hence we hear the oft-repeated but incorrect view articulated in Israel, and by some American Jews, that there is no secure future for Jews in Europe as long as they remain there.

On the scale between waking up to the threat posed by the Islamists and their fellow travelers and a mass exodus, both Europe’s Jews and Europe’s political class are still much closer to the former than the latter. True, the numbers of Jews leaving Europe have increased, especially in the French case, but a sizable majority has no plans to leave. The argument, instead, hinges on whether anti-Semitism is recognized as such, especially when it comes from immigrants and minority communities rather than natives dressed up in Nazi uniforms.

Among European governments, the answer, generally, is “yes.” In France, Germany, and the U.K., all the main political leaders have recognized the lethal strain of anti-Semitism at the heart of the Islamist ideology, and all have expressed horror at the thought that violence directed at Jews would uproot entire communities. But that’s not the case in civil society more generally.

“One factor that contributes to the relative lack of concern over anti-Semitism is the perception of Jews as a highly successful and relatively privileged group,” observes the recent “Statement on Contemporary European Anti-Semitism” authored by six British intellectuals and academics. Later on they argue, “The anti-Jewish racism of white nativists on the far right remains heavily stigmatized in the progressive mainstream. This is classed as the only true anti-Semitism, but it is minimized as a marginal threat. The equally odious anti-Semitism of radical Islamists is frequently treated far more indulgently as an unfortunate excess in an intrinsically just resistance to Western imperialism.”

Nation-States, German Textbooks and Anti-Israel Liberal Elites

...Israel, however, is a potent challenge to the dogma: It’s a modern, Western, democratic, human-rights-respecting country that nevertheless proudly proclaims itself the nation-state of the Jewish people. And there’s only one way for liberal elites to resolve the cognitive dissonance this causes without sacrificing their cherished dogma: by sacrificing Israel. Or, in other words, by painting as a racist, warmongering, benighted country no different from all the other unenlightened nation-states.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
11 July '15..

Pollster Frank Luntz briefly generated shock waves this week with a survey showing the abysmal view of Israel held by Democratic opinion leaders. Inter alia, 47 percent deemed Israel racist, with only 32 percent disagreeing, and a whopping 76 percent said Israel has too much influence on U.S. foreign policy. But in truth, it shouldn’t be news to anyone by now that anti-Israel sentiment, like its kissing cousin anti-Semitism, is primarily the province of the liberal elites. I’ve written before about a German study showing that educated elites, rather than the far-right fringes, are the wellspring of anti-Semitism in that country; just last month, another study found that the same is true for anti-Israel sentiment. And the reason for this goes beyond the obvious fact that anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism are related.

The background to the new German study is a series of polls showing shocking levels of anti-Israel sentiment among ordinary Germans: For instance, fully 35 percent “equate Israeli policies toward the Palestinians with Nazi policies toward the Jews.” Given the vaunted “special relationship” between Germany and Israel, such findings raise obvious questions about how so many Germans developed such warped views.

So a group of German and Israeli researchers decided to analyze German textbooks to see what exactly German schools are teaching their students. They examined 1,200 history, geography and social studies textbooks from five German states, and concluded that these books portray Israel almost exclusively as a militarist, warmongering society.

Israel’s robust democracy, respect for human rights and other achievements are absent in these books. The illustrations consist of “tendentious and one-sided photographic presentations” of Israeli soldiers threatening or inflicting violence on Palestinians.

“Occupation and settlements” are depicted as the main obstacles to peace; the fact that both Israelis and Palestinians have claims to the land goes unmentioned, and Palestinian terror gets a free pass – or as the report puts it, most of the authors “find it difficult to unequivocally call Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians acts of terror.”

In short, it’s not surprising that so many Germans have such negative views of Israel, because that’s precisely what they are taught in school. True, the textbooks don’t actually compare Israel to the Nazis, but the comparison doesn’t require a big leap of logic for graduates of these schools; after all, to a German, the paradigmatic example of a militarist, warmongering society is Nazi Germany. So once you tell students that Israel, too, is a militarist, warmongering society, the Nazi analogy comes naturally.

But who writes the textbooks that give these pupils such a warped view of Israel? Hint: It’s not the neo-Nazi skinheads. It’s the liberal elites.

Towards a clearer understanding of how and where they hate us in Europe

...This is a report that is likely to trigger widespread discussions for some time to come. The key findings (in our words)

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
30 June '15..

Many of the Jews we know feel there is much about which to worry when it comes to the general state of people's attitudes to the Jews among whom they live and, to an astonishing degree, the Jews whom they don't know at all.

The Anti-Defamation League, whose largest-ever study of anti-Semitic attitudes (more than 53,000 people in 102 countries) we covered here ["13-May-14: Understanding who hates us"] has today announced a follow-up. In summarizing the results today [press release here], the ADL's statement sets the stage by referring to current events:

In the aftermath of the shocking violence against Jews in Western Europe the past year, the level of anti-Semitic attitudes among the general population in France showed a dramatic decline, while Germany and Belgium registered significant reductions...

Then in exquisitely careful language it moves on to add a new quantitative layer to the existing analysis, touching on an issue that gets discussed a great deal but almost always on the basis of anecdotal evidence only: attitudes to Jews among Europe's Moslems:

For the first time, the ADL poll measured Muslim attitudes toward Jews in six countries in Western Europe finding that acceptance of anti-Semitic stereotypes by Muslims in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K was substantially higher than among the national population in each country.

This is a report that is likely to trigger widespread discussions for some time to come. The key findings (in our words):

(Read Full Post)

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Wondering Why Flotillas Sail to Gaza, Not Syria?

...Activists seek to go to Gaza, however, for one clear reason, and it has nothing to do with humanitarian concerns. Arabs who are engaged in conflicts with other Arabs don’t interest them no matter how many people are killed or how much suffering is caused. Even at the height of the fighting last year when hundreds of Palestinian civilians were unfortunately killed as they were caught in fighting provoked by Hamas, the casualties there were dwarfed by what is going on in Syria. But it is only when Jews are involved in defending their state that the human rights community discovers a crisis.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
29 June '15..

Today, the latest publicity stunt by pro-Palestinian activists ended harmlessly as the Israel Navy intercepted a ship off the coast of Gaza that was attempting to break the blockade of the strip in order to draw attention to what is passengers claim is a humanitarian crisis. But, like previous Gaza flotillas, the effort has little to do with the plight of the people of Gaza and everything to do with the long war being waged to end Israel’s existence. More to the point, the continued focus on Gaza by those calling themselves advocates for human rights at the very moment that a genuine human catastrophe is occurring inside Syria without much of response from the international community tells us all we need to know about the hypocrisy of Israel-bashers.

The fact that it was Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu who today pointed out the fact that flotillas aren’t sailing to Syria doesn’t make it any less valid. Thousands of Syrians have been slaughtered by the Assad regime that is backed by Iran and Hezbollah terrorists with more being killed by its tacit ISIS allies. The carnage has created millions of refugees who are living in squalor inside the country or in camps in neighboring Jordan.

But as Netanyahu knows, there will be no peace activist flotilla to Syria to bring aid to people who really need it. Nor had those on the Swedish-registered Marianne that was diverted by the Israelis gotten lost on their way to help those truly in need. Instead, they were on the way to try and help the Hamas government of Gaza that has been rightly isolated by the international community since the bloody 2007 coup when the Islamist group seized power.

While the situation in Gaza isn’t pleasant, the popular notion of a humanitarian crisis there is a myth. That’s because there is no shortage of food or medicine in the strip since Israel allows daily convoys of such supplies into Gaza every day, including those when Hamas is shooting rockets over the border at cities and towns inside the Jewish state. It is true that there is a shortage of building materials inside Gaza. Given the scale of the destruction wrought by the war Hamas launched against Israel last year, that’s a problem. But the reason why such materials can’t be brought into the strip without restrictions was revealed anew when Hamas showcased a new terror tunnel that it claims reaches into Israel on Iranian TV on Sunday. Most of the concrete that is brought into Gaza is being used for such tunnels or for the construction of elaborate fortifications that will enable Hamas to shield its arsenal and other structures intended to make it harder for Israel to repress rocket fire aimed at civilians.

But if you think the Jews are the one people in the world not entitled to a state or its defense...

...By any rational standard, Israel’s effort to stop Hamas missile fire and tunnels was a just war. But if you think Israelis deserve to be killed simply because they are Israelis and that the Jews are the one people in the world not entitled to a state or its defense, then it doesn’t matter how hard the IDF tries to save Palestinian lives. Such bias has a name and it applies to those who hold such views whether they are Arabs or Jews: anti-Semitism. That and not the details of the reports about Gaza is what will continue to drive the debate about the war.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
15 June '15..

It’s not likely that many of Israel’s critics will pay much attention to the report issued on Sunday by the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs about last summer’s war in Gaza. Nor will they take notice of a separate report compiled by a multinational group of retired generals and admirals on the conflict that was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last week. Both of these reports say the Israel Defense Forces acted in a largely exemplary fashion during the 50 days of conflict. They conclude that charges of war crimes against the Israelis are false and that the primary responsibility for the entire conflict and the toll of civilian casualties belongs to the Hamas terrorists who started the Gaza war and used the population in the strip as human shields. Instead, Israel-bashers will wait for the report of the UNHRC, which is likely to condemn the IDF. But the problem here goes deeper than dueling reports from two parties — Israel and the HRC — whose bias is not in doubt. The battle over the reports provides a microcosm of the entire conflict precisely because the facts are irrelevant to the debate. It doesn’t matter how much care the IDF takes to avoid hurting noncombatants. If, like the HRC and other Israel-haters, you don’t think the Jewish state has a right to exist or to defend itself, everything it does is illegitimate. By the same token, it doesn’t matter how culpable Hamas is, their crimes are always going to be rationalized or even justified by those determined to smear Israel.

The MFA report, like that of the group of foreign military leaders, examined the conflict soberly and admitted that, as in every war, there were plenty of mistakes made in the heat of battle. Though the rules of engagement for allowing a strike on a specific target in Gaza involved a formidable list of assurances that civilians were not put at risk, there are always going to be instances in which circumstances change in the short period between authorization of firing and when the shells land. Moreover, it is not always possible to distinguish between armed combatants and civilians when Hamas fighters are doing everything possible to blend in with their human shields. That is why, contrary to Hamas propaganda mimicked by much of the international press, sought to deny that nearly half of the Palestinians killed were actually terrorist personnel. Sometimes those who are warned to leave areas about to come under attack don’t do so (often at the demands of Hamas). Sometimes fire is inaccurate. But despite the attempt of Israel-haters to portray the IDF as bloodthirsty, even those incidents that were clearly errors cannot be said to be the result of deliberate action. Sometimes soldiers just make a mistake, as happens in every war in history.

It should be remembered that General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last year that the conduct of the IDF was a model for Americans forces to follow in their own fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. As these reports make clear, there isn’t a military in the world that is forced to observe such restrictive rules of engagement when fighting terrorists.

Nor should it be forgotten that the context of the Gaza war is not one in which Israel launched an unprovoked attack on innocents. To the contrary, the chain of events that led to war began with the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by a Hamas cell. The Hamas rulers of Gaza then escalated the conflict by firing thousands of rockets on Israeli cities and towns. They also attempted to use terror tunnels dug under the international border between Israel and Gaza to kidnap and murder other Israeli civilians.

Hamas runs what is for all intents and purposes an independent Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza. But its conduct in the war consisted of acts of terrorism as well as war crimes against its own people because of its decision to launch missiles and conduct attacks against Israelis in the vicinity of civilians. Its leadership hid in secure bunkers under hospitals that Israel did not attack. Though, unlike Israelis, the people of Gaza had few places to which they could flee for safety, there were plenty of shelters in the strip. But those shelters were for Hamas’s bombs and fighters, not ordinary Palestinians.

The Great Equalizer Of All Jews by Sarah Honig

...One must only wonder whether Nini’s avid pro-Palestinian polemics would have won her exemption from the Liege café ban. Going by the French wording, she might just have been able squeeze into the premises and be accorded the privilege of rubbing shoulders with its free-thinking patrons. However, odds are that the proprietors’ genuine preference is for the Turkish phrasing. From their undiscriminating perspective there’s no difference between Noa and Ariel. They would eye both with equal disdain. That’s the anti-Semitic bottom line – Jews are despised regardless of who they may be, regardless of what they believe, what they say, do or achieve. Anti-Semitism, its convenient camouflages notwithstanding, is the great equalizer of all Jews.

Liege, Belgium- “Entry is permitted
 to dogs but not to Jews under any
circumstances!”

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
04 June '15..

Last summer a café in a suburb of the Belgian city of Liege exposed the current face of anti-Semitism in one compact store-front display.

The window was festooned with the Palestinian flag, decorated with Fatah keffiahs and featured an Israeli flag crossed-out with a big red “X.” But if just-landed Martians failed to get the message, there was written bilingual elucidation as well. The French version, for the benefit of the natives, boldly announced:

“Entry is permitted to dogs but not to Zionists under any circumstances!”

Nonetheless, politically correct constraints in French clearly don’t cramp Turkish styles. Lest any perplexed Turk encounter difficulties in determining who’s a Zionist, the Turkish sign spelled things out explicitly – without synthetic attempts at European niceties. It let the proverbial cat out of the bag for dog-lovers and haters-of-Zion alike.

“Entry is permitted to dogs but not to Jews under any circumstances!”

The bit about Zionists was exclusively for European consumption. Ever since the end of WWII, undisguised anti-Jewish harangues have lost their erstwhile luster in much of the continent. Anti-Israel and anti-Zionist discourse, however, provides socially acceptable alternatives. Nowadays, in fact, these substitutes have become the obligatory fad for the fashion-conscious.

Careless about prevalent conventions, though, the Turkish café-owners clearly illustrated that the terminology can be used interchangeably. If anything, anti-Zionist and anti-Jew are synonyms, despite expedient denials by disingenuous Europeans and Arab propagandists.

The mundane justification for Europe’s resurgent in-your-face anti-Semitism is that it’s nothing of the sort – that it is just a warranted protest against Israeli policies. The inference is that the vehemence is very ad hoc and that it would dissipate in a jiffy as soon as the particular Israeli provocation disappears.

The problem, of course, is that the causations and characterizations of these alleged provocations are hard to pin down. They vary and mutate faster than viruses do. Any Israeli deed in any sphere of human activity can be skewed into a misdeed and any misdeed into a hair-raising crime against humanity. Israel’s so-called criminal record becomes too all-inclusive to be taken at face value.

Eventually one must arrive at the unavoidable understanding that Israel can do no right and that, by its very existence, Israel constitutes an obnoxious entity – a grievance that must be removed. Hence the clamor for supposed policy modifications is nothing that can be satisfied as long as Israel continues to exist.

Barack Obama's anti-Semitism test by Caroline Glick

...As Obama rightly understands, in the coming months, as he tries to sell his nuclear deal with Iran and his anti-Israel positions at the UN to the American public, the question of whether or not he is an anti-Semite will become more salient than ever before. Now that he has answered the question, Israel needs to act in accordance with Jewish values, and choose life even at the expense of good relations with the Obama administration.

photo credit:REUTERS / JONATHAN ERNST

Caroline Glick..
Column One/JPost..
28 May '15..

Is U.S. President Barack Obama an anti-Semite? This question has lingered in the air since his first presidential bid in 2008. It first arose due to the anti-Semitic sermons that Jeremiah Wright, his pastor for more than 20 years, made as Obama and his family sat in the pews.

Throughout the six-and-a-half years of his presidency, Obama has laughed off the concerns.

But he has not dispelled them. And this failure has hurt him.

So last week, Obama went to significant lengths to answer the question about his feelings toward Israel and the Jewish people once and for all.

The timing of his charm offensive wasn’t coincidental.

Obama clearly believes he has to dispel doubts about his intentions toward Jews and Israel in order to implement the central policy of his second term in office. That policy of course is his nuclear deal with Iran.

Obama’s agreement with the mullahs is supposed to be concluded by the end of next month.

Obama argues that his deal will prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. But as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained in his address before the joint houses of Congress in March, from what has already been revealed about the nuclear deal Obama seeks to conclude, far from preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear arms, the deal will provide several pathways for Iran to at a minimum become a threshold nuclear state, capable of developing nuclear weapons at the drop of a hat. If Iran cheats on the deal, it can develop nuclear weapons while the agreement is still in force. If it abides by the agreement, it can develop nuclear weapons as soon as the agreement expires.

Beyond his desire to conclude a nuclear deal that will empower a regime that has pledged to destroy Israel, there are Obama’s reported plans for changing the way the US relates to Israel at the UN Security Council.

For the past half-century, the US has used its veto power at the Security Council to prevent substantive anti-Israel draft resolutions from passing. But Obama and his top advisers have hinted and media reports have provided details about his intention to end this 50-year policy.

Obama reportedly intends to enable the passage of a French draft resolution that would require Israel to withdraw to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines.

As these two policies, which bear directly on Israel’s ability to defend itself and indeed, to survive, near implementation, Obama is faced with the fact that he has a credibility problem when it comes to issues related to the survival and existence of the Jewish state.

In a bid to address this credibility problem, last week he invested significant time and effort in building up his credibility on Jewish issues. To this end, he gave an extensive interview to Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, and he gave a speech before Adas Israel, a large, liberal Conservative synagogue in Washington, DC.

To a degree, Obama was successful. He did put to bed the question of whether or not he is anti-Semitic.

In his interview with Goldberg, Obama gave a reasonable if incomplete definition of what anti-Semitism is. Obama said that an anti-Semite is someone who refuses to recognize the 3,000-year connection between the Jews and the Land of Israel. An anti-Semite is also someone who refuses to recognize the long history of persecution that the Jewish people suffered in the Diaspora.

According to Obama, an anti-Semite is someone who refuses to understand that this history of persecution together with the Jews’ millennial connection to the Land of Israel is what justifies the existence of Israel in the Land of Israel.

Moreover, according to Obama, anti-Semites refuse to understand that Israel remains in mortal danger due to the continued existence of anti-Semitic forces that seek its destruction.

And that isn’t all. As he sees it, even if you do understand the legitimacy of Israel’s existence and recognize the continued threats to its survival, you could still be an anti-Semite.

As Obama explained to Goldberg, there is still the problem of double standards.

In his words, “If you acknowledge those things, then you should be able to align yourself with Israel where its security is at stake, you should be able to align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not held to a double standard in international fora, you should align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not isolated.”

To his credit, Obama provided a clear, well-argued and constructive definition of anti-Semitism.

But there’s a bit of a problem. Right after Obama provided us with his definition of anti-Semitism, he endorsed and indeed engaged in the very anti-Semitism he had just defined.

The New Judeophobic Zeitgeist by Sarah Honig

...This is hardly the first bizarre anti-Israel resolution to be produced by UN forums for whom Israel remains an unparalleled atrocious ogre. But this resolution stands out for its utterly outlandish misrepresentation and boundless wickedness.

Israeli doctors treating a Nepalese boy
injured in the recent earthquake.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
25 May '15..

Little attention was paid in Israel to the latest UN anti-Israel extravaganza. Presumably we’ve grown inured to the hate spouted at us.

While the Arab Spring’s carnage boggles the civilized mind, the World Health Organization, the UN’s public health agency, has identified the true transgressor – Israel.

WHO’s annual assembly last week condemned Israel for “violating the health rights of Syrians in the Golan.” This is a travesty in every conceivable aspect.

While the bloodbath in the region continues unabated, the international forum has found nothing else worth focusing upon but Israel. Only Israel was singled out by the WHO assembly.

This comes despite the fact that Israeli medics and hospitals provide indisputably altruistic treatment to spiraling numbers of civilians and enemy combatants from Syria, fleeing that country’s killing fields. The most cutting-edge medical care is given critically wounded victims who reach the Golan border.

But most disheartening of all is the fact that this disgraceful resolution was adopted in Geneva by a whopping majority of 104 to 4, with 6 abstentions and 65 no-shows. Israel, unjustly accused and unjustly convicted in another UN kangaroo court, was condemned even by European delegations, which purport to occupy the high moral ground although they ought to know all about blood libel.

Gallingly, the Syrian government – which has been mass-murdering its own citizens – submitted a document that urged WHO to “intervene immediately and take effective measures to end inhuman Israeli practices that target the health of Syrian citizens.”

The Israeli “occupation authorities,” were accused of “continuing to experiment on Syrian and Arab prisoners with medicines and drugs and to inject them with pathogenic viruses.” This charge aroused no revulsion apparently among the participants. Not one representative of any country of the European Union was outraged, protested or walked out of the deliberations.

This could be perceived as farcical, were it not in fact tragic.

And Yes, Denying Jews the Right to Define Judaism is Anti-Semitism

...When non-Jews start trying to dictate what Judaism does and doesn’t consist of, that’s anti-Semitism. When non-Jews insist they know better than Jews do what being Jewish entails, that’s anti-Semitism. When non-Jews demand that Jews reject the religious identity prescribed by both the Bible and a 4,000-year-old tradition, that’s anti-Semitism. And it’s about time we started calling it by its rightful name.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
13 May '15..

In honor of this week’s 5th Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, I’d like to propose a new definition of the term: Anti-Semitism is when Jews, alone of all the world’s religions, are denied the right to decide for themselves what their religion’s core tenets actually are. Nobody would dream of telling Christians that, for instance, their religion really has nothing to do with Jesus. Nobody would dream of telling Muslims that their religion really has nothing to do with the Koran. Yet a growing number of people seem to feel they have a perfect right to tell Jews that their religion really has nothing to do with being part of a nation.

Thus you get people like Jannine Salman, a member of the Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, blithely telling the New York Times last week that Jews have no call to feel their religion is under attack by strident anti-Zionists, because “There is a bifurcation: Zionism is a political identity, Judaism is a religious identity, and it does a disservice to both to blur the line.” And never mind that neither the Bible nor 4,000 years of Jewish tradition recognize any such bifurcation.

Indeed, the concept of Judaism as a religious identity devoid of any national component is so foreign to the Bible that nowhere in it are Jews ever referred to as adherents of a “religion.” Rather, the most common Biblical terms for the Jews are Bnei Yisrael, the children of Israel, and Am Yisrael, the nation of Israel. The rough modern equivalents would be kin-group and kin-state, though neither captures the Biblical imperative that this particular kin-group and kin-state be committed to a particular set of laws and ideals.

That’s also why the modern Hebrew word for religion, dat, is a Persian import originally meaning “law” that is found in the Bible only in books such as Esther and Daniel, which take place when the Jews were under Persian rule. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the man who revived Hebrew as a modern language, tried hard to base his modern lexicon on ancient Hebrew roots. But there simply isn’t any ancient Hebrew term remotely equivalent to the modern conception of religion.

The Pitiable Descent of Amnesty International's Concern for Human Rights

...It is pitiful that Amnesty International should have descended so low in its partiality in Middle Eastern affairs and in its lack of genuine concern for human rights – at least for the human rights of Jews.

Dr. Michael Curtis..
American Thinker..
27 April '15..

In the roster of organizations whose well-meaning objectives have been distorted by bias and prejudicial resolutions, Amnesty International (AI) stands high. For those concerned with human rights, AI is now part of the problem, not part of the solution. It has lost the treasure of a spotless reputation.

The stated objective of AI is to work to protect human rights worldwide, and to mobilize the grassroots power of millions of people to effect change. Yet its members refused to approve a text that called on the U.K. government to monitor anti-Semitism closely and periodically review the security of Britain’s Jewish population.

A majority of members of AI at its annual general meeting in London on April 19, 2015 thought otherwise. The members, by a vote of 468 to 461, rejected a resolution to campaign against anti-Semitism, and to tackle the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Britain, whether physical or verbal, online, or in person.

The difference between this action in London and political activities in Paris is telling. The French government has proposed 40 items of legislation aimed at combating expressions and manifestations of anti-Semitism. To this end, it would encourage, among other things, countering the spread of anti-Semitism by training teachers and sports clubs and by setting up social media sites to oppose intolerance. The French government is also proposing that advocacy and action of racial and religious hatred should be regarded as criminal offenses.

To her credit, Marine Le Pen, chair of the National Front (FN), like other French politicians, has been conscious of the increase of anti-Semitism and of attacks on Jews in France. Whether she acted to protect the political interests of her party or for more sincere reasons, on April 12, 2015, she disowned the statements made by her 86-year-old father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the party in 1972. In an interview on April 7, 2015, in the extreme right-wing anti-Semitic publication Rivarol, the elder Le Pen had repeated his minimization of the Holocaust and his defense of Marshal Petain, the head of the collaborationist Vichy regime during World War II. For him, the Nazi gas chambers were a “mere detail” in the history of the war.

The vote against the resolution at the AI meeting in London was disgraceful and indeed dishonorable for three reasons. First, the resolution had explained the increasing problem. In February 2015, the report of the British All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism found that there was a 221-percent increase in hate crimes directed at Jews during the 2014 Gaza conflict when compared with same period in 2013.

Secondly, it was only resolution defeated during the whole conference, and it related only to British Jews, not to the State of Israel. Thirdly, it displayed that for AI, the concern about anti-Semitism was less significant than other human rights issues. One might even conclude that the 468 members voting against condemning anti-Semitism might not disapprove of it or, even more, might believe that Jews have no human rights.

AI officials defended the vote in specious fashion. AIUK condemned all forms of hate crime and discrimination, but “unfortunately we could not campaign on everything.” The officials argued that AIUK could not pass a resolution calling for a campaign with a single focus. This belied the reality that resolutions passed at the 2015 conference were on a number of specific issues: abortion, Guatemala, Colombian activists, torture in the U.K., and asylum detention in the U.K. At its conference the year before, resolutions included subjects of sex work, garment workers in Asian countries, Guantánamo, Guatemala, and Sri Lanka.

When BDS Drops Its Veil: Campus Anti-Semitism

...but the problem won’t be dealt with by ignoring the clear connection between the worldwide BDS—boycott, divest, sanction—movement and anti-Semitism. That’s a stand that many supporters of Israel have refused to take believing that crying anti-Semitism will cloud the issue and make it harder to advocate for Israel. But divestment advocates are making it increasingly obvious they have no scruples about the link between Jew hatred and treating Israel as a pariah state. BDS isn’t about a political dispute within Israel, its borders, or sympathy for the Palestinians. It’s a war on Jews.

Molly Horwitz, a Stanford
student council candidate, 
Jim Wilson/The New York Times 

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
15 April '15..

The most telling comment about the story of a Stanford University student who was quizzed about her Jewish faith when she tried to run for office came from her friend and campaign manager. Molly Horwitz, a Stanford junior, was running for the Student Senate and her campaign manager and friend Miriam Pollock told her what she had to do. According to the New York Times, Pollack advised Horwitz to “scrub” her personal Facebook page and remove anything that related to Israel or her support for the Jewish state. But that didn’t stop the Students of Color Coalition from demanding to know whether Horwitz’s “Jewish identity” impacted her stand on divestment—the economic war being waged against Israel. The episode in which some black and Latino students now think it is acceptable to treat Judaism as a disqualifying characteristic is a horrifying example of the way anti-Semitism—thinly disguised as anti-Zionism—has established a secure foothold on American college campuses.

Horwitz may have removed Israel from her Facebook persona but couldn’t escape being classified as a Jew and was therefore suspect in the eyes of those who have come to treat support for the war on Zionism as a litmus test of liberal bona fides. But the significance of the incident lies not so much in the snub of a Hispanic student (she was adopted from Paraguay and considers herself both a South American and a Jew) by a coalition that is supposed to exist to support such persons simply because she is also Jewish and unwilling to disavow Israel under questioning. Rather, it is the insouciance with which the members of the student group—including the chapter president of the NAACP—regarded the inquisition of a Jewish student about her faith as being not only acceptable but something that should be expected.

Horwitz has demanded a public apology, but she shouldn’t hold her breath waiting for it. Nor should she expect much comfort from the university that has also been asked to investigate what happened. The reason is that so long as support for a movement that singles out the one Jewish state in the world and its supporters for discriminatory treatment and opprobrium is not merely tolerated as an opinion but treated as a reasonable point of view about which decent people may differ, we can’t be surprised that Jew hatred is being normalized.

Had the coalition merely asked Horwitz about her stand about divestment without connecting it to her faith, that might pass the anti-Semitism smell test even if it would still be troubling that blacks and Hispanics have adopted the attack on Zionism as their own cause. But by linking this issue to Judaism they have acknowledged the fact that the divestment cause is not merely a political criticism of Israel’s government or its policies but primarily focused on singling out Jews for biased treatment.

Israel must take Iran at its word

Yes, Israel must take Iran at its word and recognize that the nightmare of an Iranian regime able to back its rhetoric with substance will soon be its new reality. Under such circumstances, the Israelis would be foolish to respond to the threat with inaction.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
27 March '15..

As President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry rush to a nuclear deal that addresses few of the original issues that have sparked international concern with regard to Iran’s nuclear program, it may be useful to consider just why Israel has come to view a nuclear capable Islamic Republic of Iran as an existential threat. While there is much to criticize in the technicalities of the agreement, the consistency and frequency of Iranian threats against the Jewish state, as well as the prestige within Iran of those who have made such threats, are too often ignored.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was an unabashed racist and anti-Semite. He began his seminal essay on Islamic government—the exegesis that underlays the Islamic Revolution and Islamic Republic—by cursing the Jews. “From the very beginning, the historical movement of Islam has had to contend with the Jews, for it was they who first established anti-Islamic propaganda and engaged in various stratagems, and as you can see, this activity continues down to the present,” he declared.

Then, of course, there have been the repeated declarations about Israel’s destruction. Iranian authorities have declared the last Friday in Ramadan to be “Qods [Jerusalem] Day” and have reserved it for the most vitriolic sermons and threats. It was on Qods Day in 2001 that Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and one of the most influential regime figures, declared, “If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.” Hassan Rouhani was, of course, Supreme National Security Council chairman at the time. He applauded. Has he changed? No. One of his first actions as president was to underscore the importance of the annual Qods Day rally.

Other Iranian figures appointed by the supreme leader have also threatened to eradicate Israel by means of nuclear weapons. Why Western diplomats believe the assurances they receive in English when the supreme leader’s inner circle says quite the opposite in Persian is something someone might want to ask America’s nuclear negotiators. Likewise, while Obama seems to embrace the pre-World War I notion of secret treaties, there is no reason why the supreme leader’s fatwa against nuclear weapons should remain secret unless, of course, the assurance which Obama so often cites simply does not exist. Certainly, if the backbone of newfound trust in Iran is such a fatwa, the White House could provide its text. That it chooses not to do so again amplifies concerns that Obama has become Khamenei’s useful idiot.