Truth be Told, Anti-Zionism isn’t Antisemitism – but it Doesn’t Matter - by Victor Rosenthal

Antisemitism, Jew-hatred, gave rise to pogroms wherever Jews were found from time immemorial, including the biggest pogrom of all, the Holocaust. Misoziony has so far failed in its grand ambition, because its target, the State of Israel, possesses the military power to prevent it. But just because it hasn’t (yet) proven its malignity in blood doesn’t mean that it is morally acceptable, any more than any other bigotry.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
23 August '20..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2020/08/anti-zionism-isnt-antisemitism-but-it-doesnt-matter/

There has rarely been a more pointless dispute than the one over whether anti-Zionism is antisemitism. The answer is easy, and it has two parts: a) no, they are not the same, and b) it doesn’t matter.

What is anti-Zionism? The denial of the proposition that the Jewish people ought to have a state in their historic homeland, Eretz Yisrael. Right away, there is a problem: there has been a Jewish state since 1948, and its right to be there is guaranteed by international law. So it doesn’t make sense to argue this point today.

But that isn’t what they mean, they say. They maintain that what they are doing is criticism of Israel. They argue that Israel violates the human rights of Palestinian Arabs (even accusing her of genocide and apartheid), and provide remedies which usually imply the replacement of the state of the Jewish people by a state of its citizens, a “dezionized” entity of some kind, or simply an Arab state. But there’s no Jew-hatred involved, they insist.

Now as a matter of fact, very often the same people who “criticize Israel” in this way also believe that Jews control the world economy and media, profit from wars and plagues, and bleed little non-Jewish children to make matzot. In logical terms, the two classes are coextensive. But the “responsible” critics of Israel distance themselves from these people. Their position is entirely political. They hold no animus for individual Jews. Some of their best friends are Jews.

Let’s look closely at their “criticism,” and their proposed solutions. Both are very special. Natan Sharansky noted three characteristics of anti-Israel discourse, which he called the “three D’s”: Demonization, Delegitimization, and Double standard.

The demonization of Israel and the IDF needs no elaboration. Israel’s actions in self-defense are presented as aggression, atrocities are invented, false themes – the IDF “targets” children – are promoted, and no context is provided (e.g., news stories headlined “Israel strikes Gaza” to describe retaliation aimed at empty buildings following a Hamas rocket barrage against Israeli towns). There is the whole phenomenon of “Pallywood,” the comparisons to Nazi Germany, and over all the attribution of the most malign motives imaginable for every Israeli action.

Delegitimization is all-pervasive as well. Israel is excluded from UN bodies, sporting competitions, and artistic festivals. Israel is removed from maps, and its capital is not recognized. It is often argued falsely that the land of Israel was “stolen” from the Palestinian Arabs and that therefore the entire enterprise should be abolished.

Hmm. Opposes Iran sanctions, but supports BDS against Israel? - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Another lesson about why anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism from Ilhan Omar.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
09 January '20..

The rising tide of Jew-hatred that is sweeping around the globe is no laughing matter. So the idea of having a vote to determine who is the “Antisemite of the Year” may strike some as more of a publicity stunt than a sober attempt to deal with the problem. But whatever one may think of such a dubious label or whether it treats the subject with the requisite seriousness, the point of the Internet vote in which thousands took part was to call attention to the plague of anti-Semitism and how it is being legitimized. More to the point, it turned out that within days of the announcement, the “winner” of the title justified the choice with a statement that helped illustrate the way anti-Zionism is just another form of anti-Semitism.

The effort was sponsored by StopAntisemitism.org, which also recently published “The New Anti-Semites,” an authoritative report on the way the BDS movement is steeped in hatred of Jews, as well as the way its left-wing supporters receive vocal support from the far-right. And the result of the poll was in keeping with that theme. Though she had steep competition from the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan, Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and white-supremacist Richard Spencer, the person who received the most votes was Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

In a year in which armed white supremacists have attacked synagogues killing and wounding Jews at prayer, and in which thugs have turned violent attacks on ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Greater New York area a near daily occurrence, does Omar deserve the title?

You can make a good argument that, like the other publicity hounds that make “the Squad” of left-wing members of Congress, especially Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Omar has been given far too much attention by the national press. Yet it’s hard to ignore a member of Congress with 1.8 million Twitter followers that spews anti-Semitic invective about Jews having dual loyalty and buying Congress to support Israel. Even harder to ignore is that fact that Omar and her allies were, despite their humble status on Capitol Hill as insignificant congressional freshmen, powerful enough to force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to back off from efforts to censor Omar for her public anti-Semitism. And it can also be asserted that she and her colleagues have helped set the agenda for their party on issues like the Green New Deal, even if most House Democrats remain supportive of Israel rather than backers of BDS, as is the case with Omar and Tlaib.

Still, Omar deserves credit this week for illustrating not merely the hypocrisy of BDS, but how it treats Israel differently from other countries.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

York University: Campus Anti-Zionism Seen Through the Eyes of a Syrian Refugee - By Aboud Dandachi

I was about to find out that Canadian students at a top school like York University could hold protests just as serious and menacing as those I had seen in the Middle East

Aboud Dandachi..
Tablet Magazine..
25 November '19..

A refugee from a war-torn country is used to seeing all parts of their homeland become a battleground. Streets. Apartments. Football fields. Even the historic Krak de Chaveliers castle near my native Homs in Syria was fought over by opposing sides in the Syrian civil war. After landing in Canada, however, I hadn’t expected my new country’s universities to be arenas for ideological mobs to shout down and denounce their opponents.

When I made my way up to York University this month on the evening of the 20th, I was blissfully unaware of the university’s status as a hotbed of “anti-Zionist” activism.” I had only arrived in Canada in two years ago through the Refugee Resettlement Program and, still eager to explore, was taking my first trip up to York. I planned to attend an event being held by Herut Canada, who were hosting five members of the Israeli NGO “Reservists on Duty” an organization of Israeli military veterans who travel the world and hold talks and events to “counter the BDS movement and new forms of anti-Semitism erupting on US college campuses.”

I was looking forward to meeting with the Israeli veterans. Such meetings were frowned upon back in Syria—as in, land one in jail kind of frowned upon. Canada was the one truly safe place I had ever lived where a Syrian might meet Israelis without suffering any consequences.

Poor, naïve me.

As I soon learned, York University in Toronto has for some time earned its reputation as a place that is hostile to people holding Zionist and pro-Israeli political standings. A mural currently exhibited at the York University Student Centre garnered headlines for its depiction of a Palestinian with his back turned, face covered in a kafiya, a map of “Palestine” completely erasing Israel, clutching two rocks behind his back while gazing at a construction site. One does not have to be Jewish or Israeli to consider it a menacing piece.

Such sentiments may not be unique to York. Earlier in the week at another of the city’s major academic institutions, the University of Toronto, an official in the Graduate Student Union rejected a request from Hillel to support bringing more kosher food onto the campus, on the grounds that it would be taken as pro-Israel and might run contrary to the “will of the membership,” who had voted to support the BDS movement against Israel.

Back at York, in October Lauren Isaacs, a student at the school and director of the Toronto chapter of Herut Canada, an organization that describes itself as “a Zionist movement dedicated to social justice, the unity of the Jewish people and the territorial integrity of the Land of Israel”, set up an exhibition at York with a sign saying “I’m a Zionist, ask me why.” The reaction from some students was pure, unadulterated rage. Lauren has described on her Facebook page how she was insulted, spat on, called a Zionist-Nazi.

When I arrived at the campus Wednesday night, York’s Vari Hall appeared like what I imagined any Canadian faculty building to look like, with students lounging about with their laptops and headsets. Someone was dancing quite expertly to the sounds of a stereo player.

I decided, with time to kill before listening to speakers that the Syrian Mukhabarat would have had my neck just for meeting, that I would explore the student cafeteria. My refined Middle Eastern palate was unimpressed by the offerings available to the unfortunate York students at the cafeteria, although I did find the diversity of the student body quite impressive.

That was the last moment I would have any positive feelings toward York University.

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

The American anti-Zionists of Palestine Live: An industry of antisemitism denial - by David Collier

...I also captured an anti-AIPAC demonstration in 2017. Analysed the people present and the findings are truly horrific. When you remove Jewish people and Palestinians from the crowd, what is left is a mob of rabid antisemites. This is what those Jewish activists hold hands with when they attack the Jewish state. These people are their allies. Remember this when you see angry crowds outside AIPAC next week.

David Collier..
Beyond the Great Divide..
19 March '19..

I have just spent several dark weeks back inside Palestine Live. Today I publish a new report that focuses on the activity of American anti-Zionists, many of them Jewish (download link below). It is impossible to do a 262-page report justice in a small blog. The catalyst was the unfolding events in the United States. Jewish life for American Jews is different to the experience of Jews in the UK. Yet there are also similarities. I read an interesting article by Jonathan S Tobin, editor in chief of JNS.org, that was titled ‘How progressives are destroying the Jewish ‘big tent‘.

The subject matter will be familiar with Jewish people in the UK – Tobin discusses fringe organisations and where you draw the line when deciding which Jewish groups can be allowed in the ‘big tent’. Tobin had written the article because the week before, the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council voted to start a process to by which one of their constituent organizations might be booted out – why? Because they had indicated support for the Boycott movement, BDS.

I see the daily news in the US and it reminds me of the UK a few years ago. There are signs they are on a similar divisive path. Antisemitism rises and Jewish anti-Zionists leap into action, claiming it is about ‘criticism of Israel’. Creating an industry of antisemitism denial that legitmises antisemites. They write articles, they sign petitions, they appear on TV. In the States they have vocal anti-Zionist Jewish activists running organisations such as JVP and Codepink. Did you see the way they ran to protect Ilhan Omar? They create an environment within which antisemitism is given protection. Just like the anti-Zionists of Jewish Voice for Labour did in the UK. Only in the US, both anti-Zionist Jews and antisemites are more numerous.

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

From boycotting Jews to attacking MPs, antisemitism and the bullying thuggery of BDS - by David Collier

BDS is an excuse, the Palestinian cause is an excuse, freedom of speech is an excuse. This isn’t ‘BDS’ attacking Lana Del Ray, nor are they ‘Labour activists’ hounding Luciana Berger. These people are one and the same. A group of antisemitic thugs using whichever umbrella is convenient to legitimise their anti-Jewish stance. They can boycott Israeli business, remove kosher products from stores, bully artists, hassle politicians, deface Holocaust memorials, deny the Holocaust and protect those who spread anti-Jewish conspiracy theory. We should identify all this for what it is, a blatant attack on Jewish people by gangs of antisemitic thugs.

David Collier..
Beyond the Great Divide..
14 September '18..

By almost any measure of freedom, Israel is a Garden of Eden compared to every single one of its neighbours. The obsession people have with that *TINY* state is simply astonishing. Of all the nations in the world, Israel is the one people want to boycott (BDS)? No less astonishing is the obsession some people have with the *TINY* global Jewish population. You cannot simply ignore that ‘coincidence’.

They say that the entire argument over antisemitism is about freedom to ‘criticise Israel’. That is a lie. There is nothing stopping anybody criticising Israel. The truth is that none of the people on the ‘anti-Israel’ front-line are moderates who seek peace and just want to ‘criticise’. In actual fact, when you kick the rock, the only thing that comes out from underneath is a cultist. A thug who buys into conspiracy theory, wants Israel destroyed and doesn’t like Jews.

Look around you. Look closely at each of those leading the attack.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Any Surprise? ‘Guardian’ Op-Ed Defends View That Israel Has No Right to Exist - by Adam Levick

...Anti-Zionism not a theoretical argument, but a radical campaign that seeks the destruction of an actually existing nation-state. Anti-Zionists such as Khalidi don’t say nation-states shouldn’t exist. They say that only the Jewish state shouldn’t exist.

Adam Levick..
Algemeiner..
30 August '18..

The headline of a Guardian op-ed by Ahmad Samih Khalidi (“Siding with the Palestinian struggle is not antisemitic”) is of course a straw man, as nobody claims that merely “siding with the Palestinians” is antisemitic. Khalidi, a former adviser to both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, has a broader goal: to defend those who object to the continued existence of a Jewish state, based on the “profound injustice” at the root of Zionism.

In an effort to legitimize his anti-Zionism, Khalidi grossly misleads readers by claiming that “Jewish opposition to Zionism has a long and distinguished history.” In fact, whilst there was a lively debate before Israel declared independence on the question of Zionism, today, Jewish opposition to the living, breathing state of Israel represents a minuscule, politically irrelevant fringe.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Beinart and The Forward : Leftist anti-Zionism whose roots are still in the same anti-Semitic Marxist sewer - by Daniel Greenfield

Karl Marx was right about one thing. There is a struggle between Judaism and the left. For the left to win, Judaism must be destroyed. And Beinart and The Forward are still waging his war on Judaism. And the Jews of Israel are winning through the traditional Jewish strategy of surviving. Every Jewish child born in Israel, every Jewish home that rises on a hill, is a defeat for Beinart, The Forward, and the left.

...Beinart, an anti-Jewish activist of
Jewish descent, is the perfect fit for an
anti-Jewish tabloid of Jewish descent.

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
29 August '18..

Anti-Israel activist Peter Beinart had spent years arguing that Hamas was a potentially moderate organization. Then when he was questioned at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, he played victim.

But as Caroline Glick notes, there was every reason for Israeli authorities to question Beinart’s visit, because the anti-Israel BDS activist had participated in anti-Israel protests in Israel. Beinart was not, despite his claims, detained. He was asked about his participation in that protest by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. The Center, despite its name, is used by Jewish Voice for Peace members, a BDS hate group, which also, despite its name, advocates for and supports terrorists who attack Israel.

JVP members are on the banned list. Beinart had participated in a protest organized by a group that it used as a vehicle. So it’s completely normal that he was asked about it just as visitors to this country are asked about their membership in prohibited organizations such as the Nazi, Communist and other totalitarian parties. The BDS blacklist that bigots like Beinart rave about is no different than the United States blacklist on anyone who “has used a position of prominence to endorse terrorism.”

That’s the BDS movement.

JVP declared that it was proud to host Rasmea Odeh. Odeh had been convicted of a supermarket bombing in Israel that killed Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner: two Hebrew University students. It called the terrorist an “inspiration” and used the hashtag, #HonorRasmea. That’s using “a position of prominence to endorse terrorism” which gets you banned from both the United States and Israel.

Beinart writes for The Forward, a paper notorious for attacks on Israel and Jews that veer into the anti-Semitic. Typically anti-Semitic Forward headlines include, "3 Jewish Moguls Among Eight Who Own as Much as Half the Human Race” and "Why We Should Applaud The Politician Who Said Jews Control The Weather."

Beinart, an anti-Jewish activist of Jewish descent, is the perfect fit for an anti-Jewish tabloid of Jewish descent. The Forward's rebranding dropped the "Jewish" part of its name in 2015. That was also the year that Beinart accused Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel of a “tendency, to whitewash Jewish behavior.”

"He is largely blind to the harm Jews cause," Beinart railed against Wiesel in terms ominously similar to those used by anti-Semites. Israel, he claimed, "leads gentiles of goodwill to fear that if they criticize Israel they’ll be called anti-Semites." Peter Beinart or Richard Spencer: who wore the bigotry best?

But the gauzy line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is if anything even thinner among obsessive Israel bashers of Jewish origin like Beinart or The Forward’s Jane Eisner, its radical editor who stripped the lefty tabloid of its Jewishness, but not of its poisonous hatred of Jews. On the cocktail party circuit, Beinart is misleadingly billed as a ‘liberal Zionist.’ Like the Holy Roman Empire, he’s neither a liberal nor a Zionist. Neither liberals nor Zionists excuse Hamas or blame the victims of terror for their own deaths.

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

The BDS movement against Israel? A case where the Nazi comparison does make sense. - by Benjamin Weinthal/Asaf Romirowsky

...There has been no shortage of Democrats and Republicans falsely accusing each other of Nazism over the last two decades. While the reckless and unjustified use of “Nazi” as an adjective is on an inflationary upward trend, the comparison between BDS and the Nazi era warrants being drawn. If the rapid spread of BDS in Europe is to be stopped, the BDS campaign should be recognized as a moral pariah that threatens both Jews and non-Jews.

Benjamin Weinthal/Asaf Romirowsky..
The Hill/Opinion..
22 August '18..

In a remarkable finding in their May report, intelligence officials of the German state of Baden Württemberg wrote that propaganda from the neo-Nazi party Der Dritte Weg (The Third Way) calling to boycott Israeli products “roughly recalls similar measures against German Jews by the National Socialists, for example, on April 1, 1933 (the slogan: 'Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!')"

The historical significance of the parallel between contemporary calls to boycott Israeli products and the Hitler movement’s economic warfare against German Jewish businesses should not be ignored.

The Nazi efforts to strangle Jewish companies in order to isolate and dehumanize German Jews was a nascent phase of the Holocaust. Hence the boycott campaign against Israel is just another dangerous recurrence of history in a new form.

Fast forward to 2005: According to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement’s declaration targeting the Jewish state, a key demand is the return of all “Palestinian refugees” to Israel. The “return” of the alleged millions of Palestinians refugees—based on a bogus definition of refugee status—would spell dissolution of the Jewish state. Anti-Semitism at its core is about discrimination against Jews.

The proliferation of pro-BDS activities in Germany prompted Felix Klein, the German government commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, to write in the daily Die Welt in August that “the BDS movement is antisemitic in its methods and goals.” He added that BDS’s “Don’t buy!” stickers on products from the Jewish state are “methods from the Nazi period.”

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Question. Can pro-BDS anti-Semites redefine anti-Semitism? - by Jonathan Tobin

Four lies spread by groups that support anti-Semitic incitement and BDS efforts to eradicate Israel need to be debunked.

Jonathan Tobin..
JNS.org..
19 July '18..

At first glance, it sounds reasonable. There is nothing wrong with seeking to differentiate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism. After all, Israelis criticize Israel’s democratically elected government every day. Like any other nation, its leaders are fallible and its policies can be opposed, even if you cherish the Jewish state.

But the attempt by Jewish Voice for Peace and 35 other far-left groups to essentially redefine anti-Semitism in order to sanitize the BDS movement falls flat. What they are doing is the moral equivalent of giving criminals the power to rewrite the law so as to render their convictions null and void. The declaration signed by these organizations organized by JVP is rooted in four lies. These lies involve the nature of BDS and anti-Zionism, the claim that Israel as an apartheid state, and that anti-BDS laws repress free speech.

The statement claims that Jews are under siege from a rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world but notes only the activities of white supremacists and racists on the far-right, while ignoring the actions of left-wing Jew-haters. It goes on then to claim that efforts by supporters of Israel to brand the BDS as anti-Semitic is not only unjust, but a diversion from what they think is the real fight against anti-Semitism.

It’s true that right-wing anti-Semitism still exists. But the notion that these forces are the only or even the principal threat to the Jews—or that the Trump administration and the Israeli government are aiding and abetting anti-Semitism, or are examples of authoritarian regimes—is false.

The most potent and prevalent form of anti-Semitism today is the one that JVP supports: the BDS movement, and the way that anti-Zionism is used as a thin veil for hate and violence against Jews.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

How the word “Presbyterian” has become synonymous with antisemitism, Jew-baiting, unfathomable contempt for Israel - by Dexter Van Zile

...As a result of the IPMN’s propaganda war, the word “Presbyterian” has become synonymous with antisemitism, Jew-baiting, unfathomable contempt for Israel and a head-in-the-sand approach to jihadist violence against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. It did not have to be this way. The PCUSA did not have to allow itself to be used as the backdrop for a modern-day reenactment of the Salem Witch Trials. It could have been otherwise.

Dexter Van Zile..
blogs.timesofisrael.com..
16 March '18..
Link: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/it-could-have-been-otherwise/

For more than a decade, the Presbyterian Church (USA), a shrinking Protestant denomination headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, has engaged in a persistent and intentional campaign of Jew-baiting. The people in the pews are not directly responsible for this campaign, but they do bear some measure of responsibility for allowing it to happen. They sat on the sidelines while so-called “peace activists” affiliated with the Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA) produced hateful anti-Israel propaganda that portrayed the Jewish state as a singular threat to peace and human rights in the Middle East. The IPMN and its supporters also portrayed American Jews as enemies of democracy in the U.S.

Every two years, IPMN supporters put forth overtures demonizing the Jewish state onto the agenda of the denomination’s General Assembly and then enlisted anti-Zionist Jews from Jewish Voice for Peace to advocate for these resolutions, as if this marginal organization spoke for the entire population of Jews in the U.S. and was a reliable source of information about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Wrong on both counts.

The church’s laity did not wake up to the rot in their denomination when prominent theologians and educators in their church met with Hezbollah, an explicitly antisemitic organization that seeks Israel’s destruction. In 2004, one of these theologians said talking to Hezbollah was easier than talking with American Jews. That should have been a clue that something was wrong in the PCUSA, but it wasn’t enough to arouse the laity.

The church’s laity did not object when their denomination’s leaders and staffers in Louisville ran interference with the leadership of mainstream Jewish groups by offering up the tired old refrain that “criticizing” Israel is not antisemitic. But the people from IPMN were not merely “criticizing” Israel, but were instead de-legitimizing the very notion of Jewish self-determination. The IPMN encouraged its supporters to embrace propaganda produced by Hezbollah. The IPMN trafficked in ugly antisemitic imagery on its Facebook page and produced numerous documents portraying Zionism — the Jewish demand for self-determination — as “the problem” in the Middle East.

One IPMN leader encouraged Hamas to continue to hold Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as a hostage until Israel acquiesced to Palestinian demands for “right of return.” This same leader declared that Israeli soldiers “are not human beings” in a Facebook post. That should have been a clue that something was seriously wrong in the denomination, but again it was not enough to wake up the laity.

When defending the IPMN’s polemics from Jewish criticism became untenable, the church’s staffers in Louisville trotted out the line that the IPMN was not an official part of the church itself, when in fact, the organization was created by a 2004 vote of the denomination’s General Assembly. People who wanted to donate to the IPMN did so through the denomination’s website.

At one point, when some church staffers concerned about Christian-Jewish relations attempted to document how so-called peacemaking commentary promoted hostility toward the Jewish people, the anti-Israel activists screamed bloody murder and got the document watered down.

All of this happened while the denomination’s General Assembly offered nary a word of criticism of jihadists who engaged in acts of genocide against Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Syria and while Christians throughout the world endured terrible acts of persecution and murder at the hands of jihadists. And it all happened while churches were leaving the PCUSA to join other denominations in droves.

A small group of activists from a group called Presbyterians for Middle East Peace (PFMEP) tried to confront IPMN’s agenda. It achieved some victories but was largely unsuccessful in its effort to stop the PCUSA from being hijacked by anti-Israel ideologues.

PFMEP’s failure was not rooted in incompetence on its part, but in the nature of the opponents it faced. For IPMN and its allies, the PCUSA’s status as a sacramental community was irrelevant. For the anti-Israel activists, the only thing that mattered was passing overtures at GA that attacked Israel. Anti-Israel BDS resolutions were the only sacrament IPMN and its supporters cared about.

Antisemitism is denied at the University of Warwick, it’s a Jewish plot to silence criticism - by David Collier

Every single element of the process, whether it is ‘free speech on Israel’, ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’ or viscous university events such as this, have all gone out of their way to deny the problem of antisemitism and thus to allow it to flourish. Jewish students are left sitting in a room and having their accusations of racism publicly demonised and ridiculed. Free speech? No, it has a cost and Warwick really have to get a grip on this. Calling on Jews in the 21st century to convert or else be demonised is no way to run an academic establishment.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
09 February '18..

Three days ago, on 6th Feb, the University of Warwick held another anti-Israel meeting. The third such event in a month. Rather than directly discuss Israel, they wanted to focus on antisemitism. Or as it turned out to focus on how there isn’t really much of it about. Antisemitism is apparently rare these days, and the only reason it is in the news, is because Jews are a mix of devious, stupid and heartless people. Jews make up charges of anti-Jewish racism, and are then mobilised by western governments to suppress freedoms, so that land-grabbing Jews elsewhere can carry on killing children without criticism. No it isn’t a quote, but it is the inherent logic of the evening.

The event was titled ‘Palestinian rights, Prevent’ and the Misuse of antisemitism‘. This follows the argument that rather than being used to shed light on unacceptable hatred and defend victims of anti-Jewish racism, an accusation of antisemitism is a weapon at war, designed to silence all criticism of Israel.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Truth Be Told, Outside the UN, BDS Is Losing Badly - by Evelyn Gordon

...Even though large swaths of polite society are now perfectly comfortable with anti-Semitism as long as they can tell themselves it’s just “anti-Zionism” or “fighting the occupation,” open avowals of anti-Semitism are still taboo. Once stripped of the comforting pretense that it’s not anti-Semitic, BDS will be finished. And groups like the Austrian student union and the Bavarian Green Party are now tearing that pretense to shreds.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
18 October '17..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/anti-semitism/outside-the-un-bds-is-losing-badly/

BDS activists are presumably celebrating the UN Human Rights Council’s decision to warn off companies that do business with Israelis in the West Bank. I’d advise them to enjoy their temporary victory while they can. As several recent events make clear, they’re losing badly outside the UN. And they’re losing for one simple reason: People worldwide are gradually coming to understand that the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement isn’t “anti-occupation,” it’s anti-Semitic.

Last Friday, for instance, Austria’s national student union passed a motion denouncing BDS as anti-Semitic and saying the movement recalls the Nazis’ economic boycott of Jewish businesses. The resolution also said BDS activists shouldn’t be given funding or venues in which to promote its campaign. The motion, which was pushed in particular by a student group called GRAS (Greens and Alternative Students), passed almost unanimously, with one abstention and no votes against.
The previous week, the Green Party in the German state of Bavaria passed a resolution denouncing BDS as “anti-Semitic, hostile to Israel, reactionary and anti-enlightenment,” adding that it “reproduces the National Socialist slogan, ‘Don’t buy from Jews!’” The resolution, introduced by the party’s youth wing, also urged the national Green Party not to cooperate with BDS. Given that some prominent Green Party members have actively promoted anti-Israel boycotts, this uncompromising denunciation effectively amounts to a grassroots revolt.

And this week, the Left Party in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, decided not to consider a motion urging Israel “to end the occupation and the Gaza blockade” and demanded the European Union end its Association Agreement with Israel due to the blockade and Israel’s West Bank security fence. Given that the Left Party (Die Linke in German) is easily the German party most hostile to Israel, this development is surprising.

I'll say it: Amnesty (at least its UN Tweeter) is antisemitic - by Elder of Ziyon

...Amnesty UN has since "unliked" the tweet. But that is because of fear of embarrassment, not because of any moral problems with the tweet. The baseline thinking of the Amnesty tweeter, which is utterly consistent with everything else we've seen from that organization, is a dislike for Jews, usually demonstrated by its focus on Israel beyond nearly every country with serious human right abuses.

Elder of Ziyon..
09 October '17..

UN Watch noticed something that is more than creepy:

Haaretz published an article by Eyal Sagui Bizawe with the title "Were Egypt's Jews really expelled?" The article itself made it clear that many Egyptian Jews in fact were expelled from Egypt; the author is arguing that it would not be accurate to say that all Egyptian Jews were expelled. (Haaretz has since changed the headline dramatically, to "Jews Were Expelled From Egypt. But Can We Talk About 'The Expulsion of The Jews?'"

Later, Haaretz published a rebuttal by Israel Bonan that pretty much destroys Bizawe's thesis. Bizawe himself admits he is not a historian.

But, as UN Watch notes, the original article title questioning whether Egypt's Jews were expelled in its headline was "liked" by the Amnesty UN account.

Now, Amnesty is no fan of Egypt. It regularly tweets and writes reports that are anti-Egypt.

And the Egyptian Jews who were forced to leave Egypt (there are only a handful of old women left out of 80,000 in 1948) were not generally Zionists.

So why would Amnesty "like" an article that calls into question the Jewish narrative of what happened to the now disappeared Jewish community of Egypt?

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Facing Palestinianism and raw antisemitism at the Labour Party Conference 2017 - by David Collier

...Palestinianism is a disease that is anathema to freedom, to debate, to openness and to human rights. It will infect those who catch the disease with antisemitism just as it provides them with the denial mechanism to protest their innocence.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
28 September '17..

I have spent all week in Brighton, at the 2017 Labour Party Conference. This was my first visit to the conference. As someone who dislikes the ideological straitjacket of political affiliation, it will probably be my last.

From the suffocating presence of ‘Palestinian solidarity’ to an obvious tolerance for rabid antisemites, this week was deeply unsettling. There were times where the atmosphere was scary. How do we confront growing antisemitism? More importantly how dangerous is the growing antisemitism inside the Labour party, a confident party, that sees itself as the next government?

At the Conference

The venue, the Brighton centre. I have the conference programme in my hand. About 150 stalls in total, spread out on the several floors of the Centre. Each person at the conference is given a name tag, worn by placing a ‘lanyard’ around the neck. The PSC had brought ‘Palestine Solidarity’ lanyards, and it is clearly the item they want everyone to take from their stall.

I also note they have ‘runners’, people walking off with several PSC lanyards in their hands. One was looking for people running other stalls, who were willing to wear them. This badge of identification was eventually seen on many of the visiting crowd. It is both a brilliant PR strategy and is symbolic of an aggressive movement that works on sectarian identity politics, spreading throughout the Labour undergrowth.

What is ‘Palestine Solidarity’?

And this is exactly where the Labour Party problem with antisemitism begins. For most Jews, this situation is deeply unsettling. There is a fundamental misunderstanding in the Labour Party, that is based on profound ignorance, of exactly what ‘Palestine Solidarity’ actually means.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Pro-Palestinian activism and its supporters. Violent, intolerant, dangerous and racist - by David Collier

...For all the money they have collected, for all the claims that they are doing it for the betterment of Palestinians. The number of Jewish businesses they have successfully forced to close in the UK, is larger than the number of Palestinian refugees they have helped out of refugee status. More Jewish businesses closed, than schools or hospitals built. It isn’t really about the Palestinians at all. Think about that.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
12 September '17..

If anyone knows the true face of Pro-Palestinian activism in the UK, then I do. My assessment is not built on assumptions, bias, or just a dislike of their politics. I simply spent a long time dressed as one of them. Going to their events, seeing how they act, and listening carefully to what they were saying. It didn’t take long before I realised that whatever the outward humanitarian mask, many of these people were not what they seemed. A deep and persistent undercurrent of hating Jews, or antisemitism, infested these groups every time they gathered. The meetings I attended were breeding grounds for intolerance, thuggery and racism.

So I did some detailed research on two of the main groups of pro-Palestinian activism in the UK. The first on the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), and later (on behalf of Jewish Human Rights Watch), on the PSC ‘sister ship’ in Scotland, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). The results were clear and brutal.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

BBC report on UN Secretary General’s Israel visit omits his statements on anti-Zionism - by Hadar Sela

...Once again, that omission will not come as a surprise to those familiar with the BBC’s own failure to accurately explain to its audiences the meaning of anti-Zionism and the corporation’s repeated misrepresentation of that term.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
31 August '17..

As readers may recall, back in July the BBC’s coverage of commemoration of the mass arrest of French Jews in World War II did not include any mention of the French president’s remarks concerning anti-Zionism.

“Macron’s statement is of course in step with the IHRA working definition of antisemitism that was adopted in recent months by the British government and the EU parliament as well as in accord with the US State department’s definition. […] However, the BBC News website’s report on the ceremony made no mention whatsoever of the French president’s recognition of anti-Zionism as a manifestation of antisemitism.”

Moreover, several days later a regional BBC radio station described President Macron’s statement as a “very controversial claim” to its listeners.

During his recent visit to Israel the UN Secretary General told President Rivlin that:

“I do believe that […] those that call for the destruction of the State of Israel that that is a form of modern anti-Semitism”

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Promoting ‘Zionism is racism’ and the ‘apartheid’ smear at BBC Radio Ulster - by Hadar Sela

...The editorial decisions behind the making of a programme with this subject matter by a regional BBC station are of course worthy of discussion. The fact that listeners were materially misled because the presenter was insufficiently informed to be able to effectively challenge inaccurate claims and falsehoods from an unbalanced field of contributors is obvious. The fact that the programme’s producers clearly had no qualms about facilitating the non-stop promotion of delegitimisation of Israel by means of politically motivated smears and falsehoods should be a serious cause for concern. However, this programme did fulfil one useful function: it – albeit inadvertently – proved the point made by the French president.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
14 August '17..

On July 16th, at an event in Paris marking the 75th anniversary of the deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz, the French president Emmanuel Macron said:

“We will never surrender to the messages of hate; we will not surrender to anti-Zionism because it is a reinvention of anti-Semitism.”

Macron’s statement is of course in accord with the US State department’s definition of antisemitism and in step with the IHRA working definition of antisemitism that was adopted in recent months by the British government and the EU parliament. The IHRA definition includes the following in its possible manifestations of antisemitism:

“Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

 
And:

“Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

As was noted here at the time, BBC News website coverage of the ceremony made no mention whatsoever of the French president’s recognition of anti-Zionism as a manifestation of antisemitism.

However, two days later – on July 18th – BBC Radio Ulster’s daily phone-in show ‘Talkback‘ ran a 35 minute long programme with a title that signaled its tone:

“We debate the very controversial claim by the French president that anti-Zionism is simply another form of anti-Semitism” [emphasis added]

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

‘Palestinianism’, or anti-Israel activity, is clearly a fetish for the antisemite. They are coming... by David Collier

...There are those that are coming for the Jews. At the moment the Scottish Parliament stands in solidarity with them, the Mayor of London allows them to wave radical Islamic flags in Oxford street and the Government of the UK gives them permission to use the QEII building to promote their hate. You can choose what it is you see.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
05 July '17..

There is an oft repeated poem that begins ‘first they came for the socialists’. It was refined over several years by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemölle as he described the general cowardice of German intellectuals during the rise to power of the Nazis. The central message is clear and it can be adapted easily to suit the person who wishes to use it. Given the background, Jews are always one of those they came for.

So what would happen if they did ‘come for the Jews’?

The UK in May

What would the Scottish Parliament do if Scottish thugs really came for the Jews?

On 18th May, antisemitic thugs came for Jews in Edinburgh. The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) walked up to the Scottish Parliament building to protest the arrival of an Israeli Ambassador on Scottish soil (no, this is not about Zionism, read on).

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Fallout from ESCWA continues as we can see exactly who the Jew-haters are - by Elder of Ziyon

...By the criteria of the report, we can safely declare most nations on the planet to be "apartheid states" where all people under the regimes are denied equal rights. But only one seems to get that label. And that proves, as well as anything can, that the critics of Israel are not interested in "human rights" but they simply cannot stomach the idea of the Jewish people having any national rights. Yes, this is a list of antisemites.

Elder of Ziyon..
18 March '17..

If you single out Israel as an apartheid state, the only one in the world with that appellation, you are an antisemite.

After UN ESCWA head Rima Khalaf resigned, she has been praised as "brave" for her stand. Of course, her term was up within two weeks, so there was no bravery involved whatsoever.

Who has praised the report and Rima Khalaf?

Mahmoud Abbas, who says he will give Khalaf the Palestinians' highest honor. (Maybe a bronzed suicide belt?)

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Take the anti-Zionist test. You think there is no Antisemitism? by David Collier

...As I know how much antisemitism exists on the anti-Israel social media networks, there is clearly something ‘more acceptable’ within left wing groups about antisemitism when compared to other hatreds. Surely this has to change? You can sympathise with Palestinians, without associating with those that hate Jews. Can’t you? Thank you for participating in this anti-Zionist test. Please pass this test on to your friends.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
02 March '17..

This is designed for people who think there is no antisemitism in the anti-Zionist, anti-Israel movements. If you know any, ask them to take the test.

Before you begin.

Imagine: Someone you are connected to continually posts racist memes and comments on Facebook. On his time stream are constant references to racial slurs, using words and phrases that are unacceptable in society. Viscous, vile, offensive posts that draw on awful stereotypes and link back to white supremacy websites. What would you do when you saw them? I hope, as an anti-racist, you would delete him from your friends list or at least confront them about their offensive views.

You may now begin the anti-Zionist test. When you have finished, please pass it on to your friends, or other anti-Israel protesters you know.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.