The New York Times remarkably parroted Palestinian propaganda on its pages as it wrote about Palestinian militants taking an Israeli teenager off of life support in a hospital, to hold his dead body as a bargaining chip.
In ten different sections of the article “Palestinians Join Forces with Israelis, Bringing Peace to a Teen’s Family,” the Times wrote that Israel holds the dead bodies of Palestinian terrorists in the hopes of dissuading future attacks. That narrative echoed throughout, seemingly giving an excuse for Palestinian Arabs deciding to do the same to Israelis.
Palestinians “hoped to exchange it for the corpses of dozens of Palestinians that have been held by Israel for years without burial.“
“… shifted rare attention on the Israeli practice of holding onto the bodies of slain Palestinians accused of terrorism.“
“the militants hoped to exchange Tiran for the bodies of dozens of Palestinians kept in Israeli mortuaries since 2016. Israel houses the unburied bodies of 111 Palestinians, 16 of them from Jenin, according to detailed records shared with the Times by the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, an independent Palestinian rights watchdog.”
“Israeli officials believe that Palestinians were all killed while committing violence, and that holding on to their bodies may help deter future attacks.”
“The militants actions also felt unethical to many Palestinians. While there is widespread Palestinian anger at Israel’s own practice of withholding Palestinian corpses, many felt the gunmen had picked the wrong target, particularly after it became clear that Tiran was a schoolboy, not a soldier.”
“‘It wasn’t a moral thing to do,’ said Muhammad Sabbagh, the head of a leadership council in the Jenin Camp. ‘From the beginning, the entire camp wanted to return the body.’“
“‘I immediately realized that a big mistake had been made,’ General Rajoub said in a phone interview. ‘We immediately planned how we would get the body back to the family.’“
“… a leading opponent of the Israeli occupation and a longtime critic of the Israeli policy of holding Palestinian corpses.“
“… the rare collaboration should not obscure wider Palestinian anger at Israel’s policy of withholding the bodies of dead Palestinians.”
“Dozens of ‘Palestinians families are waiting for their beloved sons,’ Dr. Tibi said. ‘For their corpses seized and captured by the Israeli occupation.'”
That’s a lot of time saying the same line over and again while NEVER mentioning that Israel only started holding the bodies of Arab terrorists after Palestinians refused to hand over the bodies of two Israelis killed in Gaza in 2014, Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin. Instead, the Times said that Israel carried out the practice as a form of punishment, seemingly introducing the horrific action in the conflict.
The biased article made the militants seem remorseful for their action because the dead person “was a schoolboy, not a soldier.” That’s outrageous. Palestinians routinely celebrate the murder of Jewish children as confirmed in their own polls, such as the one which showed 80% of Gazans and 50% of West Bank Arabs supporting the killing of a 17-year old girl on a nature hike. Just days before, the region’s Islamic terrorists celebrated the murder of a 16 year old Jewish boy on his way to school.
The obvious reason for returning the body of this boy was because he was Druze and not an Israeli Jew. The obvious Arab anti-Semitism was omitted and redirected by The Times. #AbsolutionViaRedirection
What’s more, the Times quoted the “Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, an independent Palestinian rights watchdog,” which is NOT independent. It is an anti-Israel European-funded organization that has been vilifying Israel for years, as reported by NGO Monitor.
This week, Palestinian terrorists killed a young Israeli boy and kidnapped his body from a hospital, an action they have been using for many years, however, they decided to return the body after they realized the Israeli wasn’t a Jew. Readers of The New York Times were spun a different story. The anti-Israel propaganda piece penned over-and-again that Israel has been unilaterally keeping dozens of Palestinians corpses for many years, angering Palestinians waiting to bury their sons, which caused some militants to take a similar action, which they immediately regretted as immoral.
That’s Absolution via Inversion, a favorite of the anti-Israel media which falsifies that Israeli racism and brutality are the root cause of the conflict, not the refusal of Arabs to accept Jews living in their homeland.
There are many popular conspiracy theories. Some are innocuous, like the belief in Big Foot or the Loch Ness monster. Others are more elaborate, such as the notion that the government is engaged in a cover up of UFOs or faked the moon landing. The ideas have followings in the fringe, and do not, for the most part, change a person’s interaction with society.
However, there are some conspiracy theories that get mainstreamed and hurt people.
Alex Jones is perhaps the best known conspiracy theorist with (or used to have) a large platform. He’s said that the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01 by Muslim jihadists were actually an inside job; that the Boston Marathon bombing by two Muslim radicals in 2013 was the work of the FBI; and that the shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012 by a deranged man was a hoax. Just last month, the courts ordered Jones to pay $965 million in damages because of a suit brought by parents of the murdered Sandy Hook children.
Despite his crazy and hateful ideas, according to an August 2022 poll by The Economist / YouGov, 9% of Americans think that Jones is trustworthy. An astonishing 21% of people who consider themselves very conservative believe his bile, compared to just 6% of liberals. As to the Sandy Hook massacre itself, 18% of Americans think it was a hoax.
That’s no longer a small segment of society. That’s an alarming percentage who have bought in to the “disinformation.”
In the era of losing trust in mainstream media and government, we have collectively taken to believing pop cultural liars. These individuals have social media platforms that reach millions of people around the world with the ability to spread either old conspiracy theories or new ones.
Some old conspiracy theories gain new twists. The same Economist / YouGov poll found that 20% of Americans believe that COVID-19 vaccines are being used to microchip Americans. It’s a spin on the popular control-themed conspiracy theory with a current event. A number of world leaders have taken to combining that control conspiracy theory with anti-Semitism – such as the leaders in Bulgaria, Turkey and Iran – that Jews engineered the coronavirus for profit to control the world.
Conspiracy theories are alive and unwell.
Conspiracy Theories of “Power” and “Control”
The biggest conspiracy of all – typically tied to extreme Jew hatred – is that the world is controlled by a shadow government. A whopping 58% of Republicans polled hold such belief as well as 26% of Democrats. Some believe that this shadow government is the “Illumanti“, while others contend it is the Jews.
Kanye West / Ye recently came out with a broad conspiracy theory about Jews controlling Black people. He said “They can control Shaq. They can control Charles Barkley. They can control LeBron James. They can control Jay-Z and Beyoncé. But they can’t control me. You see it ain’t no name I won’t name. It’s up.” He then suggested that “Hollywood” deliberately kills family members of Black stars. “Michael Jordan, what about him? His daddy, right? Bill Cosby, his son. Dr. Dre, his son. Out in Hollywood, a lot of people come up missing. It feels like it might be a lot of that, in order to control, traumatize.“
Followers of KanYe West point to companies like Adidas pulling their commercial deals from the musician after threating to go “death con 3 on Jewish people” as evidence of Jewish power. Comedian Dave Chapelle talked about KanYe and Jewish power on Saturday Night Live and ended his monologue “I hope they don’t take anything away from me. Whoever they are,” with the last sentence said in a deep conspiracy-oriented undertone.
Politicians like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) both have called out Jewish control with outrageous smears like Omar’s “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel,” and Tlaib’s comment that Jews “do it from Gaza to Detroit, and it’s a way to control people, to oppress people… designed by those who exploit the rest of us, for their own profit.“
The media echoes the sentiment of Jewish power, whether at The New York Times or CNN, with the Times sometimes using language right out of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. It’s curious that the left-wing media does it so frequently, as Republicans are twice as likely to believe the conspiracy theory of a shadow government.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) taking to the extremist left-wing group Democratic Socialists of America, that Jews are controlling Black and Brown people for profit.
The concept of “Jewish power” was covered in several of the Anti-Defamation League’s polling questions about anti-Semitism around the world. The poll asked eleven questions about Jews, of which five were specifically about Jewish power – over the business world, financial markets, global affairs, the U.S. government and the global media. It was in those five areas, that almost every country scored higher (meaning more believed the trope) than other questions such as being more loyal to Israel than their own country, or talk too much about the Holocaust.
In the most recent limited European 2019 poll, Poland and Ukraine were the most anti-Semitic (Muslim countries are the most anti-Semitic, as covered in the global 2014 poll). The conspiracy theories about Jews having power topped the concerns of Poles and Ukrainians.
56% and 72% of Poles and Ukrainians, respectively, felt that Jews had too much power in the business world
56% of Poles and 68% of Ukrainians felt that Jews had too much control over the financial markets
40% and 56% believe that Jews control global affairs
41% and 33% believing they control the United States government
39% and 45% believe that Jews control the global media
The scores for the six non-control questions were much lower, meaning that the driver of anti-Semitism is the Jewish power conspiracy theory, not other items like “Jews think they’re better than other people.”
Clear and Present Danger
The widespread libels are not a curiosity but a clear and present danger. The notion of Jewish power directly influences people to take harmful actions against Jews.
Consider that a radical Muslim man flew from England to Texas, where he took Jewish hostages in a synagogue, and then placed a call to a rabbi in New York, to help free a jihadi extremist in custody. Why would anyone believe that a rabbi could possibly influence the FBI to release a terrorist, other than believing that Jews have some crazy power.
English terrorist, Malik Faisal Akram, flew to Texas to try to release terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, serving an 86-year sentence for attempting to kill U.S. soldiers, by taking Jews hostage.
A deranged white man who believed that Jews are importing Hispanics to destroy “White America” shot Jews in a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, saying that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.“
Two African-American “Black Israelites” shot up a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, NJ in 2019, killing a number of people because these Black people felt there was an invasion and “insidious onslaught to African American life” as “Black homeowners were threatened… by brutes of the jewish community.” How does a couple of Jews moving into a predominantly Black neighborhood constitute an “insidious onslaught” worthy of killing people, unless these Black people have been led to believe that the Jews will overpower them?
The vile anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and violence are no longer fringe held in one corner of America. It is mainstreamed in many communities, including Muslim, Black, alt-right and alt-left.
And this is very much about communities, not organized hate groups.
According to the ADL, the sharp rise in anti-Semitic attacks in the United States are NOT from hate groups, but individuals who have become radicalized, an incredible 87% from “lone wolves.” These are people who have been spoon-fed hate-filled lies that Jews are coming to get them, both directly and indirectly.
Conspiracy theories about Jewish power and control are widespread on college campuses, mainstream and social media platforms, and from the mouths of politicians. It is broadcast from the extreme right, the left, Islamic radicals and Black influencers. The drip of noxious anti-Semitic lies is now a steady stream, coupled with calls to “punch up” and dismantle the visible and invisible power structures hurting the common person and preferred community.
It’s the same narrative that brought Nazis to power to annihilate Jews in the 1930s, and despite knowing history, society is seemingly incapable or unwilling to stop the torrent.
On November 22, 2017, a young girl named Hodaya Nechama Asulin passed away. She had been living in vegetative state for almost seven years. She had been injured when a bomb blew up while she waited for a bus in Jerusalem.
Hodaya Asulin, back when she was 14 years old
On March 23, 2011, Hussein Ali al-Qawasmeh, a married Palestinian man and father of five from Hebron, went to Jerusalem. He was appalled to see Jews freely walking around in a city that he considered a purely Islamic holy place. His frustration at seeing so many Jews led him to plant a bomb filled with shrapnel near a bus stop. He managed to kill a Christian British woman named Mary Jean Gardner, who had worked for two decades in Africa doing humanitarian work. She had come to Jerusalem to study Hebrew at the Hebrew University, so she could translate the Bible into local African tribal languages.
The bomb explosion injured many others, including Hodaya. The blast damaged her brain stem and put her into a coma. She was 14 years old at the time.
Hussein Ali al-Qawasmeh was sentenced to life in prison in November 2013, for simply protesting the Judaization of Al Quds. He said “You occupied my land, stole my country, and killed by brothers, and now you expect me to give you some roses?! I do not regret what I did, I defended my country.”
People who believe that Arabs resort to terror also think that Jews living in Jerusalem is a well-documented crime against humanity. It is echoed daily at the United Nations, and the world is not surprised by frustrated Palestinians resorting to violence to purge the colonial-settler-invader-fake Jews from the Islamic holy city and holy land.
Early Tuesday morning, two bombs were detonated while Israeli civilians boarded buses to school and work in Israel’s capital of Jerusalem. The terrorist attacks killed a 16-year old Canadian-Israeli boy, Aryeh Shechopek on his way to yeshiva.
Aryeh Shechopek, 16, who was killed in a bombing attack in Jerusalem on November 23, 2022 (photo credit: COURTESY OF THE FAMILY)
As a continued part of their desire to destroy Israel and kill as many Jews as possible, various radical Islamic groups hailed the attacks.
Islamic Jihad posted a statement “The operation in the occupied city of Jerusalem is a natural response to the occupation, its terrorism, and its criminal practices against the defenseless Palestinian people and its holy sites.” Tarek Ez Din, spokesperson for Islamic Jihad added “The operation says to the leaders of the Occupation [Israel] and the leaders of the settlers that none of the policies of your criminal government will protect you from the strikes of our people’s resistance.“
A spokesman for Hamas, the political-terrorist group that rules Gaza and has a majority in the Palestinian parliament said “The Zionist occupation is paying the price today for its crimes and aggression against our people and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and we have warned about this repeatedly. Our people will not remain silent in the face of this, and the outrage Al-Aqsa will explode and spread in all regions.“
Hezbollah, the terrorist group that runs Lebanon issued a statement that praised the “heroic operations carried out by the Palestinian resistance fighters against the Israeli occupation forces in Al-Quds.” The statement concluded that the race among the Palestinian youths into the jihad fronts proves the Palestinians’ awareness and determination to liberate their land and sends a message of despair to the Zionist usurpers that there is no place for the Israelis on the pure soil of Palestine.
The Palestinian Authority’s Wafa news site reported on the bombings as “two explosions that rocked the occupied city of Jerusalem.“
Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other terrorist groups recently signed the Algiers Declaration in which they agreed to have elections within one year in which they would all participate. The United Nations celebrated the alarming declaration and inclusion of terrorist groups in the election process.
Meanwhile, as Arabs celebrated the murder of innocent Jewish civilians, the United States issued a clear call of support for Israel:
“We condemn unequivocally the acts of terror overnight in Jerusalem. The United States has offered all appropriate assistance to the Government of Israel as it investigates the attack and works to being the perpetrators to justice. We mourn the reported loss of life and wish a speedy recovery to the injured. The United States stands with the Government and people of Israel. As President Biden emphasized during his visit to Israel in July, our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad and unbreakable.“
America’s “commitment to Israel’s security” and support for bringing “the perpetrators to justice” should include full measures against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, as well as defunding the Palestinian Authority as long as it continues to incite and compensate terrorists. It must call for terrorist groups to be excluded from future Palestinian elections or risk forever to be black-listed by freedom loving countries.
Kyrie Irving is a basketball star with nearly 18 million followers on Instagram and another 4.6 million on Twitter. His following gives him a very large following and influence about… what?
He’s just a basketball player. A gifted one for sure, but why should we care about anything else he says or does?
He’s just a basketball player.
So when Irving says the world is flat, why does society ask him to apologize? He’s an idiot. When he promotes antisemitic films, why can’t we put his opinions in the same basket as the rest of his inanity?
Consider Bella Hadid, a supermodel with 56.2 million Instagram followers. That’s more than the population of 210 of 235 countries and territories tracked by Worldometers. Should we care about her opinion about politics?
She’s just a model.
So when Hadid says stupid things like “Jesus was a Palestinian” or that Israel commits “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid”, why can’t we just ignore her?
Because we’re addicted. We listen to idiots.
There are a number of reasons we take the time to listen to non-experts:
The failure of the mainstream media – both in numbers and trust – left a void
Social media’s global platform and engagement vortex
Society’s elevation of emotion and “my truths” over facts
The thrill of interacting with megastars
Mainstream Media Failure
The internet killed mainstream media. As eyeballs moved online with the benefits of immediacy and active search, the advertisement dollars followed. People could search for up-to-the-second news and information from around the world from millions of sources, so the static print reports withered.
While hundreds of newspapers closed, the remaining ones pivoted with the times. They opted for deeper analyses in stories to leverage their brands and talented staff, leaving behind the quick breaking news which could be captured from millions of other sites. That left the short attention span-public to become ever more fixated on Instagram and limited characters-Twitter accounts of pop culture stars.
On top of abdicating the short-and-sweet sector, the news lost its objectivity. To keep its readership engaged, the media opted to choose a side and not report plain and deeper truths. In doing so, the media companies forever tarnished their reputations as biased actors. Their influence narrowed to segments of society.
Social Media Engagement
Pop culture transcends the biases of politics. Sports stars, models, musicians and actors become famous for their particular talents, not for their political acumen or scientific knowledge. They amass huge followings and have the ability through social media to speak directly to millions about the mundane, and sometimes, the not so trivial.
Alas, many of these stars are idiot savants, brilliant in a narrow field.
But their fans don’t care. They’re not interested in reading in depth boring analyses on weighty topics from old, dying and discredited media. They are fine with the quick blasts from venerated heroes. It helps them sort through the bazillion posts and articles online.
Bella Hadid has four times the number of followers as the 5,000-employee The New York Times. In a democratic and capitalist society, Hadid has much greater power and influence than mainstream media.
The influencers know the demographics of their followers, how to keep the eyeballs engaged, and how the platforms’ algorithms work. They have seen what trends and use social media managers to help consider how to best connect or grow certain demographics which helps feed the cash stream from endorsements.
And they know that boring doesn’t sell. Controversy pulls the eyeballs, and this is very much a business of eyeballs, not brains. Pics and blasts win attention, not careful consideration.
Kyrie Irving taking questions about his post of an anti-Semitic movie on October 30, 2022
When Kyrie spoke about his post featuring an anti-Semitic film, he said “All I do is post things for my people in my community and those that it’s actually going to impact. Anybody else that has criticism, it obviously wasn’t meant for them…. I’m not going to stand down on anything that I believe in. I’m only going to get stronger because I’m not alone. I have a whole army around me.” He seemingly believes that the core of his audience is Black people and hadn’t considered – or really cared about – local Brooklyn Jews who also buy his jersey.
Either way, his Black followers love him taking on the “establishment”, to the extent that anyone could consider the most persecuted people as privileged.
“My Truth” Malarkey
As broadcasting became democratized away from large conglomerates to individuals, the major platforms tried to catch up. They gave platforms to a range of talking heads on shows like ‘The View’ who share perspectives which might be embraced by swaths of the population, whether they are certain minority groups or say, high school dropouts. These new Hollywood stars offer a chance to share their ‘lived experiences’ and echo heretofore silent voices as it relates to various topics.
These voices reach those targeted audiences over mainstream media, and the rest of America hears it as well, much like Kyrie’s tweet designed for his Black “community” was also picked up by others.
The broader range of opinions have been dressed as “my truths.” That a noun like “truth” should have adjectives appended says much about today’s environment. We don’t have “objective truth” but opinions shielded from outside reality which ends discussion regardless of the preposterous ideas floated.
And polite society has asked the listeners to stay mum and contemplate what they are hearing. The once repressed voices now have a soapbox and it is a time to listen, not to respond. To correct “my truths” would be “mansplaining” or “touting one’s privilege”. It would surpass rude to admonish others’ “lived realities.”
As various segments of society get more representation in entertainment, government and board rooms, we have witnessed the promotion of bartenders, local teachers and high school dropouts to positions of influence and power. While there may be nothing wrong with that in principle, one needs to consider whether society is simply promoting locals who are eloquent but have no expertise.
Which is precisely the progressive idea. Experience has been marked as ensconcing privilege. America is seeking more diversity in views and opinions everywhere. And we’re getting them, and being directed to quietly listen.
Interacting With Megastars
The power of social media platforms is that it gives the masses the impression that they have a meaningful connection with stars rather than just a direct connection. The famous send messages right onto their personal phones! And they get to respond, with likes, comments and re-tweets. They can even become their “friend.”
In the e-world, a star who may not stop to sign an autograph for you, and might even hate everything you are, is carried all day in your pocket. An ever-present voice to keep you company along with the pantheon of other celebrities and influencers who keep you away from friends, family and work.
Technology has given megaphones to the entire planet, and the loudest ones have gone to pop cultural icons. Unfortunately, many have nothing worthwhile to say but the masses drink it in anyway. So the stars publish more to keep their audiences sated, and start to believe their “truths” because their fans shower them with adulation.
The rock band Moody Blues knew that they had catchy tunes but didn’t think they had the authority to opine on important matters as they sang “if you want the wind of change to blow about you, and you’re the only other person to know, don’t tell me. I’m just a singer in a rock and roll band.” Regrettably, they are in the minority, as the power of influencing millions of people is too addictive for most stars to ignore.
Idiot Audiences
You cannot blame these rich and powerful influencers for using their platforms. The problem is the audience. The followers are, for the most part, just like the pop cultural icon, minus the fame, success and narrow talent.
Reread the Kyrie Irving quote above. He was speaking to “my people in my community”, meaning principally Black men. His tweet on a global platform wasn’t intended for the millions of other people, the “anybody else… it obviously wasn’t meant for them.” He wanted Black men to know the problem of Jews stealing their heritage as the true “chosen people.” He wasn’t deliberately calling Jews lying and stealing scoundrels to their faces; that was a byproduct of the tweet.
While Kyrie’s featured movie may quote the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Adolf Hitler, and promote many anti-Semitic lies, it clearly spoke to him. He wanted his “people” and his “community” to take in the message that White Jews stole the Hebrew Bible from Black people (much like White Jews are stealing the Holy Land from Black and Brown people).
And yes, many Black men from Louis Farrakhan to Marc Lamont Hill to Keith Ellison believe and say as much. But Farrakhan’s been banned from social media, and Hill and Ellison only have 360,000 and 350,000 followers, respectively.
Kyrie reaches millions more and he wanted to spread this new anti-Semitic gospel.
Stepping Over The Line
Kanye West/ Ye has a few more followers than Kyrie Irving (18.4 million to 17.8 million). Ye’s tweet that he is going “death con 3 on Jewish people” was a call to violence. He didn’t simply insult, but committed an offense that should be punished in criminal court.
It was in that bilestorm that Kyrie added his tweet, another Black bomb on the Jews.
But Kyrie’s was a stink bomb. Offensive and gross but not jail-able.
The movie promotes a gross falsehood that many people actually believe. It has company amongst lots of racist media which is embraced by millions around the world. Kyrie fanned the flames with his enormous podium, he didn’t create the fiction. He’s ingested the poison just as the people in his community have.
The powers of the NBA sought to tamp down on today’s rampant anti-Semitism by suspending Kyrie for a few games and then made him apologize in a number of ways. It was painful for him to do so, as he insisted “I’m not going to stand down on anything that I believe in.” It took several weeks for him to say “I don’t have hate in my heart for the Jewish people or anyone that identifies as a Jew. The difficult aspect is just processing all this, understanding the power of my voice, the influence I have. I am no one’s idol, but I am a human being that wants to make (an) impact and change.”
The statement was a careful balancing act: not denouncing the movie or its message that he seemingly believes and wants millions of other Black people to watch, while also stating that he’s not an anti-Semite. He clarified that he didn’t hate Jews, hopefully ending his suspension and the saga.
There Is No End
It would be nice to say that this story of fanning hate is over and society can move on but that is not possible. Not because Kyrie / Ye / Hadid apologized / clarified / took their “punishment” or got off free.
It’s because societal dynamics dictate that it will definitely repeat.
The masses now have global unfiltered megaphones to speak to the masses at any time of day, and they all prefer short shots of emotion and “my truths” over considered meaningful analyses of objective truths.
Regrettably, it’s much easier to destroy than to build; to blurt an absurdity than investigate truth; to get all information from friends and members of your clan rather than scour dozens of source documents; to declare one’s opinions as truths rather than challenge old assumptions; to demand that others are to blame and should change rather than improve oneself; and to join the masses rather than stand apart.
The fictional idiot savant Forest Gump was fond of saying “stupid is as stupid does,” and he has become our champion. We do not consider his words as a warning but have embraced them as our national motto.
America has replaced “In God We Trust” with “In Influencers We Trust.”
Make no mistake, the idiots are winning and are likely to continue to do so.
The world population just passed 8 billion according to the United Nations. It took just twelve years to add the last one billion people, the fastest pace ever. Due to the lower fertility rates among western countries, the U.N. projects it will take 15 years to reach the 9 billion level.
With such milestone, it is an opportune time to address a question which arises in various situations: How many Jews?
Global Jewry
The Jewish population figure depends on many factors. Jews are a people as much as followers of a faith. Some Jews do not consider themselves of any faith or Jewish, even while other Jews might still consider these atheists and agnostics to be Jewish by ancestry. Further, Jews historically tracked their faith through their mothers, but some denominations have taken to using patrilineal descent as well, inflating the total.
According to the Jewish Agency for Israel, as of 2022, the total Jewish population stood at 15.3 million. That comes to roughly 0.2% of the global population.
country
Jewish population
Israel
7,080,000
United States
6,000,000
France
442,000
Canada
394,000
United Kingdom
292,000
Argentina
173,000
Russia
145,000
Australia
118,200
Germany
118,000
Brazil
91,000
South Africa
51,000
Hungary
46,500
Ukraine
40,000
Mexico
40,000
Netherlands
29,700
Belgium
28,000
Italy
27,000
Switzerland
18,800
Uruguay
16,300
Chile
15,800
Sweden
14,900
Turkey
14,300
Spain
12,900
Austria
10,300
Panama
10,000
Top 25 countries with Jews. The 17 countries with over 25,000 Jews is half of the 34 countries with that total in 1948, at the founding of Israel.
Jews in Israel / Palestine
Roughly 46.2% of global Jewry resides in Israel today, now that Israel has an open policy for admitting Jews. It was not always that way.
Palestinian Arabs sought to limit the number of Jews entering the region after the San Remo Agreement of 1920 which codified the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Several Arab pogroms slaughtered Jews in the 1920’s, with the British administrators using extreme measures against the Jewish victims. In 1929, the British expelled all of the Jews from Hebron after the Arabs slaughtered 69 Jews. A few years later during the multi-year 1936-9 Arab riots, the British capped Jewish immigration to the region at 75,000 people over five years, just as the European Holocaust was beginning. It enabled the deaths of over 100,000 European Jews.
During the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, the Transjordanian army ethnically cleansed all of the Jews from Judea and Samaria and the eastern portion of Jerusalem. It destroyed the synagogues and then gave Jordanian citizenship to everyone in the illegally seized lands, as long as they weren’t Jews.
Today’s Palestinian Arabs similarly demand a country free of Jews. In the Palestinian Authority territories of Gaza and Areas A and B, there isn’t a single Jewish resident. There are roughly 490,000 Jews living in the Israeli territory of Area C and another 330,000 living in “eastern Jerusalem,” all of whom are considered to be doing so illegally according to the anti-Semitic United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334. Area C now has about nine towns with over 10,000 Jews, seventeen with over 5,000, and 75 with 1,000 or more. The United Nations keeps count of all Jews in the West Bank and issues monthly reports. Like their Palestinian wards, the U.N. knows how many is the right number of Jews. Zero.
Jews in the Holocaust
No one mentions the Holocaust without mentioning the number of Jews who were murdered. The commonly used round figure is 6 million, of which roughly 1 million were children.
Anti-Semites don’t like that number. Some haters like David Irving question whether the Holocaust happened, while others like Richard Verrall say that the number of Jews killed was far lower than the 6 million. Many Holocaust deniers face jail time as countries like Germany understand virulent anti-Semitism and where it leads. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance was a working definition of anti-Semitism which has been adopted by many countries, which includes denying the scope of the Holocaust as one of it criteria. Trivializing the number and event can be considered a hate crime.
Jews in Power
People like to count Jews in positions of power. The refrain that Jews run the entertainment industry and media runs from the mouths of many people, most recently, comedian Dave Chappelle who said “I’ve been to Hollywood and this was just what I saw. It’s a lot of Jews. Like, a lot.“
The myth of Jewish power sometimes escapes numbers. If there are few Jews in congress or the State Department, anti-Semites argue that Jews control the government through money or extortion. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour said that U.S. politicians have “to profess sort of fealty, or at least pay homage, to AIPAC“, the pro-Israel lobbying organization. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said that “Israel has hypnotized the world,” while her colleague Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) told fellow radical anti-Semitic progressives that Jews are the power behind “the curtain… who make money off of racism.”
Too Many Jewish Neighbors
Some countries and communities don’t need an actual count of Jews. They know that any is too many.
For centuries, European countries and cities penned their Jews into ghettoes. Russia banned Jews from living in 75% of the country and hemmed them into an area called the Pale of Settlement.
“Street of the Jews” in the Old Town of Strasbourg, France
Some countries expelled all Jews including England in 1290, Spain in 1492, and Portugal in 1497. Muslim countries including Morocco, Tunisia, Iraq and Egypt made life impossible for Jews after Israel’s founding, forcing one million Jews to flee – almost the entirety of the Jews in the Arab world. Today, there are more Jews in tiny anti-Semitic Belgium than in the entire Muslim and Arab world.
Summary of Anti-Semitic Jew Counters
Anti-Semites can be grouped into two categories: “Counting Anti-Semites”, who see Jews everywhere as taking over neighborhoods and industries unfairly; and “Curtain Anti-Semites”, who cannot count many Jews but assume they are controlling the world as evil puppet masters.
The Counting Anti-Semites don’t want to see Jews Judaizing communities, whether in Jersey City, Mahwah or Jerusalem. Curtain Anti-Semites, like Rep. Louis Farrakhan, rouse the masses with fictitious blood libels and wild conspiracy theories against society.
All anti-Semites hate Jews and count them. If the haters determine that there are many Jews, those Counting Anti-Semites riot and seek laws and resolutions to curb where the overt Jews can live and work. If anti-Semites cannot count many Jews, those Curtain Anti-Semites spew hateful manifestos, citing forgeries like The Protocols of the Elders Of Zion and Hitler’s Mein Kampf about covert Jews. Some – like the Palestinian political-terrorist group Hamas – are grand wizards of both Counting and Curtain Anti-Semites, but leave the lobbying work to the “moderate” Palestinian group Fatah.
Six Turkish civilians were killed by a terrorist on Sunday. The labeling of the killer and her murderous mission was made clear in news reports, as were the names of the innocent victims.
The same cannot be said of Israeli Jews slaughtered by a Palestinian Arab terrorist the next day.
New York Times calls out Kurdish terrorism and Turkish victims of attack, as well as relays US sympathies
Terrorist Designation
The New York Times wrote about “the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., a Kurdish group that has been fighting a war with the Turkish state for decades. Turkey, the United States and the European Union all consider the P.K.K. a terrorist group.” The paper would only write six paragraphs later that “the P.K.K. denied any involvement in the bombing,” but the reader already knew the score – the P.K.K. are terrorists fighting Turkey and they seemingly committed the terrorist attack.
The next day, when a Palestinian Arab associated with the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad killed three Israeli civilians, there was no such accounting by the Times. Instead, the paper wrote that a “Palestinian assailant stabbed several civilians…. Three Israelis were killed and several more were severely injured.” The lone attacker was not associated with any terrorist group. The Times only offered at the very end of the article that “No Palestinian organization immediately took responsibility for the attack, but a spokesman for Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, Tarek Izz al-Din, told an Islamic Jihad-linked television channel that his organization welcomed what he called the ‘heroic attack.’ He said that it came as a response to the Israeli election results and to Israeli politicians’ calls to take firmer action against the Palestinians, Kan radio reported.” Palestinian Islamic Jihad is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, much like the reference to the P.K.K., but the Times did not mention the terrorist designation for Palestinians.
The Times also did not quote the spokesman for Hamas, another designated terrorist group that “the operation demonstrates the ability of the Palestinian people to continue their revolution and defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque from daily incursions,” supporting the murder of Jews because Jews visit their holiest site, the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
American Sympathies
After the Times labeled the P.K.K. a terrorist group, it mentioned American sympathies for the Turkish victims. “The U.S. embassy in Turkey wrote on Twitter on Sunday that it was ‘deeply saddened’ by the bombing. ‘We extend our deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives and wish a speedy recovery for the injured’ it said.“
The Times said nothing about the U.S.’s sympathies for the Israeli victims of terror. Not surprisingly, as it took the Biden administration some time to post a response… that equated the Jewish victims of terror with the murderer. The press release on the U.S. Embassy in Israel’s site stated “The United States is deeply concerned by the increased violence in the West Bank. We convey profound condolences to the families and loved ones of the Israeli and Palestinian civilians, including children, who have been killed in the past 48 hours. We strongly condemn today’s terrorist attack, which killed three Israelis and wounded three others. The recent period has seen a sharp and alarming increase in Palestinian and Israeli deaths and injuries, including numerous children. It is vital that the parties take urgent action to prevent further loss of life.” The U.S. would not take sides.
Humanizing the Victims
The Times devoted the final five paragraphs of the article to the Turkish victims. Names and ages were given. Pains of anguish were echoed in quotes from the grieving parents “‘She is my baby,’ she said. ‘I want a piece of her hair.’“
Nothing was said by The Times about the Israeli victims. They were: 50-year-old Tamir Avihai, a father of six from the settlement of Kiryat Netafim; 36-year-old Michael Ledigin, a father of two who moved to Israel with his family five years ago and lived in Bat Yam; and 59-year-old Mordechai Ashkenazi, also from Bat Yam.
Rationalizing Terror
The Times sought to give context to the Palestinian violence. It wrote that “Israel is to swear in a new Parliament later on Tuesday, after the Nov. 1 election, and the prime minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been working to put together a right-wing and religious coalition government with the help of far-right parties that have pledged to act more aggressively to protect Israelis. The attack also occurred on the anniversary of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s symbolic proclamation from exile in 1988 of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. That state has never materialized.” The Times essentially defended the terrorism and saying that it was a protest against a new “far-right” Israeli government, and in marking the anniversary of the P.L.O. declaring an independent state.
The Times incorrectly stated that the PLO’s declaration of independence only sought a state “in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.” The declaration was for the entirety of “Palestine”, including all of Jerusalem and all of Israel. It essentially rationalized the terrorism as an act of fighting for independence.
In contrast, the P.K.K., which is also seeking an independent Kurdish state, was only described as a terrorist group by the Times, without mentioning its desire for independence and sovereignty. It was thereby cast as a violent aggressor, while the Palestinian Arabs were painted as freedom fighters.
Celebrating Terror
While some media outlets like the Jerusalem Post noted that “In some parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians were documented celebrating the attack by handing out sweets to passersby and drivers,” which is a common occurrence in both Gaza and the West Bank after the murder of Jews, the Times decided to not report on it.
Maybe that fact was too much for its readers to handle.
The media repeatedly rationalizes and defends Palestinian Arab terrorism against Jewish civilians. Perhaps one should be content that the anti-Zionist media is not also celebrating the murder of Jews. At least, not yet.
After doing an analysis of the voting and spending trends of the 2022 congressional races in New York, another factor seemed worth commenting regarding which party won certain districts: the percentage of White voters.
In the districts which were 76.0% White people over 18 years old (there were five of them), Republicans won every race. In districts which had fewer than 52.0% White voters (ten of them), Democrats won each race. The remaining eleven districts which had between 52.0% and 76.0% White voters, were split, with five for Democrats and six for Republicans.
The sharp break in blue, red and purple districts does NOT correlate in a similar fashion for median income levels. Many of the districts with the highest percentage of White voters (like NY-21, NY-22 and NY-23) have median incomes below solidly Democratic districts.
Democrats and Republicans will likely battle very intensively for the House in 2024, and spend even more than the $92 million they spent in New York in 2022. The most contested battles will likely be in those districts with between 52.0% and 76.0% White voters.
The New York Congressional races were impacted by the reduction of a seat in congress (to 26 from 27) and redistricting this year. Many pundits were surprised by this year’s election results which saw Republicans win 11 seats and Democrats secure 15, in a heavily Democratic state. People considered whether the new district contours hurt Democrats or whether “outside money” influenced races.
Democrats won 56% of the total vote count and won 58% of the House seats, which closely align. Arguably, that shows that new contours served the goal of not seeing a disconnect of one party using gerrymandering to push out the other. Additionally, the Democrats outspent the Republicans by 2-to-1 (over $62 million compared to $30 million for Republicans).
The New York City-oriented media suggested that the more rural parts of the state had low voter-turnout and therefore did not really reflect the will of most people. In fact, it was the opposite. NYC voters barely turned out in the general election, with an average of 155,241 in the city’s eleven districts. That compares to an average voter turnout of 266,329 in non-New York City districts, and and average of 219,330 overall.
The New York City low voter turnout was rational. Indeed, going to the ballot box had virtually no meaning as the districts were blowouts. Six races had a winning spread of over 60% and another three were over 40%. The two races that more closely resembled the rest of the state with over 200,000 votes and closer races were NY-11, which was won by a Republican, and NY-16 (with just shy of 200,000 votes) which actually only has a small nub of the Bronx and is mostly Westchester County,
The money spent on the races was extremely uneven and yielded varied results.
While Democrats spent twice as much as Republicans, much of the money was spent in just a few districts. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) blew away all fund-raisers ($9.9 million) and easily beat her Republican challenger. Elise Stefanik (NY-21) was the biggest Republican spender ($8.3 million) and also won her seat.
Consider that AOC alone spent about one-third of the total amount that all 26 Republicans spent in the race.
Some Democrats seemed to spend without reason. Dan Goldman (NY-10) spent $6.9 million even though his opponent barely had a dime and won virtually no votes. Similarly for Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8) spending of $5.1 million.
Three Democrats vastly outspent their Republican rivals and still lost. Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-17) outspent Republican Mike Lawler by 5.6 times ($5.3 million to $900,000) and still lost. Francis Console (NY-22) outspent Republican Brandon Williams by 4.2 times and lost, while Democrat Bridget Fleming (NY-1) outspent Republican Nick LaLota by two times and lost.
Meanwhile Democrat Pat Ryan’s (NY-18) huge 2.1 times spending of Republican rival paid off, eking out a slim victory of 2 points. Republican Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11) UNDERSPENT her rival on a dollar-per-vote basis, and won comfortably.
Overall, Democrats spent $19.54 per vote while Republicans spent $12.05, a 38% difference. Democrats spent over $10 per vote in 19 races compared to just eight for Republicans. They spent over $20 per vote in six districts, compared to three for Republicans.
In total, Democrats lost seven races in which they spent more per vote than the Republicans. The Republicans did not lose a single district where they spent more per vote than the Democrats.
Of the 26 congressional races, seven had a spread of less than 10 points. NY-17, NY-18, NY-19 and NY-22 all had spreads of one or two points, while NY-3, NY-4 and NY-25 had a bit more. Republicans won five of these seven tight races. Two of them, NY-17 and NY-22, saw Democrats pour millions of dollars into the races which ended up keeping them tight but still were won by Republicans.
Looking at it geographically, Democrats won 10 of 11 New York City Districts, while Republicans won 10 of 15 non-NYC districts.
Republicans will need to significantly boost their fundraising over the next election cycle and win the trust of their constituents if they want to continue to hold the five seats in the close races. It is likely that Democrat Mondaire Jones, a popular progressive who used to live in Rockland County (NY-17), will return to run against Mike Lawler in two years, after Jones’ failed run in the NY-10 primaries.
In summary, the new district contours seemed to work in New York State. The Democratic money machine poured tens of millions into races, with far left progressive AOC leading her party. If Republicans spend more intelligently in the state in the next cycle, they could keep and maybe expand upon their 2022 showing.
In New York’s 17th congressional district, Democratic incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney lost his seat to a Republican challenger, Mike Lawler. The pundits – and Maloney himself – offered their opinions as to why the five-term incumbent who spent 5.6 times more than his opponent, lost.
Their conclusion is disheartening, as it further underscores how liberals simply refuse to acknowledge the rampant anti-Semitism and attacks against Jews in society.
The New York Times asked the question directly in its headline “A Powerful N.Y. Democrat Was a Shoo-In for Re-election. What happened?” It offered some ideas including that Maloney opted for running in the wrong district after his historic contours were redrawn. The article wrote that it may have appeared like a safe choice in “diverse, left-leaning places like Peekskill and Ossining,” it neglected to consider the “significant population of right-leaning ultra-Orthodox Jews.“
Jews were the only ethnic group mentioned in the article. Not Hispanics, Blacks, Asians nor any others. Jews were the thorn in the side which helped lead to this congressman’s demise, and possibly Democratic control of the House of Representatives.
In another Times’ article, Maloney was asked why some of his constituents voted against him. He blamed media fear-mongering.
Maloney said that people in the suburbs of New York City are fed lies by conservative media about crime. “New York is home to the fiercest outlet in the News Corporation fear machine. In fairness to the governor, she and the rest of us have to contend with the hysteria of The New York Post and of Fox News… you have these suburban voters who are experiencingthose messages coming out of New York City outlets, which were heavily focused on crime.”
The outgoing congressman said that the media cooked up “messages” about crime to manufacture “fear” and “hysteria.” The issue for this New York politician who’s been serving in congress for ten years was media spin, not actual crime.
Hate crimes against Jews – particularly in New York – is not a fiction concocted to make Democrats look weak on crime. It is an alarming reality, and the scourge is reported by all media outlets, whether CBSNews, CNN or Reuters.
Jews are being harassed, assaulted and murdered with increasing frequency and rather than acknowledge the serious problem, liberals are treating it like false news.
And if that’s not bad enough, they are now blaming Orthodox Jews for flipping congress and thereby hurting the Democratic agenda in the entire country. A little more fuel for liberal Jew hatred for the coming years.
FirstOneThrough 