The horrific terrorist attacks conducted against Americans on September 11, 2001 was not only the worst loss of life in a coordinated attack by foreign enemies, it changed the vector of American and world history.
On the 21st anniversary of the attacks, the United States posted comments by President Biden about “Patriot Day” at various embassies around the world. In the Middle East and North Africa, the American embassies took very different approaches.
The US embassies in Israel, Egypt and Yemen were unique in posting Biden’s remarks about the 9/11 terrorism. The embassies in other countries which are considered US allies, such as Jordan which receives $1.45 billion in annual aid from the U.S., Qatar, which houses the largest US military presence in the region, and Saudi Arabia, where President Biden just visited to increase its oil exports, all opted to remain silent on the solemn day.
What do these three countries have in common?
Israel has been fighting the scourge of Palestinian Islamic radical terrorism for decades. Egypt and Yemen are fighting terrorist forces backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many of the other regional Muslim-majority countries back those terrorist groups like Hamas, or have other US-designated terrorist groups operating openly in their borders, including Turkey, Lebanon and Qatar.
As we remember the victims of the 9/11 attacks, we must also remember the state sponsors of terrorism – Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular – and make sure that they never have access to weapons of mass destruction.
President Joe Biden called the United States to order this week in asking all Americans to tune into a prime time address staged outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was an address he believed was of the utmost importance: to save democracy.
That is indeed a most important subject. Biden was right to call out “extremists” (which he mentioned six times, and political “violence” (ten times) as real risks which threaten our society. It is a principle beyond partisanship.
Alas, Biden destroyed his 3,000-word speech by only calling out extremists to the right of him, and not to the left.
He tried to coin a phrase “MAGA Republicans” (used 13 times) to describe the extremists who follow former President Donald Trump who wrongfully tried to overturn the results of the 2020 elections. He said those people “do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people…. and they fanned the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.” He made clear that they are a “threat” (used nine times) to the fabric of the United States.
Biden pretended that the extremists exist on only one side of the political spectrum. He ignored the raucous left that burned the streets of America and assaulted our persons and property:
Bernie Sanders said that the entire nature of capitalism and finance is based on fraud
Elizabeth Warren proposed forcing companies to redo their boards of directors to meet her demands for employee representation
The extremism is so mainstream, that the three most far-left senators all ran for president in 2020, senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Sanders and Kamala Harris. Far left radicals de Blasio and Warren ran as well.
The extremists to the left include anti-Semites like Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar. Instead of lambasting their disgraceful incitement against Jews, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi rewarded Omar with passing an act denouncing Islamophobia.
The far-left extremists are inciting hatred against the police, capitalism and Jews. They are attempting to brand all White people as racists and teach such in elementary schools. They are inciting riots and anti-Semitic attacks. But Biden won’t call it out.
President Biden calling “MAGA Republicans” a threat to democracy. He did not utter a word about radical left-wing extremists
The call to dismantle America is only part of the attack on democracy. The Obama/Biden administration gave the Islamic Republic of Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism, a legal pathway to nuclear weapons. Biden/Harris are working on the same, threatening All democracies around the world.
In addition to being silent on the the radical left, Biden stretched the meaning of the radical right. He said that people who were not in favor of Democrats demand for abortion until the moment of birth are threats to democracy. Does he know that over 70% of Americans are against abortions in the third trimester?
Biden said that people who were not in favor of gay marriage were extremists. Did he forget that it was illegal in the US until a few years ago? There are over 70 countries were BEING gay (let alone legalizing gay marriage) is illegal. Was his address meant to antagonize half of the world?
Biden was correct that calls for violence are completely unacceptable; people who try to rip at our common bonds that make us all Americans are threats to society. That he could only call out the alt-right while ignoring the alt-left was not just a missed opportunity to bring America to the center by clipping the fringes, but a frightening warning sign that the power of progressive extremists has already inserted itself deeply into the administration.
On December 18, 1992, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. This year marks the 30th anniversary of that declaration which recalls that such minorities often “suffer disproportionately from the effects of conflicts resulting in the violation of their human rights and are particularly vulnerable to forced displacement through, interalia, population transfers, revocation of previously held identity documents, refugee flows and forced relocation.“
The history of Jews around the world is proof of this sentiment. They have been the most persecuted religious group in every country in which they’ve lived over many centuries.
The reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in their homeland was supposed to put an end to such discrimination. Finally ruling over themselves, Jews were not going to be subject to the rash of anti-Semitic edicts passed by many countries such as banning kosher meat, banning circumcision, forcing Jews to give live in ghettoes, expulsions, forced conversions, limiting their fields of employment, etc.
Alas, people of ill-will have inverted the situation of the Jewish State in an accusatory fashion, claiming that Israel should be censured for supposedly discriminating against the one-quarter of its population that is non-Jewish. While roughly one-eighth of the vast Muslim world abuts Israel, anti-Zionists shout the slur of “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” at the Jewish State, even while it affords its non-Jewish citizens full rights far in excess of any of its neighboring countries, and where the Muslim population has soared – both in excess of the Jewish population and outpacing Muslims in adjacent countries.
Today, 85% of the world belongs to an organized religion. The majority are Christian, although forecasts predict that Islam will catch up with Christianity by 2050. There are dozens of Christian-majority countries and fifty Muslim-majority ones, with more expected.
In sharp contrast, Jews, the most persecuted religious group in history, make up less than 0.2% of the global population. Roughly half of them, about 7 million, live in the State of Israel, immediately surrounded by 140 million Muslims. That’s a neighborhood where Muslims outnumber Jews by 127 times.
To consider an analogy, if one were to go to a mall with 500 parking spaces, there would be an equivalent of 4 spots for Jews and 496 for Muslims. By way of comparison, US regulations would require 10 spots be allocated for handicap people, or 2.5 times as many. If one were to stand amongst the ten handicap spots, it would look like the mall has many spots for this subset of the population but to look on a broader basis, one sees that the allocation is very small.
Israel is surrounded by most of the Muslim world. Just among its immediate neighbors, Jews are outnumbered by 127 times.
According to the United Nations own goals in the Declaration, Jews must have the right to pray at their holiest site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as “fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion,…. [noting] that the constant promotion and realization of the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, as an integral part of the development of society as a whole and within a democratic framework based on the rule of law, would contribute to the strengthening of friendship and cooperation among peoples and States.”
As it relates to organizations and countries that seek to boycott Israel and its supporters, the declaration asserts that “Persons belonging to minorities have the right to establish and maintain, without any discrimination, free and peaceful contacts with other members of their group and with persons belonging to other minorities, as well as contacts across frontiers with citizens of other States to whom they are related by national or ethnic, religious or linguistic ties.” The BDS movements targeting Jews and Jewish groups that support Israel, such as the one passed by Berkeley Law in August 2022, clearly run afoul of the UN action meant to protect marginalized groups, and to help foster friendship and cooperation.
The anti-Semitic public chant to “Globalize the Intifada” is an illegal direct incitement to violence against Jews, but was not prosecuted in the US or elsewhere. Absolution Via Inaction.
The fundamental reality is that Jews in every country and in the one Jewish State are simultaneously regional and global Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities that must be protected by every single member state of the United Nations.
There are few institutions as powerful as the teacher unions in the United States. Not only do they lock in amazing benefits and pensions for their constituents (that’s very much the teachers and not the students), the unions protect horrible teachers from being appropriately fired.
Terrible teachers, many accused of disgusting wrong-doings, end up in so-called “rubber rooms” where they don’t actively teach students anymore but sit around and mark time. All the while, they continue to be paid handsomely and accrue retirement benefits from taxpayers.
A similar dynamic can be seen with the United Nations’ favorite constituents, the Palestinian Arabs, and their pathetic leader, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas addressing the United Nations in 2018
Abbas is a disgrace by every measure. The Palestinians hate him, with 73% unsatisfied with his performance and 77% demanding his resignation, according to a June 2022 poll. Roughly 86% of Palestinians consider the Palestinian Authority to be disgracefully corrupt according to the same poll.
Abbas’s four year term as President was supposed to expire in January 2009 but he has refused to hold new elections, as he knows that he would be trounced, even by the leaders of Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization.
Abbas lost control over much of the territory and people he was supposed to govern shortly after he assumed power. He and his Fatah Party were routed from Gaza by Hamas in 2007. Abbas has failed to negotiate a unity government with Hamas over fifteen of his eighteen year reign.
With no mandate, support, standing, proven ability to negotiate with fellow Palestinians (let alone Israelis), one would imagine that Abbas would be sidelined by the global community. Why would anyone back such a failed leader and regime?
A thoughtful initial reaction might be that it’s what corrupt political bodies do. Just like teacher unions support corrupt teachers to the chagrin of students and their parents, the United Nations continues to support Abbas and the PA, to the annoyance of Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Abbas has been given the podium to address the United Nations General Assembly every September since 2005. Last year, Abbas used the opportunity to declare that he will continue the “pay-to-slay” program in which the PA pays the families of terrorists who attack Israelis. During his address, he gave Israel one year – until now – to withdraw from the lands it took from Egypt and Transjordan in 1967, or he would abandon any attempts to negotiate a final agreement with Israel and would pursue a solution at the International Criminal Court.
Regardless of his track record and threat, US President Joe Biden paid Abbas a visit in Bethlehem and declared his administration’s support for Abbas. Abbas flew to Europe to meet the leaders of Romania and France. Abbas even went to Germany, where he outrageously accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” against Palestinian Arabs.
“The rubber room. Please put him in a rubber room as quickly as possible,” were the calls from around the world. We all know he wrote his doctoral thesis on Holocaust denial and that he continues to funnel money to terrorists but we kept telling ourselves “Abbas is a moderate” despite the facts. Keep him away from governance. Stop rewarding him with official state visits. Even corrupt agencies like the UN cannot continue the ignominy of his addressing world leaders.
But they can’t stop because this farce is two-party tango.
Abbas is indeed an unpopular, corrupt, inept Holocaust denier who should be shuttled off the global stage. But he is the flimsy veneer that hides the deep anti-Semitism and rejection of peace ingrained in Palestinian Arab society. He might occasionally go off the scripts that far left-wing NGOs put before him to enable billions of dollars to flow into the PA, but he’s the only front man they have.
Palestinians have been saying consistently: they do not want a two-state solution; they do not want Jews in the Middle East; they proudly support the anti-Semitic political-terrorist group Hamas which has sworn to obliterate the Jewish State.
So western leaders shake hands with the 87-year old cartoon cutout Abbas and pretend he is a legitimate Palestinian leader. They send him billions of dollars of support, knowing much will be wasted and go to fund terrorists in the hope of placating the more radical jihadists. Abbas effectively sits in the rubber room but is trotted out to legitimize the fund flows and to make the masses feel like they are being treated with dignity.
Imagine if a horrible teacher who fomented racism and violence, was considered the best of the lot? The pretty face that covered up the greater evil that was being taught in the classroom by the rest of the staff. Would society allow that teacher to continue to teach, sit in a rubber room or be fired? To be escorted from school or be the public face to address students and parents? Would everyone recognize the systemic problem and demand that the entire institution be shuttered completely, or would they be too concerned about not having any teachers at school?
The veneer has worn through and Abbas’s dark stains are apparent. However, the anti-Semitic rot that lies behind him in Palestinian society continues to be willfully and actively ignored. All because the world is too reluctant to both consider and internalize that creating a neo-Nazi state alongside the sole Jewish State is a terrible idea.
The young Arab men got into their car. The backseat had machine guns and bottles prepared with Molotov cocktails. They checked their watches and called friends that they were on their way to meet them at the designated spot on the highway.
Their colleagues got to the designated spot on dirt bikes. It was a favorite way of riding around the Judean Desert and this was a relatively cool morning which made for a pleasant ride. They arrived at the perch early and prepared for the attack.
The hill afforded them a nice view of the Israeli cars coming and going on a road they demanded be Jew-free. The Muslim Arabs considered the vehicles as daggers in the heart of a land they considered purely Arab, and they were mujahideen fighting for the liberation of their country from imperialist European colonial settlers.
Their fellow jihadists phoned that they were approaching the site for the attack. It was important to concentrate their efforts, as the Zionist Occupation Forces would swarm shortly after their actions.
The stationary Arab men began to pelt the cars carrying Jews with rocks. They watched as the rocks popped against the roofs and smash into pieces on the road. Cars behind them and in the opposite direction began swerving and accelerating away from the rockstorm. Soon the Jews would call in the location of the attack. They had no more than five minutes to kill as many Jewish settlers as possible.
While the barrage was underway, the Arabs in the car gathered their weapons. The passenger in the front seat took the machine gun while the driver grabbed a pistol. As their adrenaline caught up with the speed of the car, they saw a large bus coming in the opposite direction. A ripe big bus full of Jews.
They opened fire together. They chanted “Allahu Akbar” as they shot up the bus. At least a dozen hits they estimated as they zipped past. The driver shouted that he hit the bus driver, and sure enough, his jihadist passenger spun his head around to watch the bus crash into a hill on the side of the road. The Arabs cheered and sped away.
The scene of a shooting attack on an Israeli bus in the Jordan Valley, on September 4, 2022. (photo: Israeli Bus Drivers Union)
The Bronx
The Black Congressman was annoyed but not too worried. His district had been redrawn in the latest census, leaving him without much of his base in the Bronx and handing him a bunch of wealthy White suburbanites in Westchester County. Could his Socialist message still prevail amongst one of the most Jewish districts in the country?
He decided to change nothing. His staff was 100 percent made up of Black women, unique amongst all politicians. He wasn’t going to pivot to adding a White Jew to the team at this point. Maybe he’d meet with a local Jewish politician who was peeved at being ignored during the entirety of his first term. But he only would do it at the request of a local Black leader who swore that he was the right kind of Jew.
He stood on the subway platform to greet his people. It didn’t matter that he would only gather about 3,000 votes from the nub of New York City left in his district. He was delivering a message: he was a man of the people. Let the other candidates stand on the fancy Metro North train platforms in Westchester pandering the rich for votes. There were working class people in those towns too and his message would attract their votes as well.
Confident in his approach, he told his staffers that they should not respond to the invitation by the American Jewish Congress to hear from the congressional candidates. Let the two White people split the protest vote. It assured him of an easy path to victory.
He flew down to Washington, D.C. to confer with members of the “Squad”, fellow left-wing extremists making headway in the Democratic Party. Yes, he would co-sponsor a resolution calling the founding of the Jewish State of Israel, a “Nakba“, meaning a catastrophe. Yes, he would pull his support from the Abraham Accords, which advanced peace between Israel and four Muslim countries.
The Jews are now a loud annoying part of his district but ultimately an unimportant minority. He will make that abundantly clear to them as he votes against their wishes over his next term, letting everyone know that the “Jewish Lobby” is dead.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) hugging fellow anti-Israel Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Charlottesville
The White supremacists walked the streets with torches in hand. “Jews will not replace us!” they chanted, as several sported a Nazi salute. They called out the handful of Jews who were using their Jewish power to import non-Whites onto the White shores of America.
Their actions drew the national attention they sought. While they were few in number, they wanted to galvanize support against Jews and immigrants. Against racial preferences. Against giveaways to minorities that kept holding Whites back. They saw Donald Trump as the most vocal non-politically correct politician that ever held office, and they were going to embrace this man who coveted love and loyalty more than anything else.
This spark would catch fire.
White supremacists from around the country boarded their pickup trucks, now with flags perched high. They despised the woke culture finding its way into every facet of the Christian nation they loved. And the Jews. The Jews were abetting all of it.
Several hundred white nationalists and white supremacists carrying torches march in a parade at the University of Virginia. (Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post)
The Spouses, Kapos And Abettors
Not every Jew was hauled to their deaths in cattle cars during the European Holocaust. Some Jews remained in major Nazi-controlled cities, even Berlin.
While the Nazis were hell-bent on eradicating the untermenschen Jews, some Juden had all but abandoned their people and faith, and had married proper German women. The Aryans loved their Jewish spouses, for whatever reason. The Nazis reluctantly concluded that they could not haul the Jewish spouses off to concentration camps for extermination, while these Aryan brides had brothers and fathers fighting for the Nazi cause. They allowed some of the sub-humans to remain.
The interfaith couples were relieved, and paid back their masters with silence, as Jews from around Europe were carted off for liquidation.
Monument in Berlin, Germany for the German women who fought to save their Jewish husbands from death in the Nazi concentration camps. (photo: FirstOneThrough)
Some Jews who were hauled off in cattle cars to the camps managed to survive by working with Nazi overlords. These Kapos served as stand-in guards, working with the Nazis to hustle fellow Jews off the trains, into lines and into the showers. Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer of the SS, praised the Kapos as it saved critical German manpower during the war-effort, and helped divide the Jews amongst themselves. The irony was sweet poetry to the Nazis: Jews implementing the Final Solution upon themselves.
Jewish Head Kapo serving in the concentration camp of Salaspils in Latvia. (Photo courtesy Bundesarchiv)
Today, Jews continue to divide themselves. Some cling to jihadists. Some to anti-Semitic woke politicians. Some to bold racists, who nevertheless embrace common positions.
And the Jews know the history. They can see the highway to hell mapped by the terrorists on the ridge, the woke politicians standing on the platform, and the racists shouting from trucks.
And they have made up their minds. They are marrying these new Germanic lovers who will surely save them while fellow Jews are carted off. For them, “Ich bin ein Berliner” is a renewed slogan to be aired openly and publicly that they are not untermenschen. That’s those other Jews.
Some may look and others will turn away, but all will cleave to their Brides of Absolution while the anti-Semites send Jews off in cattle cars once again.
“Zionism, the ideological undergirding of Israel, is a debatable political philosophy.“
– Keith Ellison, Attorney General of Minnesota, former Congressman (D-MN), former Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee
Over 1,000 Jews from around the world came to Basel, Switzerland this week to mark the 125th anniversary of the first World Zionist Congress. They celebrated the incredible success of the Modern State of Israel, now 75 years since its reestablishment, a mere 50 years from Theodore Herzl’s initial conference of inspiration was turned into a reality.
The kickoff speaker was Israeli President Isaac “Bougie” Herzog. His speech welcomed the Zionists from around the world, regardless of their religious denominations or political affiliation. He urged all of them to get involved in the Zionist project and questions regarding “the whole Jewish People… to debate them together, in a spirit of mutual responsibility, and most importantly, of full and institutionalized partnership.“
He concluded his remarks that the broad community must “reclaim Zionism” from the vile smears that populate society today. Herzog offered his prescriptions which included uniquely Jewish and Israeli goals, as well as dealing with global issues such as climate change. He mentioned “tikkun olam (repair the world)” three times, as a mission (and potential balm) to combat the insidious woke anti-Semitism infecting the world. “[M]odern Zionism gives us our sense of not only shared fate but also shared destiny, as long as it remains anchored in our deepest roots, weaving together the inseparable threads of peoplehood, land, and state.”
“Nothing is creepier than Zionism. Challenge racism”
Linda Sarsour, former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March
Herzog’s outreach to his diverse Zionist audience was sweet but showed that he has not internalized the anger and misconceptions about Zionism from the anti-Israel world. Joining the far-left in combatting climate change under the banner of Zionism sounds like he’s read a few articles about intersectionality and “allyship.” To be sure, fighting global issues is a responsibility Israel shares with the entire world, but was not a foundational matter for Herzl’s Zionism 125 years ago, and redefining Modern Zionism in such a manner today will do nothing to “reclaim” the definition from Israel haters who wish to tarnish and destroy the Jewish State.
“We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses. Because just because they’re your friend today, doesn’t mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights. So oppose the vehement fascists but oppose the polite Zionists too. They are not your friends.”
Zahra Billoo, SAN FRANCISCO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE COUNCIL OF AMERICAN ISLAMIC RELATIONS (CAIR)
Herzog is correct that we need to “reclaim Zionism,” but not by stretching its meaning into something far afield from its core tenets. We need to educate the world about simple foundational truths, and what Modern Zionism actually means and created.
“European Jewish Zionists claimed to be descendants of the ancient Palestinian Hebrews and to be merely “returning” to their ancient land.”
Universities and extremist media have painted Zionism as a violent nationalist effort by European Jews to steal Arab land. They claim Jews have no history or ties to the land and are simply the latest version of European colonialists. Does Herzog really believe that Israelis bonding over climate change help stop such inanity?
Jews, historians and all people of good will need to be clear about basic historical truths and the mission of Modern Zionism.
Modern Zionism did not steal Arab history or land. It is not a derivative of the forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which falsely asserts an aim to rob Palestinian Arabs as a subset of global domination. The simple fact is that Jews have thousands of years of history in the land of Israel, and have always lived and moved to the land because it is a central part of Judaism.
“The Zionist idea to dominate the area from the Nile to the Euphrates was well known, but Israel realized that the two-State solution would not take it in that direction.”
Hiba Husseini, chairs the Legal Committee to Final Status Negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, and a speaker at the united nations
“The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.“
Modern Zionism was launched by Herzl on only two ideas. First, that Jews will forever be targeted as minorities in countries around the world, whether they present as devout Orthodox Jews or assimilated secular ones, and second, that the only way for Jews to be secure and have a future is to have sovereignty in their homeland once again.
To be an anti-Zionist means that one doesn’t believe in one of those two things. To be against the first, is to ignore and belittle the horrific crimes committed against the most persecuted people in history. To stand against the second, is to urge for the destruction of the one Jewish State. Both are blatantly anti-Semitic.
“The three basic characteristics of Zionism are: racism, expansionism and settler colonialism”
“Reclaiming Zionism” as Israeli President Herzog desires is needed, but his prescription for joining woke causes is nonsensical. Such efforts will not reorient college campuses and the media away from their misconception that Israel is a violent European colonialist state.
Instead, we must state repeatedly the fundamental truths about Jews and the land of Israel. We must clearly articulate the meaning of Zionism, and that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. And we must loudly proclaim that we are proud Zionists, and amazed by the liberal democracy that thrives in the illiberal Middle East.
There are no people as persecuted as the Jews. Subject to pogroms, ethnic cleansing, blood libels and genocides throughout history and around the world, they have been the victims of the powerful and of the weak.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman represents New York State’s 16th Congressional District which covers lower Westchester County, just north of New York City. It is estimated to be over 20% Jewish and has one of the largest Jewish populations in the United States.
From his powerful podium, Bowman deliberately insults Jewish history and incites hatred for the Jewish State.
“There’s so much we’re dealing with within our own borders that it’s often difficult for Americans to turn our attention to the problems of people overseas, but it’s hard at this moment not to be struck by the extent of suffering around the world. Whether it’s the infringement of human and civil rights of Palestinians living in Sheikh Jarrah, the violence against those praying in the Al-Aqsa mosque during the holy month of Ramadan in East Jerusalem, police violence against Colombians, a military coup in Myanmar, an ignored genocide in Ethiopia, or the ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs in China, my heart is breaking for people around the world experiencing oppression and hurt.”
Bowman started with events in Israel – twice. He only referenced the perceived wrongs against Arabs, not the violent Arab attacks against Jews exercising their basic human rights to pray with dignity at their holiest location.
He then compared those relatively minor events to vicious global activities.
In Colombia, police attacked and killed peaceful demonstrators protesting income inequality
In Myanmar, the military essentially took over the entire government and arrested public officials
In China, hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs were imprisoned and shipped to “re-education camps”
How are any of these horrible actions against hundreds of thousands of peaceful civilians remotely close to Israel protecting Jews who want to visit the Temple Mount? Bowman deliberately abused language to stir up anger and violence against the Jewish State. Which is exactly what happened over the next days, with Jews around the world being attacked.
Further, to use words like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” against the Jewish State, when Jews just suffered a true genocide in Europe, and ethnic cleansing in Israel at the hands of the Jordanian and Egyptian army who expelled all of the Jews from Judea and Samaria and the eastern part of Jerusalem, is to spit in the faces of actual victims.
Jamaal Bowman standing in the center of the alt-left “Squad”, with Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar on the left, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley to the right
Jamaal Bowman helped inflame violence against Jews around the world with malicious smears against Israel. He is unfit to serve in congress.
On August 2nd, shortly after J Street-endorsed candidate Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) lost in the Democratic primary, J Street lambasted AIPAC and Democratic Majority For Israel for supporting Rep. Haley Stevens. The progressive group took particular aim at the two groups’ “aggressive outside spending…[which] is harmful to American foreign policy, to the Democratic Party and ultimately to the State of Israel. (J Street’s emphasis)
It was obvious sour grapes coming from a group that had endorsed and funded a campaign just like AIPAC and DMFI, but lost.
Not three weeks later, J Street has entered the race of New York’s 16th Congressional District, in lower Westchester County. And in a very hypocritical and disgusting fashion.
Neither the bipartisan group AIPAC nor the centrist Democratic DMFI spent one dollar on the NY-16 race. Neither group even endorsed any of the three candidates running. While both groups strongly dislike the anti-Israel Rep. Jamaal Bowman who is the incumbent, they have refrained from engaging in the race as the odds of defeating him are low, so have opted to focus elsewhere.
J Street endorsed Bowman early but did not put in any money into the race. Until now.
Wealthy and Poor Voters Split
After witnessing the near loss of another anti-Israel incumbent member of “the Squad”, Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on August 9th, J Street became nervous. Omar won her Democratic primary by 2,400 votes out of 110,000 cast. Omar won the poorer, densely populated city area of Minneapolis but lost the wealthy suburbs. If AIPAC and DMFI had put resources into the race, Omar would likely have been defeated.
There are potential lessons for the NY-16 race, where Omar’s close colleague Bowman is the far-left incumbent.
J Street endorsed Bowman in January 2022 when NY-16 included a large section of the Bronx section of New York City. In May, the district was redrawn, removing almost the entirety of the Bronx which had been in the district, and replacing it with wealthier suburbs of lower Westchester. This dynamic could theoretically swap the rank-and-file reliable liberal voters of the Bronx with more moderate ones, threatening a far-left incumbent like Bowman.
A review of the 2020 presidential voting offers some color on how the new NY-16 towns of Westchester (many of which were in NY-17 previously), vote compared to the sections of the Bronx (now in NY-15) which were replaced.
There are a couple of takeaways from the voting patterns of the poorer sections of the Bronx which were removed from NY-16 relative to the wealthier sections of Westchester which were added. The biggest one is that Westchester was much more content to put in “protest” votes in leaving the choice blank (+6.9%), rather than follow the front-runner, Joe Biden (-6.4%).
The second is that the wealthier towns of Westchester, a county which is roughly 20% Jewish, did not rally to Michael Bloomberg. This observation should be discounted by the Bronx having him as mayor for three terms while Westchester did not.
Lastly, Westchester and the Bronx voted in a similar pattern for the far-left. While Westchester backed Warren more than the Bronx did (+1.0%), the Bronx voted in a similar percentage favoring Bernie Sanders (-0.8%).
The political strategists at J Street know these things: that Westchester is just as likely to vote liberal BUT is also likely to stay away and not support the frontrunner incumbent, especially in an off-cycle end of summer primary. The lower voter turnout and Westchester’s challenge to the frontrunner could spell the end of Bowman’s political career.
Westchester Jewish Community Rallying For Vedat Gashi
There are specific reasons for Bowman to be concerned beyond macro trend lines, which brought J Street into the action.
Bowman’s positions are very unpopular in lower Westchester. Those include:
Call to “Defund the police”
“Abolish ICE”, the immigration and customs enforcement department, and a call for “open borders”
Push for teaching “Critical Race Theory” in schools
Voting against the Infrastructure Bill, and then lying to constituents that he supported it
Sponsoring a bill that called the founding of Israel a catastrophe
Not signing a bipartisan letter to fight anti-Semitism on campuses
Not supporting the Abraham Accords which set peace and normalization agreements between Israel and four Muslim countries
His vote to condition aid to Israel, in contrast to President Biden’s pledge not to do so
Bowman’s being one of the least bipartisan members of congress, going into a session that will likely see a split in Democratic and Republican control
The vast majority of the Westchester Jewish community is against these policies. Further, reading of Bowman’s tight relationship with the noxiously anti-Israel group IfNotNow where he said “I couldn’t be more grateful that IfNotNow Movement has had my back in Congress this year and I know that our partnership is just beginning,” made people search for an alternative.
J Street wasn’t initially concerned by the anger of the Jewish community, as there were three candidates running against Bowman. His victory was a near certainty as people were likely to split the vote. With AIPAC and DMFI concluding the same and staying out of the race, J Street opted to place its money bets on other races.
However, over the last few weeks, Jewish grass roots efforts led to coalescing behind Vedat Gashi, a secular Muslim immigrant from Kosovo. The Jewish community was pulled in by his powerful story, his pledge for “commonsense” policies which would NOT defund the police, which would support investments in infrastructure and would support Israel. Gashi lawn signs began dotting the suburban landscape. The easy Bowman victory was now hotly contested.
So J Street came in to fight the local Jews.
J Street Pours Money Into Campaign Against The Local Jewish Community
With primaries scheduled for August 23rd, J Street announced on August 17 that it would pour $200,000 into the races of Rep. Jerry Nadler and Rep. Jamaal Bowman. The hypocrisy of funding Bowman in a race without any PAC involvement after slamming “aggressive outside spending” is just the beginning.
J Street’s flood of money in the final days of the race is not only going against the desires of the local Jewish community; it is trying to get the non-Jewish community out to vote. Its press release states that its “Bowman ad running across streaming platforms including ESPN, Vevo, MLB, NBC, CBS, ABC and BET.” BET is predominantly watched by the non-Jewish African-American community.
The Westchester Jewish community is rightfully outraged.
J Street is attempting to undermine the local Jewish community’s desire for a moderate pro-Israel candidate to represent them in congress, by spending tons of money to get the non-Jewish community to vote for a far-left anti-Israel candidate. It’s appalling, and the ramifications will likely last well beyond this immediate election.
Member of the far-left anti-Israel “Squad”, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY)(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Much of the global media covered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ disgusting comments while he was in Germany, as he tried to gain international support for his approach to dealing with Israel. Their coverage was quite different.
While standing alongside German Chancellor Olaf Schloz, a reporter asked Abbas if he would apologize to Israel for the Palestinian kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, as Germany was set to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the event in a few weeks. Abbas ignored the question, and instead offered “From 1947 to the present day, Israel has committed 50 massacres in Palestinian villages and cities, in Deir Yassin, Tantura, Kafr Qasim and many others, 50 massacres, 50 Holocausts.“
The condemnations for the Palestinian leader’s trivialization of the Holocaust – in Germany of all places – in response to a question about Palestinian terrorism, and inverting Jewish victim to murderer, came from around the world. Some news organization opted to focus squarely on the Holocaust denial and rebukes, while other for-profit media companies decided to provide context.
Some of the background proffered was shocking and says much about the news organization’s biases, their readers and sponsors.
Basically all news groups focused on Abbas’ “50 Holocaust” statement and the condemnations. Almost all – including AP News and The Guardian – provided background that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, except for Axios, which delivers news in an abbreviated bullet point format. None of the major news outlets informed readers that Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, as the country feels a moral duty to not obfuscate its historic crimes against humanity. Depending on when the story broke, the media reported on the “clarification” posted on Abbas’s political party’s website.
The 1972 Palestinian massacre of Israeli athletes, the focus of the question to Abbas, was only referred to as an “attack” by Axios and Reuters. Each declined to write that eleven athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
Very few media shops gave their readership color that Abbas has a long history of Holocaust denial, including writing his doctoral thesis on the idea that Zionists conspired with the Nazis to make life unbearable for European Jews to get the Jews to move to Palestine. Abbas falsely alleges – to this day – that Jews have neither history in, nor interest to move to Palestine, so Zionists worked with the German government to prod the Jews to move. Both CNN and The New York Times gave some color on Abbas’ history of anti-Semitism.
On the fringe, CNN, Reuters and The New York Times tried to explain Abbas’s revolting comments.
CNN and Reuters essentially reprinted the Palestinian “clarification” statement which wrongfully stated that “Israeli forces” have been engaged in “massacres” of Palestinians since the “Nakba” of the founding of Israel. Reuters and The New York Times elected to write about recent battles between Palestinian Arabs and Israel that left many Arabs dead, as if somehow the slaughter of defenseless Jewish Germans by the Nazi government is akin to a war between two armed groups.
The New York Times went even further. It quoted a disgraced former Prime Minister from over a decade ago who served time in prison, who “welcomed” the Palestinian non-apology, making the matter seem like water-under-the-bridge. Such ridiculous editorializing could only happen at the anti-Zionist Times. Or maybe Qatari-owned al Jazeera.
The New York Times attempted to soften the vile Holocaust comments by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on August 18, 2022.
In case readers were not satisfied that Abbas was cleared of charges of anti-Semitism by four prime ministers ago-Ehud Olmert, the Times added a bunch of information that has absolutely nothing to do with the story. It wrote that Abbas has worked closely with Israeli security to prevent violence, and that “right-wing Israeli politicians” try to isolate and demonize Abbas, even though he helps keep the peace. If that doesn’t convince the reader to absolve Abbas, the Times added that Abbas is deeply unpopular among Palestinian Arabs anyway.
The New York Times has long peddled in anti-Israel editorializing. It has now added Holocaust denial-enablement to its revolting repertoire.
To spend time in Berlin, Germany is to be surrounded by echoes of the Holocaust. The silhouettes of Jewish victims can be seen in the memorials of concrete coffins emerging from the ground, brass plaques cemented into the sidewalks, sculptures of men, women and children atop pedestals, and the anti-Semitic edicts drawn on placards hoisted on street poles.
Berlin monument for German non-Jewish women seeking to save their Jewish husbandsBerlin monument for Jewish women and children in front of destroyed Jewish cemeteryStatues in Berlin, Germany commemorating the Holocaust
The small community of Israeli Jews who moved to the epicenter of the Jewish genocide since World War II have made a peculiar peace with this past. Some came when the city was divided in two and settled in West Berlin, and others are recent arrivals, former Ukrainians and Russians who prefer Eastern Europe to the Middle East.
They all know the city’s history and they know the oddity that they represent.
Speaking to these Israeli Jews about their relationships with German neighbors is a course of curiosity and incredulity. They offer that perhaps as many as 20% of Germans today are Nazi sympathizers much like their grandparents, and a similar percentage probably don’t think about the past at all. The Israeli-German residents estimate that most non-Jewish Germans are embarrassed about their legacy but don’t want to hate their own flesh-and-blood. Such Germans are left in an awkward situation when they talk with Jews: the unsympathetic descendants of murderers are engaged with the much more sympathetic descendants of their victims, creating an unbalanced state.
The Jewish Berliners dislike the dynamic, and argue that today’s generation of Germans cannot be held responsible for the sins of the past. They argue that today’s Germans have atoned as best they could through memorials and compensation to survivors. These Jews offer that they bemoan the preferred position they have in society as children of victims; they do not want such inherited status. Instead, they seek their righteous rank earned from sympathizing with the challenging constellation that places today’s Germans alongside Jews. The Jews and Germans are equally inheritors of the past, no more, no less.
Today in Berlin, I heard Jews talk about two different Children of the Holocaust. While I have long been familiar with children of Survivors like myself, it was shocking to hear some Jews relate to the grandchildren of Nazis as victims as well, albeit of familial reputational stain rather than of genocide. Perhaps that is how these new German Jews live surrounded by Jewish and Nazi ghosts: imagining that today’s Germans live with those same ghosts as well.
Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, continues below ground with stories of Jewish families destroyed by the Nazis. It sits one block from the Brandenburg Gate, a monument used by Germans to celebrate their power and freedom.
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