If there is one subject and one region of the planet that everyone likes to opine on, it is the State of Israel. Even countries thousands of miles away with no Jews take the microphone at the United Nations and tell their version of history: how Israel is a vicious force intent on taking over the Middle East.
On September 4, 2024, Guyana’s (population of roughly 800,000 in South America) representative to the United Nations spoke to the UN Security Council about the Palestinian-Israeli war. At (1:24:45), she made the following observation:
“Mr. President, it is worth reminding that the situation in Palestine today did not begin on 7 October, 2023. We must cast our minds back to 1948, because it was in that year that Israel first violently rejected the two-state solution. Since then, the violent rejection has continued, manifest in cycles of war and ever expanding settlement activities inter alia. What we have seen since the 7th of October, are the symptoms of this rejection of the two-state solution.”
The most powerful committee at the United Nations listened to a small South American country fictionalize history and invert reality: that it was the Zionists who rejected the two-state solution, not the Arab world; that it was the nascent state of Israel that launched the 1948 war, not five Arab armies; that it is the Jewish State that rejects two states leading to the October 7 massacre, not the antisemitic jihadi terrorist group Hamas which has sworn to destroy every inch of the Jewish State.
Representative of Guyana addressing the UN Security Council on September 4, 2024
The United Nations is systemically anti-Israel and antisemitic, and member states freely falsify history to defend their attacks against the Jewish State. In a world of “my truths,” instead of facts, how can a small minority group withstand the onslaught of unmoored lies?
ACTION ITEM
Write the office of the Prime Minister of Guyana at opm@opm.gov.gy and of foreign affairs at minfor@guyana.net.gy and tell them that the country’s representative at the United Nations lied repeatedly before the Security Council and inverted facts that it is the Arab world which has rejected the Jewish State, not as she presented history.
The antisemitic and anti-Israel dynamics have become so intolerable over the past months, that many people are rethinking their voting priorities to put Jewish issues before every other matter. Alan Dershowitz speaks for many when he says that he is forgoing every non-Jewish charity now and only giving to Jewish causes.
But there is a need to rethink the Jewish charities also. Some have become toxic to Israel and the Jewish people.
Let’s start with B’Tselem, the organization that claims to work on behalf of human rights.
On September 4, 2024, B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak’s addressed the United Nations Security Council, the most senior committee in the global body that has the power to pass international laws. In her prepared remarks, she lambasted Israel repeatedly calling it a vicious state of racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and violence.
Some select comments include:
“Since Israel was founded, the guiding logic of its regime has been to promote Jewish supremacy“
“the Israeli government does not want to return the hostages in a deal, but to continue the war indefinitely.”
“The current government’s guidelines state that: “The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all parts of the Land of Israel.””
“it [the Israeli government] is waging war on the entire Palestinian people – committing war crimes almost daily.”
“Settlers are attacking Palestinians and carrying out pogroms in broad daylight, with support from the government.”
“Palestinian citizens of Israel [aka Israeli Arabs] are suffering an almost total suppression for their freedom of expression and freedom of protest”
“[Israeli] violence is possible because Israel has enjoyed impunity for decades”
“It is time for the Council to address the opinion of the International Court of Justice on the illegality of Israel’s entire occupation and settlement project.”
“Every day the Council does not act on the court’s call to end the occupation and apartheid, is another day you are abandoning us – the people suffering and dying needlessly under this cruel and unjust regime.”
B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak’s addressed the United Nations Security Council
This was not a protest speech on an Israeli street corner but a damning indictment of Israel by an Israeli directed to the center of power which can impose tremendous damage on the Jewish State with a specific request to harm Israel. The smears of “Jewish Supremacy,” “apartheid,” “pogroms” and “war crimes” will be echoed on college campuses with a finger pointed to this very speech as defense.
B’Tselem is backed by a number of charities, some of which are nominally Jewish. They include the Moriah Fund, The New Israel Fund (NIF) and George Soros’s Open Society.
The Moriah Fund helps fund the anti-Israel Ford Foundation and antisemitic Tides Foundation. According to Influence Watch, “between 1999 and 2018, Moriah Fund has granted $45,718,829 to New Israel Fund,” and supports the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) campaigns against Israel.
According to Influence Watch, NIF gives money to several anti-Israel groups including Adalah and Human Rights Defenders Fund, whose leaders have called Israel “racist,” “murderous,” and an “apartheid state.”
NGO Monitor lists various charities funded by Open Society which include IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, rabidly anti-Israel organizations whose members are harassing college students everywhere, as well as other rabidly anti-Zionist groups.
It is not enough to prioritize Jewish and Israeli causes right now: it is important to stop the funding of Jewish groups which are doing their utmost to vilify and destroy the Jewish State and Jewish communities everywhere.
ACTION ITEM
Contact Jewish foundations like UJA and donor advised funds to block donations to B’Tselem, New Israel Fund, IfNotNow and JVP, as well as other toxic antisemitic and anti-Zionist charities.
The Palestinian political-terrorist group continued its vile and evil actions in shooting and killing six hostages it had held for the last eleven months. The civilians lives were worthless, as were the thousands that the group has killed over the decades.
Vice President Kamala Harris issued a press release, as one of the hostages was an American citizen, and his parents had just spoken at the Democratic National Convention. Harris called Hamas “an evil terrorist organization… whose “depravity is evident and horrifying.”
VP Harris press release about the murder of six Israeli hostages by Hamas, on August 31, 2024
Harris noted that Hamas is a threat to Israelis, Americans and even Palestinians, but she did not offer a plan of action, other than that the “threat” of Hamas “must be eliminated.”
By way of comparison, Senator Tom Cotton was more clear, that not just the “threat” of Hamas must be eliminated, but the “terrorist group must be destroyed.”
Sen. Tom Cotton post after the murder of six Israeli hostages by Hamas
Former President Obama ran his administration’s fight against terror in a particularly segmented manner, placing the “evil ideology” of jihadi groups into four buckets: evil to destroy (like ISIS); evil to condemn (like Boko Haram); evil to tolerate (like Syria); and evil to ignore (like Hamas). He would only activate American arms when American lives were at stake in the first category, while providing support in fighting evil globally in the second category. Regarding Syria and evil to tolerate, he offered little more than empty words. For evil like Hamas, he ignored it as something Israel turned into a phony boogeyman.
Obama’s successor, President Trump, collapsed those four categories into “radical Islamic terrorism,” which was a problem for everyone to be fought globally. He prioritized fighting ISIS and al Qaeda but viewed all of the sister jihadi groups through a similar lens.
President Biden condemned the Hamas October 7 massacre as “an act of sheer evil” and later added that the group should be eliminated. His Attorney General Merrick Garland announced terrorism charges against the leaders of Hamas on September 3, 2024, something that had been filed in February. It is unclear what is particularly special about unsealing the complaint at this time – Israel already killed a number of the senior Hamas leaders on the list. Is the US going to take direct action against Hamas? Will it use its pull with Qatar to extradite Khaled Mashal? Or will the world see the U.S. as a paper tiger, a distracted and divided once-upon-a-time military power?
Harris, now in the position of Democratic nominee for president, is crafting her own language about evil, that it should be deprived of the capability of being a “threat” but not necessarily “destroyed” as Biden and other politicians have advocated.
Harris’s softer position is being provided cover by J Street, the left-wing pro-Palestinian marketed as pro-Israel group. In response to the assassination of the six Israeli hostages, J Street called for Biden to assert “maximum pressure on [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” rather than providing Israel full capabilities of finishing the evil group.
J Street press release after Hamas’s killing of six hostages calling for US to withhold arms and funding to Israel if Netanyahu doesn’t accept a ceasefire deal
Many Democratic members of Congress will likely push a President Harris to not only let Hamas survive but to withhold critical arms to Israel, even as it fights Hezbollah, Iran and the Houthis. A Harris administration with someone like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) as Secretary of State, would likely condition military aid to Israel.
Harris and Trump agree that Hamas is an evil terrorist organization but it would appear that only a Trump Administration would push to destroy the group, while Harris might work to simply remove the terrorist group from power.
Extremist groups on the right and left are winning elections. Wars are raging around the world including Russia-Ukraine and Iranian proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis against Israel. And new terrorist groups continue to emerge like the Palestinian’s Tulkarm Brigades and Lion’s Den.
Yet one would not know this from tracking how the United States designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).
Since the U.S. State Department began listing FTOs on October 8, 1997, every Democratic and Republican administration was on top of the global terrorist threats, adding new FTOs with regularity. The longest gap between designating a new FTO was 992 days, from June 17, 2005 to March 5, 2008.
Until now.
The Biden administration last added a terrorist group on December 1, 2021, 1,005 days ago when it added two Colombia-based terrorist groups. Since that time it delisted five groups.
U.S. State Department Foreign Terrorist Organizations
Why hasn’t the U.S. listed any of the groups which have been murdering civilians for over 1,000 days? Has ignoring the “evil ideology” (to quote Obama) or “tragic deformity” (to quote James Zogby) of Palestinian culture pacified them?
The U.S. has spent the last three years with its head in the sand pretending that terrorist groups only exist INSIDE America as it left open its borders and ignored the toxic mushrooming of jihadi terrorist groups.
The current Palestinian war on Israel is much less about borders and land swaps, security matters and the status of Jerusalem, and much more about the so-called “right of return” of descendants of Palestinian Arab refugees to move into Israel rather than a new Palestinian State. Any discussions between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as well as at the United Nations, must bring the matter to the forefront and make clear that settling that point will be done at the national level.
If that sounds obvious, you do not understand the U.N.’s adoption of the Palestinian negotiating point, that the ‘right of return’ is for every individual to decide on his/her own about moving to Israel, outside of governmental negotiations.
US and Israel On ‘Right Of Return’
When President Bill Clinton formulated a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians in 2000, mediator Dennis Ross summarized the working proposal as follows: “On the issue of refugees, there would be a right of return for the refugees to their own state, not to Israel, but there would also be a fund of $30 billion internationally that would be put together for either compensation or to cover repatriation, resettlement, rehabilitation costs. And when it came to security, there would be a international presence, in place of the Israelis, in the Jordan Valley.”
This was the stated policy of both Democratic and Republican parties for years. Republican President George W. Bush sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in April 2004 that stated a “just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.” The 2008 Democratic platform echoed the sentiment that “The creation of a Palestinian state through final status negotiations, together with an international compensation mechanism, should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel.“
Palestinians and UN On ‘Right of Return’
But when John Kerry tried to negotiate an agreement between the parties in 2014, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pulled back from any discussion about refugees and said “Let me put it simply: the right of return is a personal decision. What does this mean? That neither the PA, nor the state, nor the PLO, nor Abu-Mazen [Abbas], nor any Palestinian or Arab leader has the right to deprive someone from his right to return…. The choice is yours. You want to return? You will return. You don’t? You’re free to remain; there is compensation and other details … I just wanted to remark on this point, that the right of return is a personal right. Even a father cannot forgo his children’s right.”
This ended any possibility of concluding the conflict via negotiations as Abbas handed the matter of refugees to millions of individuals.
The United Nations agrees with the Palestinian position.
In June 2023, the UN Office of Human Rights issued a report on World Refugee Day called “Right of return of Palestinian refugees must be prioritised over political considerations: UN experts.” It stated that “We urgently call upon the international community to adopt a rights-based approach that addresses the root causes of violence and prioritises the individual and collective right of return for refugees and internally displaced persons, over political considerations.”
The current formulation that Israel has no say on who it allows into its country and that 5.7 million Palestinian Arabs can unilaterally decide they can move to towns where ancestors lived will never be accepted by any Israeli government – right, left or centrist – EVER. It is a recipe for perpetual bloodshed and animosity.
To enable any chance for there to ever be a negotiated solution, the United Nations must be clear that the matter of the descendants of Palestinian Arabs who once lived in modern Israel is a matter to be handled by the PA, and not for individuals. Alternatively, the UN can state clearly that the ‘right of return’ is only limited to individuals who actually left Israel and not for their descendants.
The ‘two-state solution’ became unviable when the UN and Palestinian leadership decided that a ‘right of return’ for millions of Palestinians into Israel is an inalienable individual right. For there to be a chance of ending the bloodshed and conflict, it must be made clear that Palestinian leadership will negotiate the parameters of a “right of return” with Israel.
The jihadi-socialist alliance which aims to destroy western democracies is first-and-foremost focused on the Jewish State of Israel. It attempts to mask its deep antisemitism by calling Israel a “European colonial project,” in a sick attempt to strip Jews of their history and heritage in their holy land.
Among the various smears of the antisemitic horde are claims that Israel – and many western countries – engage in a variety causes to shield their deeply racist philosophies. The color-coded lexicon includes “socialist rhetoric around the kibbutzim and labor politics (“redwashing”), environmentalism (“greenwashing”), human rights (“bluewashing”), feminism (“purplewashing”), queer liberation (“pinkwashing”), and religious and ethnic diversity and inclusion (““faithwashing”).” The jihadi-socialists don’t defend the customs of the Islamic countries but simply try to belittle western democracies by ignoring the open societies and focusing on fake charges of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.”
Atop the aggressive assaults on liberal democracies like Israel, the anti-West legions accuse any corresponding finger-pointing back at the radical Islamic countries as a form of “Islamophobia” which uses “racist stereotypes about the Arab and Muslim world as exceptionally and irredeemably patriarchal and homophobic.”
First the antisemites claim Jews have no history in the Jewish holy land, then they accuse the country of “genocide” and “pinkwashing” their crimes. They deflect any Jewish protest as a form of Islamophobia. Quite a mental and ethical contortion.
Perhaps the next step for the antisemitic armies will be to wave the banners of THEIR values more clearly, and defend the public hanging of gays as keeping with their strict interpretation of the Quran. They might site the U.S. State Department’s report that Iranian “lesbian and bisexual women are denied full rights as women,” as a source of pride. Palestinian scholars calling for gays to be thrown off rooftops will be quoted in English at the United Nations.
Maybe they will print t-shirts, hoist placards and use megaphones to quote the Iranian penal code sections 108 to 113 which call for the execution of men who commit sodomy.
To date, the socialist-jihadi alliance is in full attack mode against Israel and the West. When we witness the pivot to “PinkDirtying,” we will know that the Globalize the Intifada jihad is underway.
Is there a word For the day that no one remembers someone? Quotes their poems, enjoys the production of a life lived? Is that the day the person really dies And if so, what is the word to mark such moment?
‘Extinction’ is for a species Where only memory and fossils remain. But what when records are no more? Is that beyond Extinction?
And a star’s end is its collapse A singularity in which space and time lose ordinary meaning and light loses memory of itself at the cusp of the ‘Event Horizon.’
The Old Cemetery in Jerusalem rides the Event Horizon breaking from centuries of unchanted kaddishes echoing against a wall and sealed door. Will it bury itself forever or loosen the bounds of tenses, a ‘Memory Horizon’ with and without past, present and future?
The war between Israel and Iran’s proxies is taking place in the media as much as the battlefield. Just review how Israel and Hezbollah published reports of the battle on August 25, 2024.
Israel claims to have thwarted Hezbollah’s attack with preemptive strikes at missile launching sites in Southern Lebanon.
Jerusalem Post headline on August 25, 2024
The Jerusalem Post called Hezbollah’s attack a “failure” and that Israel foiled the attack.
Readers in Lebanon got a very different message from Al-Manar, the Hezbollah media outlet.
Al-Manar online, August 25, 2024
Hezbollah claimed that it’s “military operation has been completed successfully” and that Israel’s claims about a preemptive attack are false [Hezbollah doesn’t recognize Israel and calls it “Zionist”].
It added that Hezbollah’s “offensive drones… crossed the Lebanese-Palestinian border towards intended targets” was successful. [Note again that Hezbollah considers Israel to be occupied Palestine.]
Al-Manar website
The US-designated terrorist group listed various military targets in Israel, which were the focus of the operation.
Al-Manar website lists solely military targets in Israel, in the hope of minimizing Israeli attacks on civilian locations
People in the radical Islamic and anti-Zionist world were told of Hezbollah striking at the Zionist entity in revenge of the assassination of a jihadi leader, complete with a narrative that dismissed any legitimacy of the Jewish State. Zionists were told of the tremendous intelligence of its military, which foiled a potential deadly attack.
Both Hezbollah and Israel had experienced terrible failures of their defensive forces, and each is now fighting a war of propaganda as much as missiles to reclaim the trust of their respective populaces.
Many Jews have found it difficult to be at work since October 7. Some have been alarmed by the lack of empathy for the Jewish community after the Hamas massacre. Others are distraught over comments that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. Sometimes the comments come from peers and other times from people who are senior or clients.
The workplace is not like other forums. A person’s livelihood is at stake, and the office is where people work together for long stretches of time. It is a very different dynamic than passing a masked protestor on the street.
How does a person handle anti-Israel vitriol from a colleague on social media like LinkedIn? Is it different if they post something on X or Facebook?
Here are some suggested guidelines:
It is always safe to stick with facts
Opinions are best shared in reaction to something at work; in personal settings, proactive is fine
Emotions are fine to share, as appropriate for that work environment, with an emphasis on humility
Do not troll people on social media. Use your own platform to make your feelings known
Use professional work media like LinkedIn for work related matters unless you are so senior that you believe your Israel advocacy can influence people
You can share your pro-Israel positions in a permanent passive manner by posting your role on Zionist groups like StandWithUs or post pictures of you in Israel
If you feel close enough to a colleague at work and their views are within the framework of honest disagreement, ask if they are open to discussing the topic
Should someone in your office cross the line into intimidation, harassment or discrimination, bring it up with human resources immediately, whether the person is junior or senior to you
If a client crosses the line, bring the matter up internally, asking the firm to terminate the engagement or reassign the client to a different colleague
Crossing the line into intimidation, harassment or discrimination should always be called out regardless of a person’s seniority, and whether internal or external to an organization. It must never be allowed to be normalized.
Honest ignorance is still ignorance. Consider whether the person stating lies is open to learning facts and try to engage respectfully. If the person is irate and will not be swayed, there is no point in engaging directly; you could talk to others who may have witnessed the spectacle.
If you are unfamiliar with facts as you hear arguments, admit as much that you need to do more research. It’s an opportunity to learn more from respected sources and not take someone’s emotional outburst as gospel.
People often react to difficult situations with a desire to either fight or flee. In a business environment, take a breath and be more tactical.
He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it; If you have studied much Torah, you shall be given much reward. Faithful is your employer to pay you the reward of your labor; And know that the grant of reward unto the righteous is in the age to come.
We have obligations at work, and we have obligations as Jews at work. It includes providing for our families and workers, as well as infusing the environment with Jewish values, but neither should fully supplant the other. Should that happen, it is not really a place of business where a Jew should be present.
The parents of one of the hostages stolen to Gaza on October 7, 2023 spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last night. The parents, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, hailed from Chicago and spoke in anguished voices in their hometown. They made clear that the return of their music-loving son was not an issue of politics but of humanity.
The parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin mentioned the 22 nationalities of the hostages and their multiple religions. They made an appeal to bring all the hostages home and end the suffering of innocent people in Gaza. It was an apolitical speech.
Yet it made the anti-Israel socialist-jihadi alliance apoplectic. Why wasn’t a Palestinian invited to speak they asked?
Rep. Jamaal Bowman wanted Palestinians to speak at DNC
Members of the socialist-jihadi “squad” said that the DNC was “erasing ” and “dehumanizing” Palestinians by not giving equal time to Palestinians impacted by the war [that Palestinians launched and support].
Arab and Muslim influencers like Mehdi Hasan and James Zogby pushed for much the same.
Perhaps the DNC may have been able to find a Palestinian-American somewhere who wants to live peacefully alongside the Jewish State. Perhaps the Democrats could have given a platform to a Palestinian who would show empathy for both Israelis who were hunted and tortured, as well as Palestinians who suffer because their leaders hide like cowards in tunnels and refuse to surrender.
To what end? The speech by the Israeli-Americans was not political so didn’t require a “balanced” counterpoint.
As it relates to politics, the DNC released its 2024 platform which reiterated “America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel and our unrivaled ability to leverage growing regional integration among U.S. partners to counter Iranian aggression.” The Polin-Goldberg parents speech went directly to that important point of providing the Jewish State with the means to defend itself so such atrocities would not be repeated by Iranian-backed sponsors of terror.
Israel has killed roughly 17,000 terrorists so far in the defensive war it never wanted. It has managed to do this with the support of the Democratic administration in power.
While it is deeply tragic that roughly a similar number of civilians have died according to Hamas sources, how does giving a voice to the innocent Arab victims advance the current DNC platform of peace and security? The Israeli-American parents spoke of the suffering of Palestinians, which is also part of the Democratic platform, which specifically calls out “the worth of every innocent life, whether Israeli or Palestinian.”
But the socialist-jihadi cabal wants to undermine Israel’s security. It seeks to strip the Democratic Party of its policy of supporting the Jewish State. The goal of showcasing the unfortunate suffering of Palestinians is not an attempt at balance but whitewashing the genocidal intent of Hamas.
The socialist-jihadi alliance wants to veil the wolf in sheep’s clothing. The true socialist-jihadi spokesperson is Yahya Sinwar himself, a man committed to destroying Israel and the United States regardless of cost.
Yahya Sinwar, Palestinian leader of Gaza, Hamas and orchestrator of the barbaric October 7 massacre takes the podium
Alternatively, if Palestinian voices will not be heard, the socialist-jihadi alliance demands that Zionists be silenced. They want relationships with Zionists to be “denormalized”, as showcased with greater frequency in liberal cities.
Protestors shut down Brooklyn event because liberal Jewish speaker is also a Zionist, August 2024
It is a deeply abnormal situation that parents must plead for the release of their innocent child held in captivity for nearly a year. It is also horribly tragic that Americans are attempting to normalize the deplatforming of Zionists.
First One Through 