Robert Bowers came to a Pittsburgh synagogue armed with an AR-15 and other weapons to kill as many Jews as possible. After killing 11, he told police that “all these Jews need to die.” This week, he was sentenced to the death penalty for his crimes.
Ahlam al-Tamimi found a restaurant in central Jerusalem bustling with young Jewish families. She dropped off her comrade at the scene who blew up the store, killing 15 people including a pregnant woman and 7 children. Three US nationals were among those injured and killed in the attack. Today, she walks freely in Jordan.
When Tamimi was interviewed about her role on the bombing on Palestinian al Aqsa TV in July 2012 she recounted the events after she left the carnage:
“Afterwards, when I took the bus, the Palestinians around Damascus Gate [in Jerusalem] were all smiling. You could sense that everybody was happy. When I got on the bus, nobody knew that it was me who had led [the suicide bomber to the target]. I was feeling quite strange, because I had left [the bomber] ‘Izz Al-Din behind, but inside the bus, they were all congratulating one another. They didn’t even know one another, yet they were exchanging greetings…While I was sitting on the bus, the driver turned on the radio. But first, let me tell you about the gradual rise in the number of casualties. While I was on the bus and everybody was congratulating one another.”
After hearing an initial report that “three people were killed” in the bombing, Tamimi stated:
“I admit that I was a bit disappointed, because I had hoped for a larger toll. Yet when they said “three dead”, I said: ‘Allah be praised’…Two minutes later, they said on the radio that the number had increased to five. I wanted to hide my smile, but I just couldn’t. Allah be praised, it was great. As the number of dead kept increasing, the passengers were applauding.”
In another interview on Jordanian Ammon News website she said “I do not regret what happened. Absolutely not. This is the path. I dedicated myself to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and Allah granted me success. You know how many casualties there were [in the 2001 attack on the Sbarro pizzeria]. This was made possible by Allah. Do you want me to denounce what I did? That’s out of the question. I would do it again today, and in the same manner.”
With Al Jazeera, Tamimi offered that “from a Palestinian, as well as international law perspective, it is perfectly legitimate to resist the Israeli occupation,” grotesquely twisting the basic notion of ‘resistance’ as the gleeful slaughter of innocent families, a refrain used by many Palestinian Arab extremists.
The Palestinian Authority also seems to agree, praising her on television.
Americans are disgusted.
Yael Lampert, slated to become the United States’ Ambassador to Jordan, said during her May 4, 2023 confirmation hearing (1:08:00) that “I will do everything in my power to ensure that Ahlam al-Tamimi faces justice in the US for her horrific crimes.”
In light of potential upcoming pressure from the United States, it is rumored that “Jordan is planning to transport Ahlam Tamimi either into its border with Egypt or Iraq, where from Tamimi will be secretly escorted to Iran or Qatar. Another source said, a high-powered team of Hamas is coordinating this matter.”
The gleeful thirst for Jewish blood was met with a solemn death penalty verdict in the United States but applause and smiles in the Jordanian-Palestinian Arab community. Which represents your values?
ACTION ITEM
Email Secretary of State Antony Blinken at secretary@state.gov “Pressure Jordan to extradite Ahlam al-Tamimi for her participation in the murder and injury of over 100 innocent civilians including many children.”
The scourge of terrorism is still very much present around the world, especially in areas of concentration of Islamist militants.
In Pakistan, rivals have been blowing up crowds at rallies and in mosques. On July 30, at least 63 people were killed and over 130 injured when a suicide bomber set off explosives at a political rally in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province at a gathering of the conservative Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) party, known for its links to hardline political Islam, in the former tribal area of Bajaur, which borders Afghanistan. ISIS claimed responsibility. Reuters added that “Pakistan has seen a resurgence of attacks by Islamist militants since last year when a ceasefire between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) [also known as the Pakistani Taliban] and Islamabad broke down. A mosque bombing in Peshawar killed over 100 people earlier this year.”
Relatives and mourners gather around the caskets of victims who were killed in Sunday’s suicide bomber attack in the Bajur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, Monday, July 31, 2023. (photo: Mohammad Sajjad/AP)
The United Nations Security Council quickly condemned the “heinous and cowardly suicide terrorist attack” and “expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government of Pakistan, and they wished a speedy and full recovery to those who were injured.” It continued:
“The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.
“The members of the Security Council underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice. They urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with the Government of Pakistan, as well as all other relevant authorities in this regard.
“The members of the Security Council reiterated that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed. They reaffirmed the need for all States to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.”
These three paragraphs sound weighty but are pre-packaged, off-the-shelf statements used repeatedly. The UNSC used it in January 2023 in Pakistan and aired the same in December 2022, September 2022 and March 2018 in Iraq, Afghanistan and Nigeria, respectively.
But not for Israel. When Israel is confronted with Islamist militants slaughtering innocent civilians, the UNSC cannot recall how to “copy-paste.”
In January 2023, the UNSC condemned the slaughter of seven Jews at a synagogue during a session discussing the region but issued no canned statement. The UN Secretary General issued a terse statement which did not suggest that Israel “hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors… to justice.” Instead, he expressed the opposite desire because he “is deeply worried about the current escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. This is the moment to exercise utmost restraint.“
This is an old, despicable story, in which the UN urges the world to fight terrorism while demanding Israel accept terrorism as a penance for existing.
Palestinians have violently opposed Jews living in Israel for a century. The occasional massacres of the 1920s gave way to multi-year pogroms in the late 1930s. When the British announced their intention to leave the region and terminate their mandate, the local Arabs rejected the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan and enlisted neighboring Arab countries to destroy the Jewish State.
The loss of part of the land to Israel was balanced by the capture of Gaza by Egypt and much of Judea and Samaria by Transjordan. The Arab armies assembled to destroy Israel again in 1967 and in 1973 on Judaism’s holiest Day, losing their wars again. On their own, the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) continued the mayhem, killing Jewish Olympians, blowing up synagogues and hijacking planes in their persistent effort to eradicate the presence of Jews in the Jewish holy land.
The SAPs seemingly were willing to turn a new page in favor of coexistence with Jews in 1991 with the Madrid Conference which eventually developed into the 1993 Oslo I and 1995 Oslo II Accords. Despite ongoing Arab violence, Israel facilitated the creation of Palestinian governmental institutions and handed over significant sections of the area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49) to Palestinian control. The goal was to finalize all matters by September 2000, at the five year anniversary of the Oslo II signing.
The SAPs chose to return to their violent ways instead of concluding an agreement.
In September 2000, under the command of Yasser Arafat, Arabs committed waves of terrorist attacks, blowing up men, women and children in pizza stores, parks, on buses and in synagogues. The Arab brutality was seemingly without end, and was only curtailed in 2004 when Israel erected a security barrier to stem the flow of Arab killers and the death of Arafat.
In an effort to reengage, Israel handed Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005, with assurances from the United States that it would support Israel’s positions on retaining some land in E49 and that all Palestinian refugees would be settled in a new Palestinian State.
The SAPs would fail to capitalize on this second chance at peace as well.
First, the Palestinians elected the terrorist group Hamas to 58% of the Palestinian parliament in 2006, and then had the political-terrorist group take over all of Gaza in 2007. The Palestinians used Gaza as a launching ground for missiles in the air and tunnels below ground to attack Israelis. Full blown battles from Gaza erupted in 2008, 2012 and 2014.
Rather than Gaza proving a model for coexistence of two states living side-by-side in peace, it showed that Palestinians will never accept the presence of Jews nor existence of a Jewish State.
There is an old adage “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” meant to convey that it’s not nice of the perpetrator to take advantage of someone one time, but by the second time, the fault lies with the victim who should have known better than to reengage.
There is no line for “fool me three times”, as no rational actor acting on free will would ever consider such preposterous notion.
Which is precisely why the anti-Israel community is calling for BDS resolutions against Israel and electing anti-Israel candidates like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), to force Israel to reengage yet again with Palestinians who have repeatedly shown they have no interest in coexistence.
Alt-Left anti-Israel members of Congress, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman
“Fool me once or twice is a matter between parties; fool me thrice is a hostage situation” in which the victim is compelled to undermine their own well-being. Such is the situation today among those pressuring Israel to advance a DOA peace process.
Coercion is the polar opposite of freedom, and it is gaining strength while oblivious Israelis ponder how much power to leave in judiciary’s hands. Israel’s internal debate about democracy is shrouding the potential loss of freedom from external actors.
Wafa is the official news agency of the Palestinian Liberation Organization established in 1972, a few months before the group killed Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics in Munich. The agency has a mission “to influence the public opinion at the local and international levels,” to advance its cause to “ensure an appropriate information environment for decision makers to take informed decisions.”
The PLO does this by manipulating adjectives and nouns throughout its story-telling of current events.
An example can be seen in an event on August 1, 2023, when a 20-year old Palestinian Arab terrorist shot and wounded six Jewish civilians in a mall in Ma’ale Adumim, who was subsequently shot and killed. Wafa reported on the event with the headline “Palestinian youth shot and killed in an illegal Israeli settlement east of Jerusalem.”
While news agencies like AP News reported that “Palestinian opens fire in West Bank settlement, wounding 6 people before being killed,” properly reporting on the events in sequence, Wafa sought to inflame local and world opinion that Israelis are “illegal” and out-of-control, arbitrarily killing Palestinian children.
And it is effective.
When Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process addressed the United Nations Security Council last week, he said that “children must never be the target of violence, used or put in harm’s way,” never questioning the Palestinians’ mislabeling youth nor condemning Palestinian society for the prevalent recruiting, training and arming of Arabs under 18 years old. Six countries reacted to Wennesland’s report condemning the targeting of children, placing the blame on Israel.
Palestinian propaganda has deeply infiltrated the United Nations, inverting case and effect, and whitewashed Palestinian crimes against both Israel and its own children.
ACTION ITEM
Palestinian propaganda has deeply infiltrated the United Nations, inverting cause and effect, whitewashing Palestinian crimes against both Israel and its own people, in recruiting and arming children under 18 to kill Jews, and mislabeling those over 18 as ‘youths’
On June 27, 2023, Tor Wennesland, the United Nations Special Coordinator For Middle East Peace (actually the Coordinator for Palestinian Appeals), addressed the United Nations Security Council. He gave a long list of Israeli actions against Palestinians while giving barely any details of SAP (Stateless Arabs from Palestine) attacks against Israelis.
In one review of the back-and-forth violence, Wennesland recounted that on June 21 “armed Palestinians fired towards al-Jalamah checkpoint, north of Jenin. An Israeli drone subsequently launched a missile at their vehicle, killing three Palestinians, one a child. The IDF said that the three were responsible for a number of shooting attacks in the West Bank. Two were later claimed as members by Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the third by Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.”
Wennesland clearly knew that Arabs were recruiting and arming children to engage in terrorist attacks but said absolutely nothing about this horrific activity during his entire report.
Both he and the UN know that this is a red line.
According to the Paris Principles on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, 2007, “A child associated with an armed force or armed group” refers to any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities.“
But the global farcical organization does not utter a word about Arab children committing terrorism as part of organized groups. Instead, Wennesland stated that “Children in particular must never be the target of violence, used or put in harm’s way,” condemning Israel for killing young terrorists, rather than the Arab groups who recruit child fighters.
The Arab American Institute’s James Zogby was given the floor at the UN as well and said “there is an extremist political culture in Israel today. Polling data shows that a majority of Israelis do not view Palestinians as equal human beings. And given the traumatic nightmare visited upon millions of Palestinians for the past 56 years, is it any wonder that a recent poll shows a majority of Palestinians rejecting moderate leadership and favoring armed struggle. This tragic deformity in Palestinian political culture is the result of the continued brutality of the occupation.”
The countries on the Security Council picked up on the twisted theme. Russia, Ghana, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France and Malta all berated Israel for the death of Arab children, missing the critical element that the Arab children are fighting alongside adult terrorists. The Israeli representative called it out, “that cancerous [Palestinian] hatred, which has poisoned the minds of children and adults, is the root of the conflict and must be addressed and condemned by the Council.”
No one seemed to hear or care.
Has there ever been a more disgusting inversion of blaming the victim? The majority of SAPs favor killing Jewish civilians inside of Israel, not “armed struggle” against extremist Israelis. The SAPs recruit and arm children to murder as many Jews as possible.
And the United Nations not only ignores the horrible spectacle but gives an audience to people to whitewash the crimes.
The UN is tacitly supporting Palestinians recruiting children to kill Jews, and the US and world say nothing.
ACTION ITEM
The UN ignores and absolves Palestinian Arabs recruitment, training, and arming of children to kill Jewish Israelis. This must be condemned clearly and forcefully, as all bright lines have been erased in the global body’s onslaught against the Jewish State
“The United Nations continues to ignore and absolve Palestinian Arabs recruitment, training, and arming of children to kill Jewish Israelis. It must be condemned clearly and forcefully, as all bright lines have been erased in the global body’s onslaught against the Jewish State.“
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a bizarre statement on behalf of President Joe Biden about Israel’s passing of a law to limit one method which the Supreme Court uses to block legislation. Her July 24 statement was:
“As a lifelong friend of Israel, President Biden has publicly and privately expressed his views that major changes in a democracy to be enduring must have as broad a consensus as possible. It is unfortunate that the vote today took place with the slimmest possible majority. We understand talks are ongoing and likely to continue over the coming weeks and months to forge a broader compromise even with the Knesset in recess. The United States will continue to support the efforts of President Herzog and other Israeli leaders as they seek to build a broader consensus through political dialogue.”
Let’s unpack the statement surrounding “the slimmest possible majority.”
The vote was 64-0. The opposition walked out, leaving the final tally a complete trouncing.
In the 120-seat Knesset, a majority is 61 seats. The vote passed with three votes over the slimmest majority.
Israelis voted 61-50 with 8 abstentions to support the Oslo Accords in September 1993. Should the Israelis have abandoned the effort to work out a peace agreement with the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) at the outset with truly the “slimmest possible majority”?
If a “broad consensus” is desired for “major changes in a democracy,” the 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (66.7%) overturning Roe v. Wade looks to be the enduring preferred outcome for the Biden administration, so why all of the fuss?
Further, if everything should be decided by a broad consensus, why has Biden issued any executive orders, let alone nearly 120 of them, including forgiving over $66 billion in student loans?
The New York Democratic Committee plans on cooking up a wide margin of victory in 2024 by gerrymandering districts yet again to unseat Republicans, a dirty political game meant to stifle the opposition. Perhaps that’s the kind of circumvention of democracy that the Biden administration favors.
The White House’s comments about the Israeli vote was both foolish and insulting. For a president who took office amid riots at the Capital building and who passes orders completely bypassing Congress, to publicly berate Israel in such fashion is a vile combination of smugness and lack of self-awareness.
American Jews have a history of supporting Democrats. It remains to be seen if the party will even obtain the “slimmest possible majority” as it continues to insult the Jewish State.
The media has told you how to feel about the passage of an Israeli law to remove the Supreme Court’s ability to override the government’s decisions. No outlet has taken the effort to educate its readership about the issue, opting to broadcast emotions.
Left-wing articles describe “controversial changes” by the “far-right government to weaken the judiciary” which “pushes the country toward authoritarianism,” an action which will “transform Israel’s already flawed democracy into a kind of system that no longer deserves the name.” Such sentiments can be found in NPR, Vox and The New York Times.
Right-wing articles noted that Israeli “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was negotiating compromises” to the “judicial reform bill” and was “defying months of protests,” as it quoted Israeli lawmakers who celebrated that the new law “reducing the reasonableness standard shows governance.” These quotes come from Fox, The Wall Street Journal and Israel’s Arutz Sheva.
Below is an effort to inform people about the law so people can possibly arrive at their own conclusion about it, rather than follow their preferred horde, an action very much encouraged by traditional media, even as it slams social media of being the true instigator of group think in an echo chamber.
The Israeli Judiciary And British “Unreasonableness” Standard
Israel has a set of Basic Laws which includes one establishing the judiciary in 1984, 36 years after the country was founded. The Israeli courts had existed beforehand, with a significant basis of its system stemming from British law, as the region had been administered under the British Mandate from 1924 to 1948. Included within British law was the notion of “unreasonableness” as to whether legislation and regulations were compatible with constitutional rights.
In 1948, when Israel declared itself a new state, England was debating rules regulating children under fifteen years old being allowed to go to the movies on Sunday, with or without parents, an already controversial action as laws at that time generally prohibited the opening of cinemas on what was viewed as a holy day. The case of ASSOCIATED PROVINCIAL PICTURE HOUSES, LIMITED v. WEDNESBURY CORPORATION considered three main items regarding a court over-ruling a law: 1) was there authority to enact such law, especially for local courts; 2) did the governmental authority consider all relevant matters in arriving at such law; and 3) did the authority “nevertheless come to a conclusion so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it.”
In 1984, when Israel was passing its judicial basic law, the “Wednesbury unreasonableness” standard was equated with “irrationality,” in which a decision “is so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it.”
In other words, the standard set an extremely high bar for overturning a ruling which was properly considered.
Israeli Court’s “Reasonableness Standard”
Israeli courts essentially followed the “extreme unreasonableness” standard of the British system and rarely overturned laws. That began to change in the 1990s under Aharon Barak, who served as a member of the court from 1978 to 1995 and as its president from 1995 to 2006. He took a more activist approach, writing in 2002 that “the judge of a supreme court is not a mirror. He is an artist, creating the picture with his or her own hands. He is “legislating”—engaging in “judicial legislation.” Judicial creativity—judicial legislation—is natural to law itself. Law without discretion is a body without a spirit. Judicial creativity is part of legal existence. Such creativity—“judicial lawmaking”—is the task of a supreme court.”
Judges fear that public confidence in the judiciary will be affected if the public discovers the truth…. The public has the right to know that we [judges] make law and how we do it; the public should not be deceived.
Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, 2002
In a country with no constitution, an activist court had and has watered down the “extreme unreasonableness” standard to a subjective personal “reasonableness approach.” While sometimes the two methods would reach the same conclusion (a politician jailed for tax fraud should not be the Finance Minister), in many other cases, the court could and has overreached and interfered with approved legislation.
the main question is not “if,”-it is not–“do judges of the supreme court make law”; the main question is “how.”
Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, 2002
The Controversy On “Reasonableness” Is About Values
The arguments against the Israeli court’s reasonableness standard are not new. Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg wrote a lengthy article a few years ago suggesting that its usage needed moderation. Had some proposal been put forward at that time, there likely would have been no uproar about amending it back to something closer to the British extreme unreasonableness standard.
The current controversy of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee move to change the situation stems from two main dynamics: Netanyahu being under criminal investigation, and the far-right nature of the today’s parliament.
There is a fear that if Netanyahu weakens the court, he will be able to escape prosecution. He will fortify his position in power with loyalists whom he buys off with feeding their passions, without an external check on his authority.
The anger about Netanyahu is exacerbated by the secular Israeli fear of the religious and nationalist blocks. Barak’s remaking of the Supreme Court was based on his liberal values which he saw in a liberal country. Two decades on, the 25th Knesset includes the Religious Zionist Party which won 14 seats and two other ultra-Orthodox parties which won 18 seats. Secular Israelis fear that the country’s values have turned more conservative, and that same court which Barak crafted to reflect liberal values in society, will now echo conservative values.
Courts are not representative bodies, and it will be a tragedy if they become representative. Courts are reflective bodies; they reflect the basic values of their system.
Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, 2002
The various protests for and against the law have much less to do with amending the provision which has long been viewed as too far-reaching for a polarized society, and about the changing composition of Israel.
Compromises And Next Steps
The Knesset passed a law on July 24 to get rid of the reasonableness doctrine, as the opposition walked out of the room screaming “shame!” and refused to vote. A natural compromise would have been to go back to the extreme unreasonableness standard which was the Israeli policy pre-Barak.
The Council of Foreign Relations wrote that the Kohelet Policy Forum, which drafted the initial version of the judicial reforms, suggested only using reasonableness for administrative rulings and not government decisions. Former MK Natan Sharansky said “I believe that on the question of human rights, the last word has to be with the judges, and on questions of policy the last word should be with the Knesset.”
The judge learns about the basic values of his or her legal system from the aggregate national experience, from the nature of the political system as a democracy, and from understanding the basic concepts of the nation.
Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, 2002
Another possible compromise could have been to have any override by the Supreme Court occur only with a super-majority opinion. There are countless other ideas which could be attempted.
A critical component of the reform is yet to come, and considers how Supreme Court judges are elected. The current system essentially allows sitting liberal judges to select their replacements, which is deeply flawed by any reasonableness standard. A credible court should have both liberal and conservative views represented and each should base their opinions on laws, not personal opinions.
Beyond the immediate judicial reforms, the brouhaha should lead all Israelis to conclude that the country must have a constitution. While Israel’s founders may have felt that the nascent state was too fragile to constrain certain actions, 75 years on, the nation is strong militarily and economically, and will be stronger socially if there are laws which represent and protect all its citizens.
Protests about judiciary reform in Tel Aviv, March 2023
There is a beach in France where the ordinary proved extraordinary, As common men fought fire-breathing dragons On a far away shore.
There is a beach in France below thousands of white crosses Blanketing rolling green fields, Manicured and resolute.
From the beach in France, American volunteers now amend a wrong Affixing Stars of David to the headstones Of fallen Jewish warriors.
From the beach in France, a rabbi squints at a green hill Encasing a Jewish cemetery long overgrown With vines on broken railings.
At the American cemetery in France, visitors stare into the distance, Blind to the blood and bones Soaked in the Earth.
There is a beach in France where silent sentries shine tall Over traumatized sand, Who cast long sunset shadows on forests covering countless forgotten lives.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) is a slick promoter who markets himself as an educator working for the working class who will not play games with Republican politicians.
In truth, he lives the game of politics, and it is well beyond a focus on Republicans as he plays games with antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
Reacting to his own insulting boycott of a bipartisan and bicameral invitation to Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressing a joint session of Congress, and fellow left-wing extremist Rep. Pramila Jaypal (D-WA07) calling Israel is a racist state, Bowman tweeted that he voted against a resolution condemning antisemitism because of Republican “idiotic games.”
Note that Jaypal herself posted a lengthy release about her poorly chosen words that Israel is a racist state. Her 414-word statement affirmed her belief that “words do matter and so it is important that I clarify my statement.“
Almost every Democrat joined all Republicans in backing the resolution, except for the radical left-wing fringe that is adamant about playing with the toxic hatred in the Middle East.
Almost every Democrat joined all Republicans to attend the speech by a liberal pro-peace leader in the Middle East.
The contingent that instead chose to play politics was Bowman and the Squad.
This is not new to Bowman.
Anti-Israel and Anti-Semitic
Bowman has a long history of voting against Jews and the Jewish State:
Would not sign letter to Department of Education to fight antisemitism at colleges (February 4, 2022)
Original sponsor of resolution calling the founding of Israel a “catastrophe” (May 17, 2022)
Does not recognize discrimination against Jews (March 9, 2023)
Authored letter to President Biden to condition aid to Israel (April 23, 2023)
Voted against the Abraham Accords (April 25, 2023)
Voted against condemning antisemitism, and that Israel isn’t a racist state (July 18, 2023)
Boycotted speech by the Israeli president to a joint session of Congress (July 19, 2023)
Bowman takes these positions because radicals fund him. They are his real constituents.
On September 20, 2021, Bowman thanked the radical anti-Israel group, IfNotNow for their “partnership.” His top donors in the 2021-2 election cycle were another anti-Israel group, J Street, and the powerful leaders controlling schools, the American Federation of Teachers and the City University of New York, which has become a hotbed of rampant antisemitism and anti-Zionism. He is also a top recipient of money from Justice Democrats, a radical group backing alt-left politicians.
Bowman believes that liberal Jews will look past his nods to antisemitism and insults to Israel if they value the embrace of intersectionality more than from fellow Jews and Zionists. He is leaning into the cleft opening among American Jews, betting he can divide the most persecuted minority in America.
It is an ugly game that not only fans the flames of Jew hatred globally but pits Jews against themselves.
And there’s a big pot of money at the end of the anti-Jewish rainbow, a trough from which Bowman plans to feed.
In the aftermath of The Great War, Germans fought amongst themselves in local riots trying to attain power amidst the highest inflation in years. Disgruntled masses used their new democratic rights to air radical views, as the rulers in their defeated lands were cast as failed and incompetent.
The phobia of the middle class was fertile soil for agitators. Activists took to printing fliers and giving speeches in beer halls to instigate the mob.
Adolf Hitler was among them, part of the German Worker’s Party, later to become the most infamous.
Hitler’s provocative nature got him into arguments with small groups at the time but by the following year, he was addressing thousands.
On February 24, 1920, Hitler took the stage at the Hofbrauhaus beer hall in Munich and addressed nearly 2,000 people. He laid out his 25-point plan designed to empower the labor movement. It called for a right to work, seizing profits and income that did not come from work, a redistribution of profits, an end to the dominance of capitalism, a large welfare state, and a remaking of the educational system.
The plan also zeroed in on Jews and immigrants. It declared that no Jew is or can be a German and therefore all are ineligible for citizenship. It labeled Jews as inherently materialistic and opposed to everything which Germany stood for. It sought to stop immigration of non-Germans.
As part of the platform, Hitler called for a control of the press which he said spread lies. He demanded that only those he deemed as “German” could be writers and own financial interests in the press.
While Hitler’s speech was initially heckled, by the end of the talk, the crowd cheered. They embraced his call for a revolution to end capitalism, redistribute wealth, remake the educational system, seize control of the press and expunge the Jews.
The movement gained momentum and followers, so changed its name to a national organization, the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party. By the 1930s, the party grew to 400,000 people and would soon gain seats in government. It removed Jews from positions in government, lines of business and seized their property. Within a decade, it launched a war which killed millions, including one-third of Europe’s Jews.
Democratic Socialists of America, Working Families Party, Justice Democrats 2017-Present
In the United States, the Working Families Party has been around since 1998, fielding far left-wing candidates, while sometimes backing more “mainstream” Democratic candidates aligned with many of its views, such as Massachusetts’s Senator Elizabeth Warren. It has many overlaps with the Democratic Socialists of America, seeing the core of their beliefs in socialism. Their common goal to “achieve equitable distribution of resources” is deeply anti-capitalist. Their champion is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who frequently derides capitalism.
The extreme left-wing did not have sway in politics until the arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency. His election launched a countering force in a new powerful group called Justice Democrats in January 2017. In the 2018 election cycle it fielded 12 candidates including Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who won in New York. Six other endorsed candidates also won.
The platform of the Justice Democrats includes several items which ring familiar from Hitler’s platform a century earlier. It includes: a redistribution of wealth in “reclaim[ing] lost capital and put money back in the pockets of hard-working Americans” because “growing disparities in income and wealth among our nation’s people have long-term impacts on our population“; “Enact[ing] a Federal Jobs Guarantee“; vilifying the government in a call to “Abolish ICE” because “it has turned into a state-funded terror group“, among other demands.
The progressive fringe were open about their plans for wealth redistribution in 2019. While running for president, Democrat Bill De Blasio said “There’s plenty of money in this city. It’s just in the wrong hands.” The goal was to seize wealth from those deemed undeserving and transfer it to working families, a clear effort to buy votes with illegal theft.
While the radical groups began to coalesce into a force during the Trump administration, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-1 instilled a greater sense of government incompetence and fear of one’s neighbors actually being able to kill them and their parents with their physical presence. As in the high inflationary post-World War I Germany, the riots about police brutality and COVID ushered in a ripe market for political agitators. The backdrop enabled the alt-left extremists to gather more power in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. New members of congress like Rashia Tlaib (D-MI) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) came to power with the backing of the radical rhetoric to “defund the police”, change schools by teaching critical race theory, and push a massive effort to redistribute wealth.
Where today’s American Socialists and the Nazis differ is regarding immigrants. The American left-wing fringe views them as the core of “working families”, whereas they label Whites as inherently racist. However, the Jews are viewed with identical disdain, the elite and capitalist among the White racist class.
The Center of Intersectionality- Antisemitic Muslim Women of Color
The far left-wing backing the “average working person” as a person of color has led to its candidates being almost exclusively non-White. While they may sometimes support slightly more mainstream politicians like Senators Warren (D-MA) and Sanders (D-VT), the movement is driven by minorities.
The most vocal anti-Semites in this alt-left fringe are Muslim Women. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) are the most prominent and powerful, having national platforms in congress. New York City Council member Shahana Hanif is a local politician in the largest and most Jewish city in America, while other agitators include Linda Sarsour, Zahra Billoo and recent CUNY law graduate Fatima Mohammed. More than only advancing the “burn it down” mentality, they advocate a revolution which targets Jews as the enemy.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
Rashida Tlaib is a Palestinian-American Muslim woman representing Michigan’s 12th district since 2019. Her shrill voice in congress started immediately as she declared that “we’re going to impeach the motherf*cker,” referring to President Trump. Her zealous attacks have also come for Israel, with lies that it commits “apartheid.” She proposed several anti-Israel pieces of legislation and advocates for the destruction of the Jewish State with tweets “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” She has even demanded an Israel litmus test for anyone to be included in the progressive camp.
Omar’s comments continued to inflame people when she dismissed the radical jihadists who killed nearly 3,000 people on 9/11/2011 with a passing “some people did something,” and later compared the terrorist groups Hamas and the Taliban to Israel and the United States. She has also yelled at people who do not label Israel as an “apartheid” state, saying “they need to get on the right side of history.” She attacks her attackers by claiming that they are racist, misogynistic and Islamophobes, to deflect from her own ingrained racism and antisemitism.
Linda Sarsour is not an elected official but hobnobs with many. She’s led the Women’s March and is a loud voice alternately yelling disgusting and stupid lies that Israel is an apartheid state and that Jesus was a Palestinian. She’s vilified Zionism, tweeting “nothing is creepier than Zionism. Challenge racism.” She has sided with the terrorist group Hamas, and argued that people shouldn’t “humanize” Israelis.
Zahra Billoo (CAIR)
Zahra Billoo serves as the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR). She has said that “Israel is an apartheid, racist, terrorist state and it commits war crimes as a hobby.” She gave a speech that the Jewish State is backed by all sorts of Jews, even progressives who claim to be friends by are really the enemy: “Know your enemies, and I’m not going to sugar-coat that. They are your enemies. There are organizations and infrastructure out there who are working to harm you. Make no mistake of it. They would sell you down the line if they could, and they very often do behind your back. I mean the Zionist organizations, I mean the foreign policy organizations that say they’re not Zionists but want a two-state solution. I’m not a Palestinian myself but it’s my understanding that that is laughable. So know your enemies.… 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.“
Fatima Mohammed (CUNY Law)
Fatima Mohammed is just a recent graduate from law school but is emblematic of the problem. She gave graduation remarks at CUNY Law School where she said they all needed to “fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism, and Zionism around the world,” and students needed to “speak out against Israeli settler colonialism.” She received sustained applause throughout her remarks.
The obvious should be stated that not all Muslim women are antisemitic or anti-Israel. Similarly, many of the shrill antisemitic and anti-Zionist voices of the progressive wing are not coming from Muslims or women, such as Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA7).
1930s Nazi Party and 2020s Progressive Wing
The core of the intersectional left SOUNDS a lot like the Nazi party of 100 years ago, even while LOOKING completely different.
Both are deeply anticapitalism, for a redistribution of wealth to the average working person, and reworking the education system and media to adhere to a new orthodoxy. The Nazis saw the average working person as a White Aryan, while today’s Democratic Socialists see that person as a Black or Brown minority. Both the 1930s German Socialists and 2020s American Socialists think of the Jews in their midst as part of the problem, a slice of the global elite taking from the common man for their own selfish wants, despite any protestation otherwise.
The world witnessed the horrors of German socialists gaining power with their extremist vitriol and policies aimed to divide people. It watched as people went from heckling horrible views to applauding the audible bile, to voting the extremists into power to enact terrible policies masquerading as simple measures to empower the common man.
We are seeing history repeat and are dismissive of the tide, blind to the undertow which will sweep us from view and drown us before long.
First One Through 