On November 21, 2024 the House of Representatives approved H.R. 9495 by a vote of 219-184 with 30 people not voting. The bill was called the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act” and principally involved relaxing laws about tax collection if people are “detained” like hostages in Gaza, as well as to terminate “the tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations.”
J Street, the left-wing pro-Palestinian group marketed as Jewish and pro-Israel was “dismayed” at its passage. It had joined with 50 other progressive groups in a letter to members of Congress to oppose the bill on the grounds that “the bill threatens to politicize decisions.”
On July 13, 2010, J Street called for a “Treasury investigation into settlement charities.” It claimed that “tax-exempt organizations are working to undermine a two-state solution by deepening the occupation.”
The head of J Street, Jeremy Ben Ami, would not relent on this Holy Grail quest and tried to push the willing ears of President Barack Obama in his fight. On September 9, 2016, Ben Ami posted an urgent plea: “J Street Calls on Treasury Department to Review Tax Deductibility of Donations to Groups Entrenching Settlements.” It stated that the best way to advance its preferred public policy goals was to terminate tax exempt status for those with different agendas.
J Street called on its supporters and all who support a just Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement to urge the US Treasury to review the tax-deductibility status of contributions to groups working to entrench or expand Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.
J Street September 9, 2016
The call to stifle free speech and expression was obvious to all. Eugene Kontorovich wrote in Tablet Magazine on October 6, 2016 that called J Street’s action “unprecedented and clearly unconstitutional” in attacking charities “pursuing goals at odds with the foreign policy of the President.”
Snapshot of article by Eugene Kontorovich in Tablet on October 6, 2016
Now that a Republican president is about to take office, progressive groups are suddenly worried about politicizing the tax-exempt status of charities, an effort they had inaugurated.
And that’s a red herring as it’s not what the bill states. It is not trying to rob charities of donations for having different opinions, the bill specifically is about supporting terrorism. As laid out, “the term ‘terrorist supporting organization’ means any organization which is designated by the Secretary [of Treasury] as having provided, during the 3-year period ending on the date of such designation, material support or resources (within the meaning of section 2339B of title 18, United States Code) to an organization described in paragraph (2) (determined after the application of this paragraph to such organization) in excess of a de minimis amount.”
J Street has long fought to strip the tax-exempt status of charities operating east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL), such as a charity which provides wheelchairs for the elderly in the Old City of Jerusalem. It is now crying foul as Congress passed an act to fight terrorism, because of the long list of Palestinian terrorist groups and even longer list of its supporters.
On Saturday November 16, nearly 100 trucks carrying aid into Gaza were violently set upon by armed Arab gangs. According to Reuters, Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s Senior Emergency Officer would not say who carried out the ambush. Reuters added that “An Israeli official said Israel had been working to address the humanitarian situation since the start of its war against Hamas, adding that the main problem with aid deliveries was U.N. distribution challenges.”
Tor Wennesland, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process – no friend of Israel – was more explicit in his remarks to the United Nations Security Council on November 18 when he specifically called out “organized armed Palestinians” as the culprit in stealing humanitarian aid.
Tor Wennesland remarks to the UNSC on November 18, 2024
The New York Times would have none of it. It blamed the looting of aid on Israel.
The Times alternatively called the militants “looters” and “attackers” without giving any description as to who committed the attack. It even tried to use passive language that the aid “was looted” to avoid placing blame on local Gazans.
Later in the article the Times said that “it was not clear who was responsible for the looting,” but the surrounding text made it very clear: Israel was responsible, even if it didn’t commit the looting.
The Times blamed Israel for “restrict[ing] a huge amount of the humanitarian response” in which the “woefully inadequate food supplies have led to looting.” Israel is to blame because of “the collapse of law and order… and the policies of Israeli authorities.” Further, Israel placed aid workers at risk from “attackers” who steal the much needed assistance from “desperate Palestinians.”
Israel has long complained that aid trucks are being looted by Palestinian militant groups and not making it to civilians. When the charge became abundantly clear to the entire world, the Times reoriented the story that Israel remains at fault. Such is the anti-Israel animus in the media today.
It is alarming to watch mainstream media excuse rampant antisemitism as stemming from the Gaza war. It’s not about Gaza; it’s about a global jihad to purge Jews from Jerusalem.
New York Times article arguing that “Israel’s asymmetric response to Oct 7” has brought out the antisemites who are also making “many Muslims in Europe… feel threatened,” diverting the narrative that the prime attackers against Jews are radical Muslims.
Hamas labeled its war against Israel the “Al Aqsa Flood,” meaning the launch of millions of Muslims into Jerusalem. As Hamas stated in starting the war, “the battle of the beginning of the Liberation of Al-Quds [Jerusalem], our land, our people and our prisoners held in the jails of the Zionist occupation…. Today, the enemy has had a political, military, intelligence, security and moral defeat inflicted upon it, and we shall crown it, with the grace of God, with a crushing defeat that will expel it from our lands, our holy city of Al-Quds, our Al-Aqsa mosque, and the release of our prisoners from the jails of the Zionist occupation.”
They were clear. The genocidal jihadists are waging a war to eradicate the Jewish State and to reclaim Jerusalem, as though we were in the Middle Ages fighting Crusades.
The slightly less genocidal Palestinian Authority headed by Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas has done his best to gather the Muslim world to join in the jihad. Its Wafa media site continues to claim that “fanatic Israeli settlers… broke into the compounds of al-Aqsa… and raided the holy Islamic Mosque” to inflame hatred against Jews around the world. [Note: the “storming” was regular Jews walking around the Jewish Temple Mount during regular visiting hours and never stepping foot into the al Aqsa mosque.]
Others have sought to recruit Christians to the jihad for Jerusalem, most infamously Jordanian King Abdullah II.
Abdullah spoke at the United Nations in September 2022. At 9:13 of the talk, the king took aim at Jews “Undermining Jerusalem’s legal and historical status quo triggers global tensions and deepens religious divides,” meaning Jews wanting to pray at Judaism’s holiest site on the Jewish Temple Mount.
He continued: “As custodians of Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites, we are committed to protecting the historical and legal status quo and to their safety and future. And as a Muslim leader, let me say clearly, that we are committed to defending the rights, the precious heritage, and the historic identity of the Christian people of our region. Nowhere is that more important than in Jerusalem.Today, Christianity in the holy city is fire. The rights of churches in Jerusalem are threatened. This cannot continue. Christianity is vital to the past and present of our region and the holy land. It must remain an integral part of our future.”
For clarity, neither Christianity nor Islam are under threat in Jerusalem. The Jewish State has allowed full access for the two global faiths in the Jewish State. Further, the Jordanian king has no rights or control of Christian sites but only Islamic ones with the permission of Israel. This was a naked and dangerous call for the Christian world to join the Islamic one to combat Jews in Jerusalem.
And the Muslim world is enormous. At roughly 1.9 billion people, it is almost twice the entire population of North, Central and South America combined.
When agitators storm campuses or graffiti synagogues, they write “Free Palestine” because they are part of the global jihad against Jews everywhere to destroy the Jewish State. When university professors from Columbia and Cornell express their “joy” about the mass murder of Israelis, they believe they are seeing the beginning of the “liberation of Palestine.” They are not considering the casualties that will come upon Gaza.
When anti-Israel groups made a mapping project of Jewish institutions in Massachusetts they were zoning in on Zionists. When CAIR called out Jewish groups like Hillel as “enemies,” it was months before the October 7 attack.
The “martyrs” in Gaza are marketing fodder to enlist people in the global jihad. Like an advertisement, the product being sold is not the ad but the item itself, in this case, the annihilation and expulsion of Jews.
The People of The Book know history. They read and analyze their own texts and consider what others write and say. They:
know Muslim Arab Antisemitism. They reviewed the various ADL surveys which showed Muslims are two to five times more antisemitic than Christians in European countries. They now watch Muslim mobs engaged in ‘Jew hunts‘ in those same places.
are seared by the October 7 Palestinian Massacre. EVERYONE in the small country knows someone who was killed, injured or abducted on that horrible day. They’ve watched the videos that Hamas took of themselves slaughtering women, babies and the elderly, and movies reviewing the rapes of Israelis by thousands of Gazans. They listened to the calls of Palestinians bragging to their parents how they killed Jews with their bare hands.
Hamas terrorist shooting civilians in their homes
know about the broad Palestinian support for the heinous crimes against humanity. They watched videos of dozens of Gazans hitting and spitting on a dead Israel woman being hauled into Gaza, who was later found beheaded. They’ve read the polls of overwhelming Palestinian support for the gruesome massacre.
Hamas hauls the body of woman into Gaza where crowds cheer as they beat and spit on her corpse
know Palestinian Arabs want to continue to kill as many Jews as possible. They watched leaders on news programs say they intend to repeat the mass atrocities “again and again.”
know the United Nations supports those Palestinian goals. They have read the global organization’s condemnations of terrorism everywhere else in the world and demands for justice, but never in Israel where it immediately called for “maximum restraint.“
know the need for Justice includes accounting for every Gazan who participated in the October 7 slaughter and for bringing hostages home. They know the only way to live in peace is to be alive, at home, with enemies unable to act upon their evil aims.
know the war in Gaza taking place, intimately. Israel has a citizen army and they or members of their family have either been fighting in Gaza or participating in the war effort. They are consumed with the news from Gaza because they not only get firsthand accounts, but attacks emanating from there have not stopped, and over 100 hostages remain in captivity.
Image released by the Israel Defense Forces on Oct 29, 2023 shows its ground operation in the Gaza Strip
know the anti-Israel media bias. They read how newspapers constantly refer to the Israeli government as “right-wing” yet never label Hamas a “designated terrorist group by the US and many other countries.” They read opinion pieces that refer to Hamas supporters as “decent Palestinians”, “many Muslims” and “human beings,” while vilifying Israelis as cold, heartless and clueless with “heads in the sand” and “lacking sensitivity.”
Article by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times stating that Israelis have their heads in the sand about Gaza, arguing that Palestinians are decent human beings with no agency
know the desire to protect certain people – other people – involves inverting actual cause-and-effect. They read absurd claims that Palestinians are “resorting” to violence and that Muslim gangs are “reacting” to the situation in Gaza, while they know basic facts that the SAPs launched their premeditated genocidal jihad.
know the International Criminal Court has wrongly accused them of a “genocide.” They are actively engaged in a defensive war they didn’t start, don’t want, and would end immediately if the hostages were released and the terrorists would surrender. They know the steps they take to minimize civilian casualties as they prosecute a war against an enemy intent on maximizing civilian casualties, with the lowest civilian-to-combatant ratio in urban warfare.
know they are a beleaguered minority-minority with centuries of ingrained scars at the hands of wide range of attackers. They have Holocaust survivors in their families and truncated branches of the family trees due to the Holocaust and various pogroms.
The People of The Book know history. They are writing new chapters about their attackers and abetters. The testaments will act as a guide for future generations and the testimonies will beg Gd to pass judgment on the wicked and save the Jewish people today.
Jewish organizations once again rallied people to Washington, D.C. for a “Stand Together” event. The Jewish Federations of North America invited many groups to attend, a spectrum of religious leaders and those with diverse political views to assemble and stand with fellow Jews and the Jewish State of Israel, including Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Gov.Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI). The speakers included Blacks and native Americans, soldiers and children.
They had a variety of backgrounds and beliefs but were united in being pro-Israel and for fighting antisemitism.
But there were a number of left-wing radical groups which refused to join the unity event. J Street published a joint statement that a number of groups in its orbit including Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Habonim Dror North America, New Israel Fund, New York Jewish Agenda, Partners for Progressive Israel and T’ruah had joined it in boycotting the event.
Joint statement by far left-wing groups to boycott an event in Washington DC which included a wide range of pro-Israel organizations
This cohort didn’t simply decide to quietly not show up for the event but banded together and issued a joint statement denouncing unity at moment when it is sorely needed. [Note that Ameinu and Americans for Peace Now merged in February 2024, although they are still listed separately by the Conference of Presidents.]
Instead, J Street took to the soapbox to demand the U.S. withhold weapons to Israel as the Jewish state engages in a multifront war. It slammed President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.
And it is urging the U.S. Congress – and perhaps the Biden Administration at the United Nations – to use its remaining months in office to severely punish Israel. This same pro-Palestinian (marketed as “pro-Israel”) group has never once suggested harming the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs).
At the end of President Barack Obama’s term in 2016, J Street effectively lobbied the administration to allow UN Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass, making it illegal for Jews to live east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL), including in the Old City of Jerusalem. It publicly thanked Obama and disgraced Secretary of State John Kerry for their efforts to make Jerusalem Jew-free as a “moral” matter.
Full page J Street ad in The New York Times in January 2017 quoting Secretary of State John Kerry after the Obama administration allowed UN Security Council 2334 to pass, making it illegal for Jews to live in Jerusalem and the “West Bank.”
Many Jewish groups are assessing whether to allow radical groups that harm Israel and the Jewish people to remain in the same tent. These umbrella groups should make plain that if these groups lobby the U.S. administration to punish Israel in the lame duck session, they will be kicked out of the community, much like they removed themselves from Standing Together in Washington.
ACTION ITEM
Write the various umbrella groups to warn J Street, New Israel Fund and others that lobbying Congress to punish Israel will result in their exclusion and/or expulsion.
The New York Times does more than obfuscate the truth in its news stories and editorials; it does it with its pictures as well.
It is a plain fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, as so designated by the U.S. State Department. Iran’s leaders provide material support to U.S. designated terrorist groups including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Those groups launched a genocidal war on Israel on October 7 and 8, 2023, while Iran put the finishing touches on its nuclear weapons program.
Pretty terrifying stuff.
But the Times doesn’t want you to think about the genocidal jihadists in a negative light. Therefore, the socialist-jihadi propaganda pages portray Iran as a sophisticated peaceful country, and cast Israel as the belligerent party.
On November 11, 2024 the Times headlined that “Iran’s new, more moderate government” might strike a deal with President-elect Donald Trump. Rather than show a picture of the Iranian leadership or its nuclear program, the Times showed a picture of a couple of women sitting quietly in a park reading the news.
New York Times on November 11, 2024
This absurdity is repeated over-and-again by the Iranian-apologist paper.
On October 28, 2024, the Times reviewed how the U.S. Biden Administration and the Israeli Netanyahu government were reviewing methods to stop Iran’s evil attacks against Israel. The Times thought that displaying a picture of “Iranian shoppers in Tehran” would be useful for readers to consider the threat posed by the terrorist regime.
The Times did this before the October 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel as well. On February 20, 2021, the Times penned a story about the U.S. trying to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran. To give readers an appreciation for the seriousness of the matter, the paper included a large photo of two Iranian women in “a bazaar in Tehran.”
New York Times February 20, 2021
It’s reminiscent of when the Times used to offer vacation package “Journeys” to various countries including Iran and Saudi Arabia to make some coin. It marketed the country which executes gays and minors with “Persia. Iran. For 2,500 years, this powerful country has entranced, mystified and beguiled the world. Discover the ancient secrets and modern complexities of this influential land on a 13-day itinerary, visiting some of the world’s oldest archaeological sites and the family home of the religious leader who engineered Iran’s transition to an Islamic republic. Welcome to the once-forbidden land of Iran.“
It was a complete whitewashing of a regime which has more blood on its hands than almost any other country.
Not only does the NY Times not tell its readers that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist groups and that Iran is a state sponsor of terror, it deliberately attempts to reorient the story that Israel is a “right-wing” country waging war on peaceful female shoppers.
ACTION ITEM
Write to the Times to stop showing pictures of Iranian women shopping when writing articles about the leading state sponsor of terror building nuclear weapons.
On June 5, 1968, on the one year anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Arab, shot and killed Senator Robert Kennedy while he was campaigning to be the president of the United States. Sirhan assassinated the American politician because of his support for Israel.
On October 7, 2023, on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur Arab-Israeli War, the Iranian proxy of Hamas massacred 1,200 people in Israel and took over 250 people hostages. In the ensuing months, other Iranian proxies went to war with Israel including Hezbollah from Lebanon and the Houthis from Yemen, while the Islamic Republic of Iran attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump as he campaigned to be the next president.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is helped off the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., Saturday, July 13, 2024. (photo: Gene J. Puskar / AP)
On February 1, 2024, the FBI filed a lawsuit against members of the US designated foreign terrorist group Hamas. The suit mentions Iran 79 times as a partner for Hamas’s October 7 massacre, as well as ongoing support for the group. Beyond that gruesome day, the suit alleges that Hamas and Iran “knowingly and intentionally combined, conspired, confederated, and agreed together and with each other to kill nationals of the United States.“
The Iranian proxies are public with their threats on the U.S. On October 28, 2023, one of Hamas’s leaders broadcast “The U.S. Administration and the Western countries supporting the aggression are full partners with the occupation in the genocidal war and the cascade of blood that flows from defenseless civilians.This blood will be a curse and a volcano of fury from the masses of our Ummah [i.e., the Muslim community] and the free people of the world against these killers.” An October 18 broadcast from Hamas had a similar message that Hamas is “stating loud and clear that the American administration and the Western countries that support the aggression are full partner countries along with the occupation forces in this annihilation war.” On December 2, 2023, a Hamas official said on Hamas media that “[t]here is not a single crime that the U.S. has not committed against Gaza. May Allah settle the score with America, and may He take revenge on that criminal Nazi country.”
The jihadi war against the United States predates the October 7 jihadi massacre. For example, as stated in the lawsuit, “On or about December 22, 2017, Hamas spokesman Abd Al Qadir Al-Hawajiri spoke at a Hamas rally that was broadcast on a Hamas media outlet. In his speech, Al-Hawajiri condemned American support for Israel, proclaiming that ‘that entity [i.e. , Israel] will cease to exist, as will America.‘”
The vitriol against the United States accelerated after President’s Trump’s pro-Israel actions, specifically mentioning “the American Declaration that the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem to be the entity’s [i.e., Israel’s] capital, as well as to America’s recognition of the legality of the settlements.”
But the jihadi war against Israel is not about the “settlements” or the capital, but Jewish presence in any form. As Ismail Haniyeh, a leader of the Hamas movement said months before he was assassinated in Iran, “We do not want to see you [Jews] on this land; this land is ours, Al-Quds is ours, all of it is ours… there is no place or residing for you.” He went on to commit to waging war and never negotiating or compromising with Israel.
Iran and Hamas actively recruited monetary support from the United States and elsewhere to wage their genocidal war. In November 2020, Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV held a “First Electronic Pioneers Conference” in which Haniyeh said “We need to upgrade the support, from support through soft power to support by means of money and weapons. Yes, I would like to make it perfectly clear: I am talking about support by means of money and weapons, for the mujahideen and the murabitun [the people who harass Jews visiting the Jewish Temple Mount] in Jerusalem and its environs.” Members of South African parliament were in attendance.
Millions of dollars were routed – and continue to be routed – to Hamas via Gazan charity groups. That money is used to kill Israelis, Americans and to fund assassination attempts on American leaders.
Jihadi groups are not just waging a war on Israel but also on America. The genocidal assassins are not limited to the fanatical leaders of Iran and Palestinian groups and include members of the socialist-jihadi alliance in the United States who provide material support for the violence.
Shoplifting has become de facto legal in California. Mobs enter shoe stores, pharmacies, department stores and ransack the location of its goods. The scene has become rampant after the state’s left-wing government passed laws minimizing the theft of items below $950 to only a misdemeanor, which police do not prosecute.
Store owners are helpless to confront the new normal. They have instructed their security officials to no longer confront shoplifters and allow the lawlessness to run amuck. The lack of consequences has enshrined anarchy, with hundreds of brazen store invasions in the state occurring monthly.
Jews in the United States and Israel suffer personal assaults under the common umbrella of immunity.
University professors are granted tenure and cannot be fired unless there are particularly outrageous actions. Knowing this, people like Columbia professor Joseph Massad tells students that the Jews in the Bible are actually “Palestinian Hebrews.” He shared his feelings of “jubilation and awe” about the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel. He and other professors routinely hold classes that Jews have no history in the holy land and are engaged in a project of “European Settler Colonialism.“
No worries. Columbia has Massad teach a class on Zionism.
Antisemitic and anti-Israel Columbia University professor teaches course on Zionism
Liberal governments and organizations started taking positions that “over-policing” of majority-minority groups like Blacks was systemic and a key issue in holding minority groups down after the death of George Floyd in May 2020. The Southern Poverty Law Center made this clear in October 2020 when it essentially removed Black hate groups from its database because it may have been used to “justify the over-policing and surveillance of communities of color.” Black “separatist” movements would no longer be classified as hate groups because of society’s power imbalance; they were just punching up “because they oppose a white supremacist power structure.”
Blacks were granted immunity from being called racists, to commit non-hate crimes against Whites.
In San Francisco in 2018, the school board voted to rename schools which might be perceived to carry “white supremacy,” which included removing the names of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln from the schools. At the same time, they voted to teach the students Arabic with an external group that called Israel an “apartheid state” that engages in “colonialism” which should be free “from the river to the sea.”
Anti-Zionism as well as denial of Jewish history and rights was being instilled into the fabric of the future. Don’t like it? Too bad. Teachers’ unions are fighting hard to keep parents out of the classroom.
Los Angeles teacher unions organize for anti-Israel indoctrination
Good luck trying to topple the teachers’ unions which are a specialized protected class by Democrats. They are free to act with impunity as they have carte blanche immunity.
This happens constantly at the United Nations. Its facilities are considered “inviolable” so Gazans and terrorists use them to store and fire rockets at Israel – whose schools are not “inviolable.” Tens of thousands of Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) join UNRWA to get immunity, free to collaborate with a host of Palestinian terrorist groups. They believe they can rape as a form of “resistance,” blessed by the UN which has canonized every “refugee.”
The head of the United Nations made clear that this protected class of people have immunity, and Israel cannot judge or punish the rapists and murderers. The Palestinian Arabs are free to carry out their barbarism with impunity.
It is a sad truism that social unrest bleaches racism and antisemitism. But that is just the start.
The granting of broad immunity to particular people because they are viewed as deserving of special protection appears noble, only at first glance. Empathy that enables and encourages lawlessness comes for the Jews. Always.
It has now been revealed that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told the administration of Columbia University to “keep heads down” and ride out the controversy of antisemitism on campus. He said that issue of rampant Jew hatred were “political problems are really only among Republicans,” and that Jews and the country would soon move on.
To unpack those statements, the most powerful Democratic politician outside of the Executive branch dismissed the Jew-hatred at Columbia despite one of the rabbis on campus telling Jewish students to go home, “no one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.” He encouraged the university to do nothing to assist the beleaguered Jews, and that once Democrats took over the House of Representatives, university presidents would no longer be dragged to Washington.
Others also believe that only Republicans cared about the systemic Jew hatred at American universities. Rep. Virginia Foxx, Chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said that Democrats would drop investigating Jew hatred at universities should they win the House in the November 2024 election.
Schumer’s suggestion that leaders wait out setbacks in attacking Jews has precedent.
During Donald Trump’s term in office, former Secretary of State John Kerry under Democratic President Barack Obama passed a message to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority “that he should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President [Donald] Trump’s demands.” Kerry predicted that Trump would last a single term and then a Democratic Administration would go easy on the PA, and apply hard pressure on Israel.
Sen. Chuck Schumer and Secretary of State John Kerry discuss the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015
Democrats know that Jews are a minority-minority, a very small and forgiving people. The old guard Democratic leaders like Schumer and Kerry believe that Jews’ ongoing quest for “tikkun olam / repairing the world” would include self-annihilation, if so required. They believe they know history that Jews (non-Orthodox at least) will look past any insult and cleave to the Democratic Party regardless of actions. Jews will give up land, rights and dignity just as they handed over the Judaism’s holiest site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, if peace so dictated.
The new generation of Democratic leaders is less convinced. It is waging a war to strip Jews of power, position, wealth and property in a broad redistribution to majority-minority groups like Blacks, as chanted by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, and their sponsor at Justice Democrats.
The cleft in the Democratic Party between the old and new guards is a tactical decision whether to wait for Jews to hang themselves or to give clearance to rob, rape and murder them immediately. Regrettably – no, frighteningly – the party’s view of Jews has been buried under an avalanche of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) that elevates Victims of Preference, even when those groups are directly coming for Jews.
The plight of Jews today can be traced directly to President Barak Obama’s second term from 2013 to 2016. The rampant antisemitism in the United States and death and destruction in the Middle East today stem from Obama’s failed and deliberate strategies as outlined below:
Obama’s minimization of antisemitism
Enabling Iran to have a legal pathway to nuclear weapons
Handing billions of dollars to Iran and its terrorist proxies
Not encouraging the Iranian revolution to topple the government
Throwing Middle Eastern allies under the bus
Changing Democratic Party position that Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) should move to Israel instead of a new Palestinian state
Stating that the presence of Jews in Jerusalem caused problems rather than Arab antisemitism
Making Jews living in Jerusalem illegal
Fostering the Islamic takeover of American universities
Bringing many refugees from Syria and Somalia to the US
Minimizing Antisemitism
Obama’s desire to minimize the problem of antisemitism stemmed from his focus on repairing relations with the Muslim world which he felt was badly damaged by the prior administration’s war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. It later extended to prioritizing other victims of preference, Blacks and other majority-minorities in the United States over Jews.
The most glaring example of Obama’s blindness to Muslim antisemitism was the February 2015 shooting in a kosher store in Paris, France. Obama said the shooting was “random” and his spokesperson then doubled down in clarifying the comment that there was no anti-Jewish motivation of the jihadi radicals.
At his final State of the Union address in 2016, Obama said nothing about antisemitism and only flagged ‘Islamophobia’ despite anti-Jewish hate crimes being 2.2 times more frequent than anti-Muslim hate crimes according to the FBI. Obama said nothing about the Islamic Republic of Iran’s rampant anti-Jewish smears and Holocaust denial contests as he cozied up to the Islamic zealots.
Enabling Iran to have a legal pathway to nuclear weapons
Despite aggressive sanctions which started under President George Bush in 2005, Obama signed an agreement which left Iran’s entire nuclear program intact including its uranium mines, milling and enrichment facilities and nuclear reactors. Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities coupled with its emerging nuclear weapon program has enabled it to act with near impunity throughout the Middle East. It has put the region on edge with Saudi Arabia now insisting on getting weapons of mass destruction to balance the Shiite-Sunni regional dominance.
While Israel had relative peace for the past fifty years as the only country with nuclear weapons, we are seeing the ramifications of large Muslim Arab countries also possessing such weaponry, courtesy of Obama.
Handing billions of dollars to Iran and its terrorist proxies
Iran has been using its proxies to kill and terrorize Jews for years, especially in the aftermath of Obama giving billions of dollars to Iran. The first installment of $1.7 billion in 2016 was sent in cash. Estimates for the amount of money that was ultimately released as part of the Iranian nuclear deal are as much as $150 billion from several countries according to FactCheck.org, with more conservative figures being $50 billion.
The funds released to Iran have helped fund Iranian proxies like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Each group has intentionally killed Israelis over the past year, with Hamas’s savage massacre of October 7, 2023 being the most heinous and gruesome.
Not encouraging the Iranian revolution to topple the government
The ascendency of the antisemitic genocidal regime in Iran was not a foregone conclusion. The Iranian people had started a ‘Green Revolution’ in 2009 with the expectation that Obama would give America’s support to install a moderate regime. Obama declined to do so, and thought he could negotiate a nuclear arms deal with the radical zealots. That decision led to Secretary of State John Kerry concluding one of the worst foreign policy deals in American history a few years later.
Throwing allies under the bus
As opposed to toppling genocidal regimes, Obama supported the ouster of friends.
Obama started his presidency with a trip to Cairo, Egypt in 2009, but ultimately stabbed the American ally in the back. When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak faced pressure to resign in 2011, Obama let him fall. It welcomed the democratically-elected head of the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood Mohammed Morsi instead. Saudi Arabia and other allies in the region became alarmed “with the U.S. position, publicly pushing Mubarak out. And frankly so are we—this isn’t how you handle issues in region.”
Obama made his focus on Iran known to the whole world from the outset when he first met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2009 at the White House. Rather than strongly stand by his ally Israel, he used the opportunity to say “Iran is a country of extraordinary history and extraordinary potential, that we want them to be a full-fledged member of the international community and be in a position to provide opportunities and prosperity for their people.”
President Obama meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2009
This narrative of Iran being “extraordinary” has continued to be pushed by the liberal mainstream media. When the New York Times publishes articles about Israel and Iran, it doesn’t show images of Iranian missiles but female shoppers, making Israeli leaders look foolish for being alarmed for no reason.
Screenshot of New York Times article on October 28, 2024
The Times even had vacation packages to Iran which it advertised as “Persia. Iran. For 2,500 years, this powerful country has entranced, mystified and beguiled the world. Discover the ancient secrets and modern complexities of this influential land on a 13-day itinerary, visiting some of the world’s oldest archaeological sites and the family home of the religious leader who engineered Iran’s transition to an Islamic republic. Welcome to the once-forbidden land of Iran.” It similarly called Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco amazing places to visit. But not Israel which it only promotes through a Palestinian lens as a place of “struggle” (jihad in Arabic).
Changing Democratic stance that Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) should move to Israel instead of a new Palestinian state
When Obama was elected to his first term, the official 2008 Democratic party platform had a few key statements about Israel and the region:
On Hamas: “The United States and its Quartet partners should continue to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and abides by past agreements.”
On “Refugees: “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.”
On borders: “All understand that it is unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations to be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”
On Jerusalem: “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel.”
Hamas’s current war on Israel to descend on Jerusalem, destroy the Jewish state and bring millions of SAPs into Israel was essentially blessed under the second Obama administration.
Stating that the presence of Jews in Jerusalem caused problems rather than Arab antisemitism
In October 2014, the Obama Administration’s Josh Earnest said “The US condemns the recent occupation of residential buildings in the neighborhood of Silwan by people whose agenda provokes tensions.” The message was clear: Jews buying homes and living in eastern Jerusalem is terrible because the Jews are stirring tensions, not because Arab Muslims are consumed with Jew hatred.
The New York Times followed Obama’s lead a few days later and portrayed the residents of Silwan as peaceful Arabs who were set upon by a few crazy Israelis moving next door: “An influx of right-wing Jewish settlers who have acquired property in the area in recent years have made the neighborhood a flash point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The Jews were the extremists and caused violence, not the other way around.
Obama’s inversion that Jews are the racist right-wing troublemakers while Palestinian Arabs (who voted the antisemitic genocidal group Hamas to a majority of parliament) as peace-seeking individuals has become mainstreamed in the media today.
Making Jews living in Jerusalem illegal
As Obama ended his second term, he decided to cap his vilification of Jews and Israel by allowing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass in December 2016, which declared it illegal for Jews to live east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL), including in the Judaism’s holiest city of Jerusalem. It called for countries to treat E49AL/ West Bank as distinct from the rest of Israel, despite the Palestinian Authority signing the Oslo Accords which recognized Israeli control over parts of the region.
Fostering the Islamic takeover of American universities
While Obama was restricting where Jews could live in the Jewish holy land, he was welcoming tens of thousands of Muslims from the Middle East into American universities.
The Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program was launched in 2003 to soften the image of America’s war on terror. Obama ramped up the program in 2009. By the 2015/6 academic year, 61,000 Saudi students were in American universities. That high figure represents 0.2% of the entire population of Saudi Arabia to a single country. By way of comparison, the ENTIRE American students abroad cohort all over the world is around 162,000, or 0.05% of the U.S. population. Imagine 650,000 American students all learning in India for the year!
Along with the Muslim students came billions of dollars. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim Arab countries funded departments, handed scholarships and enabled the growth of Students for Justice in Palestine hate groups to gather strength on over 200 campuses. These groups have led the harassment and intimidation of Jews at levels over five times higher than campuses without these groups according to analyses by the AMCHA Initiative. These universities routinely teach that Israel is a “imperialist colonialist power,” as though Jews do not have thousands of years of history in the holy land.
Bringing many refugees from Syria and Somalia to the US
In addition to the influx of money and students from Muslim countries into American universities was the growth in the number of refugees from the Middle East around the United States. While prior administrations had never permitted more than 25,000 refugees into the US from the Middle East, by 2016, Obama had welcomed nearly 45,000, primarily from Syria and Somalia.
The current war on Jews in the United States and Israel, home to 85% of world Jewry, was fueled by President Obama’s push to elevate the Muslim world, and the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular. The empowerment of Iran and its proxies in the Middle East have killed thousands of Jews, while the encouragement of Islamic power in the US has fueled antisemitic hate crimes here.
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