Category Archives: Israel

Does Biden Support A Palestinian Army And Jewish Prayer On The Temple Mount

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Palestinian Arabs have seemingly been successful at getting the Biden Administration to demand “equality” between the Israelis and Palestinians. It is unclear what that means.

In May 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden said “I believe the Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely and to enjoy equal measures of freedom, prosperity and democracy.” A few days later, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken tweeted something similar “I underscored America’s ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, and we discussed the importance of promoting peace, security, and dignity for all.” For those who make a living parsing words of politicians who rehearse their sound bites, there was a bit to review.

Biden’s comments were focused on the people (Palestinians and Israelis) while Blinken focused on security for a country (Israel) and then rights for everyone (Palestinians and Israelis). Biden sought “equal measures” regarding “freedom, prosperity and democracy” while Blinken highlighted “peace, security and dignity for all” after giving preference to Israeli security. Biden’s “safely and securely” and “freedom and democracy” were likely meant to be used interchangeably with Blinken’s “peace, security”, but it is doubtful that Biden’s focus on “prosperity” was meant to equate to Blinken’s “dignity.”

Months later, Blinken leaned into “dignity” when he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in February 2022 when he said “Israelis and Palestinians alike deserve to live with equal measures of security, freedom, prosperity and crucially, dignity.” He introduced Biden’s focus on prosperity but sought to underscore his belief that dignity is crucial for both people.

In March 2022, when Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr came to the region, he “reiterated the Biden Administration’s philosophy that Israelis and Palestinians alike deserve to live safely and securely and enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, and prosperity.” Amr continued the administration’s emphasis on prosperity as a key goal but declined to mention “dignity.”

The various statements beg the question of what equal measures regarding freedom, security, prosperity and dignity, and whether each are just as important.

Freedom. One interpretation might mean the Palestinians should have freedom of movement for people and goods in and out of the terrorist enclave of Gaza. Is the U.S. pushing to end the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt immediately, or only in context of a resolution to the conflict? Would such stand exist if the terrorist group of Hamas continues to rule the area?

Freedom could mean the right of self-determination. While one might belief based on the media that Palestinian Arabs have none, in reality, all Gazans have self-determination and the vast majority of Arabs in the West Bank (those living in Areas A and B) similarly have self-determination.

Security. Does the Biden Administration want the Palestinians to have an army like Israel? Since the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990s began a pathway towards Palestinian self-determination, Israelis held firm that any future Palestinian state could not have a standing army in the narrow strip of land abutting Israel. Is the Biden campaign pressuring Israel to change that position?

Prosperity. The United States gives Israel billions of dollars each year and has had a difficult time sending monies to the Palestinian Authority directly (it funnels monies to them indirectly via the United Nations) because the PA refuses to stop rewarding terrorism with “martyr payments” to terrorist families. Is Biden signaling that he will push congress to get rid of the laws which prohibit the promotion of Palestinian Arab terrorism and start sending the PA the same amount of money as the government invests in Israel?

Dignity. Israeli Jews lack the basic human rights to pray at their holiest location of the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Will the Biden Administration push to overturn the current status quo in exchange for Palestinians having a military?

The action plans may be underway.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides tweeted on March 16, 2022 about his excitement that more monies were flowing to Palestinians: “Pleased to see lots for Palestinians in the budget just signed by @POTUS Biden: $144 million increase (now $219 million) for Economic Support Funds, $40 million for security forces training in the WBank, and $50 million for 2nd year of the Nita Lowey MEPPA Fund,” a strange comment for the ambassador TO ISRAEL to comment on aid elsewhere.

Blinken is in Israel now and will talk about the Russia-Ukraine war, the refugees crisis and its impact on the region, Iran’s nuclear program and its threat towards the world, the emerging peace between Israel and various Arab countries stemming from the Abraham Accords, and the Palestinian Arab- Israel conflict. The administration’s pivot towards the Palestinians can be seen at 11:50 in the video, when Blinken said that he will meet with “Palestinians in East Jerusalem who are a critical part of the city’s vibrant and diverse civil society and underscore our work with Palestinian non-governmental government organizations.” Is Blinken saying that East Jerusalem is Palestinian and that “equality” further extends to splitting Israel’s capital?

The United States is pushing the notion of equality between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as an end-goal of negotiations. Will advocating for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount and a Palestinian army kill the peace process before it begins?

Related articles:

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

Israel: Security in a Small Country

The United States Should NOT be a Neutral Mediator in the Arab-Israel Conflict

Considering a Failed Palestinian State

The Israeli Peace Process versus the Palestinian Divorce Proceedings

Students For Justice in Palestine Says J Street Is The Gateway For Jewish Anti-Zionists

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Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has long been viewed as a hate group on college campuses which “isn’t to promote education about Palestinians, but make the campus environment hostile for Israel supporters,” as summed up by Aviva Slomich, international campus director for CAMERA.

On March 14, 2022, Tufts University’s SJP chapter posted an opinion piece in the student run paper, Tufts Observer, called “Justice Through BDS.” The article promoted the familiar anti-Zionist propaganda, mislabeling Israel as a creature of “European settler colonialism” that runs an “apartheid regime.” It referred to Israel with a lowercase “i” to insult the Jewish State, and advocated for violence in its statement “SJP supports the full range of Palestinian resistance against settler-colonialism.“

The call for violence should get the group kicked off campus, but that is unlikely to happen unless and until Tufts’ alumni and student body demand action from the university (president Anthony P. Monaco’s office number is 617-627-3300).

In the same article promoting violence against Israel, SJP noted the good work that J Street has been doing in the Jewish community:

"While SJP recognizes that many Jewish people begin their anti-zionist political journey through J Street U, and appreciates that J Street U’s Tufts chapter agrees that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not synonymous, it is crucial for students to refuse half-measures that condemn occupation while normalizing colonization."

SJP specifically called out its appreciation for the lobbying and anti-Israel propaganda disseminated by J Street, but the hate group still could not embrace its colleagues, as the left-wing Jewish group still has a stated platform that Israel should exist in some form. SJP has therefore called for J Street to be included in its broad boycott.

T-shirts praising Palestinian terrorism seen for sale at the National Students for Justice in Palestine conference in November 2016. Photo: NSJP/Facebook.

SJP and J Street U have stood as allies on different college campuses, such as in February 2019, when both groups blasted the University of Vermont’s Jewish Hillel for accepting money from the pro-Israel group Maccabee Task Force. The SJP-J Street allyship has built bridges – to encourage more Jews to despise Israel, but not for Israel haters to embrace coexistence with the Jewish State.

When a virulently anti-Israel hate group like SJP praises J Street, a group that claims to be pro-Israel, it may finally dawn on the pro-Zionist community that the Jewish left-wing group is a dangerous gateway organization to destroy the Jewish State from within.

Related articles:

J Street: Going Bigger and Bolder than BDS

The Evil Architects at J Street Take a Bow

J Street Pushes to Make Israel a Partisan Issue

J Street is Only Considered “Pro-Israel” in Progressive Circles

J Street is a Partisan Left-Wing Group, NOT an Alternative to AIPAC

A Review of the Fifteen US Slates for the World Zionist Congress

Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

J Street Proves Again It’s Progressive, Not Pro-Israel

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J Street markets itself as “the political home of pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans” in an effort to make someone believe that its primary goal is supporting Israel. The group dismissed criticisms when it advocated against the desires of the Israeli government in supporting the Iran nuclear deal and condemning Jews living in the “West Bank” as simply opposing particular Israeli policies. It really didn’t have a response when it effectively lobbied the Obama administration to allow the anti-Israel United Nations Security Resolution 2334 to pass.

As the “pro-Israel” veneer washed away long ago, it has freed the group to become unabashedly pro-Progressive, pouring money AGAINST pro-Israel candidates in favor of extreme leftists.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX28) has proven many times that he understands Israel and supports the democratic Jewish State. On February 1, 2022, he tweeted in response to the false libels of the Amnesty report on Israel “Israel is not an apartheid state. Full stop. These inaccuracies incite antisemitic behavior against the Jewish people. Lies that incite violence, but do nothing to help the Palestinian people. Let’s work together, not tear each other down.“

In December 2021, he co-authored a letter to Secretary of State Blinken to take a tough stand against Iran as it continued to pursue nuclear weapons. In sharing the letter, Cuellar said “We cannot let an aggressive actor threaten Israel—our strongest ally in the Middle East.“

It is therefore not a surprise that Cuellar has received endorsements from many pro-Israel organizations like Pro-Israel America.

For progressive groups who do not care about Israel or are actively hostile to Israel, the primary lens is simply that he is too moderate.

Justice Democrats, the far-left group behind Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) poured money into the campaign of his primary challenger, Jessica Cisneros. She’s received endorsements from far left politicians including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and AOC. The Sunshine Group – which gained infamy for its DC Chapter boycotting the presence of Zionist groups advocating for voting rights – also backs her.

Rep. AOC stumping for far left wing candidate Jessica Cisneros in Texas to unseat moderate Democrat Henry Cuellar

Other far left-wing groups actively hostile to Israel also back Cisneros. The list includes Move On and The Working Families Party, which pushed politicians to boycott the pro-Israel AIPAC conference. Daily Kos, a left wing media outlet which equated the Palestinian political-terrorist group HAMAS which calls for killing Israelis and the destruction of Israel, and Israel’s Likud as “Two despicable organizations,” also supports Cisneros.

Joining the list of alt-left wing groups – many anti-Israel – in endorsing Cisneros is J Street PAC. J Street is spending $100,000 in digital ads to help Cisneros defeat Cuellar in the Democratic primary on March 1, 2022. To put that sum in context, J Street spent $272,000 nationally in getting Joe Biden elected president in 2020.

Consider that Cisneros hasn’t said a single word about Israel. Her “Issues” list doesn’t mention Israel or the Middle East.

Yet J Street, which markets itself as primarily concerned with Israel is putting a huge amount of money behind someone who has no opinions on Israel, and against a moderate Democratic politician who staunchly supports the Jewish State.

J Street is a progressive PAC first and foremost, which thinks nothing of standing alongside left wing groups that despise Israel. In backing Cisneros in Texas, it is proving again that the organization has nothing to do with being pro-Israel.

Related articles:

J Street Pushes to Make Israel a Partisan Issue

J Street Prioritizes Palestinian Aid Over Iranian Threat

J Street: Home for Pro-Palestinian, Pro-Peace Americans

J Street is Only Considered “Pro-Israel” in Progressive Circles

J Street is a Partisan Left-Wing Group, NOT an Alternative to AIPAC

Attacking Jews & Zionists: Arabs and Muslims

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The war against the Jewish State began militarily at Israel’s inception, as the armies of five Arab nations invaded Israel in 1948 in a war to annihilate it. In June 1967, the Arab world attempted the same but failed spectacularly.

Since that time, the armed conflict by Muslim countries has continued with more modest ambitions, as the goal of destroying Israel is considered too remote a possibility, unless and until Iran obtains nuclear weapons. The violent attacks against Israel have mostly been about pestering and killing Jews to obtain concessions. The 1973 Yom Kippur war ushered in a willingness for Israel to hand the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt, and Palestinian Arabs believe that the Second Intifada War made Israel abandon the Gaza Strip. The various Hamas wars from Gaza since 2008 and the political-terrorist group’s kidnapping of Israelis, secured the release of thousands of fellow terrorists and other modest gains.

The failure to destroy Israel did not make the Muslim countries accept its existence. In fact, it has done its utmost to deny its existence.

Immediately after the 1967 Six Day War, the Arab League passed the Khartoum Resolution declaring a policy of ‘Three No’s’: “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.” For the Arabs, the Jewish State had a name but was to be ignored until the Arabs could prevail at destroying the foreign presence.

In the 1970’s, the Arab League enlisted allies to their cause. Leveraging their control of the oil markets, and with a former Nazi sitting as head of the United Nations, the Muslim and Arab countries got the world to pass UNGA Resolution 3379 in November 1975 that declared that “Zionism is a form of racism.” This was an attempt to deny Israel’s legitimacy broadly.

Meanwhile, faced with the impossibility of destroying Israel, the Arabs and Muslims went after Jewish “soft targets,” like plane and boat hijackings (Dawson’s Field in 1970, Rome and Vienna airport shootings in 1985, and Achille Lauro in 1985), as well as blowing up Jewish community centers (Argentina 1994) and synagogues (Turkey 1986). If people inside Israel were too difficult to kill, the Muslim world came for the Jews around the world.

While the ‘Zionism is racism’ resolution was ultimately thrown out in 1991 due to the efforts of the United States, it simmered as the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 anticipated a peace deal in September 2000. Instead of finally accepting peace, the Palestinians launched the Second Intifada War which only subsided with the erection of Israel’s security barrier in 2004-5. That led to two new movements which are unfortunately thriving today: the demonization of the Jewish State and the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divest and Sanction), both economic wars.

Demonization of Jews and Zionists

The 2001 Durban Conference against racism served as the global launch party to amplify and expand upon the prior “Zionism is racism” propaganda.

As the world no longer relied on oil as it had in the 1970’s, the Muslim Arab world hoped to convince the western world to join their war against the Jewish State based on democratic values, a sly and peculiar approach for autocratic regimes. The global conference advanced a new lexicon to vilify Israel with terms like “apartheid,” “settler-colonialism,” “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” and “crimes against humanity” to name a few. It similarly painted Palestinians as noble victims, misusing words like “desperate,” “resistance,” and “dignity.”

This approach is more insidious than used during the 1970’s and 1980’s which relied on far-flung violence. The violent attacks against Jews around the world by Arab Muslims made it difficult to portray the Palestinian Arabs as “desperate.” Instead, since 2001, the demonization tactic has penetrated the west through the education systems, the media and the democratic system itself.

The Arab world funneled billions of dollars and tens of thousands of students to universities including New York University, MIT, Columbia and Tufts. The donations funded Middle East Studies departments and Divinity schools with anti-Israel narratives. Due to this activity, college campuses have become hotbeds of anti-Semitism, often denying Jews the right to participate in public spaces as perceived Zionists and racists.

These young voices have been indoctrinated with a new anti-Zionist vocabulary and worldview over the past twenty years. They are now running the western liberal media, working at “human rights” organizations and voting for far-left anti-Zionist politicians endorsed by the Democrat Socialists of America.

The 2001 Durban campaign, now 20-plus years running, has been very successful in not only demonizing Israel, but demonizing Zionists. Under this current version of “Zionism is racism,” Jews in Israel and around the world are no longer only being attacked by Arab Muslims but by their fellow citizens. While the legitimacy of Israel is still being denied, the focus has expanded to Israel’s supporters.

Isolation and Destruction

In 2005, Omar Barghouti launched the BDS Movement. It’s goal was the end of the Jewish State through punitive economic measures. Barghouti is clear about the goal and tactics saying “BDS aims to turn Israel into a pariah,” and “We oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine… [only] a sellout Palestinian would accept a Jewish state in Palestine.“

The movement seeks to boycott not only Israeli products but those companies that do business in Israel. It wants universities to bar Israeli professors and athletes to refuse to compete with Israelis.

It has even gone after its own, turning on Arab Muslim states which normalized ties to Israel such as the United Arab Emirates.

The anti-normalization approach has come for all Zionists around the world. In December 2021, an executive at CAIR, Zahra Billoo, told a group in Chicago to beware of “polite Zionists” and “Zionist synagogues.” The only Jewish allies in this mindset are anti-Zionist Jewish groups like “Jewish Voice for Peace, American Jews for a Just Peace, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.”

After failing to destroy the Jewish State militarily, the Arab Muslim world has gone through three stages to destroy it economically, with the current effort enlisting global support against all Zionists

The current Muslim and Arab war against the Jewish State is being fought everywhere, as Zionists of any religion or ethnicity are falsely branded “racists” who should be canceled. The intent is to pressure people and governments everywhere to sever ties with the Jewish State, making it vulnerable and weak by every measure.

The war against Israel has mutated since the country was founded but the goal remains the same: the end of the Jewish State. What has alarmingly changed now is that YOU are being asked to participate in that anti-Semitic endeavor by your neighbors, schools, media and elected officials.

Related articles:

Rep. Ilhan Omar and The 2001 Durban Racism Conference

The Three Camps of Ethnic Cleansing in the BDS Movement

Courageous Jews On Hostile Campuses

Importing Peaceful Ideas to the West Bank

Wilayat Sinai: The Other Terrorist Group Abutting Israel

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The sole Jewish State is unique in many ways. One situation that causes constant strain is that it is surrounded by armed terrorist groups.

To the north is Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to recent reports, the Iranian-backed terrorist group “currently possesses between 120,000-140,000 short-range rockets (range of 25-28 miles), which cover Israel’s north, including Haifa Bay and Tiberias; several thousand medium-range rockets (range of 56 miles), which can reach the Sharon coastal plain and northern suburbs of Gush Dan; and several hundred long-range rockets and missiles (range of hundreds of miles), including Scud missiles from Syrian military warehouses, capable of hitting targets anywhere in Israel.“

To the west is the terrorist enclave of Gaza. The terrorist group Hamas has launched several wars against Israel since taking over the region.

In the east, Israel has to face Hamas as well, which has significant support in Areas A and B of the West Bank. Palestinians maintain that the best way of dealing with Israel is through armed conflict, and support a number of Palestinian terrorist groups which operate both west and east of Israel including: Palestine Liberation Front (PLF); Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ); Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC); Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB); and Army of Islam (AOI).

To the south, there is another terrorist group that operates out of the Sinai Peninsula called Wilayat Sinai, or ISIS in the Sinai. They have been fighting both Egypt and Israel.

Israel is surrounded by terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism

Wilayat Sinai

Wilayat Sinai began in 2011 around the time of the “Arab Spring” under the name Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, before pledging its allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014 as that group was gaining prominence and then change its name. Like many of the terrorist groups in the region, it’s banner is jihad and the imposition of Islamic Sharia law throughout the region.

Wilayat’s main target is the Egyptian government which is viewed as too secular. Not only did Egypt make peace with Israel, but it actively opposes the Muslim Brotherhood.

The group stepped up its attacks against Egypt in 2014 when Abdul Fattah al-Sisi ascended to power after forcing out Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. With the support of Israel, al-Sisi began to clamp down on the smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza which were instrumental in the Hamas war against Israel in that year. Israel would go on to allow Egypt to expand its military presence in the Sinai, above the limits set in place by the 1979 Peace Agreement. By 2018, 42,000 Egyptian soldiers were in the Sinai.

In February of that year, al-Sisi launched an aggressive “Operation Sinai 2018” campaign against Wilayat Sinai with Israeli support. The actions severely curtailed the groups ability to operate.

The attacks have not been limited to Egypt. In 2015, the group downed a Russian civilian airplane killing 224 because of Russian attacks against ISIS in Syria.

In 2011, attackers from Sinai – including some terrorists from Gaza – shot and killed Israelis near the resort city of Eilat. In 2012, rockets were fired into Eilat and later that year armed men from Hamas and Wilayat Sinai killed Egyptian soldiers and attacked Israeli Defense Forces at the Kerem Shalom Crossing near Gaza. The group would fire more rockets into Israel in 2017.

While Hamas gets most of the attention because of its vile anti-Semitic foundational charter and persistent attacks against Israel, the Jewish State is completely surrounded by terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism. While each has a different take on the goals of imposing Sharia law and establishing a caliphate, they all seek a purely Islamic region and an end to the Jewish State.

Related articles:

Israel: Security in a Small Country

A Flower in Terra Barbarus

Hamas’s Willing Executioners

Paying to Murder Jews: From Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran to the Palestinian Authority

The Banners of Jihad

Some Global Supporters of the P5+1 Iran Deal

Orthodox Institutions Should Rally To The Westchester Reform Temple

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An anti-Zionist teacher was fired from the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, New York, and is now suing the institution. Religious organizations should support the Reform Temple in this lawsuit.

Jessie Sander wrote an article in May 2021 in which she “call[ed] for American Jewish institutions to revisit their educational philosophy and curriculum about Palestine and its history,” and that American Jews must stop their “racist practices and beliefs” and support of Israel (which she spelled each time with a lower case “i”) in its “settler-colonial violence” and “genocide in Palestine.” She added that “israel actively trains the actors of our military state to enact violence against our Black and Brown siblings,” portraying Israel as committing racist violence both in Israel and the United States.

A few weeks later she was hired as a Hebrew teacher at the Westchester Reform Temple before the school was aware of her writings. Once the administration found out about it, she was questioned and then dismissed. She is now suing the school for reinstatement plus compensatory damages.

February 6, 2022 New York Times article on a Jewish school firing an anti-Israel teacher

The New York Times covered the story in its typical anti-Israel jaundiced fashion. It noted that Sander is like many younger American Jews, who are not emotionally attached to Israel, as it cited a poll which found that 25 percent of Jews believed Israel to be an “apartheid state” and 22 percent said it was “committing genocide against the Palestinians.”

Those aren’t “beliefs” any more than Holocaust denial is a belief. They are simply wrong. When 25 percent of a class gets a question wrong on an exam, we don’t reorient the narrative to accommodate the incorrect.

Schools must be able to evaluate the teachers they hire and whether they pose a threat to the students and mission of the institution. This teacher was not simply stating that she was concerned about Palestinian self-determination but sought to change the “educational philosophy and curriculum” with her false impressions about the state of Palestinian “genocide.” Together with her deliberate refusal to capitalize the state of Israel, the institution was rightly concerned about what she was going to teach in her classes.

While liberal anti-Zionists like Peter Beinart may run to defend this teacher, it is important for other religious denominations – especially the Orthodox – to rally to the side of the Reform Temple.

Jewish institutions have long hired a variety of people from different backgrounds. Yeshiva University, the flagship Jewish university in the United States, hires many non-Jewish faculty. Jewish Day Schools hire people with a range of political views from conservative to progressive.

But they do not hire someone who seeks to instill a false narrative into the cirriculum.

Yeshiva University, the Orthodox Union, the Rabbinical Council of America and other Orthodox organizations do not always have an opportunity to bond with the Reform movement. These mission-driven groups – as well as non-Jewish ones – should rally to support the Westchester Reform Temple in the suit by an anti-Israel extremist, in an important defense of their religious rights.

Unity – not Unanimity – in the Pro-Israel Tent

The Root of Left-Wing Anti-Zionism in Congress is Left-Wing Jews

The Anti-Israel Community in a Jewish House of Worship

A Disservice to Jewish Community

Jews, Judaism and Israel

The Fault in Our Tent: The Limit of Acceptable Speech

Pray for a Lack of “Proportionately” in Numbers. There will never be an Equivalence of Intent.

80 Years After Wannsee Conference, Arab/Muslim Anti-Semitism Dominates

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On January 20, 1942, Germans met in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to develop the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem.” The persecution of Jews was already well underway, and on that day, the Nazi regime put into place a program to push the Jews to extinction. They succeeded in wiping out nearly all of the Jews in Europe, about one-third of global Jewry.

Since the end of World War II, the Arab and Muslim world picked up the fight to “the Jewish Problem.”

The Arabs in Palestine were successful in lobbying the British in impeding Jewish immigrants desperate to leave the Holocaust in Europe with the “White Papers”, likely causing well over 100,000 Jewish deaths. The remaining Holocaust survivors landing on the shores of Palestine after World War II were very vulnerable targets. The Palestinian Arabs enlisted the help of neighboring Muslim countries to complete the genocide of the Jews, killing nearly one per cent of the region’s Jews in the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli War. The Arabs then ethnically-cleansed all Jews from the lands they seized, and forbade Jews from visiting their holiest locations in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Angry at the survival of the Jewish nation, Muslim Arab countries purged their Jews. Roughly 99% of the region’s Jews were forced out, an estimated 850,000 Jews, a total which excludes the Jews who fled Afghanistan and Iran.

  • Algeria 140,000
  • Egypt 75,000
  • Iraq 135,000
  • Lebanon 5,000
  • Libya 38,000
  • Morocco 265,000
  • Syria 30,000
  • Tunisia 105,000
  • Yemen 55,000

Arab countries attempted to kill all of the Jews in Israel again in 1967, though they failed spectacularly. Stinging from the loss, the Arab League adopted the Khartoum Resolution which called for “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.” The Arabs soon launched another war against Israel – during Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur – in 1973, while pushing the noxious idea that “Zionism is a form of racism” at the United Nations under the watch of former Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, who was serving as the UN Secretary General.

Meanwhile, Christianity rethought its complicity in the European Holocaust and declared in 1965 that Jews were no more responsible for the death of Jesus than anyone else, and declared clearly that Jews should not be persecuted. Less than 25 years later, the “Iron wall” in the Soviet Union crumbled and allowed thousands of Jewish “refuseniks” to leave the country to Israel and elsewhere.

But the bile in the Arab Muslim world did not let up during this time, even as Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

The Palestinians declared themselves to have an independent state in 1988 on all of the land of Israel including the “West Bank” and Gaza, a move which was rejected by much of the western world. At the same time, Hamas introduced its foundational charter calling for the death of Jews and complete destruction of the Jewish State. The group (and other Palestinian terrorist groups) became immensely popular and received funding from Iran and Syria.

Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah, together with Palestinian Arabs, targeted and killed thousands of Jews around the world in the following decades. Iranian leaders have continued to hold Holocaust denial conferences, call for the destruction of Israel and pursue nuclear weapons and long range ballistic missiles.

On the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, the United Nations approved a resolution condemning Holocaust denial, with only Iran standing in opposition. The story was covered by The New York Times and other media outlets which wrote about the resolution and described today’s prevalent “right-wing” anti-Semitism and completely ignored that the vast majority of anti-Semitism stems from the Islamic world.

Not only will Muslim anti-Semitism not go away by ignoring it, but it may enable the leading state sponsor of terrorism and Holocaust denial to obtain weapons of mass destruction to carry out another genocide of the Jews.

Related articles:

Hamas’s Willing Executioners

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today

Reuters Can’t Spare Ink on Iranian Anti-Semitism

Paying to Murder Jews: From Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran to the Palestinian Authority

11 Hours in Colleyville, 7 Days in Entebbe

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Sabbath broke, so the phones turned on to check emails and the news of the prior 25 hours. The horrible reports coming out of Colleyville, Texas were not just disturbing but unsettling. Yet again, Jews were targeted by anti-Semites/ anti-Zionists to free other anti-Semites / anti-Zionists.

Between calls and community tehillim, I opted to find some strength in a historic hostage situation – when the Israeli army rescued passengers from an airplane hijacking at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda. I had seen movies relaying the exciting rescue attempts made in the 1970s, but had not seen the newer version produced in 2018 called ‘7 Days in Entebbe,’ so watched it while my thoughts were with the Jewish hostages in Texas.

It’s a very peculiar take on the story. Rather than highlight the daring rescue operation by the Israelis, the writer/ director team of Gregory Burke and Jose Padhila took a completely different approach. They told the story of two German “revolutionaries” who joined the Palestinian hijackers; explored the Israelis through the lens of a political battle between Defense Minister Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin; and littered the story with performances by the Bat Sheva Dance Company.

The Left Wing Embrace of Palestinian Terrorism
(and in a good way)

The movie opens with a distorted pro-Palestinian view of history with statements to set the background and tone of the film:

  • The United Nations created Israel in 1947
  • The Palestinians then fought to get their land back
  • They were backed up by left-wing groups around the world
  • They called themselves ‘Freedom fighters’ while the Israelis called them ‘terrorists’
Opening lines of the 2018 movie “7 Days in Entebbe“

The distortion needs multiple levels of unpacking.

  • The UN voted to create BOTH a Jewish State and another Arab State. The Arab world refused to accept the vote as they stood firmly against any Jewish country and wanted the entire region to rule. Israel was created through its own declaration in 1948.
  • The Palestinians did not have a country where they had self-determination so there was no fight for “the return of their land.” Five Arab nations waged a war against Jews who had just survived the Holocaust, to expunge the survivors from their historic homeland.
  • The “left-wing” groups from the 1940s, 1970s and today have morphed in mission and focus. In the telling of this story, one senses that the writers believe that “social justice” requires actions like the taking of hostages – perhaps even today if nobody listens.
  • This view was cemented by the concluding lines of how the “left-wing” viewed themselves as “freedom fighters” while the Israelis called them “terrorists.”

The “left-wing” which rallied to the Palestinians’ side, dominate the story’s focus. The movie is a platform to state how these new Germans were “not Nazis” who hated Jews like the prior generation, but fought for “social justice.” They were “humanitarians” who saw how wrong it was for the Palestinians to suffer, and therefore sought and fought for a “life of meaning,” sacrificing on behalf of others.

I think Senator Bernie Sanders may have consulted on the film.

Israeli Politicians Care About Politics, Not People
But Rabin Knew That Palestinians Deserve Negotiations

The film took a very cynical view of Israeli politicians who simply were dueling for power. While Peres may have stated that one never negotiates with terrorists, the script made clear that Peres was a political opportunist who wanted the Prime Minister to look bad so he could gain the upper hand. Even when the movie relayed how the Israeli and Jewish hostages were separated from the other passengers reminiscent of the concentration camps, there was less emotion in the scene than when a small child needed to use the restroom on the plane moments after the hijacking.

While the Israeli public was hysterical about the hostage situation, Rabin remained calm. Even after the successful rescue operation, he shared with Peres that at some point the Israelis need to talk to the Palestinians and not just fight them. The writer/director were clearly paying more attention to the future when Rabin pushed forward the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, for which he paid with his life. But it is completely ahistorical when the action happened in 1976.

The Arabs fought two wars to annihilate the Israeli Jews, in 1948-9 and in 1967. Having lost both wars of attempted genocide, they adopted the Khartoum Resolution which declared three no’s: “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.“

The refusal to talk and make peace was a uniform Arab policy from the 1920s through that hijacking in 1976. The movie completely inverted facts and made the Israelis the party that was holding back on negotiating peace, rather than acting in a defensive capacity against neighbors determined to kill them.

Secular Israelis Have Evolved, While Traditional Jews Have Become the New Nazis
as told by the Bat Sheva Dance Company

The movie opened and closed with performances by the Israeli troupe, the Bat Sheva Dance Company. Aside from being a constant break in the flow of the movie, most movie viewers likely just found the snippets annoying and bizarre. Let me offer my take on why these scenes were in the film.

The first time we see the performance, we see a semi-circle of dancers dressed seemingly like Hasidic Jews, sitting on chairs performing before an empty auditorium. They dance to a song “Who knows one?” traditionally sung at the end of the Passover seder. Each dancer jumps in his chair except one, she falls to the ground, exposing shocking red hair. We assume at first it is a mistake, that the dancer was not supposed to fall. Or perhaps we think we understand the message since we are familiar with the Entebbe story – that one Israeli soldier dies in the rescue attempt.

I think that scene is a retelling of the Holocaust. The Jews jumping on the chairs one after the other were European Jews shot before a firing line. The one who fell to the ground was the old Jew in the ghetto, a community forever vanquished. The shock of red hair is meant as an anchor for the viewer, much like the girl in the red coat in the move “Schindler’s List.” It happens before open chairs, as to one did anything to stop the genocide of the Jews.

We see the dancers in a similar scene later in the movie. However, this time the dancers – except for the one falling with red hair – remove an article of clothing after each wave of shots. At the end, they are all standing in their underwear while the one sitting is still garbed in the Hasidic attire. This is a reflection of the new Jew which has shed religion and its past, except for a lone holdout. These are the new strong Jews who come in and shoot the hijackers. The packed auditorium loves the performance. But are these killing Jews, like a Palestinian hijacker states, the “new Nazis”?

At the very end of the film, the stage is set with only two dancers remaining. In the background is the re-haired dancer running continuously and going nowhere. In the front of the stage, the stripped down modern Jew goes from a creeper-crawler to dynamic dancer. This evolved Jew commands the stage – until abruptly exiting. We are then only left with the dull and distant Hasidic Jew, forever repeating the same actions and going nowhere.

The audience in the end is only us, the viewer, left to decide what to make of Jews: the evolving, modern, beautiful and appreciated Jew who dominates the scene and then disappears, and the traditional Jew, in the background who endures.

The failure of the movie (not just from critics and Rotten Tomatoes) is the notion of choice. The allegories of the dancers interspersed throughout the film attempt to parallel the tension and options of modern and traditional Jews with the Israeli-Arab conflict, and consequently, why secular leftists attach themselves to the Arab cause for a Palestinian state.

The orientation of the film is that Israelis and Jews have a choice as to whether to be modern or traditional, and whether to make peace with Arabs or to fight them. To set such worldview (which is perhaps a worthwhile discussion today, over a coffee) in a movie about hostages in 1976 is highly offensive and illusory. The Jewish hostages had no choice. Saving them is not an option (and certainly not simply a matter of politics). It is the Arabs who have always had the option of making peace with the Jews, and opted each time to fight.

There are two sides to a conflict, and one party may view themselves as “freedom fighters” while the other views them as “terrorists.” It is clear where you and society stood on an issue by how each party was portrayed.

The end of the Texas synagogue stand-off is a cause to celebrate. Not only were the Jewish hostages saved, but all Americans came together to clearly identify with the besieged Jews. Regrettably, that is not always the case.

The western world is fracturing when it comes to other dead and persecuted Jews, such as the recent movie retelling the story of the 1976 Israeli hostages in Entebbe from the hijackers perspective, and an opera showing the 1985 Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking in a manner which highlighted the “humanity in the terrorists,” as general manager of the Met, Peter Gelb said about the performance “The Death of Klinghoffer“.

Will society focus on providing security to Jews or evaluate the merits of the cause of the terrorists?

Related articles:

NY Times Dislikes ‘Judaizing’ Israel

Victims of Preference

The Heartwarming Story of My Guilty Demise

The Last Sounds of “Son of Saul”

“The Death of George Floyd” Opera and The Humanity of Derek Chauvin

The New Salman Abedi High School for Boys in England and the Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel Soccer Tournament in France

A Core Tenet of Zionism Is Combatting Anti-Semitism

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Zionism has been defined as the “Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews.” Gil Troy, a historian and author of a new book “The Zionist Ideas,” expanded upon that definition and says Zionism has three principle components: that Jews are a nation; that Jews have ties to their particular homeland in the land of Israel; and that Jews have a right to establish a state in that homeland, much like other people have rights to their own country.

That view of Zionism purely through a nationalistic lens enables many people to view Zionism as inherently racist. While Zionist advocates – like Troy – clearly articulate that Jews’ attachment to Israel does not mean that other people do not have attachments to the land as well, and that Israel welcomes the one-quarter of its population that is not Jewish with full rights, the anti-Zionists consider the core of the movement as exclusionary. The sentiment that nationalist populism inherently poses a risk “to the fundamental human rights principles of non-discrimination and equality” as stated in a 2018 United Nations report, puts Zionism in the crosshairs. The phrase “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination” as once declared in UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 of 1973, gets new air.

Zionism is more than the nationalistic movement of Jews reestablishing a thriving community in their homeland. It is a mission to combat anti-Semitism by providing a safe haven and a base from which to attack the noxious hatred.

Historic Zionism

Jews have always been Zionists. For thousands of years, Jews have prayed facing Jerusalem. Their daily prayers are replete with calls to rebuild their holy city. Jews have lived in and moved to the land of Israel throughout their history. The Jewish nation and religion are bound to the land. Jews were a majority in Jerusalem decades before the first Zionist Congress.

The connection of Jews and their Promised Land is a bedrock laid down in the bible and thousands of years of history. It naturally set the foundation for viewing the modern Jewish State through a three-part nationalist lens of people, religion and land. And it led humanitarians like Henry Dunant (1828-1910) to call for the rightful restoration of Jews to their homeland many years before Jewish Zionists articulated their vision.

But modern Zionism is more than the nationalist yearnings of thousands of years as articulated in Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah, written in 1878. It is a clarion call to fight and end Jew hatred.

Members of the Israeli Defense Forces “sing” Hatikvah in sign language in 2013.

Modern Zionism as a Safe Haven

The man credited with founding modern Zionism is Theodor Herzl (1860-1904). While completely assimilated and secular, Herzl saw a world which only saw him and others like him as foreign Jews.

He was horrified at the conviction of a secular Jew, Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) in France on trumped up espionage charges. The anti-Semitism on bold display in the courtroom and media convinced Herzl that Jews would never be tolerated anywhere if they could not find peace in a liberal society like France. He said:

“The Jewish question exists wherever the Jews live, however small their number. Where it does not exist it is imported by Jew immigrants. We naturally go where we are not persecuted, and, still persecution is the result of our appearance.”

The pogroms in Russia (Ukraine, Poland) from 1881 to 1884 as well as Kishinev in 1903 and 1905 further cemented the opinion of Herzl and many other early Zionists that Jews would never be able to live in peace where they were treated as despised foreigners. Zionism was a tool to address systemic anti-Semitism. The principle was that only in a place where Jews governed themselves could they escape persecution.

The situation for the Jews in Europe and the USSR actually got worse after Herzl. On January 20 1942, the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, Germany, developed the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem,” calling for their extermination. Nazi Germany and its supporters killed one-third of the global Jewish population. The horrors of the European Holocaust which confirmed the radical anti-Semitism prevalent in the world, most likely encouraged many nations to support the reestablishment of the Jewish State just a few years later.

Modern Zionism Fights Anti-Semitism

Today, Israel does not simply seek to be a safe haven for Jews but actively fights anti-Semitism and anti-Semites around the world.

  • In 1960, years after the Holocaust, agents of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, captured former Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes.
  • In 1976, after Arab terrorists hijacked an Air France plane to Uganda, Israeli commandos flew in to rescue the innocent.
  • In 1991, when the situation of Ethiopian Jews became dire, Israel launched Operation Solomon which air-lifted 14,325 people out of the country and resettled them in Israel.
  • In 1994, after Iran and Hezbollah blew up the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina killing 85 people, Israel sent a team to investigate.
  • In 2015, after Muslim terrorist targeted killing Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris, France, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed French Jews and said “any Jew who chooses to come to Israel will be greeted with open arms and an open heart, it is not a foreign nation, and hopefully they and you will one day come to Israel.“

The government of Israel has a special division for world Jewry called The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs. A core mission of the office is “monitoring and treating the scourge of anti-Semitism.” No other government in the world has an office dedicated to its diaspora and to fighting the terrible hatred it endures.

Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Racism But Anti-Semitism

Using the false precept that all forms of nationalism are inherently racist and that Zionism is a particular exclusionary Jewish supremacist movement, schools are indoctrinating students that anti-Zionism is anti-racism and should be embraced. Similarly, the Black Lives Matter movement endorsed boycotting Israel, and the Democratic Socialists of America have all guns blazing with vile smears that Jews in Israel and the United States exploit Black and Brown bodies as a way to turn a profit.

When Zionism only portrays itself as the rightful national aspiration of Jews to self-determination in their homeland, it opens itself up to noxious attacks. A core tenet of Zionism is the fight against anti-Semitism which should be broadcast, as it makes abundantly clear that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic.

Related articles:

The Anti-Zionist Lexicon – Vilifying Israel

To Answer the Question Tying Anti-Semitism, Understand The Two Types of Anti-Zionists

To Serve Jews, United Nations Style

Time to Define Banning Jews From Living Somewhere as Antisemitic

Spreading “Cheer” of Attacking Israeli Jews

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Palestinian Arabs have a long history of instilling their hatred of Jews and Israelis into their children.

Palestinian Arabs are by far the most anti-Semitic adults, with an astounding 93% – almost every single adult – hating Jews. For years, they have been passing on their hatred by naming schools, public squares and tournaments after terrorists who kill Jews. The textbooks used in classrooms are replete with horrific depictions of Jews and Israelis. The political-terrorist group Hamas which runs the terrorist enclave of Gaza runs summer camps teaching children how to kill Israelis.

The lifeblood of Palestinian Jew-hatred has a companion, and that is the love of killing Jews.

Consider the Christmas cartoon published by a virulently anti-Zionist Socialist extremist site called Mondoweiss. They showed Santa wearing a kaffiyeh, running amidst burning tires and pelting Israeli soldiers with coal.

Mondoweiss cartoon showing Santa Claus attacking Israeli soldier

This is the message of joy for children – violence. Happiness isn’t peaceful coexistence but routing Jews.

Palestinian Arabs have long celebrated the murder of Jews by handing out candies and desserts after terrorists successfully kill Israelis. They have children stand on the street passing out the celebratory treats while the parents and children in Israel mourn for their loved ones.

Israel has tried to get the world to focus on the child abuse of inciting and teaching violence to youngsters, to modest success. Perhaps it was because some governments would like the Palestinians to have an independent state so they delude themselves into believing that Palestinian Arabs “resort” to violence.

But the anti-Zionist movement wants people – including children – to love the violence.

Mondoweiss, whose founders include radical Jewish socialists, is funded by tax-deductible donations. That means that your tax dollars help support the indoctrination of children to love acts of violence. Something to share with your elected officials.

Related articles:

The Veil of Hatred

‘The Maiming of the Jew’

Students for Justice in Palestine’s Dick Pics