September 16 and 17, 2023 were celebrated by Jews around the world as the start of the new year. Together with Yom Kippur next week, they mark the holiest days in Judaism.
The United States embassy to Israel did not mark the occasion with any wishes to the Jews in Israel or around the world. This stood in sharp contrast to commemorating holidays for other religions.
Yet the embassy did not post about Jewish Heritage Month in May. It did not post Passover wishes which coincided with Ramadan in 2023. It has not wished any Jews greetings over their high holy days in September.
The embassy is well aware of the holidays. It chose to warn Jews to not travel to Uman, Ukraine over Rosh Hashana. President Biden wished Jews a happy holiday but the embassy staff in Israel did think it important to share, even as it does so for Muslim holidays.
The current staff of the U.S. embassy to Israel is seemingly going out of its way to belittle Jews and Judaism, and court Arabs and Muslims.
It has been a long-standing tradition of Israeli Prime Ministers to wish warm holiday blessings to Christians and Muslims in the Jewish State and around the world.
In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “I would like to wish the Muslim and Druze an ‘Eid al-Adha mubarak.’ I’m proud for the fact that in Israel we have freedom of worship for all: Muslims, Druze, Christians, Baha’is, Jews — everyone. And I would like to wish you and your families a happy holiday. Bless you.”
In 2017 Netanyahu said “I wish #Ramadan Kareem to Israel’s Muslim citizens and Muslims around the world, hoping for much needed brotherhood, mutual respect & peace.”
In 2023, Israeli President Isaac Herzog reached out to Muslim leaders ahead of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, extending his wishes for “peace, happiness and health.”
In 2021, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said “I want to wish all Christians in Israel and across the world a Merry Christmas.”
Every year in the Jewish State, the heads of government – whoever is in power – reach out to people of other faiths to offer words of peace, respect and happiness.
This never happens for the Palestinian Arab leadership. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is too busy with antisemitic tirades – and then defending himself as not really an antisemite – to utter any words of blessing to the Jewish people as they celebrate their holidays. He prefers to use his pulpit to inform Jews that they are fake Jews with fake history and heritage, who have no roots in the holy land and are deeply racist.
It’s not too late. Someone, please wake up the corrupt and unpopular leader and tell him to stand before the microphone and wish Jews in the holy land and all around the world a peaceful and happy new year. As of now, Jews in Jerusalem are placing armed guards in their sanctuaries, as they await the fruit from Palestinian leadership incitement to arrive at their doorsteps.
The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutteres is concerned when armed parties might use lethal force. He has frequently urged that ‘utmost restraint’ be exercised by two warring parties like Lebanon and Israel (2021), and when a government confronts unarmed civilians, such as Iran confronting demonstrators (2022) and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan (2021).
In only one situation has the UNSG urged ‘utmost restraint’ when fighting terrorists: Israel fighting Palestinian Arab terrorism, as he did after an Arab terrorist killed seven Jews outside of a synagogue on a Sabbath in Jerusalem (2023).
Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue (photo: FirstOneThrough)
The Palestinian leadership expressed outrage and asked the UN to intervene. U.S. members of Congress Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) said that “more guns lead to more deaths,” with Bowman adding that he would urge the United States to restrict military aid to Israel if armed guards located at synagogues resulted in any Arab deaths over the Jewish holy days.
Josh Earnest, spokesperson for former President Obama noted that Jews in Jerusalem “provoke tensions“, while The New York Times referred to those Jews as “right-wing settlers.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas decried the entire situation of Israel trying to “Judaize” Jerusalem with “Talmudic rituals.”
Meanwhile, though Israel limited access for Jews to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during Islamic holidays even when it overlapped with Jewish holidays, the Jewish State has not announced any restrictions on Arab movement in Jerusalem during the Jewish holiday season which have no Islamic holidays. Amnesty International declared Israel to be an ‘apartheid‘ regime privileging Jews anyway.
The UN’s Gutteres issued a statement in time for the holidays telling Israel to “exercise restraint and use only proportional force and the duty to minimize damage and injury and respect and preserve human life,” when confronting potential jihadi terrorists at synagogues. That includes only fighting Arab assailants with knives and meat cleavers if those are the weapons the terrorists choose.
The Israeli government opted to quote former Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin over the global concern and threats over Israel defending Jews praying in synagogues during the holidays: “A Jew must learn to defend himself. He must forever be prepared for whenever threat looms…. The world may not necessarily like the fighting Jew, but the world will have to take account of him.”
Gaslighting is the action of repeatedly lying to someone to make them question their sanity and truth in order to control them. It is typically used in a relationship between two people where the liar continues to fabricate reality to make the other party docile to blindly follow the wishes of the deceiver.
The Palestinians and anti-Zionists use the disinformation technique in the media and schools to fictionalize Jewish history, in order to dismantle the Jewish State.
Holocaust Denial
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority wrote his doctoral thesis on Holocaust denial. It remains a foundation of his worldview.
On September 6, 2023, Abbas claimed that Adolf Hitler wasn’t really an anti-Semite but hated Jews because of their “social role” and actions in society. The goal of the statement was clear: Jews brought their own destruction upon themselves through bad behavior. Palestinians are similarly not the antisemites portrayed in polls (93% according to the ADL), but hate Jews because of their actions in Israel/Palestinian territories.
Holocaust denial is part of the fabric of Palestinian society at this point. In August 2022, Abbas said that the Israelis had perpetuated “50 Holocausts” upon the Palestinians. Hamas, which controls 58% of the Palestinian parliament, wrote in its 1988 foundational charter that Jews are behind all of wars in the world and behave like Nazis themselves.
The world is picking up the vile Holocaust denial and inserting it into the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Roger Cohen wrote an editorial in The New York Times that equated the Holocaust and the Nakba. Nikolas Kristof wrote that today’s Anne Frank is a Syrian Girl trying to flee a civil war. Somehow the methodical targeting of defenseless Jews by their own government for torture and annihilation has become a metaphor for a migraine.
The steady toxic drip is intended to make Jews forget and distort the horrors of the Holocaust to advance pro-Palestinian goals. Perhaps some Israeli Jews will move to their grandparents’ countries in Europe. Maybe Israel will lay down its defensive weapons and let Iran build a nuclear weapon and not react to Palestinian terrorism with such force. Surely if the Europeans and United States who fought and defeated the evil Nazis echo Holocaust denial, Jews may join the chorus and revise their understanding of the slaughter of the last generation.
Israel is NOT the Homeland of Jews
Abbas’s September 6 speech led off with a history lesson that European Jews are not really Jews but converts from Khazar.
All of them.
Every European Jew that was forced to convert to Christianity or Islam, or was killed in pogroms, the Inquisition or the Holocaust over the past 1,100 years weren’t even real Jews.
Abbas is trying to miseducate the world that he cannot be an antisemite for hating Israeli Jews because their not even Semites. Further, they cannot claim any roots in the holy land laid out in the Bible because they are only newer converts in the case of Ashkenazi Jews, and Mizrachi Jews are actually from the Arabian peninsula (3:10 in speech).
The Palestinian leader called the United Kingdom and the United States “enemies” of the Palestinian people (4:30 in speech) for advancing the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate which recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” when those Ashkenazi Jews had no historical connection to the land.
Abbas also absolved the Arab world for expunging its Jews after World War II. He accused Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion of making life unbearable for the Jews in the Muslim world so they would be forced to flee to Israel (5:50 in the speech).
Abbas gaslighted Jews that the Muslim world is not antisemitic and did not chase one million Jews out of their homes. Jews did it to themselves, much as Abbas’ doctoral thesis claimed that Zionists convinced Hitler to make life impossible for Jews in Europe to force them to immigrate to a land that was not even their homeland.
Repeated often enough, gaslighting works. People adopt the new narrative and blindly follow the parties with the power to mark history. Jews did it to themselves, as seen in millions of Jews who believe that the Kotel, the Western wall in Jerusalem, is Judaism’s holiest space and not the Temple Mount itself.
There is a new group called The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism which is trying to decouple the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies program in universities, and place it in “settler colonial studies” and put it in the context of “repressive work and solidarities” since “Zionism’s project extends beyond the borders of Palestine.” These efforts are now being pushed in the University of California school systems and at New York University. While there is pushback, over time, the antisemitic radicals will likely prevail.
The insidious inanity that Zionism is racism AND colonialism will eventually be taught to your children.
The binding of Palestinian antisemitism with Critical Race Theory is part of the global intifada to divorce Jews from the holy land and paint them as evil interlopers. The disinformation campaign is being waged to isolate Jews and make them doubt their own history and moral standing, to ultimately cave to the jihadist demands of the Palestinian wolves next door.
New York City is home to the largest Jewish diaspora. It is also home to some of the worst antisemitism in the world.
According to the ADL, 2022 was the worst reported year of antisemitic attacks since it started tracking incidents in 1979, and New York State and New York City had record breaking numbers of incidents. The NYPD data showed that Jews were the most targeted ethnic group by a wide margin.
The city now has members on the city council (left-wing DSA member Shahana Hanif) who refuse to condemn Jew hatred in the city saying Jews don’t care for anyone but themselves. Two DSA-supported members of congress from the NYC area, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman are both openly hostile to the Jewish State, a phenomenon never seen in the metropolitan area’s history.
So it was curious to see how the news reacted to New York City mayor Eric Adams visiting Israel in August 2023.
The Jewish sites zeroed in on the current wave of Jew hatred. The Times of Israel led with the mayor coming to Jerusalem to combat antisemitism. The Algemeiner led with the same, and added a bit about learning about Israeli technology. The Forward also focused on the same issues. The Jerusalem Post captured Adam’s first day of touring discussing his meeting with various faith groups to fight against antisemitism.
The New York Times went in the opposite direction. It made the trip predominantly about Adams seeking reelection and wanting to win over Orthodox Jewish voters in New York. The NYT article didn’t delve into the trip’s focus on antisemitism until the third to last paragraph. Much of the article was about political crises and New Yorkers being unhappy about the direction of the Jewish State “who fear Israel is abandoning its democratic traditions.” When it wrote about the mayor’s visit to an interfaith group it was to “address global problems, such as migrant crises and wars,” not Jew hatred.
While The New York Post also led with a focus on politics, it had a very different narrative than the NYT. It spent time discussing antisemitism towards the top of the article: “Adams spent Monday speaking with Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze representatives in Israel, saying now is the time to act on one’s faith, according to the Times of Israel. “What we learn in our churches, synagogues and mosques cannot remain in the sterilized environment of our places of faith,” the mayor said. Hizzoner’s visit also comes as antisemitic violence continues throughout the five boroughs, although hate crimes citywide declined by approximately 8% compared to last year, based on a recent NYPD report.” It tied the meeting with interfaith group to fighting antisemitism, not migrant crises as the Times opted to write.
The exact same story told from three different perspectives: Jewish publications focused on rampant antisemitism in NYC; New York’s right-leaning paper implied a city broadly supporting Israel and worried about antisemitism; and the left-wing Times which conveyed that New Yorkers generally disliking the current Israeli government and not very worried about global or local antisemitism.
The media writes for its audience, and The New York Times’ readers do not like Israel and aren’t very concerned about antisemitism.
Martyrs are a core part of the Palestinian Arab psyche which goes to the heart of the ceaseless violence in the region. It may soon go global.
Martyrs as Palestinian “compass”
The Palestinian “martyrs” are held as the morale direction and highest aspiration of Palestinian “resistance” movement for “liberation” of all of the land of Israel.
The Palestinian Youth Movement says that “Our martyrs and prisoners remain our compass,” as it urged the Democratic Socialists of America to join them on their crusade for the destruction of the Jewish State.
Palestinian Media Watch translated the text of a Fatah run summer camp for children saying “They [the Martyrs] are moons, they are stars, they are the elite, and they are the ones who sacrificed their lives. They were and will remain in our memories and in the memory of their children and their grandchildren.”
Martyrs are Palestinian “heroes”
Dalal Mughrabi was a woman who killed 37 people including 12 children. The Palestinian Authority (PA) named public squares and elementary schools after her. She is a featured celebrity in Palestinian society. School children call her the “bride of Jaffa” to this day. Fatah, the political party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, posted on its Facebook page about Dalal’s terrorist operation and referred to her as a “martyr” four times.
In 2020, the Student Union Council at Palestine Polytechnic University gifted the school with a gate named after Salah Khalaf, the leader of the Black September terror organization who planned the Munich Olympics massacre, in which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered in 1972. According to the Israeli watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch, there are four Palestinian schools named after Salah Khalaf. The PA said he “will always be [our] compass” … “whose death as Martyrs the Fatah Movement and the revolution presented the most spectacular aspects of pride, glory, and loyalty.”
New York City, April 2022
Martyrs are compensated
The Palestinian Authority pays “martyrs,” prisoners and their families according to a schedule of how long they sit in Israeli jails. The more severe the crime, the longer the sentence and larger payments to the martyr’s family. The PA pays these funds to “anyone incarcerated in the occupation’s prisons for his participation in the struggle against the occupation,” which could include Palestinians or Israelis, as long as they do not belong to Hamas. In this way, the PA tries to foment terrorism inside of Israel and take a more commanding role in the terror than its political rival Hamas.
Martyrs are absolved of any crime as “resisting occupation”
The Palestinian Arabs view all of the land “from the River to the Sea” as Arab land, and the State of Israel as a “painful settlement.” They believe that all Arabs in the region are under “occupation” and that they have a right to “resist” by any and all means, including violence. Such are the opinions in Al Jazeera, TRT World and Middle East Eye to name a few.
In summary, Palestinian propaganda states that all of Israel is illegal and violent reaction to that occupation – against civilians and military – is legal and legitimate. It celebrates those who have died fighting against the presence of Jews and encourages its youth to participate in the jihad to rid the land of Jews.
Going global
The BDS movement parrots this Palestinian propaganda. In response to the Democratic Socialists of America calling all Jewish Israelis fair target for attack on June 28, 2023, Rep. Ritchie Torres tweeted “Denying Israelis the status of civilians means declaring them fair game for violence and terror. If a naked justification of terror against Israel is not a sign of a demonic double standard against the Jewish State, I am not sure what would be.”
On July 30, 2023, Abbas spoke in Egypt about taking his war globally. As translated by PMW: “We also will submit lawsuits against the US and Britain for their responsibility for the Balfour Promise and its implementation through the British Mandate for Palestine… One of our most important weapons today is disseminating our Palestinian narrative, which confirms the Palestinian people’s existence on its historical homeland and its consecutive presence on this land for thousands of years. The authentic Palestinian narrative is currently gaining acceptance and sympathy worldwide.Our success in imposing our national narrative on human consciousness is in itself debunking the false Zionist and Israeli claims and narratives, which have strived and still strive to harm the image of our people and its legitimate struggle to restore its national rights.”
The Palestinian Authority is pushing its antisemitic deadly narrative beyond the Middle East that all Zionists are fair game for violent attack. The calls to “Globalize the Intifada,” the BDS’s “Mapping Project” which identifies Jewish institutions, and CAIR’s labeling of Jews as “enemies” are dead canaries in the coal mine. The PA is looking for money – perhaps from the $6 billion that the United States just handed the Islamic Republic of Iran – to expand its Martyrs Fund for anyone who attacks Zionists around the world. Civilized people everywhere must shut down the fictional narrative and the organizations which promote the terror.
By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest and most powerful organization of the alt-left today. It has over 92,000 members and a chapter in every state, and has been effective in winning elections in liberal regions to enact extremist policies.
Beyond its call for legalizing a populist kleptocracy in a broad redistribution of wealth to “working people”, the group has opted to single out and vilify Israel and its supporters. It is progressively taking steps to call for the outright targeting of Jews for all measures of attack, including violence.
Banning the Jewish State
The official platform of the DSA is anti-Israel. The site notes that the “platform proudly states continued support for and involvement with the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and efforts to eliminate U.S. military aid to Israel, while resisting the “normalization” of relationships between the Israeli government and other governments.” That any organization can be against coexistence between Israel and its Arab neighbors is despicable and says much about its attitudes more broadly. That it only boycotts Israel and not Iran, North Korea or Saudi Arabia points to a decidedly antisemitic core.
The DSA chapter in New York City asked candidates to pledge to not even visit Israel and see firsthand what is happening, and blindly follow Palestinian propaganda. The questionnaire asked “Do you pledge not to travel to Israel if elected to City Council in solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation? Even though foreign policy falls outside the purview of municipal government, gestures like travel to a country by elected officials from a city the size and prominence of New York still send a powerful message, as would the refusal to participate in them,” acknowledging that the politician’s job as a local elected official had nothing to do with Israel but the group still wanted to broadcast its loathsome opinions. Even left-wing politicians like State Senator Brad Hoylman said the question about Israel was “repugnant.“
Withholding Protection of Jews and Open Season on Jews
In June 2023, DSA tweeted that “in a settler colonial context there are no such things as “civilians”, but disregarding that even, it’s total folly to honestly compare settlers perpetuating pogroms to resistance groups deploying violence to liberate themselves.” Note that the Palestinian narrative considers all of Israel to be a settlement, and thereby calls the presence of any Jew to be a member of the military and fair target for violence. Rep. Ritchie Torres was apoplectic and rebuked the DSA for “declaring them [Jews] fair game for violence and terror.“
Three of the extremist members of the radical anti-Zionist left, Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman
In August 2023, the DSA held its convention in Chicago when it considered how far to lean into condemning Jews and the Jewish State and calling for violence on both. It opted to stay more mainstream and remain part of the Democratic Party and criticize Israel, rather than break off into a completely new political party and go full jihadi.
A writer on the World Socialist Web Site wrote that the action was deeply disappointing to many in attendance, in failing to even bring the resolution to the floor. “In rejecting the proposed amendment, the DSA has resolved to support Democratic Party politicians no matter how right-wing they are and has explicitly stated its hostility to socialism. The rejected amendment would have required the DSA hold its members “accountable” if they “vote for measures which expand or strengthen the police,” “vote for any restrictions on the independent action of the working class, such as the right to strike,” or “vote for military budgets, the imperial war machine, or military aid to US client states such as the apartheid state of Israel.””
It is likely that had the group voted on the resolution it would have passed. While an independent DSA party would likely have weakened its position politically around the country, it would have freed it to openly air its antisemitic preferences.
The leaders of the DSA tactically decided to stay within the Democratic Party and advance its anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist narrative inside party ranks. While slower to advance extremist ideas, it positions the group to gain power politically much faster.
The dike that has held back the cesspool of antisemitism is being gnawed at by radical extremists infiltrating politics, and their potential success would drown the largest Jewish community in the diaspora.
No weapon formed against you shall succeed, And every tongue that contends with you at law you shall defeat. Such is the lot of the servants of GOD’s servants, Such their triumph through Me —declares GOD.
– Isaiah 54:17
The Jewish people are under attack, an unfortunately common dynamic in their history. Isaiah (8th century BCE) wrote about it as did many other Jewish prophets, and their common call was for Jews to focus on self-reflection, improve upon their actions and turn towards Gd. The physical battle will ultimately be secured by Gd if Jews adhere to the commandments.
But the war of words is one in which Jews need to take on themselves. In Chapter 54 of Isaiah, the prophet made it clear, saying that if enemies use language to attack Jews, Jews should fight against them.
In the United States today, there are many raging antisemites who have been given platforms to air their putrid rantings.
Rep. Rashia Tlaib (D-MI) is an American Arab who addressed the vehemently anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America in August 2021 and told them that Jews exploit working class people from Gaza to Detroit, concealed behind the curtain, in order to make money.
Columbia University professor Joseph Massad tells his students that Jews have no history in the land of Israel, and that they have faked their heritage in usurping “Palestinian Hebrews” who are the real people of the Bible to whom Gd gave the land.
Princeton University has a book on its reading list that claims Israel maims Arabs in order to harvest their organs, in a twist to outrageous Jewish blood libels.
The list of antisemitic slander goes well beyond members of Congress and college campuses.
The United Nations has declared that any Jew living east of the 1949 Armistice Lines – lines specifically negotiated between Israel and Jordan to not be construed as a border – do so illegally, even in the Old City of Jerusalem, which even the U.N. had conceived of as an international city for everyone to live in under the 1947 Partition Plan.
That same global body and much of the world have said that Jews cannot pray at their holiest location on the Jewish Temple Mount, with some validating their reasoning by falsely stating that Jews never had a temple at the location.
United Nations map which falsely shows the Temple Mount as only a holy place for Muslims
Politicians around the world claim that the Jewish State is practicing ethnic cleansing in the holy land, even though the number of non-Jews in the region has grown faster than Jews since Israel’s creation. The anti-Zionists shout that Israel is an apartheid state, even though it is the most liberal democratic country for 1,000 miles in any direction.
Jews are discriminated against on college campuses, denied internships and scholarships because they are Sabbath observant or viewed as too White to be a minority. They have to hide their kippahs and signs of being Jewish lest they get berated by professors and fellow students with false charges of being homophobic, insular and enjoy seeing Arab babies killed for fun.
Some Jews have opted to say nothing in response to the hail of lies. Cowering behind the recognition that most people listen to idiots and cannot be swayed, they hope for the moment of hatred to pass and do not confront the slander in fear of fanning the flames.
As discussed in “Organized and Disorganized Antisemitism“, hiding is not the appropriate response. Organizations and platforms like the United Nations, Democratic Socialists of America and Nation of Islam should be fought, boycotted and sued as aggressively as possible to remove their power and influence. Conversely, individuals should be swarmed and educated to get to know and appreciate Jews around the world.
The Jewish prophets warn us to not let antisemitic slander pass without confrontation. Today, that includes calling our members of congress and chancellors of universities to stop advancing Jew hatred, suing colleges which discriminate, and registering as Democrats and voting in the Democratic primary to kick antisemitic DSA members out of Congress.
By tracking current manifestations of heinous antisemitism around the world, one can find trendlines and commonalities. Consider some of today’s worst offenses.
Robert Bowers killed eleven Jewish worshipers in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack on U.S. soil. He had come to believe a conspiracy theory that Jews are bringing in foreigners to replace White people in the country.
According to the ADL (anti-defamation league), 2022 had the most antisemitic incidents over the past decades, totaling 3,697, a 32% rise from the prior year. According to Statistica, that represents a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of over 19% since 2013 when there were 751 incidents.
In Europe, 2009 was the worst year for antisemitic incidents with 1,118, which dropped to 371 in 2020.
In regards to violent antisemitic attacks, the United Kingdom had a far greater total than any other country, with 173 in 2021. That compares to 28 in the United States according to Statistica. When normalizing for the Jewish population in each country, Austria was actually the worst country with 7.8 violent attacks per 100,000 Jews. While Austria killed or purged almost all of its Jews in World War II, many Eastern European Jews have settled in and around Vienna over the recent decades.
The single most deadly attack against Jews was the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina which killed 85 people and wounded over 300 in July 1994. The Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah together with Iranian support conducted the attack.
The ADL did a global survey of antisemitism in 2014 which it has periodically updated for certain regions. Muslim countries were by far the most anti-Jewish, with almost every Arab in the West Bank and Gaza harboring antisemitic attitudes. Consider that Muslim antisemitic countries have NO JEWS living in their borders and haven’t had any for decades.
Antisemitism is not just about statistics. There are many laws, policies and people which are clearly antisemitic.
The most blatant antisemitic policy is barring Jews from praying at their holiest site on the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The United Nations and almost every country supports the disgraceful policy, calling it the “status quo”, as if that defends the blatantly anti-Jewish action.
The most antisemitic international law was passed in December 2016, UN Security Council Resolution 2334 which declared it illegal for Jews to live east of the 1949 Armistice Lines, including in the eastern part of Jerusalem and the Old City. While the resolution mentions ‘Israel’, the term ‘settlers’ and ‘settlements’ has been used exclusively for Jews (whether or not Israeli) and excludes Israeli Arabs. Banning Jews from living somewhere – let alone in their holiest city and in the center of the Jewish holy land – is disgustingly antisemitic.
College campuses routinely engage in antisemitism, calling Israel a ‘colonial entity,’ which negates the thousands of years of Jewish history in the land. Negating a people’s heritage so routinely is outrageously antisemitic.
One college professor did more than deny Jewish history. Joseph Massad of Columbia University audaciously declared that the Jews in the Bible are actually ‘Palestinian Hebrews!’ Cultural and historical appropriation at its most egregious. Massad is Jordanian and claims Palestinian as his nationality.
If it sounds too crazy that a New York City Ivy League school should have an insane antisemitic teacher espousing such views, consider that the AMCHA Initiative found that Harvard University had the most antisemitic incidents of all US campuses in the 2021-2022 academic year, a total of 25, nearly double the number of the second place school.
The most antisemitic member of congress today is also a Palestinian-American like Columbia’s Massad, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). She told an audience of alt-left socialists in 2021 that Jews hide in the shadows controlling people for profit, from ‘Gaza to Detroit.’
By far the most antisemitic governmental charter is the Hamas Charter of 1988, belonging to the popular terrorist group which has 58% of the seats in the Palestinian Authority’s parliament. In addition to saying that Jews extort people (article 20), that they were behind the global wars (articles 22 and 32) and destroy societies and values (article 28), it states “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious” (preamble) and calls for Moslems to kill Jews and destroy the Jewish State (opening, articles 7, 31, 32, 33 and 34).
The Simon Wiesenthal Center ranked the top ten worst antisemitic incidents of 2022 and gave top scores to the major influencers who fan the flames of hatred. It highlighted Kanye West’s bilestorm against Jews in which he said that Jews control Black people, aren’t even real Jews, and that he wants to kill them. After spewing so much hate, former President Donald Trump hosted him at his house together with Nick Fuentes, another raging antisemite.
To counterbalance this negativity, a March 2023 Pew Research poll found that most US adults had a favorable opinion of Jews, whether or not they knew someone personally.
There are a few take-aways from this collection of anti-Semitic incidents and people.
You don’t need to live near Jews or know any to be filled with antisemitism. Ayaan Hirsi Ali pointed this out in a Wall Street Journal editorial in July 2019, that she grew up in Somalia and was essentially breast-fed Jew-hatred even though she never met a Jew. Almost all of the leading antisemitic countries have no Jews but an ingrained culture of Jew hatred.
Violence against Jews necessitates their presence, so while Muslim Jew-free countries are the most antisemitic, the highest frequency of violent attacks happens where Jews have a long history of persecution and have recently started to move to again (Austria #1, Germany #3).
Universities – not just including, but especially prestigious schools – are normalizing antisemitism and ushering in violence against Jews. It is being accomplished through a combination of billions of dollars of Middle East money funneled into the schools and a twisted view of Jews and the Jewish State being elite racists who must be fought aggressively in the name of intersectionality.
Influencers are increasingly vocal about their antisemitism and comfortable with their antisemitic friends. Politicians like Donald Trump, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as supermodel Bella Hadid and basketball star Kyrie Irving talk directly to millions of social media “followers” about Jewish conspiracies. Their followers listen to the nonsense, which ignites more Jew hatred and violence.
Palestinians’ perception of themselves as victims of Jews weaponized their antisemitism. Time has embedded the notion and has continued to transform their Jew-hatred in various toxic ways. People and governments sympathetic to their situation have given their noxious antisemitism absolution, spreading the vile propaganda far-and-wide.
The common theme is that Jew hatred is taught – in communities and schools and from influencers – and the number of dangerous teachers and the size of the global student body are rapidly growing. Whether via the passive vile drip or in the active embrace of the jaundiced narratives for those with whom people feel charged emotional connection, antisemitism is becoming pervasive once again. And as the cancerous worldview spreads, antisemitic policies and laws get mainstreamed and enacted.
In this world so distrustful of information, lesson plans are built on emotions, and nothing rings the register and feels so familiar as the touchstone of Jew bashing.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) is a slick promoter who markets himself as an educator working for the working class who will not play games with Republican politicians.
In truth, he lives the game of politics, and it is well beyond a focus on Republicans as he plays games with antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
Reacting to his own insulting boycott of a bipartisan and bicameral invitation to Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressing a joint session of Congress, and fellow left-wing extremist Rep. Pramila Jaypal (D-WA07) calling Israel is a racist state, Bowman tweeted that he voted against a resolution condemning antisemitism because of Republican “idiotic games.”
Note that Jaypal herself posted a lengthy release about her poorly chosen words that Israel is a racist state. Her 414-word statement affirmed her belief that “words do matter and so it is important that I clarify my statement.“
Almost every Democrat joined all Republicans in backing the resolution, except for the radical left-wing fringe that is adamant about playing with the toxic hatred in the Middle East.
Almost every Democrat joined all Republicans to attend the speech by a liberal pro-peace leader in the Middle East.
The contingent that instead chose to play politics was Bowman and the Squad.
This is not new to Bowman.
Anti-Israel and Anti-Semitic
Bowman has a long history of voting against Jews and the Jewish State:
Would not sign letter to Department of Education to fight antisemitism at colleges (February 4, 2022)
Original sponsor of resolution calling the founding of Israel a “catastrophe” (May 17, 2022)
Does not recognize discrimination against Jews (March 9, 2023)
Authored letter to President Biden to condition aid to Israel (April 23, 2023)
Voted against the Abraham Accords (April 25, 2023)
Voted against condemning antisemitism, and that Israel isn’t a racist state (July 18, 2023)
Boycotted speech by the Israeli president to a joint session of Congress (July 19, 2023)
Bowman takes these positions because radicals fund him. They are his real constituents.
On September 20, 2021, Bowman thanked the radical anti-Israel group, IfNotNow for their “partnership.” His top donors in the 2021-2 election cycle were another anti-Israel group, J Street, and the powerful leaders controlling schools, the American Federation of Teachers and the City University of New York, which has become a hotbed of rampant antisemitism and anti-Zionism. He is also a top recipient of money from Justice Democrats, a radical group backing alt-left politicians.
Bowman believes that liberal Jews will look past his nods to antisemitism and insults to Israel if they value the embrace of intersectionality more than from fellow Jews and Zionists. He is leaning into the cleft opening among American Jews, betting he can divide the most persecuted minority in America.
It is an ugly game that not only fans the flames of Jew hatred globally but pits Jews against themselves.
And there’s a big pot of money at the end of the anti-Jewish rainbow, a trough from which Bowman plans to feed.
First One Through 