Category Archives: Opinion

Happy Non-Bashert Day

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People have been celebrating important milestones in their lives like birthdays and anniversaries for centuries. Over the past decades, western society has taken to marking a day to celebrate people who have been important in our lives from mothers and fathers to secretaries and administrative professionals.

It is time to add another: Non-Bashert Day for past relationships.

While Valentine’s Day is to celebrate current relationships, Non-Bashert Day is to recognize prior relationships that helped crystalize the priorities for the current (or future) coupling.

The perfect “soul mate” in Judaism is referred to as a “bashert.” It is based on the idea that a “bashert” person was preordained by the heavens to be the ideal match. However, most people do not start with their “bashert,” and need to go through many dates and relationships to help develop the model for a perfect spouse. Dating is not weeding out the “non-basherts” until the soul mate is found, but critical to develop a framework of how to think about love, relationships and themselves.

Whether past relationships were good or bad, short-term or long-term, dating informs each person about what is needed to build a meaningful life with someone. Those people should be acknowledged.

Wishing a past boyfriend of girlfriend a happy Non-Bashert Day is not a sign that someone wants to reenter an old relationship, but an acknowledgement of the significant part in one’s life that the past friendship imbued.

Enjoy Valentine’s Day with your special someone, and consider sending a short pleasant note the next day on Non-Bashert Day to the other people who, while not appropriate for you, were nevertheless important in the direction of your life.

Roots Of The Denial And Falsification Of Jewish History

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Holocaust denial is so commonplace, that we don’t contemplate its uniqueness. There is no other broad-based denial of a particular event in history other than the genocide of European Jewry, even while Survivors are still alive.

Why is that?

Certainly there is bigotry and racism. But many people harbor biases against a group and still do not deny their history.

A person may dislike Black people but won’t deny that there was Black slavery. A person might be a misogynist, but will readily admit that women once did not have the right to vote.

Yet the deliberate effort to deny Jewish history happens so frequently, that even the United Nations General Assembly – no friend to the Jewish people – passed a resolution to combat this evil.

Why do people deny and falsify Jewish history?

A Religious Perspective:
Change in Gospel and Fake History

Christianity views itself as an extension of Judaism. The Christian Messiah was a himself a Jew in Jerusalem, who took the religion in a new direction. The Christian bible is called the ‘New Testament,’ built upon the ‘Old Testament’ of the Jews.

For centuries, Christianity viewed Jews as those who rejected their Messiah. Until the Second Vatican Council in 1965, Catholic doctrine felt that Jews should be punished for killing Jesus and continuing to reject him.

Muslims’ approach to Judaism is quite different. Islamic tradition views the Hebrew Bible as a complete fabrication. They believe that Abraham’s covenant ran through his son Ishmael, the patriarch of the Arabs, not Isaac.

It is therefore not surprising that Muslims are twice as likely to harbor anti-Semitic attitudes as Christians according to an ADL poll. That the Islamic Republic of Iran mocks the Holocaust as a fabrication can perhaps be seen through the lens that it views itself as the vanguard of Islam, which rejects the entire story of the Jewish people from its foundation.

Christians falls into two camps: those who accept the Second Vatican Council and are not likely to deny the Holocaust, and the “ultra-traditionalists” – like some of the people from the Society of St. Pius X – who actively deny the Holocaust. This second group are angered that the Church altered its own foundational texts and the history of Jews and Jesus, so they actively deny the genocide of the Jews.

For Muslims and ultra-traditionalist Christians, Jewish history is either built on a fiction, or has become fictionalized, so think nothing of denying Jews of their history.

A Secular Perspective:
Schemers and Scapegoats

The falsification of Jewish history occurs outside of religious denominations as well.

“The Protocols of The Elders of Zion,” was a notorious anti-Semitic forgery written in the Russian Empire in 1903. It attempted to portray Jews as schemers who were plotting to create havoc to control the world through the banks, media and provoking wars. It spread throughout the world by radical anti-Semites including Henry Ford and the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas.

While some people might hate Hindus, no one took time to create a false document about Hindu community leaders to make them look evil.

So why the Jews?

Jews were often viewed with suspicion because of their position.

The Jewish diaspora spread a small people to the corners of the earth. While some assimilated and converted (forcibly and otherwise), many held on to their traditions. They did so in clustered communities – both voluntary and forced – to facilitate the production of kosher foods and participate in communal prayer.

That insularity bred suspicion. A small group that insisted on holding onto an unpopular belief system either lived on one extreme of abject poverty or became leaders in various professional fields. They were resented for both because they were considered as foreigners.

Anti-Semites were ready to embrace the Protocols forgery. They jumped at the opportunity to believe blood libels that Jews stole babies for baking matzah or were behind the Black Death. Jews were considered aliens in their midst, and easy scapegoats for the root of problems. Falsifying history helped foster that foreigner narrative, and an evil one at that.

The foreigner label attached to Jews everywhere, including in Ethiopia where Black Jews were called “falashas,” which means “foreigners” in Amharic.

In small, cloistered communities stretched around the world, Jews were vulnerable. Their non-Jewish neighbors were able to cast their opinions onto this minority, and craft stories to enlist others to embrace their hatred. Jews were left protesting the absurd charges to an audience that was both instigator, prosecutor and judge at once.

The secular falsification of Jewish history is anchored in xenophobia, and a desire to expel the foreign bodies, whether they be the “unclean,” poor Jew, or the “powerful,” puppet-masters “behind the curtain,” exploiting the noble masses for profit.

1,000 years of Jewish expulsions

The unique nature of denying and falsifying Jewish history is embedded in Muslim and ultra-traditionalist Christian religious bias as well as anti-Semitic xenophobia. Holocaust education will not cure those ills.

Is Intersectionality Anti-Semitic?

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Intersectionality considers that various forms of discrimination are both unique in themselves and can manifest in ways that are more particular due to overlapping prejudices. For example, a Black woman might experience a particular form of racism in being Black, a different form of prejudice in being a woman, and yet a distinct form of bias in being both. It is a broad movement designed to make people consider various forms of biases as well as to create bonds of support between various groups suffering discrimination.

It is therefore perplexing on its face, that antisemitism, the oldest and most pernicious form of hatred, is treated with such scorn among the proponents of intersectionality.

Consider the anti-Zionist fervor of the intersectionality preachers. The Democratic Socialists of America call Israel an “apartheid” state and its New York chapter demands that politicians refuse to visit the Jewish State.

Black Lives Matter condemns Israel’s “apartheid practices and settler colonial project” and both ignores Jewish history and human rights as it inverts attacker and victim in propaganda seemingly lifted from the terrorist group Hamas.

Even the founders of the Women’s March had strong ties to the infamous anti-Semite, Louis Farrakhan.

This alt-left noxious anti-Jewish and anti-Jewish State orientation has even permeated the mindset of progressive Jews.

At the University of Colorado Boulder, a South Asian Jew named Samira K. Mehta is launching a new program called “Jews of Color: Histories and Futures.” It seemingly binds together the most oppressed groups of all- Jews who are Black, Brown or Hispanic. According to the Brandeis Center, roughly 11% of American Jews are non-White, and a much higher 18% among Gen Z. It is therefore a very worthwhile effort.

Samira Mehta, CU Boulder Assistant Professor of Women & Gender Studies and Jewish Studies

However, in launching the initiative, Mehta said about White Jews “When you’ve been hurt by white supremacy, how do you grapple with the fact that you’ve also benefited from it? I want to get at that by talking about how Jews of Color experience predominantly white Jewish spaces.” Re-read the statement from a Jew of Color about White Jews – they benefit from ‘White Supremacy.’

In what twisted world can anyone postulate that Jews benefit from White Supremacy? They are the victims of White Supremacy twice over – by being viciously attacked by those hate-mongers and by being lumped together with them by idiots because they are White.

Do 1.8 billion Muslims benefit from the actions of Islamic extremists? No! They become lumped into a horrible stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists. No progressive would ever suggest such a theory, let alone in an interview about the launch of a new course on ‘Islamophobia.’

When you’ve [White Jews] been hurt by white supremacy, how do you grapple with the fact that you’ve also benefited from it?

Samira Mehta

Would a Black lesbian turn towards people in the intersectional community – say a Black heterosexual woman – and taunt her that she’s straight and benefits from people that attack the LGBT community? Who could even drum up such a scenario? Seemingly, a Jew of Color.

Anti-Semitism has become so systemic in parts of the progressive community, that even Jews are now repulsed by White Jews.

Related articles:

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

The Left Wing’s Accelerating Assault on the Holocaust

The Joy of Lecturing Jews

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

Abortion, “Settlements” and Judeo-Christian Communities of Faith

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There are very few subject matters that excite people to such a degree that they become passionate even when there is no personal stake in the matter. The curious thing about two of them – abortion and the “settlements” – is that the left and right are similarly inconsistent about the rights of the self and those of the impacted.

Abortion

The left-wing considers abortion a personal matter for the mother. They consider the impacted party – the fetus – to have no rights, even up to the point of birth. Their “pro-choice” position argues that if you don’t like abortions, then don’t have one. Each person can decide on their own what works best for their circumstance. Some pro-choice people have even suggested that men should have zero say in the entire abortion discussion.

The right-wing that is “pro-life” doesn’t dismiss that women are a factor in the topic, however, they feel that the fetus also has rights. Some people in this camp feel that abortions are a form of legalized murder of innocent babies. The moves taken by some states like New York which have removed any penalties or restrictions for an abortion up until the moment of birth are viewed as sickening. The idea that men should have no say in laws regarding infanticide are considered outrageous and repugnant.

“Settlements”

The left-wing has tacked to a different course when it comes to Israeli Jews living over the 1949 Armistice Lines between Israel and TransJordan. They feel that the rights of Jews to live in the area commonly called the “West Bank” is wrong as it impacts Palestinian (formerly Jordanian) Arabs who do not want them living there in their call for a Jew-free country. Rather than follow their own advice on abortion – if you don’t like it, don’t do it – they have attempted to stop others (Jews specifically) from living in “settlements.”

The right-wing has similarly taken the inverted path on Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria. They stand fully behind the rights of Jews to live where they want, especially in the Jewish holy land. The fact that Palestinian Arabs don’t like it is irrelevant. The impacted party must learn to live with the actions of people who use their agency to control their lives.

Changed Laws

The see-saw between right and left has pulled laws in different directions over the decades.

Abortion was illegal throughout the United States until 1973. The law continues to be challenged by different states which expand upon the rights of women (like New York described above) or for the rights of the unborn, as in Texas and Mississippi.

International law not only allowed but encouraged Jews to live throughout historic Palestine. The 1920 San Remo Agreement and the 1922 Mandate of Palestine not only called for Jews to live everywhere in the land, but specifically prohibited anyone from being banned from living in any part of the land (Article 15) – even in what became TransJordan (Article 25) – because of their religion. The United Nations reversed that in 2016 with the passage of UNSC 2334 which made it illegal for Jews to live over the 1949 Armistice Lines.

Abortion rights advocates demand that abortion rights are human rights and fight the laws viewed as discriminatory and will push for access even if laws are passed which they view as inherently misogynistic. Settlement activists similarly view UNSC 2334 and various calls to ban Jews from living somewhere as deeply anti-Semitic. They are fighting against the laws and attempts to boycott Jews who live in the Israeli territory of Area C.

The Distant Passion

The Deciding Party with Agency

There are nearly 4 billion women on the planet, so it stands to reason that there are many people who feel a vested interest in abortion rights. A woman in Ireland may look at the status of abortion in Texas and know that the decisions there have no immediate direct impact on her. However, she may feel both a connection with the women of Texas, and believe that the trend line in one part of the world may ultimately impact the situation for her thousands of miles away.

So it is with Jewish settlements. While there are a paltry few million Jews, there are hundreds of millions of Christian Zionists and others excited to see the rebirth of the Jewish State and want to ensure its success as they believe it confirms their faith. They stand amazed at the thriving democracy and technology marvel that Jews have built in the middle of the illiberal Middle East and are confident that God is blessing the Jewish people and will also bless those who bless the Jewish people.

The reality is that everyone – not just those with a vested interest – would likely be fine with abortions and settlements if there were no impacted party. The tension exists because there are others in the mix, and that dynamic is what ignites the passions.

Israeli buildings in the Judean Desert in Area C

The Impacted Party

In the abortion debate, many religious people believe that life begins at conception. Even those less religious intuitively understand that there is something unique about a fetus, especially in the third trimester, when an abortion cannot be equated with a woman getting a tattoo or body piercings. The pro-life community believes that the rights of the unborn – at some point during pregnancy – are as great as the rights of the mother.

The right and left do not side with the party with agency or the impacted party but whom they prioritize. The right sides with Jews and the unborn while the left tilts towards women and Arabs.

The split can perhaps be best summarized by the religious Judeo-Christian community versus the secular and Muslim community. The religious Judeo-Christian community generally believes that a fetus is more than a mass of cells and has inherent human dignity. They similarly attempt to live lives infused with the values of the Bible, and believe that the land of Israel is not simply holy land as it is to other faiths, but a uniquely Jewish Promised Land. The secular world believes neither, and wants to keep the beliefs of others out of their lives and politics.

The pro-life and pro-Zionist factions have tremendous overlap, not just in conservative politics but in the religious Judeo-Christian communities. The pro-abortion and pro-Palestinian groups similarly overlap in their anti-Judeo-Christian worldview, which they have attempted to characterize as a “White Patriarchy,” as a method of demonizing those alternative views.

Ongoing debates on abortions, settlements and a variety of issues will feature a slew of creative invectives, but at the core is the battle between the devoutly secular and the Judeo-Christian communities of faith around the world.

Related articles:

Prostitution and the Hijab

The Noose and the Nipple

When Power Talks the Truth

The Blinding Witch Hunt of Minor Offenses

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There are many signs that society has lost its moorings.

‘Woke’ America makes the argument daily with inanity such as the charge that math is racist and the demand to ‘defund the police’ as if anarchy is a model society. Left-wing activists are similarly trying to change the very meaning of words with new spins that only White people can be racist by definition, and smears that Israel, the most liberal country in the Middle East, is an ‘apartheid‘ state.

Stupidity is not confined to alt-left sensitivities. Society as a whole is outraged by offenses much less grave than serious crimes which are ignored.

Consider The New York Times and its treatment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For years the left-wing paper gave a pass to one of the most repressive regimes in the world which doesn’t allow a woman to drive or leave the home without a male escort. It said nothing about the country’s policy of executing minors or its public beheadings.

In its see/hear/say no evil orientation, The Times sold expensive tourist packages to the country. At least, until the crown price was accused of killing the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Then the media conglomerate found its spine to cancel its lavish junket. Beheading juveniles was deemed a lesser offense than killing a fellow journalist.

It goes on today with American politics as well, like New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo was directly responsible for killing thousands of older New Yorkers during the early months of the COVID pandemic when he ordered coronavirus patients to be sent to nursing homes. Cuomo then directed his staff to lie about the nursing home deaths to make it appear that he was doing a great job handling the crisis. Not a surprise, as he was being paid millions of dollars to write a book about his leadership during the pandemic. The depravity of conceit!

And society cheered this man, until he did something truly unforgivable – he sexually harassed women in his office. Only at that point did society turn on him.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo allegedly placed his hands on Anna Ruch’s cheeks at a wedding party in 2019 and asked if he could kiss her. Cuomo was undone by sexual harassment charges but not for killing thousands of seniors and ordering the cover-up, as he sought millions of dollars for writing a ‘leadership’ book.

A healthy society can easily identify and call out depravity; but we are far from healthy. Even before the pandemic, we let our minds become infected with the adrenaline of righteous rage as we embarked on witch hunts of minor offenses, ignoring the glaring evil before our eyes. Now, trapped in the cycles of closures, our anger buys distrust, so we vilify counter opinions and embrace the tyrants who feed our faiths.

Vaccines and time we will eventually vanquish the coronavirus pandemic, but we must seek a cure for the mental illness which confuses the all-out assault to flatten society’s hierarchy, with blinding rage preventing people from seeing the spectrum between good and evil.

Ilhan Omar Understands Security, Just Not For Israeli Civilians

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On October 27, 2021, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) received a threat in the mail from a “deranged” person. It’s a terrible state of affairs that people try to physically harm others and/or threaten to do so. Omar rightfully called it out on Twitter.

Ilhan Omar tweets about threat she received in the mail

What is upsetting (repulsive) is that Omar said that she understands the “reality of having [to need] security” after receiving a threat in the mail, but could not understand or approve of helping replenish Israel’s defensive Iron Dome system which intercepts missiles from Palestinian Arab terrorist aimed at Israeli civilians. How can a paper threat trump thousands of missiles? It can’t. It’s just that she sees no value in the lives of Israeli civilians as evidenced by her ongoing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic votes and comments.

As Omar voted against Israel’s defensive system she tweeted “we continue to pay lip service to human rights, peace and a two state solution. Yet we also continue to provide Israel with funding without addressing the underlying issue of the occupation.” Omar seemingly wants to see thousands of dead Israelis because that will somehow make Israel want to give even more land to Palestinian Arabs as its worked out so well when Israel left Gaza (sarcasm).

Using her own litmus test, perhaps the United States should hold back on providing any security for Ilhan Omar unless and until she addresses her own vile underlying anti-Semitism.

Related First One Through articles:

David Duke, Ilhan Omar and the Three Lenses of Anti-Semitism

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

Ilhan Omar Isn’t Debating Israeli Policy, She is Attacking Americans

Muslim Women Debate Anti-Semitism

Tlaib Shields Anti-Semitic Murderers, If Not White

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Join Facebook group: Israel Analysis and FirstOneThrough

Considering Israel’s Model for Arabs Applied to Jews in a Palestinian State

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Pro-Palestinians argue vehemently for an independent Arab state and complain about the treatment of Arabs in Israel. One rarely hears what an Arab State of Palestine would be like so perhaps it’s worth a review.

Israel’s Model in a Palestinian State

Minority population. Non-Jews make up roughly 25% of Israel. Were a Palestinian State to have 25% minorities, they would account for well over 1 million people. But the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded a country completely devoid of Jews. Pro-Palestinians want to see every Jew evicted from the West Bank, leaving it Jew-free, just as Israel did in the Sinai for Egypt (1982) and in Gaza for the PA (2005).

Land ownership. Israelis of all religions buy and sell homes around the country. In a unique and evil law, the Palestinian Authority calls for the death sentence or life of hard labor for any Palestinian Arab selling land to a Jew.

Freedom to Worship. Mosques with minarets dot Israeli cities. Jews, Muslims and Christians can pray throughout the country. However, the Palestinians demand that Jews be denied the right to pray at Judaism’s holiest location, the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They clearly don’t expect synagogues in a Palestinian State that doesn’t contain any Jews.

Language. The street signs and currency in Israel are in Hebrew and Arabic as well as English. Upon entering Area A or Gaza which are under Palestinian control, all signs are only in Arabic.

Parliament. Israel’s parliament includes Jews, Muslims and Arabs. An extremist Arab party actually sits in the governing coalition.

Arab women entering the Western Wall Plaza (photo: FirstOneThrough)

Palestinian Model in Israel

Terrorist group as political party. HAMAS is a designated terrorist group according to the United States, the European Union and many western countries. Still, it sits as the majority of the Palestinian parliament, having won 58% of the seats in elections. If Israel used such format, the Meir Kahane-inspired group Kach would sit in parliament today, but the Israeli government banned them.

Paying for murder. The Palestinian Authority pays the families of terrorists who kill and maim Israeli, encouraging violence. No country in the world has such a “pay-to-slay” program as a cornerstone of public policy.

Naming schools and square for terrorists. The PA names girls schools, soccer tournaments, public squares and many other fora after Arabs who murder Jews. There is no school or basketball in Israel named for Baruch Goldstein, which Palestinian Arabs probably don’t understand.

If Palestinians sought to build a country with 1 million Jews as Palestinian citizens, with the ability to be in parliament, build synagogues and worship freely around the country, acquire property openly and have meaningful jobs without fear of violence, Israel would not only recognize such country but endorse its creation.

If Palestinians would use Israel’s model for dealing with a minority population there would be a Palestinian state today. The lack of a state stems from the PA’s refusal to coexist peacefully with Jewish neighbors.

Related First One Through articles:

The Humiliation of Palestinian Terrorists Standing in Line to Receive Martyr Payments

“I’ll Take Terrorism for Millions of U.S. Dollars, Alex”

Considering a Failed Palestinian State

The Palestinian State I Oppose

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Join Facebook group: Israel Analysis and FirstOneThrough

Enduring Peace Requires Unity AND Tolerance

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The United Nations has many subcommittees. Most are designed to handle global or regional issues. Some are unique and deal with a specific issue, such as UNRWA, which is a UN agency dedicated for descendants of Palestinian refugees from wars in 1948 and 1967 who remain stateless, while every other refugee in the world has one under-staffed agency called UNHCR.

One of the organizations/people specifically tasked (theoretically) with helping to solve a regional issue is UNSCO, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. One would imagine that such individual was there to actually help and facilitate “the Middle East Peace Process” as the title conveys.

A review of the comments made in 2018 by the special coordinator, Nickolay Mladenov, reveals a different story.

The UNSCO website lists 29 statements made by Mladenov over 2018. Most of them were addresses to the UN Security Council, in which he provided an update of the situation on the ground. Sometimes there were recommended actions to be taken to advance the Peace Process.

Oftentimes, there was finger-pointing.

Consider the statement made on January 25, 2018. Mladenov said that there was a clear and unambiguous end result for the peace process: two states. “We must also reaffirm the international consensus that the two-State solution remains the only viable option for a just and sustainable end to the conflict. We must be unwavering in this position.” Absent such solution, the Palestinians would suffer a “worsening reality of occupation and humiliation.” Little concern was noted for Israeli security. No mention that Hamas is a terrorist organization and that its existence and governance undermines the basic principles of a Peace Process. Instead, he offered an appeal for UNRWA to subsidize Palestinians and declared that Jewish houses living in Area C in Judea and Samaria are threats to peace. The message was clear: terrorism is not a threat to the Peace Process; Jewish homes are the obstacle.

A few weeks later, on February 20, 2018, Mladenov made the following comment:

“For a decade two million people have lived under the full control of Hamas with crippling Israeli closures and movement and access restrictions. Throughout this period the international community has provided aid and humanitarian assistance to alleviate the suffering and to rebuild what was destroyed in three devastating conflicts.

“It is time to break this cycle. It is time to return Gaza back to the control of the legitimate Palestinian Authority, for there can be no Palestinian state without Palestinian unity.

“Those who stand in the way of reconciliation hurt the Palestinian national cause and the price will be paid by generations of ordinary people.”

Mladenov could not have been clearer: he wants to have the terrorist group Hamas to be part of the ruling Palestinian Authority and chastised anyone opposed. The coordinator for a peaceful settlement between the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (“SAPs“) with the Jewish State called for a vehemently noxious anti-Semitic organization to be part of a governing coalition which would somehow make peace with its Jewish neighbor. That’s akin to a judge recommending that a couple conclude a divorce on peaceful terms by having the gun-toting spousal abuser live next door to his ex.

The comments on March 26 to the UN Security Council finally had more balance and called out Palestinian incitement to terror, including:

“Fatah’s official social media pages continued to feature posts glorifying perpetrators of past violence against Israeli civilians, including terror attacks that killed civilians and children. In addition, Palestinian officials continued to make statements denying the historical and religious connection of Jews to Jerusalem and its holy sites. One senior religious leader falsely claimed Jews had lived in historical Jerusalem for only 70 or 80 years. Others continue to describe Israel as “a colonial project.”

“I urge the Palestinian leadership to continue to speak against violence in general, and to condemn specific attacks against civilians.”

Regrettably, Mladenov once again failed to call out Hamas explicitly. Instead, he called for reconciliation between the two parties and demanded that Hamas civil servants start getting their salaries paid by the PA.

The following month, on April 26, Mladenov spoke to the Security Council again. His primary focus continued to be on Gaza, while speaking gently about Hamas:

“People should not be destined to spend their lives surrounded by borders they are forbidden to cross, or waters they are forbidden to navigate. They should not be destined to live under the control of Hamas, which invests in military activities at the expense of the population.”

Somehow, Mladenov ignored every Palestinian poll in which the Palestinians PREFER Hamas over the more moderate Fatah party. Almost no Palestinian places the blame for the dire situation in Gaza on Hamas itself.

A few days later on April 30, Mladenov was back to celebrating the efforts at Palestinian unity:

“Unity is essential to furthering the Palestinian national aspirations for statehood and sovereignty. That is why the Government of National Consensus should be enabled to take up its responsibilities in Gaza and bring immediate relief and change to the population. No one should stand in their way.”

It would seem that Mladenov finally understood the meaning of Palestinian unity a few days later: Hamas and Fatah would agree on anti-Semitism as Abbas leaned in to his hatred. Mladenov chastised Abbas on May 2nd after the PA president launched a long anti-Semitic tirade:

“Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas chose to use his speech at the opening of the Palestinian National Council to repeat some of the most contemptuous anti-Semitic slurs, including the suggestion that the social behavior of Jews was the cause for the Holocaust.

Such statements are unacceptable, deeply disturbing and do not serve the interests of the Palestinian people or peace in the Middle East.

Denying the historic and religious connection of the Jewish people to the land and their holy sites in Jerusalem stands in contrast to reality.

The Holocaust did not occur in a vacuum, it was the result of thousands of years of persecution. This is why attempts to rewrite, downplay or deny it are dangerous.

Leaders have an obligation to confront anti-Semitism everywhere and always, not perpetuate the conspiracy theories that fuel it.”

Mladenov was right to chastise Abbas for his anti-Semitic speech but it must have caught Abbas off guard as he never heard Mladenov lambast Hamas for their anti-Semitic genocidal charter. Further, Abbas sees a world community beginning to embrace his call for a boycott of Israel, referring to Israel by his preferred terms of a “colonial settler project” that engages in “apartheid.” Abbas thinks he’s winning the “Zionism is Racism” branding campaign and considers it only a matter of time when countries stop criticizing him for paying salaries to the murderers of Israeli Jews.

It is true that Israel must have a single negotiating party who has control of all Palestinian territories that can deliver upon a peace agreement. But Arab unity is being forged on the basis of Jew-hatred, which will never be able to accept the Jewish State. So the UN is pivoting to a different peace model as advocated by Palestinian Arabs: a purely Arab anti-Semitic Palestinian State and a bi-national Israel, as it is the only model which can meet the parameters of Muslim “dignity” and unify the Palestinian factions.

Related First One Through articles:

The Left-Wing’s Two State Solution: 1.5 States for Arabs, 0.5 for Jews

The United Nations Must Take Its Own Medicine Re the Palestinian Authority

A Proper UN Security Council Resolution on Israel and HAMAS

The Israeli Peace Process versus the Palestinian Divorce Proceedings

“Peace” According to Palestinian “Moderates”

Encourage the 7% and 44% of Palestinians

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Elul and the UN’s Durban Conference

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The Hebrew month of Elul is the last month of the year and traditionally marks the beginning period of repentance in the Jewish calendar. It is on the first day of the month that the prophet Moses ascended Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago, and forty days later, on Yom Kippur, when he descended and broke the tablets when he saw the Children of Israel worshipping beside a statue of a golden calf.

To mark the period of repentance, rabbis instituted a tradition of reciting Psalm 27 at the end of morning and evening prayers. It is a call for God to protect Jews from their enemies.

As we approach the twentieth anniversary of UN Durban Conference and the attacks of 9/11 which both occurred during Elul, and how governments and people choose to commemorate those events, two sentences in the psalm deserve deeper exploration. Sentences 11 & 12:

ה֤וֹרֵ֥נִי יְהֹוָ֗ה דַּ֫רְכֶּ֥ךָ וּ֭נְחֵנִי בְּאֹ֣רַח מִישׁ֑וֹר לְ֝מַ֗עַן שֽׁוֹרְרָֽי׃ Show me Your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path because of my watchful foes.

אַֽל־תִּ֭תְּנֵנִי בְּנֶ֣פֶשׁ צָרָ֑י כִּ֥י קָמוּ־בִ֥י עֵדֵי־שֶׁ֝֗קֶר וִיפֵ֥חַ חָמָֽס׃ Do not subject me to the will of my foes, for false witnesses and unjust accusers have appeared against me.

While the Psalm is set up to seek God’s protection from armies (verse 3), the lines above highlight that enemies include those who wish to undermine Jews with slander. The “watchful foes” scrutinize every action and then bear “false witness” with accusations that seek to seriously harm Jews as they enter the high holidays.

The United Nations, a body conceived of to promote peace and reduce bloodshed, has become a platform for “false witnesses and unjust accusers” which lambast Israel. UN Watch noted that in 2020, the UN General Assembly passed 17 resolutions condemning Israel, while passing a total of six against the rest of the world.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said that the “farce at the General Assembly underscores a simple fact: the UN’s automatic majority has no interest in truly helping Palestinians, nor in protecting anyone’s human rights; the goal of these ritual, one-sided condemnations is to scapegoat Israel.“

United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said much the same as he withdrew from the World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa on September 3, 2001:

“Today I have instructed our representatives at the World Conference Against Racism to return home. I have taken this decision with regret, because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution that the Conference could have made to it. But, following discussions today by our team in Durban and others who are working for a successful conference, I am convinced that will not be possible. I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of “Zionism equals racism;” or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world–Israel–for censure and abuse.“

Flyer at 2001 World Conference Against Racism with a picture of Adolf Hitler with caption “What if I had won?” and continued that there would be no Israel nor bloodshed of Palestinians (source UN Watch)

The United Nations has promoted and given legitimacy to the “watchful foes” of Jews – both around the world and in the United States, at governmental levels, among lay leaders and ordinary citizens – to promote vicious slander against Israel and the Jewish people. As those lies are becoming mainstreamed, it is time to stop reciting Psalm 27 quietly but “with shouts of joy, singing and chanting,” (verse 6), for God to cause these evil people and organizations to “stumble and fall” (verse 2).

Related First One Through articles:

Rep. Ilhan Omar and The 2001 Durban Racism Conference

The Anti-Zionist Lexicon – Vilifying Israel

B.D.S. Is Not A Social Mission Action

The Global Intifada

Hamas’s Willing Executioners

The Veil of Hatred

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