Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced that the country was closing its embassy in Ireland because of a host of “antisemitic rhetoric” and “efforts to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state.” While it is well understood that any sovereign country is free to open or close embassies in bilateral fora, it was interesting to see Israel’s foreign minister include a charge of how Ireland treated its own Jewish citizens, stating the “government has failed to take effective measures to combat the surge of antisemitism within Ireland.”
The Jewish State was reestablished in 1948 as a place where Jews were guaranteed self-determination and protection within its borders. Israel is also considering the fate of Jews in the diaspora as it weighs its international dealings.
Over the last few days, anti-Israel Canadians smashed storefronts and burned cars on the streets of Montreal. An owner of a coffee shop in a Jewish hospital shouted that “the Final Solution is coming your way” and flashed a Nazi salute.
This is the same Canada that arrested Muhammad Shahzeb Khan in September, a Pakistani man living in Canada, who planned to commit a mass slaughter of Jews at the Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn, NY in support of ISIS on the anniversary of the October 7 massacre.
Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi and his son, during court proceedings in Ontario
This is the same Canada where Charlotte Kates, a leader of the group Samidoun took to the streets of Vancouver to scream “long live October 7th!” On October 15, 2024, Canada and the United States both labeled Samidoun as “a sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.”
WESPAC, a US-based “charity” based in White Plains, NY came out to defend Samidoun and Kates on November 22 stating “The Vancouver Police Department raided her [Charlotte’s] home using such unnecessary militarized force with the aim of humiliating and instilling fear not just against Charlotte but her community and anyone who chooses to advocate for the human rights of Palestinians.”
Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) issued a statement on November 25 that “The government must act now to stop the scourge of antisemitism.” It cited a poll of Canadian Jews that 82% believe that Canada is less safe for Jews than it was before Oct. 7th massacre and 36% have been targeted (themselves or a member of their family) by antisemitic remarks since October 7, 2023.
Significantly, Canada’s Jews feel unprotected, with 85% and 75% feeling that the government and police, respectively, should be doing more to combat antisemitism in Canada.
It is no surprise.
Their government grants citizenship to a man featured on ISIS propaganda videos beheading people. Their government relied on France to alert them about an impending attack. Their government only identified a sham charity fronting for terrorist groups a year after Germany.
In September 2023, before Palestinian Muslims slaughtered over one thousand civilians in Israel, India’s foreign minister said he was alarmed about “Canada and its growing reputation as a place, as a safe haven for terrorists, for extremists, and for organized crime.”
Free range terrorists are roaming the Great White North and are coming for Jews across North America. Others too, but mostly Jews.
Antisemitism in western countries – especially the United States – has been rising in volume and intensity over the past several years. What started as harassment and intimidation became discrimination. What began as verbal threats became violence against property and persons. What started as punches became murder and hostage taking.
Memorial at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh after attack killed eight people, November 2018
Jews began to fear for their safety. Many hid their Jewish identity to avoid attacks.
Then their government told them that they couldn’t and wouldn’t protect them. Instead of hiding their faith because the government would be slow to act, Jews saw that the government was reticent to act, and released antisemites quickly to attack again.
And the situation is somehow now worse.
Law enforcement has told Jews that THEY are the problem, not the Jew haters. It is their physical presence that is a ‘provocation’ for people who want a world free of Jews.
Jewish family having coffee in Montreal Canada was told by police to leave the area, November 2024
Police were not telling Jews to leave the public square for their own safety (a disgraceful request at its most basic) but because their presence is a form of violence against antisemites.
Rather than firmly enforcing the law and protecting civilians, police are starting to give in to the mob. Free speech is trumping the basic right to enjoy and access the public square.
While the moves from intimidation to discrimination to attacks on property and then people is an easy horror story to comprehend, the collapse of basic protections – from protecting to not protecting to demanding Jews disappear – is a more fundamentally terrifying breakdown in society.
Is the next low for police to hand over Jews to the antisemitic horde the way the Globalize the Intifada mob demand?
This is a very dark moment in the New World: law enforcement asking Jews to clear the streets because antisemites are triggered by the sight of a Jew.
Berlin, Germany’s top cop, Barbara Slowik, issued a warning to Jews and gay people, “There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful.” She added “There are certain neighborhoods where the majority of people of Arab origin live, who also have sympathies for terrorist groups.”
New York’s Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) was outraged by the warning. He said “A healthy society tells its Jewish community: “We will keep you safe.” A sick society tells its Jewish community: “You should go in hiding.” Antisemitism is a sign of societal sickness.”
He is right. But the problem isn’t solely on Holocaust soil. It is a growing presence in the United States.
On May 21, 2021, President Biden’s Jewish Engagement Director Aaron Keyak posted on X “It pains me to say this, but if you fear for your life or physical safety take off your kippah and hide your magen david (Jewish star),” in response to growing antisemitic attacks coming from the jihadi-socialist alliance.
That was two and one half years before the October 7 Palestinian Arab massacre of Israelis and spike of jihadism in the United States.
Keyak lives and breathes the world of Democratic politics and interfaith relations. As profiled in his bio on the State Department site where he serves as Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism since November 2021, “Deputy Special Envoy Keyak is an experienced leader and interfaith coalition builder who has previously held senior roles advising members of Congress, the Obama Administration, and the Biden-Harris Administration transition team.”
People operating in the highest ranks of the U.S. government whose job is to combat antisemitism, liaise with the Jewish community and build interfaith relationships, told the Jewish community that they must hide. He tacitly gave permission for pogroms since law enforcement would do little or nothing.
It is a deep descent from George Washington’s letter to a synagogue in Rhode Island written in 1790 in which he wrote “For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
There is a moral rot in the left flank of the Democratic Party, which has demanded sanction to bigotry and assistance to the persecution of Jews. It is not only an abandonment of Jews but to the principles of America.
Joe Biden was elected by many in the hopes of healing the division in America but he laid bare the “societal sickness” of licensed antisemitism. It is no wonder that Jews voted for Donald Trump in 2024, in the greatest percentage for any Republican in 36 years.
The metropolitan New York City area is home to the largest Jewish diaspora community in the world. For clarity, as most religions do not have a “diaspora”, it means that outside of the Jewish homeland of Israel, more Jews live in the greater NYC area than any location in the world.
Despite the size of the community, the last several years have seen the area’s Jews come under fire, both literally and figuratively.
In 2018, radical left-wing extremists started to win seats in Congress in response to the 2016 presidential election of Republican Donald Trump. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC) was the first to win a seat in New York’s 14th Congressional District, followed two years later by Jamaal Bowman in New York’s 16th CD. The two woke New Yorkers pushed the outer limits of the Democratic Party, voting against measures like the Infrastructure Bill, and supplying security aid to Israel.
Rank-and-file antisemites followed their leaders. They shot up a synagogue in Pennsylvania in October 2018. Then another synagogue in California in April 2019, and a kosher supermarket in Jersey City (part of the NYC metropolitan area) in December 2019. By 2022 they were taking hostages in synagogues in Texas to free jihadi murderers in jail.
New York’s Woke members of Congress appreciated the cesspool of Jew hatred and coddled up to jihadists at New York City’s Columbia University who continue to celebrate the 2023 massacre of Jews in Israel, and raised money for the election campaign from Hamas supporters. Their incessant calls of “white supremacy”, “patriarchy”, “colonialism” and “imperialism” echoed the Columbia lies to distract from the toxic woke antisemitism embedded in the radical left and as a rallying cry for the socialist-jihadi campaign.
New York’s political class of radical leftists paraded reasons why Jews in school should not be given any police protection, including Rosie Mendez who claimed Jews discriminate against the gay community; Daniel Dromm who said Jews are robbing from public schools; Teamsters Local 237 which said taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay to protect Jewish students; and the American Federation of School Administrators which was appalled that taxpayer money should be spent in any manner on private schools (should the fire department not respond to a fire in a yeshiva?), amongst others.
On October 7, 2023, as the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was unfolding in Israel, New York’s Jews lay vulnerable and unprepared for the assault from the socialist-jihadi alliance.
New Yorkers are fed up with being targeted because of who they are. Angry with not being given time nor space to grieve for 1,200 people brutally massacred. Incensed that rioters show up at synagogues and Jewish Day Schools to scream that Jews have no history, heritage or rights in Israel.
The tide may be turning.
On October 15, 2024, the United States and Canada labeled Samidoun a sham charity funneling money to Palestinian Arab terrorist groups. White Plains-based WESPAC, which also funds terrorist groups, has not yet been banned or lost its tax-exempt status, but that may hopefully change soon.
Bowman lost in the Democratic primary in the summer of 2024 to a moderate pro-Israel candidate. AOC’s popularity is seemingly fading, as she was not able to secure 70% of the general vote in November 2024, her lowest tally since entering Congress, and among the lowest for any Democrat in New York City.
Trump’s victory and the Republican takeover of the Senate (and maybe retaining control of the House) may portend a defunding of schools that either take money from state sponsors of terrorism like Qatar, or give antisemitism a free hand to harass, intimidate, discriminate and attack Jewish students, faculty and buildings.
Individuals are scoring victories too. In October 2024, Columbia University’s paper announced that alumni are shunning their alma mater. It is likely due to the school’s disgusting treatment of Jews.
Still, the Democratic Socialists of America – endorsers of Bowman, AOC and others in the socialist-jihadi alliance like Rep Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) – are still operating openly in New York, even as they call for violent attacks against Israeli civilians. Perhaps they will also come under prosecution as decent people and the government start to push back against the anti-Jewish vitriol.
Democratic Socialists of America label all Israelis as fair targets for violent attacks
The Battle of Vienna in 1683 turned back the Muslim Ottoman Empire’s quest for expansion and conquest in Christian Europe. The world we live in today is a byproduct of that battle.
History may one day consider what happened when the ‘Globalize the Intifada’ pogroms came for the world’s largest Jewish diaspora community. All of us have an opportunity to play a part in that battle.
Shoplifting has become de facto legal in California. Mobs enter shoe stores, pharmacies, department stores and ransack the location of its goods. The scene has become rampant after the state’s left-wing government passed laws minimizing the theft of items below $950 to only a misdemeanor, which police do not prosecute.
Store owners are helpless to confront the new normal. They have instructed their security officials to no longer confront shoplifters and allow the lawlessness to run amuck. The lack of consequences has enshrined anarchy, with hundreds of brazen store invasions in the state occurring monthly.
Jews in the United States and Israel suffer personal assaults under the common umbrella of immunity.
University professors are granted tenure and cannot be fired unless there are particularly outrageous actions. Knowing this, people like Columbia professor Joseph Massad tells students that the Jews in the Bible are actually “Palestinian Hebrews.” He shared his feelings of “jubilation and awe” about the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel. He and other professors routinely hold classes that Jews have no history in the holy land and are engaged in a project of “European Settler Colonialism.“
No worries. Columbia has Massad teach a class on Zionism.
Antisemitic and anti-Israel Columbia University professor teaches course on Zionism
Liberal governments and organizations started taking positions that “over-policing” of majority-minority groups like Blacks was systemic and a key issue in holding minority groups down after the death of George Floyd in May 2020. The Southern Poverty Law Center made this clear in October 2020 when it essentially removed Black hate groups from its database because it may have been used to “justify the over-policing and surveillance of communities of color.” Black “separatist” movements would no longer be classified as hate groups because of society’s power imbalance; they were just punching up “because they oppose a white supremacist power structure.”
Blacks were granted immunity from being called racists, to commit non-hate crimes against Whites.
In San Francisco in 2018, the school board voted to rename schools which might be perceived to carry “white supremacy,” which included removing the names of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln from the schools. At the same time, they voted to teach the students Arabic with an external group that called Israel an “apartheid state” that engages in “colonialism” which should be free “from the river to the sea.”
Anti-Zionism as well as denial of Jewish history and rights was being instilled into the fabric of the future. Don’t like it? Too bad. Teachers’ unions are fighting hard to keep parents out of the classroom.
Los Angeles teacher unions organize for anti-Israel indoctrination
Good luck trying to topple the teachers’ unions which are a specialized protected class by Democrats. They are free to act with impunity as they have carte blanche immunity.
This happens constantly at the United Nations. Its facilities are considered “inviolable” so Gazans and terrorists use them to store and fire rockets at Israel – whose schools are not “inviolable.” Tens of thousands of Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) join UNRWA to get immunity, free to collaborate with a host of Palestinian terrorist groups. They believe they can rape as a form of “resistance,” blessed by the UN which has canonized every “refugee.”
The head of the United Nations made clear that this protected class of people have immunity, and Israel cannot judge or punish the rapists and murderers. The Palestinian Arabs are free to carry out their barbarism with impunity.
It is a sad truism that social unrest bleaches racism and antisemitism. But that is just the start.
The granting of broad immunity to particular people because they are viewed as deserving of special protection appears noble, only at first glance. Empathy that enables and encourages lawlessness comes for the Jews. Always.
It has now been revealed that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told the administration of Columbia University to “keep heads down” and ride out the controversy of antisemitism on campus. He said that issue of rampant Jew hatred were “political problems are really only among Republicans,” and that Jews and the country would soon move on.
To unpack those statements, the most powerful Democratic politician outside of the Executive branch dismissed the Jew-hatred at Columbia despite one of the rabbis on campus telling Jewish students to go home, “no one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.” He encouraged the university to do nothing to assist the beleaguered Jews, and that once Democrats took over the House of Representatives, university presidents would no longer be dragged to Washington.
Others also believe that only Republicans cared about the systemic Jew hatred at American universities. Rep. Virginia Foxx, Chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said that Democrats would drop investigating Jew hatred at universities should they win the House in the November 2024 election.
Schumer’s suggestion that leaders wait out setbacks in attacking Jews has precedent.
During Donald Trump’s term in office, former Secretary of State John Kerry under Democratic President Barack Obama passed a message to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority “that he should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President [Donald] Trump’s demands.” Kerry predicted that Trump would last a single term and then a Democratic Administration would go easy on the PA, and apply hard pressure on Israel.
Sen. Chuck Schumer and Secretary of State John Kerry discuss the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015
Democrats know that Jews are a minority-minority, a very small and forgiving people. The old guard Democratic leaders like Schumer and Kerry believe that Jews’ ongoing quest for “tikkun olam / repairing the world” would include self-annihilation, if so required. They believe they know history that Jews (non-Orthodox at least) will look past any insult and cleave to the Democratic Party regardless of actions. Jews will give up land, rights and dignity just as they handed over the Judaism’s holiest site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, if peace so dictated.
The new generation of Democratic leaders is less convinced. It is waging a war to strip Jews of power, position, wealth and property in a broad redistribution to majority-minority groups like Blacks, as chanted by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, and their sponsor at Justice Democrats.
The cleft in the Democratic Party between the old and new guards is a tactical decision whether to wait for Jews to hang themselves or to give clearance to rob, rape and murder them immediately. Regrettably – no, frighteningly – the party’s view of Jews has been buried under an avalanche of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) that elevates Victims of Preference, even when those groups are directly coming for Jews.
Like many Jewish Americans, I am a registered Democrat. Unlike many, I have no party loyalty and vote for the person I think is best suited for the job.
My friends were shocked when I voted for the libertarian candidate for president in 2016. They rattled off the many offenses of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and that I was wasting my vote. I did not disagree. But I could not vote for Trump or Clinton. Not only had Clinton proven herself to be awful but Trump was a vulgarian wildcard. I believed Trump was such a “deal guy” that he had no sense of the compromises that are needed to run a country of 330 million. He would be bad for America, Israel and the whole world.
I ended up being quite wrong about Trump on Israel. Surrounded by a strong team of advisers, he understood what was required for an ENDURING PEACE in the Middle East, not just the paper to get to a peace agreement. He delivered an amazing array of achievements for America and the Middle East over his term, including the fewest deaths of Arabs and Jews over any four year stretch in modern history.
Yet I remained worried. America was deeply divided and I could not imagine Trump being the solution to bring the country together. Four years on I looked for an alternative.
I cast my lot initially with Mike Bloomberg as a centrist, who had pushed aggressively for Hillary over Trump in 2016 under the premise that she was basically like a prostitute who is deeply unloved but gets the job done. Bloomberg was my version of #NeverTrump meets #NeverBernie Sanders. But he was eliminated early on.
I settled on Biden as the “centrist” to help address the “Mason-Dixon Plaid” that pitted neighbor against neighbor. I wanted to stop the brewing civil war, and too many people hated Trump for him to be the solution. I similarly voted for centrists in Congress, rejecting mainstream media’s endorsement of far left-wing radicals like Jamaal Bowman. I picked a winner at the top of the ticket but saw extremist radicals taking over Congress.
Those radical members of Congress had no need to compromise the way a president must. They incited their base, and brought antisemitism to deplorable levels after the October 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel. Fading Biden had no idea or desire to stem the vicious tide.
Jewish members of Congress like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) turned on Israel and refused to combat the wave of antisemitism. Young Democrats and liberal universities revealed themselves to be deeply hostile to Israel and Jews.
The divide in America now felt more personal. It was no longer about Republicans versus Democrats, but more immediately, radical antisemitic extremists which had metastasized inside the Democratic party and liberal institutions against American Jewry. The general tension in the country is no longer my priority, but the specific targeting of minority-minority Jews which made even leading Jewish politicians hide in fear.
Pundits like Bret Stephens may argue that Trump continues to be a danger, and I was a NeverTrumper just like him. Many friends who are devout liberal Jews continue to believe that the antisemitism is really just a minor issue which will subside when the Iranian proxy war against Israel ends.
Sen. Bernie Sanders explaining that Kamala Harris will side with the alt-left when she is not bound by Biden’s preferences as it relates to Israel
Israel is laying the groundwork for an enduring peace in the Middle East by ridding the region of jihadi extremists who intend on annihilating local Jewry. It is tragic and ugly but essential. Americans – DEMOCRATS – need to similarly take actions which may seem displeasing, including voting for Trump, to end the toxic antisemitism drowning Jews today.
The plight of Jews today can be traced directly to President Barak Obama’s second term from 2013 to 2016. The rampant antisemitism in the United States and death and destruction in the Middle East today stem from Obama’s failed and deliberate strategies as outlined below:
Obama’s minimization of antisemitism
Enabling Iran to have a legal pathway to nuclear weapons
Handing billions of dollars to Iran and its terrorist proxies
Not encouraging the Iranian revolution to topple the government
Throwing Middle Eastern allies under the bus
Changing Democratic Party position that Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) should move to Israel instead of a new Palestinian state
Stating that the presence of Jews in Jerusalem caused problems rather than Arab antisemitism
Making Jews living in Jerusalem illegal
Fostering the Islamic takeover of American universities
Bringing many refugees from Syria and Somalia to the US
Minimizing Antisemitism
Obama’s desire to minimize the problem of antisemitism stemmed from his focus on repairing relations with the Muslim world which he felt was badly damaged by the prior administration’s war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. It later extended to prioritizing other victims of preference, Blacks and other majority-minorities in the United States over Jews.
The most glaring example of Obama’s blindness to Muslim antisemitism was the February 2015 shooting in a kosher store in Paris, France. Obama said the shooting was “random” and his spokesperson then doubled down in clarifying the comment that there was no anti-Jewish motivation of the jihadi radicals.
At his final State of the Union address in 2016, Obama said nothing about antisemitism and only flagged ‘Islamophobia’ despite anti-Jewish hate crimes being 2.2 times more frequent than anti-Muslim hate crimes according to the FBI. Obama said nothing about the Islamic Republic of Iran’s rampant anti-Jewish smears and Holocaust denial contests as he cozied up to the Islamic zealots.
Enabling Iran to have a legal pathway to nuclear weapons
Despite aggressive sanctions which started under President George Bush in 2005, Obama signed an agreement which left Iran’s entire nuclear program intact including its uranium mines, milling and enrichment facilities and nuclear reactors. Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities coupled with its emerging nuclear weapon program has enabled it to act with near impunity throughout the Middle East. It has put the region on edge with Saudi Arabia now insisting on getting weapons of mass destruction to balance the Shiite-Sunni regional dominance.
While Israel had relative peace for the past fifty years as the only country with nuclear weapons, we are seeing the ramifications of large Muslim Arab countries also possessing such weaponry, courtesy of Obama.
Handing billions of dollars to Iran and its terrorist proxies
Iran has been using its proxies to kill and terrorize Jews for years, especially in the aftermath of Obama giving billions of dollars to Iran. The first installment of $1.7 billion in 2016 was sent in cash. Estimates for the amount of money that was ultimately released as part of the Iranian nuclear deal are as much as $150 billion from several countries according to FactCheck.org, with more conservative figures being $50 billion.
The funds released to Iran have helped fund Iranian proxies like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Each group has intentionally killed Israelis over the past year, with Hamas’s savage massacre of October 7, 2023 being the most heinous and gruesome.
Not encouraging the Iranian revolution to topple the government
The ascendency of the antisemitic genocidal regime in Iran was not a foregone conclusion. The Iranian people had started a ‘Green Revolution’ in 2009 with the expectation that Obama would give America’s support to install a moderate regime. Obama declined to do so, and thought he could negotiate a nuclear arms deal with the radical zealots. That decision led to Secretary of State John Kerry concluding one of the worst foreign policy deals in American history a few years later.
Throwing allies under the bus
As opposed to toppling genocidal regimes, Obama supported the ouster of friends.
Obama started his presidency with a trip to Cairo, Egypt in 2009, but ultimately stabbed the American ally in the back. When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak faced pressure to resign in 2011, Obama let him fall. It welcomed the democratically-elected head of the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood Mohammed Morsi instead. Saudi Arabia and other allies in the region became alarmed “with the U.S. position, publicly pushing Mubarak out. And frankly so are we—this isn’t how you handle issues in region.”
Obama made his focus on Iran known to the whole world from the outset when he first met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2009 at the White House. Rather than strongly stand by his ally Israel, he used the opportunity to say “Iran is a country of extraordinary history and extraordinary potential, that we want them to be a full-fledged member of the international community and be in a position to provide opportunities and prosperity for their people.”
President Obama meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2009
This narrative of Iran being “extraordinary” has continued to be pushed by the liberal mainstream media. When the New York Times publishes articles about Israel and Iran, it doesn’t show images of Iranian missiles but female shoppers, making Israeli leaders look foolish for being alarmed for no reason.
Screenshot of New York Times article on October 28, 2024
The Times even had vacation packages to Iran which it advertised as “Persia. Iran. For 2,500 years, this powerful country has entranced, mystified and beguiled the world. Discover the ancient secrets and modern complexities of this influential land on a 13-day itinerary, visiting some of the world’s oldest archaeological sites and the family home of the religious leader who engineered Iran’s transition to an Islamic republic. Welcome to the once-forbidden land of Iran.” It similarly called Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco amazing places to visit. But not Israel which it only promotes through a Palestinian lens as a place of “struggle” (jihad in Arabic).
Changing Democratic stance that Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) should move to Israel instead of a new Palestinian state
When Obama was elected to his first term, the official 2008 Democratic party platform had a few key statements about Israel and the region:
On Hamas: “The United States and its Quartet partners should continue to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and abides by past agreements.”
On “Refugees: “The creation of a Palestinian state through final status negotiations, together with an international compensation mechanism, should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel.”
On borders: “All understand that it is unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations to be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”
On Jerusalem: “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel.”
Hamas’s current war on Israel to descend on Jerusalem, destroy the Jewish state and bring millions of SAPs into Israel was essentially blessed under the second Obama administration.
Stating that the presence of Jews in Jerusalem caused problems rather than Arab antisemitism
In October 2014, the Obama Administration’s Josh Earnest said “The US condemns the recent occupation of residential buildings in the neighborhood of Silwan by people whose agenda provokes tensions.” The message was clear: Jews buying homes and living in eastern Jerusalem is terrible because the Jews are stirring tensions, not because Arab Muslims are consumed with Jew hatred.
The New York Times followed Obama’s lead a few days later and portrayed the residents of Silwan as peaceful Arabs who were set upon by a few crazy Israelis moving next door: “An influx of right-wing Jewish settlers who have acquired property in the area in recent years have made the neighborhood a flash point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The Jews were the extremists and caused violence, not the other way around.
Obama’s inversion that Jews are the racist right-wing troublemakers while Palestinian Arabs (who voted the antisemitic genocidal group Hamas to a majority of parliament) as peace-seeking individuals has become mainstreamed in the media today.
Making Jews living in Jerusalem illegal
As Obama ended his second term, he decided to cap his vilification of Jews and Israel by allowing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass in December 2016, which declared it illegal for Jews to live east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL), including in the Judaism’s holiest city of Jerusalem. It called for countries to treat E49AL/ West Bank as distinct from the rest of Israel, despite the Palestinian Authority signing the Oslo Accords which recognized Israeli control over parts of the region.
Fostering the Islamic takeover of American universities
While Obama was restricting where Jews could live in the Jewish holy land, he was welcoming tens of thousands of Muslims from the Middle East into American universities.
The Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program was launched in 2003 to soften the image of America’s war on terror. Obama ramped up the program in 2009. By the 2015/6 academic year, 61,000 Saudi students were in American universities. That high figure represents 0.2% of the entire population of Saudi Arabia to a single country. By way of comparison, the ENTIRE American students abroad cohort all over the world is around 162,000, or 0.05% of the U.S. population. Imagine 650,000 American students all learning in India for the year!
Along with the Muslim students came billions of dollars. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim Arab countries funded departments, handed scholarships and enabled the growth of Students for Justice in Palestine hate groups to gather strength on over 200 campuses. These groups have led the harassment and intimidation of Jews at levels over five times higher than campuses without these groups according to analyses by the AMCHA Initiative. These universities routinely teach that Israel is a “imperialist colonialist power,” as though Jews do not have thousands of years of history in the holy land.
Bringing many refugees from Syria and Somalia to the US
In addition to the influx of money and students from Muslim countries into American universities was the growth in the number of refugees from the Middle East around the United States. While prior administrations had never permitted more than 25,000 refugees into the US from the Middle East, by 2016, Obama had welcomed nearly 45,000, primarily from Syria and Somalia.
The current war on Jews in the United States and Israel, home to 85% of world Jewry, was fueled by President Obama’s push to elevate the Muslim world, and the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular. The empowerment of Iran and its proxies in the Middle East have killed thousands of Jews, while the encouragement of Islamic power in the US has fueled antisemitic hate crimes here.
Many Americans are disillusioned by the state of antisemitism today. Not only is it rampant on college campuses but alive and well in U.S. Congress from people like Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Jewish Americans are considering buying a home in Israel, and perhaps relocate for all or part of the year.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) on November 30, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Before they do, they should relocate within the United States.
Most American Jews live in deep blue or red states like New York, New Jersey, Florida, California and Illinois. Before moving to Israel, they should change their place of residence to one of the swing states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona or Nevada. That will enable the person to submit an absentee ballot in a state where the vote could actually impact the outcome of a presidential election, tipping the electoral college towards candidates which favor western values.
Even as the world watches the tragedy in the Middle East, many Jewish Americans have greater fear for their futures in the United States and are moving to a war zone. While abroad, they can continue to help America by making sure their votes will matter by first relocating to Philadelphia, Atlanta, Phoenix or Las Vegas.
First One Through 