In an astonishing development, a majority of U.S. Senate Democrats voted to withhold “offensive weapons” from Israel. It was a symbolic vote — the measure failed with Republicans opposing the bill — but the message is clear: Israel may block rockets but not destroy the launchers. Defense in this new moral order means absorbing blows gracefully, not ending the threat.
At the same time, France — home to the third-largest Jewish population in the world — announced it will recognize a State of Palestine without requiring demilitarization. Paris is prepared to bless a future Palestine that could legally import tanks, rockets, and drones — even as its largest faction, Hamas, wages a genocidal war.
The Illusion of Morality
This is not a call for peace but a demand that Israel remain permanently in the center of the bullseye. Washington Democrats and European leaders want to look moral by limiting “excessive force,” but they are scripting a world where Jews may bleed — just not too much at once.
Recognizing a Palestinian state without disarming it legitimizes Hamas’s war aim. It signals that mass murder, hostage-taking, and open calls for Israel’s destruction do not block your path to statehood — they accelerate it. That is appeasement, not diplomacy.
Hamas kidnapping Israeli women on October 7, 2023
The Right to Finish the Fight
Israel was built on thousands of years of history, and the vow “never again.” That means more than survival — it means the right to end the threat. Defensive weapons stop today’s rockets; offensive weapons prevent tomorrow’s.
If Democrats in Washington vote to deny Israel offensive weapons, and if Paris recognizes an armed Palestine, the message is the same: the Jewish state must fight forever.
True peace will not come from tying Israel’s hands — it will come from removing those committed to its destruction and extinguishing their dream.
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Nothing sounds so lofty as the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), a global organization that should theoretically be at the vanguard of protecting civilians around the world. Alas, it made itself into a highly biased joke by having ten standing items during each session to cover broad matters, with an exception for a single region – Item 7 – being dedicated to the “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”
On April 5, 2024, amid the Gazan-initiated war on Israel, the UNHRC went to town on Israel, passing the outrageously biased Resolution 55/28 with a vote of 28 in favor, 6 opposed, and 13 abstentions. The Global South was joined in voting for the resolution by Belgium, Finland and Luxembourg from Europe. The chickens which abstained were: Albania, Benin, Cameron, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, France, Georgia, India, Japan, Lithuania, Montenegro, Netherlands, and Romania.
The eight pages of vitriol went well beyond actions during the war. It went beyond settlements. It went beyond withholding taxes.
It implicitly backed Gazans’ genocidal war against Israel stating that the council “reaffirm[s] the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation in accordance with international law.” This statement labeled the State of Israel as a “colonial” power, stripping it of rights of defense and designating it a rightful target for attacks.
The antisemitic text even decried Jews living in their holiest and capital city of Jerusalem. It criticized Israel for archeological excavations near the Temple Mount.
Only in three spots (marked in light blue) in the long list condemning Israel was there any expression that Gazans were doing anything wrong. Each related to the immediate situation of war and none condemned the thousands of Gazans who initiated the war killing 1,200 people, raping women and abducting 251 people, nor the Gazan leaders who threatened to commit the barbaric attacks again and again.
In multiple locations (highlighted in orange), the UNHRC demanded that countries withhold supplying arms to Israel and not take any actions against groups around the world which support the Hamas-led war against Israel. It urged countries to not supply Israel with “dual use” items like jet fuel or facial recognition software which could have both civilian and military purposes.
The text is a sickening farce, especially considering the heading of the resolution which highlighted “the obligation to ensure accountability and justice.” The text of the resolution clearly showed the HRC’s belief that only Israel should be held accountable, while Gazans should be absolved of their actions under the UN’s ode for the Stateless Arabs of Palestine (SAPs)‘ “legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence.”
In April 2025, one year after this shameful resolution passed, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tried to pass two resolutions in the U.S. Senate to block America’s sale of arms to Israel. His introduction to the vote lambasted AIPAC as a nefarious organization, and then called the Israeli government “racist and extremist” engaged in a “barbaric war against the Palestinian people,” even though the Israeli military constantly warns civilians to move out of battlefields and has the lowest civilian-to-combatant death toll of any modern urban war.
Fourteen senators joined Sanders in voting to block the arms sale to Israel in the middle of the multi-front war, including Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).
The fact that all fifteen senators voting against supplying Israel weapons during the war were Democrats should not be a surprise. According to a March 2025 Gallup poll, Republicans favor Israel over SAPs by 75% to 10%, while Democrats favor SAPs over Israelis by 59% to 21%. This is a continuation of a trend that started BEFORE Gazans’ October 7 atrocities, as highlighted in Gallups’ February 2023 poll.
It begs us to answer the framework of “the obligation to ensure accountability and justice” in general, even before applied to war. What is the baseline that the UNHRC and Democrats (HRC & D) see the Arab-Israeli conflict?
The HRC&D seemingly believe that Israel is a colonial power and SAPs have a legitimate fight for “liberation.” In such framework, even leaders of Hamas’ “political bureau” are regular “civilians entitled to protection,” (as stated by HRC). HRC&D prioritize imposing sanctions on Israeli Jewish “settlers” in the immediate aftermath of October 7 (as urged by Sen. Van Hollen in November 2023).
The HRC&D baseline for considering “accountability and justice” is that Arabs are justified in fighting Israel, while Israeli Jews are wrong for just living.
Anyone and everyone should be upset with the loss of so much civilian life in the war which started eighteen months ago. But the number of dead on each side obscures the fundamental issue in the conflict is the competing views that Israel is a legitimate sovereign state or a colonial outpost which should be combated by “any means necessary.”
Masked anti-Israel agitators at Columbia University call for the destruction of Israel
While the UN Human Rights Council and fifteen Democratic senators have not gone so far to endorse a genocide of Jews in Israel, they are actively seeking to shield Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups and their supporters which seek the destruction of Israel from proper measures of justice.
Vice President Kamala Harris moved quickly to become the presumptive Democratic nominee for president after President Joe Biden announced that he would no longer run for re-election just weeks before the Democratic National Convention. Rather than let Democratic voters decide on their nominee, the Democratic establishment rallied behind Harris and shut down voter wishes for alternatives.
Immediately after the Democratic establishment rallied behind Harris, far-left Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) endorsed Harris. In her endorsement, Bush said “When we say trust Black women, we mean it. Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party and it is past time for us to lead our country forward.”
It’s not a surprise. While Harris served in the Senate, she was listed as one of the most partisan senators, scoring a -0.92670, ranking #93 out of 98 senators scored (majority and minority leaders are excluded), according to the Lugar Center Bipartisan Index. That scored her close to House squad member Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) who scored a -0.94183 during the same 2019 Congress.
People voted Joe Biden to the presidency in 2020 because he was a moderate. The Lugar Center scored Biden in the top 20% of bipartisan senators all-time, coming in at #47 out of #250 scored. When Biden selected Harris to join the ticket, it was widely viewed as a nod to rally the far-left wing of the party onboard which was upset that Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders did not secure the nomination.
It caused many people concern at the time. During a 60 Minutes interview in 2020, Harris was questioned about her extremist views and record. She cackled her way through the question, reluctantly responding that she is on board with Biden’s approaches to policy.
The powerful teachers unions have gone all-in on Harris, including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. The NEA is pushing to begin indoctrinating its members in several anti-Israel items including: the ‘Nakba’ narrative; teaching that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism; endorsing the BDS (boycott, divest and sanctioning) of Israel; call to stop funding Israel’s military; and call Israel’s operation in Gaza a “genocide.” AFT considered similar resolutions as the socialist teacher unions try to indoctrinate America’s future in a socialist-jihadi narrative
As president, Harris will become “unburdened by what has been,” meaning the more moderate and pro-Israel policies of Biden, and free to push an extremist socialist agenda.
Vice President Kamala Harris with Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, left, and Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a bizarre statement on behalf of President Joe Biden about Israel’s passing of a law to limit one method which the Supreme Court uses to block legislation. Her July 24 statement was:
“As a lifelong friend of Israel, President Biden has publicly and privately expressed his views that major changes in a democracy to be enduring must have as broad a consensus as possible. It is unfortunate that the vote today took place with the slimmest possible majority. We understand talks are ongoing and likely to continue over the coming weeks and months to forge a broader compromise even with the Knesset in recess. The United States will continue to support the efforts of President Herzog and other Israeli leaders as they seek to build a broader consensus through political dialogue.”
Let’s unpack the statement surrounding “the slimmest possible majority.”
The vote was 64-0. The opposition walked out, leaving the final tally a complete trouncing.
In the 120-seat Knesset, a majority is 61 seats. The vote passed with three votes over the slimmest majority.
Israelis voted 61-50 with 8 abstentions to support the Oslo Accords in September 1993. Should the Israelis have abandoned the effort to work out a peace agreement with the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) at the outset with truly the “slimmest possible majority”?
If a “broad consensus” is desired for “major changes in a democracy,” the 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (66.7%) overturning Roe v. Wade looks to be the enduring preferred outcome for the Biden administration, so why all of the fuss?
Further, if everything should be decided by a broad consensus, why has Biden issued any executive orders, let alone nearly 120 of them, including forgiving over $66 billion in student loans?
The New York Democratic Committee plans on cooking up a wide margin of victory in 2024 by gerrymandering districts yet again to unseat Republicans, a dirty political game meant to stifle the opposition. Perhaps that’s the kind of circumvention of democracy that the Biden administration favors.
The White House’s comments about the Israeli vote was both foolish and insulting. For a president who took office amid riots at the Capital building and who passes orders completely bypassing Congress, to publicly berate Israel in such fashion is a vile combination of smugness and lack of self-awareness.
American Jews have a history of supporting Democrats. It remains to be seen if the party will even obtain the “slimmest possible majority” as it continues to insult the Jewish State.
When Israel declared its new state on May 14, 1948, U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) supported Democratic President Truman’s quick recognition of the Jewish State. In his capacity as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said:
“The prompt recognition of the provisional government as the de facto authority in the new State of Israel is the logical and proper step following the termination of the British mandate…. It responds to a basic decision taken at the United Nations at our instance. It is a positive actions after many months of critical and unhappy indecision.“
The New York Times, May 15, 1948
The State of Michigan has changed a lot in its attitudes towards Israel since 1948.
In 2019, the state had the second highest total Arab population, just behind California, counting 221,631 persons, or about 2.2% of the state which perhaps changed the tone regarding policies towards Israel. In November 2018, the state elected Rashida Tlaib to Congress and re-elected her two years later. Born in Detroit, MI, she is the descendant of Palestinian Arabs and the most anti-Israel voice in Congress today. In January 2021 she said:
“I think it’s important to understand that Israel is a racist state… they don’t believe that [Palestinian Arabs] are equal human beings that deserve to live.“
On March 12, 2021, Tlaib penned a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that incorrectly called “Palestine” an actual entity and falsely claimed that Israel had an obligation to provide COVID-19 vaccines to people in Gaza, the neighboring strip administered by a U.S.-designated terrorist group committed to Israel’s destruction.
The letter continued with lies denouncing “Israel’s ongoing colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” as if East Jerusalem was an actual place rather than a footnote related to a city once divided by war for the years 1949-1967. Further, the “Palestinian West Bank” is Area A which Israel handed to the Palestinian Authority in the Oslo Accords. There was never a “Palestinian West Bank” before then, and it is not “colonized” by Israel.
Tlaib wrote the letter with Mark Pocan (D-WI) and secured signatures from Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Marie Newman (D-IL), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Andre Carson (D-IN), Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and Hank Johnson (D-GA). All Democrats.
At the time of Israel’s founding, a leading Republican senator from the state of Michigan worked with a Democratic administration to support the Jewish State. Unfortunately, 73 years later, we see far-left Democrats following a shrill Congresswoman from Michigan in aggressively trying to pull this Democratic administration from supporting Israel. As it relates to Israel, mainstream Republicans and Democrats have more in common than either party has with the Socialist fringe inside the Democratic party.
Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer (NY) and Elizabeth Warren (MA) proposed that a new Joe Biden administration immediately cancel student debt upon taking office. They proposed cancelling $50,000 for all borrowers of federal student loans while Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) proposed cancelling all student debt.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn in July 2019, well before the pandemic. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
This initiative has great appeal to progressives whose economic mission is to transfer wealth to lower income people. It also goes directly to big Democratic donors.
The Education Industry is Democrats Big Money Donor
Democrat Joe Biden out-raised Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election by 48% ($1.38 billion to $864 million). While the legacy liberal media lies that small donors made up Biden’s base, according to the non-partisan OpenSecrets.org calculations, Biden was all about big money. Libertarian Jo Jorgenson had 68.6% of her donations come in small amounts followed by Trump with 45.0%. Biden was third with only 39.3% coming from small donors.
The big money to the Biden campaign came from the usual Democratic loyalists like lawyers and lobbyists ($83 million in total, almost all to Democrats). The Education sector was even bigger, with over $110 million being contributed to the presidential campaign, of which 94.2% went to Democrats. To give a sense of scale, the hedge funds and private equity industry gave a total of $55 million – HALF as much as the education sector. The oil and gas industry gave $16 million.
Why would the education industry pour so much money into a presidential campaign? Isn’t it struggling to keep up? Don’t they always ask for more money as though cash strapped? If money is so tight, how do schools “donate” more money to an election campaign than the hedge fund, oil and gas, casino and gambling industries combined?
The education industry gave more money to the 2020 presidential campaign than the hedge fund/private equity, oil and gas, and the casino/ gambling industries COMBINED.
source: opensecrets.org
Public SchoolsK-12
The giant and powerful teacher unions are the big contributors. According to Open Secrets, “two organizations account for practically all of the contributions made by teachers unions: The National Education Association (about $20 million in 2016) and the American Federation of Teachers (almost $12 million). Both groups — which compete for members, but also collaborate with each other through the NEA-AFT Partnership — are consistently among the organizations that contribute the most money to candidates and political groups.” The NEA is seemingly transparent about their partisan spending, showing on its website that 96% of its funds go to Democrats. AFT is a 1.7 million member organization headed by Randi Weingarten who makes no bones about trying to use her influence to enact liberal priorities on matters like climate change and universal healthcare.
The payoff scheme is pretty straightforward: Democrats work to empower unions whether in committing to only hire union labor or the ability to collect fees from members. In turn, the union leaders give money to Democrats and push their members to vote for their candidates. These paid-for local Democratic politicians now negotiate the contracts of the people who just helped give them their jobs, a much more loyal base than exists among taxpayers. The Democratic politicians give the unions favorable pay increases and the best healthcare and pension benefits found in the country, far superior than non-unionized citizens.
The cost for K-12 public education has ballooned under this corrupt money transfer scheme where Democratic politicians pour taxpayer money into unions who in turn pour money back into their election campaigns.
According to the US Census Bureau, the per pupil cost to educate public school students consistently rises more than inflation. In 2016, the average cost for a pubic school student was $11,763 while in 2013 it was $10,724, a 10% increase in just three years. That’s OVER THREE TIMES the 3.0% inflation of the consumer price index in that time period.
The ramp in expenses is due to a variety of items including building state-of-the-art facilities and professional-quality ball fields as well as a range of inclusion and enrichment programs for students who need more help. But the biggest costs are the teacher salaries and benefits. In 2016, 88% of the $665 billion of U.S. public school costs were in “Current Spending” of which 65% was for salaries and 35% for benefits.
Teachers’ unions focus on their core constituents – the teachers – not the students. The unions protect even the weakest non-performing teachers, making it almost impossible to fire anyone. Employees of the public education system have health and retirement plans which are the envy of CEOs of large corporations. Teachers and administrators get to retire in their 50’s with amazing benefits throughout retirement while fellow citizens must work into their 70’s. Of course, there are summers off and the occasional sabbatical, unique to the education industry. It is estimated that between 2001 and 2018 the proportion of the educational budget that went to retired teachers grew from 7.5% to 14.4%. Those fixed liabilities keep growing and are crowding out funds for children. The teacher unions prioritize their own early retirees over children and the future.
Teacher unions prioritize their own early retirees over children and the future.
Free K-12 public school is not so free to taxpayers. It is one of the major wealth transfer schemes in America where the wealthier people who own homes shoulder 65% of the costs of public school via property taxes. The wealthy and religious, who are much more likely to send their children to private school, are effectively taxed twice by paying for the services for a second time.
Public and Private Colleges
The inflated costs for education do not stop at high school and Democrats’ fingerprints are here as well.
From 1998 to 2018, the inflation for a vast range of items was 56%. The items with the highest inflation were hospital services (+211%) and colleges (+184%). A year of college today costs an average of $26,820 for in-state public college, $43,280 for out-of-state, and $54,880 for private colleges.
The cost for these degrees is beyond the budget of most people, so they apply for grants, scholarships and student loans. If it were not for the loans, many could not attend school or be forced to attend a lower cost community or in-state school.
The student loan market now stands at $1.6 Trillion. Roughly 66% of borrowers who attended public college have an average loan balance of $25,550. Graduates of private non-profit colleges have more debt, with 75% owing student loans averaging $32,300. The biggest borrowers are for private for-profit colleges where 88% of graduates have debt averaging $39,950.
Note the trend lines. The facts continue to paint an interesting story.
According to a Pew study, the number of poor and non-White people attending college increased significantly between 1996 and 2016, with the share of college students from poor households going from 12 percent to 20 percent over those 20 years, and non-White students jumping from 29 percent to 47 percent. The greatest growth occurred in private for-profit colleges, where 58 per cent of undergraduates were non-White in 2016.
The private for-profit colleges run a very different program than local colleges. As described in The Best Schools, “For-profit colleges often have higher acceptance rates than their non-profit counterparts. Many for-profit schools have an open admissions policy, meaning that they admit all who apply and meet specific, noncompetitive criteria, regardless of grades, test scores, etc. Typically schools with open enrollment only require that applicants have a high school diploma or GED certificate. For students who might struggle to gain admission to schools with competitive admissions requirements, a for-profit college might provide an open door that leads to further academic and career success.” As students with poor grades want to be able to get good jobs that often come with a college degree, they buy their college degrees at these for-profit institutions.
More poor and non-White students attending these schools are increasingly defaulting on the loans they take out for tuition. According to a report by the U.S. Department of Education, “Looney and Yannelis (2015) found that, between 2000 and 2014, the substantial increase in borrowers and the doubling of loan default rates were associated with attending for-profit, and to a lesser extent, 2-year and other nonselective institutions. Among students attending 2-year institutions who borrowed, for-profit students borrowed four times the amount borrowed by their peers who attended public colleges (Belfield 2013).”
The higher default rates are not only associated with the more expensive tuition costs at the for-profit colleges. The same report noted “on average, employment and earnings are higher for students who attend public or nonprofit institutions (Liu and Belfield 2014; Deming, Goldin, and Katz 2012). Six years after beginning their programs, students who ever attended for-profit institutions were more likely than students who attended only public and nonprofit institutions to be unemployed or out of the labor market, and they earned less than students with similar student characteristics and school completion rates did (Liu and Belfield 2014).”
The private for-profit college industry is seemingly taking advantage of everyone: the poor and non-White communities by awarding degrees at a high cost with seemingly lower ultimate earnings, and the American taxpayers who fund the loans to these students which are not being paid back.
Enter Democrats.
Rather than fight to remove the accreditation of these private for-profit colleges which fail everyone or refuse to give student loans to students with poor grades (or cap the loan amounts at a minimum as the poor grades are the underlying reason many apply to the schools), Democratic politicians are making the grand generous offer – WITH YOUR MONEY – to bail out people with high student debt because most of them are non-White. Far-left Rep. Ayana Pressley (MA) was clear in that point when she argued that cancelling student loan debt will “close the racial wealth gap.” The scheme also keeps these for-profit colleges afloat as they need the students and tax-payer funded student loans to pay their shareholders. Democrats need these institutions around to keep churning out degrees for people with poor grades who cannot get accepted to other colleges.
Knowing that the student demand is there and the loans are available, colleges have little incentive to cut costs including terminating the system of professor tenure and sabbaticals as well as renegotiating teachers’ pension largess. There is also no reason to turn away applicants with poor grades as the American tax-payers fund the farce. Democrats join the joke as they hand-out money and college degrees to loyal constituents – the education industry, the poor and non-White communities.
The education industry is a runaway freight train and Democratic politicians are gleefully throwing away the brakes.
Progressives in America have taken a liking to toppling statues of famous people who do not measure up to their views of purity. Statues of presidents like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are viewed as insulting to Black people because they owned slaves 250 years ago. They condemn their legacy and view them as racists who should be banned from the public sphere. So shall they be unwritten; so shall they be undone.
It is curious that these same progressives have no issue judging people who lived hundreds of years ago but cannot make a passing comment to criticize countries with racist, homophobic, misogynistic and antisemitic behavior, particularly those from Brown and Black societies.
Consider Iran, a country which progressives insist should have a legal pathway to nuclear weapons. The Iranians hang gay people in the streets and execute minors. No worries. Former President Obama said they will probably come around in ten years and may even drop from the leading state sponsors of terrorism list, so his nuclear deal had a sunset while it left the country’s nuclear infrastructure intact.
Think of Ghana, home of the Khente cloth worn by the most powerful Democrats in Congress as they bent a knee in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. No, George Floyd wasn’t born in Ghana; he was American. But Ghana does imprison gay people for life. Seems like it’s a logical country to honor.
Leading Democrats don Ghana Khente cloth and bend a knee
Somalia, birthplace of Ilhan Omar (D-MN), has public executions for adultery, usually by stoning. Gays are killed by the al-Shabab terrorists who roam the land. Yet Omar has defended Somalia.
Omar gave a pass to Turkey, one of the largest jailers of journalists every year. She refused to acknowledge and condemn Turkey’s genocide of Armenians a century ago. Could it be because she wanted Turkey to provide aid to her old homeland of Somalia, as Turkey pushes its influence into the horn of Africa to confront Saudi Arabia?
Another member of the progressive wing of Congress, Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), has Palestinian parents and is proud of her heritage. Palestinian law excuses men who kill women who “shame” family honor. The Palestinians are also the most antisemitic people in the world, with 93% holding antisemitic views. They elected the terrorist group Hamas to 58% of parliament with an antisemitic charter which blends Hitler’s Main Kampf and the forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They elected a president who wrote his doctoral thesis on Holocaust denial and demands a country free of Jews. The Palestinian Authority has a law which calls for the death sentence for any Arab who sells land to a Jew. Tlaib ignores it all (or agrees with such sentiments).
Mauritania is a 100% Muslim country governed by sharia law which still has slavery. The United Nations didn’t seem to care as it voted the country to the Human Rights Council. Yet progressives still believe that the opinions and rulings of the corrupt world body should carry weight.
Uzbekistan is considered among the worst countries in the world according to Freedom House and also has slavery today – as much as 4% of the population according to some counts. Obama awarded this tyrannical country the largest military donation ever to a country in central Asia.
The Clinton Foundation received millions of dollars from foreign entities, with more than 40 per cent of the large donors coming from outside the United States. Saudi Arabia gave Clinton $10 million, that same country that doesn’t allow a woman to leave home without permission of the male head of household or to drive and that publicly beheads adulterers (including women accused of rape) and those who convert from Islam, a right guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The country hit a new record of executions with 184 in 2019, many of them religious minorities.
The South American country with the worst human rights is Venezuela according to Freedom House. No matter. The champion of progressives, Sen. Bernie Sanders, was the only Democratic candidate for president who would not condemn the far left Maduro government‘s corruption and failed socialist economic policies.
Amid the COVID pandemic, Senator Elizabeth Warren along with other alt-lefters like Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Barbara Lee singled out Iran as a country to get aid to fight the pandemic. A few days earlier Warren asked for money to be sent to the Palestinian Authority. Eventually, U.S. territory Puerto Rico showed up on her radar worthy of care.
Progressives defend and support some of the worst regimes regarding slavery and human rights abuses but cannot fathom seeing a statue of the founding figures of the United States on a pedestal. To suggest that the underlying reason is because the statues are of White men and that the offending countries are headed by Black and Brown people would let your privilege show, so no one utters the obvious.
Considering that much of the world has a human rights record today that falls short of America 250 years ago is too woke for progressives. We are in the midst of a purge, and it is not of relics and racism but the position of the patriarchy.
Adam Schleifer is running for Congress in New York’s 17th District.
In response to the First One Through article posted on June 5 about the Israel positions of the various Democrats competing for Nita Lowey’s seat, Schleifer’s team updated the candidate’s website with a section called “Strong, Sustainable US-Israel Relationship.” The section contained over 1,000 words and covered Schleifer’s Jewish background, the benefits to America from its relationship with Israel, thoughts about peace in the region and analysis of how best to deal with Iran and its threat to the region.
Schleifer also spoke with me directly about his positions on Israel which are shared in a condensed, summarized fashion below.
First One Through: Question on Jerusalem: As recently as 2008, the Democratic platform stated “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel.” The statement was contested at the Democratic convention floor of 2012 but approved. In 2016, President Obama let a United Nations Security Council resolution pass which declared that Israel’s control of the eastern half of Jerusalem was “illegal.” However, President Trump later recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US embassy there. What is your position about the city? Would you move the US embassy out of Jerusalem or change the recognition of the city?
Adam Schleifer: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. While I am not the president, I will take no action to undue the recognition of Jerusalem nor would I move the US embassy from the city.
FOT:Borders: President George W Bush wrote a letter to Ariel Sharon in 2004 that stated “it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” Virtually identical language was used in the official Democratic platform of 2008 only to be removed under Obama’s presidential tenure. For his part, Trump stated that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.” What do you think should be the basis for the borders and how does it impact your view of Israelis living east of the Green Line?
AS: I will not dictate or opine where the borders should be. The goal of America should be to get two parties [Israel and the Palestinians] to start negotiating with each other. They need to figure out out a number of details about how to exchange various parcels of land, and how to accommodate the demographic realities of various areas versus the legal claims to the same, including how to get the disconnected occupied territories to become connected by a transit route.
Right now we don’t have good parties in the mix. Arafat walked away from a historic opportunity in 2000 (I was in DC watching with sadness as the deal unraveled) and Hamas is terrible and not a partner for peace. I won’t get into whether I think Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is a good guy or not; that’s not our role. We just need to be constructive in getting the parties talking.
The reality is that under international law most legal opinions conclude that the territories are “occupied” in violation of that law, whatever the historical, moral and practical realities of the situation. It’s also true that the Israeli government’s actions of building settlements in far out places and areas that are almost certain to conflict with an orderly peace process and is a recipe for difficulty both for the Palestinians and Israel to ultimately dismantle.
FOT: Palestinian State: The UN Declaration of Human Rights states that all people should have self-determination, however, the UN declared that Palestinians also have a unique “inalienable right” to sovereignty, a sentiment that no other people in the world have. Do you believe that Palestinians have such inalienable right to have their own country, or just citizenship in some country, whether their own, Israel, Jordan or Egypt?
AS: That is not a useful question. The Palestinians operate and view themselves as having a unique culture and desire an independent state. The reality is that that aspiration will need to be accommodated as a pragmatic matter for a sustainable solution. Many other people similarly have aspirations for statehood, though, and one particularly legitimate additional example in the middle east appears to be the Kurds, who we have failed to stand by after they stood by us, and we should work to see them at least have autonomous regions permitting self-rule and determination of some form.
FOT: UNRWA: Refugees from around the world are managed by the UNHCR, taking care of over 60 million people fleeing war-torn areas, forced to resettle, build shelter and schools. Meanwhile, a distinct UNRWA handles grandchildren of Palestinian refugees who have a long-established infrastructure. UNRWA has bloated itself to provide services for people who are not even descendants of refugees and has arbitrarily extended its mandate to run until the establishment of a Palestinian State, rather than getting these descendants resettled. Do you think UNRWA should be dissolved or folded into the UNHCR?
AS: I have no opinion and would need to explore the issue further. It is clear that the UN has a very troubling double standard for all things related to Israel. Consider the UN Human Rights Committee which condemns Israel while ignoring the brutality of Libya, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Sudan.
FOT: USA as Moderator: Do you believe that the US should be the sole mediator of the peace process or should it be part of the “Quartet” of the European Union, UN and Russia? How should the America’s role change in situations of it acting alone or in concert with others?
AS: The United States is now viewed as weak and ineffective on the world stage because of the current president. I am a big believer of multi-lateralism and will take the UN involvement whenever we can get it. It will lead to reigning in regional chaos and injustice.
The current president of the US unduly relies on personal relationships to manage foreign policy, but such approach cannot endure beyond his tenure. We need to map out policies beyond the particular individuals. We are in a situation now where the US has no credibility and to be effective, you have to have credibility.
Being effective also means being honest. When it comes to Israel, America is a strong friend but being a friend doesn’t always mean being a non-critical friend.
We need to include other parties as part of the peace process and be an honest credible moderator to the parties.
FOT: Iran: What do you think of Iran and the Iranian nuclear deal and the withdrawal from it?
AS: The U.S. cannot allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. It is a malignant autocratic regime. We cannot allow such an autocratic regime to arm themselves. We need to drive a hard bargain for a new and better deal.
More so, the U.S. must get the whole world to empower the people of Iran. Through various means, the U.S. should push for hard sanctions to pressure the regime to make real change towards the rule of law.
FOT: Antisemitism: How do you plan on fighting antisemitism?
AS: Antisemitism is a thread that unites extremists around the world. All forms of extremism are inherently dangerous. In France they self-define as left-wing and in Poland and Hungary they self-define as far right. They are united only in antisemitism.
Education is key to fighting the hatred. Holocaust education is critical, as are instituting new laws like the Hate Crime Prevention Act. We need to be creative with actively fighting against all kinds of antisemitic attacks.
It is worth reviewing Schleifer’s prepared AIPAC remarks which are now on his website.
Thirty Democratic politicians under the Obama and Clinton administrations sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee on May 4, 2020. The letter began by completely misleading its audience which led directly into slandering Israel and absolving Arabs of any responsibility.
The letter stated
“Past party platforms have rightly stated a commitment to Israel’s security and included condemnations of threats and actions against our ally, in addition to embracing a two-state outcome. Those platforms have, however, also been nearly silent on the rights of Palestinians, on Israeli actions that undermine those rights and the prospects for a two-state solution, and on the need for security for both peoples.”
The phrase “embracing a “two-state solution” completely misleads a reader to believing that the Democratic party platform as recently as 2008 (pre-Obama) supported the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (1967 “borders”; Arab capital in “East Jerusalem,” repatriation of “refugees”). IT DID NOT. It envisioned a completely different kind of two-state outcome.
Borders: The 2008 DNC platform stated ““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.” Today, Democrats talk about the “1967 borders” as the natural orientation of the two-states, but that was not their historic vision because those “armistice lines of 1949” were never designed by the parties at that time or after to become borders.
Jerusalem: The DNC was clear in 2008 that “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel.” But the Democrats today are pushing for Israel to hand over half of its capital including the holiest sites for Judaism.
“Israeli actions” of living beyond the armistice lines including in eastern Jerusalem was something Democrats always supported until the Obama administration changed the party platform. These Obama employees who crafted the letter claim that Jews living freely somehow “undermines rights” of Palestinians. It does nothing of the sort.
The 2008 platform continued that the United States should isolate Hamas (Jimmy Carter still loves the terrorist group) and added that all “refugees” would be settled in a new Palestinian state, not in Israel. Under Obama, the statements were removed.
In 2012 and 2016, the Democratic platform became increasing less supportive and increasingly harsh in its treatment of Israel and has demanded less and less of the Palestinians.
Consider a simple desire from 2008: “a democratic, viable Palestinian state dedicated to living in peace and security side by side with the Jewish State of Israel.” The new letter makes no requirement of Palestinians living in peace. Instead, it just holds up Palestinian rights:
“The 2020 platform should expressly state a commitment to a resolution of the conflict that ensures both Israel’s security and future as a Jewish and democratic state with equal rights for all its citizens, as well as Palestinian rights, including self-determination, security and freedom. It should include clear opposition to ongoing occupation, settlement expansion and any form of unilateral annexation of territory in the West Bank as well as clear opposition to violence, terrorism and incitement from all sides.”
Note that these Democrats seek an Israel that is “democratic with equal rights for all its citizens,” but says nothing about a new state of Palestine and demands nothing.
No demand to abolish the Palestinian law which calls for the death sentence for any Arab selling land to a Jew
No call for Palestine to be a democracy and move away from sharia law
No call for allowing Jews to live throughout the land
No call for allowing Jews to pray at their holy sites
No call for striking the Palestinian law which allows for men to get a light sentence for honor killings of women in their families
Past party platforms never used the word “occupation” as Democrats once understood that international law for the past 100 years encouraged Jews to live throughout historic Palestine, understood that the 1949 Armistice lines were arbitrary and not meant to be a border, and that Israel retook the “West Bank” in a defensive battle. It was only under the watch of these same thirty Democrats who blessed the Arab demand for a Jew-free state and therefore enabled UN Security Resolution 2334 (2016) declaring Jews living peacefully in their ancient holy land as illegal. THEY MADE a basic human right illegal, and now chastise Israel for ignoring their antisemitic actions. #ResistUN
Not only are Democrats standing tall by the horrific Obama decision at the UN, but are pushing forward with attacking Israel and asking nothing of the Palestinians: a sharia-inspired Jew-free state for Palestinians and a state with full equality and no preferences for Jews in Israel which should absorb millions of additional Arabs. It’s a two state solution based on 1.5 states for Arabs and 0.5 of a state for Israel.
Ben Rhodes, Former Deputy National Security Adviser in Obama administration
The letter penned by Obama’s politicians which argued for “a commitment to security, democracy, and human rights,” failed to seek democracy for Palestinians and human rights for Israeli Jews. It demonstrates that Israel is not becoming a wedge issue for American politicians but a symbol of Democrats abandoning the western world. Israel is just the first casualty of the their headlong embrace of non-Democratic antisemitic norms found in countries around the globe.
Yesterday’s post called “Linda Sarsour as Pontius Pilate” got quite a bit of pushback. People wanted to know what was the point of attacking a Muslim woman who wasn’t even elected to office. They asked why there wasn’t an article written about President Trump and other calls of whataboutery.
Linda Sarsour is just one data point about an insidious jihad taking place in the United States.
On April 20, 2019, another Muslim woman – this one, an elected official, Ilhan Omar (D-MN) – posted a feed on her Twitter account that rebuked Christians for not realizing that Jesus was a Palestinian, the same sort of inanity produced by Sarsour on July 6.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) before Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
A few days later on May 9, the most power Democrat in office, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, invited Imam Omar Suleiman to give a prayer before Congress. Suleiman was the original source of Omar’s retweet.
In reaction to Suleiman addressing Congress, Rep Lee Zeldin (R-NY) rebuked Pelosi for inviting such a divisive person to address the august body, stating.
“Totally unacceptable that @SpeakerPelosi had Omar Suleiman give the opening prayer yesterday in the House. He compares Israel to the Nazis & calls them terrorists, supports Muslim Brotherhood, incites violence calling for a Palestinian antifada & the end of zionism, etc. Bad call”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) went into high gear with accusations of “Islamophobia,” rather than address the issue that a national platform was given to a virulent basher of a strong American ally. As described in cnsnews.com:
“Ekram Haque, acting executive director of CAIR’s Dallas-Fort Worth chapter, accused “anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian groups” of having “launched a smear campaign against yet another person of color and American Muslim leader in the hope of maligning and marginalizing our communities.”
A brilliant continuation of lies whereby the anti-Zionists deflected the charge with charges of Islamophobia.
The CNS news site continued that Suleiman has 1.35 million followers on Facebook and 282,000 followers on Twitter where he posted comments like these:
Facebook post, May 15, 2018:“Apartheid Israel, with American funding and cover, continues to terrorize with impunity.”
Facebook post, 10 August 2015: “Want to know what its [sic] like to live under Nazis? Look no further than how the Palestinians are treated daily by apartheid Israel. Sickening.”
Twitter post, 30 October 2014: “A third intifada is near insha’Allah.”
Facebook post, 3 August 2014: “How symbolic: 2 books buried in the rubble of a destroyed home in Gaza: One about Moses and the other about Muhammad (peace be upon them both). The Zionists are the enemies of God, His Messengers, sincere followers of all religions, and humanity as a whole.”
Twitter post, 24 July 2014: “God willing on this blessed night as the 3rd Intifada begins, the beginning of the end of Zionism is here. May Allah help us overcome this monster, protect the innocent of the world, and accept the murdered as martyrs. ameen.”
Suleiman/Omar/Pelosi are far cries from an innocuous and impotent “social activist” making silly remarks about Jesus being a Palestinian. This is a man calling for the destruction of Israel who is parroted by a congresswomen and speaking before Congress.
Sarsour herself has many other friends at the top of the Democratic Party that are furthering the demonization of Jews and the Jewish State.
Linda Sarsour and Cornel West, right, listen as Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks in a roundtable discussion April 16, 2016, at the First Unitarian Congregational Society in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (Mary Altaffer / AP)
Sarsour has developed a very close relationship with one of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders proudly posted her endorsement of his 2020 presidential run on his website. He clearly believes that her voice carries weight and will win him votes. (It should be noted that Sanders also posted the support of another loud anti-semite, former British MP George Galloway as well as Cornel West and James Zogby.)
Another 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand loudly and proudly complemented Sarsour for her role in the Women’s March stating: “It was an honor to write about them.” In addition to Israel-hater Sarsour, the other women Gillibrand wrote about were people like Tamika Mallory who is proud of her relationship with noted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. (Gillibrand has company in another Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Cory Booker who also stands with Farrakhan).
Sarsour is also close to current Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a fellow Israel-basher (who happens to be Muslim) who was the Vice Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The two back each other all the way.
In short, Sarsour is not some low-level un-influential community organizer. She has a loud platform and ears of the leaders of the Democratic party.
The “progressive” intersectionality movement is merging the radical Muslim jihadist sect like Sarsour/ Omar/ Ellison with the far-left Democratic leadership like Sanders, Booker and Gillbrand as well as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris who both excused Ilhan’s Omar’s anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist comments. Rather than criticize the essence of the hateful American jihadists comments, the Democratic leadership is opting to condemn the targets of the smear attacks (including pro-Israel Republicans, religious Christians and and Jews) as racists. Appreciating the results, the jihadists do it again, further binding the alt-left to its cause, as the Democratic leadership seems unwilling or unable to pull itself out of the tailspin.
The insidious jihad is just getting started, and will roll over the Democratic Party should it elect a member of the far-left as its presidential nominee.
First One Through 