World leaders denounced Hamas as being the latest incarnation of ISIS, due to the brutal savagery it committed on October 7. Both radical Islamic groups decapitated people and burned them alive, filming the atrocities to gain support for their jihadi terror.
In selecting ISIS, leaders like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden hoped to gather world support in eliminating Hamas as occurred with ISIS. Netanyahu said “President Biden was absolutely correct in calling this ‘sheer evil.’ Hamas is ISIS, and just as ISIS was crushed, so too will Hamas be crushed. And Hamas should be treated exactly the way ISIS was treated.”
Unfortunately, Hamas is not like ISIS. It is the Palestinian army, much like the Wehrmacht was the army of Nazi Germany.
ISIS was a rogue terrorist group operating in ungoverned land in Iraq and Syria. It did not hold elections or sit in government. It was manned by foreign fighters, especially from Jordan, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kurdish regions.
This stands in sharp contrast to Hamas, which is a Palestinian political party holding 58% of the Palestinian parliament. If elections were held today, the leader of Hamas would win the presidency. It is very much like Nazi Germany in the 1930s that came to power democratically.
Much like the Nazis who sought to invade and annex neighboring countries, the popular Palestinian army of Hamas hopes to destroy Israel and bring millions of Arabs into the Jewish State.
The only major difference is that Nazi Germany had a very powerful army which effectively invaded neighboring countries, while Hamas’s weaponry is crude, making its October 7 invasion and attack on Israel last for only one day.
Hamas, the Palestinian army, is still fighting the 1948 war against the existence of Israel.
Queen Rania of Jordan, herself of Palestinian descent, said as much: “this conflict did not begin on October 7th…This is a 75 year old story.” She added that “this is a fight for freedom and for justice.”
During the 1948 war, five Arab armies invaded Israel to destroy the Jewish State, and after they lost, the Arab and Muslim world expelled nearly 1 million Jews.
Palestinians are not helpless as portrayed by their sponsors and supporters but simply have a weaker army.
The latest incarnation of Israel’s war of independence is still raging, and the world wonders whether the Islamic Republic of Iran and its various proxies including Hezbollah in Lebanon will join Palestinians in their fight against the Jewish State. Watching intently from the sides, diaspora Jewry fears whether socialist and jihadi groups will attack them, as Jews pray for Israel to defeat the Nazi army next door.
Far left extremist Rep. Jamaal Bowman who represents the moderate lower Westchester County District 16 in New York State is a liar who lies a lot. More importantly, he’s very dangerous and doesn’t represent the values of his district.
Jamaal Bowman’s Fire Alarm & Nazi Lies
The current controversy of whether Bowman pulled a fire alarm in Congress is a small part of the story. He either pulled the alarm because 1) he’s an idiot who can’t read the word “FIRE” or doesn’t know what a fire alarm looks like despite years as a middle school principal, running dozens of fire drills; 2) did it on purpose and put thousands of lives at risk both in causing the evacuation of the building and pulling firefighters from actual emergencies, so he can delay a House vote to give Democrats more time to assess their strategy; or 3) was simply “confused” as he’d like you to believe.
Bowman’s staff then tried to protect their master by swearing allegiance to him and calling Republicans “Nazis” to distract attention from the episode – sort of like calling “fire over there!”. After decent people complained at using the genocide of Jews as a political fig leaf, Bowman said that he hadn’t approved of the use of the word Nazi and “I condemn the use of the term Nazi out of its precise definition. It is important to specify the term Nazi to refer to members of the Nazi party & neo-Nazis.”
That’s a lie as Bowman has called Republicans “Nazis” including conservative pundit Michael Knowles. He underscored the point saying that the Conservative Political Action Conference “support[s] a future run by Nazis.”
Jamaal Bowman’s Infrastructure Bill Lie
Bowman took to the airwaves with political theater lambasting Sen. Joe Manchin voting against the infrastructure bill, then Bowman himself voted against it. Not satisfied with hypocrisy, Bowman then lied to his constituents that he backed the bill.
Jamaal Bowman’s Small Donation Lie
Bowman likes to make himself sound like he’s in the fight for the every day worker, a populist in the model of x-President Trump. He’s claimed that the “average donation [to his campaign] is about 40 bucks,” but in fact it was $607, fifteen times as much.
But Bowman is not just a liar and hypocrite. He’s dangerous.
Jamaal Bowman Is Dangerous
The garden variety liar says that they weigh less than they actually do or maybe are a few inches taller. An average political liar would say that they were in the line of fire visiting a foreign country, when in fact they were quite safe. Bold-faced political liars make up their entire background in order to get elected.
But pulling a fire alarm to put thousands of lives at risk? Concealing the act by belittling the genocide of Jews while Jews in his district and his state are suffering from terrible antisemitism? Pushing to have the rap music of antisemites who sing about violence into school curricula?
Jamaal Bowman is only concerned with a narrow slice of his constituents: Black people, Muslims and radical leftists. He has utter contempt for moderates, a point he makes every day.
The question is whether a moderate Democrat who speaks for the entire district will oppose him in the primaries. We can only hope.
In the aftermath of The Great War, Germans fought amongst themselves in local riots trying to attain power amidst the highest inflation in years. Disgruntled masses used their new democratic rights to air radical views, as the rulers in their defeated lands were cast as failed and incompetent.
The phobia of the middle class was fertile soil for agitators. Activists took to printing fliers and giving speeches in beer halls to instigate the mob.
Adolf Hitler was among them, part of the German Worker’s Party, later to become the most infamous.
Hitler’s provocative nature got him into arguments with small groups at the time but by the following year, he was addressing thousands.
On February 24, 1920, Hitler took the stage at the Hofbrauhaus beer hall in Munich and addressed nearly 2,000 people. He laid out his 25-point plan designed to empower the labor movement. It called for a right to work, seizing profits and income that did not come from work, a redistribution of profits, an end to the dominance of capitalism, a large welfare state, and a remaking of the educational system.
The plan also zeroed in on Jews and immigrants. It declared that no Jew is or can be a German and therefore all are ineligible for citizenship. It labeled Jews as inherently materialistic and opposed to everything which Germany stood for. It sought to stop immigration of non-Germans.
As part of the platform, Hitler called for a control of the press which he said spread lies. He demanded that only those he deemed as “German” could be writers and own financial interests in the press.
While Hitler’s speech was initially heckled, by the end of the talk, the crowd cheered. They embraced his call for a revolution to end capitalism, redistribute wealth, remake the educational system, seize control of the press and expunge the Jews.
The movement gained momentum and followers, so changed its name to a national organization, the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party. By the 1930s, the party grew to 400,000 people and would soon gain seats in government. It removed Jews from positions in government, lines of business and seized their property. Within a decade, it launched a war which killed millions, including one-third of Europe’s Jews.
Democratic Socialists of America, Working Families Party, Justice Democrats 2017-Present
In the United States, the Working Families Party has been around since 1998, fielding far left-wing candidates, while sometimes backing more “mainstream” Democratic candidates aligned with many of its views, such as Massachusetts’s Senator Elizabeth Warren. It has many overlaps with the Democratic Socialists of America, seeing the core of their beliefs in socialism. Their common goal to “achieve equitable distribution of resources” is deeply anti-capitalist. Their champion is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who frequently derides capitalism.
The extreme left-wing did not have sway in politics until the arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency. His election launched a countering force in a new powerful group called Justice Democrats in January 2017. In the 2018 election cycle it fielded 12 candidates including Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who won in New York. Six other endorsed candidates also won.
The platform of the Justice Democrats includes several items which ring familiar from Hitler’s platform a century earlier. It includes: a redistribution of wealth in “reclaim[ing] lost capital and put money back in the pockets of hard-working Americans” because “growing disparities in income and wealth among our nation’s people have long-term impacts on our population“; “Enact[ing] a Federal Jobs Guarantee“; vilifying the government in a call to “Abolish ICE” because “it has turned into a state-funded terror group“, among other demands.
The progressive fringe were open about their plans for wealth redistribution in 2019. While running for president, Democrat Bill De Blasio said “There’s plenty of money in this city. It’s just in the wrong hands.” The goal was to seize wealth from those deemed undeserving and transfer it to working families, a clear effort to buy votes with illegal theft.
While the radical groups began to coalesce into a force during the Trump administration, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-1 instilled a greater sense of government incompetence and fear of one’s neighbors actually being able to kill them and their parents with their physical presence. As in the high inflationary post-World War I Germany, the riots about police brutality and COVID ushered in a ripe market for political agitators. The backdrop enabled the alt-left extremists to gather more power in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. New members of congress like Rashia Tlaib (D-MI) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) came to power with the backing of the radical rhetoric to “defund the police”, change schools by teaching critical race theory, and push a massive effort to redistribute wealth.
Where today’s American Socialists and the Nazis differ is regarding immigrants. The American left-wing fringe views them as the core of “working families”, whereas they label Whites as inherently racist. However, the Jews are viewed with identical disdain, the elite and capitalist among the White racist class.
The Center of Intersectionality- Antisemitic Muslim Women of Color
The far left-wing backing the “average working person” as a person of color has led to its candidates being almost exclusively non-White. While they may sometimes support slightly more mainstream politicians like Senators Warren (D-MA) and Sanders (D-VT), the movement is driven by minorities.
The most vocal anti-Semites in this alt-left fringe are Muslim Women. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) are the most prominent and powerful, having national platforms in congress. New York City Council member Shahana Hanif is a local politician in the largest and most Jewish city in America, while other agitators include Linda Sarsour, Zahra Billoo and recent CUNY law graduate Fatima Mohammed. More than only advancing the “burn it down” mentality, they advocate a revolution which targets Jews as the enemy.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
Rashida Tlaib is a Palestinian-American Muslim woman representing Michigan’s 12th district since 2019. Her shrill voice in congress started immediately as she declared that “we’re going to impeach the motherf*cker,” referring to President Trump. Her zealous attacks have also come for Israel, with lies that it commits “apartheid.” She proposed several anti-Israel pieces of legislation and advocates for the destruction of the Jewish State with tweets “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” She has even demanded an Israel litmus test for anyone to be included in the progressive camp.
Omar’s comments continued to inflame people when she dismissed the radical jihadists who killed nearly 3,000 people on 9/11/2011 with a passing “some people did something,” and later compared the terrorist groups Hamas and the Taliban to Israel and the United States. She has also yelled at people who do not label Israel as an “apartheid” state, saying “they need to get on the right side of history.” She attacks her attackers by claiming that they are racist, misogynistic and Islamophobes, to deflect from her own ingrained racism and antisemitism.
Linda Sarsour is not an elected official but hobnobs with many. She’s led the Women’s March and is a loud voice alternately yelling disgusting and stupid lies that Israel is an apartheid state and that Jesus was a Palestinian. She’s vilified Zionism, tweeting “nothing is creepier than Zionism. Challenge racism.” She has sided with the terrorist group Hamas, and argued that people shouldn’t “humanize” Israelis.
Zahra Billoo (CAIR)
Zahra Billoo serves as the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR). She has said that “Israel is an apartheid, racist, terrorist state and it commits war crimes as a hobby.” She gave a speech that the Jewish State is backed by all sorts of Jews, even progressives who claim to be friends by are really the enemy: “Know your enemies, and I’m not going to sugar-coat that. They are your enemies. There are organizations and infrastructure out there who are working to harm you. Make no mistake of it. They would sell you down the line if they could, and they very often do behind your back. I mean the Zionist organizations, I mean the foreign policy organizations that say they’re not Zionists but want a two-state solution. I’m not a Palestinian myself but it’s my understanding that that is laughable. So know your enemies.… We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses. Because just because they’re your friend today, doesn’t mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights. So oppose the vehement fascists but oppose the polite Zionists too. They are not your friends.“
Fatima Mohammed (CUNY Law)
Fatima Mohammed is just a recent graduate from law school but is emblematic of the problem. She gave graduation remarks at CUNY Law School where she said they all needed to “fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism, and Zionism around the world,” and students needed to “speak out against Israeli settler colonialism.” She received sustained applause throughout her remarks.
The obvious should be stated that not all Muslim women are antisemitic or anti-Israel. Similarly, many of the shrill antisemitic and anti-Zionist voices of the progressive wing are not coming from Muslims or women, such as Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA7).
1930s Nazi Party and 2020s Progressive Wing
The core of the intersectional left SOUNDS a lot like the Nazi party of 100 years ago, even while LOOKING completely different.
Both are deeply anticapitalism, for a redistribution of wealth to the average working person, and reworking the education system and media to adhere to a new orthodoxy. The Nazis saw the average working person as a White Aryan, while today’s Democratic Socialists see that person as a Black or Brown minority. Both the 1930s German Socialists and 2020s American Socialists think of the Jews in their midst as part of the problem, a slice of the global elite taking from the common man for their own selfish wants, despite any protestation otherwise.
The world witnessed the horrors of German socialists gaining power with their extremist vitriol and policies aimed to divide people. It watched as people went from heckling horrible views to applauding the audible bile, to voting the extremists into power to enact terrible policies masquerading as simple measures to empower the common man.
We are seeing history repeat and are dismissive of the tide, blind to the undertow which will sweep us from view and drown us before long.
Extremist left wing Democratic politicians are coming to the defense of Representative Ilhan Omar over charges that she made a series of anti-Semitic comments, by stating – inaccurately – that Omar is just debating some of Israel’s policies.
Democratic-Socialist Vermont Senator and Presidential-hopeful Bernie Sanders said “Anti-Semitism is a hateful and dangerous ideology which must be vigorously opposed in the United States and around the world. We must not, however, equate anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of the right-wing, Netanyahu government in Israel. Rather, we must develop an even-handed Middle East policy which brings Israelis and Palestinians together for a lasting peace.”
Alt-left Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said “We have a moral duty to combat hateful ideologies in our own country and around the world — and that includes both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. In a democracy, we can and should have an open, respectful debate about the Middle East that focus on policy. Branding criticism of Israel as automatically anti-Semitic has a chilling effect on our public discourse.“
Rep. Ilhan Omar and Sen. Bernie Sanders conduct a news conference in
Washington, D.C. on Jan. 10, 2019. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP)
However, the Sanders and Warren comments meant to address Ilhan Omar have nothing to do with what Omar actually said. She didn’t debate policies, she attacked Americans.
Omar Attacking Particular Americans
Omar had two particular offensive comments regarding Israel supporters in America.
“It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” was a statement she made about AIPAC, the American Israel Political Affairs Committee. She suggested – incorrectly – two things:
that AIPAC gives money to politicians; they do not
politicians really don’t like Israel, but they support it because they need the pro-Zionist money to stay in office
“I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee,” was Omar’s complaint that politicians were being forced to serve a foreign regime. She suggested that such pledge was being forced on her by Americans generally (who must also have dual loyalties to advocate for such a thing), and from politicians who were demanding such pledge because of Zionist money (see 1 above).
These comments aren’t about Israeli policies such as the soft blockade of Gaza or the Security Barrier. These are comments about Americans, and the implication is Jewish Americans as she singled out the one Jewish State. Specifically, Omar was offended about their money, their undue influence in supporting a foreign power, and their powers of blackmail. These are disgraceful anti-Semitic tropes used by Hitler and the Nazi Party (the German Socialist movement of the 1930’s and 1940’s) that are being used by the alt-left today.
Jews have the money. AOC said their riches are “immoral.” NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio said that the “wrong” people have the money.
Jews use their wealth to support foreign entities, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, to support and establish a “state within other states.”
Jews use the claim of anti-Semitism to shut down debate. This is also straight from Hitler’s Mein Kampf: “It was one of the most ingenious tricks that was ever invented to let this State sail under the flag of religion.” Hitler argued that part of the Jewish conspiracy was to claim that their religion protected it from discrimination while it continued “to expound the the nationalistic philosophy of the Jewish race.” (page 196)
Blackmail if demands not met. Omar made her objection clear. So did Adolf Hitler: “in politics, also, the application of economic means of pressure permits the exercise of extortion, as long as there exists a sufficient amount of the necessary recklessness on the one side, and enough stupid, sheepish patience on the other.” (page 63)
The alt-left Democratic Socialist wing has made no bones about income inequality and the rich taking advantage of the poor masses, just as Hitler wrote “they [the Jews] are cheats, characters of political profiteering, who hate the honest work of others. Just as such a folkish moth always appeals to the darkness of the silence, one can bet a thousand to one that under its cover he does not produce, but only steals steals from the fruits of the labor of others.” (page 504)
In the twisted modern world of intersectionality, Ilhan Omar and the alt-left are claiming that the immoral pro-Zionist money is enabling a takeover of America’s foreign policy to protect the racist, colonial Zionist entity. At it’s core, that is not a discussion about a particular Israeli policy, nor about lobbying groups generally. That is a bright red line of anti-Semitism crawling back from humanity’s darkest history into modern US politics.
We are watching the unfolding of a very insidious strain of socialism play out in the Democratic party that brought the world to ruin less than 100 years ago. What are we going to do about it?
There have been few moments in history which revealed mankind’s darkest and most evil nature. Nazi Germany of the 1930s and 1940s epitomized that racist, anti-Semitic, sinister and violent corner of hell that occasionally takes control in parts of our planet.
One would imagine that calling anyone a Nazi would be reserved for the most heinous kind of villain – perhaps ISIS today that proudly tortures and beheads men, women and children. Could anyone imagine a current American politician calling out a mild-mannered fellow politician – especially one with particularly strong pro-Israel credentials – a ‘Nazi’?
Welcome to the Democratic party in Westchester, NY in 2017.
Westchester County Board of Legislators Majority Leader Catherine Borgia (D-Ossining) was upset by the action of the Republican County Executive Rob Astorino in regards to an act involving illegal activities among illegal immigrants in the county. In an email slamming Astorino, Borgia wrote “It’s the classic ‘Big Lie’ technique. All clever Nazis use it.”
As detailed in the NY Post, the ‘Big Lie’ was a phrase coined by Adolf Hitler about Jews. Borgia said that Astorino was a “clever Nazi” just like Hitler in their attempts to eradicate illegal immigrants/ Jews.
The comparison was outrageous and disgraceful. As was the reaction from fellow Democrats.
State Senator George Latimer is a Democrat running for Astorino’s seat. He opted to barely address the issue and simply said that calling Astorino a Nazi was a “poor choice of words.” He didn’t condemn the statement nor use the opportunity to address anti-Semitism. He tacitly agreed to the underlying sentiment that Astorino is an anti-Semitic, racist, lying devil, but would have preferred that his Democratic colleague not use the term “Nazi.”
At a time when Democrats are up-in-arms about Donald Trump not repudiating neo-Nazis at a protest in Charlottesville, VA, how can Democrats freely call political opponents “Nazis” and then refuse to condemn the remarks?
Astorino rightly said that Borgia’s comment was not simply offensive to him, but to everyone. He asked for her to apologize to all of the people in the county.
People offended by the incident can support Astorino in his upcoming election and distance themselves from both Latimer and Borgia.
Over the past eight years, we became convinced that anti-Semitism no longer existed, and are now astounded at its re-emergence. Why?
What We Were Led to Believe
The Obama administration informed Americans that anti-Semitism in the United States was no longer a major issue under his watch. The real hatred that the country needed to confront was the targeting of Muslims and immigrants, not Jews.
The American media reported that anti-Semitism in Europe was barely perceptible. The real issue there was the persecution of refugees.
Jewish leaders and Israeli officials explained that the Jewish State of Israel assumed the role of the World Jew, and attacks on Israel were the new socially-accepted form of anti-Semitism. So when the political left educated everyone that criticizing Israel on the world stage was something that friends do – not anti-Semites – it was obviously a tremendous relief.
There was clearly no more anti-Semitism remaining in the world.
But suddenly, as the sun set on the Obama ride, the old hatred suddenly appeared again. Not surprisingly, the left-wing told us it was all related to the rise of Donald Trump.
Anti-Semitic incidents jumped in the days after the election, mostly from vandalism. The most vocal and visible display of Jew-hatred will happen next week, as the small town of Whitefish, Montana hosts a march by armed white supremists on January 15. The organizer is a vocal supporter of Trump, cementing the pairing that Trump and his supporters are anti-Semites (or “deplorables” according to Hillary Clinton).
And so we are led to believe that the anti-Semitism which was supposedly vanquished under the Obama years, is rearing its vile head as Trump assumes the presidency.
Reality
That narrative is not reality. Anti-semitism has always been present in the US and Europe, but simply ignored. Some of the hatred now being seen in America is simply more public and overt. It’s your father’s anti-Semitism. Old School Jew-hatred.
Over the eight years of Obama’s presidency, an average Jew in the USA was statistically twice as likely to face a hate crime as an average black or Muslim person. Obama just chose to not discuss it, and the media sought to distract attention away from it.
In Europe, the year 2014 saw waves of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel riots and actions, even as Israel tried to broker a peace deal with the Palestinian Arabs. However, the media tried to downplay the Jew-hatred. Obama refused to even acknowledge it.
As for the Nazi marches, they are not new in America. They marched in Obama’s home state of Illinois in 1977, when Democrat Jimmy Carter was president. And Bill Clinton was president when anti-Semitism came through Montana in December 1993.
Frederic Brenner’s photograph of protestors in Billings, Montana January 1994
During Chanuka 1993 in Billings, Montana, someone threw a brick through the window of a Jewish home that had placed a menorah in the window. The people of the town responded to the vandalism by cutting out paper menorahs which thousands of people pasted in the windows of their homes and stores as a common call to combat hate. The hatred did not go away, and more windows displaying menorahs were broken by rocks and bullets. But the silent protest continued. The photographer Frederic Brenner took the iconic photograph above of the townspeople of Billings hoisting menorahs, as featured in his incredible work, Diaspora.
Message
Obama focused his presidency on repairing America’s relationship with the Arab and Muslim world and deliberately chose to not focus on the more common anti-Semitism that has always pervaded society. The liberal press followed his lead and lulled people into a false sense that anti-Semitism didn’t live here anymore. Believing themselves beyond anti-Semitism, the liberal art scene celebrated Arab terrorists that killed an elderly handicapped Jew as “a masterpiece.” In the smug shroud of self-righteousness, liberals couldn’t conceive that such actions and statements were the embodiment of anti-Semitism.
It is against this backdrop that people consider the “alt-right” and Nazi marches. Something completely alien and faraway.
It is false perspective.
Frederic Brenner’s “Diaspora: homelands in exile,” included a second book called “voices” which included commentary of many writers, historians and philosophers about Brenner’s photographs. Here are condensed reflections from two people on the Billings, MT photo:
“There, at the crossroads in the barren landscape of Montana, the citizens of Billings are brought together…. The menorah is a mark of Jewish difference. By everyone adopting a menorah on this occasion, this difference no longer distinguishes Jews from others…. We cannot hear the music, but “America the Beautiful” blares from the loudspeakers that the photographer brought to the shoot…. In this photograph, which has been shot through a glass pierced by a bullet, the citizens of Billings mass to a vanishing point marked by the bull’s-eye of violence.”
-Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
“Never forget; never forget to see that through which you see, the apparently diaphanous element of visibility. Here that element is broken. The photograph is taken through the broken glass of a window. There is always the risk of not seeing the medium through which a view is taken. Here the medium that risks passing unnoticed, being simply omitted from the description, is the signature or the wound, not to say the scar, of an event: the breaking of glass…. The menorahs they are holding high, the seven- or eightbrached candelabrum (and not the star of David) recalls a particular event, a local violence: the brick thrown from the street through a window, December 2, 1993, against a symbol of Jewish faith. Is not the photo taken from the point of view of this window, through the broken glass itself? From the place of violation?”
-Jacques Derrida
These writers observe the protesters of Montana, calling for unity in the face of anti-Semitism. But they note the importance of the photograph itself, that it is taken through the broken glass that was the violence. It placed the viewer squarely in “the place of violation,” not as a casual observer.
And we have lost that.
In the effort to reach out to Muslims, America sanitized its anti-Semitism. Americans have now been trained to only recognize the most outrageous Jew-hatred – something foreign and obscene – as if from a different place and generation. In doing so, Americans watch the violence as voyeurs, not as engaged participants. Protests come in mumbles, not in screams. The expressions lack empathy.
Jacques Derrida continued about the photograph of the protest against Jew-hatred a generation ago: “in the background, one can see the American flag. The large star-spangled banner recalls at once the vocation of the witness (multiethnic, multicultural, etc.) of a nation that, despite the racisms and anti-Semitism that have continued to disfigure its history, takes over from the chosen people and inscribes freedom of religion and opinion in its Constitution.” America’s promise for religious freedom is actualized by Americans that take the responsibility upon themselves. And they do it the face of – and in the place of – the violence itself.
Can America truly protest in common cause with Jews when it doesn’t recognize the violence and anti-Semitism prevelant in society? After the last eight years of willful deceit, it is more likely that people will protest the president-elect and his supporters, than the anti-Semitism that they themselves have chosen to ignore.
Propaganda has been an important tool in war efforts for centuries. Today, there is a growing consensus to forcefully confront the people and machinery used to promote terror, as much as the effort to eradicate the terrorists themselves.
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany exterminated millions of civilians that it considered undesirable before and during World War II. Historians have long considered the reasons that so many Germans and other Europeans turned on their fellow citizens, and attributed some of the rationale to an effective Nazi propaganda machine.
While Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party that led the effort to kill Jews, Gypsies and others, it was his propaganda specialist, Joseph Goebbels, who spearheaded the effort to coopt all Germans and other Europeans to despise and turn in those targeted by the Nazis. Goebbels’ efforts to rally Germans against Jews included actions to make Germans appear as victims after WWI, and to portray Jews as sub-humans that undermined the purity of Aryans. His depictions of Jews in advertisements and film helped deceive the public and sway opinion against the Jews.
Goebbels never stood trial for his actions, as he committed suicide at the end of the war.
ISIS
Today, the Islamic State / ISIS is considered the most lethal terrorist organization that kills thousands in the Middle East. It has made and released many videos showing its barbarity which it uses to recruit soldiers from around the world.
US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton voiced her concern about the terrorist threat from ISIS in several debates, including its online propaganda:
“We also have to do a better job combating ISIS online, where they recruit, where they radicalize. And I don’t think we’re doing as much as we can. We need to work with Silicon Valley. We need to work with our experts in our government. We have got to disrupt, we have got to take them on in the arena of ideas that, unfortunately, pollute and capture the minds of vulnerable people. So we need to wage this war against ISIS from the air, on the ground, and online, in cyberspace.” September 7, 2016
Those Clinton comments seemed like an online fight: a battle fought on the internet against an online threat.
However, in her comments during the September 26, 2016 debate, Clinton seemed to increase her threat against those involved in making the evil propaganda:
“And I would also do everything possible to take out their leadership. I was involved in a number of efforts to take out Al Qaida leadership when I was secretary of state, including, of course, taking out bin Laden. And I think we need to go after Baghdadi, as well, make that one of our organizing principles. Because we’ve got to defeat ISIS, and we’ve got to do everything we can to disrupt their propaganda efforts online.”
Those comments seemed to convey Clinton’s desire to physically attack those members of ISIS that produce the propaganda. She coupled the assassination of terrorists with the online battle. That was a major ratcheting up of the fight against terrorist propaganda by a politician.
For their part, civilians have taken to the courts to block the spread of terrorist propaganda online. January 2016 saw a suit against Twitter, and in June 2016, Facebook and Google were also sued for airing ISIS videos. These online forums had nothing to do with producing or posting the videos, but were attacked for not taking down the propaganda, thereby allowing the evil messages to spread globally.
The incitement to violence and terrorism is also found in many places beyond social media and Iraq.
Palestinian Arabs
In between the first two presidential debates, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly. In his remarks, he noted the disgraceful incitement to terrorism and anti-semitism prevalent in Palestinian Arab society:
“Now here’s the tragedy, because, see, the Palestinians are not only trapped in the past, their leaders are poisoning the future.
I want you to imagine a day in the life of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, I’ll call him Ali. Ali wakes up before school, he goes to practice with a soccer team named after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist responsible for the murder of a busload of 37 Israelis. At school, Ali attends an event sponsored by the Palestinian Ministry of Education honoring Baha Alyan, who last year murdered three Israeli civilians. On his walk home, Ali looks up at a towering statue erected just a few weeks ago by the Palestinian Authority to honor Abu Sukar, who detonated a bomb in the center of Jerusalem, killing 15 Israelis.
When Ali gets home, he turns on the TV and sees an interview with a senior Palestinian official, Jibril Rajoub, who says that if he had a nuclear bomb, he’d detonate it over Israel that very day. Ali then turns on the radio and he hears President Abbas’s adviser, Sultan Abu al-Einein, urging Palestinians, here’s a quote, “to slit the throats of Israelis wherever you find them.” Ali checks his Facebook and he sees a recent post by President Abbas’s Fatah Party calling the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics a “heroic act”. On YouTube, Ali watches a clip of President Abbas himself saying, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.” Direct quote.
Over dinner, Ali asks his mother what would happen if he killed a Jew and went to an Israeli prison? Here’s what she tells him. She tells him he’d be paid thousands of dollars each month by the Palestinian Authority. In fact, she tells him, the more Jews he would kill, the more money he’d get. Oh, and when he gets out of prison, Ali would be guaranteed a job with the Palestinian Authority.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
All this is real. It happens every day, all the time. Sadly, Ali represents hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children who are indoctrinated with hate every moment, every hour.
This is child abuse.
Imagine your child undergoing this brainwashing. Imagine what it takes for a young boy or girl to break free out of this culture of hate. Some do but far too many don’t. How can any of us expect young Palestinians to support peace when their leaders poison their minds against peace?”
The Palestinian Authority and much of the society is rife with terrorist propaganda.
Did the world listen to Netanyahu’s speech, fact-check his statements and call out the Palestinian Arab vile anti-Semitism and propaganda?
No. It parroted the Palestinian Arab argument about settlements, “The Quartet emphasized its strong opposition to ongoing settlement activity, which is an obstacle to peace, and expressed its grave concern that the acceleration of settlement construction and expansion … (is) steadily eroding the viability of the two-state solution.” Nothing about Arab propaganda being an obstacle to peace.
Hateful propaganda leads directly to violence and terrorism. Depending where that propaganda is posted, that message can spread like wildfire globally.
In parts of the world, there are leaders that are willing to step up and fight against the poisonous contagion. Regretfully, not at the United Nations, where its leader, Ban Ki Moon, actively promotes that the terrorist group Hamas should become part of the governing Palestinian Authority.
Perhaps it is time for people to sue the United Nations – just as people are suing Facebook and Twitter – in giving a platform and pass to Palestinian Arab anti-Semitic propaganda.
Time magazine named Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany as its 2015 Person of the Year. She was awarded the honor principally due to her handling of the Greek debt crisis, and the refugee wave overwhelming Europe. In each crisis, she was given credit for not only being tough and fair, but prevailing in keeping the European Union together when each situation threatened to tear the EU apart.
Cover of Time Magazine with Angela Merkel 2015 Person of the Year
Merkel also shaped a subtle message over the year: the role of memory and responsibility for individuals and countries.
Personal Actions to Forget
A person’s “Right to be Forgotten” in online searches dates back many years. The “1995 Data Protection Directive” included a clause that an individual had the right to have certain information deleted once it was no longer relevant. That Directive underpinned a 2010 complaint by a Spanish citizen to a local newspaper and Google that personal information that showed up in searches should be removed or altered since the information was no longer correct.
In May 2014, the EU courts ruled that people have some rights to be forgotten, particularly if the information was no longer relevant (a financial hiccup that was fully resolved). The court determined that it would review personal complaints on a case-by-case basis.
In September 2015, France pushed Google to read the EU court ruling broadly, such that the search engine would need to apply individual requests coming from Europe globally, and not limit the “Right to be Forgotten” to searches within Europe. Europeans cherished their privacy, and wanted their protections everywhere.
National Activities to Remember
In October 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech in which he suggested that the idea to kill the Jews in Europe in the 1930s came from the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. While Adolf Hitler may have sought to rid Europe of Jews, it was al Husseini that suggested the “Final Solution.”
German Chancellor Merkel quickly squashed that interpretation of history. Her spokesperson said “All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust…. This is taught in German schools for good reason, it must never be forgotten. And I see no reason to change our view of history in any way. We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own.”
In an environment where courts were allowing people the “right to be forgotten,” the head of Germany stepped forward to declare that there are things that must never be forgotten. To forget history would ignore responsibility. Such action should never be permitted when the activities were so widespread and heinous, such as Germans drive to exterminate the Jews.
Memory and Responsibility.
Punishment and Forgiveness
In July 2015, history and memory overlapped in Germany.
While Google pushed back against a global order to permit the “right to be forgotten”, two events occurred: a German court found a 94-year old German sergeant from Auschwitz guilty of accessory to 300,000 murders; and over 2,000 Jews from around the world came to Berlin to compete in the Maccabi Games in the same forum as Hitler hosted the 1936 Olympics.
The intersection in time of these events underscores the role that Germany has tried to achieve regarding memory and responsibility, and its ramifications.
While modern Europe sought the right of an individual to escape from being tainted with stale information, Germany made clear that a society must always remember its own past. If some information was no longer relevant as the past situation was fleeting and rectified, perhaps that could be forgotten. But there are actions that can never be undone, and therefore never removed from consciousness. Memory demands taking direct responsibility, even decades later.
Germany’s active accounting for its actions paved a path for reconciliation with Jews and the Jewish State of Israel today. That 2,000 young Jews would return to the very center of the hatred that sought to exterminate them and their families, reveals how memory coupled with responsibility can lead to forgiveness.
Times Magazine honored Merkel with the person of the year award for resolving crises. In the Greek debt crisis she held firm that Greece could not escape its debt and irresponsible fiscal behavior. In forcing Greece to confront its past and alter its future behavior, she paved a path for the EU to forgive some of the Greek debt and remain part of the EU. She similarly showed that she held her own country and people responsible for its own gross failings.
It is a lesson for the world to value as it leaves the year 2015.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu came to Paris, France in January 2015 to show his support for free speech and to confront anti-Semitism in the wake of terror attacks at the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket. He addressed a large Jewish audience at the Grand Synagogue where he invited the Jews to make aliyah – to move to Israel.
“Any Jew who chooses to come to Israel will be greeted with open arms and an open heart, it is not a foreign nation, and hopefully they and you will one day come to Israel.”
Many people criticized his statement including, not surprisingly, his Israeli political opponents during an election season. The French were also unhappy with the call to move to Israel. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that “if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure.” French President Francois Hollande made a similar statement a few days later: “French people of the Jewish faith, your place is here, in your home. France is your country.“
It is right and proper that the leaders of France seek to assure the country’s Jewish citizens that France is their home and they should not flee the country from fear. But to berate Netanyahu for his remarks does not take into account the climate in which the invitation to move to the Jewish State was made.
Consider that Netanyahu did not come to France and invite the French Jews after attacks targeting their community in 2012 or 2006. But he felt that the situation for Jews in Europe had deteriorated significantly throughout 2014 which compelled him to invite the largest Jewish population in Europe, with an estimated 500,000 people, to move to Israel:
April 2014: The ADL published a report on anti-Semitism in the world. It found that Palestinians were by far the most anti-Semitic people in the world, with almost everyone (93%) being classified as an anti-Semite. Eastern and Western Europe were the next most anti-Semitic regions, after the Middle East/North Africa.
June 2014: Several European countries and the European Union criticized Israel over settlements claiming that they were “illegal” and threatened potential economic measures against entities in those areas.
July 2014: riots in Germany included firebombing a synagogue and imam calling “destroy the Zionist Jews … Count them and kill them, to the very last one.”
August 2014: George Galloway, a member of the British parliament called his hometown of Bradford “an Israel-free zone“
August 2014: The large Spanish department store, Zara, with branches throughout Europe, designed and began to sell “Holocaust dresses” complete with prison uniform stripes and a yellow Jewish star
October 2014: Sweden decided to recognize Palestine as a state, despite the PA acting President being a Holocaust denier, and the leading party in parliament being Hamas whose charter explicitly calls for killing Jews
In summary, the year before the Paris shootings was a cascade of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activities in Europe. The year 2014 began with Netanyahu releasing terrorists to push forward a peace initiative (of which he was very skeptical) at the urging of the USA and Europe. It proved meaningless to the peace process and world opinion; Israel and Jews in Europe were attacked throughout the year, first by Palestinians and then by Europeans.
For Netanyahu, the prior twelve months had:
Israel release prisoners, including Palestinian murderers of Israeli civilians, at the direct urging of allies
Their Palestinian counter-party break peace talks by joining with Hamas and international organizations
A summer in which: three teenagers were abducted and murdered; Israel located an extensive Hamas tunnel network from Gaza into Israel to launch attacks; Israel combated thousands of incoming missiles from Gaza. Yet Israel was still criticized by Europe and the global community for defensive actions
European cities launch multiple riots against Jews
European countries reward the Palestinians with admission to more world bodies and votes of endorsement
The European Union remove Hamas from its terrorist list
In 1939, at the early stages of the Holocaust, Britain drafted the White Paper at the behest of Arabs in the Middle East, which limited Jewish immigration to Palestine at the outset of the Holocaust – a move which likely killed over 100,000 Jews – despite the specific mandate to facilitate the immigration of Jews to their homeland.
In 2015, the Prime Minister of Israel heard the calls to kill Jews, and made clear that a world with an established Jewish State will not allow a repeat of the European Holocaust.
It is with confusion that I watch the press try to present different sides of Hamas. While the press may say that some Hamas members belong to the “political wing” and others the “military wing”, the simple fact is that Hamas is:
a terrorist group;
the most anti-Semitic ruling party in the world;
a group of Holocaust deniers;
committed to destroying ALL of Israel;
the leading democratically elected party (winning 58% of the Palestinian parliament in their last election in 2006)
To put it another way, splicing Hamas is like differentiating between the Nazi Party, the SS and the Gestapo. While there were differences in their roles, each was evil and guilty of genocide.
First One Through 