We Must Call Out Activists’ Antisemitic Bigotry: Abraham Cooper, Algemeiner, July 6, 2017— A good litmus test for the strength of a society is how it perceives and treats its minorities.
A New Tolerance for Anti-Semitism: Alan Dershowitz, Gatestone Institute, June 9, 2017 — All over the world anti-Semites are becoming mainstreamed. It is no longer disqualifying to be outed as a Jew hater.
France: Islamic Antisemitism, French Silence: Guy Millière, Jewish Press, June 12, 2017— Paris, April 4, 2017, 4:00 am. A Malian Muslim named Kobili Traore breaks into the apartment of one of his neighbors, Sarah Halimi. He knows she is a Jew.
End the False Israeli-Palestinian Parity: Daniel Pipes, Israel Hayom, July 5, 2017— Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to visit Jerusalem but not Ramallah has prompted much comment.
Top ACLU Official: Israel ‘Exploiting’ Antisemitism to ‘Encourage’ Jewish Immigration: Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, July 3, 2017
The Indelible Stain of Antisemitism: The Failed Practice of “Jew-Washing”: Andrew Pessin, Times of Israel, June 24, 2017
The Suppressed Arte Antisemitism Documentary in Historic Perspective: Manfred Gerstenfeld, Jerusalem Post, June 22, 2017
This 400-Year-Old Jewish Library Survived Hitler and the Inquisition: Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA, June 27, 2017
WE MUST CALL OUT ACTIVISTS’ ANTISEMITIC BIGOTRY
Abraham Cooper
Algemeiner, July 6, 2017
A good litmus test for the strength of a society is how it perceives and treats its minorities. In the United States, there was no more effective a proponent of equal rights for all than the late Martin Luther King, Jr. King derived his moral power from a biblical vision of peace and justice, which — in the American vernacular — meant equal rights for African-Americans and all minorities.
Today, the struggle for that elusive level playing field extends to other issues, such as immigrant rights, and especially the LGBTQ community. In recent years, gay pride parades have become a fixture in major cities in America, and around the world. These events publicly promote and celebrate the inclusion of all people — whatever their sexual orientation — and push for maximum rights and inclusion.
In Istanbul, Turkey, 100,000 people marched in the 2014 gay pride parade. In 2017, the parade was outlawed by President Erdogan, as he continues his drive to Islamicize the once predominantly secular nation. As a result, police fired at the few dozen activists who tried to defy the ban and host a gay pride parade in Turkey. In contrast, Tel Aviv hosted a huge gay pride parade a few weeks ago involving more than 200,000 people. In the Jewish state, gays serve openly in the military and are fully welcome and accepted in all aspects of society –such as the arts, business, politics and diplomacy.
In Tehran, there aren’t any gay pride parades. Gay people who dare to openly express their sexual identity in Iran often find themselves thrown off of rooftops, hung or “disappeared” into prison. And there are many other countries, including Russia and Ukraine, where gays often fear for their lives.
So LGBTQ activists have their work cut out in the pursuit of global rights, equality and acceptance. But the LGBTQ movement has not been well-served by a recent ugly incident at the Chicago Dyke March — where three Jewish women carrying the multicolored flag of the LGBTQ movement were told to leave the march because they had sewn in a Jewish Star of David. The Jewish marchers were told that the presence of this central Jewish symbol “made people unsafe,” and that the march was “anti-Zionist” and “pro-Palestinian.” Yet these progressive bigots insisted that they were not antisemitic.
But who else except an antisemite would feel threatened by the Star of David — an age-old, peaceful symbol of a faith and a people? Who else would support an ideology that denies the legitimacy of the presence of six million Jews living in a modern Jewish state? Who else but an antisemite would hold three women in Chicago collectively accountable for the alleged misdeeds (real or imagined) of other Jews who reside thousands of miles away?
Two days after the incident, organizers of the Chicago Dyke March not only refused to apologize, but doubled down on their bigotry. They justified throwing out the three Jewish participants by declaring that “Zionism is an inherently white-supremacist ideology.” That would be news to Israelis, whose families often hail from Morocco, India, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. And it would be a real shocker to Yityish Aynaw, the first black Miss Israel, and the more than 100,000 other Ethiopian Jews who have returned to the Jewish state. This white supremacist canard also comes about 75 years too late for six million European Jews. They were isolated, dehumanized and mass murdered by the Nazis’ white, Aryan, racist and genocidal regime, who apparently were unaware of the “whiteness” of their Jewish victims.
Far from being an aberration, the wholesale demonization of Israel, Zionists and Zionism that was seen at the Dyke March follows on the heels of others such as Linda Sarsour — the Palestinian-American political activist and national co-chair of the Women’s March. Sarsour, for instance, told The Nation that there is no room in the feminist movement for those who identify with Zionism. Apparently the vision of a society based on “equality for all” isn’t something that these self-appointed gatekeepers of America’s progressive social agenda believe in.
The embrace of history’s oldest hate in the name of social justice is an abomination — and it helps explain the roaring silence when gays are executed in Iran or persecuted in Arab lands. In the final analysis, such unbridled hypocrisy diminishes and degrades the cause that claims “equality for all” as its ultimate goal. What would Martin Luther King, Jr. — a great admirer of the Jewish state — say? I believe that he would issue a warning to bigots hiding beyond their progressive slogans. As he once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
A NEW TOLERANCE FOR ANTI-SEMITISM
Alan Dershowitz
Gatestone Institute, June 9, 2017
All over the world anti-Semites are becoming mainstreamed. It is no longer disqualifying to be outed as a Jew hater. This is especially so if the anti-Semite uses the cover of rabid hatred for the nation state of the Jewish people. These bigots succeed in becoming accepted – even praised – not because of their anti-Semitism, but despite it. Increasingly, they are given a pass on their Jew hatred because those who support them admire or share other aspects of what they represent. This implicit tolerance of anti-Semitism— as long as it comes from someone whose other views are acceptable – represents a dangerous new trend from both the right and left.
In the United States, the Trump election has brought hard-right anti-Semitism into public view, but the bigotry of the hard-left is far more prevalent and influential on many university campuses. Those on the left, who support left wing anti-Semites, try to downplay, ignore or deny that those they support are really anti-Semites. “They are anti-Zionist” is the excuse de jure. Those on the right do essentially the same: “they are nationalists.” Neither side would accept such transparent and hollow justifications if the shoe were on the other foot. I believe that when analyzing and exposing these dangerous trends, a single standard of criticism must be directed at each.
Generally speaking, extreme right wing anti-Semitism continues to be a problem in many parts of Europe and among a relatively small group of “alt-right” Americans. But it also exists among those who self-identify as run-of-the-mill conservatives.
Consider, for example, former presidential candidate and Reagan staffer, Pat Buchanan. The list of Buchanan’s anti-Jewish bigotry is exhaustive. Over the years he has consistently blamed Jews for wide-ranging societal and political problems. In his criticism of the Iraq War, for example, Buchanan infamously quipped: “There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East – the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States.” He then singled out for rebuke only Jewish political figures and commentators such as Henry Kissinger, Charles Krauthammer and A.M. Rosenthal. He did not mention any of the vocal non-Jewish supporters of the war. Furthermore, Buchanan also said that “the Israeli lobby” would be responsible if President Obama decided to strike Iran, threatening that if it were to happen, “Netanyahu and his amen corner in Congress” would face “backlash worldwide.” Buchanan’s sordid flirtation with Nazi revisionism is also well documented.
Meanwhile, on university campuses the absurd concept of “intersectionality” – which in many cases has become a code word for anti-Semitism – is dominating discussions and actions by the hard left. The warm embrace of Palestinian American activist, Linda Sarsour – who recently delivered the commencement address at a City University of New York graduation – is a case in point. Since co-organizing the Women’s March on Washington in January, Sarsour has become a feminist icon for so called “progressives.” This is the same Linda Sarsour who has said that feminism and Zionism are incompatible, stating: “You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none. There’s just no way around it.” And when speaking about two leading female anti-Islamists, Brigitte Gabriel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who is a victim of female genital mutilation) the feminist de jure, Linda Sarsour, said: “I wish I could take away their vaginas.”
The irony is palpable. Under her own all or nothing criteria, Sarsour – who is also a staunch BDS supporter—cannot be pro-Palestinian and a feminist because the Palestinian Authority and Hamas subjugate women and treat gays far worse than Israel does. Indeed, Sarsour has emerged as a champion of the hard-left. Both New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and Bernie Sanders have sought her endorsement. Moreover, Deputy DNC Chair, Keith Ellison – who himself has a sordid history with anti-Semitism stemming from his association with Louis Farrakhan who publicly boasted about his own Jew hatred– has come out in support of the bigoted Sarsour. When it comes to Ellison an old idiom comes to mind: a man is known by the company he keeps…
Increasingly, anti-Semitic discourse is also seeping into the arts and academia. Consider the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bigotry of former Pink Floyd front man, Roger Waters. A staunch supporter of the so-called BDS movement, Waters has said about the Palestinians that “parallels with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious.” He also had a pig shape balloon with a Star of David on it at one of his concerts. And when asked about his aggressive effort to recruit people to join the BDS, Waters blamed “the Jewish lobby” which he explained is “extraordinarily powerful here and particularly in the industry that I work in, the music industry.” In 2013 the ADL declared that “anti-Semitic conspiracy theories” had “seeped into the totality” of Waters’ views.
Likewise, the market place of ideas on college campuses and within academic institutions has seen an embrace of anti-Semitism often disguised as anti-Zionism. Several years ago I identified the dangerous trend of academics crossing a red line between acceptable criticism of Israel and legitimizing Jew-hatred. This was in light of the disgraceful endorsement by a number of prominent academics of an anti-Semitic book written by Gilad Arzmon – a notorious Jew-hater who denies the Holocaust and attributed widespread economic troubles to a “Zio-punch.”…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
FRANCE: ISLAMIC ANTISEMITISM, FRENCH SILENCE
Guy Millière
Jewish Press, June 12, 2017
Paris, April 4, 2017, 4:00 am. A Malian Muslim named Kobili Traore breaks into the apartment of one of his neighbors, Sarah Halimi. He knows she is a Jew. In the past, He has repeatedly uttered anti-Semitic insults at her. Halimi and her family had filed complaints and asked the police to intervene. Each time, the police respond that Traore has not committed a criminal act, and that they did not want to be accused of anti-Muslim prejudice.
That day, Traore decides to go from words to deeds. He beats Halimi violently. He tortures her. She screams. Neighbors call the police. This time the police do something — but not enough. When they arrive at Halimi’s door, they hear Traore shouting Allahu Akbar, and shaytan (“demon”). In a jarring breach of duty, they decide to run away. They walk out of the building and call for reinforcements. The reinforcements arrive more than an hour later, at 5:30 am. It is too late. Halimi had been thrown out the window by Traore a few minutes earlier. She is dead. Her body lies on the sidewalk three floors below. It is clearly an anti-Semitic murder committed by a Muslim who invoked the name of Allah.
Traore is arrested and says that the Quran commanded him to kill, but he is not thrown in jail. Instead, he is sent to a psychiatric hospital. He is still there. Almost no one in the French media talks about what happened; they still have not. The few journalists who broke the wall of silence described the killing as a “random crime” committed by a “madman”. None of them says that the murderer is a Muslim who invoked the name of Allah and that his victim was a Jew. Three days later, a rally is organized by Jewish leaders at the scene of the crime. Only Jews come. They are greeted by insults similar to those made against Halimi before her slaying. Bottles and metal objects are thrown at them from nearby buildings.
Members of Halimi’s family ask the authorities for an explanation, and demand to see the psychiatric report established at the time of Traore’s internment. They receive no reply. Joel Mergui, President of the Consistory, the institution charge of the Jewish religion in France, presses charges. Halimi’s sister places the case in the hands of a famous lawyer, Gilles-William Goldnadel, president of France-Israel. In an op-ed published in Le Figaro, Goldnadel emphasizes that “the killer has the classic profile of the usual Islamic criminal”. He adds that Traore “had no psychiatric history”. He notes that the murder occurred shortly before the French presidential election, and any mention of an antisemitic Islamic murder at that time would probably not have served the interests of Emmanuel Macron, the candidate supported by the Muslim Brotherhood in France. Goldnadel points out that a “political choice” was made by the French authorities. Now that Emmanuel Macron is president, the political choice seems to remains the same.
The murder of Sarah Halimi is not the first anti-Semitic murder Islamic committed in France in recent years. Twelve years ago, Ilan Halimi was abducted, tortured for three weeks, then savagely murdered by a gang led by an Ivorian Muslim, Youssouf Fofana. In March 2012, Mohamed Merah, a French jihadist who trained in Afghanistan, shot dead Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two sons, Aryeh, 6, and Gabriel, 3, and Miriam Monsonego, 8, in a Jewish school courtyard in Toulouse. In January 2015, in a kosher supermarket east of Paris, Amedy Coulibaly, a man who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic state, murdered four men: Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, and François-Michel Saada.
Each time, the anti-Semitic and Islamic character of the murders was almost completely erased by the French media. Ilan Halimi’s murderers have been described as “teenagers adrift“, looking for easy money. Mohamed Merah was originally depicted as a young man frustrated at not being able to join the French army. Amedy Coulibaly was presented as a petty criminal who slipped abruptly towards “radicalization”.
The French authorities declare that they mercilessly fight anti-Semitism, but the only anti-Semitism they seem to fight or even denounce is the one emanating from the far-right. During the French presidential election campaign, the Front National and Marine Le Pen were obsessively presented as an absolute danger for French Jews and used as straw-men. Marine Le Pen is not beyond reproach, but she was the only candidate who dared to connect the dots and say that anti-Semitism is rising sharply among French Muslims and leads to murder. Evidence shows that far-right anti-Semitism in France is dying. The files of the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism (BNVCA) document that all of the anti-Semitic attacks committed in France for more than two decades came from Muslims and Islamists. The French authorities know this, but choose to hide it and look in another direction.
None of the French organizations supposedly combatting anti-Semitism talks about Muslim anti-Semitism: therefore, none of them combats it. Talking about Muslim anti-Semitism on French territory can lead one to criminal court. This is what happened recently to intellectuals such as Georges Bensoussan and Pascal Bruckner, among others. The Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) tracks all “Islamically incorrect” statements, asks for penalties and is often successful at getting them. Even organizations that pretend to fight anti-Semitism sometimes join the CCIF in fighting someone who points out Muslim anti-Semitism…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
END THE FALSE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN PARITY
Daniel Pipes
Israel Hayom, July 5, 2017
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to visit Jerusalem but not Ramallah has prompted much comment. The expectation of equal treatment goes back to the Oslo Accords' signing in September 1993, when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, representing his government, shook hands with Yasser Arafat, the much-despised chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, on the White House lawn. No one found that strange or inappropriate then, but things look different nearly a quarter-century later.
As the elected head of a democratic and sovereign government, Rabin never should have consented to Arafat, the henchman of an unofficial, dictatorial, murderous organization, being given equal status with himself. Rather, he should have stayed aloof. Appearing together created a dysfunctional illusion of equivalence that over subsequent decades has became assumed, ingrained and unquestioned. This false equivalence has became even more inaccurate with time, as Israel has gone from one success to another and the Palestinian Authority has brought on a reign of ever-deeper anarchy, dependency, and repression.
It's not just that Israel stands among the world leaders in science, technology, the humanities, the arts, military power and intelligence capabilities, not just that its economy is 25 times larger than the Palestinian one; Israel is a land where the rule of law applies to all (at one point until recently, a former president and a former prime minister were simultaneously sitting in prison) and individual rights are not just promised but delivered. Meanwhile, the head of the Palestinian Authority, presently in the 12th year of his four-year term, has been unable to prevent both creeping anarchy in the West Bank and a rogue group from taking over in Gaza, half of his putative domain.
Some would defend Rabin's self-imposed humiliation by arguing that he sought to strengthen Arafat and the PLO through pomp and pageantry. If this was indeed the plan, it backfired spectacularly. Rather than use the prestige of the Oslo signing ceremony to build a constituency that accepts the Jewish state and end the Palestinians' conflict with it, Arafat exploited his heightened standing to develop new resources to reject Zionism and attack Israel. Palestinian embassies popped up worldwide to delegitimize Israel, and Palestinians killed more Israelis in the five years after the Oslo signing than in the 15 years before it. In other words, Rabin recklessly put faith in a historic and barbaric enemy changing not just tactics but goals. Israel has paid a heavy price for this error.
Rather than the prime minister, the Israeli standing with Arafat on the White House lawn should have been a mere second secretary from the Israeli Embassy in Norway. That would have delivered the necessary signal about Arafat's place in the diplomatic hierarchy. To be sure, that would have meant no Nobel Peace Prize for Rabin, but in retrospect, would it not have been better to skip celebrating so exuberantly a flawed, doomed, and destructive agreement? For good measure, the signing ceremony should have taken place in modest Oslo, not grand Washington, the hometown of the world's only superpower.
Had this precedent been set in 1993, today's false parity between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would not exist and the true imbalance of the Palestinian-Israeli relationship might be more clearly seen. If low-level diplomats, not prime ministers, negotiate with Abbas and the assorted other villains and self-styled Palestinian leaders, the world would be constantly reminded not of a sham parallel but of the vast moral and power gulf dividing the two sides.
Is it too late? Can Netanyahu or a future Israeli prime minister escape the indignity of having to meet as equals with the leader of a gangster enterprise? No, it's not too late. Netanyahu could eloquently explain that he will meet his legitimate counterparts, but he will leave it to functionaries in the Foreign Ministry to handle whoever the Palestinian Authority throws up. Imagine the benefits of such a step: Israel would gain in stature while the fetid nature of the PA would be exposed. American presidents would lose interest in the "ultimate deal." Other assorted would-be mediators and do-gooders would have a much harder time trying to revive a quarter-century of botched negotiations. I suggest Israeli prime ministers leave "peace-processing" with Palestinian hooligans to low-ranking staff.
CIJR Wishes All Our Friends & Supporters: Shabbat Shalom!
Top ACLU Official: Israel ‘Exploiting’ Antisemitism to ‘Encourage’ Jewish Immigration: Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, July 3, 2017 —A high-level official at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has accused the Israeli government of exploiting antisemitism so as to secure greater Jewish immigration to Israel – leading one senior Jewish human rights advocate to counter that the veteran civil rights organization is actively compromising the fight against anti-Jewish prejudice.
The Indelible Stain of Antisemitism: The Failed Practice of “Jew-Washing”: Andrew Pessin, Times of Israel, June 24, 2017 —Among the many difficulties confronting Jews who are comfortable calling themselves Zionists is the phenomenon of “Jew-washing.”
The Suppressed Arte Antisemitism Documentary in Historic Perspective: Manfred Gerstenfeld, Jerusalem Post, June 22, 2017— The initial suppression by the public and EU-subsidized French-German Arte TV station of a documentary about European antisemitism fits well into a lengthy history of hiding information about Jew-hatred and its perpetrators in Europe.
This 400-Year-Old Jewish Library Survived Hitler and the Inquisition: Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA, June 27, 2017—Livraria Ets Haim is the world’s oldest functioning Jewish library. As such, it is no stranger to the prospect of imminent destruction. Founded in 1616 by Jews who fled Catholic persecution in Spain and Portugal, the three-room library is adjacent to Amsterdam’s majestic Portuguese Synagogue in the Dutch capital’s center.
