Fascism in America? Sure, But Not Because of You Know Who: Barbara Kay, National Post, Jan. 31, 2017— NDP leader Thomas Mulcair says Trump is a “fascist.” And so do countless others. Fair comment?
Pseudo-Liberal Jews Are Causing Unspeakable Damage: Isi Leibler, Algemeiner, Jan. 30, 2017— Chaos is the order of the day throughout the entire democratic world.
Anthropologists Adopt National Socialist BDS Policy: Philip Carl Salzman, CIJR, Feb. 2, 2017 — For anthropologists, it is 1935 all over again…
Trump Changes US Policy on Settlements, But Will Netanyahu Pick Up the Ball?: Stephen Leavitt, Jewish Press, Feb. 3, 2017— For the first time in many years, the White House on Thursday released a statement regarding Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria without the adjectives “illegal” or “illegitimate” next to the word “settlements.”
Outrage at Trump's 'Muslim Ban' Yet Silence Over the Middle Eastern 'Ban on Jews': Gaurav Sharma, IBT, Jan. 30, 2017
Anti-Semitism Only On Our Terms: Asaf Romirowsky, Ynet, Jan. 10, 2017
The Left Lost Its Logic On Israel: Noah Beck, IPT, Jan. 24, 2017
Welcome to the "Social Justice" University: Philip Carl Salzman, Gatestone Institute, Feb. 1, 2017
FASCISM IN AMERICA? SURE, BUT NOT BECAUSE OF YOU KNOW WHO
Barbara Kay
National Post, Jan. 31, 2017
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair says Trump is a “fascist.” And so do countless others. Fair comment? No. It’s fair to say that all fascists are populists, but not all populists are fascists. When leftists say “fascist,” it often means “right-wing people or opinions that offend me.” In fact fascism can arise on the left or the right. I’ve seen several tweets linking Trump with the protagonist of Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, the story of an Illinois senator who parlays extreme nativism to the White House. But they fail to mention the novel’s protagonist was a socialist.
What exactly does fascism mean? In his bestselling 2007 book, Liberal Fascism (with an afterword on Obama in the 2009 edition), conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg offers this working definition: “Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or by regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival ‘identity’ is part of the ‘problem’ and therefore defined as the enemy.”
Sounds about right for Mussolini, but also for conservative-shunning American campuses and the velvet totalitarianism of their gender relations and speech codes. Fascism, according to Goldberg, can present as heavy or light, depending on cultural provenance. Under Hitler, Germany produced a war-mongering, racially “hygienic” fascism. Mussolini, an avowed socialist his entire life and without expansionist ambition, bore no special animus toward Jews. In America, influential progressives shared with fascists the burning desire to transcend class (and later racial) differences within the national community by creating a “new order,” always couched in ringing tropes of hope, change and a unifying “war” (against poverty, racism, climate change, etc). This, Goldberg, argues, is “nice” fascism, symbolized by the book’s cover image of a smiley-face emoji sporting a familiar little mustache.
Goldberg traces the “totalitarian temptation” of the progressives through the entire 20th century, demolishing the received wisdom that McCarthyism and Charles Lindbergh are American history’s most notable fascist moments. His chapter on progressive nonpareil Woodrow Wilson, who admired Mussolini, for example, is illuminating. Under Wilson, more dissidents were arrested or jailed in a few years than under Mussolini during the entire 1920s. In making the controversial case that Wilson was “the twentieth century’s first fascist dictator,” Goldberg builds his case with brick upon brick of facts and self-condemning words.
Wilson was America’s first academic in the White House (he swept the electoral college, won 42 per cent of the popular vote). A devotee of science and the cult of expertise, he thought society could be engineered according to a eugenics theory rooted in social Darwinism, which permitted Wilson to conclude without guilt that giving the vote to blacks was “the foundation of every evil in this country.” Wilson also had an autocratic bent, subscribing to the “Big Man” theory of governance. He believed a “true leader” uses the masses like “tools,” stirring up passions, and deliberately not appealing to their reason, on the grounds that citizens are “much readier to receive a half truth which they can promptly understand than a whole truth which has too many sides to be seen all at once.”
Wilson introduced the Sedition Act to suppress criticism of America’s war policies, which banned “writing, printing, writing, or publishing any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States government or the military.” So much for free speech. Postal privileges could be revoked; over 400 publications were denied privileges by May 1918. One man was brought to trial for explaining in his own home why he didn’t want to buy Liberty Bonds. Goldberg estimates that “some 175,000 Americans were arrested for failing to demonstrate their patriotism in one way or another.” McCarthy’s overreach pales to insignificance by comparison. So you see, “it” can and did happen in the U.S. and it happened on the watch of a former president of Princeton University, a leftist intellectual, an idealist and, as is all too often the case with progressives, an evolutionary utopian quite willing to break a few democratic eggs to make his “transformative” omelette…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Barbara Kay is a CIJR Academic Fellow
PSEUDO-LIBERAL JEWS ARE CAUSING UNSPEAKABLE DAMAGE
Isi Leibler
Algemeiner, Jan. 30, 2017
Chaos is the order of the day throughout the entire democratic world. This has been accelerated by the hypocrisy and intolerance of the vindictive Left, aided and abetted by foolish bleeding-heart pseudo-liberals who have become accomplices in the undermining of democracy. One can understand that many Democrats were incredulous and devastated that Hillary Clinton could be defeated by Donald Trump, whose lack of civility, absence of political experience and coarse language even offended conservatives.
But the outpouring of rage, the histrionic protest marches throughout the world, the establishment of committees to impeach Trump — even prior to the traditional 100-day honeymoon period — is unprecedented. Contrary to all the claptrap about democracy that they sanctimoniously preached while in office, leftists are unwilling to accept the fact that their candidate was defeated by a parvenu.
The same chaos has swept through Europe, many of whose citizens are revolting against the failure of the Brussels-based European Union bureaucrats to address their needs and above all the collapse in the quality of their lives resulting from millions of so-called refugees flooding their countries. This has led to a rise in global populism, a revival of conservative and right-wing political parties and rejection of the “politically correct” way of life imposed by sanctimonious liberal ideologues.
What impact has this chaos had on Diaspora Jews? As history has testified, during periods of stress and anxiety, Diaspora Jews face grave threats. Antisemitism, already having reached record levels since the Nazi era, is poised to become even more vicious. That situation has been temporarily muted because the prevailing threat of Islamic fundamentalist terror attacks in many Western nations has directed public anger toward Muslims rather than Jews. This does not apply to Hungary, Greece and Germany.
The Jews, as a minority that has suffered tyranny and persecution, would be expected under current circumstances to concentrate primarily on their own security. Ethics of the Fathers quotes Hillel the Elder, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?” Liberal-inclined Diaspora Jews — especially those lacking an authentic Jewish education — appear to have reversed this dictum. They consider that the well-being of the world and politically correct standards of social values must be their priority — with disregard to the harm this inflicts on them as a community…
The same bleeding hearts in the US as well as those in Europe were at the forefront of calls to open the gates to Muslim “refugees” steeped in anti-democratic behavior and nourished on diets of undiluted, visceral antisemitism. Setting aside the question of ISIS terrorist sleeper cells, there is little doubt that these elements will strengthen existing antisemitism in the older immigrant Muslim communities that failed to integrate. Yet many Jews are so dismally ignorant and oblivious that they even compare these immigrants to Jews facing annihilation during the Holocaust who were denied haven by other democratic countries.
This behavior is even more disturbing at a time of historic opportunities with the election of President Trump. Although by no means yet assured, the US, still the only true global superpower, may truly treat Israel as a genuine ally, a move that would be reinforced by an overwhelmingly pro-Israel Congress. Trump has repeatedly proclaimed his determination to reverse former President Barack Obama’s hostile anti-Israeli policy and create a new alliance between the US and Israel that would be sensitive to the security needs of the Jewish state.
His commitment to recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel would have more than symbolic value. It would have a major impact in reversing the odious definition of the settlement blocs and even the Western Wall and Temple Mount as “occupied territory.” Israel could proceed to build homes and the Jewish neighborhoods over the Green Line would prosper. Furthermore, the US will hopefully no longer acquiesce to the UN persecution of Israel and will reject calls to return to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines. Trump is also likely to bring an end to the US component of the scandalous $300 million per annum provided to the Palestinian Authority, much of which is doled out to murderers. Israel will also have a powerful ally that recognizes Iran as a rogue state and would substantially reduce the genocidal threat from the Iranian Muslim fundamentalists.
All this has yet to be delivered, but there is no doubt that there is now a window of opportunity that Israel should exploit to dramatically minimize the security challenges and separate from the Palestinians with defensible borders. This can be achieved if Israel now has the support of a US that can be counted on as a true ally. Over the past eight years under Obama, the US dramatically eroded Israel’s diplomatic standing, treated the Jewish state as a pariah and provided incentives to the Palestinians to stall negotiations and engage in terror. With renewed American support, Israel could at long last stabilize itself…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
ANTHROPOLOGISTS ADOPT NATIONAL SOCIALIST BDS POLICY
Philip Carl Salzman
CIJR, Feb. 2, 2017
For anthropologists, it is 1935 all over again, and the Nuremberg laws, apparently an inspiration for boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning Jews, just as when Germans, under Hitler’s National Socialists boycotted Jews, refused to patronize Jewish stores, and punished wholesalers who supplied Jewish stores.
When early in 2016 the Parliament of Canada voted to condemn BDS, and the Principal of McGill declared that McGill opposed BDS, five anthropology professors, along with more than a dozen others from the social sciences and humanities, signed a letter saying that these anti-BDS policies were “not in my name,” and that these luminaries would commit to BDS. On 28 November 2016, the McGill Anthropology Graduate Students Association, future professors of anthropology, announced their commitment to boycott, divest, and sanction Jews.
Anthropologists’ rationale for scapegoating Jews is no longer the religious deviation that justified pogroms over the centuries in Christian and Muslim countries, or the racial theories that divided peoples into pure European folk and racially corrupt Jews, Gypsies, and Poles. No, today Jews are guilty of inhabiting their ancient homeland, Israel, and running their own lives, successfully. For anthropologists, that is unforgivable.
These National Socialist BDS anthropologists trot out the usual anti-Israel excuses, such as that, according to the AGSA statement, Israeli “anthropologists have been implicated in colonial projects in unacceptable ways, and anthropological methodologies have been used ‘by the Israeli state to further occupation and colonization’ both in theory and in ethnographic or archaeological work.” More generally, the AGSA says that “we see the Israeli state’s treatment of its Palestinian citizens as fundamentally impinging upon the right of people and peoples everywhere to the realization of their full humanity.” Yet Palestinian citizens of Israel have the same rights as Jews, Christians, Druze, Bahais, and others, full rights as citizens to gain education, vote and run for office, to serve in the government, military, and professions, including the Supreme Court of Israel. Along with the students’ unfounded concern about Palestinian Israelis, no concern is expressed about the rights of Jews to live in their homeland in peace.
To hear yet again these absurd accusations against Israel makes you wonder if gross historical ignorance, a lack of reason, or malicious antisemitism lies behind them. Is Israel a colony, or a “settler colony,” as some have it? Syracusa was a colony of Athens, and Canada and America were colonies of Britain. What home state is Israel a colony of? Israel is not a colony because it is the homeland of the Jews. Similarly, Israel cannot be an occupation, because it is the homeland of the Jews. When the Romans invaded the Holy Land in the century before Christ, they found only Jews, who they fought and later dispersed. The Jews’ historical claim to Israel was recognized officially by the San Remo Conference, the League of Nations, and the United Nations. Are supporters of BDS totally ignorant of this? Jews’ historical claim to Israel is so profound and decisive, that Palestinians attempt to deny Jewish history, in the hopes of claiming rights to the area.
Supporters of BDS are not simply speaking up on behalf of the rights of Palestinians, but are taking sides in a shooting war that has been going on for 100 years. Of course Islam declared war against Jews fourteen centuries ago, and oppressed and exploited Middle Eastern Jews off and on during that long darkness. But with first European Jews returning at the end of the 19th century to the Holy Land to join the modest number of Jews who had never left, the Arab terrorist war began in earnest. In mid-20th century, the eight hundred thousand Jews in Middle Eastern countries chased out of the lands where their ancestors had lived for centuries, all of their property stolen, made their way to Israel. The Arab terrorist war against the Jews ramped up, and continues unabated today due to constant incitement by Palestinian authorities, religious and secular.
Supporters of BDS have purposefully or inadvertently, directly or indirectly allied with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, and other Palestinian terrorist organizations. They have allied with the Palestinian who this year stabbed to death 13 year old Hallel Ariel in her bed, with the Palestinian who this year stabbed to death Dafna Meir, mother of six, in front of her teenage daughter, and with the Palestinian who earlier stabbed to death five members of the Fogel family, not to mention all of the bombings of buses and restaurants, and the mowing down of Jewish pedestrians with cars. Supporters of BDS have allied with Hamas who shot twelve thousand rockets at Israeli civilians. Supporters of BDS have encouraged terrorism and war by convincing the Palestinians that they are winning.
Supporters of BDS side with the Palestinians when they say “Palestine from the river to the sea,” for the real goal of the Palestinians is to destroy and replace Israel. This is already accomplished on Palestinian Authority maps. The Palestinians and Arabs more generally cannot accept Israel because according to Islamic law the Holy Land, having long been under Islamic control, is an Islamic wakf or endowment, and must never be alienated from Islamic governance. That alone would be enough for the existence of Israel to be rejected. But there is another powerful reason. During the second half of the 20th century, the Jews, despised as inferior by the Arabs for 1300 years, defeated the Arabs decisively in three wars, causing the Arabs to lose their honor. The Arabs can only regain their honor by conquering the Israel and the Jews. For these reasons, the Palestinians desire not peace, but triumph, and through it regaining honor and the Islamic wakf.
The McGill Anthropology Graduate Student Association most generously says “ AGSA opposes all forms of discrimination, including anti-Semitism.” The only problem with this is that BDS itself is antisemitic. Using the U. S. Department of State Fact Sheet “Defining Anti-Semitism,” we find that BDS is antisemitic for “blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions.” Given the constant incitement to violence by the Palestinian authority, Hamas, and other Palestinian nationalist groups, and the continual terrorism against Israeli civilians, the idea that the conflict is all Israel’s fault is absurd. Note also that Israel has been invaded by Arab armies three times, hardly an initiative of Israel. And while some “experts” say that the recent Arab-Israel conflict is the cause of all conflicts in the Middle East, the Shia-Sunni conflict has been going on for 1400 years, and the Arab-Iranian conflict not less, so too the Iranian Turkish conflict.
Among the multitude of ethnic and religious conflicts around the world, only Israel is selected for boycott, divestment, and sanctions. Not the Turks vs. the Kurds, not the Turks vs. the Greeks in Cyprus, not the Shiites vs. Sunnites in Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Pakistan, among many others around the world. Especially galling is the condemnation of Israel at the very moment that a half million people have been slaughtered next door to Israel in Syria thanks to the combined efforts of Arabs, Russians, and Persians…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
TRUMP CHANGES US POLICY ON SETTLEMENTS,
BUT WILL NETANYAHU PICK UP THE BALL?
Stephen Leavitt
Jewish Press, Feb. 3, 2017
For the first time in many years, the White House on Thursday released a statement regarding Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria without the adjectives “illegal” or “illegitimate” next to the word “settlements.” While not 100 percent perfect — a policy of benign neglect would be best — it is clearly a complete turnaround from previous administration positions, particularly former-President Obama’s “not one brick anywhere” policy, including Jerusalem…
Statement by the Press Secretary (Sean Spicer): “The American desire for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians has remained unchanged for 50 years. While we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal. As the President has expressed many times, he hopes to achieve peace throughout the Middle East region. The Trump administration has not taken an official position on settlement activity and looks forward to continuing discussions, including with Prime Minister Netanyahu when he visits with President Trump later this month.”
In other words, what began a few months ago as a video of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking why should having Jews living in Judea and Samaria be considered an impediment to peace – is now US foreign policy. In addition to the biggest item of recognizing the legitimacy of the settlements, by omitting the words “illegal” and “illegitimate,” the statement actually declares, for all the world to see: “We don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace.” It should be noted that even that one seemingly negative-note in the Trump statement against new settlements or expansion isn’t exactly that: “the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal.”
First of all, the statement gives implicit approval to construction within existing settlements, and not just to communities within the settlement blocs (i.e. Gush Etzion, Ariel, etc), but rather to all settlements. This is a much wider definition, and includes many smaller Jewish communities that exist outside of the blocs, representing some 80,000 Jews. Not to name names, but that’s more settlement legitimacy than what even some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet recognize. Furthermore, it doesn’t actually forbid or rebuke Israel if it does build a new settlement or expand beyond the borders of an existing one. The White House statement merely questions if it is helpful to achieving peace, and leaves that question open for further discussion.
The other glaring omission in the Trump White House statement is the term “two-state solution,” so beloved by every Administration since the 1993 Oslo Accords. Why, only last Wednesday, the new, relatively pro-Israel UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, had his spokesperson release a statement saying that, “the recent announcement by the Israeli Government to advance 5,000 settlement units in the occupied West Bank could […] threaten to unravel plans for a two-State solution between Israelis and Palestinians. […] We once again warn against any unilateral actions that can be an obstacle to a negotiated two-state solution.”…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
CIJR Wishes All Our Friends & Supporters: Shabbat Shalom!
Outrage at Trump's 'Muslim Ban' Yet Silence Over the Middle Eastern 'Ban on Jews': Gaurav Sharma, IBT, Jan. 30, 2017—US President Donald Trump has delivered on his campaign promise of restricting entry into the US for people from a selection of Muslim-majority countries, with the customary aplomb and organised chaos the wider world has come to expect of him.
Anti-Semitism Only On Our Terms: Asaf Romirowsky, Ynet, Jan. 10, 2017 —The US Senate has unanimously passed the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, introduced by US Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Bob Casey (D-PA). If approved by the House, the bill will give the US Department of Education the statutory tools to examine anti-Semitic incidents in the broadest and effective way possible.
The Left Lost Its Logic On Israel: Noah Beck, IPT, Jan. 24, 2017—Support for Israel among Democrats has plummeted in recent years, a new Pew poll shows, with about as many – 31 percent – saying they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel, which garnered 33 percent support.
Welcome to the "Social Justice" University: Philip Carl Salzman, Gatestone Institute, Feb. 1, 2017—Universities used to be fonts of knowledge, charged with disseminating the known and seeking new knowledge. But progressives have brought great progress to the university: progressives know all the answers, and that the problem is not to understand the world, but to change it.
