Tag Archives: anti-Semitism

To End War and Poverty in the Middle East

09 Friday Aug 2024

Posted by in Middle East, Terrorism

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The timing of this post might be awkward given the escalation of threats by Iran and its client militia groups toward Israel. But I’m posting it anyway because this blog is a way for me to get things off my chest. Read on…

In the West there is fairly broad agreement that the Palestinian people should have a sovereign state of their own. There is much less agreement over the geographic boundaries of such a state and the sequence of events that must take place in order for it to be established. Among Palestinians there is some support for a two-state solution, but it is far from a majority.

The UN Partition Plan

The following map might be helpful in what follows. It shows the proposed boundaries of an Israeli state and an Arab state under the Partition Plan adopted by UN Resolution in 1947. The Resolution called for replacing a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the region requiring the establishment of a Jewish homeland. Likewise, the Arab state was intended to accommodate Palestinian nationalists. Together the two states were expected to comprise an economic union.

What is striking is the discontinuity of the lands assigned to each state, and this surely contributed to almost immediate border challenges. More on that below.

The Gaza Strip is the region along the shore of the Mediterranean on the lower left, which was designated as Palestinian. The Golan Heights is the Israeli region on the upper right. The West Bank is the Palestinian region in the middle. Jerusalem and its vicinity was designated as an international zone to be administered by the UN.

Border Battles

Today, the geography of a prospective Palestinian state would certainly include the Gaza Strip. There doesn’t seem to be any great dispute there, but the West Bank is another story. In this context, it’s important to remember some key details about the history of this region since 1947. David Post writes at the Volokh Conspiracy that the Palestinian state was obliterated by other Arab states in 1948:

“The State of Palestine was strangled in its infancy, not by the Israelis, who accepted the U.N. partition plan, but by the neighboring Arab States—Egypt, Syria, and Jordan—who did not. The day after the British pulled their forces out, the Arab armies marched in, and the first Arab-Israeli War began.“

The hostilities were formally ended with the signing of three different Armistices in 1949:

“The boundaries fixed in those agreements gave to each of the four countries involved more-or-less the territory that their armies had managed to control as of the date that ceasefires had been declared. The West Bank became part of Jordan; Gaza became part of Egypt; the Golan Heights became part of Syria. Israel got—or kept—the rest. The Palestinians, who had no army of their own, got nothing.“

Here are the boundaries under the 1949 Armistices:

The three Arab states, which refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist, attacked again in 1967. In a matter of six days and on three fronts, the Israelis drove them back and took Gaza, the West Bank, and retook the Golan Heights. Post asks:

“Why is it that only starting then, now that Israel was in control of these areas, did the world rouse itself to Palestinian grievances, and demand that ‘Palestinian lands’ be given back to the Palestinians?“

It’s worth noting that these conflicts led to the displacement of a great many Palestinians, but Israel did not provoke the attacks.

Indigenous Populations

Enemies of Israel, including those in the West, go so far as to say the Israelis are not entitled to a homeland in the Levant. Even worse, they chant “from the river to the sea”, often ignorant that it is a thinly veiled call for genocide. But Jews have as great a claim to a homeland in the Levant as the Palestinians. Jacob Sullum wrote of this truth last October, in the wake of the Hamas butchery on October 7, 2023. Israeli Jews are characterized by enemies as “colonizers”. This, as Sullum says:

“… is a ‘simplistic morality tale’, that pits white European oppressors against ‘indigenous’ people, eliding Israel’s demographic roots and the ancient Jewish connection to the land. “

Sullum goes on to discuss research on the genetic origins of modern Jewish populations. For example, one paper found that the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews, who account for almost a third of Jews in Israel, likely descended from a “diverse population in the Middle East.” And Sullum points out that Mizrahim Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin represent almost 45% of Israeli Jews. Furthermore, another study found that Jews and Arabs in the Middle East both share high percentages of Y chromosomes with a single gene pool, which suggests a common origin. Therefore, both Palestinians and Israeli Jews have legitimate claims to a homeland in the Levant.

Israel and Gaza

Contrary to claims by Hamas supporters, there was no occupation of Gaza by Israel at the time of the October 7th massacre. Israel’s prior occupation of Gaza ended almost 20 years ago, in 2005. However, Israel has restricted the movement of goods in and out of the Gaza Strip since the 1990s. Israel and Egypt tightened the blockade on Gaza in 2007 after Hamas took control there, though it was eased in steps from 2010 – 2013. Given the uncompromising belligerence of Hamas and its proclivity for diverting resources to support aggression against Israel, it’s fair to say the blockade is, and has been, a legitimate instrument of defense, as long as Gaza is “governed” by Hamas.

Last year, less than a week after the October 7th massacre and hostage taking, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) began ground operations in Gaza in an effort to root out Hamas fighters, destroy their war-making infrastructure, and rescue hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Of course, that fight goes on.

Hamas has fought against Israel’s retaliatory action in ways that have propaganda value, especially given the naïveté of much of the Western press. Its fighters are often embedded among civilians within residential areas and facilities like schools and hospitals. The use of human shields is a war crime for which Hamas bears full responsibility, and Hamas has made it clear that their aim is to kill Israelis, civilian and military alike. Hamas has made a practice of exaggerating Palestinian death counts, a distortion that has been more obvious to statisticians than journalists.

The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip will be tough to end without a complete surrender by Hamas and release of the hastages. Even then, the current IDF occupation is unlikely to end until efforts are well underway to flesh out the details of a new Palestinian government, if not statehood.

The West Bank

Perhaps even more thorny for an eventual two-state solution is that Israel occupies the West Bank and has established settlements that Palestinians strongly oppose. Jordan might also have designs on retaking West Bank territory, which would once again leave Palestinians as the odd people out. Israel took the land in its own defense during the Six-Day War in 1967 and kept it as a security buffer:

“… Israel insisted that it should not, and would not, simply return to the pre-war situation — the dangerous combination of precarious armistice lines and aggressive neighbors that had prevailed for 19 years. …

The idea that Israeli security depended on continued control over parts of the West Bank was held not only by Israeli officials, but also by the American Joint Chiefs of Staff. … Referring to the West Bank, they argued that Israel required a new boundary that would ‘widen the narrow portion of Israel’ and help protect Tel Aviv.“

Israel splits aspects of governance with the Palestinian Authority in parts of the West Bank, but most of the security apparatus is run by Israel.

The continued West Bank occupation is as fraught with controversy as ever. Today there is bitter resentment over new Israeli settlements and the construction of the “Separation Wall” just inside the western border of the West Bank. The situation is made all the more intractable by Hamas’ presence there amid ongoing attacks against Israeli interests.

Withdrawing from the West Bank would create a huge vulnerability for Israel, so one can hardly expect it to cede control of the entire territory. Yet it is hard to imagine an economically viable Palestinian state confined to the Gaza Strip. In fact, some feel that more than the West Bank should be in play for creating a contiguous corridor to Gaza, which would help promote a new Palestinian state’s economic viability.

Iran

Obviously Hamas is not the only threat to Israel’s security. To the north in Lebanon, Hezbollah is a well-armed adversary. And like Hamas, it receives considerable support from Iran. It’s difficult to imagine that Iran could maintain this support, not to mention its nuclear ambitions, without the flow of oil revenue made possible by U.S. acquiescence. Reaching a peaceful resolution to the conflicts between Israel and its neighbors will be very difficult without somehow neutralizing the Iranian threat. Regime change there would be key to this effort.

What Must Happen

The obstacles to establishing a peaceful, two-state solution for Palestinians and Israelis are so steep that the prospect seems almost unimaginable. A complete defeat of both Hamas and Hezbollah would be critical, and the Palestinian Authority or any other successor regime must be counted on to negotiate in good faith and with the legitimate support of the Palestinian people. Likewise, Israel must be willing to negotiate meaningful concessions, at least in terms of its occupied territories in the West Bank.

For a successful resolution, the role of other Arab states can’t be emphasized enough. These states should apply pressure to Israel’s neighbors like Syria and Jordan to rein-in their own territorial ambitions. In a positive sign, there is now growing pressure on Iran from other Arab states to end its belligerence.

A reconstituted Abraham Accords framework could strengthen diplomatic and economic ties across the region, promoting cross-investment, trade, and cultural exchange. The framework should include a mechanism to encourage aid from the Arab states and Israel to help Palestinians build a new, peaceful, and prosperous state.

Finally, a peaceful two-state solution hinges on continued U.S. support for Israel and a new Palestinian homeland. Unfortunately, in recent years we’ve witnessed a drift toward anti-Zionism (and even anti-Semitism) among Democrats. This sort of foolishness on the far Left knows no bounds. If the anti-Zionist position comes to be accepted by the mainstream of the party, it could severely compromise Israel’s leverage in negotiations.

Summary

A resolution that would ultimately bring peace to the Middle East seems remote in the midst of the current hostilities. It would require a dramatic softening of views among nearly all parties to solve the impasse over nation-state homelands for both Jews and Palestinians. In no particular order, the following are all necessary:

  • Israel’s neighboring states must not covet territory originally intended for the Palestinians, or for that matter the state of Israel.
  • Iran must butt out one way or another (in the language of high diplomacy), which would do much to neutralize militant factions like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
  • Other Arab states must come to the table along with the Israelis to negotiate economic and political accords, including aid to the Palestinian people.
  • The U.S. must resist internal calls from the Left to withdraw support for Israel.
  • More immediately, Israel must do its best to root out and defeat Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
  • The Palestinian people must decide they want peace and a prosperous civilization.
  • Israel must show a willingness to negotiate concessions to Palestinians in the West Bank, and to aid in the rebuilding of Gaza.

Taken together that’s a very tall order! The U.S. can and should do its part to support Israel and the Palestinian people, penalize Iran, and help to bring all parties to the negotiating table. A refashioning of the Abraham Accords could contribute to peace in the region, including a stable, prosperous, and well-governed Palestinian homeland.

Riding the DEI Weimar Curve: What’s Next on the Pogrom?

24 Friday Nov 2023

Posted by in anti-Semitism, DEI, fascism, Liberty

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Germany’s inter-war descent into genocidal barbarism is perhaps the most horrifying episode of modern times. Seemingly normal, “nice people” in Germany were persuaded to go along with the murderous pogroms of the anti-Semitic National Socialists, giving truth to the “banality of evil”, as the famous expression goes. Of course, there were plenty of true believers, and multitudes bowed to the Nazis under fierce coercion, but many others went along just to “fit in”.

What could life have felt like in Weimar Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s as the fascists accumulated power? Were normal people afraid? Well before Adolf Hitler’s rise to power he was known for his hatred of Jews, but German political leaders who enabled his ascent did not take his extreme prejudice as seriously as they should have, or they thought they could at least keep him and his followers in check. Surely there were people who foresaw the approaching cataclysm for what it would be.

Current expressions of anti-Semitism might give us a sense of what life was like during the decline and fall of the Weimar Republic. Just ask Jewish students at NYU and Cornell if they’ve sensed a whiff of it in the wake of Hamas’ slaughter of civilians in southern Israel on October 7th. The harassment these students have endured was motivated in part by claims that Israeli retaliation is morally inferior to the barbarities committed by Hamas, which is preposterous.

Of course, unlike late Weimar Germany, when Jews were blamed for economic (and other) problems, the Jew hatred we’re witnessing in the U.S. today has little to do with the immediate state of the economy. Conditions now are nothing like what prevailed in Germany as the Great Depression took hold, despite current inflationary stresses on real household incomes.

And yet some hold Jews in contempt for their relative economic success, a fact that is bound up with the frequency with which Jews are placed at the center of economic conspiracy theories. One would think Jews to be the ultimate “white oppressors”. But it seems that much of the current wave of anti-Semitism comes from fairly elite quarters, ensconced within major institutions where its sympathizers are insulated from day-to-day economic pressures.

And that brings us to a frightening aspect of the current malaise: how heavily institutionalized the hatred for certain groups or “classes” has already become. This owes to the blame directed toward whites, men, Jews, and Asians presumed to have been endowed with an inside track on success at the expense of others. Success of any kind, in the narrative of “critical” social justice, is “oppressive”, as if success is a zero-sum game.

Here is Philip Carl Salzman on this point:

“The ‘social justice’ political analysis is founded on the Marxist conviction that society is divided into two classes: oppressors and victims. The corresponding ‘social justice’ ethic is that victims must be raised up and celebrated and that oppressors must be suppressed and eliminated.”

This thinking has been integrated into the policies, practices and rhetoric taught in schools at all levels, corporations and nonprofits, social and traditional media, and government (including intelligence agencies and the military). This level of integration gives diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) policies coercive force on behalf of so-called “protected groups”, in the parlance of anti-discrimination law. When those practices are enforced by government in various ways, the private gains extracted from “unprotected” groups amount to fascism.

Bari Weiss wrote an article in Tablet last week entitled “End DEI” in which she describes her bemused reaction as a student in the early 2000s to nascent DEI rhetoric. (Also see her recent speech to the Federalist Society here.) It’s more obvious today, but even then she recognized the hate inherent in DEI doctrine. She crystallizes the dangers she saw in DEI ideology:

“What I saw was a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Colorblindness with race-obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.

“People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues. According to them, as Jamie Kirchick concisely put it in these pages: ‘Muslim > gay, Black > female, and everybody > the Jews.’”

Weiss says Jewish leaders told her, at that time, not to be hysterical, that these perverse ideas would ultimately pass like any fad. That sounds so eerily familiar. Instead, we’ve witnessed a widespread ideological takeover.

“If underrepresentation is the inevitable outcome of systemic bias, then overrepresentation—and Jews are 2% of the American population—suggests not talent or hard work, but unearned privilege. This conspiratorial conclusion is not that far removed from the hateful portrait of a small group of Jews divvying up the ill-gotten spoils of an exploited world.

“It isn’t only Jews who suffer from the suggestion that merit and excellence are dirty words. It is strivers of every race, ethnicity, and class. That is why Asian American success, for example, is suspicious. The percentages are off. The scores are too high. From whom did you steal all that success?”

The whole DEI enterprise is corrupt and unethical. It denies the meritorious in favor of those having certain superficial characteristics like the “right” skin color. That is evil and economically demented besides. It also breeds hatred that often flows both ways between classes of people, creating an incendiary environment. That we’re talking about systemic, legalized discrimination against any group is disturbing enough, but when small minorities are “othered” in this way, the potential for violent action against them is magnified. But this is just where the DEI mindset leads its proponents and beneficiaries.

Our slide into this monstrous “social justice” regime mirrors the insanity and anger that was fomented against certain “out groups” when the Nazi’s accumulated power in the latter years of the Weimar Republic. Too many today have succumbed to this zero-sum psychology, young and old alike. Fortunately, they are beginning to face some fierce resistance, but those who extol the supposed righteousness of the class struggle via DEI won’t easily give up. Our institutions are infested with their kind.

As long as influential people preach the virtues of DEI and social justice, the danger of a headlong plunge into genocidal madness is possible. And the sad truth is that normal human beings are subject to social manipulation of the most evil kind. David Foster at Ricochet: quotes an address given by C.S. Lewis in which he emphasizes this point. His words are haunting:

“Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.”

Elsewhere in Lewis’ address, he says:

“And the prophecy I make is this. To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which ‘we’ — and at the word ‘we’ you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something ‘we’ always do.

“And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world. It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face—that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face—turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected. And then, if you are drawn in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel.”

“Othered” By the Left

31 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in fascism, Identity Politics, Progressivism

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Progressivism certainly has its discards. The photo showed a trash bin labeled “CATHOLIC DUMPSTER”. Dead bodies were hanging out of the top. A “friend” had posted it on Facebook, ostensibly as humor. I thought it was in poor taste and had the temerity to say so in a comment; naturally I was immediately castigated by a mob for expressing that opinion. The “friend” said that if I really knew him, I’d realize that he loves everyone. That claim was quickly undermined by his partner, who joined the exchange to spew vitriol for Christians. A wiser person on the thread, perhaps detecting a whiff of hypocrisy, noted the likely outrage had the label on the trash bin said “JEWISH DUMPSTER”. Well yes…. Er, maybe. The political Left, it seems, is drifting ever closer to anti-Semitism as well as radical intolerance for Christians. This in addition to outright hostility toward whites, men, or anyone perceived as having “privilege”. The rhetoric is becoming increasingly hateful, vile, and violent.

A recent confrontation in front of the Lincoln Memorial wrapped together several objects of leftist hatred. It involved boys from Covington Catholic High School and left-wing activist Nathan Phillips, an Omaha Indian, as well as a group of black nationalists called the Black Hebrew Israelites. The Covington boys are white, male, Catholic, pro-life, and they wore MAGA caps. They were passive except for chants intended to drown-out shouts of “faggots” from the Black Israelites, but the media almost uniformly portrayed the boys as racist villains in the immediate aftermath, based on incomplete video evidence. It is difficult to ascertain who released the original video, but a longer version proved that the boys were not at fault. Meanwhile, Phillips proved to be a bald-faced liar. He lied about the sequence of events, the behavior of the boys, and about having served in Vietnam. But those lies fueled a media narrative as well as the fertile imaginations of many leftists. The full video reveals that Phillips marched from some distance straight up to one of the teenagers and proceeded to bang a drum in the kid’s face. The boy maintained his composure and kept a calm smile on his face. Later, however, that smile was cited as proof of racism!

A few members of the media retracted the awful things they said about the teenagers and the incident, but others continue to allege that the Covington teenagers were at fault, or that they at least share the blame. Some of the rhetoric is no less hateful than before the full video became available. This is a far cry from the heartfelt entreaties to avoid criticism of any controversial opinions expressed by “the children” in the wake of the Parkland High School shooting. In the present case. the kids have been targeted with a slew of insults and threats to themselves and their families.

Regarding the MAGA caps, I am by no means a Trump enthusiast, but I root for him to do well as our president despite my strong disapproval of some of his policies. You won’t ever catch me in a MAGA cap. However, I do not believe that he and his political base are racist. Trump is an equal opportunity denigrator, but he’s called a racist every time his target happens to be a person of color, as though people of color are always above criticism. Trump is called a racist for his promise to build a wall along the Mexican border to stem illegal crossings, though the same proposal has been offered by many Democrats over the years, including Barack Obama and Check Schumer. Therefore, the very idea that wearing a MAGA cap is a racist signal is transparently political and absurd. That some of the Covington boys wore MAGA caps has reinforced other excuses to target them for vicious criticism.

A further issue is that the Covington boys are privileged, you see, guilty of possessing white, male privilege, even as they defended a black classmate harangued by the Black Israelites. They attend a private school, and so they must be from wealthy families and worthy of progressive hatred. They were in DC for the March for Life, so they are opposed to reproductive choice and must hate women. In fact, it’s been alleged that they were in DC only to oppose the Women’s March. Misogynists!

Hatred for Catholics and for anyone who has attended private schools is always de rigueur on the Left. That was quite clear during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Hatred gushed from the Left not only because they were satisfied of Judge Kavanaugh’s guilt based on unsubstantiated, 11th-hour allegations leveled against him by an SJW, but apparently also because he attended a Catholic boys school! Oh, and he is male. I have another “friend” whose Facebook feed was littered with smears of Kavanaugh, including characterizations of private school kids as “smug little weasels”. As Caroline Lewis said at the time, these “critics” are barbarians. Do you think they don’t want to hurt those they’ve “othered”, or want someone else to hurt them in one way or another? The boundaries of grievance always expand, and will keep expanding until they eat their own.

David French claims that his defense of Christian education prompted an activist to start the #ExposeChristianSchools hashtag. Now, I’m sure everyone who has attended public or private schools can repeat a litany of stories about a few awful teachers they were forced to endure, not to mention the hostile environment that school children often create for one another. But private schools, and religious schools, are often superior options for parents and children. If you don’t like the curriculum, don’t send your kids there. If you don’t think the policies are sufficiently inclusive, or the environment will be unhealthy for your child, then send them elsewhere. But the vilification of an entire segment of the population based on how they choose to educate their children is despicable. They’d ban Christian education if they could… and religion!

Note that the Left’s insistence on state domination is itself a threat of violence. While capitalism and free markets are cooperative in nature, socialism is at its core authoritarian and coercive. If you resist you become an enemy of “the people”, and such enemies will have consequences to pay.

Antifa is unashamedly violent, but it might be only the tip of the iceberg. The rhetoric of the Left has become increasingly hostile toward Christians, Jews, males, whites, Republicans, and of course anyone achieving material success. There is no forgiveness nor genuine love of others in leftist doctrine. Indeed, the “otherism” inherent in leftist identity politics is dangerous and a source of increasing social instability. Their “eliminationist rhetoric” is becoming all too common (scroll down at the link).

For now I’ll continue to engage in the marketplace of ideas. Perhaps it’s becoming a war. Us “others” need to keep voting and never back down. And by all means, be prepared to defend ourselves and our loved ones by any means necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

Trump Versus the Holocaust Trivializers

13 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in anti-Semitism, Identity Politics

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trump-tallit

George Mason University Law Professor David Bernstein observed this week that many in the American Jewish community are panicked by Donald Trump’s election because they perceive Trump and his followers as anti-Semitic. That perception was seemingly reinforced by recent anti-Semitic acts, such as bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers and the desecration of graves at Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis, MO and Philadelphia, PA. Bernstein, who is Jewish and not a Trump supporter, wrote a piece entitled “The Great Anti-Semitism Panic of 2017“, which appeared in the Volokh Conspiracy blog sponsored by the Washington Post.

Like Bernstein, I’ve seen a number of indignant posts by Jewish friends connecting Trump and anti-Semitism, complete with comparisons to Adolf Hitler. My quick reaction is that such comparisons are not only irresponsible, they are idiotic. The ghastly implication is that Trump might entertain the idea of exterminating Jews, or any other opposition group, and it is complete nonsense.

Taking a step back, perhaps all this is related to Trump’s nationalism and his views on border security. That includes “extreme vetting” of refugees, deportation of illegal immigrants, and even the dubious argument for a border wall. While that’s not about Jews, those policies appeal to certain fringe, racist elements on the extreme right where anti-Semitism is commonplace. However, those policies also appeal to a much broader and diverse audience of voters who harbor anxieties about economic and national security, and who are neither racists nor anti-Semites.

Bernstein takes progressive Jews to task for tying any of this to anti-Semitism on the part of Trump, his Administration, or his broader base of support:

“…  the origins of the fear bear only a tangential relationship to the actual Trump campaign. For example, I’ve lost track of how many times Jewish friends and acquaintances in my Facebook feed have asserted, as a matter of settled fact, that Bannon’s website Breitbart News is a white-supremacist, anti-Semitic site. I took the liberty of searching for every article published at Breitbart that has the words Jew, Jewish, Israel or anti-Semitism in it, and can vouch for the fact that the website is not only not anti-Semitic, but often criticizes anti-Semitism (though it is quite ideologically selective in which types of anti-Semitism it chooses to focus on). I’ve invited Bannon’s Facebook critics to actually look at Breitbart and do a similar search on the site, and each has declined, generally suggesting that it would be beneath them to look at such a site, when they already know it’s anti-Semitic.

There is .. a general sense among Jews, at least liberal Jews, that Trump’s supporters are significantly more anti-Semitic than the public at large. I have many times asked for empirical evidence that supports this proposition, and have so far come up empty. I don’t rule out the possibility that it’s true, but there doesn’t seem to be any survey or other evidence supporting it. Given that American subgroups with the highest proportions of anti-Semites — African Americans, first-generation Hispanic immigrants, Muslims and high school dropouts — are strong Democratic constituencies (though the latter group appears to have gone narrowly for Trump this time), one certainly can’t simply presume that Trump has a disproportionate number of anti-Semitic supporters.“

Bernstein goes on to discuss the hostility to Trump from groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), hostility which he characterizes as essentially opportunistic:

“The ADL’s reticent donors are no longer reticent in the age of Trump, with the media reporting that donations have been pouring in since Trump’s victory. It’s therefore hardly in the ADL’s interest to objectively assess the threat from Trump and his supporters. Indeed, I’m almost impressed that an ADL official managed just the other day to link the JCC bomb threats to emboldened white supremacists, even though the only suspect caught so far is an African American leftist.“

He also notes the irony that progressive Jews have been shunned by many leftists, who almost uniformly condemn Zionism. Now, progressive Jews hope to renew common cause with those whose political purposes are defined by membership in groups with a history of marginalized treatment, and who now believe they are threatened by Trump. Will they be happy together? Bernstein attests that many Jews privately acknowledge the danger of “changing demographics”:

“… which is a euphemism for a growing population of Arab migrants to the United States. Anti-Semitism is rife in the Arab world, with over 80 percent of the public holding strongly anti-Semitic views in many countries.“

As a non-Jew, some would say I lack the bona fides to comment on how Jews “should” feel about Donald Trump. I was raised Catholic, but I attended a high school at which over 60% of the student population was Jewish. I was a member of a traditionally Jewish fraternity in college, where I witnessed occasional anti-Semitism from certain members of non-Jewish fraternities, and I felt victimized by it to some degree. My late brother married a Jewish woman, and he was buried according to Jewish custom. I was once stunned by a brief anti-Semitic wisecrack I overheard in the restroom at a community theatre production of the great musical Fiddler On the Roof!

So, I am connected and strongly sympathetic to the Jewish community. I am also well acquainted with white Gentiles who have had much less interaction with Jews. Those individuals span the political spectrum, and there is no doubt that racists and anti-Semites reside at both ends. I will state unequivocally that among this population, I have observed as much racism and denigration of Jews from the left as from the right. It partly reflects anti-Zionism, but there have been leftists in my acquaintance who seem to regard Jews as Shylockian, as greedy moneychangers and crooked lawyers, or as “hopelessly bourgeois”. Jews should not be blind to the hatred that still exists for them in certain quarters on the left, even if it’s easier to pretend that right-wing religious nuts are their only enemies.

Bernstein’s column was met with outrage by some Jewish progressives. In the Jewish Journal, Rob Eshman accused Bernstein of making apologies for Trumpian anti-Semitic behavior. Here is Bernstein’s response, in which he castigates Eshman for distorting both his thesis and the reaction of the Jewish community to Trump. He also notes that Eshman assigns guilt for the recent spate of anti-Semitic acts to Trump supporters where no evidence exists. That implication is a constant refrain from certain Jewish friends on my Facebook news feed. But there is ample evidence of “fake” hate crimes by progressives, as documented last week by Kevin Williamson.

Finally, it is hard to square the idea that Trump and his leadership team (which includes his Jewish son-in-law) are anti-Semitic with other evidence, such as the unequivocal support they have pledged to Israel, and their hard stand on vetting refugees from nations that are avowed enemies of the Jewish people. Yes, Bernstein is well aware of the anti-Semitic, fringe-right elements that have supported Trump, but those are not the sentiments of anyone serving in the administration, including Steve Bannon. The left has become quite blithe about observing Godwin’s Law, which states that all political opponents will eventually be called out as Nazis. Progressive Jews have taken the cue without much thought: the frequent comparisons of Donald Trump to Hitler are awful and are not compatible with healthy discourse. As Stefan Kanfer writes in City Journal in his review of the book “A Tale of Three Cities” (my emphasis added):

“… those who persist in comparing Adolf Hitler with any U.S. politician reveal themselves as members of a group just to the side of the Holocaust denier—the Holocaust trivializer. There are no lower categories.“

Faux Peaceniks Celebrate Hamas Barbarism

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

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PEACE-NEGOTIATIONS-HAMAS-ROCKET-ISRAEL-CAI-012706

It’s ironic that so many on the Left, who claim to be anti-war and humanitarian, have aligned themselves with Hamas against Israel in the current conflict. Exactly who wants to support an authoritarian, brutally intolerant, aggressively militaristic, misogynistic “government” that practices terror, sacrificing the welfare of its civilians by dedicating resources to unrelenting attacks on a neighboring state, in the process using its own civilians as human shields? Just who are their vocal supporters? And those who denigrate the Israeli effort to defend themselves? They are naive peacenik wanna-bes and, of course, a large contingent of anti-Semites, some of whom pose as peace lovers.

An intellectually honest peace lover will recognize that there is nothing inconsistent about loving peace and making a concerted effort to destroy an aggressive, attacking force. A good government must protect its people.

There were some interesting notes on the Hamas-Israeli conflict from David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy over the weekend. His major points were: the conditions of Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposed cease fire were ridiculous and conflicted with Kerry’s earlier assurances; the casualty figures being reported by the media are coming from sources controlled by Hamas; the “humanitarian” deliveries of concrete to Gaza were diverted to the construction of tunnels for military use.

Here is an illuminating post covering human rights in Gaza under Hamas, from Freedom House. A key quote from the final paragraph.

Under Hamas, personal status law is derived almost entirely from Sharia, which puts women at a stark disadvantage in matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance, and domestic abuse. Rape, domestic abuse, and “honor killings,” in which relatives murder women for perceived sexual or moral transgressions, are common, and these crimes often go unpunished.

Can we call this civilization? Barbarism is more accurate. Warning: 14 Ways Hamas Weaponizes Palestinian Women, Children and Animals Against Israel contains some shocking photos and videos. First, it quotes the first Hamas Charter of 1988, defining the Hamas Mission Against Israel and Jews: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” The charter goes on to quote The Prophet, Allah: “The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” The link documents what can only be described as crimes against humanity by Hamas: using children to commit stone attacks, sending women and children on suicide missions, using civilians, women and children as human shields, weaponizing: animals, homes, schools, hospitals, ambulances and mosques.

We can persist in hoping that some middle ground can be found between the Israelis and the Palestinian people, but that is unlikely to happen with Hamas in charge of the Gaza Strip. In Lift the Siege On Gaza, the Israeli author makes an eloquent case that Israel must work toward opening the border with Gaza, but he recognizes that Hamas stands as a major obstacle to real peace.