Criticizing Muslim Antisemitism is Not Islamophobia

On March 15, 2019, a horrific massacre happened in New Zealand, as a racist burst into two mosques and slaughtered innocent people. The actions were rightly condemned broadly throughout the civilized world.

However, the following day, the outspoken Palestinian-American, anti-Zionist Linda Sarsour chose not to attack the racism and racist actions of the madman, but instead criticized people who were angered by Muslim antisemitism, as if they deserved part of the blame:

“I am triggered by those who piled on Representative Ilhan Omar and incited a hate mob against her until she got assassination threats now giving condolences to our community. What we need you to do is reflect on how you contribute to islamophobia and stop doing that.”

Sarsour has often said that criticizing the policies of the government of Israel is not anti-Semitic, so it is therefore interesting how she can somehow not appreciate that condemning specific actions and comments – Muslim antisemitism – is not a call to hate all Muslims, nor is it Islamophobia.

As reviewed in these pages, Muslim antisemitism is widespread throughout the world and more prevalent over the past decades than antisemitism from other religious groups. That is a fact which all well-meaning people wish was not true. The condemnation of Ilhan Omar’s antisemitic comments were made in the hopes that she would not make such comments again. Similarly, the aim of writing about Muslim antisemitism is to work to eradicate the noxious hatred, not Islam itself. The ultimate goal is to see all religions – including Islam, Judaism and Christianity – living together peacefully in all corners of the world.

A proud American can criticize US policies and a proud Israeli can criticize Israeli policies, and a pro-Zionist American might also criticize some Israeli policies. Pointing out particular flaws in some of Israel’s policies does not label a person antisemitic, just as pointing to a flaw prevalent in Muslim society, which have been repeatedly spewed from the mouth of an elected Muslim American Congresswoman, is not Islamophobic.

However, Sarsour is not trying to change a particular Israeli policy; she is attempting to destroy the Jewish State. Her comments like “There’s nothing creepier than Zionism,” and people should not “humanize” Israelis, as well as her repeated calls to boycott Israel make it clear that her goals are not simply to soften Israel’s blockade of the terrorist-controlled enclave of Gaza, or to expel all Jews from the West Bank, arguably antisemitic desires in their own. But her incessant comments make clear that she wants to see the destruction of the Jewish State which does make her an anti-Semite.

Linda Sarsour says don’t “humanize” Israelis

I hope for a world in which Muslims live in peace alongside people of all faiths: that Jews and Muslims can each pray on the Jewish Temple Mount; that Jews, Muslims and Christians can each live and work throughout the “West Bank,” Israel and Gaza; where antisemitic terrorist groups like Hamas are banned outright; where the Jewish State has embassies in the entire Muslim world and all of those countries similarly locate their embassies in Israel’s capital of Jerusalem. It is a goal of coexistence with peace-loving people.

The act of denouncing Muslim antisemitism instead of continuing the global policy of  ignoring and encouraging it, is to facilitate such a peaceful world. If only the demonizers of Israel had such lofty goals, instead of the antisemitic desire to destroy the only Jewish state.

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Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

Rep. Ilhan Omar made several comments which were widely viewed as antisemitic in her first weeks in office. As part of her defense, she offered the following:

“what I am fearful of is that because [Rep.] Rashida [Tlaib] and I are Muslim, that a lot of Jewish colleagues, a lot of our Jewish constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel, to be anti-Semitic, because we are Muslim.”

Omar claimed that people – Jews in particular – think that she is more inclined to be anti-Semitic because she is Muslim. Why would she make that accusation? Are Jews particularly paranoid about Muslims?

The New York Times decided to write a large article about AIPAC because of Omar’s comments attacking the pro-Israel lobby in an article called “Ilhan Omar’s Criticism Raises the Question: Is AIPAC Too Powerful?” on March 4, 2019. Perhaps the Times will soon do a follow up article asking whether Jews really know how to ‘hypnotize‘ the world the way that Omar also claimed.

As The New York Times goes through great lengths to not label Muslims or Palestinian Arabs as anti-Semites (only Israelis are racists), the paper will likely never examine this other charge made by Omar. So it is worth doing such analysis here to see if either of Omar’s assumption are correct: that Muslims are particularly anti-Semitic or that Jews unfairly think that Muslims are anti-Semitic.

Muslim Anti-Zionism

Before investigating Muslim antisemitism, let’s consider whether there is a poisonous Muslim anti-Zionism that is more acute than Christian, Hindu or other religions approach to the Jewish State, since Omar claimed that the essence of her attacks were really against Israel, not Jews.

• Attacking Israel in many wars. From the very beginning of the modern state of Israel, EVERY WAR Israel has fought has been against Muslim countries which have attacked it, including Egypt; Jordan; Syria; Lebanon; and Iraq
• Not recognizing Israel. Ever. There are 30 Muslim countries that still do not recognize the basic existence of Israel. This has been a consistent theme from before the 1967 war, going all of the way back to 1948.
• Labeling “Zionism is Racism.” The Organization of Islamic Corporation (OIC) is a bloc of 57 Muslim-majority countries. These countries routinely press for resolutions at the United Nations against Israel. They were behind the infamous “Zionism is Racism” resolution passed at the UN in 1973.
• Promoting BDS, including for athletes and academia. Muslim countries routinely bar Israelis from attending international sporting events and academic symposiums. When Israelis do compete, the Muslim host countries often do not display the Israeli flag or play the Israeli national anthem when Israelis win. Oftentimes, athletes from Muslim countries refuse to compete against Israelis.

Muslim nations have attacked Israel physically and economically since the re-establishment of the Jewish State in 1948. The Muslim-majority countries also attempt to dismantle Israel diplomatically at the United Nations and lobby Israel’s major sponsor, the United States, to abandon the cause of the Jewish State. The Muslim country assaults are in shark contrast to non-Muslim nations which almost all have diplomatic relations and are active trading partners with Israel.

CHECK. Muslims are much more anti-Zionist than non-Muslims.

Muslim Antisemitism

Beyond the Muslim attacks against the Jewish State, how have Muslims treated Jews over the past century?

• Muslim and Arab countries routed their Jewish populations after 1948. After the founding of the modern Jewish State, Muslim countries actively persecuted their Jewish – not Israeli – but Jewish citizens. One million Jews were forced to leave Muslim countries from Morocco to Iran from 1948 to the 1970’s.
• Muslim-majority countries most anti-Semitic (2014 ADL poll). The Anti-Defamation League conducted a global poll of antisemitism in 2014 and 2015. People in Muslim majority countries held much more anti-Jewish views than other countries. The worst were Palestinian Arabs at 93% hating Jews, followed by Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Algeria and Tunisia with scores of 92%, 88%, 87%, 87% and 86%, respectively. By way of comparison, Christian majority countries like Ireland (which has many anti-Israel laws) scored 20%, Denmark 9% and Australia 14%.
• Muslims more antisemitic where they are minority (2015 ADL poll). The ADL refined their study the following year and broke down the people by their religion inside Christian-majority countries. In every instance, whether for France, Italy or Germany, Muslims were two to five times more likely to harbor anti-Jewish attitudes than non-Muslims.
• Imams in Europe calling for death to Jews. Islamic religious leaders in Europe have called for attacks against Jews
• Islamic radicals target Jews in Europe. While Muslim terrorists had a terrible reason for killing people working at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France, they had only one reason – antisemitism – to go out of their way to kill people at a small kosher supermarket. Other targeted actions include a Muslim terrorist shooting up a Jewish museum in Belgium, and the murder of elderly Jews by Muslims in France.
• Jews joining alt-right parties in Europe to stem Muslim tide. The persistent Muslim antisemitism has caused Jews to begin joining alt-Right parties – in Germany of all places. The immediate danger for Jews is clearly believed to be from Muslims, not racist Christians.
• Pakistan-India terrorists went out of way to attack Chabad (2008). The Muslim antisemitism is not confined to MENA or Europe. When Muslim terrorists launched an enormous attack in Mumbai India in 2008, they went out of their way to a small Jewish Chabad house just to torture and kill the few Jews who lived in the city.
• American Muslim antisemitism. The radical Islamic Jew hatred is found in the United States as well. The leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, has repeatedly slandered Jews and Judaism.
• “Sons of Apes and Pigs” in the Koran. Unfortunately, many of these Islamic radicals who harbor deep antisemitism look to the Koran to defend their screed. They point to passages in their holy scriptures that call Jews names and demand that they be killed.

Antisemitism is prevalent in both Muslim majority countries and among Muslims who live in Christians countries.

CHECK. Muslims are much more antisemitic than non-Muslims around the world.

Palestinian Antisemitism

Some people who attack Israel do so because they feel that Israel mistreats Palestinians. They have argued that the Israel-Palestinian Conflict is simply one about land and has nothing to do with a clash of religions. Or to be more clear, they believe Palestinian Arabs don’t hate Jews, just the group of foreigners who took over their land.

Below is a review whether Palestinians hate the Jewish State, hate Jews and Judaism, or simply want to have independence and sovereignty, with no hatred at all (perhaps just frustration).

• Ottoman, British, Egyptian and Jordanian versus Israeli control. If one chooses to adopt the Palestinian narrative, that the Arabs of Palestine have always been a distinct people and nation which were just “occupied” throughout their history by Ottomans for 500 years (Muslims, not Arabs), then British for a few decades, then by Egypt in Gaza (1949-67) and by Jordan in the “West Bank” (1949-67), why did the Palestinians NEVER revolt and attack any of those Muslim occupiers? Why did they suddenly take up arms against Jews?
• Palestinian Law forbids the sale of land to Jews. Palestinian law – still on the books – calls for a death sentence for any Palestinian who sells land to a Jew. Not an Israeli Arab- just Jews, Israeli or otherwise.
• The founding Hamas Charter is the most anti-Semitic political document ever written. The Islamic terrorist group Hamas combined the most vile parts of the infamous forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the worst possible reading of the Koran to establish its mantra to kill the Jews of the world who foment global anarchy. With that antisemitic platform, Palestinians elected Hamas to 58% of their parliament. The head of Hamas would win an election for president if held today according to polls.
• The president of the Palestinian authority is a Holocaust Denier. The current head of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, wrote his doctoral thesis on a particularly noxious form of Holocaust denial which says that Zionists conspired with the Nazis to make things horrible for the Jews in Europe so they would move to Palestine. (The Jewish Zionists instigated the Holocaust of their fellow Jews – just imagine how inhumane they would treat non-Jews!)
• Abbas denies many elements of Jewish history in the holy land. Abbas enjoys making speeches before journalists and the United Nations General Assembly denying the connection of Jews to their holy land:
  • He denies that Jews have lived in Israel for thousands of years
  • He denies that the two Jewish Temples sat on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem
  • He denies that Jews have been the majority of the population of Jerusalem since the 1860’s
  • He claims that Jesus was a Palestinian, rather than a Jew
  • He claims that Palestinians are descendants of Canaanites in an attempt to pre-date Jewish claims to the land, even though the descendants of the Canaanites are Lebanese (the historic holy land included southern Lebanon and Syria)
• Abbas said that Great Britain promoted the Balfour Declaration to get rid of its Jews.  Adding yet more insult to injury, Abbas said that not only do the Jews lack any history and rights to Israel, the only reason that the Balfour Declaration was made was that the English hated their Jews and were looking to get rid of them. (it’s not just us, they’re bad people!)
• Palestinians deny Jewish rights to worship. Muslims – including Ottomans, Jordanians and Palestinians – have routinely tried to obliterate Jewish history and deny Jewish rights to pray:
  • For centuries, the Ottomans (then Jordanians) denied Jews the right to pray at Judaism’s second holiest location, the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs in Hebron
  • Similarly, Jews continue to be forbidden to pray at their holiest location, the Jewish Temple Mount
  • Palestinians tried to take over Joseph’s Tomb and turn it into a mosque, just as they did to Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem
• Palestinians demand a country free of Jews. What could possibly be more antisemitic than demanding a country completely free of Jews? Even Iran doesn’t go that far.

These are not competing claims over land, This is an evil, raging rant of antisemitism that has never been defeated or kept in check. Unlike American racism including the horrible lynchings and attacks on blacks in the American South which were finally countered with marches and changes in law, and the evil of Nazi Germany’s antisemitism which was vanquished in a war defeating their army and wicked worldview, Muslim antisemitism has metastasized. It has been ignored, excused, encouraged and empowered for the past 100 years.

Ilhan Omar asked a question about why Jews think that Muslims are anti-Semitic, and the alt-left has run to her side with fig leaves. While the left-wing media has sought to examine her charges of the powerful Jew, it refuses to report on the rampant Muslim antisemitism in Muslim countries, around the world, in the United States and Israel itself.

Ilhan Omar – and much more importantly, everybody else – here is the answer to your question about whether Jews unfairly criticize Muslims or whether Muslims really are anti-Semitic.

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Rep. Ilhan Omar and The 2001 Durban Racism Conference

In the Shadow of the Holocaust, The New York Times Fails to Flag Muslim Anti-Semitism

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The Only Religious Extremists for the United Nations are “Jewish Extremists”

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My Terrorism

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Rep. Ilhan Omar and The 2001 Durban Racism Conference

The new far-left member of the House of Representatives Ilhan Omar was unfairly tied to the terrorist attacks against America on September 11, 2001 by Republicans in West Virginia. She was just turning 20 years old at the time of the attacks and had nothing to do with those mass murders, nor has she said anything since that time to suggest that she supported the killings of thousands of Americans.

However, many of Omar’s comments over the past few weeks do strongly correlate to the Durban Conference Against Racism which took place one week before the 9/11 attacks, specifically her invective against the Jewish State and those who support it.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour interviewing Rep. Ilhan Omar

 

United Nations World Conference against Racism,
Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance

The World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) met from August 31 to September 7, 2001 with a noble goal: to eradicate racism and intolerance and to promote human rights. However, the conference agenda was hijacked into an anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist seminar promoted by several Arab and Muslim countries as early as February 2001 at the Asian preparatory meeting in Iran.  The Arab countries and Muslim countries contended that the “occupation of Palestine” was racially motivated, and that “Zionism is racism,” so insisted on keeping the issue at WCAR.

Several countries, including the United States, Canada and members of the EU attempted to remove any language which dealt with regional issues like Israel-Palestine at a conference meant to deal with racism generally. The US considered not attending WCAR due to the presence of the Zionism-racism language, but ultimately opted to send a mid-level representative rather than US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

At the conference itself, the singling out of Israel continued. The situation became so intolerable for many, that the American and Israeli attendees withdrew, as did the Jewish Caucus at the NGO seminar nearby.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell made the following comment upon withdrawing from the conference:

“Today I have instructed our representatives at the World Conference Against Racism to return home. I have taken this decision with regret, because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution that the Conference could have made to it. But, following discussions today by our team in Durban and others who are working for a successful conference, I am convinced that will not be possible. I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of “Zionism equals racism;” or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world–Israel–for censure and abuse.“

At the NGO conference, Jewish attendees were asked to leave the session about Palestinian rights because Jews were “biased and couldn’t be counted on to act in the interest of general human rights.” The NGO group also stripped language which Jews had requested which stated:

“We are concerned with the prevalence of Anti-Zionism and attempts to delegitimize the State of Israel through wildly inaccurate charges of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, as a virulent contemporary form of anti-Semitism leading to firebombing of synagogues, armed assaults against Jews, incitements to killing, and the murder of innocent Jews, for their support for the existence of the State of Israel, the assertion of the right to self determination of the Jewish people and the attempts, through the State of Israel, to preserve their cultural and religious identity.”

The United Nations adopted a resolution to endorse the Durban Declaration and Program of Action in March 2002 by a vote of 134 to 2 against (the United States and Israel) with two abstentions (Australia and Canada). The NGO Forum also adopted a declaration, which included language calling for the end of “Israeli systematic perpetration of racist crimes, including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing” and called Israel a “racist, apartheid state.” Many NGOs disassociated themselves from the declaration, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson described the NGO Forum as “hateful, even racist,” and refused to receive or endorse the NGO Declaration.

Sadly, the conference designed to promote tolerance excluded the Jewish State from the umbrella of human rights and dignity.

Several years later, in the waning days of the George W Bush administration, it continued to voice its concern about the April 2009 WCAR Follow-up, and the danger of working with parties who give an outward nod towards peace while seeking to inflame anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

Ilhan Omar and the Alt-Left Congressional Freshmen

The 2018 US elections fielded the most diverse class of people ever in the country’s history. There were more women, more immigrants and more people of diverse backgrounds. It appeared to be a moment of break-through for America as a broad welcoming society of the people for the people.

But, like the Durban Conference, the picture of harmony in diversity masked darker forces. Many of those people running were alt-left extremists who described themselves as “Democratic-Socialists.” The group included:

• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Julia Salazar in New York
• Sarah Smith in Washington
• Rashida Tlaib in Michigan
• James Thompson in Kansas
• Summer Lee and Sara Innamorato who both unseated longtime Democratic incumbents, and Elizabeth Fiedler and Kristin Seale.

Ilhan Omar, an immigrant from Somalia, joined Rashida Tlaib to become the first two Muslim women in Congress. And their pro-Palestinian and anti-Capitalist views rapidly conflated into anti-Semitic comments and tweets.

• On November 16, 2012, Omar tweeted: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel“
• In the summer of 2018, when asked to address whether her 2012 comments were antisemitic, Omar responded “These accusations are without merit. They are rooted in bigotry toward a belief about what Muslims are stereotyped to believe.”
• She later tweeted that Israel is an apartheid state. “Drawing attention to the apartheid Israeli regime is far from hating Jews.“

By the time Omar was elected to Congress, she was fully morphing anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

• In February 2019, Omar claimed that people only supported Israel because of Zionist money “It’s all about the Benjamins baby!“
• She followed up that comment that people who supported Israel have misplaced loyalties to foreign entities “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.“

For Omar – and many countries that supported the Durban Declaration – Israel is an evil, racist apartheid state and people who support such an entity are backing evil and the theft of Palestinian land and heritage. They believe that Israel supporters convince politicians to bless the sinister state through bribes, using “immoral” capitalistic riches to absolve and shield the colonialism of the Jewish State.

In truth, Omar and the Durban Declaration have created a modern day blood libel in which Jews take Palestinian Arab lives instead of Christian babies, to create the modern State of Israel, rather than matzah for Passover. For the alt-left Israel-demonizers, the supporters of such a blatantly racist Israeli regime are either racists (like US President Donald Trump) or are being played by the Jewish puppet masters (the non-Jewish Democratic leadership).

The fact that Jews are indigenous to the holy land going back thousands of years is ignored; that Israel is the sole thriving liberal democracy for thousands of miles, sharing western values is falsified; that the Jewish State is a small country with serious security threats in a hostile region which seeks its destruction, and is worthy of US military assistance is rejected. While liberals are often pro-Palestinian, these alt-left “progressives” are actively anti-Israel, rejecting Jewish history and rights.

The Democratic leadership must now take a stand and make a choice: it can clearly condemn the statements and sentiments of Omar and strip her of committee membership, or it can coddle the alt-left wing of the party, to avoid offending the first black woman Muslim in Congress and her backers.

President Bush made a clear decision in walking from the Durban Conference: American values will not let it act as a cloak to vile antisemitism on the world stage. Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi make a similar move and remove Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and declare that Democratic values extend beyond the #MeToo movement stripping men of offices who were accused of sexual assault, to #JeSuisJuif and evict Jew-haters from positions of power? If the Democratic leadership and presidential hopefuls were looking for an actual “I am Spartacus” moment, the time is now.

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Murdered Jews as Political Fodder at Election Season in America and Always in Israel

The senseless death of innocent people is always a tragedy.

The deliberate murder of people in a house of prayer born out of hatred is pure evil.

And when the heinous act is coupled by the murderer’s proud chants of annihilation, decent people of the world cannot help but be sickened.

Unless it is election season in America, or every day in the Middle East.

Neighbors React:
Non-Jews in the Middle East and in America

The slaughter of Jews praying in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA in October 2018 is reminiscent of the murder of rabbis in the Har Nof neighborhood in northwestern Jerusalem in 2014. Two Arab terrorists walked into a shul clutching an axe and butcher cleaver shouting “Alahu Akbar,” while worshipers were reciting the silent Amidah prayer. They killed five people.

Here is how the Arab neighbors reacted to the crime, as reported from Australia:

 “A reporter from the Israeli television network, Channel 2, went to the Arab neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber in the south-eastern pocket of the city [Jerusalem], where the two terrorists had lived, to gauge the reaction of the Palestinian residents to the atrocity. The reporter said he could not find a single person to condemn the attack. Instead, the murders were praised and celebrated.

The Jordanian parliament observed a minute’s silence – in honour of the terrorists. Palestinian media was awash with cartoons and graphics lauding the slayings. Hamas called the attack “heroic.” Several employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), employed as teachers by the U.N., praised the murders as “wonderful revenge” and prayed for the terrorists to be accepted in “paradise” as “martyrs.” On the streets of Gaza and in the West Bank, sweets were handed out in celebration and loudspeakers used for calls to prayer were blaring words of praise for the murderers.”

Victim in Har Nof slaughter, 2014

Fortunately, in the United States, the hatred of Jews is neither so open nor widespread as in the Middle East. Jew and non-Jew acted as one in condemning the anti-Semitic act. The American Muslim community raised money for the victims’ families and survivors.

In America, Jews are considered fellow citizens; people who are friends and neighbors. People, all bound in common humanity.

However in Israel, Jews are not viewed as people, but as Zionists. Many non-Jewish neighbors see them as occupiers who do not belong in the land. The slaughter of Jews praying quietly to their God is a welcome farewell to the aliens who descended on Arab land.

Shockingly, that view is not just held by non-Jews in Israel about Israeli Jews, but also by non-Jews in America about Israeli Jews.

One of the Muslim groups that raised money for the Pittsburgh Jewish community was MPower Change, co-founded by vocal anti-Zionist Linda Sarsour. Sarsour has condemned anyone associated with Israel and rebuked anyone attempting to “humanize” Israelis.

Anti-Zionists in the Middle East and around the world are not against some policies of the government of Israel; they are against the presence of Jews in their holy land.

The United Nations Reacts

The murder of Jewish worshipers should be easy to condemn clearly and unequivocally, even in the swamp of politics that is the United Nations.

And it was… in the case of Jews being killed in the United States. The UN said of the killings in Pittsburgh:

“The Secretary-General is deeply shocked at and strongly condemns the shooting today at the Tree of Life Congregation synagogue in Pittsburgh in the United States.  He expresses his deepest condolences to the families of the victims.

The shooting in Pittsburgh is a painful reminder of continuing anti-Semitism.  Jews across the world continue to be attacked for no other reason than their identity.  Anti-Semitism is a menace to democratic values and peace and should have no place in the twenty-first century.

The Secretary-General calls for a united front — bringing together authorities at all levels, civil society, religious and community leaders, and the public at large — to roll back the forces of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hatred, bigotry, discrimination and xenophobia gaining strength in many parts of the world.”

What a difference from the statement from the Secretary General in 2014 after the slaughter in the synagogue in Har Nof:

“The Secretary-General strongly condemns today’s attack on a synagogue in West Jerusalem which claimed four lives and injured several persons. He extends his condolences to the families of the victims and wishes the injured a speedy recovery.

Beyond today’s reprehensible incident, clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli security forces continue on a near daily basis in many parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Secretary-General condemns all acts of violence against civilians. Attacks against religious sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank point to an additional dangerous dimension to the conflict which reverberates far beyond the region.

The Secretary-General calls for political leadership and courage on both sides to take actions to address the very tense situation in Jerusalem. All sides must avoid using provocative rhetoric which only encourages extremist elements. In this regard, the Secretary-General welcomes President Abbas’ condemnation of today’s attack.

The steadily worsening situation on the ground only reinforces the imperative for leaders on both sides to make the difficult decisions that will promote stability and ensure long-term security for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

A single bland comment about the butchering of Jews. And then politics, politics, politics.

The 2014 UN statement was almost a blessing for the violence as it rationalized the cold-blooded murder of innocents. It politicized their deaths. For the UN, there was no anti-Semitism in Arabs walking into a house of Jewish prayer yelling “Allahu Akbar” chopping up Jews. Just a political dispute in which the UNSG called upon “both sides to take actions.”

Seriously? “Both sides?”

The world came down harshly on President Trump for his statement after the Charlottesville neo-Nazi march and protest that equated the two sides after a person was run over in the confrontation. Yet not one media outlet, not one political party, not one organized or spontaneous protest was launched against the vile statement by the UN Secretary General who equivocated about the deliberate anti-Jewish intent of the Arab terrorists.

Politicization of Murdered Jews

Decent people are rightly outraged at the politicization of the killings in Pittsburgh. There is a desire to mourn and show solidarity for the victims, and to show anger against the hatred that fueled the meditation massacre. People did not want to hear the anti-Republican theatrics before election season, which CNN did.

Americans object to victims being used as pawns to score political points. They note that the people in the synagogue were 100% innocent and the murderer was fueled by pure evil. Dragging politics into such a dynamic was ugly. Even for politics, it was horrid.

However, when it comes to Jews living in Israel, there is seemingly no compunction in politicizing their murders. For anti-Zionists, a Jew living in Israel cannot be viewed as an innocent person in their homes. The basic fact that a Jew has the temerity of being in Israel is an affront. An Israeli Jew cannot be innocent of anything, even standing in prayer.

For the anti-Zionists, like former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon who made the vile statement in 2014, Israeli Jews are inherently a problem. Their physical presence in the land is an anti-Arab declaration. Without a word, without a step, Jews in Israel defy Arab sensibilities. These Jews are not like other Jews around the world. They really don’t belong.

Outside of Israel, Jews are just Jews. People who want them dead or gone are clearly identified as anti-Semites to be condemned. But in Israel, anti-Zionists consider every Jew as inherently anti-Arab, so the desire to kill Jews or expel them is something “natural” as the Arabs “resist” the interlopers in their midst. It is not the Arab that is an anti-Semite, it is the Israeli Jew who is anti-Arab.

People in America are rightfully angered at the politicization of slaughtered Jews before election season. Imagine how Israeli Jews feel every day.

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New York Times Lies about the Gentleness of Zionism

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The Hebron Narratives: Is it the Presence of Jews or the Israeli Military

Germans have “Schadenfreude” Jews have “Alemtzev”

Abbas’s Speech and the Window into Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

The New York Times Inverts the History of Jerusalem

A Response to Rashid Khalidi’s Distortions on the Balfour Declaration

What Kind of Hate Kills?

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Between Right-Wing and Left-Wing Antisemitism

The world has always had people with a wide variety of opinions, and indeed, a wide variety of hatreds. Antisemitism, the oldest of human hatreds, is no different, and has taken on new forms in modern times.

Right-Wing Antisemitism

For thousands of years, Jews were persecuted as “the Other.” They were viewed suspiciously as foreigners by lay-people and demonized for not believing in the preferred prophets by religious leaders. Some countries simply took advantage of the small, weak status of Jews, and engaged in “practical antisemitism” for financial reasons – either to seize their property or to get out of debt which was owed to Jews.

The historic antisemitism was shepherded by popes and kings, local townspeople and crusaders. The manifestation of the hatred was murder and expulsion.

The slaughter of Jews was common in Europe and Russia for hundreds of years, and often rationalized by manufactured excuses (such as blood libels) and effected via torture. The expulsion and “ghetto-ization” of Jews was another means to rid communities of these unwanted Jews.

“The Street of Jews” in Old Strasbourg, France
(photo: First.One.Through)

This was – and continues to be – the nature of right-wing antisemitism: the hatred for the foreigner/ the Other. It continues to exist as people and governments do not internalized that their Jewish neighbors are indeed, their neighbors, and entitled to every protection and rights of citizenship like everyone else.

Left-Wing Antisemitism

Left-wing antisemitism is a newer phenomenon. As part of the liberal camp, the alt-left began with a broad humanistic view of the world. People of all races and religions were welcomed and embraced. Humankind bound all of us together. It was a world vision encapsulated in John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” in which divisions and borders – literal and figurative – ceased to exist. The common collective would live in global harmony.

Such a vision would naturally lead one to conclude that antisemitism is antithetical to such construct. A “brotherhood of man” cannot hate anyone. But time has proven the premise untrue.

The far left-wing of the liberal camp believes that everyone must adhere to their philosophy. ALL national borders, ALL religions, ALL differences based on money or class must be eradicated. Society must be re-imagined and flattened. Man-made artificial differences must be stripped away, so we can embrace our God-given differences such as race and gender. The far left has a quest and insistence on an imagined universal natural order and the shunning of any particular human order.

And so begets left-wing antisemitism.

• While right-wing anti-Semites hate Jews for not believing in Jesus, the left-wing anti-Semites hate Jews for believing in religion.
• While right-wing anti-Semites will pass laws banning circumcision and ritual slaughter of animals to get rid of Jews, the left-wing will implement the same policies out of secular, humanistic concerns.
• While right-wing anti-Semites don’t want Jews to live in their country, the left-wing anti-Semites don’t want Jews to have a country (Israel).
• While right-wing anti-Semites will actively murder Jews, the left-wing anti-Semites refuse to protect Jews (read article about how left-wing gay activists fight against providing police protection for Jewish day schools).

The alt-left dislikes Jews for holding on to their particular identity and hates Zionists for holding on to their particular history and heritage. Only a Jew that embraces the universal and sheds the particular (like non-Orthodox Jewish liberals) have a place in their left-wing fringe world.

The Silent Majority?

Today, Jews are caught between two growing and angry mobs on the extremes. They know the history of what the right-wing will do if it obtains power, and are intelligent enough to see the how the left-wing will strip their identities completely.

When liberals attacked President Trump for saying that there were good people on both sides of the Charlottesville, VA neo-Nazi march and protest in August 2017, they were correct in remonstrating him that there is no good in people who shout “Jews will not replace us.” But the alt-left was wrong in thinking that using violence as appropriate. Jews seek a peaceful place to pursue life, liberty and happiness. They do not want any violence and will not embrace the vision of either the alt-right or alt-left. One side vilifying the other wins no Jewish converts; Jews are wary of both extremist sides.

How can people reverse the trend and bring people back to the silent – and peaceful – middle? What can stop the Democratic Party from being hijacked by liberals who are becoming more and more extremist? How can the Republican Party – already shrinking – stop from sliding to the alt-right?

There are a number of ideas which have bandied about beyond the scope of this article, which include changing the electoral primary system which tends to feed the extremist base, to firmly establishing and protecting laws to protect individual liberties.

In the day-to-day, it is challenging to live as an open and proud Jew and Zionist in much of the world, for fear of being attacked by both the far-right and the far-left. For people who care about antisemitism, fight the extremists on BOTH sides. Never vote for fringe candidates and do not give them forums.

And do not follow the footsteps of either the alt-left or alt-right: Respect every particular and shun the enforced universal.

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Related First.One.Through articles:

Ramifications of Ignoring American Antisemitism

Your Father’s Anti-Semitism

Fact Check Your Assumptions on American Racism

When Hate Returns

Unity – not Uniformity – in the Pro-Israel Tent

The Happy and Smug Bigots of Denmark

The Non-Orthodox Jewish Denominations Fight Israel

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1001 Years of Expulsions (Schindler’s List)

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The New York Times Whitewashes Motivation of Palestinian Assassin of Robert Kennedy

The New York Times published an article on June 5, 2018 about the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Regarding his murderer, the Times wrote the following:

“Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, said to be motivated by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and his hatred of Mr. Kennedy for his support of Israel, was later convicted of the murder.”

Page A10 of the June 5, 2018 New York Times

According to the NY Times, the root cause for the killing was Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. A country’s mistreatment of individuals. Might against right (presumably). America lost a young promising politician because Israel abuses Arabs.

This is the narrative that the Times uses today to describe the anger of Palestinian Arabs and left wing radicals against the Jewish State.

And it stands in sharp contrast to the unvarnished truth that the Palestinian Arabs have stood against the “invasion” of Jews into the region from the time of the Balfour Declaration 100 years ago until today. Sirhan Sirhan was against the presence of Jews and the existence of Israel; he was not “motivated by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.” It was Jew-hatred and anyone supporting the Jewish State.

To illustrate the point, here are some quotes from the Palestinian Arabs themselves in the 1960’s:

From the 1968 Palestinian National Charter:

“It is a national duty to bring up individual Palestinians in an Arab revolutionary manner. All means of information and education must be adopted in order to acquaint the Palestinian with his country in the most profound manner, both spiritual and material, that is possible. He must be prepared for the armed struggle and ready to sacrifice his wealth and his life in order to win back his homeland and bring about its liberation.”

“Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it .”

“Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war. “

“The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine.“

“The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time,”

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood.”

“Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress.”

“The demand of security and peace, as well as the demand of right and justice, require all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operations,”

This updated 1968 Charter was changed from the original 1964 charter which had many of the same comments. An interesting modification between the two charters is in Article 7, trying to reconcile what to do with Jews that had lived in Palestine for generations.

• 1964 charter: “Jews of Palestinian origin are considered Palestinians if they are willing to live peacefully and loyally in Palestine.”
• 1968 charter: “The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.”

By 1968, the concept of “living peacefully” with Jews was abandoned.

Beyond the Palestinians, the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser sought to unite the Arab world, including the Palestinian Arabs. His May 1967 speech before the start of the 1967 War against Israel spelled out his desire to end Israel and combat its supporters including the United States and Great Britain:

“Preparations have already been made. We are now ready to confront Israel. … It is the aggression which took place in Palestine in 1948 [the establishment of the State of Israel] with the collaboration of Britain and the United States. It is the expulsion of the Arabs from Palestine, the usurpation of their rights, and the plunder of their property. It is the disavowal of all the UN resolutions in favour of the Palestinian people. … If the United States and Britain are partial to Israel, we must say that our enemy is not only Israel but also the United States and Britain and treat them as such.”

And after the June 1967 war in which the Arabs not only failed to destroy Israel but lost additional territory, the Arab states passed the Khartoum Resolution on September 1, 1967 stating:

“no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.

The conference of Arab Ministers of Finance, Economy and Oil recommended that suspension of oil pumping be used as a weapon in the battle [against western countries].”

The Arab war against Israel’s supporters – including Robert Kennedy – was about the reestablishment of the Jewish people in their homeland, nothing less.

With such a boldface lie, should we wonder why the Times did not state clearly that Sirhan Sirhan was himself a Palestinian Arab? Is the Times perhaps promoting the idea that many non-Arabs are also upset with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and might take similar actions against politicians supporting Israel?

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Let’s be clear, especially since The New York Times is lying directly and explicitly to its readers: Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy because he hated the existence of Israel and all of the country’s supporters, not because of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Arabs. And it’s the same story about anti-Zionists today.

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Related First.One.Through articles:

New York Times Lies about the Gentleness of Zionism

The Cancer in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

The “Diplomatic Settler”

The New York Times Inverts the History of Jerusalem

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Abbas’s Speech and the Window into Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

The acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas gave another one of his long anti-semitic speeches on April 30, 2018. Much of the western world condemned the speech as something brand new and vile that should not only be condemned, but also marked Abbas as unfit to remain as the leader of the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs). The condemnation was so widesread that Abbas issued some sort of apology a few days later.

Abbas is an Antisemite

Let’s be clear about some things that the media is not telling you:

• Abbas did not just say that Jews were themselves responsible for Nazi Germany killing them in the Holocaust, he said that Jews were responsible for ALL of the massacres that had befallen them throughout history. Abbas said “The Jews who moved to Eastern and Western Europe had been subjected to a massacre by one country or another every 10-15 years since the 11th century until the Holocaust in Germany. Okay? But why was this happening? They say that it was happening because they are Jews…. The anti-Jewish (sentiments) was not because of their religion but because of their function in society, which had to do with usury, banks, and so on.”
• Abbas whitewashed 1,400 years of Arab antisemitism. After Abbas’ harangue against Jews in Europe and Russia, he said “I challenge you to find a single incident against Jews just because they were Jews in 1,400 years in any Arab country.” He should probably review some basic history from the founding of Islam in the seventh century when the Muslim prophet Mohammed slaughtered Jews in Saudi Arabia, to every country that Muslims invaded in the subsequent centuries, where Jews were often given the choice between conversion or death. Tunisia 1016. Morocco 1033. The list is long.
• Abbas said that Jews were shipped to Palestine because the host countries wanted to get rid of them. Abbas said that many world leaders including Lord Balfour from the United Kingdom, Adolf Hitler in Germany and the foreign minister of Russia all hated the Jews and wanted to get rid of them so encouraged them to move to Palestine.
• Abbas said he is disgusted by the Israeli national anthem. The essence of the Israeli national anthem is about the longing of Jews to return to their homeland. Abbas argued that the anthem is a farce. “Their [Jews] narrative about coming to this country [Palestine] because of their longing for Zion or whatever -we’re tired of hearing this.“
• Abbas reiterated that the Jews have no connection to Palestine. Abbas has long argued that Jews have no history or connection to the land of Israel. He has made the arguments before the United Nations and to Palestinians. He did so again in April 2018: “The truth is that this [Zionism] is a colonial enterprise aimed at planting a foreign body in this region.” He added that the European Jews have no historical connection to Palestine since they are all descendants of Khazars that converted to Judaism in the eighth century.
• Abbas made a non-apology. Abbas did not really apologize for his anti-Semitic comments a few days later. He apologized that people were offended by his comments. “If people were offended by my statement in front of the P.N.C., especially people of the Jewish faith, I apologize to them. I would like to assure everyone that it was not my intention to do so, and to reiterate my full respect for the Jewish faith, as well as other monotheistic faiths.” In other words, he stands by his comments and believes them to be true. He is just disappointed that people were offended at hearing his version of the truth. No one has called this out.

Let’s be clear: Abbas hates Jews, not Judaism. The persistent truth is that Abbas has always hated Jews as foreign interlopers in Palestine. For example, he has said that a new state of Palestine will be welcoming of all religions (that would include Judaism), but the PA has existing laws that call for the execution of any Arab that sells land to a Jew. Conclusion: it’s the people, not the faith.

Abbas is a peddler of nasty lies, and many of them are not new. The only additions from the April 30 speech to Abbas’s long history of vile comments are that Jews were at fault for their own massacres because of their “function,” and that they came from Khazar, but these are simple extensions of his prior comments.

So why the sudden uproar?

The Media Has Long Concealed Abbas’s and Palestinians’ Jew Hatred

The United Nations and world media have long defended and protected Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians in their quest to give the SAPs independence and sovereignty. They have ignored the antisemitism and terrorism from Palestinian Arabs and placed the blame on Israel, as acknowledging Arabs’ hatred of Jews undermines the very notion of peace and justifies many of Israel’s actions.

Palestinians are inherently good, but have become antisemitic because of Israel. The world and liberal press are hard-pressed to charge the SAPs with any wrong-doing. When confronted with something unsavory about the Palestinians, the press tries to paper it over, such as absolving the Palestinians of their overwhelming (93% of people according to the ADL) hatred of Jews. In covering the ADL findings, the New York Times wrote “the Middle East results were not particularly surprising.” Is that because everyone knows that Arabs hate Jews? If that’s obvious, why the sudden commotion about Abbas laying it out clearly in April 2018?

Palestinians “Resort to Violence.” The New York Times actually wrote in 2012 that the virulently antisemitic terrorist group Hamas “took control of Gaza in 2007 and is backed by Iran, is so consumed with hatred for Israel that it has repeatedly resorted to violence.” The Hamas Charter clearly and repeatedly calls for violent jihad and the destruction of the Jewish State. However, the liberal media crafted an alternative reality to make the people of Gaza victims “resorting to violence” instead of being terrorists.

Palestinians are moderate; Israelis are right-wing. The world was so eager to market Abbas as a “moderate,” that it ignored his history of vile comments, because if the leader of the Palestinian Authority was a moderate, his demands were presumably reasonable, and vice-versa. The failure of any peace discussions must therefore be on the “right-wing” (as the liberal press peddled) Israeli leadership.

Palestinian actions are unhelpful; Israeli actions are harmful. Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said in reaction to Abbas’s April 30 antisemitic rant: “Such statements are unacceptable, deeply disturbing and do not serve the interests of the Palestinian people or peace in the Middle East.” Seriously? “Do not serve the interests of the Palestinians?” When Mladenov talks about Israeli settlements in the West Bank, he does not say they are unhelpful, he says they are “threatening the viability of the two-state solution and eroding the prospects for peace.” Somehow noxious antisemitism is not an impediment to peace, only Jews living in houses in their holy land.

These factors have been at play for decades. So why the sudden turn on Abbas? Why would the NY Times write an editorial on May 3, 2018 “Mr. Abbas’s Vile Words” that “by succumbing to such dark, corrosive instincts he [Abbas] showed that it is time for him to leave office.” Abbas has always been vile. He has always negated Jewish rights and history in Israel and has been effective at getting United Nations and the liberal media bodies to support his narrative.

I suggest that there are two main points at play here. One has to do with the alt-left narrative of Palestinian reform and the other with the left-wing attempts to parse antisemitism from Anti-Zionism.

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism by the Global Left-Wing
and by the Arab and Muslim World

Palestinians continue to reform, and are thereby worthy of sovereignty. For several years, the western world has sought to portray the Palestinians as progressing from their violent and antisemitic past (plane hijackings, murdering of athletes, intifadas) to a moderate stance of co-existence.

Consider the New York Times on May 5, 2018 claiming that while Abbas wrote his doctoral thesis on Holocaust denial (over Abbas’s 13 years of heading the PA, the Times mentioned this disgusting fact only a few times) it pretended that he recanted. “In 2014, on the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, he [Abbas] issued a formal statement calling the Nazi genocide ‘the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era’ and expressing sympathy with the victim’s families.” But Abbas then tied the Holocaust to the plight of the Palestinians, as though there is a remote equivalency between the slaughter of millions of defenseless Jews in the Holocaust to the failure of the Arab armies to destroy the nascent state of Israel. Abbas said “The Palestinian people, who suffer from injustice, oppression and (are) denied freedom and peace, are the first to demand to lift the injustice and racism that befell other peoples subjected to such crimes,” calling Israelis racists like Nazis. That’s not really recanting his book on Holocaust denial when he equates the Jewish State with Nazi Germany.

However, his latest comments provided no room for liberal cover. Abbas’s April 30 gratuitous slander against the Jewish people highlighted a disgusting worldview that can never live at peace and negotiate honestly with the Jewish State. The liberals’ carefully constructed fig leaf of Palestinian moderation was obliterated.

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism. For the Arab world, it has always been one and the same. The Palestinians elected Hamas to 58% of the Parliament in 2007 with statements in its charter that included:

• “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” Preamable
• “In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.” (Article 15)
• “Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. “May the cowards never sleep.”” (Article 28)

It is specifically the presence of Jews in Israel and its territories that offends Arabs and Muslims. They don’t believe that Jews have any rights to be in the land and want them gone. As such, they forbid the teaching of the Holocaust in UNRWA schools and find nothing objectionable about Abbas’s latest speech. The Arabs are both antisemitic and anti-Zionist. One is part-and-parcel of the other.

Yet the western world that views itself as progressive has been at pains to tease apart anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Liberals have argued that criticism of Israel cannot be conflated with antisemitism. As such, vilifying Jews OUTSIDE of Israel is considered an offensive comment and clearly antisemitic, such as saying that Jews were to blame for the Holocaust. However, slamming Israeli Jews is fair game, such as when the BBC said that Israeli teenagers were partially responsible for their own murder since they should not have been hitchhiking in the West Bank. The world was content in blaming the victim in the case of Jews in Israel and the Israeli territories. For the alt-left, no Israeli can ever be a pure victim nor any Palestinian Arab a true criminal.

Abbas’s speech was treated with a yawn in the Arab and Muslim world, as antisemitism and anti-Zionism have long been a single cause. But it has confounded the western self-declared “progressives” who are doing their utmost to criticize Israel without the moniker of “anti-Semite” staining their liberal bona fides. As such, they are throwing Abbas under the bus rather than considering their own disturbing positions. Off with Abbas’s head.

To paraphrase Mel Brooks, it’s good to be a liberal king.

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Related First.One.Through articles:

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Palestinians are “Desperate” for…

The Palestinian State I Oppose

Abbas Knows Racism

In the Shadow of the Holocaust, The New York Times Fails to Flag Muslim Anti-Semitism

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When Hate Returns

Yom Hashoah, the Day of Remembering the Holocaust, is often a time for people to think about antisemitism generally, and not just the massacre of Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their abettors.

Many books have been written about the history of antisemitism, one of the best being “A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism” by Phyllis Goldstein. She tracks the nature of antisemitism at different points in history and in different lands. In her diagnosis, the root causes are often unique to that particular time and place.

I would like to consider when hate returns to a particular country under a different guise, such as historic antisemitism manifesting itself as anti-Zionism today. There are many examples, but this review will focus on the United Kingdom 1290/1929 and 1713/1939.

Banning Jews from England 1290
Banning Jews from Hebron 1929

1290 England: The origin of the “blood libel,” that Jews sought and and killed Christian children, began in England in the twelfth century. It its original incarnation, the accusation was that Jews killed the Christian, much as they had killed Jesus. Over time, the claims continued that the Jews used the child’s blood on Passover to make matzah and for the four cups of wine at the seder. Whether the people’s attacks on England’s Jews led to the edict of expulsion in 1290 is a source of debate, but the fact that King Edward I forced all Jews to leave the country and quickly seized their belongings and cancelled all debts that they were owed may indicate a financial motivation as well.

1922 Jordan & 1929 Hebron: The British assumed the mandate of Palestine in 1922 and quickly separated the land east of the Jordan River for the Hashemite Kingdom to win local friends, as they tried to do in other Arab lands including Iraq. They promptly ignored key components of the Palestine Mandate which clearly spelled out that no individual could be excluded from the land because of his religion, by allowing the Arabs to ban all Jews from the region. Just a few years later, in response to Arab riots in which they slaughtered several dozen Jews in the ancient Jewish city of Hebron, the British “evacuated” the remaining Jews from the city and moved them to Jerusalem, presumably to protect the Jews from future attacks. Jordan would remain Jew-free to this day, while Hebron would only be Jew-free until 1967, after the Jordanian Arabs attacked Israel and lost the west bank of the Jordan River to Israel, including Hebron.

The British leadership followed the antisemitism of the British people to expel the Jews of England in the 13th century, and would follow the antisemitism of the Arab people to expel the Jews from various parts of the Middle East during the 20th century.

Tolerating Antisemitism in Gibraltar in 1713
Tolerating Antisemitism in Palestine in 1939

1713 Gibraltar: Beginning in 1290, England would not allow any Jews to live openly in its lands for over 360 years. It was only in 1656 under Oliver Cromwell that Jews were allowed to return (presumably under the guise of trying to convert them to Christianity). But despite this new indication of tolerance of coexistence, the British would also tolerate antisemitism.

After a series of battles between England and Spain, the English won the rock of Gibraltar from the Spanish. In the Treaty of Utrecht, as the Spanish handed the island to the British, it demanded that England continue to ban the presence of Jews and Moors (Muslims), as the Spanish were still heavily influenced by the Inquisition run by the Catholic Church. The British agreed, even though they did not enforce it aggressively. (The ban is technically still part of the law governing Gibraltar, even though 2% of the island is Jewish).

1939 Palestine: The Arabs in Palestine were in the midst of multi-year riots that had begun in 1936 to stop the flow of Jews into Palestine because of international law that the British facilitate the immigration of Jews. In 1939, as the Holocaust descended on the Jews of Europe, the British agreed with the Arabs that no more than 75,000 Jews would be admitted into Palestine over the next five years in an edict known as the White Paper. The document would seal the fate of over 100,000 European Jews who became trapped in Europe.

History echoed itself. While the British had finally begun to accept Jews in England in 1656, less than 60 years later they accepted the Spanish demands that non-Christians be barred from lands that they were taking over. Over 250 years later, the British would take on the Mandate of Palestine in 1922, and then be part of an agreement that they would block Jews to satisfy the demands of the local Arab population.

Arabs riot in Palestine 1936

Britain’s leadership had historically followed the urging of its antisemitic populace (in 1290) and the Catholic Church (in 1713) to ban Jews, and did the same in the 20th century in Palestine at the urging of the Arabs in the Middle East.

From the Middle Ages through the Inquisition, Europe believed itself to be a Christian continent and expelled the Jews and repulsed the Muslim invasion. In the 20th century, many European nations have adopted a similar narrative that the Middle East is a purely Arab land and should be left to the Muslims. The European Christians and Middle East Arabs have ignored the desires and right of Jews to their own place in their homeland.

The British are currently debating whether their political parties – the liberal Labour Party in particular – are antisemitic or merely anti-Zionist. The correct question is whether they are outwardly antisemitic or simply tolerate antisemitism.

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Related First.One.Through articles:

The Long History of Dictating Where Jews Can Live Continues

No Disappearing in the Land of the Blind

Palestinian Jews and a Judenrein Palestine

The EU’s Choice of Labels: “Made in West Bank” and “Anti-Semite”

My Terrorism

Save the Children

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