You Heard it Here First!

Some of the statements I made in my articles posted on these pages in recent years undoubtedly struck some readers, and especially non-readers, as outlandish.  But, sad to say, the intervening time has confirmed the truth of more of them than any of us would have liked.  Some examples follow:

With Some of the Friends We Have, We Barely Need Enemies, posted  November 30, 2009, which itself referred to previous articles I posted, discussed how Jewish and ostensibly pro-Israel organizations were actually working against those interests.  Subsequently, facts about the true nature of groups such as J-Street were revealed, prompting some, such as New York Congressman Gary Ackerman, to disavow their ties to it.

What is a “Supporter of Israel”?, originally published in 2006, was one of those articles referenced in the 2009 column.  It called to task America’s largest synagogue movement, the Union for Reform Judaism for its anti-Israel activities.  There, things have gone from bad to worse, as Eric Yoffie, its at best lukewarm to Israel leader, has been replaced by J-Streeter Jacobs.

Earlier this year, Caroline Glick wrote documenting Jewish groups aiding the enemy, and noted the formation of the Committee Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art, established specifically to end Jewish Federation funding for anti-Israel activities.  The Washington DC Jewish Community Center’s Federation-funded Theater J was a prime offender.

On October 4, 2009 I raised the provocative question, Who Is More Pro-Israel, Your Rabbi Or Rush Limbaugh?, using Limbaugh as shorthand for the genre of conservative talk radio hosts.  Since then, on the one hand we have seen the brave and staunch support for Israel shown by talker Glenn Beck, and on the other, the revelation of the sad yet successful leftist/anti-Israel indoctrination of rabbinical students in some seminaries.

Further, I discovered an old file of material from a “Zionism” course I took in the mid-1970’s at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary.  So what did I find that our “leaders” indoctrinated us with, even back then?  Yes, the Israel-hatred of Chomsky!

The New American Jewish Bible, August 23, 2009, stated that the New York Times and other analogous left-wing  media outlets had supplanted the Torah in large parts of the Jewish community.  So I was not totally shocked when in June of this year, the newly named editor of that newspaper, born-Jewish Jill Abramson proclaimed “In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion.”  But somehow, I have a feeling that I should be able to collect from her for plagiarism.

[Apparently, saying the Times substitutes for religion is still not PC enough for them to publicly admit, so the “Newspaper of Record” removed it from the on-line record.  Or is it their fear of being called on her plagiarism?]

Were Jewish Obama Voters Fooled?, dated August 23, 2009, asked a question that has become much more common since.  I concluded many were not fooled, but some now say they were.

Is Obama Stupid?, September 22, 2009, came to the affirmative conclusion.  His sheen of intellectual brilliance has by now worn off among some of his erstwhile worshippers.  [Perhaps his refusal to release his academic records now seems wiser every day.]  As documented in instances far too numerous to note here, what his admirers derided as the “cowboy diplomacy” of his predecessor has been replaced by Obama’s Cretin Diplomacy.

J’Accuse! of August 28, 2009 stated that much of the anti-Israel invective found around the world was actually anti-semitic in nature.  In the last two years, many more thinkers and authors have realized that and said so.

Posted last year, Goodbye, America asked whether America was at a turning point, beyond which recovery from the critical mass of leftist momentum which has infested it would be close to impossible.  Since then, millions of Americans, led by Tea Party adherents, have realized this danger.  One obvious manifestation is the now widely apparent looming menace of the ever-increasing national debt.

Perhaps the most prescient of my earlier writings was Israel (and America) Will Rue the Day that George W. Bush Leaves Office, published in mid-2008 on the now defunct israelenews.com.  The column made clear that none of the leading US presidential candidates was either truly good for America or Israel.  And by any measure, Obama was without question the worst of the lot.  So it did not take long before, as his mentor Pastor Jeremiah Wright had said, “the chickens were coming home to roost.”

My assertions here that these astonishing developments are now more widely acknowledged and documented may warrant even more incredulity than when I raised them originally as simply my conclusions.  But they are now easily verified to anyone’s satisfaction simply with some Google searching.

As a final note, I am aware that displaying a jaundiced eye is not particularly conducive to popularity; neither is being right.

Last War Wiesenthal

This column was going to be about a few of the most flagrant, unreported myths of our time – like “CNN, the most trusted name in news.”   Well, at least that’s good for a laugh!

Another of the myths I was going to tackle was some variation of “Jews are smart”, “Jewish leaders are smart,” and “Jewish organizations are looking out for you.”

But then I received the latest fundraising letter from the Simon Weisenthal Center.  Just analyzing this letter provides an excellent opportunity to address the latter group of myths.

Today’s Weisenthal Center still uses the name of its storied, intrepid Nazi-hunter namesake, but I surmise that Simon Weisenthal would be rolling over in his grave if he knew how craven the organization that bears his name is today.

The fundraising letter lists a number of the recent attacks and threats to Jews and Israel.  It tells us that there are lots of people out there who hate Jews and Israel and seek to kill us.  But no where does it tell us why. Nor does it tell us where the hatred is emanating from.  No where does the Weisenthal Center let on to having any knowledge of Islam being a factor in the hatred and attacks.  No where does the letter mention the words Islam, Muslim, or jihad. 

Could the Weisenthal Center be ignorant that religion is a factor?  In fact, of course, it is the major factor.  Or is the problem that Obama told them that the hatred is due to Jews living in Jerusalem? And that it is not Muslims who have the problem with that and have brought most of the world on board with them in their hatred?  Did Obama tell his friends at the Weisenthal Center not to mention that it is Muslims who are behind the hatred and anti-semitism?  Or was it just some big left-wing donor who doesn’t want it mentioned?  (Even I would be surprised if it turns out to be because the Weisenthal Center is taking Arab money, but J Street does it, so why is that inconceivable?)

The letter rightly mentions the Presbyterian Church, and it rightly mentions Iran.  But you could just as soon conclude from the Weisenthal Center’s letter that Iran is a Christian country.

So the Weisenthal Center won’t, or can’t, even identify the root source of the hatred we face.  And, of course, being unwilling or unable to name the enemy hardly bodes well for defeating it.  Maybe they don’t want to.  But at least they are politically correct for the left-wing circles they travel in.

Unfortunately, the Weisenthal Center is not alone in this syndrome among U.S. Jewish organizations.  For one other example, I recall a very similar fundraising letter from the American Jewish Congress.

I previously discussed the problem of Jewish organizations more generally in Time to Retire (Most of) the Old-Line American Jewish Organizations.

One final thought – if American Jews are really so smart, would they have voted for Obama to the tune of almost 80%?  And they even voted for him in large numbers in the primaries, when they had other Democrats (the most important criterion) to choose from.  (Answer:  No, they are no so smart at all!)



We Warned You — So Now What?

In mid-2008, I published Israel (and America) Will Rue the Day that George W. Bush Leaves Office on the now defunct israelenews.com.  The column made clear that while none of the leading US presidential candidates were either truly good for American or friends of Israel, and by any measure, Obama was without question the worst of the lot.  So now, as his mentor Pastor Jeremiah Wright has said, “the chickens are coming home to roost.”

But do American Jews, who overwhelmingly supported Wright’s parishioner, care?  Outside of an uncharacteristic objection from the ADL’s Abe Foxman, who usually saves his protestations for conservatives, and a handful of Congressional Democrats, I haven’t heard many objections  from Obama’s court Jews.  And why not?  That was answered in Were Jewish Obama Voters Fooled?, published last year.

Nobody should be surprised by the actions of Obama and his team of the Islamo-leftist coalition.  Saddened and worried, yes, of course, but surprised, no.  As Obama lapped up the anti-Israel venom of his Pastor Wright for 20 years and other like-minded friends, of course he would come to have a one-sided view, and it wouldn’t be kind to Israel.

You may remember his apologists and other “experts” telling us:

• Obama wants to be a domestic president, and will be too busy to worry about the poor Palestinians.
• Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, China, et. al. would be more important mid east and world problems, and the Palestinians would take a back burner.
• the Washington establishment would force him to take a largely traditional, consensus position.
• Obama learned his lesson after his full ‘settlement freeze’ demand fiasco, and would now moderate his position.

So here we go again — more demands for unreciprocated concessions by Israel.  We know that, unfortunately, hatred of Jews and Israel is often ingrained and reflexive, no matter how irrational.

Because it is an error to ascribe rationality to others, especially an enemy, it is an error to assume that once they learn the facts or the folly of their ways, they will change course.  Perhaps a mild case of the suicide bomber?

So what can Israel do?  Be guided by the maxim that the sooner Arabs and the world accept Israel’s legitimacy, its strength, and its permanence, the sooner peace will be possible.  (Thus little wonder Arabs began rioting coincident with the Obama administration’s harsh words for Israel.  And also not so coincidentally, just as the Gazans intensified their rocket attacks on the very day Obama won election in November 2008, which immediately precipitated the Gaza War.)

So no more concessions for nothing!  And because it was not news to anybody who cared to pay attention to the facts that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and within its sovereignty, Israel should NOT have apologized even for the timing of the announcement of the Jerusalem apartment construction approval.   To the many clowns who call it a “settlement,” the Western Wall must be also be a “settlement.”  Israel must tell the world the area is part of Jewish Israel, to butt out of its internal affairs, to get over it, and if they don’t like it, they can lump it.  And if they want concessions from Israel, they can come back and ask once the Arabs actually make some.  And that doesn’t mean some two-bit gulf state allowing a one-bit “interest section”.

For starters, it might mean a formal recognition by Israel’s enemies of its rights as a Jewish state, a genuine ending of Palestinian groups’ charters calling for the destruction of Israel, and a real end to PA and state-sponsored incitement.

Israel’s enemies think pre-conditions for talks are a good idea. How about these for pre-conditions?

Jews Should be the Last People to Join the “Global Warming” Bandwagon

Jews know all too well how the vast majority of the world can have a grossly distorted view of reality.  Fed a diet of propaganda and lies by their religious leaders, politicians, academicians and media, much of the world is led to believe absurdities such as that Israel is the biggest danger to the world and that Jews are the sons of monkeys and pigs.

Just as much of the world has a very clear, but wrong, picture of Jews and Israel, it also has a very clear picture of “climate change.”  But as the climate summiteers gather in Copenhagen, we should not assume that climate picture is any more accurate than the picture that the world holds of us.  After all, it is largely the same cabal of European media, academics and political elites leading both the climate change and anti-Israel causes.

That is only the beginning of the similarities.

Recent disclosures by NGO Monitor revealed that European governments have been funding anti-Israel non-profits  — and that financing skews the debate about Middle East issues.  For a longer time it has been known that anti-semitic Saudi money goes to American universities, such as Georgetown and Harvard, so as to spread its antithetical views.

Likewise, the climate change alarmists are also the beneficiaries of government and other financial largess, but even on a much larger scale.One estimate is that the U.S. government alone has spent more than $79 billion since 1989 on global warming research and related policies.  You can get quite a few people to agree with you with that kind of money.

And just as the anti-semites and Israel-haters seek to squelch debate about Israel by silencing pro-Israel voices and demonizing Israel and her defenders, the man-made climate change alarmists have for many years sought to squelch debate about their alarmist claims by demonizing their critics and declaring “the debate is over”.

We know that Israel’s enemies lie about Israel, whether, for example, it is that Israel deliberately targets civilians, steals organs, or lacks an historical connection to the land.  Now the recently disclosed  East Anglia Climate Research Unit emails reveal that prominent, supposedly reputable, climate change alarmists have also been engaging in shenanigans.  To cement their case, they have distorted data to falsify the picture presented to the public, and attempted to marginalize their critics.

On the facts, Jews rightly know that Israelis have built a largely just and decent society – one that compares favorably with the rest of the world.  Likewise, those not on board the on the climate change bandwagon have a strong case behind them.  Here are a few notes to that effect, but they are ones you may have not seen before, as they do not serve the establishment media’s agenda:

• • For at least the past ten years, the globe has not warmed.  The climate models did not predict and cannot explain this deviation from the predicted warming.  Those models are the only basis for the alarmist theory, which is only that – a theory, albeit a popularly accepted one.
  • In fact, the lack of warming may explain the otherwise inexplicable change in the name of the crisis from “global warming” to “climate change.”  (Perhaps like how “Arabs” became “Palestinians”?)
  • Carbon dioxide, the major so-called “greenhouse gas” is harmless.  We exhale it, and plant life requires it.  In the distant past, it was almost as much as ten times more concentrated in the atmosphere as it is now, and was much more so than even any doomsday scenario contemplates for the future.
  • The biggest alleged threat from warming seems to be rising sea levels.  Yet there have been previous periods of warming, and during these periods, what are now our port cities and coasts were not inundated and under water.

So just as we Jews and Israel and our defenders have a solid case but are a minority in the world, so too for those who don’t buy the man-made global warming alarmism.  We should understand that before we join in with that crowd.  For better or worse, this could be another instance of Jews’ calling of being a people apart.

It is important to state that debunking of man-made global warming does not contradict the fact that ecological stewardship, energy and resource conservation, and reducing dependence on foreign oil are all good and worthy goals.  But it does not follow that cleanly burning fossil fuels and producing carbon dioxide is in any way harmful.  And we should certainly not cause our societies damage by acting on the false premise that it is.

J’Accuse!

Unfortunately, today’s ever less justified vitriolic criticism of Israel necessitates bringing back this late-19^th century term of indictment.  It is time to retire the largely politically correct yet fallacious mantra that most criticism of Israel is not anti-semitic.  Because it is!  Whether through ignorance or malevolence, most average everyday critics of Israel are anti-semitic by virtue of that criticism.

The Jewish community in particular has been careful not to levy unjustified charges of anti-semitism.  But now it is clear that anti-semitism is flourishing, masquerading in the form of anti-Zionism and hatred of Israel.  It is time to call it what it is.

As with anti-semitism over the eons, masses are led to it through ignorance.  Perversely, anti-semitism may have become more widespread in recent years as misinformation rooted in an anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bias has been spread more widely and rapidly, courtesy of the information revolution, including, most notably, the internet.

Many eminent and articulate authors have written many eloquent and trenchant words exposing and documenting beyond doubt the double standards, hypocrisy, and mendacity – good indicators of anti-semitism – that are so common when it comes to many, but not all, discussions of Israel.  These authors have also demonstrably shown that Natan Sharansky’s test of Israel-related anti-semitism – double standards, demonization, and delegitimization – has readily been met.  Sadly, these are staples of criticism of Israel today.

One of the anti-semites’ buzzwords of criticism is that Israel’s military actions in Gaza were “disproportionate.”  Yet Hamas was not stopped by Israel’s actions and continued to fire rockets at Israel. Nor did it release its captive Israeli Gilad Shalit. Further, it even claimed “victory.”  So if Israel’s actions were in any way inappropriately “disproportionate”, it was that they were inadequate and insufficient to do the job – the opposite of what her detractors were saying in their anti-semitic accusations.

But all these defenses and explications documenting the anti-semitism in the world’s attacks on Israel should not even be necessary – open manifestations of anti-semitism are staring in the face anybody willing to see them. For one obvious example, why else in the eyes of both Palestinian Arabs and those of most of the world must be all lands over which the Palestinian Arabs have sovereignty be Judenrein?

Further examples include Saudi, Jordanian, Egyptian, and Syrian textbooks that include overt anti-Jewish indoctrination.  And of course, the terrorist (“militant” or “activist” to the news media) group Hamas that rules Gaza has an openly anti-semitic charter.  For example, Article 7:

“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and the trees will cry out: ‘O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’ “

Also, both of Gaza’s neighboring states, Israel and Egypt, restrict crossing activity at their borders with it, a grievance of Hamas.  While Hamas has fired thousands of rockets at Israel (the Jews), how many has it fired at Egypt (the Muslims) to “resist” its blockade?  None, of course.  Why not?  Answer:  Because Egypt is not a Jewish state.

While Hamas and its terrorist brethren take issue with Arab governments as well as Israel, the reason that Israel ranks highest among their targets is simply that it is a Jewish, not a Muslim, state.  That’s anti-semitism.

Israel’s numerous Jewish hyper-critics must also be mentioned, but only to point out the context of the long history of this plague of self-loathing Jews.  While obviously the ease of fitting in throughout most parts of the world is greatly facilitated by standing against Israel, I leave it to psychologists to further analyze the etiology of these individuals.

A major factor contributing to the prevalence of today’s anti-semitism is that the very Palestinian Arabs who elected their terrorist leaders have managed to ingratiate themselves with much of the world.  How they have done so is another story, but for here, chalk it up to fortuitous timing and tactics (for them), and a world with latent anti-semitic tendencies eager to adopt their anti-semitic narrative. How else to explain that simply being the enemies of the Jews would endear them to the world, above the cause of other desperate and more deserving peoples in Africa and Asia?  (The Palestinian Arabs have won more per capita international aid, by far, than any other group.  And, further, they have done so while incurring virtually no obligation to do anything in return.)

It is especially remarkable how they have been embraced in the West with such affection and with so little genuine rationale – despite the stated aspirations of Hamas, its fellow terrorist organizations, and its Iranian sponsors to subjugate to their Islamist rule not just Israel and the Jews, but the western world.

And then the West would hardly be in a position to worry about “disproportionate” Israeli actions.  That is a remarkable irony.  Love may not conquer all, but perhaps anti-semitism does?