Displaying posts categorized under

ANTI-SEMITISM

Student Jew-Hatred at the City College of New York Worms in the Big Apple. by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/student-jew-hatred-at-the-city-college-of-new-york/

Of the number of Western anti-Semitic groups that pretend to be motivated not by the glorious vision of Jews in endless torment, but by a deep sensitivity to the supposedly unprecedented suffering of the Palestinians, there can seem to be no end. In many cases, their online self-descriptions are so deceptive as to rise nearly to the level of high art: Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, which equates Israelis to Nazis, calls itself “a broad-based, non-partisan, democratic, and charitable organization of grassroots activists and students committed to comprehensive public education on the rights of all Palestinian refugees.” Under the slogan “Justice, Equality, Dignity,” Jewish Voice for Peace, which loves Hamas, represents itself as “a national organization dedicated to a U.S. foreign policy based on peace, human rights, and respect for international law.”

And then there’s Students for Justice in Palestine, which in the constellation of Jew-hatred is a galaxy all its own. Established thirty years ago at the University of California at Berkeley, it was the brainchild of Hatem Bazian, who then, as now, was a lecturer in the Departments of Eastern and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at that storied institution. His website further identifies him as “a co-founder and Professor of Islamic Law and Theology at Zaytuna College, the 1st Accredited Muslim Liberal Arts College in the United States.” In addition to these activities, Bazian founded both the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project and the Islamophobia Studies Journal. (Beginning to notice a pattern?) Some time back, the respected watchdog group Canary Mission bestowed upon Bazian a title that, while perhaps not highly coveted in some circles, is surely, these days, mightily competitive – namely that of “most dangerous professor in America.” Justifying this designation is a predictable list of offenses – a repeated failure to condemn even the most barbaric acts of terrorism, a readiness to gush with praise for the Intifada, and, needless to say, a long record of utterly virulent Jew-hatred.

From CUNY to the Pandemic, Systemic Anti-Semitism is the Real Problem And the Biden administration is complicit in it. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/from-cuny-to-the-pandemic-systemic-antisemitism-is-the-real-problem/

In May, the Biden administration released its National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism which promoted a definition of antisemitism written by an anti-Israel activist who had defended Islamic terrorism against Jews. The administration partnered with CAIR, refused to acknowledge Islamic antisemitism, or address the worst cases of campus antisemitism at the government’s public universities like the University of California and City University of New York.

Earlier that month, Fatima Mousa Mohammed, a Students for Justice in Palestine activist, took the podium as the commencement speaker at CUNY Law’s graduation ceremony. Mohammed had previously tweeted, “i pray upon the death of the USA on a public platform” and delivered speeches celebrating violence against Jews. The anti-Israel activist had advocated segregating Jewish professors and students, urging, “”Demand that Zionist professors are not welcomed on your campus! Demand that Zionist students are not in spaces where Palestinian students are.“

Had any such remarks been directed at black or Latino students, Mohammed would never have been allowed to serve as commencement speaker and likely would have been expelled.

At the commencement address, Mohammed celebrated the “rage that fills this auditorium” and expressed hope that it would “fuel for the fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism, and Zionism around the world” and hailed those “who brought the ferocity of the violence” who will “carry the revolution”.

She praised CUNY Law’s support for BDS and described the Hamas fundraisers of HLF as “political prisoners”. That would presumably include Abdulrahman Odeh who had celebrated a bus stop suicide bombing as a “beautiful operation”.

Asking the wrong question about Biden’s flawed antisemitism plan Jonathan Tobin

https://www.jns.org/jns/antisemitism/23/5/30/291450/?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Daily%20Syndicate%20Tues%20May%2030%202023&utm_medium=em

Cheers from failing Jewish leaders enabled the administration to pose as a defender of the Jews even as its policies enable a toxic ideology that spreads Jew-hatred.

You’ve got to hand it to the current occupants of the West Wing. President Joe Biden’s administration has shown itself to be weak and confused about a lot of important issues. But when it comes to manipulating American Jews, they know exactly what they’re doing.

After teasing it for weeks, the White House’s unveiling of the “U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism,” last week was a public-relations triumph in more ways than one. It was released just hours before the Jewish holiday of Shavuot and the Memorial Day weekend. Much like the traditional DC Friday-afternoon news dump in which officials release something just as everyone stops paying attention to headlines, this helped the White House manage reactions. With the Jewish world about to be shut down for two days—and then everyone else for two days after that—administration shills succeeded in dominating the conversation about the document.

More than that, the unveiling was a textbook example of how exceeding low expectations can generate positive spin. It also led to a discussion that avoided the most important question that should have been raised. Instead, the Jews were debating how happy they should be about Biden’s gesture.

For weeks, Jewish groups had feared that the document would not be rooted in the working definition of antisemitism established by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Among other points, this definition states that denying Jews the right to self-determination and claiming that Israel is a racist endeavor are antisemitic.

Biden’s Strategy to Fight Anti-Semitism Enables Hatred of Jews and Israel BDS, leftist and Muslim anti-Semitism can’t be talked about. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/bidens-strategy-to-fight-anti-semitism-enables-hatred-of-jews-and-israel/

In 2019, President Trump signed an executive order on combating antisemitism. The order used the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism which includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination”, “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism to characterize Israel” and applying double standards to the Jewish State.

Biden’s hyped U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, released on the eve of the Shavuot holiday, backtracks from this gold standard by claiming that, “there are several definitions of antisemitism, which serve as valuable tools to raise awareness and increase understanding of antisemitism”, including the IHRA, but noting that the Biden administration “welcomes and appreciates the Nexus Document and notes other such efforts.”

The Nexus definition was authored by anti-Israel activists like Tema Smith, who had claimed that, “Hamas — and the Palestinians as a whole — have desperately real and legitimate grievances against Israel.”

“Jews *have* to be ok with Palestinians *explaining* why some turn to terrorism,” she argued.

The Nexus advisory committee included the likes of Hussein Ibish, who had described Hezbollah as a “disciplined and responsible liberation force” whose terrorists had “conducted themselves in an exemplary manner”, along with J Street leader Jeremy Ben Ami, Lila Corwin-Berman, who had defended BDS, and Chaim Seidler-Feller, whose hatred was so intense he had kicked and scratched a Jewish woman over her support for the Jewish State.

The Nexus definition of antisemitism was created to protect anti-Israel activists from charges of antisemitism. That definition, which the Biden administration chose to promote, claims that BDS, or “boycotting goods made in the West Bank and/or Israel is not antisemitic”, and argues that, “opposition to Zionism and/or Israel does not necessarily reflect specific anti-Jewish animus nor purposefully lead to antisemitic behaviors and conditions” and defends double standards by contending that “paying disproportionate attention to Israel and treating Israel differently than other countries is not prima facie proof of antisemitism.”

June 2023 Anti-Semitism Campus Diversity Is Campus Jew-Hatred Campus Diversity Is Campus Jew-Hatred How DEI is openly attempting to marginalize and silence Jewish students by Seth Mandel

https://www.commentary.org/articles/seth-mandel/campus-diversity-jew-hatred/

By every metric, American Jewish campus life is a shadow of what it once was. The City University of New York is losing the last two Jewish members of its 80-member senior leadership team—in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world. Jewish enrollment in elite universities, most notably the Ivy League, is in free fall. And a sense of security on campuses nationwide has evaporated, as anti-Semitic incidents have hit all-time highs and students report hiding their Star of David pendants and taking winding paths to their campus Hillel.

By contrast, one area of American higher education has seen explosive growth: the programs and officers charged with spreading the gospel of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

This is not a coincidence.

Much like “Hate has no home here” lawn signs and “Coexist” bumper stickers, DEI university activity has become a reliable indicator of overt hostility to Israel and, at the very least, suspicion of any visible expression of Jewishness.

On campus, DEI bureaucracies are straightforward ideological enforcers. Their ideology views Jews as emissaries of (white) power. That’s why DEI officials aren’t merely indifferent to campus Jew-baiting, but its ringleaders.

Take CUNY. The taxpayer-funded university system’s pervasive anti-Semitism—harassment of students, administrators overheard complaining that there are “too many Jews” on the faculty, and support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction campaign to isolate Israel—is the subject of state and city investigations. Amid such complaints, CUNY’s chancellor in 2021 hired a new chief diversity officer, Saly Abd Alla, and put her in charge of investigating anti-Semitism.

Abd Alla was a firm supporter of BDS while working as civil-rights director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a powerful anti-Zionist pressure group. The “anti-discrimination portal” she oversees now at CUNY links to the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism, which absolves BDS of Jew-hatred and undermines the more accepted definition of anti-Semitism put forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Elon Musk Is Right About George Soros—and Not Anti-Semitic The Hungarian-born billionaire has done more than anyone to turn Americans against Israel. By Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-is-right-about-george-soros-and-not-anti-semitic-hrw-j-street-israel-b7db935b?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Elon Musk has been accused of anti-Semitism because of his criticism and mockery of George Soros. Mr. Soros is Jewish; Mr. Musk isn’t. But Mr. Musk stands falsely accused. Mr. Soros is an active participant in politics, and his Jewishness shouldn’t shield him from criticism.

Further, no single person has done more to damage Israel’s standing in the world, especially among so-called progressives, than George Soros. His financial support has multiplied the influence of the two major organizations that have done the most to shift the left-wing paradigm against Israel.

One of them is Human Rights Watch, which was founded by publisher and human-rights advocate Robert Bernstein (1923-2019). For years HRW critiqued the denial of human rights by all countries based on two criteria: the seriousness of the violations in any particular nation, and the inability of the nation’s citizens to protest and remedy such violations. But in 1993 Kenneth Roth became executive director and turned HRW into an organization that specialized in demonizing Israel.

By 2009 the Israel bashing had become so severe that Bernstein wrote: “As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”

The Marvel, and the ‘Scandal,’ of Jerusalem Anti-Semitism is rooted in envy of the Jewish people’s eternal endurance. By Meir Soloveichik

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-marvel-and-the-scandal-of-jerusalem-day-anti-semitism-missiles-gaza-b01f4eda?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

Thousands of religious Israelis are celebrating Jerusalem Day, which began Thursday at sundown. On Friday morning at the Western Wall, they will recite psalms of thanksgiving commemorating the moment in the Six Day War of 1967 that Israeli soldiers conquered the ancient city of Jerusalem, making it the heart of Israel’s capital. Those assembled won’t merely mark a military achievement 56 years ago. Their minds will travel back to the earliest origins of the sacred city, to its conquest by King David and to the empires that have destroyed it, only to have it rise again from the ashes. They will ponder how Jewish Jerusalem reflects the miracle of Jewish existence: one that allows us to understand why, for better or worse, the world’s attention remains riveted on Israel.

No city in the world has a history like Jerusalem, and no other people has a relationship to a location like the Jews do to it. To study Jerusalem is to study the story of the world: from Egyptian pharaohs to Mesopotamian kings, from Greek and Roman emperors to kaisers and sultans. They, and others, sought to end Jewish presence in the ancient city permanently. Yet Jerusalem is a Jewish city restored, while other ancient cities of biblical past—Babel, Pi-Rameses, Nineveh—are in ruin.

As Norman Podhoretz once put it, Jerusalem reflects “the scandal of Jewish particularity”: The uniqueness of one city in world history testifies to the enduring nature of one people on this earth. Established as Israel’s capital when now-extinct empires bestrode the world, it was toward Jerusalem that the Jews prayed in exile, binding themselves to it as empire after empire became the Ozymandias of its age. Jews celebrate the anniversary of the Jewish return to ancient Jerusalem not only because it is central to their spiritual lives but also because it is a reminder of God’s providence in the history of their people and of the world.

Jewish Public Interest Law Firm Demands Transparency on Ethnic Studies Content from Hayward Unified School District We’ve asked the Superior Court in Alameda County to compel Hayward Unified School District to answer the Public Record requests we sent months ago—requests they’ve completely ignored. By Lori Lowenthal Marcus

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/358713/jewish-public-interest-law-firm-demands-transparency-on-ethnic-studies-content-from-hayward-unified-school-district/

Why do so many California school districts ignore the explicit requirements of California law? That’s the question that our public interest law firm, The Deborah Project, is asking after filing requests for public documents from dozens of California school districts so we can learn what they teach their students about Ethnic Studies and in particular about Zionism, Israel and her neighbors. The California Public Records Act requires public agencies such as school districts to turn over responsive documents sought by the public.  But in too many cases, our requests have been either completely ignored or we’ve been told the district has no responsive documents when we know that’s not true.

We just put our question to someone very important: a California judge.  We’ve asked the Superior Court in Alameda County to compel Hayward Unified School District to answer the Public Record requests we sent months ago—requests they’ve completely ignored.

Hayward’s failure to answer us at all sure can’t be because they’re not teaching about this subject. We know they signed a “consulting” contract with an organization publicly committed to teaching wildly antisemitic and demonstrably false claims about Israel, her neighbors, and the ages-old Jewish commitment to the land of Israel. That content is not permitted in California public school curricula.

High Anxiety: How Modernity Feeds Arab Anti-Semitism. Bruce Thornton February 2007*****

https://afsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Outpost_2007_02.pdf

Bruce S. Thornton, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution,  is an emeritus professor of classics and humanities at the California State University, Fresno. He is the author of several books on a variety of topics.

“This supremely bad idea—that the modern West and its defining cultural cargo of free market
capitalism, individualism, rationalism and liberal democracy are the engines of global evil, and that Jews
and Israel are the most dangerous embodiments of this evil—continues to fuel the jihadists rage and to
weaken the West’s resolve. The stakes are too high for this suicidal notion to arouse in us anything but disgust.”

There’s an Elvis Costello lyric that goes, “I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.” Before
9/11 that was pretty much my philosophy. Working in the university, I was daily treated to the postmodern mumbo-jumbo, multicultural noble-savage fantasies, and  left-over leftist delusions that are all so transparently incoherent and severed from reality that disgust seemed a waste of energy. The detached amusement of a Victorian explorer studying some bizarre cargo-cult seemed more appropriate and was less stressful.

Then came 9/11, and the bloody truth of Rich- and Weaver’s dictum that “ideas have consequences”
made amusement reprehensible. That disaster was the fruit of years of bad ideas, particularly the West’s
institutionalized self-loathing that demonizes its own ideals and values and culture while idealizing those of the “other” no matter how dysfunctional. Our intellectuals, academics, and artists for decades had been telling the world that the West, particularly America, is the villain of history, its crimes of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, resource depletion, and pollution responsible for all the world’s ills.

Was it any wonder, then, that one of the West’s fiercest historical enemies, Islam, should take our self-flagellation seriously and conclude that we deserved to die for the crimes which we our-selves keep admitting we are guilty of? And given that even after 9/11 those same bad ideas continue to addle our thinking and compromise our attempts to defend our civilization against a smart, committed enemy, disgust is the only legitimate reaction to the behavior generated by such stale received wisdom.

Evidence of this cultural disease crams the daily media, but the West’s response to Israel’s sixty-year struggle against annihilation remains exhibit number one. Israel has always been and remains the key to
understanding the war against Islamic jihad.

How anti-Semitic tropes crept back into the mainstream The Guardian is just the latest outlet to publish dodgy cartoons of Jews. Frank Furedi

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/05/02/how-anti-semitic-tropes-crept-back-into-the-mainstream/

The Guardian has apologised for its cartoon of former BBC chairman Richard Sharp, which has been widely condemned for containing anti-Semitic tropes. Martin Rowson’s cartoon depicted Sharp with an impossibly large nose, clutching a box marked ‘Goldman Sachs’, containing a puppet of UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and what appears to be money. It essentially painted Sharp as a grasping Jewish puppet-master.

At the weekend, the Guardian removed the cartoon from its website and issued a mealy mouthed apology. It was the kind of apology that was clearly scripted by in-house legal advisers. The cartoon, the Guardian said, ‘did not meet our editorial standards’. The newspaper made clear it ‘apologises to Mr Sharp, to the Jewish community and to anyone offended’, but it has not explicitly acknowledged that the cartoon features anti-Semitic tropes. As for Martin Rowson, he tweeted to say that he ‘screwed up pretty badly’. He later published a lengthy apology / explanation on his website. ‘This is on me, even if accidentally or, more precisely, thoughtlessly’, he wrote.

What I find most disturbing about this affair is not so much the sight of yet another grotesque depiction of a Jewish person, or the use of classic anti-Semitic tropes. Rather, it is the casual manner in which such incidents are treated. You could easily get the impression that the cartoon is really no big deal. The Guardian seems to think that a perfunctory half-apology will be enough to put things right. Rowson, while effusive in his apology, has only really admitted to being careless.