August 24, 2014 The “Tea Party” in the Streets of London We Really Have to Worry About The American “Tea Party” is not exactly my cup of tea. Well meaning, but too naïve about the necessity of countering evil with power abroad and containing poverty with melioration at home. But—contrary to its critics—it is as far removed morally as imaginable from the Darjeeling brew that’s the great lethal toxin of our time. […] Anti-Zionism Blog
August 24, 2014 “Evil” ISIS vs. “Not So Evil” Hamas Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, many American liberals somehow forgot the reality of radical evil. Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Gulags in Vietnam and North Korea and to a lesser extent Cuba, punctuated by the Cambodian genocide and later genocides in the Balkans and […] Blog
August 23, 2014 Historians Against Isrel Recovering leftist scholar Ron Radosh calls the new anti-Israel petition signed by hundreds of anti-Israel historians in the U.S., with an added list of “international” fellow travelers, “Historians for Hamas.” I recognized only about ten names, but I’m no longer really plugged into the organized profession, and I’m sure the signers are representative of a […] Anti-Zionism Blog
August 22, 2014 Organizations Sign Statement Against Assault on a Student at Temple University We are deeply troubled by the physical assault against a Jewish student at Temple University. Daniel Vessal, a CAMERA Fellow and member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, was punched in the face and knocked down and called “baby-killer, racist, Zionist pig” by individuals at the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) table that was part […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
August 21, 2014 UNHRC Betrays Humans Rights and Israel According to the Prophet, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’.” (Amos 5:24) The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a gutter overflow with the purpose of smearing and delegitimizing Israel. In pursuing this agenda, UNHRC has hit upon a strategy of using Jews, like […] Blog
August 21, 2014 Presumption of Innocence DOA in Some Circles Opinions differ, and will continue to differ, about what happened, and is happening, in Ferguson, Missouri. However, for an example for how respect for the presumption on innocence, at least in racially-charged cases, has eroded in liberal circles, see Yishai Schwartz, “Convicting Darren Wilson Will Be Basically Impossible,” in the “New Republic” at http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119157/darren-wilsons-conviction-will-be-basically-impossible Blog
August 18, 2014 Obama Agonistes For a cogent analysis of the agony without ecstacy of Obama’s Mideast policy, See Walter Russell Mead at http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/08/16/the-agony-of-obamas-middle-east-policy/ Blog
August 15, 2014 ISIS Really Loves Uncle Sam as Well as Robin Williams We now learn that ISIS has a human face, beyond the heads its cuts off and gives to seven year-olds to display in its Syrian-Iraqi Caliphate. There are Facebook postings, presumably by jihadi expats from the U.S. and Europe who either didn’t know about or don’t care about Robin Williams’ support for Israel. Instead, they […] Blog
August 15, 2014 Caligula or King Canute? Reports are that President Obama is about to declare victory on or over Iraq’s Mount Sinjar where tens of thousands of Yazidis and other minorities have been stranded in peril of starvation or slaughter. Supposedly, the President’s military advance men have told him that a few symbolic air strikes on exposed ISIS artillery pieces and […] Blog
August 15, 2014 Be Careful Lest the Entire UK Soon Becomes a “Sanity-Free Zone” MP George Galloway, notorious for his love affair (for which some of his services have been well-paid) with both the late Saddam Hussein and the current Iranian regime, recently declared that his district of Bradford should become “an Israel-Free Zone.” According to Galloway: “”We have declared Bradford an Israeli-free zone. We don’t want any Israeli […] Blog
August 15, 2014 Bottom Line on Existential Threats to Israel Carline Glick, deputy managing editor of the “Jerusalem Post,” masterfully analyzes the rising tide of global anti-Semitism, but then concludes: “Israel’s problem today is not the anti-Semitism of Western societies. It is the hostility of the Obama administration. . . . whereas David Cameron felt compelled by domestic political realities to turn on Israel, Obama […] Blog
August 14, 2014 From the Depths Paris’ sewers are no longer subterranean. They now surge through the streets befouling with a grotesque parody of multiculturalism a city whose architecture is still First World but, in terms of human capital or the lack thereof, is now irreversibly becoming part of the worst of the Third World. The Iranian people, if given the […] Blog
August 14, 2014 Restoring the Other “Special Relationship” at Israel’s Expense The “special relationship” has been restored. Not between Israel and the U.S. but between the U.S. and the UK. Obama had strained it by, among other things, dumping a White House bust of Winston Churchill. But now, there is unity of purpose around—you guessed it—a betray Israel agenda. Following the action by the Cameron government […] Blog
August 14, 2014 South Africa After Mandela: No Longer A Safe Place for Jews Israel made great efforts to cultivate newly independent Africa starting with Ghana in 1957. But after most African countries succumbed to the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo, and broke diplomatic relations with Israel, the Jewish state upgraded relations with the Pretoria regime without endorsing Apartheid which it continued to denounce. Progressive Jews like Helen Suzman and […] Blog
August 14, 2014 Will Hillary Clinton Break Her Truce Over Foreign Policy with the Obama Administration? Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameini called nuclear talks with the U.S. “useless.” His minion, President Rouhani, has a different view. Perhaps they are playing “bad cop”/”good cop.” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to broker a truce between Aghan presidential aspirants also appears to be falling part. On Iran, see “Los Angeles Times” at […] Blog
August 13, 2014 Historical Amnesia Facilitates Shameful Behavior The death of Lauren Bacall, the last of World War II’s pinup girls, reminds us of how far distant that era is becoming. The WWII generation of men and women failed to prevent the Holocaust, but their rhetoric and actions prevented Hitler from completing it. The contrast with today is palpable. In 1941, before Pearl […] Anti-Zionism Blog
August 13, 2014 FDR, Obama, and the Past and Future of Global Liberalism Barack Obama entered the presidency with millennial expectations—fed by analogies between the Great Depression and the new Great Recession—that he would be “another Lincoln” or, more often, “another FDR.” “Newsweek” even photoshopped an image of the two on its cover. I don’t think it needs much elaborating that, neither at home nor abroad, has Obama […] Blog
August 13, 2014 Brandeis Center Joins AMCHA Criticism of UAW 2865’s BDS Statement Yesterday, the Brandeis Center joined the AMCHA Initiative and ten other groups writing to University of California President Janet Napolitano to condemn a statement by the joint council of the UAW 2865 union announcing the union’s intent to support the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The UAW 2865 represents teaching assistants, […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
August 13, 2014 What Flies Around Comes Around Recently, the U.S. FAA broke new ground diplomatically by embargoing flights to Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in a move that did more harm to the Jewish state than thousands of Hamas rockets. Now, the FAA has had to act at home by declaring “a no fly zone” over Ferguson, Missouri, to promote unfettered law enforcement […] Blog
August 13, 2014 A State Is Born No, not Palestine. Hamas–recognized by the “New Republic.” See http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119064/b-yehoshua-israel-should-call-hamas-enemy-not-terrorists Hamastan–from de facto to de jure–would become the hottest new international lawyers’ IPO, i.e., a state with all the rights and none of the responsibilities of other states. The next step would be for Israel to arm Hamas–a lucrative franchise–and also an ingenious solution to […] Blog
August 13, 2014 Religion and the Discourse of Human Rights LDB President Kenneth L. Marcus contributes a chapter on “Three Conceptions of Religious Freedom” to Hanoch Dagan, Shahar Lifschitz and Yedidia Z. Stern’s newly released volume on Religion and the Discourse of Human Rights (Jerusalem, Israel: Israel Democracy Institute, 2014) (downloadable here). The volume marks the inauguration of an important human rights program at the Israel Democracy […] Anti-Semitism Blog