August 11, 2014 Obama Through the Wormhole Everyone who hasn’t should read President Obama’s interview with Tom Friedman of the “New York Times,” See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/opinion/president-obama-thomas-l-friedman-iraq-and-world-affairs.html Here, I translate it to an alternative universe in which Israel is the superpower and the U.S. is a small ally under existential threat, and change accordingly who gives the uncensored answers: Tommy Friedman of the “New […] Blog
August 11, 2014 George Orwell and the Gaza War—Pro-or Con Israel ? George Orwell, author of “1984” (1949), was already dead for over a third of a century when the date of that sardonic classic came and went. Yet you would not know it from contemporary broadsides about the Gaza War invoking Orwell and his ideas, pro- and con-Israel. There has been a back-and-forth in the “Forward” […] Blog
August 10, 2014 The Murder of a Rabbi in North Miami Being Handled CAIRfully Orthodox Rabbi Joseph Raskin was shot dead in North Miami Saturday morning while walking to synagogue by two young assailants who escaped on motorbikes or motorcycles in a crime that one would not be surprised by if it occurred in Paris. Days earlier, two cars outside a house in Miami Beach were smeared with eggs […] Blog
August 9, 2014 Giving Nameless Humanitarianism a Name President Obama has failed to give a name to his “humanitarian” mission to relieve Iraqi religious minorities, the Kurds, and possibly four U.S. soldiers sent to a mountain to give the Iraqi military Alpine lessons. I think he should name it Operation Pointless Proportionality. The U.S. airstrikes are also difficult to characterize exactly. Are they […] Blog
August 8, 2014 A New Champion is Proclaimed Read “The Last And First Temptation Of Israel” for confirmation that blogger Andrew Sullivan is the most vicious, maybe the most dangerous American anti-Jewish demagogue since Father Coughlin in the 1930s was listened to by tens of millions of Americans for his monstrous rants against Jewish wealth, conspiracy, and power. Like Coughlin, Sullivan is a […] Blog
August 8, 2014 UC Santa Barbara: The Brandeis Center Helps Reverse a Hostile Environment for Jewish Students As the University of California Santa Barbara’s student senate voted down an anti-Israel divestment measure in 2013, this campus seethed with anti-Semitic activity. The Student Advocate General – whose job is to educate students about their rights as members of the campus community – said on the floor of the student senate: “Israel is harvesting […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
August 7, 2014 Updating Agathie Christie: It Was Twelve Jews on the Orient Express Who Murdered Cinderella, Presumably to Make Her Blood Into Matzah From the “Forward”: French Senator Nathalie Goulet of the Union of Democrats and Independents party made the endorsement on Twitter earlier this week, Europe1.fr reported, in posting on her account the images of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bludgeoning a dying Pinocchio. The picture also showed Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni stabbing Cinderella and former […] Anti-Zionism Blog
August 6, 2014 Prof. Dawinder S. Sidhu Joins LDB Academic Advisory Board The Brandeis Center is pleased to announce another important addition to its advisory committee. Professor Dawinder ‘Dave’ S. Sidhu, a distinguished scholar of constitutional law and civil rights, is the newest addition to LDB’s Academic Advisory Board. Professsor Sidhu, who teaches law at the University of New Mexico, is known for his work in constitutional law, […] Blog
August 6, 2014 Post-Mortem New polls confirm that the Israeli public—most of whom are not fools—have come to the conclusion that Israel, though perhaps not losing the latest Gaza War, certainly has not won it. Now comes the next phase in “the long war” with a shift to diplomacy and lawfare. The odds here are really stacked against the […] Blog
August 5, 2014 The NGOS’ War on Israel According to Erasmus, “The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.” Tacitus argued the opposite. We shall see. The year 2014 should be remembered as “The Summer of Hamas’ Terror War.” Hamas’ goals may focus on killing Israelis, but its tactics are global. According to credible reports, Hamas’ reach extends to South […] Blog
August 5, 2014 No World War I—No Holocaust? Questions swirl about the long shadow of “the guns of August” that erupted in August, 1914. Would there have been no Holocaust without WWI? Probably yes, but that is only one lesson of many that we should consider from the WWI-WWII nexus. Would it been better if the outcome in WWI were different? Niall Ferguson’s […] Blog
August 4, 2014 More Reflections on the Gaza War Through a Glass Darkly Is this the first war in human history—recent evidence shows that wars were also integral to prehistory—in which the measure of “justice” is how close you can conform your military operations to the civilian-free casualties inflicted by the “good guys” who play video games? Did you know that around 20,000 French civilians were killed in […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
August 4, 2014 J’Accuse: The World Needs to “Impose a Solution”—on France—for it Betrayal of French Jewry and the Values of French Civilization According to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, “the world needs to impose a solution” on Israel to achieve Mideast peace. Of course, he gave lip service to “Israel security” without any concrete suggestions for curbing Hamas’ genocidal campaign against the Jewish state. He wants a two state solution—without any expression of concern that, unless the […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
August 4, 2014 “Moral Equivalency” vs. “Romantic Primitivism” I demur from those friends of Israel whose favorite mantra is that western media is guilty of “moral equivalency” for putting premeditated deaths which Hamas imposes not only on Israelis but its own people (including scores executed as “traitors” and thousands used as human shields) with the actions of the Israeli military that produce unintended […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
August 4, 2014 “The Protocols” Updated “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”—that seminal forgery at the beginning of modern anti-Semitism–was of course promulgated by the Okhrana, the Czarist secret police, though it was probably first composed in Paris. Twenty-first century anti-Semites—active in Europe, the U.S., and the Mideast including even Israel—are updating “The Protocols.” The notion of a a Netanyahu-Putin […] Blog
August 4, 2014 More “Lawfare” Against Israel’s Military Survival The “Haaretz” newspaper has emerged from its protective bunker, in which it remained safely ensconced during the height of the recent war when the Israeli public was uniformly in favor of crushing genocidal Hamas. Now, “Haaretz” has resumed its insidious campaign to delegitimate the Jewish state. A case in point: Michael Sfard’s “A ‘Targeted Assassination’ […] Blog
August 3, 2014 A Little Touch of Harry in the Night From the “Forward” on the “Jewish Harry Potter Facebook Page”: Under the heading “A Blow to the Death Eaters,” Snape informs Voldemort of an operational setback in their war with the wizarding establishment. Snape: “Bad news, my lord: the I.D.F. has discovered the tunnel between Borgin & Burkes and Hogwarts.” The leadership Israel needs now […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
August 3, 2014 Why Do Europeans Increasingly Hate Israel? Why does European opinion increasingly hate Israel? I think some reconsiderations may be in order. One starting point is to take seriously, at least up to a point, what post-modern European elites claim about their motives. First, anti-Semitism or Jew hatred is of course operative widely in Europe. But it is not wise to reify […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
August 2, 2014 Michael Walzer’s Failure of Nerve In “Israel Must Defeat Hamas, But Also Must Do More to Limit Civilian Deaths,” political philosopher Michael Walzer joins the chorus arguing that Israeli soldiers are guilty of “disproportionality” for killing Palestinian civilians—or rather those defined by the Hamascentric-orchestrated media as “civilians.” A generation ago, Walzer made a similar argument in “Just and Unjust Wars” […] Anti-Zionism Blog
August 2, 2014 Anti-Semitic Celebs Rain—and Reign—in Spain 100 Spanish celebrities—including Academy Award winners Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar—signed a public letter a letter accusing Israel of genocide. A week earlier celebrated actor, Javier Bardem, whose speciality is playing psychopathic murderers and villainous hypocrites including a perverted inquisitor turned enlightened dictator, did the same in an newspaper op add explaining: “My son was […] Blog
August 2, 2014 The White House Should Blush Massive pro-Palestinian DC protest in front of Obama residence. Handful of pro-Israel demonstrators have to be bused away by police, ostensibly for their own protection, after unruly protestors pelt them with anti-Semitic invective and threaten worse. The Wagnerian climax: burning an Israeli flag. Among the rabble-rousers: Cornell African Studies Professor Cornel West. I knew him […] Blog