Brandeis Center Blog

New Gallup poll shows church-going Americans significantly more pro-Israel. Among denominations, Jews lead followed by Mormons followed by Protestants followed by Catholics (I suspect because of strong anti-Israel bias among Hispanics, possibly Hispanic immigrants, as revealed by other polls). See http://www.gallup.com/poll/174266/religion-plays-large-role-americans-support-israelis.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines

From the “Jerusalem Post”: While Obama suggested neither the US, nor the Israelis, are sure of exactly who perpetrated the attack– Hamas, so far, has denied holding an Israeli soldier in its custody – he said that Hamas’ ability to enforce a cease-fire relies on its ability to monitor the tunnels it has built to […]

The conservative columnist Ramish Ponnuro suggests Palestinian civilians are not “bad guys.” He erects a straw man by selectively quoting some speakers at pro-Israel rallies revving up the crowd, and then sort of accuses historian Benny Morris of being a barbarian for suggesting that Israel, somehow, sometime, will have to crush Hamas for the Jewish […]

An important, depressing piece by Benny Morris, founder of Israel’s Revisionist historians who no longer subscribes to pro-Palestinian Revisionism. I fear he’s right that Israel has already lost the current war politically, no matter the military outcome. I disagree only in that I think that the next war will involve a second front with Hezbollah–and […]

Congrats to Batya Ungar-Sargon in “The Tablet” for demolishing the agitprop widely circulating on the Internet absolving Hamas from responsibility for the kidnap-murder of the three Israeli boys that started the current Gaza War. See “Did Israel Say Hamas Didn’t Kidnap Its Teens? No,” http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/180617/did-israel-say-hamas-didnt-kidnap-its-teens-no?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=0abbc40465-Tuesday_July_29_20147_28_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-0abbc40465-207025897 Postscript: See on Hamas’ links of the kidnap-murderers, see the […]

I suggest that Barbra Streisand, no doubt a John Kerry admirer, be invited to the State Department to sing her version of “The Windmills of Your Mind” (English lyrics by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman). No need to update the lyrics: “Like a tunnel that you follow To a tunnel of it’s own Down a […]

To paraphrase the Quran, if you hit a donkey over the head with a thick board, even that benighted creature will eventually see the light. For recent examples from the “New York Times”: Jodi Rudoren, “Tunnels Lead Right to the Heart of Israeli Fear,” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/world/middleeast/tunnels-lead-right-to-heart-of-israeli-fear.html?_r=1 Rukmini Callimachi, “Ransoming Citizens, Europe Becomes Al Qaeda’s Patron,” July […]

The “Wall Street Journal” recently ran what might be called a “war is hell” op edit page. The top half was devoted to Peggy Noonan’s reflections on WWI which ended forever “gentlemen’s wars”—first on the Western Front where Germany unconscienceably invaded neutral Belgium and “raped” its civilian population (though the numbers were paltry by WWII […]

As the foreign ministers of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Qatar, and Turkey meet in Paris to discuss possible extension of the Gaza humanitarian cease-fire, nobody has remarked that Turkey’s participation–given Prime Minister Erdogan’s recent characterizations of Israel as “worse than the Nazis”–is about as fair and helpful as Mussolini’s participation in Munich. Reports […]

In the latest “New Republic,” Judis explains that the Palestinian leadership has wanted peace since 1973, but peace was spurned–not only by the Israelis–but by “the American Secretary of State,” i.e., the Jew Kissinger.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters she “would wholly disagree with that argument” that the moves are intended to put pressure on Netanyahu. “We issue travel warnings because one of our top priorities is protecting U.S. citizens overseas. I would note that in 2012, the department also issued travel warnings for Israel, the West […]

Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo urges Europeans “to buy Hamas some more rockets” to “shoot those bastard Zionists” because Hamas’ current arsenal is limited to “toy rockets that don’t really kill anyone.” A self-styled gay-Catholic-Communist, Vattimo’s existentialist philosophy —rooted in that of Hitler’s favorite philosopher, Martin Heidegger—emphasizes “weak thought” as superior to “objective truth.” Vattimo also […]

Michael Ledeen in “PJ Media” has this comparative observation on Diaspora Jewish communities defending themselves: “The Italians faced an active neo-fascist movement after the war, and quickly figured out they could not rely on the state for decent security. Jewish leaders knew they would have to do it by themselves. Led by the chief rabbi […]

UK: In a post that appeared on his Twitter feed, Liberal Democratic MP David Ward wrote, “The big question is – if I lived in #Gaza would I fire a rocket? – probably yes”, followed by another tweet shortly thereafter, that reads “Ich bin ein #palestinian – the West must make up its mind – […]

Earlier today, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB), a national civil rights organization, presented the U.S. Supreme Court with an amicus curiae brief in support of Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky, the petitioner in the so-called Jerusalem passport case, Zivotofsky v. Secretary of State. 

President Obama’s critics picture him as a screw-up in venues as far removed as Putin’s Greater Russia (including increasing chunks of Ukraine), Assad’s always-open Syrian charnel house, imploding Iraq, Iran’s nuclear ninjadom, civic meltdown in Libya and continuing civil war in Sudan and Christian kidnappings in Nigeria, the late Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela-wide prison swamp, or […]

Georgetown University Law Professor David E. Bernstein notes in the “Washington Post” that in France last week, “A group of anti-Israel demonstrators tried to storm a synagogue, but Jews had their own undercover agents at the protests so they could raise the alarm if any of the protestors started to engage in violence. They did […]