Brandeis Center Blog

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 […]

Simon Wiesenthal Center Dean Rabbi Marvin Hier in a recent op ed in the “Jerusalem Post” compared the international community’s response to Hamas’ terror campaign to the clueless leaders of the legendary Jewish community of Chelm, built in a mountaintop, who—when their people began to fall off the mountain—responded by building a hospital at the […]

According to guidelines that Hamas’ high command has issued as marching orders to its global robotic chorus: “Avoid entering into a political argument with a Westerner aimed at convincing him that the Holocaust is a lie and deceit; instead, equate it with Israel’s crimes against Palestinian civilians.” Other propaganda guidelines to convince the gullible: “Anyone […]

While a Russian government news agency—presumably to distract attention from Putin’s bloody fingerprints in Ukraine—joins the pummeling of Israel for its “slaughter” in Gaza, an anti-Semitic blogger, Wayne Madsen, claims that it is Tel Aviv that shot down the Malaysian plane to deflect attention, also from Gaza: “Ukrainian government, Russia, and Donetsk People’s Republic all […]

Ninety-year old Henry Kissinger is in the hospital for heart surgery. Herman Kahn—author of “Thinking About the Unthinkable” and an influence on Kissinger (along with Count Metternich and Bismarck)—is long dead. The contours of the unthinkable in the Mideast—Israel vs. Iranian nukes—are already clear. The question now is the thinkable in the short and intermediate […]

From the “Chicago Tribune”: “Several vehicles in the Pulaski Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side were targeted with anti-Jewish leaflets, police said. “Six vehicles were discovered with leaflets on Saturday on the 6300 block of North Monticello Avenue, said Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Jose Estrada. “The leaflets were found on the windshields of […]

In Gaza, the Hamas propaganda machine is still spewing that Israel’s defensive operations in Hamastan are motivated by the need for non-Jewish children’s blood to make matza for Passover. From his comfortable perch in the U.S., Andrew Sullivan offers complementary “blood libel” spin worthy of Julius Streicher: “Both [Putin and Netanyahu] have been riding nationalist […]