July 22, 2014 New Flash: International Community Adopts Rube Goldberg Device 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 […] Blog
July 21, 2014 Hamas Discovers That There Really Was A Holocaust 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 […] Blog
July 21, 2014 The Limits of Empathy: “Eyeless in Gaza” From Ernest R. May’s “Lessons of the Past” (1973) to Yuen Foong Khong’s “Analogies at War” (1992) to Jeffrey Record’s “Making War, Thinking History” (2006), historians have argued about the use—and abuse—of historical analogies by decision makers. It is now conventional wisdom that Lyndon Johnson’s advisers were misled into going to war in Vietnam by […] Anti-Zionism Blog
July 20, 2014 Interesting Takes on the Shoot Down 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 […] Blog
July 20, 2014 Thinking About the Thinkable in the Mideast 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 […] Blog
July 20, 2014 Chicago: Whose Kind of Town? 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 […] Blog
July 18, 2014 More From the Julius Streicher of the Internet 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 […] Blog
July 17, 2014 Support for Israel by the Numbers A new Pew Research Center poll shows 51 percent American support for Israel compared to 14 percent for the Palestinians. The gap hasn’t changed much since 1978. The significant change is in the partisan gap, with 73 percent of Republicans supportive of Israel, compared to 44 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Independents. The […] Blog
July 17, 2014 The Mideast Gospel According to David Horowitz On a talk radio show, David Horowitz, editor of “Front Page” Magazine, claimed: “Hamas is worse than the Nazis. [Adolf] Hitler hid the Final Solution, [his] hideous plan to exterminate the Jews. “Hamas has it in its charter, and every day you hear them shouting it from the rooftops. ‘We want to kill all the […] Blog
July 17, 2014 The University of Oregon’s New “Animal House” I taught at the University of Oregon, Eugene, way back when the campus was the setting for “Animal House” (1978) starring John Belushi. Now, following the swastiska spray painting of a back door a few years ago of the Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi, the same has been done to mails boxes in front of […] Blog
July 17, 2014 LDB President to Testify on Federal Sexual Harassment Policy The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced today that Louis D. Brandeis Center President Kenneth L. Marcus will at the Commission’s Briefing on Federal Enforcement of Title IX Sexual Harassment Law in Elementary, Secondary, and Post-secondary Schools on Friday July 25, 2014, at 9:00 a.m. Blog
July 15, 2014 The Mideast Gospel According to Andrew Sullivan The dissection of Andrew Sullivan I did a few years ago for the “Jerusalem Post” needs an update. Here is the most recent example of the vicious anti-Israel rant that has been characteristic of Andrew Sullivan for about 10 years. Defenders of Israel are guilty of distracting: “from the fact that Hamas itself did not […] Blog
July 14, 2014 The Perils of Proportionality With Israeli special forces starting operations in Gaza to complement the IDF’s surgical air campaign against the indiscriminate, increasingly long-rage terror barrage from “Hamastan,” the international community , quite predictably, is beginning to rev up its favorite mantra, i.e., that the Jewish state is guilty of “disproportionate response.” After all, Palestinian civilians—ordered by Hamas to […] Blog Anti-Zionism
July 8, 2014 The American Founding and Human Rights According to “The New Republic” “The New Republic”—whose founding editor Walter Lippmann outgrew radical “new psychology” to found a conservative “public philosophy” based on natural reason—graced the Fifth of July with a breathless review of some new books arguing that the American founding fathers were flaming “free thinkers.” The purpose of this agnostic bombast was, in the wake of the […] Anti-Semitism
July 8, 2014 The “New York Times” Perverts Poetry to Dispense Anti-Israel Propaganda “Commentary” and other outlets are condemning the “New York Times” for distorting the clear meaning of Haim Nahman Bialik’s poem, “On the Slaughter” (1903), about the Kishinev Massacre to slander Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu called—contrary to the “Times”—for foregoing revenge in the wake of the kidnap-murder of three Jewish teenagers. He quoted the […] Blog Anti-Zionism
July 7, 2014 Vendetta Claims a Victim According to Lee Smith whose beat is the Mideast, Arabs are better at feuding than making war. This is why it was not only a terrible crime, but a tragic mistake when apparently Jewish extremists—outraged by the kidnap-murder of three teenage Jewish boys, Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach and Gil-ad Shaar—invited an Arab-Jewish blood feud by […] Blog Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitism
July 2, 2014 From “The Hidden Persuaders” to “The Facebook Effect” Facebook has admitted tweaking the content of posts in an experiment to see if certain kinds of wording can manipulate readers’ moods—perhaps with the ultimate purpose of giving the sponsors of paid “advertorials” a new tool to manipulate the minds of consumers. Criticism of this “scientific experiment” has been wide-spread but not universal. After all, […] Blog
July 2, 2014 The Worst Campus Anti-Semitic Incidents of 2013-2014 This past academic year was a turbulent one on many college campuses, keeping the Brandeis Center’s legal advocacy initiative busy from coast-to-coast protecting Jewish students from hostile environments. Which incidents do you think were the worst? Unfortunately, there have been many to choose among. Here are a few to consider: ASA – On December 15, the American […] Anti-Semitism Blog Anti-Zionism
July 1, 2014 July 9th Symposium: 10 Years and Counting The Brandeis Center is pleased to co-sponsor The July 9th Symposium: 10 Years and Counting…” with Heideman Nudelman Kalik and several major national organizations. The event will take place at 10:00 am at the United States Congress’ Capitol Visitors Center. Ambassador Ron Dermer and former Canadian Prime Minister Irwin Cotler will deliver keynote addresses. LDB […] Blog Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitism
June 27, 2014 The More Things Change… The late Gary Tobin was often ahead of his time. Here is what he said about the Presybterian Church nine years ago: The vast majority of Presbyterians are neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Israel. Yet, a few activists were able to capture the institutional decision-making processes to pass anti-Israel resolutions. This phenomenon is widespread on campuses as […] Blog Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitism
June 25, 2014 Open Letter to the People of California As a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles (B.A., 1968, Ph.D., 1977), I would like to thank the People of California for paying for the UC System: when a semester of public education cost less than a parking space today, when professors were really expected to teach, when graduates had good job prospects, […] Blog