September 12, 2017
Fighting the Trifecta of Anti-Semitism—Israel and Jews Face Attacks
from the Left, Right and Jihadis
Dear Friend of FLAME:
In the 35 years I've been active in defending Israel, it has never ceased
to astound me how shamelessly our enemies have tried to sell the most absurdly outrageous falsehoods about Jews and the Jewish state. Here
are just a few:
• The Israel Defense Forces steal and sell the organs of Palestinian children.
• Jews make matzah using the blood of Arab children.
• Jews have no history in Palestine and therefore are colonizers.
• Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine, being ancestors
of the ancient Canaanites.
• Israel is an apartheid state—denying equal rights to Arab citizens
and other minorities.
Perhaps even more astounding—and disconcerting—is how many people actually
fall for the lies. But then again, if you're an anti-Semite, you don't need rational evidence to convince you.
This week I became aware of another amazing lie—this one being trumpeted by
a coalition of leftist and jihadi groups on the University of Illinois's
Urbana-Champaign campus. This lie is truly bizarre: Zionists are part
of the fascist and white supremacist coalition that is oppressing
people of color, including Palestinians.
Sponsors of the rally—called "Smash Fascism: Radical Resistance Against
White Supremacy" included Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Black
Lives Matter (BLM) and (oh, yes) Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). (This is a
good time to mention that your support of FLAME helps us publish our
pro-Israel editorial messages regularly in the University of Illinois Daily Illini student newspaper.)
Of course, anyone remotely literate in history of the 20th
century—or even who read newspaper accounts of the recent Charlottesville,
VA riots—knows that millions of Jews were massacred by fascists and
that white supremacists above all target blacks and Jews in their
attacks. In other words, if you hate fascism and white supremacists, you
will love the Jewish people and their fervently democratic state of Israel.
Which brings us to this week's FLAME Hotline featured article, below, by David Harris, CEO of AJC. Harris makes the point that these days anti-Semitism comes in three nasty flavors—far left, far right and Islamist. That's why, if you support Israel, it's helpful to leave your partisanship at the door: Our enemies can come from any flank—and we have to be ready to fight wherever they rear their hateful heads.
By the way, it's useful to clarify that neither Harris or we at FLAME
define "left" to mean liberal or Democrat, nor "right" to mean
conservative or Republican. Anti-Semites are those political activists
who practice anti-Semitism—usually from the radical fringes, as
surely SJP, BLM, JVP . . . and the KKK are. Nor do we define all
Muslims as Islamists—that variety of Muslims who believe Islam and
sharia law, by exercise of jihad, should dominate all civil society.
Tragically, it is the hard left—based on its perverse theory of
intersectionality—that sees no contradiction between supporting
self-determination of indigenous people and joining with Islamist
groups like SJP to oppose the self-determination of Palestine's only indigenous people—the Jews (while favoring the Middle
East's cruelest colonizers, the Arabs). But anti-Semitism will make you
stupid.
I found Harris's "trifocal" concept useful in understanding the new
configuration of our enemies, and I believe you will as well.
Finally, while we're on the topic of anti-Semitism, I hope you'll also
quickly review the P.S. immediately below, which describes FLAME's
latest hasbarah campaign demanding that the U.S. exit from the U.N. Human Rights Council—one of the world's
most insidious anti-Semitic organizations.
Best regards,
Jim Sinkinson
President, Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)
P.S. |
Did you know: While the U.N. discriminates against Israel in many
ways, the organization's most outrageously unjust agency is the U.N. Human
Rights Council, long a harbor for oppressive regimes to pass judgments on other nations,
and above all against Israel. The Middle East's only democracy and truly a
light unto nations in so many ways, Israel suffers more condemnations by
the UNHRC than all other nations together. In just the last year, the UNHRC
passed twice as many resolutions against Israel as against North Korea and
Syria combined. In order to make Americans—especially college and
university students—aware of this injustice, FLAME has just produced and
will soon publish a new position paper: "Exit the U.N. Human Rights Council." This paid editorial will appear in magazines and newspapers, including
college newspapers, with a combined readership of some 10 million people.
In addition, it is being sent to every member of the U.S. Congress and
President Trump. If you agree that this kind of public relations effort on
Israel's behalf is critical, I urge you to support us. Remember: FLAME's
powerful ability to influence public opinion—and U.S. support of
Israel—comes from individuals like you, one by one. I hope you'll consider
giving a donation now, as you're able—with $500, $250, $100, or even $18.
(Remember, your donation to FLAME is tax deductible.) To donate online,
just go to
donate now
. Now more than ever we need your support to ensure that the American
people and the U.S. Congress end our support of blatantly anti-Semitic,
global jihadist organizations.
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Did you know: While the U.N. discriminates against Israel in many
ways, the organization's
By David Harris, Huffington Post, September 4, 2017
For close to two decades, we have been blowing the whistle
on the rising tide of anti-Semitism. When asked the source, our answer has
always been the same: Look in three directions—the far left, the far right,
and the jihadists.
Too many in our hyper-politicized world, however, would prefer to shy away
from this trifocal analysis. For them, it doesn't necessarily sit well
ideologically, the facts be damned.
But we don't have a particular ax to grind or, if you will, a "preferred"
enemy to confront. We're a Jewish front-line agency that doesn't get to
pick and choose our threats because they might suit a subtle, or
not-so-subtle, partisan outlook.
When neo-Nazis came out by the hundreds in Charlottesville
and chanted blood-curdling diatribes evoking the Third Reich, many Jews
rushed to condemn them, and rightly so. We were most assuredly among them.
Whether appropriate or not, some celebrity Jews even chose to brandish the
yellow Star of David, reminiscent of what Jews in the German concentration
camps and ghettos had to wear, marking them for likely extermination.
While admiring this post-Charlottesville determination to stand up as Jews,
I couldn't help but wonder where some of these very same people had been in
recent years when the threats and attacks were coming from elsewhere.
To be absolutely, unmistakably clear, there is a real danger emanating from
the far right.
For some time, we had thought it was more ominous in Europe,
where, unlike here, extremists were also organizing under the banners of
political parties, such as the Golden Dawn in Greece, Jobbik in Hungary,
and the National Front in France. They have been seeking to gain influence
through the ballot box, in addition to their activities in cyberspace and
on the streets.
In some cases, they lionize 20th century fascists, call for registries of
Jews, disparage or even deny the Holocaust, and rant about Jewish power and
influence.
It turns out that they have a fair number of kindred spirits in the U.S.,
who march in the streets declaring that "Jews will not replace us" and
pining for "blood and soil," the English translation of the Nazi belief in
"Blut und Boden."
But the danger doesn't begin and end here. Nor, therefore, should our
concern and outrage.
For one thing, the far left also poses daunting challenges.
Many in this camp seem to have a problem with one country on earth—and it just happens to be the only Jewish-majority nation around, with a
Jewish population, it might be noted, of just over six million people, many
of whom were themselves targets of the far right (and the far left and
jihadists) in the past century.
No other nation awakens the far left's misguided passion in the way that
Israel does. Only democratic Israel is constantly in their crosshairs.
They don't organize BDS campaigns, flotillas, flytillas, apartheid weeks,
or disruptive protests about the true human-rights abusers, just Israel, as
it seeks to defend itself against those who openly proclaim their intent to
destroy it.
In the same vein, they celebrate self-determination for the Palestinians,
but would deny it for the Jews.
Is this obsessive, relentless attempt to challenge the Jewish people's
national aspirations not a form of anti-Semitism? Of course it is, and has
been acknowledged as such by the UN Secretary-General, the President of
France, and many other astute leaders.
And when was the last time, for example, that anyone saw a protest
by these self-professed human rights campaigners of the far left, whether
on an American campus or elsewhere, about mass murder in Syria; Islamic
State's genocide against the Yazidis; the Venezuelan government's wholesale
destruction of a country; concentration camps housing hundreds of thousands
of inmates in North Korea; the British Labor Party's recurring examples of
anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, beginning at the very top of the party
leadership; or Iran's serial violations of the human rights of women, gays,
and religious minorities?
Their blatant selectivity and hypocrisy speak volumes.
But bifocal lenses aren't sufficient, either. Trifocals are needed.
Of late, the greatest physical threat to Jews has come from jihadists.
Consider the fact that every fatal attack against Jews in Europe in recent
years has been carried out by Islamic extremists.
From the kosher supermarket in Paris to a Jewish school in Toulouse,
from the Jewish Museum in Brussels to the synagogue in Copenhagen, from the
murders of Ilan Halimi and Sarah Halimi in Paris to the Israelis (and
Bulgarian) killed in Burgas, they were all perpetrated by jihadists.
Add to that the genocidal ambitions of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas,
incendiary Salafist teachings in many madrassas, and the ubiquitous
anti-Semitism in important segments of the Arab media.
So, by all means, let's express our utter revulsion when Nazis march in
Charlottesville, and let's speak up when the occupant of the Oval Office
stunningly fails to provide moral clarity in confronting such an unfolding
drama.
But, equally, the same Jewish outrage needs to be manifested when the
leader of a country, Iran, seeks a world without Israel, when Hezbollah's
top cleric calls for the mass murder of Jews, when Jewish children are shot
to death in front of a Jewish school for the simple fact that they are
Jews, and when groups on American campuses single out Israel, alone among
193 UN member states, for delegitimization and disappearance.
Oh, and as if things weren't already complicated enough, we also
must not lose sight of the seemingly bizarre alliances that emerge, such as
between the far left and Islamic extremists regarding Israel and Zionism,
or the far right and Islamic extremists on Holocaust denial and
demonization of Jews.
In other words, it's a time for those who genuinely care about
anti-Semitism to open their eyes wide—and not allow ideological or partisan
thinking to narrow the field of vision.
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