#palestine is a new word for nazism

[cree-n-jewish-thoughts]

When being Jewish (and well educated about our culture) enough for some uneducated goyium to believe you about your faith, scripture, and laws...

Me: You don't know the actual definition of Zionism. It's not political.

Them: No, it is political, it's to kill and take land. Then goes on to say how oppressed palistine has been since 1933... you haven't seemed to care though until now?

Jews have been oppressed in our own land since we existed. There is a reason we spent 40 years in the desert...

This person doesn't know their history... Or that a country doesn't change your ethnicity...

The people were kicked out of countries like Saudi Arabia and Lebanon for being extremists.

Many Jews were killed for the land they call home.

They built a mosque over the second temple... like...

People are so widely uneducated about these issues and terms.

Genocide- Palestinians are Arab. That is a race, an ethnicity is muslim. You are not like us.

Just because we are an ethno-religion, doesn't mean you are too.

I am older than the country for crying out loud.

If a war against an extremist terrorist group is genocide, I have bad news for the USA...

All we wanted to end the war was the hostages back... why didn't that happen? Oh, right, the terroist dictator that starves and kills his own citizens said no.

[news4dzhozhar]

[hazel2468]

Leftists on Twitter: “I’m not antisemitic! I’m allowed to talk about what’s going on in Palestine!” Me: “You should talk about it... But you ARE being antisemitic!” Leftists on Twitter: “No I’m not!” Leftists on twitter: Referring to “bloodthirsty Zionists”, accusing all Israelis of “Murdering Palestinian babies”, straight up saying “from the river to the sea”, demanding all Jews pass a test to be allowed into the conversation, harassing Israelis trying to talk about the situation no matter what they say about it, telling American Jews to “Shut up, Zionist”, using the word Zionist as an insult, calling Zionism “the new Nazism”, literally going for blood libel at every given fucking opportunity. Me: “....Uh uh. Sure. Doing a good job not being antisemitic here”.

[eretzyisrael]

On a Spring day in 2018 during the March of Return riots, Palestinians at the Gaza border flew a swastika-emblazoned kite carrying a Molotov cocktail into Israel. From the black smoke of burning tires arose another swastika, only this time interposed between two Palestinian flags. (Was it mere coincidence that this occurred on Adolf Hitler’s birthday?) In this context of Palestinian “return,” the kite is a prolific symbol; for example, advertising for National Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) 2018 conference at UCLA featured an image of a bear flying a kite. That SJP adopted this imagery for the conference’s logo – as if it were somehow a child-like symbol of peaceful protest – demonstrates the organization’s willingness to gloss over the arson that Palestinian terrorists have employed with kites.

In any case, the genocidal imagery that accompanied the rioters in Gaza has a sordid history that many anti-Zionist activists conveniently forget — one that some Palestinians embrace entirely.

The Nazis murdered 6,000,000 Jews and sought to destroy every trace of Jewish life having ever existed, yet it’s a common practice for anti-Zionist critics to liken Israel to the Nazis’ genocidal evil. Libels of this sort are quite common on college campuses.

Last June, for instance, Florida State University (FSU) students discovered that the school’s Student Senate President Ahmad Daraldik had created a virulently antisemitic website to explain his (incorrect) argument that “the Holocaust never ended, it just moved to Palestine.” Unsurprisingly, the FSU chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) subsequent petition defending Daraldik completely ignores this appalling hatred.

Two years prior, renowned professor of law at Harvard University Alan Dershowitz visited the University of California — Berkeley’s campus to present what he described as his “liberal case for Israel.” Rather than engage in productive dialogue, the student newspaper published a cartoon that depicted Dershowitz stomping on a Palestinian child and propping up an Israeli soldier that had shot a young Palestinian. As Dershowitz pointed out, these sorts of blood libels and ritual murder accusations harken back to the Nazi propaganda tabloid Der Sturmer. To make matters worse, a poster with a swastika scrawled on Dershowitz’s face was displayed outside the law school.

In October 2018, a guest lecturer’s presentation at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design featured a slide with side-by-side photos of Adolf Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The words “guilty of genocide” were superimposed over both faces.

Ironically, anti-Zionists are correct that the spectre of Nazism indeed haunts the Middle East — only the purveyors of the ideology are assuredly not its Jewish inhabitants.

Antisemitism has always been a part of the Arab world, but after the rise of Nazi Germany, the hatred took on a new meaning to those enraged by the influx of Jewish refugees in then-Mandatory Palestine.

Chief among them was Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, a key founder of the Palestinian national movement and preeminent Islamic jurist who enthusiastically championed Nazism following Hitler’s rise. Relations between the mufti and the Third Reich’s highest-ranking officials went beyond moral support — rather, it was a sadistic partnership.

Reflecting on his time in Berlin as a consultant for Hitler, al-Husseini wrote in his memoirs, “I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: ‘The Jews are yours.’”

A photograph of Hitler and Husseini discussing the Final Solution is, generally speaking, the extent of people’s seemingly limited understanding of their collaboration. Almost without exception, peddlers of the Israel-Nazi comparisons fail to recognize, for example, the mufti’s complicity in (if not responsibility for) the deaths of an estimated 84,000 Jews, including 4,000 children. As the associate director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) Alex Safian has documented, “The Mufti influenced the Germans to directly prevent the escape of Jews who otherwise might have survived the war, and he provoked his followers to violence in the Palestine Mandate.”

Sadly, the mufti’s complicity in the Holocaust left an indelible mark on his people, and his influence can still be found in many elements of contemporary Palestinian society more than 70 years since the liberation of the concentration camps and establishment of the modern state of Israel.

The “Nazi Scouts” organized by Husseini and inspired by the Hitler Youth are no longer, but indoctrinating children with antisemitic ideology remains in Palestinian classrooms. In a 2019 resolution, the United Nations — rarely an Israeli benefactor — condemned these practices and called on the Palestinian Authority to remove “any derogatory comments and images from school curricula and textbooks that perpetuate prejudices and hatred.”

Twelve years prior, Palestinian Media Watch director Itamar Marcus published findings that Palestinian textbooks, unsurprisingly, reject Israel’s right to exist and traffic in Holocaust denial. In 2001, German MEP Armin Laschet argued that the hateful content in Palestinian textbooks reminded him of the books published when his country was under Hitler’s reign.

That Hitler’s Mein Kampf was once a bestseller in the Palestinian-controlled territories is especially ironic, given that Holocaust denial is not uncommon in Palestinian media. In fact, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas argued in his 1984 PhD thesis that the Holocaust was grossly exaggerated – that the (entirely correct) assertion that six million Jews were murdered is a “fantastic lie.” In Abbas’ view, the Jews who were killed by the Nazis only perished because the Zionist movement supposedly incited the Nazis.

It wouldn’t be fair to charge the entire Palestinian people with the crime of the Holocaust. But it is important to reckon with the aforementioned historical and contemporary facts and to expose the absurdity, not to mention irony, of Israel-Nazi comparisons tossed around on college campuses.

To falsely equate Jews with their oppressors — all while ignoring actual examples of collaboration with Nazi Germany — is an abberation of justice.

[magica-pseudoacademica]

Savitri Devi had left Europe to find the last living Aryan culture and found it in Hindu India. Whenever she recalled the spectacle of honors paid to the fair-skinned Aryan gods of old on the island of Rameswaram, a festival she revisited in May 1935, she thought that India of all places should be receptive to the new paganism of Nazism ... Savitri Devi's global pan-Aryan doctrine and her recognition of Hinduism as an Aryan legacy certainly placed her apart from the narrow nationalism of most German Nazis. Years before in Palestine she had resolved to honor the pagan gods and fight the Judaeo-Christian legacy of the West. Her first concern now was the defense of Hinduism as the bastion of Aryandom against all encroachments by Christianity and Islam. In late 1937 she fulfilled her desire for practical engagement in this struggle by joining the Hindu Mission in Calcutta as a traveling lecturer in the states of Bengal, Bihar, and Assam. In the words of Camillio Giuriati, the Italian consul  of Calcutta, she had become "the missionary of Aryan Heathendom."

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler’s Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism (2000)

[creativinn]

A Springtime of Erasure

This essay appears in our Fall 2019 issue, out now!  to receive a copy in your mailbox. I WAS HEADING to Palo Alto for a presentation at Stanford on political satire, diaspora pride, and the urgency of Jewish memory and conscience in the face of burgeoning fascism in America, but it was hard to pack amid panicked texts from my mom. The subject of her frenzied concern: metal detectors, security perimeters, and how to deal with “crazies” (her word) inspired by a New York Times opinion editor’s signal boost of an article stating that I posed an imminent threat to the safety of Jewish students on campus.

It all started, arguably, with the erasure of Jews in a comic. I’d been invited by the Stanford chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace to present my work during Palestine Awareness Week. Prior to the event, the groups distributed flyers featuring comics I’d drawn that mocked two Benjamins—Netanyahu and Shapiro—for their contempt for the progressive values shared by the majority of American Jews. In response, Stanford College Republicans plastered undergraduate dormitories with flyers setting a panel from one of my comics alongside images from Der Stürmer, a Nazi propaganda tabloid, all under the headline “Spot the Difference.”

The Der Stürmer image featured a Jewish man as a worm and was originally captioned “The Jew’s symbol is a worm, not without reason. He seeks to creep up on what he wants.” The selection from my art was a panel from a decade-old comic, “Metamorphosis,” which satirized the Jewish communal world’s millennial outreach efforts via a depiction of 19th-century Jewish intellectuals chatting not about socialism, communism, and Zionism, but about their cheeseball Jewish young adult engagement initiatives. You couldn’t get more Jewish in-jokey than that! Hence its publication in the Forward; hence its reproduction on tote bags for the 2012 National Jewish Student Journalism Conference. According to the campus Trump supporters, this portrait of Jews talking about Judaism was tantamount to Nazism.

Following the College Republicans’ lead, the Hillel-affiliated Israel on Campus Coalition—which had been in the news for working with Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs to harass and spy on progressive Jewish undergrads—jumped on the bandwagon, adding that I was “appropriating Passover” by drawing a seder.

Three days later, a Stanford Law student published an op-ed in The Stanford Daily situating my art within a history of “anti-Semitism and cartoons,” and calling it “morally repugnant,” “ethically disgusting,” “feral and despicable,” and “indefensible.” At a loss for additional synonyms, he went on to compare me to Nazis, synagogue shooters, and “Palestinian terrorists,” and insisted I be barred from speaking at the university lest Jewish students be traumatized. The following day, New York Times opinion editor and columnist Bari Weiss shared the screed on Twitter, adding a personal note of gratitude to the author.

Within hours, I was facing six minyans of hatred. Top Jewish Trump surrogate Jeff Ballabon insisted I was worse than a kapo, and then upped the ante to “malshin”—a traitor to Jews who has historically merited the death penalty. The Stanford Review (founded by Trump-supporting oligarch Peter Thiel) published a diatribe comparing my art to blackface and insisting it was “so charged with anti-Semitism that no political pretense could justify a public display.” In a Jewish News Syndicate column, Jonathan Tobin—who had insisted in a National Review piece two years earlier that “the case for Trump or even senior aide Steve Bannon . . . being an anti-Semite doesn’t stand up to scrutiny”—called my work “repugnant anti-Semitic trash.” Even the associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center joined in, comparing my art to “Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitic genocidal propaganda from the 1930s and ’40s.” Granted, his boss had actually blessed Trump at the presidential inauguration. But still, for a Holocaust remembrance organization to make that comparison was startling. By the time I arrived at Stanford, a pro-Trump group had published images of me superimposed on comics I’d drawn condemning Trump’s racism, with the message, “Tell this loser cartoonist who hates Jews and America that his racism isn’t welcome on our college campuses.”

All of this shouldn’t have bothered me. Hyperbolic art provokes hyperbolic reaction; that’s par for the course in the genre of grotesquerie. And this campaign was neither new nor unique: Weiss had spent years trying to get writers and academics fired from their jobs for advocating for Palestinian suffrage. But use of the term “Nazi”—and not just as a flippant epithet hurled by apartheid advocates from the fever swamps of comment threads—gnawed at me. I felt unmoored by the onslaught of hate. 

As I filed through JFK Airport, half-expecting the drug-sniffing dogs to bark “He’s Waffen-SS!” before I could make it to the gate, I was struck by the irony: “You’ve been drawing Trump having intercourse with dead pigs against a backdrop of Klansmen and kids in cages, and now suddenly you’re sensitive?”

WHEN TRUMP’S ELECTION pulled back the curtain on the rise of the far right in America, I’d naively assumed the Jewish left would be vindicated. As the president solidified his stature as the hero of American Nazism, enacting policies of white supremacist violence on the border and lending credence to conspiracy theories about George Soros bringing in brown people to replace the white race—an idea that helped incite two antisemitic massacres in the span of six months, including the worst pogrom in American Jewish history—it seemed clear: the only course of action was to oppose these escalating horrors by every available means. And for Jews, this meant bringing our historical trauma to bear on the unfolding American catastrophe.

I knew there were those in the Jewish community—especially among the organizational leadership, as well as within the vocal minority that supported Trump—who insisted Holocaust analogies were verboten. But to me, they were mandatory, a means of alarm and mobilization. Three weeks after the election, as an admonition to Democrats not to compromise with an administration that promised mass roundups and deportations of those deemed “illegal,” I drew an image based on the iconic photograph of a boy raising his arms in the Warsaw Ghetto. In my work, I tried to suss out why our collective memory was presumed too loaded to apply to the current crisis. Two months after Trump’s inauguration, I drew ICE agents dragging a mother from her screaming daughter as she cautions her child, “Hush, sweetheart, and be careful with your analogies, lest you cheapen the sanctity of the Shoah!” Art became a form of prayer and a form of witness. Even as my subjects broadened beyond particularist Jewish topics, the art was haunted by Jewish memory. It felt like the most Jewish art I’d ever made.

That’s why Stanford floored me. This wasn’t just a spillover from Israel polemics. Much of the art cited as proof of my “Nazism” was recent work—condemnations of people abetting white supremacy in America. It felt different from earlier denunciations, and not just in magnitude. These critics were furious at my claim on Jewish memory and motifs, and insistent that I had no right to draw from our history. 

On the Stanford campus, before the presentation began, I headed out a back door of the lecture hall for a quick bathroom break in a nearby building. A single security officer lingered outside. The time and place of the presentation had been moved, and non-students were prohibited from attending, partly in response to the uproar. Wandering between buildings, I was struck by the emptiness of the grounds. The lead-up had been cacophonous, both off-campus and on. But now that I was here, the sudden silence was unnerving. I felt like a phantom—like I’d been erased.

IT HAD BEEN A SPRINGTIME OF ERASURE. Two months earlier, after Meghan McCain wept on The View and cited her friendship with Joe and Hadassah Lieberman while demonizing Ilhan Omar, I drew a comic satirizing her appropriation of Jewish identity and trauma. In response, McCain insisted on Twitter that I was an antisemite. Instead of rallying around the absurdity of a Christian woman calling a Jewish artist an antisemite for satirizing her weaponization of Jewish memory, the Jewish right leapt, aghast, to her defense. The same polemicists who had spent decades insisting non-Zionist Jews were crippled by a desire to ingratiate themselves with gentiles now rushed to invite McCain to their Shabbat dinners. It wasn’t even implied, it was emphatic: McCain was a Jew, I was a Jew-hater.

The phenomenon of Jews erasing Jews is not new, and it wasn’t new when Zionism came on the scene over a century ago and bifurcated Jewish self-image into the proud nationalist and the self-loathing assimilationist. In the presentation I’d give at Stanford, I planned to discuss Max Nordau, an early Zionist pioneer and proponent of “Muscular Judaism,” whose vituperative bile against diaspora Jews became an integral component of the Zionist cause. At the first Zionist Congress in 1897, he described the diaspora Jew he hoped to erase: “He has become a cripple within, and a counterfeit person without, so that like everything unreal, he is ridiculous and hateful to all men of high standards.” 

But the trend of erasure has seen a resurgence in recent years as a newly emboldened Jewish left has set Zionist ideologues and American Jewish leaders on edge. Two months prior to L’Affaire McCain, The Times of Israel published a hair-raising op-ed by a white writer dissecting and dismissing the Jewish identities of several Jewish women writers of color who had been exploring racism in the Jewish community, and who hold left-wing views on Israel/Palestine. The writer coined the odious term “Jewface,” proclaiming the young women imposters. As I write this, the Forward has printed an op-ed by the head of young leadership at the American Jewish Committee insisting that American Jews who oppose Israeli settlements are mere “tokens” exploited by a gentile left. 

And there’s a new twist to erasure: many of those doing the erasing are actively or tacitly aiding in the rise of movements seeking the extermination of Jews. We saw this most starkly after the Tree of Life massacre, when Trump flew to Pittsburgh to meet not with local leaders, but with Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. Two days earlier, Dermer had gone on MSNBC to exalt Trump, pivoting from the white supremacist massacre by invoking Jeremy Corbyn, the “radical left,” and 1990s Black nationalist icon Louis Farrakhan as he insisted, “I see a lot of bad people on both sides.” Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett flew to Pittsburgh and New York on an erasure tour in which he insisted that the ADL’s statistics on growing antisemitism in America were fictions. “I’m not sure at all there is a surge in antisemitism in America,” he said. “I’m not sure those are the facts.” Vice President Pence, for his part, appeared onstage with a pet “rabbi” from Jews for Jesus—a movement that in its very name stands for the erasure of Jews—to feign solidarity with the Jewish community. After Charlottesville, and then Pittsburgh, and then Poway, the Jewish right can no longer conceal its bargain with the forces of eliminationist antisemitism. But still they plod on, possibly in denial themselves about where this is heading—that the erasure of Jewish voices is a step toward the erasure of Jewish bodies.

For me, the McCain imbroglio brought this into stark relief. You can’t truly get the feel for Jewish erasure until your own lived Jewishness is called into question. In retrospect, it was the perfect prelude to Stanford. After all, a world where Jewish art turns Meghan McCain into a victim of antisemitism can easily become a world where Jewish art against Nazism is damned as Nazi art against Jews.

LOST IN THE FRENZY of right-wing Zionists and Trump hagiographers posing as Weimar Republic cultural critics in the lead-up to the Stanford presentation was the question of my actual sources of inspiration. I’m usually quick to bring up 1950s MAD comics—their Yiddish-infused, riotous dreamscapes skewering postwar American consumerism and conformity—as my formative bedrock. No disrespect to my furshlugginer idols, but my roots also go back further, to the ferocious anti-Nazi artists of the Weimar and early Nazi periods. Haunted by the devastations of the First World War and horrified by the growing Nazi threat, these artists produced searing portraits of a society barreling from one catastrophe to the next. Grotesqueries abound, as in Otto Dix’s 1924 War portfolio, 50 eviscerating etchings of maimed and mutilated soldiers. These corpses in trenches, bullet-punctured faces, and grinning skulls teeming with worms reveal the harrowing substratum of a Germany teetering on the brink of fascism, populated in Dix’s other portraits by the discolored, plasticine figures of the country’s elite and not-so-elite. Or in the works of George Grosz, which ferociously skewer the self-satisfied greed and brutality of military officers, bureaucrats, and industrialists while highlighting Berlin’s self-destructive interwar spiral. In “The Voice of the People Is the Voice of God,” from 1920, Grosz venomously sends up right-wing pundits as horses, monkeys, and other unidentifiable beasts—including one with an early swastika on its forehead—in a scene that could easily pass for a satire of the parade of sycophants at Mar-a-Lago. 

Despised by right-wing critics, Grosz was fined for defaming the German army and hauled into court for drawing Jesus in a gas mask. Berlin police seized all copies of his limited-edition Ecce Homo collection, ordering the original prints and plates destroyed on the grounds that they were “indecent representations which offend the sense of modesty and morality of a person of normal feeling.” They didn’t define “normal feeling,” or how exactly it was possible for a person to have normal feelings as society was collapsing all around them.

The Nazis finished what the Weimar censors started. In 1933, Otto Dix was fired from his position at the Dresden Academy and barred from its grounds. After appealing his dismissal he was told certain works “most seriously injure the moral feeling of the German people, and others could dampen the German people’s will to defend themselves.” Nazis confiscated 260 pieces of Dix’s art. Grosz fled to America 18 days before Hitler took power, escaping arrest and possible murder. Nazis confiscated 285 of his works. Years later, a classified SS document called him “one of the most evil representatives of degenerate art.”

DEGENERATE ART: A term codified by the Nazis to describe art they deemed a blight on the German spirit. Like its war on the Jewish people, the Nazis’ war on art was designed to eliminate what it insisted was a warped and pathological deviation from artistic greatness—a deviation represented by Jewish, Bolshevik, cosmopolitan, mentally ill, and other racially impure aesthetics. As many as 22,000 works of modern art were confiscated from museums; roughly a quarter of these were destroyed.

Not content to ban both the art and the artists, the Nazis decided to hold a “Degenerate Art Exhibition” in July 1937 to coincide with the opening of the “Great German Art Exhibition” the day before. Paintings and sculptures were crowded together and accompanied by inflationary price tags—an indictment of the “Jewish” art trade. The exhibition’s walls were adorned with slogans like “Revelation of the Jewish racial soul,” “An insult to German womanhood,” and “Nature as seen by sick minds.” The exhibition catalogue—more of a hate guide to the exhibits, which included works by Dix, Grosz, and 110 other artists—quoted from Hitler’s address at the opening of the Great German Art Exhibition: “But what do you manufacture? Deformed cripples and cretins, women who inspire only disgust, men who are more like wild beasts, children who, if they were alive, would be regarded as God’s curse! And this is what these cruel incompetents dare to present to us today as the art of our time.” Although most of the artists featured in the Degenerate Art Exhibition were non-Jews, the Nazis’ obsessive determination to erase non-glorifying art from civilization mirrored its drive to remove unfit people from humanity. 

“Degenerate Art” has become synonymous with the Nazi war on free thought and expression. Less known, but even more shocking, is that the term had been popularized by none other than Zionist pioneer Max Nordau during his career as a cultural critic, five years prior to his denunciation of diaspora Jews at the First Zionist Congress. Obsessed with the notion of modern art as a signifier of mental and physical deformity, Nordau condemned it in terms astonishingly similar to his condemnation of diaspora Jews. “Degenerates, hysterics, and neurasthenics are not capable of adaptation,” Nordau wrote of modern artists. “Therefore they are fated to disappear.” Although their targets did not entirely overlap, Hitler directly drew from portions of Nordau’s work in Mein Kampf, while eliding the source. 

There is much to ponder in the way an early Zionist’s denigration of modern art and diaspora Jewry mirrors the ideological monstrosities that would soon envelop Europe. As my talk at Stanford neared, the polemicists and opinion writers—many of them Nordau’s philosophical descendants—who insisted my art was “Nazi-like” because of its grotesqueries, because of its hyperbole, and because it skewers petty fascists, were not just exposing themselves as ignorant of a century of exhilarating art that raged against the most despicable forces in history. They were also operating within that history, treading the path of the very movement they insist they despise. In their insistence on removing a supposedly profane element from both the Jewish community and the artistic landscape, they were direct heirs to the most abominable, antisemitic movement in Jewish history. That they claimed to be doing so out of dire concern for Jewish welfare is obscene.

THE PRESENTATION WENT WELL, all things considered—the slide projector worked, there was ample water, I wasn’t shot. But toward the end, I got emotional. I was sharing a comic from 2014, drawn when Netanyahu made an end run around the Obama administration to address Congress, in an effort to scuttle what would become the Iran Deal. It was four panels featuring scenes of American Jewish life. The text was all narration:

We thought we were safe here. We knew it. “Land of the free”—it resonated . . . Ethnic intolerance, racial prejudice, nationalist hysteria . . . We’d faced it all wherever we lived. But not here. Not anymore. It couldn’t happen here. 

But just when we’d gotten comfortable, we learned of an ugliness heading our way. The government opening its doors to the very incitement we’d thought was a thing of the past. We had thought we were safe—free from xenophobia, free from demagoguery. But we’d taken it all for granted. On that day we knew: No matter how safe we think we are, we might never really be free.

In the final panel, a family is stunned and horrified to find Netanyahu speaking on TV. The comic was a reflection on the moral abyss between American Jews and the authoritarians helming Israel’s government. More than that, it raised an alarm about the dangers Israel now posed to American Jewish lives in its embrace of movements that have historically sought the elimination of Jews. But substitute Netanyahu with Trump, and it’s no longer satire. It’s literal. Reading the comic, reciting the litany of horrors that have become reality in America, my voice started breaking. The last thing I wanted was a tearful spectacle—or worse, performative pathos to drive the presentation home. I heard my voice drop to a near-whisper. 

I’d presented the comic several times since the Trump nightmare began, and this had never happened before. In part, it may have been the pressure releasing after a full week of vilification. But that doesn’t fully capture it. I think, in the end, “It couldn’t happen here” broke my heart. The cautionary tale of European Jews deluded about their safety at the dawn of the 20th century has by now become cliché. But it is happening here—not systemically to Jews, not immediately, but it’s already begun against other communities, and it’s getting worse. 

By the time I got home, I was starting to see myself through the eyes of the demonizers. Yes, with less of the bigotry, the mendacity, the demagoguery, the cruelty, the disdain for centuries of Jewish civilization, and the contempt for even the barest notion of Palestinian humanity, but still—part of me was afraid to go back to drawing lest everything look like, or be interpreted as, a Goebbels concoction. Self-doubt is essential to making art, but it can also be paralyzing.

I know this is the goal of gaslighting: insist on an alternate reality and eventually the target will start to question their own reality. It worked. After the concerted campaign of erasure, I started to erase myself. I was exhausted; I didn’t want to draw.

AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS of self-doubt, a national debate brought some clarity. In mid-June, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recorded an Instagram video in which she condemned the concentration camps on our border and called for action to stop the atrocities. Within hours, the country was up in arms over the term “concentration camps,” with some of the same individuals and institutions that had condemned me as a Nazi insisting that Ocasio-Cortez was not only misinformed, but antisemitic. The rabbi at the Simon Wiesenthal Center who had denounced me insisted that her use of the term “concentration camp” was an “insult to victims of the Shoah.” 

Thankfully, in an open letter published in The New York Review of Books, over 400 scholars interceded to say: these are concentration camps. Jews throughout the country came to Ocasio-Cortez’s defense, insisting that Jewish memory is nothing if not an injunction to stop the horrors from repeating. Soon the grassroots initiative Never Again Action was formed to confront the machinery of ICE concentration camps directly.

I started drawing again—tracing the horrors in black and white, holding the grotesqueries up like a mirror—because I remembered: we are fighting for our memory and we are fighting for our lives. As far as creative motivation goes, nothing quite compares to witnessing the methodical erasure of our collective history and conscience. I am going to keep drawing. Eli Valley’s comics collection Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel is available from OR Books.

This content was originally published here.

[evilelitest2]

Debunking Stupid Christopher Hitchen’s Quote

     I don’t think this is going to be like a reoccuring thing, but may be every so often I should take a statement made by somebody and just delve into how wrong it is.  Today’s offering comes from @datablossom in defense of Christopher Hitchens.  Only context you need, I was saying that reductionist views towards your opposition leads to extremely stupid decision making, like Christoper self describing himself as a single issue voter in regards to the War on Terror and how dumb it is, and this quote is suppose to debunk my claim.  Now for a bit of context. Christopher Hitchens was an atheist Philosphy of the “New Atheist” movement, one of the supposed Four Horsemen, and cards on the table I just can’t stand the New Atheist philosophy at all, I find it trite, smug, and extremely intellectually vapid, its Voltaire without the humor. But beyond that, I find it very much like the Free Speech Warriors, where they start out as a group using questionable methods to oppose an actual right wing evil force (The Religious Right and the Fox News culture Warriors) only to immediately ally with those exact same people and support their world view in a moment’s notices.  Its like a LOTRS thing, they use the methods of the Enemy and almost instantly become the enemy.  Cause remember, Christophen Hitchen started out as an opponent to Fundamentalist Christianity, and then once you introduce Islam into the mix, he quickly winds up supporting those same people 

So here is the quote, as well as the commentary of @datablossom which will be marked in Italics 

Here’s Hitchens’ actual words, not some truncated quote that explains nothing, it’ll just boil my guts if I don’t bring them to the forefront:

“There is a widespread view that the war against jihadism and totalitarianism involves only differences of emphasis. In other words, one might object to the intervention in Iraq on the grounds that it drew resources away from Afghanistan - you know the argument. It’s important to understand that this apparent agreement does not cover or include everybody. A very large element of the Left and of the isolationist Right is openly sympathetic to the other side in this war, and wants it to win. This was made very plain by the leadership of the “anti-war” movement, and also by Michael Moore when he shamefully compared the Iraqi fascist “insurgency” to the American Founding Fathers.”

Ok right off the back, we have Hitchens utterly failing at his supposed goal to be rational and engaging in the type of hyperbole simplistic thinking that he himself smugly mocks in his other books (I had the misfortune of raeding Hitch 22.  Lets break this down 

1) Ok so firstly, Hitchen is doing a really classically stupid thing of buying into simplistic black and white paradigm created by the duplicity  and believed by their ignorant, because in case you haven't noticed, the War on Terror isn’t a war with a single force.  Jihadists and Totalitarianism aren’t like...singular things.  Hell they are actually two very different entities and it is really evident that Hitchens hasn’t read Arendt.  The War on Terror isn’t with a singular opponent, that is why it is such a clusterfuck.  Here let me use an example of a normal war as a contrast.      WWII was a battle against the Axis powers, who were three countries and their associated Vassal States.  They had capital cities, heads of states, armies, forms of goverment and a physical location that they occupied.  Nazi German controlled this land mass 

So if you send an army in and take over the territory in red, guess what, you’ve won, you have eliminated Nazism.  Which we you know...did.  There is a clear war end with a clear victory condition.      But Terror isn’t like...a nation.  There is no Terrorstan with its capital city of terovania ruled by the King of Terrorism who we can go in and kill, because this isn’t a conventional war.  Like what is the end goal of the War on Teror, how do we win?  Are we fighting to eliminate Bin Laden and Al-Quedi?  Well in that case, then why invade Iraq, because if anybody actually understood anything about the period they would know the two men detested each other and opposed each other politically.  Is the goal to wipe out islam?  Well that means that you are talking about the largest genocide in all of human history.  Is it to try to eliminate Fundamentalist militant Islam? Well then the best way to do that historically has never been through war which only strengthens Islamic extremism (you know how since the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq we have seen Islamic fundamentalist get only more powerful?)  The thing about the War on Terror and the War on Drugs is that they are these huge international utterly mismanaged fuck ups which not only cost an inordinate amount of blood and treasure, but also can’t really be won because they are by their nature unwinnable, how do you fight a fucking concept? And Hitchens is just sort of accepting this premise that the War on Terror is like a thing, he is just kinda unquestioningly going ‘Well this paradigm totally exists and lets run with it”  Terms like “The Enemy” or “The other side”.  What is the Other Side Exxactly?   2) I mean going off the mindless Assumptions that HItchens is making, who are we fighting exactly?  LIke ok, if you aren’t 4 years old, you should know that the Middle East isn’t a singular faction of unified peoples who all agree on stuff.  I mean lets do a quick list of factions in the middle east The Saudi Royal Family The Saudi Wahhabist Clerics The Pakistani Goverment The Pakistani Military Saadamn Hussein’s Iraq (at the time of this writing) Al-Queda Hamas Hezbollah The Theocracy of Iran The Goverment of Turkey The Kudishistan Fighters The Government in Egypt The Muslim Brotherhood The Dictatorship of Syria The Goverment of Lebenon The Monarchy of Jordon The Palestinian Leadership The nation of Israel (with all of the factions contained there in) The various sub states that make up the UAE The goverment of Qutar The Dictatorship of Kuwait The Dictatorship of Libya The Dictatorship of Tunisia The Dictatorship of Yemen The Dictatorship of Oman The Governments of the US, France, Britain, Russia, India, and their Allies The various exiles and rebels from all of those countries And that is just a short list.  None of those groups are unified with the others, they might be allies or share common interest, but they aren’t the same thing, I mean the Sunni Shia division is just one big part of this.   Again its one of those things that if you are you know....stupid it seems simple but the moment you try to understand the details, the whole thing falls apart, and as evident from this and other writings by him, Chris really doesn’t actually know anything about middle eastern politics like...at all.   3)  Speaking of unquestioning assumptions HItchens is oh so fond off, even if we are going to fight against radical Islam, he just kinda accepts that direct military intervention is going to work, because...look its gonna work ok, it just is.  And this is one of those things that if you actually you know...studied the history of the region and the politics or just occupation in general, you’d immediately know how stupid that is, but again, Hitchens is basically going with military approach because it feels emotionally correct, but because it feels emotionally correct and seems simple.  ‘argg, goes guys are bad, lets send troops in and stop them’ which of course...no, that doesn’t work.  Because when you bomb somebody’s house, they aren’t inclined to listen to you, and imposing democracy at Gun point doesn’t have a history of working.  LIke if he knew anything about the history of the region he could have studied the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan or the fall of the Ottoman Empire and maybe conclude ‘oh wait, just going in their guns blazing just doesn’t work”   4) Now mr. Rational here supported the Iraq War, and thought that was a capital idea, only for it to fail disastrously.  And his argument was “Well its a Muslim dictatorship, lets get ride of it”  And no where in his article does he go “Oh lets also invade Saudi Arabia, you know, the Muslim Theocracy which provides most of the funding for Islamic fundamentalism?”  But again, that just goes unquestioned cause you know...he doesn’t actually know anything about the region beyond some vague stereotypes 5) Also Jihadism and Totalitarianism are different concepts, Christopher you fucking idiot.  If we are fighting against Totalitarianism, then we should be invading China, Russia, North Korea, Totalitarianism is a sytem of goverment, Jihaadism is a militant practice, they are sometimes linked but they aren’t always the same thing.   6) So when Hitchen says “Oh the Left wants the Other Side” to win, what does he even mean? Again, this isn’t a two sided conflict, is like...39 sided conflict and some of them keep switching sides.  So which “other side” does the left want to win?  Do his think that Moore wants Bin Laden to create a new caliphate because you know...that never happened.  or does he mean like leftists wanting Palestine to get its own state, because yeah, a lot of leftists do want that. but he doesn’t really argue how that helps “The Enemy” or how the one state situation helps weaken Islamic fundamentalism.  But no, this is just the same Red Scare bullshit of “Oh if we don’t even try to understand why people are trying to kill us, that means we win the war right?” bullshit that didn’t work then, and isn’t working now.  For example, if Hitchen understood like...anything about the region he’d know about the 1953 Iranian Coup and how that didn’t weaken Muslim extremism but only made it worse.   7) Also, I hate defending Michael Moore of all people, but no, he didn’t say he wants Muslim extremism to win, he said that the war is immoral, unjust and doesn’t work, creating more problems than it solved.  The point of the founding father’s comparison is that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter and to the Iraqis the insurgents, they are trying to get foreign invaders out of their country.

Ok next quote 

“To many of these people, any “anti-globalization” movement is better than none. With the Right-wingers it’s easier to diagnose: they are still Lindberghians in essence and they think war is a Jewish-sponsored racket. With the Left, which is supposed to care about secularism and humanism, it’s a bit harder to explain an alliance with woman-stoning, gay-burning, Jew-hating medieval theocrats. However, it can be done, once you assume that American imperialism is the main enemy. Even for those who won’t go quite that far, the admission that the US Marine Corps might be doing the right thing is a little further than they are prepared to go - because what would then be left of their opposition credentials, which are so dear to them?…….” 

Lets switch to letters for this one 

A) Yes it is true there is a racist America First anti War Right wing element, but...the left never really embraced them.  In contrast, it was the right who really came to love them and then elected one of these Lindberghians president, good job 

B) Evidently it is really rational to assume that there are only a few sides in very argument, it doesn’t seem to occur to Hitchens that you might oppose Islamic fundamentalism and also not think that invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 are both wrong because nuanced thinking is rejected by the new atheists evidently.  You see why I am never impressed  by the so called New Atheist Rationalists, because they are really shitty about being rational, they take the rhetoric and shallow trappings of rationalism and use it to cover opinions that are coming from anti intellectual reductionist bigoted places and say “look its rational”...actually very similar to how muslim fundamentalists acts towards Islam.    

Reading Hitch 22 for me was a lot like watching Citizens Kane but without awareness, because every single thing he condemned he inevitably wound up doing himself.  

C) Also if you are talking about getting into bed with people they should oppose, lets talk about the fact that Hitch here became a surrogate for a Right Wing movement led by a Fundamentalist Christian who opposed Stem Cell Research, denied Global Warming and has a mixed record on evolution...and Hitch gets into bed with them.  And for all of his talk of Human rights, democracy, and feminism, he winds up working with people who hate feminism, who violate human rights regularly (you know...torture), and who support dictatorships abroad.  Again, the only way the rationality of Hitchens seems remotely consistent is if you are...stupid and don’t know any of the details.

This is why the New Atheist almost always wind up working with the religious Right, and why the people who opposed Republican attempts to demonize video games winded up part of the Right Wing machine, because if your core intellectual methodology is simplistic, then you are going to always be attracted to simplistic people.  

“………And this is the religion that exhibits the horrible trio of self-hatred, self-righteousness and self-pity. I am talking about militant Islam. Globally it’s a gigantic power. It controls an enormous amount of oil wealth, several large countries and states, with an enormous fortune it’s pumping the ideologies of wahhabism and salafism around the world, poisoning societies where it goes, ruining the minds of children, stultifying the young in its madrassas, training people in violence, making a cult of death and suicide and murder. That’s what it does globally, it’s quite strong. In our societies it poses as a cringing minority, whose faith you might offend, who deserves all the protection that a small and vulnerable group might need. Now, it makes quite large claims for itself, doesn’t it? It says it’s the Final Revelation.”

Lets go Roman Nummerials this time 

I) Globally its a giantaic power, I love this bit, because Hitch just spilled his hand and revealed to the world that he honestly thinks the Muslim powers are all one thing.  Cause....no....no they aren’t.  Three of the largest oil producing countries are Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and guess what, they all hate each other.  Iran is Shia, Iraq was secular, and Saudi Arabia was a Sunni Fundamentalist State.  

II) OK he is talking about the mass funding of madrassases with Whahabism and yeah, thats a problem...How is invading Iraq solving that problem Hitch? Cause while Saadam Hussein was an evil terrible person, he wasn’t really big with Muslim fundamentalism, he was more secular, and into nation building.  Wouldn’t Hitch want to like, invade Saudi Arabia instead?  It honestly feels like he doesn’t know the difference between Iraq and Saudi Arabia 

III) Which makes his alliance with the Bush administration all the more ironic because you know who has massive ties to Saudi Arabia?  Oh right, the oil industry which is in bed with the Bushes and the Republicans party

IV) So you are just kinda left with a man who will abandon all of his principles (again he voted for Bush) if they appeal to his single issue

“I'm a single-issue voter, to get straight to the point. I'm really only interested in the candidate who's toughest and least apologetic when it comes to the confrontation with Islamic Jihadism.”

So you know...a moron 

Hitchens’ single issue was the fight against totality. Whether it comes from the madmen of jihad, the brutal fascist conservative windbags of the world, or the stilted leftist wignuts that pretend video games turn normal boys and girls into women hating sociopaths.

It seems like Hitchen’s point is “I don’t actually understand these issues, but I am going to rely upon broad generalizations to make it seem like my opinion on the matter actually is important.”  And that is generally what you get from Hitchen’s work, self important preening and fertilization of intellectual standards that he will never hold and will abandon in an instant if something appeals to his bigotry or xenophobia.  But I see why he is so popular with teenage boys, because the childish inflated sense of self worth is very telling, and I still think he hasn’t actually read Orwell.

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”

Good Advice, would be nice if the man actually followed it for once.  

[wakingthefury]

God has used the death of six million Jews to bring about the Jewish state of Israel

Listen to Today's Program JD: Is the Holocaust a major foundation for the Jewish state? In other words a safe haven for the Jewish people after the Holocaust there across Europe. WM: Well Jimmy let’s put things as you say in historical order. There is no doubt that after World War II a major element that played on the minds of the Western world that over came Nazism, Germany and Italy was the fact that after the war ended they found out that so many millions of Jews had gone through the ovens and the crematory and the gas chambers. They were left with perhaps 300,000 displaced persons who had no where to go although some people said we’ll send them back to Poland, send them back to Austria or Germany. The only place they really could go should have been Palestine. It should have been obvious Palestine which was in a mandate supposedly a Jewish national home to be. The Zionist move across as odd as it may sound benefited from that reality. But of course the Zionist movement had wished and had worked for almost 50-60 years in the modern political sense to gain a state before World War II.

If the British had not given us that white paper in 1939 which limited purchase of land and restricted immigration severally we could have saved millions. It would have been a state. So that realization I think , the double realization of their failing before World War II and the reality they faced after the Holocaust was of course undoubtedly a foundational eliminating establishment of the state of Israel. 

JD: Winkie Medad rehearsing how the Lord used the Holocaust of 6 million Jews to bring about the Jewish state of Israel.

We report this information because it is setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.

Winkie Medad brought to our attention how God has used in the past a horrific event in this world’s history the Holocaust to bring about the Jewish state of Israel. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 28 the Lord told the Jews of this terrible time for the Jewish people. Six million Jews gave their lives to accomplish God’s plan for his chosen people.

An ancient Jewish prophet foretold of another Holocaust yet to come, a worse time than the last Holocaust, that’s Zechariah 13:8 where the Lord reveals through the prophet Zechariah of the time of Jacobs trouble when two out of every three Jewish people will be killed here on the earth. We must rise up and warn the Jewish people of this coming judgment. 

via Jimmy DeYoung's News Update http://bit.ly/2IWSTaq

[cree-n-jewish-thoughts]

DISTGUSTING WORDS

Her words are disgusting, antisemitic, and propaganda.

She does not know what Zionism actually means to Judaism.

This is making me shake.

This is close to home.

I'm scared.

She's literally using another platform she's using trigger words to get people on board that don't understand.

JEWS ARE INDIGENOUS TO ISRAEL

JEWS ARE BEING KILLED

JEWS ARE THE VICTIMS OF THE GENOCIDE

A country is not an ethnicity.

Stop this propaganda bull shit.

EXTREMISTS ARE CALLING FOR ACTION

Fuck you Ford. FUCK YOU

Doug Ford calls on Ontario Speaker to reverse Queen's Park keffiyeh ban https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/doug-ford-calls-on-ontario-speaker-to-reverse-queen-s-park-keffiyeh-ban-1.6851867

[news4dzhozhar]

This "head in the sand" mentality is cowardice. Not calling it what it is doesn't mean it didn't happen & continues to happen. That you have to weaponize language and words just shows the level of propaganda and denial.

[channelnewswire-blog]

Donald Trump, President of the United States of Hate?

There was already significant tension in the overwhelmingly Democratic-voting U.S. Jewish community when Trump won the 2016 election. Since then, there have been a series of events, watershed moments, that have triggered intense debate within the Jewish community about whether the Trump presidency presents a threat to its well-being and safety.

Mourners visit the memorial to the 11 congregants killed in a mass shooting inside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. October 31, 2018 AFP

From the shocking images of Charlottesville and Trump's morally hazardous comments, to the atrocity in a Pittsburgh synagogue, the same questions are being asked: Is the president consciously inciting against minorities and immigrants? Are we framing anti-Semitism in America solely, and wrongly, as a phenomenon of the Trump era? What is the relationship between xenophobia and hostility to American Muslims and refugees - and anti-Semitism? What activism best answers the needs of these times?

And - a debate that intensifies every day - what is the relationship between Trump's exploitation of racist tropes and a president who loudly proclaims his support for Israel, the Jewish state, and - to the plaudits of not only the Israeli government, but many U.S. Jews as well - moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem?

As Israelis proudly identify as the world's outliers in expressing their confidence in the Trump presidency, echoing Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu's highly vocal warmth towards the president, how solid is the 'special relationship' between the two countries?

Has the Trump administration - by cancelling the Iran nuclear deal and aid to the Palestinians - proven its allyship with Jerusalem, or has it endangered its safety? Is the administration laying the ground for an 'ultimate' peace deal or an ethno-nationalist, annexationist Israel? How does the Israel-U.S. relationship fit into the rise of right-wing populist governments around the world? How reliable is a president as transactional and mercurial as Trump?

Over the last two years, Haaretz has covered these burning issues intensively from a broad range of viewpoints. I invite you to take a deep dive into my pick of the opinion pieces that explore and illuminate these topics from a range of writers distinguished by their diversity, clarity and sometimes passionate engagement.

Anti-Semitism Rises

FILE PHOTO: A Pittsburgh Police officer walks past a memorial for the victims of a shooting in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 28, 2018Gene J. Puskar,AP

The massacre in a Pittsburgh synagogue is the result of Trump’s constant endorsement of hate against the other, a fear-mongering which has brought America to a very dark place

Keep your facile words. Instead, show us some balls. Stand up, don't cozy up, to the purveyors of hate, to the NRA, to the cowardly politicians who legitimized the synagogue shooter's sentiments

We know where bigoted, autocratic, indecent and parochial views like those of Donald Trump lead. U.S. Jews should be praying for every Democratic candidate canvasser to succeed: the American Jewish future depends on it

After his "fine people" comment about Charlottesville's neo-Nazis, there’s nowhere left to hide. Trump is an aider and abettor of Nazis, anti-Semites and racists. He is their hero. There are no two ways about it.

A pro-Kremlin website's sudden 'conversion' to hardcore anti-Semitism provided fuel for an alliance with America's far right, part of Moscow's strategy to provoke further polarization in the U.S.

Why did CPAC love Lapierre's anti-Semitic and anti-minority dog-whistling so much? Because his message - that they're the vanguard of 'real' Americans - resonates with the European-style ethno-nationalism many U.S. conservatives have adopted

Americans who protested Nazism too loudly, including Americans Jews, were criticized for their 'discourtesy': Our fear of incivility appeased Nazism. We can't go there again

White nationalists carry torches on the grounds of the University of Virginia, on the eve of a planned Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 11, 2017. STRINGER/ REUTERS

As one of Trump’s court of sycophants, Dinesh D'Souza's noxious libels will likely be his most successful piece of agitprop yet. His migration of foolish, extremist ideas to mainstream audiences should trouble every American

When Richard Grenell praises the 'resurgence' of Europe's 'anti-establishment' populists, in a country where the virulently anti-Semitic, populist far right has returned to parliament, he puts German Jews and democracy in danger

Speaking in Israel's parliament, the U.S. vice president came to praise the Jewish people. But his speech actually repudiated Jewish tradition, echoed tropes used to persecute Jews, and cast us as a mere tools for the salvation of Christians

The Jew haters are celebrating. And Jews – from Jared Kushner to Sheldon Adelson – helped it happen

I’ve never felt less American and more Jewish. I hear my grandmother's voice in my ear: As Jews, we know history doesn't always march forward toward a better day.

U.S. Jews Were Once Strangers, Refugees, Immigrants

Over 100 rabbis and Jewish activists, including prominent Reform leaders, demonstrate in support of DACA at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, January 2018Ralph Alswang

It is an earlier incarnation of Auschwitz, a place of indefinite detention for a vilified minority, that we saw on our border this week. The president's executive order offers no evidence this will change

In resisting the abuse of the vulnerable, prompted by President Trump’s Executive Order, do all American Jews now have a religious duty of civil disobedience?

Only nativist mediocrities shun the competition of new challengers and seek to restrict immigration

From D.C. to Jerusalem: U.S.- Israel relations under Trump

US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 26, 2018 in New York on the sidelines of the UN General AssemblyAFP

Trump’s two year Mideast policy scorecard is a mixed picture: Partial success stories and incomplete policies. But an unleashed president could have an explosive effect on the region

Israelis shouldn't celebrate the Trump administration's decision to slash funds for the Palestinians. It's a radicalizing gift for terrorists - and a ticking time bomb for Israel's security

He wanted to rehabilitate an image tarnished by accusations of anti-Semitism. But the U.S. president's 'spiritual grand tour' stop in Israel was an absurd series of empty gestures

Given his complex relationship with Putin - for all that anyone knows, given his debtor relationship with Putin - would Trump even be capable of intervening in a meaningful way?

Punctuated by Trump’s cartoonish Mideast policy, Israel's 70th anniversary is a melancholy milestone for U.S.-Israel relations, marking the deterioration of the ethics and ideals that once bound them together

An 'Ultimate' Peace Plan - Without the Palestinians

US President's envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt meets with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah on May 25, 2017.ABBAS MOMANI/AFP

The inaccurate, unhelpful and false rhetoric of Palestinian leaders like chief negotiator Erekat have not brought peace, and never will. It’s time to hear different Palestinian voices with the courage to seize peace

In dozens of meetings, Mr. Greenblatt refused to discuss substance: borders, settlements, even the two-state solution. This White House can't come remotely close to facilitating a just and lasting Mideast peace

Trump's Mideast team, unlike the rest of his administration, has been transparent and consistent: Palestinians have no right to a state; Israel doesn't need to answer for its human rights abuses. But there's a Democratic backlash - and a future political windfall for the Palestinians

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip burning posters depicting Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu during a protest against the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital, December 6, 2017.Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

Trump’s ego wouldn’t allow him to refrain from boasting about the very steps that pushed the Palestinians away from negotiations in the first place

John Bolton dismisses the efforts of the 'so-called State of Palestine' to legally challenge Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; Palestinian leaders believe international law is key to their fight back against hostile U.S. policy. But what are their chances of success?

He's 83, with no successor and no state. But Palestinian President Abbas consoles himself, in the twilight of his lifetime, with the belief that after two years of Trump, he's come out on top

I've believed in the two-state solution for over 40 years, but I fear it's fast becoming an illusion. Israelis and Palestinians are careening towards a one-state reality that carries extremely dangerous risks for both sides

No Israeli-Palestinian deal sullied by Donald Trump's fingerprints can be trusted, because the man himself can’t be trusted and neither can his word

Trump moves the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem

U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka, and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner attend the opening ceremony of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Monday, May 14, 2018Sebastian Scheiner/AP

Trump isn't destroying his own peace efforts but grounding them in reality: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. And he’s reacted to Arab and Palestinian ‘predictions’ (read: threats) of violence with the contempt they deserve

Along with many other U.S. Jews, I wanted to feel pride at the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. But amid the carnage in Gaza, I felt nausea

Palestinians run for cover from tear gas during clashes with Israeli security forces near Gaza border, May 14, 2018MOHAMMED ABED/AFP

U.S. 'pro-Israel' evangelicals who declare the president enacted God's will, by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, may want to consider the terrible historical cost of a selective and literalist use of the Bible

'But I gave them Jerusalem!' A recent report warned of a 'growing frustration' in the White House for U.S. Jews' lack of appreciation for his policies toward Israel. Perhaps because they're too grown up, and informed, to supply such unfounded adulation

Uneasy allies: Trump, Israel and threats from the Mideast - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin SalmanCliff Owen/AP

The grisly hit-job on Khashoggi has implications far beyond its exposure of the Saudi Crown Prince as brutal and reckless. In Jerusalem and D.C., they’re mourning their whole strategic concept for the Mideast - not least, for countering Iran

Obama thought Syria would be Russia’s Vietnam: in fact, the Mideast has become Putin’s playground. Thanks to diplomacy, arms sales and nuclear reactors - and Trump’s policy chaos - Russia is back, big time

Netanyahu has convinced Trump that leaving the Iran deal protects Israel. But the U.S. walk out means a full-on Israel-Iran war in Syria now becomes far more likely

FILE PHOTO: A man walks past an anti-U.S. mural in Tehran, Iran October 13, 2017. \ Reuters Photographer/ REUTERS

Netanyahu always tells us Trump has Israel’s back on Iran. But the president won't confront tyrants, intent as he is on unraveling America’s commitments abroad. If Tehran races to nuclear capability, Israel will pay the price - alone

Israeli and American officials think Iran is trying to ‘wait out’ Trump's first term, and is banking on the wounded nuclear deal to shield it from a military strike until then

Israel is going nowhere, and we in the Arab world have to deal with it. That means offering Israelis prosperity, security and friendship; all Israel needs to do is overcome their prejudices and give Palestinians their rights

Esther Solomon is the Opinion Editor of Haaretz English

[delwray-blog]

THE NEW ONE WORLD ORDER

THE NEW WORLD ORDER AGENDA

The Bible warns of all nations coming together to war against God, Jesus Christ, Revelation 19, the very reason the UN was formed.

The NWO Plan

In 1834; the Italian revolutionary leader, Giuseppe Mazzini, was selected by the Illuminati to direct their revolutionary program throughout the world. He served in that capacity until he died in 1872, but some years before he died; Mazzini had enticed an American General named Albert Pike into the Illuminati. Pike was fascinated by the idea of a one-world government and ultimately he became the head of this Luciferian conspiracy.

 Between 1859 and 1871 he, Pike, worked out a military blueprint for three world wars and various revolutions throughout the world which he considered would forward the conspiracy to its final stage in the 20th century. Again I remind you that these conspirators were never concerned with immediate success. They also operated on a long-range view.

 Pike did most of his work in his home in Little Rock, Arkansas. But a few years later; when the Illuminati's Lodges of the Grand Orient became suspect and repudiated because of Mazzini's revolutionary activities in Europe, Pike organized what he called the New and Reformed Palladian Right.

 He set up three Supreme Councils; one in Charleston, South Carolina, one in Rome, Italy, and a third in Berlin, Germany. He had Mazzini establish 23 subordinate councils in strategic locations throughout the world. These have been the secret headquarters of the world revolutionary movement ever since.

 Long before Marconi invented the radio; the scientists in the Illuminati had found the means for Pike and the heads of his councils to communicate secretly. It was the discovery of that secret that enabled intelligence officers to understand how apparently unrelated incidents, such as the assassination of an Austrian Prince [Arch Duke Ferdinand I ] at Serbia, took place simultaneously throughout the world which developed into a war or a revolution.

 Pike's plan was as simple as it has proved effective. It called for Communism, Nazism, political Zionism, and other international movements to be organized and used to foment three global world wars and at least two major revolutions.

 The First World War was to be fought so as to enable the Illuminati to destroy Czarism in Russia, as vowed by Rothschild after the Czar had torpedoed his scheme at the Congress in Vienna, and to transform Russia into a stronghold of atheistic communism. The differences stirred up by agents of the Illuminati between the British and German Empires were to be used to foment this war. After the war would be ended; communism was to be built up and used to destroy other governments and weaken religions.

 World War II, when and if necessary, was to be fomented by using the controversies between Fascists and political Zionists (Jews), and here let it be noted that Hitler was financed by Krupp, the Warburgs, the Rothschild’s, and other internationalist bankers and that the slaughter of the supposed 6,000,000 Jews by Hitler didn't bother the Jewish internationalist bankers at all.

 That slaughter was necessary in order to create worldwide hatred of the German people and thus bring about war against them. In short; this Second World War was to be fought to destroy Nazism and increase the power of political Zionism so that the state of Israel could be established in Palestine.

 During this World War II; international Communism was to be built up until it equaled in strength to that of the united Christendom. When it reached that point; it was to be contained and kept in check until required for the final social cataclysm. As we know now; Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin put that exact policy into effect and Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and George Bush continued that same exact policy.

 World War III is to be fomented by using the so-called controversies, the agents of the Illuminati operating under whatever new name, as are now being stored up between the political Zionists (Jews) and the leaders of the Moslem world. That war is to be directed in such a manner that all of Islam and political Zionism (Israel) will destroy each other while at the same time; the remaining nations once more divided on this issue will be forced to fight themselves into a state of complete exhaustion; physically, mentally, spiritually, and economically.

 Now, can any thinking person doubt that the intrigue now going on in the near Middle and Far East is designed to accomplish that satanic objective? Albert Pike himself foretold all this in a statement he made to Mazzini on August 15, 1871. Pike stated that after World War III is ended; those who will aspire to undisputed world domination will provoke the greatest social cataclysm the world has ever known. Quoting his own words taken from the letter he wrote to Mazzini and which letter is now catalogued in the British Museum in London, England; he said:

"We shall unleash the nihilists and the atheists and we shall provoke a great social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly too all nations the effect of absolute atheism; the origins of savagery and of most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the people will be forced to defend themselves against the world minority of the world revolutionaries and will exterminate those destroyers of civilization and the multitudes disillusioned with Christianity whose spirits will be from that moment without direction and leadership and anxious for an ideal, but without knowledge where to send its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer brought finally out into public view. It is a manifestation which will result from a general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and Atheism; both, conquered and exterminated at the same time."

When Mazzini died in 1872; Pike made another revolutionary leader named Adrian Lemmy; his successor. Lemmy, in turn, was succeeded by Lenin and Trotsky, then by Stalin. The revolutionary activities of all those men were financed by British, French, German, and American international bankers; all of them dominated by the House of Rothschild’s.

 We are supposed to believe that the international bankers of today, like the money changers of Christ's day, are only the tools or agents of the great conspiracy, but actually they are the masterminds behind all the mass communications media leading us into believing that Communism is a movement of the so-called workers; the actual fact is that both British and American intelligence officers have authentic documentary evidence that international liberals, operating through their international banking houses; particularly the House of Rothschild’s, have financed both sides of every war and revolution since 1776.

 Those who today comprise the conspiracy (the CFR in the United States); direct our governments whom they hold in usury through such methods as the Federal Reserve System in America to fight wars, such as Vietnam (created by the United Nations), so as to further Pike's Illuminati plans to bring the world to that stage of the conspiracy when atheistic communism and the whole of Christianity can be forced into an all out third world war within each remaining nation as well as on an international basis scale.

 The headquarters of the great conspiracy in the late 1700's was in Frankfurt, Germany where the House of Rothschild had been established by Mayar (or Mayer) Amschel who adopted the Rothschild name and linked together other international financiers who had literally sold their souls to the devil. After the Bavarian government's exposure in 1786; the conspirators moved their headquarters to Switzerland then to London. Since World War II (after Jacob Schiff, the Rothschild's boy in America died); the headquarters of the American branch has been in the Harold Pratt Building in New York City and the Rockefellers, originally protégés of Schiff, have taken over the manipulation of finances in America for the Illuminati.

 In the final phases of the conspiracy; the one-world government will consist of the king-dictator; the head of the United Nations, the CFR, and a few billionaires, economists, and scientists who have proved their devotion to the great conspiracy. All others are to be integrated into a vast conglomeration of mongrelized humanity; actually slaves.

 Now let me show you how our federal government and the American people have been sucked into the one-world take over plot of the Illuminati great conspiracy and always bear in mind, that the United Nations was created to become the housing for that one-world, so-called, liberal conspiracy. The real foundations of the plot of the takeover of the United States were laid during the period of our Civil War. Not that Weishaupt and the earlier masterminds had ever overlooked the new world, as I have previously indicated; Weishaupt had his agents planted over here as far back as the Revolutionary War, but George Washington was more than a match for them.

[party-hard-or-die]

Palestinian leader Abbas offers apology for remarks on Jews

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday offered an apology after he was accused of anti-Semitism for suggesting that historic persecution of European Jews had been caused by their conduct, not by their religion.

Abbas condemned anti-Semitism and called the Holocaust the “most heinous crime in history” in a statement issued by his office in Ramallah after a four-day meeting of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), at which he had made the remarks.

“If people were offended by my statement in front of the PNC, especially people of the Jewish faith, I apologize to them,” Abbas said in the statement.

“I would like to assure everyone that it was not my intention to do so, and to reiterate my full respect for the Jewish faith, as well as other monotheistic faiths.”

Abbas, 82, was excoriated by Israeli and Jewish leaders and diplomats who accused him of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial for his remarks on Monday during his opening speech to the PNC, the de facto parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

He said that Jews living in Europe had suffered massacres “every 10 to 15 years in some country since the 11th century and until the Holocaust”.

Citing books written by various authors, Abbas said: “They say hatred against Jews was not because of their religion, it was because of their social profession. So the Jewish issue that had spread against the Jews across Europe was not because of their religion, it was because of usury and banks.”

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman swiftly rejected Abbas’ apology. He wrote on Twitter: “Abu Mazen is a wretched Holocaust denier, who wrote a doctorate of Holocaust denial and later also published a book on Holocaust denial. That is how he should be treated. His apologies are not accepted.”

Reacting to the speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday accused Abbas of grave anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper of the U.S.-based Jewish human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center said Abbas’ words were those of “a classic anti-Semite”.

U.N. Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov called Abbas’ comments “deeply disturbing”.

The United States on Friday asked the U.N. Security Council to denounce the comments by Abbas as “unacceptable, deeply disturbing” and not in “the interests of the Palestinian people or peace in the Middle East.” Such statements have to be agreed by consensus.

PREVIOUS COMMENTS

A veteran member of Fatah, the PLO’s dominant faction, Abbas served for decades as a loyal deputy of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He assumed the leadership of Fatah, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority after Arafat died in 2004, and was re-elected as chairman of the PLO’s Executive Committee on Friday.

In 1982 Abbas obtained a doctorate in history at the Moscow Institute of Orientalism in the then-Soviet Union. His dissertation, entitled “The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement” – to which Lieberman referred – drew widespread criticism from Jewish groups.

The following year the Simon Wiesenthal Center released translated quotations from the book, including one excerpt about World War Two in which, according to the center’s translation, Abbas wrote:

“Following the war … word was spread that six million Jews were amongst the victims and that a war of extermination was aimed primarily at the Jews … The truth is that no one can either confirm or deny this figure. In other words, it is possible that the number of Jewish victims reached six million, but at the same time it is possible that the figure is much smaller – below one million.”

After Abbas’ speech on Monday, Hier and Cooper said: “The world can now see that see that, for Palestinian Authority President Abbas, nothing has changed in the 45 years since his doctoral dissertation was first published.”

But in his apology on Friday, Abbas said: “I would also like to reiterate our long held condemnation of the Holocaust, as the most heinous crime in history, and express our sympathy with its victims.

FILE PHOTO – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas heads a Palestinian cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah July 28, 2013. REUTERS/Issam Rimawi/Pool/File Photo

“Likewise, we condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms, and confirm our commitment to the two-state solution, and to live side by side in peace and security,” he said, referring to an eventual resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Reporting by Stephen Farrell, additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS; Editing by Angus MacSwan

The post Palestinian leader Abbas offers apology for remarks on Jews appeared first on World The News.

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[dragnews]

Palestinian leader Abbas offers apology for remarks on Jews

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday offered an apology after he was accused of anti-Semitism for suggesting that historic persecution of European Jews had been caused by their conduct, not by their religion.

Abbas condemned anti-Semitism and called the Holocaust the “most heinous crime in history” in a statement issued by his office in Ramallah after a four-day meeting of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), at which he had made the remarks.

“If people were offended by my statement in front of the PNC, especially people of the Jewish faith, I apologize to them,” Abbas said in the statement.

“I would like to assure everyone that it was not my intention to do so, and to reiterate my full respect for the Jewish faith, as well as other monotheistic faiths.”

Abbas, 82, was excoriated by Israeli and Jewish leaders and diplomats who accused him of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial for his remarks on Monday during his opening speech to the PNC, the de facto parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

He said that Jews living in Europe had suffered massacres “every 10 to 15 years in some country since the 11th century and until the Holocaust”.

Citing books written by various authors, Abbas said: “They say hatred against Jews was not because of their religion, it was because of their social profession. So the Jewish issue that had spread against the Jews across Europe was not because of their religion, it was because of usury and banks.”

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman swiftly rejected Abbas’ apology. He wrote on Twitter: “Abu Mazen is a wretched Holocaust denier, who wrote a doctorate of Holocaust denial and later also published a book on Holocaust denial. That is how he should be treated. His apologies are not accepted.”

Reacting to the speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday accused Abbas of grave anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper of the U.S.-based Jewish human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center said Abbas’ words were those of “a classic anti-Semite”.

U.N. Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov called Abbas’ comments “deeply disturbing”.

The United States on Friday asked the U.N. Security Council to denounce the comments by Abbas as “unacceptable, deeply disturbing” and not in “the interests of the Palestinian people or peace in the Middle East.” Such statements have to be agreed by consensus.

PREVIOUS COMMENTS

A veteran member of Fatah, the PLO’s dominant faction, Abbas served for decades as a loyal deputy of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He assumed the leadership of Fatah, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority after Arafat died in 2004, and was re-elected as chairman of the PLO’s Executive Committee on Friday.

In 1982 Abbas obtained a doctorate in history at the Moscow Institute of Orientalism in the then-Soviet Union. His dissertation, entitled “The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement” – to which Lieberman referred – drew widespread criticism from Jewish groups.

The following year the Simon Wiesenthal Center released translated quotations from the book, including one excerpt about World War Two in which, according to the center’s translation, Abbas wrote:

“Following the war … word was spread that six million Jews were amongst the victims and that a war of extermination was aimed primarily at the Jews … The truth is that no one can either confirm or deny this figure. In other words, it is possible that the number of Jewish victims reached six million, but at the same time it is possible that the figure is much smaller – below one million.”

After Abbas’ speech on Monday, Hier and Cooper said: “The world can now see that see that, for Palestinian Authority President Abbas, nothing has changed in the 45 years since his doctoral dissertation was first published.”

But in his apology on Friday, Abbas said: “I would also like to reiterate our long held condemnation of the Holocaust, as the most heinous crime in history, and express our sympathy with its victims.

FILE PHOTO – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas heads a Palestinian cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah July 28, 2013. REUTERS/Issam Rimawi/Pool/File Photo

“Likewise, we condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms, and confirm our commitment to the two-state solution, and to live side by side in peace and security,” he said, referring to an eventual resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Reporting by Stephen Farrell, additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS; Editing by Angus MacSwan

The post Palestinian leader Abbas offers apology for remarks on Jews appeared first on World The News.

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[newestbalance]

Netanyahu accuses Palestinian leader of anti-Semitism, Holocaust…

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Mahmoud Abbas of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial on Wednesday after the Palestinian leader suggested in a speech that historic persecution of European Jews had been caused by their conduct.

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem April 15, 2018. Gali Tibbon/Pool via Reuters/File Photo

Jewish groups also condemned Abbas’ comments, made in a speech on Monday to the Palestinian National Council, that Jews had suffered historically not because of their religion but because they had served as bankers and money lenders.

“It would appear that, once a Holocaust denier, always a Holocaust denier,” Netanyahu said on Twitter.

“I call upon the international community to condemn the grave anti-Semitism of Abu Mazen (Abbas), which should have long since passed from this world.”

Abbas said in his speech that Jews living in Europe had suffered massacres “every 10 to 15 years in some country since the 11th century and until the Holocaust”.

Citing books written by various authors, Abbas argued: “They say hatred against Jews was not because of their religion, it was because of their social profession. So the Jewish issue that had spread against the Jews across Europe was not because of their religion, it was because of usury and banks.”

“CLASSIC ANTI-SEMITE”

Netanyahu’s criticism was echoed by Jewish leaders around the world.

“Abbas’ speech in Ramallah are the words of a classic anti-Semite,” said Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper of the U.S.-based Jewish human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“Instead of blaming the Jews, he should look in his own backyard to the role played by the Grand Mufti in supporting Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution,” they added.

They were referring to Muslim Grand Mufti Haj Amin Husseini, a World War Two ally of Adolf Hitler, whose “Final Solution” led to the killing of six million Jews in Europe.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman tweeted that Abbas had “reached a new low in attributing the cause of massacres of Jewish people over the years to their ‘social behavior’”.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gestures as he speaks during the Palestinian National Council meeting in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and the foreign service of the European Union, the biggest donor of aid to the Palestinians, also condemned the comments.

“We reject any relativisation of the Holocaust,” Maas told Die Welt daily.

“Germany bears responsibility for the most atrocious crime of human history,” he said, adding the memory of the Holocaust was a constant reminder to tackle any form of anti-Semitism.

The European External Action Service in Brussels said in a statement: “Such rhetoric (about the Jews) will only play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly advocated.”

Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah declined comment on the criticism.

Abbas, 82, made his remarks in the West Bank city of Ramallah at a rare meeting of the Palestinian National Council, the de facto parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which Abbas heads.

A veteran member of Fatah, the dominant faction of the PLO, Abbas served for decades as a loyal deputy of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He assumed the leadership of Fatah, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority after Arafat died in 2004.

Abbas was born in 1935 in Safat, a town in the north of what was then British-ruled Palestine. His family became refugees in 1948, fleeing across the border to Syria as violence intensified between Jews and Arabs, culminating in war between the newly created State of Israel and its Arab neighbors in May 1948.

In 1982 Abbas obtained a doctorate in history at the Moscow Institute of Orientalism in the then-Soviet Union. His dissertation, entitled “The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement”, drew widespread criticism from Jewish groups, who accused him of Holocaust denial.

Additional reporting by Berlin and Brussels bureaus; Reporting by Stephen Farrell, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ali Sawfta, Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Gareth Jones

The post Netanyahu accuses Palestinian leader of anti-Semitism, Holocaust… appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2FBjVy3 via Everyday News

[dani-qrt]

Netanyahu accuses Palestinian leader of anti-Semitism, Holocaust…

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Mahmoud Abbas of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial on Wednesday after the Palestinian leader suggested in a speech that historic persecution of European Jews had been caused by their conduct.

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem April 15, 2018. Gali Tibbon/Pool via Reuters/File Photo

Jewish groups also condemned Abbas’ comments, made in a speech on Monday to the Palestinian National Council, that Jews had suffered historically not because of their religion but because they had served as bankers and money lenders.

“It would appear that, once a Holocaust denier, always a Holocaust denier,” Netanyahu said on Twitter.

“I call upon the international community to condemn the grave anti-Semitism of Abu Mazen (Abbas), which should have long since passed from this world.”

Abbas said in his speech that Jews living in Europe had suffered massacres “every 10 to 15 years in some country since the 11th century and until the Holocaust”.

Citing books written by various authors, Abbas argued: “They say hatred against Jews was not because of their religion, it was because of their social profession. So the Jewish issue that had spread against the Jews across Europe was not because of their religion, it was because of usury and banks.”

“CLASSIC ANTI-SEMITE”

Netanyahu’s criticism was echoed by Jewish leaders around the world.

“Abbas’ speech in Ramallah are the words of a classic anti-Semite,” said Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper of the U.S.-based Jewish human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“Instead of blaming the Jews, he should look in his own backyard to the role played by the Grand Mufti in supporting Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution,” they added.

They were referring to Muslim Grand Mufti Haj Amin Husseini, a World War Two ally of Adolf Hitler, whose “Final Solution” led to the killing of six million Jews in Europe.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman tweeted that Abbas had “reached a new low in attributing the cause of massacres of Jewish people over the years to their ‘social behavior’”.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gestures as he speaks during the Palestinian National Council meeting in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and the foreign service of the European Union, the biggest donor of aid to the Palestinians, also condemned the comments.

“We reject any relativisation of the Holocaust,” Maas told Die Welt daily.

“Germany bears responsibility for the most atrocious crime of human history,” he said, adding the memory of the Holocaust was a constant reminder to tackle any form of anti-Semitism.

The European External Action Service in Brussels said in a statement: “Such rhetoric (about the Jews) will only play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly advocated.”

Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah declined comment on the criticism.

Abbas, 82, made his remarks in the West Bank city of Ramallah at a rare meeting of the Palestinian National Council, the de facto parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which Abbas heads.

A veteran member of Fatah, the dominant faction of the PLO, Abbas served for decades as a loyal deputy of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He assumed the leadership of Fatah, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority after Arafat died in 2004.

Abbas was born in 1935 in Safat, a town in the north of what was then British-ruled Palestine. His family became refugees in 1948, fleeing across the border to Syria as violence intensified between Jews and Arabs, culminating in war between the newly created State of Israel and its Arab neighbors in May 1948.

In 1982 Abbas obtained a doctorate in history at the Moscow Institute of Orientalism in the then-Soviet Union. His dissertation, entitled “The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement”, drew widespread criticism from Jewish groups, who accused him of Holocaust denial.

Additional reporting by Berlin and Brussels bureaus; Reporting by Stephen Farrell, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ali Sawfta, Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Gareth Jones

The post Netanyahu accuses Palestinian leader of anti-Semitism, Holocaust… appeared first on World The News.

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