Saturday, October 23, 2021

The battle for the US consulate in Jerusalem - Nadav Shragai

 

​ by Nadav Shragai

The White House is threatening to unilaterally impose the opening of a US consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem, regardless of Israel's fierce opposition to the move, as well allowing a PLO office to again operate in Washington. But the implications could cause a perilous domino effect.

 

'US consulate for Palestinians will encourage terrorism'
The US Consulate Palestinian in Jerusalem | File photo: Oren Ben Hakoon

The pessimistic scenario that Israeli diplomats have been describing with regard to the opening of an American consulate for the Palestinians in Jerusalem could materialize in the coming weeks after the Knesset approves the state budget. Thomas R. Nides, the United States' designated ambassador to Israel, who will be replacing David Friedman, is expected at the Shraga famous building on Agron Road, which is currently the official residence of the US ambassador in Israel.

The building housed the US consulate in Jerusalem until about two years ago when it was closed by President Donald Trump; it functioned for many years as the American representative office to east Jerusalem and the territories of the Palestinian Authority and Gaza and was subject to the auspices of the US State Department and not to the embassy in Tel Aviv.

According to the instructions received from his masters in Washington, Nides, despite Israeli opposition, will take unilateral measures. He will restore the sign on the consulate and will separate anew the operations of the embassy that Trump transferred from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and the operations of the consulate, which will deal with Palestinian affairs. Thus, de facto, two separate American diplomatic entities will operate from Israel's capital: One, an embassy that will deal with Israeli affairs within the Green Line, and a second, the consulate that will act de facto as an embassy, and will deal with Palestinian affairs in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as the settlers in Judea and Samaria.

The professional echelon at the Foreign Ministry has described the expected American measures as an "introduction to the division of Jerusalem." They stress that the effect of such a measure, which is backed by President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken,  will be to undermine, if not to completely withdraw from the measures taken by President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.

This is also how these measures are understood by the Palestinians. The Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said a few days ago (in quotes report by Palestinian Media Watch "the message of the new American administration is that Jerusalem is not a united Israeli city, and that the American administration does not recognize the annexation of Arab Jerusalem by the Israeli side. We would like the American consulate to lay the foundation for a future American embassy in a Palestinian state."  Shtayyeh added, "The American measure distances the United States from the view that Jerusalem is one city, a view that was at the foundation of the decision to transfer the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem."

The battle against the upcoming steps – the Americans are not in any way hiding their intention to carry them out – will soon come up against a further two American decisions aimed at completing the consulate move. The first is that the United States wishes to reopen not only the consulate on Agron Road, but also its east Jerusalem branch, which operated until 2010 on Nablus Road, (and later moved to Arnona). The conversation with the Palestinians over this possibility has already begun.

The east Jerusalem branch of the consulate for many years helped establish the institutions of power and security mechanisms of the Palestinian Authority and supplied the administration in Washington with incriminating figures about Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria and in the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem so they could operate against it.

Post-budget embarrassment?

The second measure that could materialize in the future is the reopening of the PLO representative office in Washington. A group of Democratic congressmen from the progressive branch of the party is preparing the ground for this to happen. The representative office was closed during President Trump's term, but the Biden administration is leaning toward reopening it. This will happen when and if legislation being led by Michigan congressman Andy Levin passes through the US House of Representatives.

As reported in Israel Hayom by Caroline Glick, Levin wishes to amend the  Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 in a manner that will enable the reopening of the PLO representative office in Washington. In that historic law, the United States designated the PLO as a terrorist organization and prohibited it from opening any offices on its territory or from receiving American funding as long as the organization and its members fail to cease engagement in terrorism.

Dr. Dore Gold (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs/Courtesy)

The possibility of unilateral measures from Washington on the matter of the American consulate in Jerusalem is causing great embarrassment among the Israeli leadership. In particular, after the Americans understood from Foreign Minister Yair Lapid that this is a question of timing and not one of substance as revealed by Ariel Kahana in Israel Hayom. The Americans therefore agreed to postpone the opening of the consulate until after passing of the state budget in the Knesset in order to enable the government to stabilize politically.

Lapid's position assuming that this indeed is how he presented it, as the Americans claim, (Lapid denies this) is not acceptable to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.  The Prime Minister's confidantes told Israel Hayom that he "is opposed to the opening of a consulate in Jerusalem at any time. He sees this as a move that could bring back through the front door the 'old American policy' that seeks to divide Jerusalem and to establish a Palestinian capital in the east of the city for a future Palestinian state."

The talk by the Prime Minister's confidantes of 'old policy' requires explanation: For decades, American presidential candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties promised to transfer the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem -  but when they were finally elected, they refrained from doing so. The Jerusalem Embassy Act passed by Congress in 1995 required successive administrations to transfer the US embassy to Israel's capital, but successive US presidents signed yearly waivers that temporarily postponed this. The Obama and Bush administrations and their predecessors often removed from official photos the caption "Jerusalem, Israel" and instead just left the caption as "Jerusalem". The State Department even refused to register in the passports of US citizens born in the capital that their place of birth was "Jerusalem, Israel."

A reward for nothing

Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Dr. Michael Oren recalled this week how he was once summoned to the State Department and rebuked for the demolition of an outdoor toilet in east Jerusalem. "The demolition was authorized by the Israeli courts," and that event "like other humiliating incidents"  was "germinated at the American consulate in Jerusalem."

Oren relates how he spoke about this matter with the heads of Jewish organizations:  "I showed them the consulate's website. Everything on it was a Palestinian narrative, just in Arabic and English. From that website, you would not know that there was a single Jew in Jerusalem. I told them; this is antisemitic. Do something about it. They weren't willing to go up against the State Department. The consulate made sure to avoid even an appearance of American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and in embittered the lives of successive governments here every time they built a new neighborhood for Jews in Jerusalem, and every time they tried to enforce planning and building laws in east Jerusalem."

Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren (Miri Tzachi/File)

Donald Trump, as we all know, changed this reality, but the Biden administration, from its very first days, has tried to turn the wheel back. In January, almost immediately after the Biden administration moved in, the title of the US ambassador in Israel was changed on the embassy's Twitter page from "US Ambassador to Israel" to "US Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza."

Public criticism led to a rapid turnabout and a return to the old title, but the trend was clear for all to see.

Former Foreign Ministry Director-General Dr. Dore Gold, who currently is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, believes that Israel should put things on the table and clarify to the United States very openly, what it can do and what it is not capable of doing and what it is not licensed to do. "If we are very clear about our real maneuvering space, the Americans will respect that," he states. Gold, who is well known for his cautious phrasing does not mince his words this time around and defines the administration's intention to reopen the consulate in Jerusalem as "scandalous". "Israel cannot come to terms with threats to its sovereignty in Jerusalem," he says.

Q: Is it possible to prevent the Americans from going ahead if they plan to act unilaterally, as has already been hinted?

"Perhaps not, but then we will have to hold in-depth discussions regarding the possibility of an Israeli response;  for example, the expansion of Jerusalem's boundaries. There are other ideas, I don't want to expand on them here. But, of course, we certainly can't put won't be able to leave such measures without a response."

Q: The United States claims that the consulate existed for decades without Israel making any request for it to be closed.

"We judge the existing reality. The Palestinian Authority didn't exist for decades, and now it does.  For 19 years, Jerusalem was divided with fences and a border, but for 54 years, it has been an undivided city. Things change. If they had opened a consulate in Ramallah, I wouldn't have been enthusiastic, but I would have understood it. If they had opened a consulate after the Palestinian authorities stopped paying salaries to the families of terrorists, I still wouldn't have accepted a consulate in Jerusalem, but I would have understood the demand. But the Palestinians haven't changed their behavior and they are receiving a reward."

Q: Is the opening of an American consulate for the Palestinians in the capital a move that annuls American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital?

"It could lead there or it could pave the way. One has to remember that there is the Vienna Convention of 1963 which both Israel and the United States are signatories to, and according to which the agreement of the host state is required to open a consulate. To do so unilaterally without Israel's agreement would be breaking the rules."

Q: Perhaps the fight against the consulate, which at the end of the day is a symbol, is the wrong battle? Perhaps it would be better to focus on construction in Atarot, Har Homa, Givat Hamatos, and E1, which could shape the boundaries of the city for generations to come?

"There is no contradiction between the two. I in any event don't see the United States today allowing a policy that recognizes Israel's rights to build on territories that were part of Jordan before 1967. Coordination with the United States is something that is vital and important, but the story of the consulate is critical, and there is no room for compromise on this issue. It is something that is at the very soul of the state. We cannot compromise on our rights in all of Jerusalem."

Gold notes that he explained these rights in 2017 in great detail to the US House of Representatives. "Our friends there understood it," he says, "the formal reality now is still such that from the perspective of the United States, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The United States has not withdrawn recognition of this.  In this reality, we must be tenacious and manage this battle with the US with prudence and sensitivity. But most of all, with tenacity and faith.

Gold clarifies that he himself does not differentiate between the east and the west of the city. "There is one Jerusalem, but the opening of the consulate on Agron Road in the west of the city will not only undermine Israeli sovereignty in the capital, it will also result in a grave withdrawal from the status Israel achieved in West Jerusalem prior to 1967.

Compromise and creative solutions

Oren is also convinced that if the administration takes unilateral steps and reopens the consulate unilaterally, Israel will have to fight the move. "Theoretically, one could stop providing electricity and water to the building. And it is possible to do other things that we shouldn't talk about right now," he says. "One has to take into account that there will be a price to pay; perhaps condemnations and perhaps sanctions. Therefore, we have to weigh carefully whether we can bear those costs. It is a strategic question, but, if, God forbid, the Americans decide to break all the rules, the battle at one level or the other will have to continue."

Oren hints at creative solutions that are being spoken about behind the scenes but refrains from providing any details. However, some of the proposals have been revealed to Israel Hayom: A consulate in Abu Dis ( the Americans reject the idea); definition of the role of the consulate as a diplomatic entity that will deal only with cultural and visa issues (Israel doesn't believe that the Americans will stick to their obligation on this); an American declaration that the opening of the consulate does not reflect any change in the administration's stand on recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Israeli sovereignty over the city (the chances that the administration in Washington will agree to this are low); increasing budgets for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA in exchange for postponing the opening of the consulate (the Palestinians are opposed to this).

Nevertheless, Oren clarifies that "we have to stand up for our interests. I can see crawl toward that old antisemitic policy whereby the ambassador in Washington is summoned for every demolition of illegal construction in east Jerusalem and is summoned for every brick that is laid in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem beyond the Green Line. It is a matter of sovereignty and national honor. This is our capital. We must set boundaries, even when we are talking about our greatest friend. This is the moment where I would expect from our government to do so clearly, firmly and respectfully."

Former Jerusalem Mayor Likud MK Nir Barkat (Oren Ben Hakoon/File)

The campaign against the opening of the consulate has been headed for several months by former Jerusalem mayor Likud MK Nir Barkat, who says he is in possession of polls that show "a huge majority among the Jewish public that is against the moves planned by the United States… Even Most Yesh Atid supporters are against this."

"When the State of Israel was established," he notes, "it inherited the consulates that operated in Mandatory Palestine prior to the establishment of the state. It allowed it to continue to operate, but it also made sure not to the opening of a new consulate in Jerusalem.

"Having two diplomatic delegations in one city means the division of Jerusalem. There is no other possible meaning. It is a finger in Israel's eye. If the Americans take such a unilateral measure, it will not only be a violation of the Vienna Convention, but also an American message that the great United States is not capable of respecting its most loyal partners. It is liable to have a very strong effect on relations with the Americans.

"I will not go into detail what kind of possibilities exists regarding responses. If the Americans do go ahead with unilateral measures," says Barkat. "In my opinion, we must not go there." He expresses the hope that both the "opposition and coalition should unite around my proposed legislation that prohibits the state from opening or establishing in Jerusalem a diplomatic representation that serves any foreign entity."

Barkat warns of a possible chain reaction. "There are no words to describe the size of the catastrophe if we do not act to prevent this. As soon as the United States unilaterally opens a consulate for the Palestinians, other countries could take similar measures, and then we will have lost the ability to stop such a process in the future."

In the meantime, the American administration is preparing the ground for the move, and has allocated a budget to operate the consulate in the west of the city. It has also begun looking into opening a branch of the consulate in the east of the city. An American source clarifies that opening the consulate "is an election promise made by Biden. He owes it this to large parts of the Democratic Party."

In Israel, on the other hand, a source inside the coalition warns the Americans that insisting on the reopening of the consulate, even after the budget passes will undermine the Bennett-Lapid government and could serve Benjamin Netanyahu. "There are ministers in the government who will be unable to live with this and may switch their support to the opposition," the source says. "I hope and believe that the Americans are taking this into account as well," he adds.

 

Nadav Shragai

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/10/22/the-battle-for-the-us-consulate-in-jerusalem/

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Biden's Afghanistan Withdrawal Unleashes a Lethal Terrorist Cocktail - Richard Kemp

 

​ by Richard Kemp

The prospect of a successful jihadist insurgency in Pakistan, with its nuclear arsenal, has been a long-standing concern for the US, which invested huge intelligence and military resources to help prevent it. Most of this capability was withdrawn with the exit from Afghanistan.

  • Despite their promises to deny terrorists safe haven, the Taliban will do the opposite. They and Al Qaida are joined at the hip, with both Osama Bin Laden and his successor Ayman Al Zawahiri having sworn unbreakable allegiance, bay'ah, to the leaders of the Taliban.

  • The Islamic State's Khorosan branch, with several thousand fighters in Afghanistan, will pose a similar threat. Many political leaders in the US and UK claim the Taliban are sworn enemies of the IS, with some even suggesting that we might form an alliance against IS with Taliban terrorists. But this abhorrent proposition is merely an attempt to help limit the political fall-out from their ill-judged actions that facilitated the Taliban's conquest.

  • Today, all these actors know there is no prospect of further large-scale US intervention in the country, no matter how great their atrocities. The US remains capable of air strikes and even special forces raids against serious threats emanating from Afghanistan, but these require high-grade intelligence which, despite the powerful technical capabilities of the agencies, is extremely difficult to gain now that we have withdrawn all forces.

  • The prospect of a successful jihadist insurgency in Pakistan, with its nuclear arsenal, has been a long-standing concern for the US, which invested huge intelligence and military resources to help prevent it. Most of this capability was withdrawn with the exit from Afghanistan.

  • Like Pakistan, China supported the Taliban insurgency for many years. In return, the Taliban have frequently hunted down and killed many of the Uighur leaders — fellow Sunni Muslims — who took refuge in Afghanistan. Desperate for Beijing's funds and political backing, the Taliban can be relied on to do all they can to prevent any export of jihadism into China.

  • But we can expect no such efforts from Beijing to prevent terrorist actions against the West. On the contrary, as the new cold war intensifies, China is more than capable of using its increasing cooperation with the Taliban to enlist jihadists from Afghanistan as proxies against the US.

Despite their promises to deny terrorists safe haven, the Taliban will do the opposite. They and Al Qaida are joined at the hip, with both Osama Bin Laden and his successor Ayman Al Zawahiri having sworn unbreakable allegiance, bay'ah, to the leaders of the Taliban. Pictured: Bin Laden (center) and Al Zawahiri (left) address a press conference May 26, 1998 in Afghanistan. (Photo by Getty Images)

Twenty five year-old Ali Harbi Ali has been arrested on suspicion of the murder last week of British Member of Parliament Sir David Amess in a church in Essex. Ali is a member of a well-to-do Somali family who were given refuge in Britain from the war-torn East African country in the 1990s. British authorities had previously been alerted to his radicalisation and he was referred to the UK's "Prevent" anti-terrorist scheme.

The precise reason for his alleged attack on this particular MP, which he has reportedly admitted, has not yet been established but it is thought he may have been influenced by Al Shabaab, an Al Qaida group that operates in Somalia and Kenya.

Last month, the head of Britain's security service MI5, Ken McCallum, warned there was no doubt the Taliban victory in Afghanistan this summer has "heartened and emboldened" jihadists everywhere.

It may be that the murder in Essex was the first successful terrorist attack in Britain inspired by the consequences of US President Joe Biden's catastrophic decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan. Amess's savage knifing follows jihadist attacks in Norway that killed five and wounded three last week and another in New Zealand in September that wounded five.

Jihadists around the world celebrated the vanquishment of the West following the Taliban seizure of power in Kabul. Not only has this re-energised terrorist cells but it will also lead to an increase in recruiting and a funding boost from jihadist supporters. Prior to Biden's withdrawal, Al Qaida had been at a low point in their fortunes, following decimation by US drone strikes in the Pakistan tribal areas, catastrophic setbacks in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the rise of the Islamic State. Their international prestige among fellow jihadists has now been boosted as they share in the glory of the Taliban's success — in which they played a part.

Al Qaida, the Islamic State and other jihadist networks will capitalise on the climacterical success of their global movement, directing and inspiring attacks around the world, emulating IS at the height of its powers in Syria and Iraq, radicalising thousands and inspiring knife, vehicle-ramming, explosive and gun attacks in many countries.

A deeply grim prospect — but this widespread inspiration of terrorism will not be the most serious terrorist consequence of the withdrawal. We will see jihadists flowing into Afghanistan to join up with terrorists there, as they did in the years before 9/11. They will train, organize, establish global connections, plan attacks and receive direction and funding from the leadership. Despite their promises to deny terrorists safe haven, the Taliban will do the opposite. They and Al Qaida are joined at the hip, with both Bin Laden and his successor Ayman Al Zawahiri having sworn unbreakable allegiance, bay'ah, to the leaders of the Taliban.

The Islamic State's Khorosan branch, with several thousand fighters in Afghanistan, will pose a similar threat. Many political leaders in the US and UK claim the Taliban are sworn enemies of the IS, with some even suggesting that we might form an alliance against IS with Taliban terrorists. But this abhorrent proposition is merely an attempt to help limit the political fall-out from their ill-judged actions that facilitated the Taliban's conquest. The reality is that the Taliban and IS will sometimes kill each other and sometimes cooperate, a phenomenon beyond the comprehension of many commentators and politicians in the West, but a familiar pattern in the region. Ultimately, infidels and apostates are a common enemy whose destruction can unite adversaries in the face of almost any other ideological or practical clash.

The Taliban also are now more outward-facing in their jihadist ambitions. Before 2001 they were focused predominantly on Afghanistan. Today, after 20 years fighting Western forces and with many younger members who have greater international awareness, their eyes are also on the violent role they can play in establishing a global Islamic caliphate.

The resultant cocktail is even more lethal than before 9/11.

Today, all these actors know there is no prospect of further large-scale US intervention in the country, no matter how great their atrocities. The US remains capable of air strikes and even special forces raids against serious threats emanating from Afghanistan, but these require high-grade intelligence which, despite the powerful technical capabilities of the agencies, is extremely difficult to gain now that we have withdrawn all forces

The threat from Afghanistan is not to the West alone. There is also a grave risk to Russia and Central Asian countries and to the "apostate" Muslim countries especially in the Arab world. Pakistan and China, today the dominant external powers in Afghanistan, also fear terrorism emanating from the country. Pakistan has good reason to be worried, even though their intelligence services and army were the most effective backers of the Taliban — without whose support they could never have seized power in Kabul.

Following a crackdown on the Pakistan Taliban (TTP), which have long conducted a ruthless campaign against the Pakistan government, they took refuge in Afghanistan. As with jihadists around the world, the TTP will have been inspired by their jihadist bedfellows' success. It is also likely that the Taliban and a resurgent Al Qaida, which shares their ambition to bring down the government in Islamabad and has close links to them, will aid the campaign to do so. The prospect of a successful jihadist insurgency in Pakistan, with its nuclear arsenal, has been a long-standing concern for the US, which invested huge intelligence and military resources to help prevent it. Most of this capability was withdrawn with the exit from Afghanistan.

The Communist Chinese need have less concern about insurgency spilling across the border into neighbouring Xinjiang autonomous region. Like Pakistan, China supported the Taliban insurgency for many years. In return, the Taliban have frequently hunted down and killed many of the Uighur leaders — fellow Sunni Muslims — who took refuge in Afghanistan. Desperate for Beijing's funds and political backing, the Taliban can be relied on to do all they can to prevent any export of jihadism into China.

China will also seek to enlist the Taliban's support in curbing any further TTP attacks, as have previously occurred, against their people and projects in Pakistan, with whose government they are closely aligned. But we can expect no such efforts from Beijing to prevent terrorist actions against the West. On the contrary, as the new cold war intensifies, China is more than capable of using its increasing cooperation with the Taliban to enlist jihadists from Afghanistan as proxies against the US.

President Biden's withdrawal has not only brought darkness and mayhem to the people of Afghanistan and fatally undermined the strategic credibility of the West, it has also unleashed what may turn out to be the most dangerous terrorist threat the world has yet faced.

 

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer and speaker on international and military affairs.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17871/afghanistan-withdrawal-terrorist-cocktail

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A JetBlue Jihadist? The Great Press Cover-up - Chris Farrell

 

​ by Chris Farrell

Granted there could be a variety of reasons why El Dahr was invoking his supreme being. But there is only one reason for not reporting it -- deliberately to obscure a possible tie to Islamic radicalism.

  • If we are trying to ascertain motive in a situation like this, shouting "Allah" would seem to be a key detail. That potentially moves the incident from "disturbed passenger freaks out over failed phone connection" to "jihadist tries to commit suicide attack." It does not prove the latter case of course, but it does make it part of the conversation.

  • However, you would have to go to the FBI affidavit to get that detail. The Washington Post write up of the incident, clearly based on the affidavit, went so far as noting that El Dahr "yelled in Spanish and Arabic" but omitted that he was shouting about Allah -- despite the obvious news value in that detail.

  • Granted there could be a variety of reasons why El Dahr was invoking his supreme being. But there is only one reason for not reporting it -- deliberately to obscure a possible tie to Islamic radicalism.

If a radical Islamist hijacked an airplane, we might never know it was an act of terrorism. That is, if we rely only on the mainstream media. Case in point: On September 22, Khalil El Dahr, a passenger on JetBlue Flight 261 from Boston to Puerto Rico, suddenly rushed to the front of the aircraft, choked and kicked a flight attendant, and tried to break into the flight deck. (Image source: Anna Zvereva/Wikimedia Commons)

If a radical Islamist hijacked an airplane, we might never know it was an act of terrorism. That is, if we rely only on the mainstream media.

Case in point: On September 22, Khalil El Dahr, a passenger on JetBlue Flight 261 from Boston to Puerto Rico, suddenly rushed to the front of the aircraft, choked and kicked a flight attendant, tried to break into the flight deck, and urged crew members to shoot him. It took a half-dozen flight attendants to restrain El Dahr, tying him down with flex cuffs, seat belt extenders and a necktie. On landing in Puerto Rico, El Dahr was arrested and charged with interference with flight crew members and attendants, a federal crime.

What was El Dahr's motive? Authorities have not released their findings yet, but we know some facts from an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent William Lopez. El Dahr had attempted an in-flight phone call and "became angry about the call's unsuccess." About twenty-five minutes later he rushed the cockpit, struggled with flight attendants, speaking in "Spanish and Arabic," and "one point during the incident, they were able to understand EL DAHR say Allah in a raised tone."

If we are trying to ascertain motive in a situation like this, shouting "Allah" would seem to be a key detail. That potentially moves the incident from "disturbed passenger freaks out over failed phone connection" to "jihadist tries to commit suicide attack." It does not prove the latter case of course, but it does make it part of the conversation.

However, you would have to go to the FBI affidavit to get that detail. The Washington Post write up of the incident, clearly based on the affidavit, went so far as noting that El Dahr "yelled in Spanish and Arabic" but omitted that he was shouting about Allah -- despite the obvious news value in that detail.

Granted there could be a variety of reasons why El Dahr was invoking his supreme being. But there is only one reason for not reporting it – deliberately to obscure a possible tie to Islamic radicalism.

This is hardly the first time that the media and even the government have downplayed evidence of a motivation related to Muslim extremism. Take the "workplace violence" narrative that was pitched about US Army Major Nidal Hasan's terrorist attack at Ft. Hood in 2009 in which he shot and killed 14 people and wounded 33 others. Despite describing himself as a "Soldier of Allah" and with copious evidence of the motivation and intent of his murderous plan, the official Defense Department review was silent on any factors related to his radicalization.

Earlier, when 2002 Washington, D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad left a cryptic note to police saying "I am God ... Allah" only the "I am God" part was reported. When married couple Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot up a San Bernardino Christmas party, killing 14 people and seriously wounding 22, headlines told us the motive was "unclear"-- until it came out that they had spent a year planning the attack as a part of a commitment to "jihad and martyrdom."

Again, we cannot jump to the conclusion that El Dahr was a terrorist motivated by radical Islamist ideology, even though his actions fit exactly the M.O. that Al Qaeda pioneered two decades ago. What is at issue here is the propensity for news organizations to conceal possible terroristic motivations -- but only of a certain type. Naturally if El Dahr had been a white guy raving about election fraud, COVID vaccinations or Trump 2024, there would be 24-hour coverage of the threat posed by "white rage" and "domestic terrorism," and calls for tight travel restrictions against real or suspected members of the opposition party.

Freedom of Information Act requests with the relevant government agencies will hopefully uncover more about this incident, including what the government knows about El Dahr, his background, his motives, and who he was trying to call while on JetBlue Flight 261. In other words, true investigative journalists will work to uncover facts that the Washington Post's "mainstream journalists" should be uncovering but do not, because they are apparently afraid of what they might find.

 

Chris Farrell is Director of Investigations at Judicial Watch and Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17841/jetblue-jihadist

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Israel’s Post-American Strategic Challenge - Caroline Glick

 

​ by Caroline Glick

[T]he Americans are not working with Israel to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power. They are working against Israel.

 


A report this week about the discussions Israel and the U.S. are now holding regarding the Iranian nuclear program was nothing short of an earthquake. Tuesday, Israel Hayom ran a red headline on its front page: “Frustration in Jerusalem: U.S. Passive Against Iran.” The story, by military correspondent Yoav Limor told us two deeply alarming things about the state of American-Israeli coordination on Iran’s nuclear program. First, the Americans are not working with Israel to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power. They are working against Israel.

The Americans and Israelis agree that Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear breakout state, which can assemble nuclear weapons at will. But whereas they agree on the status of Iran’s quest for military nuclear capability, they disagree about what the response to the current state of Iran’s nuclear program should be. Israel’s position is that the U.S. should take diplomatic and economic action, and at a minimum threaten military action if Iran refuses to reinstate the limitations on its nuclear activities set out in the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, from 2015. The 2015 nuclear deal permitted Iran to enrich limited quantities of uranium to 3.67 percent enrichment. Iran is currently enriching massive quantities of uranium to 60 percent enrichment – just a step away from weapons grade.

President Joe Biden and his advisors are unwilling to consider placing additional economic sanctions on Iran. Indeed, the administration is turning a blind eye to Iran’s export of massive quantities of oil and gas to China and other states, in breach of the sanctions.

Military action, the Americans told their Israeli interlocutors, isn’t off the table.

The Americans say they may be willing to consider taking diplomatic action of some form or another. But in exchange, they demand Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.

In short, Limor’s article reported that the U.S. has made clear to Israel that it will take no effective action to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

The second stunning bit of information in Limor’s article is that the Lapid-Bennett government has no idea what to do in the face of America’s position. Instead of accepting reality and moving to face Iran without the U.S., Israel’s government is opting to cling ever tighter to Washington.

Limor wrote, “The Israeli effort is to reach maximum coordination with the U.S. stems, among other things from the fact that Israel has been left with very few options for action.”

To maintain coordination with the administration which does not share Israel’s goals, the Lapid-Bennett government has changed Israel’s goals. It now supports the Biden administration’s efforts to return the U.S. to the JCPOA. In 2018, then President Donald Trump abandoned the deal because Iran negotiated the deal in bad faith and was systematically breaching the JCPOA’s limitations on its nuclear operations.

During his premiership, Benjamin Netanyahu opposed all aspects of the JCPOA because Netanyahu recognized that it facilitates and provides UN legitimacy for Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The Lapid-Bennett government justifies its radical break with the past by arguing that an Iranian return to the JCPOA’s limitations on its nuclear activities will slow its advance to the bomb, and buy Israel time which it “can use to wage a diplomatic campaign and to speed up its military preparations to keep Iran from a nuclear bomb in the future.”

In other words, to buy time in its effort to block Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel is legitimizing the JCPOA which legitimizes and guarantees the success of Iran’s efforts to develop a nuclear arsenal. The government argues that after legitimizing Iran’s nuclear program (by supporting the JCPOA), it will have the time to wage a diplomatic campaign to delegitimize Iran’s nuclear program, and to develop a military capacity to attack Iran’s nuclear installations which the JCPOA legitimizes.

Israel’s operational and strategic incoherence stem from the government’s inability to reconcile itself to the fact of U.S. betrayal. By abandoning the U.S.’s longstanding opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, the Biden administration hasn’t simply dashed Israel’s hope of coordinating its efforts with Washington. It has obliterated the guiding wisdom at the foundation of Israel’s 50 year security partnership with America. That wisdom has it that America’s security partnership with Israel is the most important guarantee of Israel’s national security.

The notion that the U.S. – rather than Israel’s power and willingness bring its power to bear – is Israel’s most important strategic asset was born in the aftermath of the 1968-1970 War of Attrition. It became the foundation for Israeli strategic planning in the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. During that period, in exchange for U.S. weapons, Israel agreed to abide by U.S. demands that Israel stand down and not defeat its enemies. In response to U.S. pressure, Israel did not destroy the Egyptian Third Army when IDF forces encircled it at the end of the Yom Kippur War.

The U.S. saved the PLO and Yassir Arafat in Beirut in 1982.

It saved Arafat and the PLO again in Ramallah in 2002.

Washington saved Hezbollah in 2006.

It saved Hamas in multiple battles since 2008.

The U.S. torpedoed Israel’s anti-Iran collaboration with Georgia in 2007-8. It subverted Israel’s strategic cooperation with Azerbaijan against Iran in subsequent years.

In each episode, Israel’s security establishment accepted Washington’s stand down orders because the generals valued U.S. arms more than decisive victory.

In the case of Iran and its nuclear program, this approach is the reason Israel lacks the military capacity to significantly downgrade Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Despite overwhelming evidence that Iran’s nuclear program is directed against Israel first and foremost and that the U.S. has never intended to take military action to block Iran’s path to the bomb, Israel’s generals have long insisted that Iran’s nuclear program is an “international problem,” not Israel’s problem. Israel, they have consistently argued, must allow the U.S. to lead international efforts to block Iran’s race to the bomb.

This position was most vividly and fatefully followed in 2010 when the then Mossad Director Meir Dagan, and then IDF Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi refused an order by then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defense Minister Ehud Barak to prepare the army and the Mossad to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Not only did the top commanders refuse the order, in an interview shortly before his death, Dagan revealed that he informed his American counterpart, CIA Director Leon Panetta about the order he and Ashkenazy rejected.  

Throughout Barack Obama’s years in the White House, Israel’s security establishment refused to face the obvious implications of his nuclear diplomacy. Instead, Dagan and his successor Tamir Pardo, Ashkenazy and his successor Benny Gantz all insisted that Israel had to toe Obama’s line. The generals opposed Netanyahu’s diplomatic efforts against the JCPOA.

Today, the security establishment blames Netanyahu for Iran’s sprint to the nuclear finish line. The generals say Netanyahu was wrong to convince Trump to leave the nuclear deal. To be sure, Iran is now enriching more uranium to higher levels of enrichment than it did when it agreed to the JCPOA in 2015. But according to those involved in the proceedings, in 2015 Iran lacked the ability to enrich uranium to 60 percent enrichment.

During the course of the JCPOA, Iran developed advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium to bomb grade or near bomb grade levels. The idea that the ayatollahs wouldn’t be doing what they are doing now if the U.S. hadn’t left the deal strains credulity. And with the U.S. out of the deal, the chances of blocking Iran’s path to the bomb were far greater than they had been beforehand.

The truth is that Netanyahu wouldn’t have been as dependent on Trump, and Israel’s prospects for blocking Iran’s nuclear advances would not be in disarray today, were it not for the security establishment’s refusal to develop strategic options for blocking the Iranian regime’s path to a nuclear arsenal independent of Washington. Israel would not be where it is today if Dagan and Ashkenazy had followed Netanyahu and Barak’s order in 2010.  

Last year, the security brass erupted after Trump announced the U.S. would sell F-35 combat jets to the UAE. Defense Minister Benny Gantz and his colleagues argued the sale would erode Israel’s qualitative military edge over its neighbors. Netanyahu for his part countered that the UAE doesn’t threaten Israel and that the strategic advantage Israel gains from peace with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf far outweighs the dangers emanating from the F-35 sale to the UAE.

In the wake of this dispute, Washington-based Middle East expert and former senior Bush and Trump administrations official Dr. David Wurmser published a cost-benefit analysis of U.S. military support for Israel. Titled, “Reflections on the U.S. Guarantee of a Qualitative Military Edge to Israel,” Wurmser’s article provoked a classified discussion in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last year.

Wursmer argued that the price Israel has paid for U.S. weapons transfers has been exorbitant. Israel, he wrote, “bartered its strategic freedom of maneuver and initiative in exchange for a qualitative military edge in weaponry.”

Israel’s dependence on U.S. weapons created a vicious cycle. With each passing year, “Israel depended ever more on cutting edge American arms, relied ever more on U.S. aid to pay for it, which demanded ever more of Israel to subordinate its strategic initiative, maneuver and planning to American regional policies.

“This progression, in turn,” Wurmser explained, would leave Israel’s will questioned, deterrence weakened and compromised – all of which invited a greater threat which demanded yet more weaponry.”

Invariably, Wurmser noted, “those policies entailed further Israeli restraint and acquiescence to America’s attempts to downplay its closeness to Israel in order to court key Arab nations, and ultimately to pursue peace processes which exacted concessions from Israel in an attempt to reconcile the two sides of this ‘balancing’ act.  The strategic dependence of Israel on the US always guaranteed that Israel’s security establishment would support such restraint and conciliation.”

If the F-35 sale to the UAE caused Israel’s security establishment to worry about the future of Israel’s qualitative edge, the Biden administration’s betrayal of Israel in relation to Iran utterly devastates the basic conceptual framework at the heart of the security establishment’s strategic thinking. Israel’s military relationship with the U.S. is now demonstrably not preferable to strategic independence and freedom.  

It is hard to know what will happen with the JCPOA. Maybe Iran will agree to abide by it in exchange for sanctions relief. Maybe it won’t. Maybe it will slow down its uranium enrichment. Maybe it won’t. But the notion that a deal that paves Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal is the proper means to stem Iran’s nuclear advance is absurd.

It is also far from clear what the impact of “U.S. diplomatic pressure,” (if it is ever employed), will have on Iran. Between its catastrophic defeat in Afghanistan and its weak defense of Taiwan in the face of Chinese threats, America’s threats carry far less weight than they once did.

What is absolutely apparent however, is that Israel’s security establishment needs to wake up from its American delusion. America does not have Israel’s back. Only Israel has Israel’s back.  

Originally published in Israel Hayom.

 

Caroline Glick

Source: https://carolineglick.com/israels-post-american-strategic-challenge/

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Election Fraud Investigation Hesitancy in Michigan - Rebecca Behrends

 

​ by Rebecca Behrends

Michigan's Republican legislators control both houses of the Legislature. They need to get it together and address their constituents' concerns about 2020.

The subject of vaccine hesitancy is all over the news.  Government agencies and Big Pharma stew and fret over how to address it and demolish it.  The WHO has declared it one of the top threats to global health.  But there is another type of hesitancy that is of paramount importance to the health and well-being of our nation, and it is election fraud investigation hesitancy.  It is particularly a problem that plagues Republican legislators and establishment party members.

What part of "election security" do they not understand?  The legacy media spout the notion that the 2020 election was the most secure in history.  In fact, it was the least secure election.

In a soon to be released, explosive inside report on the events that occurred at the TCF Center in Detroit during the 2020 election, author Phil O'Halloran explores in gritty detail the egregious violations of state election laws and statues in Michigan, major security breaches, illegalities, intimidation, and verbal as well as physical abuse of GOP challengers.  O'Halloran was present at the TCF Center and was an eyewitness to what occurred.  This report will be forthcoming from Michigan Citizens for Election Integrity (MC4EI.com).

The response from the Republican Michigan legislators who dominate the state House and Senate has been tepid at best and AWOL at worst.  Michigan grassroots conservative patriots have sadly experienced the death of outrage in their beloved state.  Where is the exhilarating "tear down this wall" moment of statesmanlike speechmaking à la President Reagan?  How about the "this will not stand" salvo from George H.W. Bush to Saddam Hussein?  Nowhere to be found.

Instead, we have Republican legislators who try to explain away the TCF debacle by saying that both sides (McBroom Report, see p. 13) threw temper tantrums and so nothing can be taken seriously.  You know, kids will be kids!  Child psychologists understand that this phrase as giving a kid a "get out of jail free card" with no responsibility or consequences.  And that is exactly what Michigan Republican legislators handed over to the Democrat poll workers and election officials at the TCF Center on election day. 

The vast majority of Republican legislators do not see the necessity of a forensic audit in Michigan.  They hide behind NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) they have signed pertaining to any evidence they may have seen from the TCF Center in Detroit.  They don't put any muscle into utilizing their subpoena power to demand information from Detroit election officials such as video surveillance films of drop boxes, courtesy of Zuck Bucks.  They ignore the abundance of affidavits filed by GOP poll challengers, all attesting to the same violations of law and fraudulent activities.  They sidestep invites to conservative Republican rallies at the state capitol to demand action.  They put up their fingers in the wind to see which way the audit wave is blowing in the hopes that it won't blow their way!

Mainstream media say the Arizona audit proves that Biden won.  It did no such thing, but the blind media only saw the "hand recount" part of the elephant and ran with it.  Michigan legislators' response was, "Whew, no fraud tsunami coming our way!"  Just a tempest in a teapot.

The Republican-founded Lincoln Project led a national effort to harass lawyers who represented Republicans or the Trump campaign.  Two Republican Michigan Board of Canvasser officials attempted to rescind their certifications of the election result after being subject to harassment, intimidation, and doxxing.  Any lawyer who wanted to come to their aid in defense had to think twice.  Threats were directed against them and their families.  Meanwhile, a deafening silence emanated from Michigan legislators, who are suppose to have ultimate jurisdiction over elections.

It has been said that Republicans eat their young, while Democrats abort their young.  For Republicans to ignore or deny the claims of their own party members of illegalities does not bode well for the health of their party going forward.  Democrats, too, have their own problems, with election-rigging and fraudulent practices in their ranks.

Ultimately, everyone suffers when we do not have a bipartisan commitment to the rule of law. 

The issue goes deeper than just election-related matters.  We no longer have a society that believes in what has been termed "obedience to the unenforceable."  Clay Christensen, former Harvard business professor, discussed this in a compelling video on religious freedom.  If we do not have a society of citizens willing to stand up for what is right without being cajoled to do so, we will never have enough lawyers, police, or judges to deal with the adverse consequences.

So, somewhere in a cemetery in Detroit, Mr. Moral Outrage lies entombed, where no one comes to visit or lay flowers.  Case closed, as far as mainstream Republicans and Democrats are concerned.  But a day of reckoning will yet unfold as conservative patriots in the state of Michigan bravely carry on in their quest for truth and justice.  In the prescient words of Ben Franklin, "justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are."

Image: Tom Arthur via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

 

Rebecca Behrends, M.D. is a retired E.D. physician and is vice president of research for Michigan Citizens for Election Integrity at MC4EI.com.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/10/election_fraud_investigation_hesitancy_in_michigan.html

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Lies our anti-Israel activists are telling us - Bruce S. Ticker

 

​ by Bruce S. Ticker

If you must guys must bash and criticize Israel, can you please get your facts straight?

 

UN-funded illegal activity in Area C
UN-funded illegal activity in Area C                                                                        Regavim

Mary Christine-Bader, a defender of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, has a penchant for confusion. Try to make sense of the passage below. I sure can’t.

“(Rep. Betty McCollum) pointed out that ‘innocent Palestinians who live under military occupation are regularly killed by Israeli security forces’ and have no Iron Dome to protect them,” Bader writes in a commentary for her hometown paper in Minneapolis, The Star Tribune; McCollum represents St. Paul, Minn.

A fair interpretation of that statement: Israel fires missiles into its “occupied territories." However, the separate elements she cites contradict one another.

Israel does not “occupy” Gaza, yet Gaza is often the origin for missiles fired toward Israel, and most of those missiles are usually destroyed by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. Israel pulled out all its troops and communities (a.k.a. settlements) from Gaza in 2005. In retaliatory strikes last May, Israel’s missiles killed 240 Palestinians, most of them terrorists, as Bader asserts.

The people of Gaza do “live under military occupation” operated by Hamas, which seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority two years later, in 2007. Many supporters of Israel will no doubt pounce on me for using the word “occupation,” but I am leaving it here for the sake of argument.

Israel does not control Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria aka 'West Bank' which are governed by the Palestinian Authority. It does control Area C and East Jerusalem, legally considered "disputed territory" where it deploys troops and has facilitated the construction of Jewish communities. However, Palestinian Arabs in all the above three areas delineated by the Oslo Accords are not known to fire missiles in Israel’s direction.

Just the facts, Mary Christine Bader, a member of Middle East Peace Now who resides in the Minneapolis suburb of Wayzata. On “Dragnet,” Jack Webb would instruct witnesses to give him “just the facts, ma’am” when his character, detective Sgt. Joe Friday, questioned them.

If you must criticize Israel, Mary, can you please get your facts straight?

Bader contrives more of her own facts in this opinion piece slamming columnist Bret Stephens for his own opinion piece taking on congressional Israel-bashers in The Star-Tribune. Stephens’ commentary, which originates in The New York Times, is especially sensitive for Rep. Ilhan Omar because the Stephens piece was carried in her hometown paper where her own constituents would perhaps learn of a new, damaging perspective on her.

Omar’s defender likewise gets it wrong in both the opening and final paragraphs, accusing Stephens of “anti-Palestinian bigotry” at the top and at bottom she adds 19 years to Israel’s so-called "occupation" of its territories.

Nowhere in his column does Stephens express anti-Palestinian bigotry. He does call out Omar and eight other representatives for voting to deny $1 billion in funds for Iron Dome. Israel has controlled the 'West Bank' and East Jerusalem since 1967, 54 years ago, when Israel overran the lands in the Six-Day War - a war initiated by surrounding Arab nations. Today it provides military protection for Area B but controls only Area C and East Jerusalem. Bader listed the length of "occupation" as 73 years, which goes back to when the state of Israel was created in 1948. Does that mean she does not believe in Israel's right to exist at all?

Bader also references Israel’s incarceration of children without explaining the situation, writing, “Her (McCollum) bill would prohibit Israel from using U.S. taxpayer dollars for the military detention of Palestinian children.”

It is common for Palestinian Arabs under 18 to attack soldiers and other Israelis, mostly in demonstrations, which means they have committed crimes. Is this what she is talking about? If so, is Israel supposed to ignore their criminal acts? There are other fine points in her column that deserve scrutiny, but like they say: so many distortions, so little space.

Granted, it is hard to be clear about what is true or false in the conflict, especially since the involved parties have different takes on what transpires there. However, it is sloppy at best when a writer messes up on elementary details. At worst, which I’ll try to explain so a 6-year-old would understand it, they are deliberately fibbing.

Our Just-the-Facts,-Ma’am prerequisite means one of two things: The person does not know what they are talking about, or they are lying.

How do they expect to be taken seriously when they follow Bader’s example? Many backers of Israel are open to criticism, but listening to accusations without evidence wastes our time.

Bader makes some legitimate points. She complains that introduction of the $1 billion allocation for Iron Dome was slipped into a larger defense bill. That is a common tactic in Congress and state and local legislative bodies, which is a distasteful activity no matter what the issue might be.

However, it proved to be a good excuse to criticize the tactic and have the money pulled from the larger bill. Two days later, the House passed the expenditure as a stand-alone measure in a 420-9 vote and it is expected to be approved by the Senate.

The Star Tribune’s presentation of Stephens’ opinion piece prompted a letter from a group of Minnesota residents demanding an apology to Omar, according to Newsweek. The paper put aside the original Times headline – “A Foul Play by Progressives Over Israel’s Iron Dome” – and localized it: “Omar, ‘Squad,’ Launch Another Anti-Israel Strike.”

“We do feel it is necessary to make clear that headlines like this increase threats of violence to Rep. Omar, her Muslim colleagues in Congress, and to the other women of color in elected office who are so often the targets of far-right racism, hatred, and violence.”

Speaking for myself, I do not object to Omar’s religion, race or gender – only to her acts as a congresswoman. Omar and Rashida Tlaib are currently the only Muslims in Congress. Tlaib’s family emigrated from the 'West Bank' and, like Omar, is harshly critical of Israel.

If Omar feels threatened by the Star Tribune’s headline, then surely she should understand how I feel when she and her friends spew distortions about Israel that could inspire dangerous people to harm Jews like myself.


Bruce S. Ticker, who writes from Philadelphia, also blogs for The San Diego Jewish World and Smirking Chimp and previously for the suspended Philadelphia Jewish Voice. He was previously a reporter and copy editor for daily newspapers in eastern Pennsylvania.

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/315532

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Christian Lebanese leader: Hezbollah is an illegal entity - Shahar Klaiman and Reuters

 

​ by Shahar Klaiman and Reuters

Samir Geagea, the leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces party, refutes claims by rival Shiite Hezbollah of seeking to start a civil war. "The real agenda of the Lebanese Forces is civil war," says Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

 

Christian Lebanese leader: Hezbollah is an illegal entity
Leader of Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea | File photo: Reuters/Mohamed Azakir

The leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces party on Thursday refuted claims by rival Shiite Hezbollah of seeking to start a civil war.

In an interview with Lebanese broadcaster MTV, Samir Geagea said the confrontation with Hezbollah was purely political and must remain so.

The Lebanese Forces is a registered political party with official members, he said, contrary to Hezbollah which "legally does not exist as it is not registered with the Interior Ministry and its members are accused of various crimes."

"We do not have fighters," Geagea said.

Nobody should think about confronting Hezbollah militarily, Geagea added, saying that doing so would be a big mistake.

Already suffering a devastating economic meltdown, Lebanon has been overshadowed by renewed tensions since seven Shiite Muslims were shot dead in Beirut last week during the worst street violence in the capital in more than a decade.

The heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah accused the Lebanese Forces of perpetrating the killing and attempting to instigate a civil war.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (Reuters/Khalil Hassan)

"The real agenda of the Lebanese Forces is civil war," Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech, adding that his Iran-backed terrorist organization would not be dragged into one.

Thursday's shooting started as supporters of the Shiite group and ally Amal were gathering for a demonstration against Tarek Bitar, the lead investigator in the Beirut port blast probe.

Geagea said that while he initially thought Hezbollah had nothing to do with the explosion, "with its recent actions it is telling us that perhaps it might be concerned" over the matter.

Hezbollah has been leading demands for Bitar to be removed, accusing him of bias. The lead investigator has sought to question several Hezbollah allies on suspicion of negligence that led to the blast, which killed more than 200 people and devastated swathes of Beirut.

In its efforts to stop the probe, Hezbollah has taken the current government "hostage," Geagea said, referring to how the standoff over Bitar has paralyzed the cabinet.

Geagea also told reporters that he had been summoned for questioning over the shooting.

"I am ready to appear before the judge, on one condition: that Hassan Nasrallah does it before me," he said.

 

Shahar Klaiman and Reuters 

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/10/22/christian-lebanese-leader-hezbollah-legally-does-not-exist/

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Intersectionality and American Anti-Semitism - Kenneth Levin

 

​ by Kenneth Levin

How to understand - and counter - the plague of anti-Semitism in America today.

 


The term "intersectionality" has gained prominence - initially on the nation’s campuses and now well beyond academia - as signifying the supposed shared, "intersecting," predicaments of racial and ethnic groups, particularly “people of color” (and to a lesser degree women and sexual minorities), victimized by white male racism and its history of imperialism, colonialism, exploitation and slavery.
 
Promoters of the intersectionality concept have sought to use it to forge a common political agenda among at least some of the groups deemed as falling within the intersectionality rubric, to mount a shared fight against these groups’ perceived oppressors. But perhaps the most substantive campaign mounted by intersectionality allies - most notably elements of the African-American community and of the Islamist/Palestinian community in America - has been to themselves become oppressors, targeting American Jews for defamation, intimidation and physical attack. In doing so, they have joined forces not only with the Far Left in America, which has almost invariably used Jew-hatred as a political tool, but also with white extremist groups, including white supremacists and neo-Nazis, sharing with them anti-Jewish rhetoric and memes, tactics and mutual support. Together, intersectional allies have generated the astronomical rise in attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in present-day America.
 
Consideration of the roots of this intersectional alliance and of what drives each party’s anti-Semitism casts light not only on the dynamics of the current assault on American Jews but also on the reality that that assault is not simply derivative of hostility towards Israel and Zionism. Rather, American Jews are a primary target and the anti-Israel animus is at least as much derived from hatred of American Jews as vice versa.  
 
Even before the recent increase in anti-Semitic incidents, FBI statistics on hate crimes in America had consistently shown that Jews, representing less than 2% of the American population, had been by far the religious community most victimized by such crimes. (The most recent annual statistics, for 2020, showed 57.5% of religion-based hate crimes were against Jews. The next closest targeted community was Muslims, who were the victims of 8.8% of such crimes.) That pattern, and the anti-Semitic predilections of the groups perpetrating it, have long pre-dated those groups’ coming together in part under the intersectionality mantle.
 
American Anti-Semitism and the Red-Green-Black Alliance
 
The four major sources of attacks on Jews in America are white supremacists, black nationalists/supremacists, Muslim and Palestinian supremacists, and progressivist/Marxist ideologues.
 
The American institution most associated today with anti-Semitism is academia. The professoriat, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, consists almost exclusively of leftists, many among them proponents of Marxist ideologies, an integral element of which has virtually always been, as it was for Marx, anti-Semitism. (Anti-Semitism was used cynically by Marx and his adherents as an instrument of class warfare, a way of winning over the proletariat to Marxist doctrine by representing the hated Jews as the proletariat’s enemy and communism as its ally against the Jews. The current cynical leftist use of “critical race theory” and incitement of racial division to advance class conflict is a variation on the same tactics.) The anti-Semitism on today’s campuses is promoted mostly in the guise of anti-Zionism, with Jews targeted for being supporters of the Zionist project, and this line of attack adopts many of the anti-Zionist memes popularized by Soviet propaganda: Israel as a colonial state, as a racist state, as a project of Western imperialism. (As with the Soviet Union, one motive for the campus progressivist/leftist attacks on Israel, complementing the anti-Semitism element, is the fact of Israel being a close ally of the United States.) 
 
The recent Israel-Gaza war, launched by an organization, Hamas, which openly declares as its religiously required objective the murder of all the world’s Jews, saw faculties across the nation defending Hamas and vilifying Israel. This was hardly surprising, given widespread faculty support for the Hamas-linked Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) campaign against Israel, aimed at crippling the Jewish state economically. As noted by AMCHA, the leading organization monitoring campus anti-Semitism, the extent of attacks on Jews on a campus correlates closely with the degree of faculty promotion of BDS on that campus; and across the nation other adults on campus have done little to counter the anti-Jewish animus or the hateful acts that professorial support for BDS generates. Militant faculties, supine and indifferent administrations, and student bodies knowing little and easily indoctrinated by activist teachers, create a witch’s brew of Jew-hatred that pollutes campuses and spills out into the wider society.
 
Islamism, or Islamic supremacist ideology wedded to Jihad, has almost invariably had a prominent following within the faith and has tended to come to the fore in the context of difficulties in the Muslim world. Thus, European colonial inroads into that world and the embrace of Western culture by many in, for example, the Muslim Middle East, led to an Islamist reaction. According to that reaction, the end of Muslim expansion and the success of European political and cultural encroachment were made possible by Muslims falling away from rigorous adherence to their faith, and the remedy lay in rededication to militant Islam and Jihad. This comprehension of Muslim religious duty, most notably represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, spread rapidly in the Arab world in the early twentieth century and well beyond that world subsequently.
 
The breakup of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman Empires in the wake of World War I led to the League of Nations fostering the recreation of national homes for peoples that had been part of those empires - among others, a recreated Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and joint Czech and Slovak homeland in Europe and mandates for Arab homelands in Syria and Iraq and a reestablished Jewish national home in the Holy Land. The last, the Zionist project, was welcomed by some Arab and other Muslim leaders. But the response among many, in the Islamist spirit, was that the prospect of that weakest of peoples regaining an independent presence in the heart of what had become the Muslim Middle East was a further demonstration of how far Muslims had fallen from their former heights and how necessary was a violent, Jihad-driven reaction.
 
Israel’s establishment and the failure of subsequent attempts to annihilate the state, together with anti-Jewish propaganda that has drawn heavily on Nazi and other European stereotypes and caricatures, have only increased the anti-Jewish animus in the Arab and wider Muslim world, with polls of opinion in Muslim states often yielding levels of anti-Jewish bias close to 100%. In Muslim countries not even involved in the conflict with Israel, a Pew poll still found very high levels of such bias; for example, in Turkey, at 73%, Pakistan, 78%, and Indonesia, 74%. This level of hatred has translated into almost universal Muslim support, until relatively recently, for the Palestinian Arab rejection of all compromise with Israel, all offers of a two-state solution, and insistence that nothing short of Israel’s annihilation will satisfy Palestinian demands. No Palestinian leader has ever indicated a willingness to tolerate the Jewish state’s existence within any borders. The Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has stated this explicitly many times, and Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has, as noted, insisted it will settle for nothing less than the murder of all the world’s Jews. Only relatively recently have significant voices in the Arab world, still a distinct minority, criticized this stance.
 
The increased immigration to the United States of people from nations where anti-Semitism is virtually universally embraced, as well as from the Palestinian territories where promoting Jew-hatred is the leadership’s most prominent, and successful, policy and where that hatred is pervasive in media, schools and mosques, has contributed significantly to anti-Israel militancy in America and to attacks on American Jews and Jewish institutions. Leaders of mosques in America have repeatedly called for attacks on Jews. (Mohammed Al-Azdee, an Iraqi-born associate professor of communication theory at Bridgeport University, has documented the extensive use of weekly sermons by imams in American mosques to promote Jew-hatred and incite anti-Jewish violence.) In addition, the influx of students from places in the Arab and broader Muslim world where anti-Semitism is endemic, students often supported by nations such as Qatar that invest extensively in promoting Jew-hatred in America, has figured in the expansion of the Hamas-linked BDS movement and in attacks on Jews on the campuses. If some Arab leaders now take issue with anti-Israel and anti-Jewish campaigns, their voices are more than countered by those in the American professariat who support those campaigns in the American version of the red-green, leftist-Islamist, alliance so prominent in Europe.
 
In the African-American sphere, proponents of the black radicalism of the 1960's and ‘70's, drew, according to their wonts, both on far left ideology and on imagined Islamic affinities, and both sources fed their promotion of Jew-hatred. The Nation of Islam, particularly under Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semite with the widest following in America, has likewise, of course, promoted Jew-hatred.  Henry Louis Gates, Jr., University Professor and Director of the Center for African and African American Research at Harvard, wrote in 1992, in an article entitled “The new black anti-Semitism is top-down and dangerous,” of how a recent survey had shown that blacks were twice as likely as whites to hold anti-Semitic views and “that it is among the younger and more educated blacks that anti-Semitism is most pronounced.” This was, and continues to be, a reflection of the anti-Semitism promoted by the heirs of the ‘60's and ‘70's radicals and by groups like the Nation of Islam. As Gates points out, it is anti-Semitism in the service of advancing both sources’ agendas of black separatism and supremacism, much like the Far Left’s anti-Semitism has been in the service of advancing its Marxist agenda. That more educated blacks have also been exposed to, and influenced by, the anti-Semitism of the professoriat and the campuses has only exacerbated this trend of greater anti-Semitism particularly among the so-called better educated. The high rate of Jew-hatred among American blacks has figured in the myriad attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions by blacks, most notably in Brooklyn and other parts of New York City, and even in the murder of Jews, in recent years in Jersey City and Monsey.
 
Black advocates of militant separatist, supremacist, anti-American agendas have long been open to joining with other minority groups embracing similar agendas, and campuses have been particularly fertile arenas for fostering such alliances. Islamist/Palestinian BDS activists on campus, particularly Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), have, in turn, been more than happy to cultivate the support of African-American students under the intersectionality umbrella. The professoriat has also been instrumental in promoting the intersectionality scam, the notion of the common predicament particularly of “people of color” vis-a-vis abuse by dominant whites. The tack once more serves the Marxist faculty by advancing communal divisions, sowing conflict in a way that simply appealing to class differences could not, and so advancing the Marxist agenda.
 
Faculties have also worked with Islamist colleagues and students to link the latter’s anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activities to the intersectionality bandwagon, with Palestinians now regarded as people of color facing - again, in the meme created and popularized by Soviet propaganda - Western colonialist usurpers. With black groups on campuses and beyond more than willing to embrace the linkage, the red-green alliance has been expanded into a red-green-black anti-Semitic intersectionality alliance. Faculties, often financed by foreign entities such as Qatar, have also been active in the production and dissemination of curricula for public and private grade schools that convey the intersectionality alliance’s anti-Israel and anti-Jewish message. That dissemination has become a widespread project of the red-green-black alliance, infiltrating schools across the nation.
 
The Israel-Hamas War
 
The recent Israel-Gaza war, the fourth triggered in the last thirteen years by Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, showcased intersectionality’s most notable example of concerted joint endeavor, its targeting of Israel and Jews, and the penetration of that shared endeavor even into the halls of Congress.
 
Hamas’s missile barrages, aimed at Israel’s civilian population, doubly fit the internationally recognized definitions of war crimes, by virtue of their objective of killing civilians and by virtue of their using Gazan civilian areas as launching sites for their attacks, thus endangering Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas justified its most recent initiation of hostilities by claiming it was responding to Israel’s seeking to expel Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem and also to Israel’s allegedly attacking the Al Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim sites on the Temple Mount.
 
The Sheikh Jarrah issue relates to some of the Jewish property that was seized and held as “enemy property” by Trans-Jordan after it conquered the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1948 and killed or expelled all Jews living there. Following the 1967 war, Israeli courts confirmed Jewish ownership of the property but granted Arabs residing there the status of protected tenants, able to remain and even pass the right of residence on to their heirs as long as they paid rent. In recent years the tenants have refused to pay rent and it is in response to this that the courts have for some years ordered the vacating of the property. This is one element of Hamas’ trumpeted casus belli. 
 
The other Hamas justification for initiating the war, that Israel was threatening Al Aqsa, has been a rallying cry for virtually a century by Palestinian leaders seeking to instigate murderous attacks on Jews. In 1929, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, then the most prominent figure among Palestinian Arabs, used the claim to choreograph assaults on Jews that took some 130 lives. According to reports at the time, such as those by Dutch-Canadian journalist Pierre van Passen, Husseini also produced and distributed bogus photographs of a supposedly demolished Jerusalem mosque in hopes of stoking anti-Jewish sentiment in Egypt and elsewhere.
 
Since Israel regained control of the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, in 1967, it has allowed Muslim authorities to administer the area and has prevented Jews from worshipping on the Mount. Yet claims that the Jews were destroying Al Aqsa have continued in efforts to trigger anti-Jewish violence.
 
The events on the Temple Mount that preceded Hamas’s missile attack on Jerusalem entailed the storing of rocks and explosives in Muslim religious sites to be used for attacking Jews in the area, including Jews praying at the Western Wall at the base of the Mount, and subsequent clashes between assailants and Israeli police. This is Hamas’s other excuse for unleashing war. 
 
Both Hamas justifications were embraced by the black-Islamist/Palestinian intersectionality alliance and its Far Left campus allies.
 
Leaders of the Black Lives Matter organization condemned Israel in the context of the fighting and declared the organization’s “solidarity with Palestine.” For some years BLM leaders have embraced the Hamas-linked Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement against Israel and at times have called for Israel’s annihilation. In the last year, Black Lives Matter “demonstrators” have vandalized synagogues and Jewish businesses in Los Angeles and elsewhere. They have done all this while playing up the intersectionality connection between African-Americans and Palestinians. The assertion by BLM leaders of their immersion in and embrace of Marxist/Communist ideology represents another stream of Jew-hatred shaping the organization’s actions. BLM support for the genocidally anti-Semitic Hamas in the recent war is thus of a piece with the organization’s longstanding and much-reiterated positions.
 
A number of African-American members of Congress echoed BLM’s intersectionality-infused pro-Hamas stance. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley opined: “Palestinians are being told the same thing as black folks in America: there is no acceptable form of resistance.” It’s not clear if she meant the rocks and explosives stored on the Temple Mount for attacking Jews, or Hamas missiles, or both, should be recognized as acceptable forms of resistance. Congresswoman Cori Bush likewise drew an analogy between blacks in America and the Palestinians and seemed to justify Hamas’s missile barrages as part of “the fight for Palestinian liberation,” which she saw as “interconnected” with the struggles of African-Americans. Congressman Jamaal Bowman also took up this supposed interconnection: “Enough of Black and brown bodies being brutalized and murdered...” He characterized the events in Sheikh Jarrah and on the Temple Mount as “violently evicting families from their homes...” and “A show of strong force during prayer... Destroying holy sites...,” echoing obviously absurd Hamas lies.
 
Of course, a number of other members of Congress likewise blamed Israel for the recent hostilities and either explicitly or implicitly sided with Hamas. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, Muslim Congresswomen with histories of trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes, predictably came out with attacks on Israel. Omar essentially called for Israel’s destruction. Tlaib characterized the Palestinians as passive victims of Israeli aggression. Neither mentioned Hamas’s missile onslaught. Both women have invoked the intersectionality link with African-Americans to buttress their anti-Israel and anti-Jewish agendas.
 
Representing the anti-Israel agenda of the red-green-black alliance’s progressive/Far Left contingent, a number of whose Congressional adherents signed an anti-Israel letter during the war, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortes suggested that Israel’s response to the Hamas missile barrages was somehow an attack on Palestinians’ “right to survive” and that Hamas’s missiles were defending that right. 
 
Twenty-five members of Congress signed the anti-Israel letter, initiated by Representatives Marie Newman and Mark Pocan and again condemning Israel with absurd charges and without referencing Hamas’s initiation of the war or intentional targeting of civilians. Of the 25 signers, 17 had also sent letters of congratulations and support in November, 2019, to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on the occasion of its gala celebration. (Ilhan Omar was a featured speaker at the event.) CAIR had earlier been named by the FBI as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial for providing backchannel financial support to Hamas and being part of a group set up by the Muslim Brotherhood for that purpose.
 
On the nation’s campuses, beyond the many faculty resolutions condemning Israel and siding with Hamas, student groups reflecting the intersectionality red-green-black alliance likewise passed anti-Israel, in effect pro-Hamas, resolutions and demonstrated in support of that agenda.
 
On the streets of cities across the nation, Jews and Jewish institutions were attacked by Palestinian/Islamist assailants often joined by intersectionality allies.
 
The White Supremacist Connection
 
The tsunami of anti-Semitic acts that accompanied the recent war also underscored another element of the red-green-black alliance’s intersectional Jew-hatred: Its links to neo-Nazi and white supremacist Jew-hatred. Ostensibly, the anti-Semitism of African-American groups such as the Black Lives Matter organization and its Congressional auxiliary is grounded in Jews being white and beneficiaries of white privilege; and the anti-Semitism of Islamist/Palestinian allies of black Jew-haters and Jew baiters is due to Israeli colonialism and, again, a response to white imperialism; and both groups’ leftist/Marxist allies, on and off campus, either tacitly or explicitly endorse these rationales for attacks on the Jews. But the concerns about white privilege and white imperialism and white supremacism somehow have not prevented the intersectionality alliance from finding common ground with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. 
 
The recent attacks on Jews by intersectional allies, culminating in the attacks around the war, and the frequent association on social media of intersectional allies’ anti-Israel and anti-Jewish memes with praise of Hitler, have led a number of commentators to look at the connections between those allies and far right anti-Semites.
 
With regard to Islamists and Palestinian leaders, there is not far to look.  The Muslim Brotherhood, virtually from its inception, viewed European fascism, including Nazism, as a model for building an anti-Western movement and exposing and challenging the perceived corruption, decadence and vulnerability of the Western democracies. The Nazis’ targeting of the Jews converged with the Islamist animus against both Christians and Jews but particularly against the Jews, whose achievements within Western societies were seen as further evidence of the West’s decadence and as a further insult to Muslims for having been bested and overtaken in political and military power by those societies. Jews were also seen, as in fascist Europe, as a vulnerable and despised target useful for advancing a political movement. As a phrase popularized by Islamists, to capture a strategic sequencing of targets, puts it: First Saturday’s people, then Sunday’s people.
 
Among Palestinians, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, again the grand mufti of Jerusalem who in 1929 had used the claim of a threatened Al Aqsa - Hamas’s justification for the recent war - to orchestrate deadly attacks on Jews, a decade later was supporting Nazi operations in the Middle East. He subsequently went to Berlin, where he remained through much of the war as Hitler’s guest - perhaps the original intersectionality - recruiting southern European Muslims for the SS and broadcasting calls to the Arab world to support the Nazis and kill Jews. He also planned with Nazi officials arrangements for the extermination of the Jews of the Mandate after what was anticipated to be Rommel’s Afrika Korps’ conquest of Egypt and advancement eastward. Al Husseini remains a revered and inspiring figure for Palestinian leaders and their followers.
 
As does Hitler; and not only among Palestinians but in the wider Muslim world, particularly where the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots, such as Hamas, have political and cultural influence and a following. Statements from Palestinians and others in the Muslim world to the effect that Hitler was right, or that he didn’t kill enough Jews, or that the world needs a Hitler now - views that many would imagine are limited to neo-Nazis and white supremacists - are common in that world, as is the publication and wide dissemination of Mein Kampf. They reflect what has long been popular sentiment. Recently in the news has been the Biden Administration’s decision to resume funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to the tune of about a quarter billion dollars, despite UNRWA’s involvement in aiding Hamas and promoting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred in its schools. A new report by UN Watch, “Beyond the Textbooks,” documents the involvement of over 100 UNRWA “educators” in such hate-indoctrination and cites a UNRWA math teacher in Gaza, Nahed Sharawi, “who shared a video of Adolf Hitler with inspirational quotes to ‘enrich and enlighten your thoughts and minds.’”  As noted earlier, the use of Nazi caricatures of Jews and other elements of Nazi propaganda are likewise widespread and popular in the Palestinian and wider Muslim world.
 
The work of Mohammed Al-Azdee, the professor of communication theory who has studied the sermons of imams in American mosques and documented the frequency of their incitement against Jews, was reviewed in an article by Ben Cohen (Algemeiner, July 20, 2021) in which he reported in greater detail on Al-Azdee’s research. Cohen notes that, according to Al-Azdee, “Key [to the anti-Jewish content of the sermons] is the linkage between the nature of antisemitism among Islamists and that of the Nazi regime in Germany.
 
“Bridging these two worlds, Al-Azdee points out, were a series of theologians and political leaders, such as Sayyid Qutb, the chief ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the middle of the last century; Hajj Amin al-Husseini... and the late Al Qaeda chieftain Osama bin Laden, whose 2002 letter to the American people informed them that they could not be considered ‘innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us...’
 
“‘There are links to major antisemitic traditions,’ Al-Azdee said. ‘Nazi propaganda shaped Arab antisemitism, and in my data analysis you can see the pattern of alignment between Nazi and Muslim antisemitism. The khutbahs [sermons] are about Jews, but Jews represented as “Der ewige Jude” — “The Eternal Jew,” the German title of a 1940 propaganda film backed by Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, which purported to unveil a global Jewish conspiracy against Germany.’
 
“The range of antisemitic themes pushed by the imams examined by Al-Azdee also conformed to the various Nazi obsessions about Jews, from possessing unaccountable economic power to corrupting the morals of society. As Sayyid Qutb venomously put it, ‘from such creatures who kill and massacre and defame prophets, one can only expect the spilling of human blood and of dirty means that will further their machinations and evil.’
 
“According to Al-Azdee, for Qutb and other Islamist ideologues, antisemitism was an ‘integral component of the Islamic state,’ much as it was in Germany under National Socialism. That view is buttressed by antisemitic quotes from the Qu’ran as well as from the hadiths, or sayings, of the Prophet Muhammad, describing Jews as the descendants of ‘apes and pigs,’ urging their execution on the ‘Day of Judgement,’ and labeling them as ‘filth’ — a term that in the Muslim world, Al-Azdee said, refers explicitly to human excrement.”
 
Among African-Americans, there have also long been pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler contingents. This has particularly been so within black separatist and supremacist movements. As Daniel Greenfield relates, in a recent article entitled “Hitler’s Multicultural Supporters,” Malcolm X “welcomed the leader of the American Nazi Party... to a Nation of Islam event.” Malcolm X also met with leaders of the KKK,  and he met as well with and spoke positively of Haj Amin al-Husseini. Farrakhan, amid his Jew-baiting rants, has declared that, “Hitler was a very great man,” and, of course, he has parroted Nazi characterizations of Jews as sub-human. The virulent anti-Semite Stokeley Carmichael/Kwame Ture asserted, “We must take a lesson from Hitler”; and, “I’ve never admired a white man, but the greatest of them, to my mind, was Hitler.” At a time when black separatism is again in vogue, cheered on by academia and its promotion of separate black living quarters, social spaces, even graduation ceremonies, it is not surprising that pro-Nazi and white supremacist anti-Jewish tropes would be more prominently incorporated into some arenas of black political discourse.
 
(And the cross-fertilization goes in the other direction as well. For example, a July 2 news article noted that, “An unknown person or group distributed antisemitic propaganda at the University of Washington that read: ‘Remember the slave trade? 78% of slave owners were ethnic Jews. 48% of Jews were slave owners. Dismantle kike supremacy. End white guilt.’” The white supremacist flyer was citing spurious claims promoted by the Nation of Islam. 
 
(As Henry Louis Gates, Jr. wrote in his 1992 article on black anti-Semitism, “...the bible of the new anti-Semitism is ‘The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews,’ an official publication of the Nation of Islam... One of the most sophisticated instances of hate literature yet compiled...  It charges that the Jews were ‘key operatives’ in the historic crime of slavery, playing an ‘inordinate’ and ‘disproportionate’ role and ‘carving’ out for themselves a monumental culpability in slavery... [I]f readers actually [checked out the authors’ claimed sources], they might discover a rather different picture... They might find out - from the book’s own vaunted authorities - that, for example, of all the African slaves imported into the New World, American Jewish merchants accounted for less than 2 percent, a finding sharply at odds with the Nation of Islam’s claim of Jewish ‘predominance’ in this traffic.” 
 
(White supremacists and neo-Nazis have also taken up Islamist/Palestinian tropes. What we have is white supremacists and black supremacists as well as Islamist/Palestinian supremacists sharing and trafficking in each others’ anti-Semitic fabrications and calumnies.)
 
Intersectional Jew-Hatred’s Priority Target
 
The recurrence of white supremacist and neo-Nazi themes in the intersectionality alliance’s assault on American Jews, and the history of those themes in both Islamist/Palestinian anti-Semitism and African-American anti-Semitism, underscore an essential but almost universally overlooked aspect of present-day American anti-Semitism: that while hostility to Israel and Zionism is often the excuse put forward by perpetrators of today’s epidemic anti-Semitism, particularly those who are part of the red-green-black alliance, American Jews are not a secondary target, attacked for their supposed support of Israel, but are a primary target.
 
Islamist/Palestinian assailants of American Jews on the nation’s campuses and beyond are certainly haters of Israel and desire her annihilation. But Muslim Brotherhood anti-Semitism predated Israel and transcended Zionism. As noted, its focus has been to promote its comprehension of Islam’s proper place in the world, as the world’s exclusive creed and culture, and to promote advancement towards that goal at least in part through Jihad. Attacking the Jews, pursuing the objective of their extermination worldwide, the acknowledged intent of Hamas, has been embraced as religiously required and strategically useful. It is useful for discrediting and undermining those in the Arab and broader Muslim world who seek cooperation with a Jew-tolerating West. And it is useful in helping divide and weaken the West by demonstrating Jihadi power against a vulnerable Western-allied minority and by sowing internal division and discord and undermining Western resistance to Islamist penetration. Hamas leaders have stated on a number of occasions that the pursuit of Israel’s destruction is only a small part of the organization’s intent and that the ultimate end is Islamic domination of the entire world. If there were no Israel, Islamist anti-Semitism would still thrive. And, again, the Islamist hatred of Israel is in large part derived from the perception of the Jews as the weakest and most despised of peoples and their reestablishment of their national home in the middle of the Muslim world as the most intolerable insult to the proper order of things.
 
And the current anti-Semitism emanating from blacks on campuses and from some black groups and organizations derives even less from concerns about Israel and Zionism. If the key were genuinely, as the Black Lives Matter organization and its Congressional followers assert, about Palestinians being people of color and Israelis being white - itself an absurd distinction - then identification with Hamas would be more than countered by the reality of Hamas’s Middle East  and African Islamist allies being responsible for the death of literally millions of people of color, black Africans, and the enslavement of hundreds of thousands more, over the last half century - Christians and Muslims and followers of local religions. The anti-Israel animus would be more than countered by the reality that many of the black African nations victimized by Islamist terror have turned to Israel for help in fighting the onslaught.
 
A much more realistic appraisal of black anti-Semitism in recent decades is provided by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., again in his 1992 article: “But why target the Jews?... The answer requires us to go beyond the usual shibboleths about bigotry and view the matter, from the demagogues' perspective, strategically: as the bid of one black elite to supplant another... It requires us, in short, to see anti-Semitism as a weapon in the raging battle of who will speak for black America -- those who have sought common cause with others or those who preach a barricaded withdrawal into racial authenticity... The strategy of these apostles of hate, I believe, is best understood as ethnic isolationism: They know that the more isolated black America becomes, the greater their power... And what's the most efficient way to begin to sever black America from its allies? Bash the Jews, these demagogues apparently calculate, and you're halfway there... Many American Jews are puzzled by the recrudescence of black anti-Semitism, in view of the historic alliance between the two groups. The brutal truth has escaped them: that the new anti-Semitism arises not in spite of the black-Jewish alliance but because of that alliance.”
 
And so too for the Far Left, progressive/Marxist, wing of the red-green-black alliance, in academia and beyond, which has always targeted Jews as a way of advancing its class warfare agenda and weakening the societies it wants to overthrow. It is largely the anti-Semitism directed towards American Jews that is primary, the targeting of Israel secondary. 
 
And, of course, the anti-Semitism of the neo-Nazis and white supremacists is focused on American Jews with the objective of ridding the nation of Jews, rendering it Judenrein.
 
Many people are reluctant to look at this reality that the current epidemic of anti-Semitism in America is not, in fact, essentially derived from hatred of Israel.  In particular, there are many American Jews who identify with the left and are loathe to fully acknowledge the red-green-black alliance’s role in today’s anti-Semitism. They also prefer to believe, when obliged to acknowledge that role, that the primary target is Israel, that that somehow lessens the ugliness of the bigotry, and that, additionally, if they voice their own criticisms of Israel, they will be able to exempt themselves from being targeted by this Israel-related anti-Semitism. Within minority populations under siege, there are always segments that seek to delude themselves about the nature of the attack and about their own ability to assuage the attackers or at least deflect the onslaught away from themselves. But such self-delusions come at a price. If today’s plague of rampant anti-Semitism in America is to be effectively countered, its sources and its objectives - particularly the role and the aims of the red-green-black intersectionality alliance, American society’s most pervasive and mainstreamed font of anti-Semitism - must be honestly acknowledged and forcefully challenged and fought. 

 

Kenneth Levin is a psychiatrist and historian and author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People under Siege.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/intersectionality-and-american-anti-semitism-kenneth-levin/

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