Everyone is doing it
One
might think that 2019 was the year war was declared against anti-Semitism
judging from the pronouncements of politicians in Washington, London, Paris and
Berlin. To be sure, Israel and its diaspora friends have continued to play the
“anti-Semitism” card whenever their behavior is challenged but the international
passion to extirpate the “new anti-Semitism” to include any and all criticism
of Israel is something quite special that is being backed up by punitive
legislation.
In
one of its more recent victory laps, British Zionists are toasting Mazel Tov in
their Hanukkah celebrations over their part in the defeat
of Labour candidate Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn was demonized personally by the
British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis shortly before the December election and was
unfairly labeled an anti-Semite by the Jewish media over his antipathy towards
Israeli actions and his willingness to recognize the suffering of the
Palestinians. From now on, no British politician will be willing to challenge
Jewish power in the U.K. Indeed, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who claims some Jewish ancestry and spent some time
in his youth on a kibbutz, has already pledged to make any criticism of Israel
illegal in Britain. Moving the British Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will
no doubt soon follow.
Meanwhile,
and as a direct result of the unwillingness to confront Israel in any
meaningful way, war crimes committed by the Jewish state proliferate. Every
Friday there is a shooting gallery along the fence with Gaza, where unarmed
Palestinian protesters are targeted by Israeli snipers. And in November, Israel
conducted a series of air strikes on the Gaza Strip after its assassination of
a senior Islamic Jihad commander and his wife. At least 34 Palestinians were reported killed and more than
100 wounded in the two days of bombardment while no Israelis were killed. An attack on the makeshift home of the al-Sawarka family killed
eight members of the family, including children. A week later, a ninth member of the family, Mohammed al-Sawarka, died
from from his injuries.
The
Israeli army carried out a perfunctory investigation of the deaths and concluded that that the army’s intelligence section
had made a mapping mistake that included the family home as part of an Islamic
Jihad “compound.” So a filing error led to the deaths of nine innocent
civilians in one family and, of course, no one in the Israeli military was in
any way punished or even reprimanded. Or even apologized.
And
when it is pushed to do so, Israel uses the anti-Semitism weapon to render
itself completely unaccountable in spite of its war crimes. The recent
announcement by the International Criminal Court (ICC) that it is looking into
possible crimes relating to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has
produced a quick response from Washington and Jerusalem. The Trump
Administration, fearful lest one crime lead to investigation of another, is
concerned lest atrocities committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq
become the fodder for a subsequent inquiry, has reiterated its claim that the ICC has no jurisdiction
over it as the U.S. has never recognized its authority. Washington has also
revoked a visa held by chief prosecutor of the ICC, has threatened more visa
refusals, and is also threatening sanctions as reprisals, claiming that the
court is “illegitimate” while also vowing that the Trump Administration would
do everything “to protect [American] citizens”.
In
Israel meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to shore up his
sputtering attempt to remain in office by denouncing the inquiry itself as “anti-Semitism.” He
made the claim while using Judaism’s holy Western Wall as a backdrop during a
candle-lighting ceremony marking the start of the eight-days of Hanukkah,
saying “New edicts are being cast against the Jewish people – anti-Semitic
edicts by the International Criminal Court telling us that we, the Jews
standing here next to this wall … in this city, in this country, have no right
to live here and that by doing so, we are committing a war crime.” He called it
“Pure anti-Semitism.”
Back
in the United States the war on anti-Semitism initiated by President Donald
Trump and endorsed by both parties in Congress is running full speed ahead.
The first lawsuit linked to the Trump executive order
signed on Hanukkah that creates a mechanism for defunding universities that do
not protect the “civil rights” of their Jewish students has been filed by a
Israeli student at Columbia University. His lawyer Brooke Goldstein claims
that the university is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
for “discrimination against Jews.” He added that “We drafted and filed a
complaint with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which is, to my knowledge, the
first action of its kind since Trump’s executive order.”
Goldstein
is the executive director of The Lawfare Project, which has been engaged in
Jewish and Israeli advocacy. Her client, Jonathan Karten, a senior at Columbia
University, alleges that he was on the receiving end of anti-Semitism on
campus. The Trump executive order broadens the definition of discrimination by
implying that “Jewish” is a nationality while also accepting that criticism of
Israel constitutes anti-Semitism.
Goldstein
claims that Karten “has been ridiculed and embarrassed because of his religion
and his national identity” on campus, most particularly by members of the
group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Karten
claims that he was called “a Zionist pig” and other names. And Karten complains
that even a professor was mean to him when he was speaking with other students
at an event hosted by the Columbia chapter of Students Supporting Israel.
A “Columbia professor of Arabic literature…interrupted the conversation,
pointed at Jonathan and yelled, ‘Don’t believe a word he is saying. He is
Mossad.’” According to the complaint, “Jonathan felt ridiculed and embarrassed
due to someone in authority publicly targeting him, accusing him of being a spy
for a foreign government because of his religion and national identity.”
Karten
decided to take action after a November 8th speech
by a modern Arab politics and intellectual history professor named Joseph
Massad. Massad reportedly gave a speech at the annual conference of the
Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center, where he said that “The Oslo Accords
inaugurated this process of liquidating the Palestinian national struggle while
the ‘Deal of the Century’ plans and hopes to conclude it … The only thing
standing in its way is the ongoing Palestinian resistance to Israeli settler
colonialism and racism that continues inside Israel and Jerusalem, the West
Bank and Gaza; the ongoing Marches of Return in Gaza; and the armed resistance
of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades to Israeli invasions in Gaza.”
The
complaint notes that “The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades is the military wing of
Hamas, which is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization [FTO]” while
the “Izz al-Din al-Qassam has killed more than 650 civilians. It is also
directly responsible for the kidnapping and brutal murder of Jonathan’s uncle,
Sharone Edri. However, according to Professor Massad, this group’s killing of
innocent Israeli citizens, like Jonathan’s uncle and countless others, is
justified due to Israel’s ‘settler colonialism.’”
Karten
and Goldstein maintain that their complaints fell on deaf ears within the
Columbia University Administration. Karten had filed a complaint with Columbia
University’s Department of Public Safety last year “…after he and his friends
were repeatedly called murderers at a BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] referendum at
the school.”
One
might observe that Professor Massad did not say anything that is contrary to a
reasonable assessment of what the Israelis and their friends have done to the
Palestinians. Under international law, it is perfectly justified for a people
under occupation to resist the occupiers, using whatever means are available.
And it is not unimaginable that Karten reports to Mossad. One presumes that he
has done his military service and perhaps he should explain what that entailed
in light of claims that he was or is a “murderer.”
Jonathan
Karten appears to be such a sensitive soul that being called names over what is
admittedly a red-hot and very controversial political issue needs to be
redressed by putting those hurling the epithets out of business permanently.
That amounts to a nullification of the First and Fourth amendments to the
Constitution of the United States, which guarantees freedom of speech and
association. Karten himself felt free to associate with a group of Students Supporting
Israel and one might safely bet that some serious invective would flow out of
that organization whenever a Palestinian might appear at or near one of its
gatherings. And most importantly, one should also note that Karten was not by
his own admission in any way threatened. It was only words.
And
lawyer Goldstein is not necessarily an objective observer pursuing “justice.”
She is nothing more than a professional advocate for Israel and what are
perceived as Jewish issues. As it is somewhat unclear what exactly she and her
client want the university to do to address the issues they have cited, one can
only guess that it would include silencing the critics and possibly even reparations of some kind, a frequent
feature in the old “discrimination” game.
None
of this agitation occurs in a vacuum. There is extensive advocacy for Israel at
all levels, much of it hidden. In 2019 alone the Sheldon Adelson supported
Maccabee Task Force “secretly funded over 3,200 pro-Israel events on 112
campuses, and brought over 2,300 student leaders on ‘transformative trips’ to
Israel.” Taken all together, every bit of uncritical empowering of the Jewish
state now surfacing in London, Washington, New York and in Israel itself is
part of a vast international conspiracy to render the Zionist crimes against
humanity unobserved and unreported whenever possible as well as always
unaccountable. And when all else fails, the Israelis and, to be sure, many
diaspora Jews know exactly what to weaponize when they want to win the debate.
Former Israeli Minister Shulamit Aloni once explained how
it is done: “Anti-Semitic”…”it’s a trick, we always use it.”
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is
Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax
deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157,
Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.