Claims of "non-violence"

Sar Shalom

BDS-holes invariably sell their agenda as being a "non-violent" attempt to persuade Israel to uphold "international law." While it is true that implementing boycotts is not a violent act, that does not mean that doing so is peaceful. There is an act in federal law that makes this point. The current issue of Foreign Affairs, has a group of essays about the role of nuclear weapons, one of which deals with the potential for nuclear conflict with China. One potential flashpoint in Taiwan, for which American policy is governed by the Taiwan Relations Act which states in part:

[The United States will] consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific are and of grave concern to the United States.

This does not provide anything about the validity, or lack thereof, of why "justice" requires boycotting Israel. However, it does firmly place boycotts in the category of "other than peaceful means" and "threat to peace and security."

I despise illegal immigration.

Michael Lumish

My father's side, from the Ukraine, sought legal access into the US during the 1920s, following the pogroms, and were denied.

My grandfather, Beryl, and his wife, Sarah, along with my father, Harry -- who was a baby -- went to Argentina where Beryl died. Shortly thereafter the paperwork came through from the US and Sarah and Harry made their way through Ellis Island.

They had nothing, but they did it legally.

She actually scrubbed floors at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn, where my father was housed, for a period of time until they got on their feet.

He spent one year studying accounting at St. John's College before he got drafted and sent off to the central Pacific during World War II.

Kwajalein, the Marshall Islands, and Anaweitok.

He was a 135 pound corporal with a rifle slung over his shoulder who slept in a foxhole and endured sniper fire.

When the war ended he returned to Brooklyn, met my mom, finished his education, became an accountant and raised a family.

How to explain JStreet to a liberal

Sar Shalom

At every opportunity, JStreet describes itself a "pro-Israel, pro-peace," as though saying the words "pro-Israel" was a get out of defaming Israel free card. Unfortunately, many liberals accept JStreet's self-proclaimed description of being "pro-Israel," thus including JStreet's prescriptions within the legitimate realm of discussion of Israel's options. Aside from the standard approach of pointing out that JStreet virtually never defends Israel against clear libels, I would like to suggest a parallel approach directed specifically at liberals.

During the runup to the recent midterm elections, Republicans began to realize the salience of health care to the electorate and responded by describing their health care priorities as preserving protections for those with pre-existing conditions. No matter what is presented about Republican lawsuits to overturn those protections that exist currently under the ACA or description of the costs that their proposals would impose on those with pre-existing conditions, their response is always that they will protect policy-holders with pre-existing conditions. If one accepts the logic that JStreet's description of themselves as pro-Israel removes any doubt as to their being pro-Israel, then one must also accept the Republicans' claims to be acting in defense of protections for pre-existing conditions removes any doubt as to their dedication to those protections. Are liberals prepared to accept that conclusion?

I cannot seem to get enough of this one

Michael Lumish

She is so beautiful and the song just speaks to my heart.

Consider it an open thread.

This Week on Nothing Left

Michael Lumish

This week Michael Burd and Alan Freedman chat live with USA blogger Michael Lumish on the west coast of America about the recent mid-term election, and then hear an interview recorded by AJA president David Adler with Senator Pauline Hanson who says all the right things about Israel and Jewish community.

Simon Plosker from Honest Reporting brings us up to date with their attention on the New Zealand media, and Isi Leibler in Jerusalem also gives us his views on the mid-term election.

2 min Editorial:  Bourke St terror attack

11 min Michael Lumish, American blogger on mid-term election

32  min David Adler (AJA) interviewing Sen Pauline Hanson

52 min Simon Plosker, Honest Reporting

1 hr 27     Isi Leibler in Jerusalem

Responding to Einat Wilf

Sar Shalom

A common refrain from Einat Wilf, covered in several outlets, is that peace requires not constructive ambiguity, but constructive clarity. Specifically, Wilf calls for the West to state forthrightly that it will not tolerate calls for the "right of return" and the Israel must realize that the settlements cannot stay forever. This formulation has one good part, one problematic part, and an attendant part that makes an important point but needs development.

First the good part. Wilf recognizes that the so called right of return, which she refers to as "so called," is fundamentally incompatible with a peaceful settlement and calls out the western intelligentsia who coddle the PNM's insistence on it under the delusion that they will eventually back off. The reality is that the effect, even though I'm not aware of Wilf stating it explicitly anywhere, of implementing the "right of return" is that "two-states" would become an Arab state and a binational state, leaving no Jewish state.

The problematic part is how Wilf characterizes the settlements. Wilf draws a moral equivalence between the "right of return"and the settlements by describing the push for "right of return" as angling for Palestinian rights on every square inch and the settlements as angling for Israeli rights on every square inch. However, that comparison does not hold up. While one could find elements within the settler movement who would push to extend Israeli rights to "every square inch," not every settlement in and of itself does so. Even if every existing settlement were retained, including the corridors that connect them to each other and as a whole to west of the Green Line, the result would not be no State of Palestine, but a smaller State of Palestine. It is entirely reasonable that the eventual State of Palestine should be larger as opposed to smaller. However, it is not reasonable to describe the debate about the size of the eventual State of Palestine as one of whether or not there should one day be a State of Palestine.

That is the difference between allowing the settlements, or some subset of them, to remain permanently and implementing the "right of return." Whereas the settlements are a quantitative issue of how much territory any future State of Palestine may control, the "right of return" is a qualitative issue of whether Israel will remain a Jewish state or become a binational state, a euphemism for disappearing by demographic inversion.

Ancillary to the paired issue of "right of return" and the settlements, Wilf responds to the assertion that Arafat's signing of the Oslo Accords shows that the PNM is no longer interesting in Israel's destruction and that it is so obvious that such a belief is a fantasy that they must realize it is a fantasy even if they had such an interest. Wilf forthrightly says that this is not the case and compares it to the Muslim world's playing the long game during the time of the Crusades. However, Wilf, aside from citing the precedent of the Crusades which is important in its own right, doesn't fully develop a reason why one should believe that the PNM is seeking a Saladin moment. Wilf does cite the PNM's denial of the Jews' peoplehood and of the Jewish people's connection to the Land of Israel, both widely disseminated in Palestinian society. She further describes how these myths are critical to arguing that justice would not be offended by eliminating Israel. However, there is more that could show that the recognition of Israel at Oslo was a bald faced lie.

The response to the claim that Arafat's statements when signing the Oslo Accords demonstrate that the PNM has abandoned its ambition to eradicate Israel is that drawing that inference is a logical fallacy. The fallacy is that while the PNM abandoning its ambition to eradicate Israel would lead it to recognize Israel as Arafat did in Oslo, abandoning that ambition is the only possible impetus for doing so. Another impetus that would have a similar result is realizing that they will never have the ability to eradicate Israel without western and fifth-column help and that such forces would never openly support that objective. Therefore, they strategically decided to pay lip service to recognizing Israel and restricted their west-spoken ambitions to "reasonable" demands that the west would support, but which would put them in a position from which they could eradicate Israel on their own.

With no further information, Occam's razor would dictate accepting that the PNM no longer seeks Israel's destruction, possibly even deeming the alternative hypothesis a conspiracy theory. However, there is further information. For starters, on the night after signing the Oslo Accords, Arafat broadcast a message to the Palestinian people that doing so was part of the Phased Plan for Israel's destruction. Furthermore, for Arab and Muslim audiences, Arafat never described the Accords as a needed compromise to balance the legitimate aspirations of two different peoples, but as following in the tradition of the Treaty of Hudaibiya. This further information is part of what we should observe if the alternative hypothesis were true that should be unexpected if the recognition at Oslo was genuine.

As to the PNM's belief in the feasibility of eradicating Israel, the "right of return" would achieve it and Fatah seems to be working towards that end. However, they are stuck in that the west so far will not directly accede to that demand. What the west will do is continue to demand that a Palestinian state come to fruition, with the urgency of such statehood becoming greater the more the Palestinian people "suffer," while Fatah refuses any statehood offer that excludes the "right of return," hence the refusal of Olmert's offer. Fatah thinks that diplomatic pressure from official western channels, augmented with the civil forces of the BDS movement will eventually force Israel to capitulate.

A conclusive demonstration that this strategy will not succeed, such as a declaration that all support for the Palestinians will terminate until the call for the "right of return" is abandoned, may induce Fatah to give up on eradicating Israel or it may have no effect other than to induce Fatah to seek a new strategy to eradicate Israel. However, as long as the west continues to play its part in this strategy, Fatah will believe it is viable and continue to pursue it. The ball is in the west's court.

I will be speaking to the guys at Nothing Left on Melbourne's J-AIR today

I am going on the radio today at around 2:15 Pacific Standard Time to talk with Michael Burd and Alan Freedman of mighty J-AIR out of Melbourne, Australia.

Their show is called Nothing Left and I keep telling them, "Well, guys, I actually come out of the western "progressive" left.

At this point, they do not really believe it and hardly does anyone else!

This is because I constantly criticize the American-Left for its creating a home for antisemitic anti-Zionism and for its remarkably racist hypocrisy.

{This makes cocktail parties in San Francisco nothing but fun, by the way!}

They will ask me about the American mid-term elections and the rise of the antisemitic Left.

I guess that we will talk a bit about my friends Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), Ilan Omar (Minnesota), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from my families old stomping-grounds in the Bronx and Queens.

Hopefully we will also get to the larger issues, beyond these specific individuals, including Linda Sarsour and everyone's favorite racist, out of the Nation of Islam, Louis X (Farrakhan).

I think that these national political individuals should be placed within the context of the rise of "democratic socialism" and Bernie Sanders and, most importantly, intersectionality theory.

https://j-air.com.au/nothing-left/

Pittsburgh

We are all coming off of Pittsburgh. That was the worst massacre of Jewish people in American history and, apparently, it came from a right-wing maniac.

The distinction that I would make between the American Right and the American Left is that today the Left has institutionalized antisemitic anti-Zionism, while the Right, from a historical viewpoint, formally disavowed it in the pages of William Buckley's National Review decades ago.

The hardest problems that Jewish people, both diaspora and Israeli, receive does not come from the western-right. It comes from the western-left which believes Jewish Israelis are not decent and humane to the much larger Arab and Muslim population in their region.

They honestly tend to believe that Jews in the Middle East are oppressive to "Palestinian" Arabs despite the very obvious fact that Israeli Arabs have greater civil rights in Israel than do Arabs anywhere else in the conquered Arab Middle East.

What never fails to amaze me is the ignorance and malice of well-meaning people of European descent who think of themselves as "liberals" when they are not even close to being liberal. Most of them do not have the slightest clue what the word "liberal" even means.

And, yet, they still spit in our face and call us racist and fascist.

Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre Aftermath

Mr. Cohen

Even after the Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre, Jews are still not granted Victim Status according to the rules of Political Correctness.

I strongly suspect that Jews will NEVER be granted Victim Status according to the rules of Political Correctness, regardless of how much they suffer.

According to the rules of Political Correctness, Black Lives Matter, but Jewish lives do not matter, and I strongly suspect that they never will matter.

 Muslims and African Americans have both been granted Victim Status by the Leftist Political Correctness people, even though both of those groups include high percentages of people who hate Jews.

 A related problem, which has become so completely normalized that most people do not even consider it to be a problem, is that Muslims and African Americans both get a free pass for their anti-Jewish-hatred, and not just a regular free pass, but an unlimited free pass. Louis Farrakhan and his Nation Of Islam organization have used that unlimited free pass to constantly propagandize against Jews, which has resulted in many millions of people believing that Jews are [or were] responsible for slavery, which is false.

 Since the year 2000, thousands of Jews have fled from Europe, because of rapidly increasing anti-Semitism, including beatings and even killings. Thousands more Jews are seriously considering fleeing Europe, for the same reasons. This might not sound like a large number of people, but when you consider how few Jews live in Europe, it is a significant percentage of Jews.

Even with thousands of Jews fleeing from Europe, because of anti-Jewish violence, the so-called Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) still have not granted Victim Status to Jews.

Even with Europeans Jews under attack from both European right-wing Nationalists and Muslim immigrants, the Social Justice Warriors and Leftists consider Jews to be unworthy of Victim Status.

In the 1990s, a Moroccan Jew told me that fled from France because he could not cope with the anti-Semitism there at that time, which was much-less-severe than the anti-Semitism that exists there now. That Moroccan Jew was one of the biggest and strongest Jews I ever met, and he was also a Black Belt – yet even he was unable to cope with the anti-Semitism in France in the 1990s, which has become much worse since then.

If the Political Correctness people and Social Justice Warriors really believed in Social Justice, then they would grant Victim Status to Jews, because Jews are the most-persecuted people in World History. To deny that Jews are worthy of Victim Status indicates that the Political Correctness people and SJWs have a problem with Jews.

Democrats and Jews (Part 2)

Michael Lumish

{Also published at Jews Down Under.}

Candace Owens

In my recent piece, Democrats and Jews, I asked the following question:

Why is it that of all the minority constituencies of the Democratic Party only the Jewish minority is thought to be morally obligated to sacrifice the well-being of their own children in deference to that party and in deference to progressive-left ideology?

Among the email responses that I received one, in particular, caught my attention.

It essentially said:

Lumish, what the hell are you talking about? What about the American Black population? What about the unrequited sacrifices that Black Americans have made for the Democratic Party? Black people got screwed.

It is not particularly difficult for me to speak to the toxic issues between the western-left and its Jewish constituency. I grew up with it. I know it in my bones. I was a Democrat for 25 years. I understand how and why American Jews fought so hard for the Democratic Party throughout the twentieth-century. It could not be more obvious. But this also means that I am aware of the racist Democratic Party flaws that have become poisonous fissures eroding Jewish trust.

It is, however, much more difficult for me to say anything concerning the Black American experience with the Party. Polling shows that Donald Trump -- much to everyone's astonishment -- has increased his favorability rating among Black Americans. If this is true it is a terrible blow to the Hillary Clinton Basket-of-Deplorables wing of the Democratic Party.

It is a blow to those who stand up with great moral indignation against "white" people -- particularly those of the male variety -- and "Zionists."

It seems fairly obvious that part of the reason that Trump beat Hillary was due to her insistence on divisive and poisonous "identity politics." This never-ending screaming against "white" people -- whoever they are supposed to be, exactly -- as exemplified by MTV's racist 2017 New Years Resolutions for White Guys -- is corrosive to the Democratic Party.

{I like to highlight this kind of thing because I suspect it drove many young "white guys" directly into the arms of Donald Trump and may very well do so again, shortly.}

This "progressive" inclination inevitably pitted Hillary Clinton against American workers of European descent. Hillary's failure in the previous presidential election to castigate "white" men thus opened a space for Black conservatives such as Kanye West and Candace Owens who oppose "intersectionality" theory and, therefore, favor a Martin Luther King, Jr. approach to American ethnic relations.

Owens is interesting because she is a young, beautiful, balls-to-the-wall, Black American Trump supporter.

You do not come across such people every day.

Wikipedia tells us:

Candace Owens (born April 29, 1989) is an American conservative commentator and political activist. She is known for her pro-Trump stance and her criticism of Black Lives Matter and of the Democratic Party. She is the Director of Communications at the conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA.

She is, to my mind, almost as interesting as Ryan Bellerose.

Bellerose, as I am sure many of you know, is a Métis American-football-playing, indigenous rights activist and pro-Jewish activist from northern Manitoba who will teach you the laws of physics in a New York Minute if you cross certain lines... God bless the guy. Owens is a tough, young, smart, Black woman who resents Democratic Party political dominance over her people because she does not see where the Party has done her people any good.

I know how she feels.

So, the question that my interrogator asked was how can I believe that the Jews are the only ethnic minority thought to be morally obligated to sacrifice the well-being of their own children in deference to the ideology or the Party?

Owens is the sort-of young, hip, analyst that equates Democratic Party dominance over Black people to a "plantation."  I would never go so far, but it is not up to me to say.

Owens came up quickly and I think that it is fair to suggest that she is among the Black leadership who are walking away.

I first became aware of her through Dave Rubin.

The Rubin Report provides a venue for the New Center and liberals such as Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris.

So, are the Democrats only stomping on the heads of Jews?

Perhaps not.