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How to Fight Anti-Israel Lies in a Post-Truth World
400 descendants of Holocaust survivor Shoshana Ovitz gather at the Western Wall to celebrate her 104th birthday. Photo: Twitter screenshot.
Shortly after the events of October 7, when Hamas attacked, killed, raped, and mutilated 1200 Israelis in southern Israel, including babies, a graduate student at my university in Canada (I am retired, but still receive university email), sent a message to our president and senior administrators. The message, forwarded to others in the university community, lamented the suffering of Palestinians and claimed that the accusations and videos of murder and rape by Hamas were not true; they were creations by Israel using AI.
Remember, this was well before the full force of the Israeli response to the Hamas massacre.
I thought of this incredible example of blindness to the truth when I read a recent New York Times article on the limits of moralism in the Middle East by Ross Douthat.
Douthat questions the Israeli government’s decisions, both before and after October 7, but he is especially critical of the pro-Hamas campus protestors for not seeing the truth of Hamas’ rule in Gaza, and for being comfortable in supporting a revolutionary struggle led by Islamist fanatics.
I thought of this blindness again when I read another recent article that makes the same point in the Times of Israel, based on an interview with Salmon Rushdie by the German tabloid newspaper Bild. In referring to the protesters’ demand to liberate Palestine, Rushdie finds it strange that progressive youth would support a fascist terrorist group like Hamas. He adds that although he has long been a supporter of a Palestinian state, it would likely become an authoritarian Islamist regime like Afghanistan.
In fact, Hamas’16 year rule over Gaza has shown the terror group to be against all progressive societal norms, including a free press, gender equality, LGBQT+ rights, and free democratic elections. On the other hand, the latest Economist Magazine Democracy Index 2023 (eiu.com) clearly indicates that Israel is still the only democracy in the Middle East.
Established in 2006, the annual Democracy Index includes 60 numeric scores measuring electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Countries are categorized as one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes.
The first Index listed Israel as a flawed democracy with a ranking of 47, while the US, a full democracy, ranked 17. Over the years, the ranking for the US has gone down, while that for Israel has gone up, in spite of periodic wars and existential threats. (Israel’s score was highest in 2021, at the time of the Bennet-Lapid government when, for the first time, an Israeli Arab party participated in the governing coalition. It has gone down somewhat since then because of efforts by the current government to curtail the power of the judiciary.)
For 2023, only 24 countries are full democracies, 50 are flawed democracies, 34 are hybrid regimes, and 49 are authoritarian regimes. Both the US and Israel are at the upper end of the flawed democracy range, the US ranking 29 and Israel 30.
Of the 20 countries listed for the Middle East and North Africa for 2023, only Israel is a democracy. Morocco and Tunisia are hybrid regimes while the rest are authoritarian. Turkey is a hybrid regime, “Palestine” has an authoritarian ranking, while authoritarian Saudi Arabia is number 150 and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is last at 167.
That the two million Israeli Arabs (20 percent of Israel’s population) participate fully in Israel’s electoral process does not matter when it comes to labeling Israel an apartheid regime, for we live in a post-truth world in which lies are easy to disseminate with the help of the Internet and social media.
Instead of lauding Zionism as the decolonizing effort of an oppressed indigenous people, the Jews (who have always lived in the Holy Land) are colonialists. Instead of recognizing that more than half of Israeli Jews stem from Jewish refugees forced out of Muslim countries, all Jews in Israel are Europeans. Instead of sanctioning Hamas for the genocidal organization that it openly and proudly claims to be, Israel is accused of genocide when it defends itself.
Whether in relation to the blood libel, or the fabricated Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or any one of a number of imagined conspiracies, lies have been the heart of antisemitism through the centuries. Today the technology used may be different, but the lying continues.
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, who taught at the University of Waterloo.
The post How to Fight Anti-Israel Lies in a Post-Truth World first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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