Emmy Rubin, a Jewish student at McGill University, long dreamed of becoming a television comedy writer. But recent events turned her focus toward journalism instead. “After Oct. 7, comedy TV […]

The post Jewish student journalists are often sidelined for pro-Israel views—but they can make their own media too appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

Egyptian trucks carrying humanitarian aid make their way to the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Israel, May 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The mainstreaming of the propaganda that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza is seemingly everywhere on the political, media, and academic spectra. The loud chorus of pro-Hamas demonstrators, who began this circus of hatred, have friends in high places.

Hardly a day passes without the charge of genocide against Israel being leveled by this foreign minister or that UN official, by media pundits and “strategic affairs experts,” or by a range of professors on hundreds of campuses. Now, even the Pope is suggesting that genocide charges should be “carefully investigated.” South Africa is doing the bidding of Hamas and its friends and supporters by bringing the charge to the International Court of Justice.

Beyond the mindless chatter of fellow travelers of the Palestinian narrative, the intention of Hamas and its Iranian handlers is clear: be loud and consistent enough to flip the switch on Israel by making it the victimizer, and not the Oct. 7 victim. Say it enough times and the general public, students at universities, leftist organizations of all stripes, and others will join the ranks — all the better to conceal the actual genocidal intentions of Hamas, the terrorist organization backed by Tehran.

Earlier this month, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported on a powerful response to the blood libelers: in one week, 231 Gazans were evacuated to Israel’s Ramon International Airport, near Eilat, to board flights to the United Arab Emirates for medical treatment.

Among the evacuees were children and adults with chronic diseases. Several countries are now involved in this program.

The easiest, and most logical response to the genocide charge is to state what should be obvious: if Israel were seeking to commit genocide, it would have deployed its Air Force to do so. My guess is that in two or three days, that goal would have been accomplished. But Israel has not committed genocide, nor does it intend to. Israel does not commit genocide.

And “intent” is the key word, which is included in the UN’s own definition of genocide. There is no wish to destroy, or to use another frequently used charge, “ethnically cleanse,” Gaza or the West Bank. The objective is to eliminate Hamas as the actual genocidal enemy it is. Hamas’ venal war objective is to cause as many Palestinian civilian casualties as possible by using its own people as human shields. Many are surely there under the penalty of death by Hamas itself.

Raphael Lemkin, an international lawyer specializing in human rights, coined the term “genocide.” He was born in Poland and lucky enough to make it to the United States before the Holocaust. Lemkin lost 49 family members in the Holocaust. He labored for years to bring about an international convention on genocide, knocking on doors and lobbying incessantly to have the UN adopt such a document.

Journalist Ira Stoll, writing in The Algemeiner, broke a vitally important story last week on how an anti-Israel group, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, has appropriated the name and is now, among other things, calling for the indictment of Israel’s prime minister “for the crime of genocide” and “expressions of genocidal intent.”

Stoll interviewed members of Lemkin’s family, who are outraged over the institute’s charges against the Jewish State, and the cynical misuse of Lemkin’s name to achieve its objectives.

Beyond that, the basic answers to the genocide charge remain the same: the Israel Defense Forces’ use of text messages, e-mails, personal phone calls, leafleting, and the “knock on the roof” explosives to warn civilians to leave a building or neighborhood, in advance of military action is, according to a report issued after Oct. 7 by the Lieber Institute at West Point, “the gold standard” of warnings practice.

The report states: “…as a matter of policy, the IDF typically exceeds what the law requires.”

The Lieber Institute report echoes what West Point’s Chair of Urban Warfare Studies, John Spencer, has been saying from day one. It was Spencer who early on, called out those who promote inflated and unsubstantiated Gaza (Hamas) Health Ministry figures on civilian casualties in the war in Gaza.

Spencer, acknowledged as perhaps the world’s leading authority on urban warfare, has said from the outset: “Under no definition is Israel committing genocide.” He’s further stated, “…there is no targeting of civilians.” Indeed, the West Point expert, now lecturing on the topic in the public sphere, titles his talks: “The Myth of Genocide in Gaza.”

No doubt, the IDF’s exemplary efforts to warn civilians have led to its loss of the element of surprise on many occasions. Last month, I met a former IDF military judge and prosecutor, and we discussed the issue. He has been “in the room” when split-second decisions needed to be made whether or not to carry out a military strike on terrorists, if harm to civilians might be a consequence of military action. He confirmed the “abort” option that is often used when non-combatants might be unintended victims.

Yet, the genocide blood libel persists — and grows. As do its companion charges, that famine, starvation, and thirst among Gazans is widespread. Each time the issue is raised, it seems, Israel needs to bring out the charts and tables to show that hundreds of relief trucks carrying aid are entering Gaza, but that Hamas corruption — and especially, its heavy skimming of goods intended for civilians, often at the point of a gun — invariably winds up diverting the assistance away from the civilian population.

Indeed, many thought this issue had been dealt with months ago on two tracks. The Famine Review Committee (an international organization comprised of nutrition and food experts), after having first suggested that a famine was “imminent” in Gaza, later said that the charge was “not plausible.” And the chief economist of the UN’s World Food Program, Arif Husain, also reversed himself, saying simply that there was no data to support the famine allegation.

So we are left with the facts. Israel and the IDF have borne the brunt of a modern-day blood libel punctuated and trumpeted by diplomats, news analysts, ideologically myopic academics, and social media users, 24/7.

Ferrying your enemy’s sick — in the midst of an existential war — to receive medical attention in friendly countries ought to be commended by peace-loving people everywhere.

It is not, and that is an unforgivable shame.

Daniel S. Mariaschin is the CEO of B’nai B’rith International. As the organization’s top executive officer, Mariaschin directs and supervises B’nai B’rith programs, activities and staff around the world.

The post Answering the Genocide Charges: The World Is Not Listening first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

US Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US, Aug. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Erica Dischino

The New York Times — in two opinion pieces, a news article, and a top-of-the-front-page Sunday headline — falsely blamed Israel and the Gaza war for Kamala Harris and the Democrats losing the 2024 US elections.

The lead news article in the print edition of the Times on the Sunday after the Nov. 5 election carried the headline “Democrats Sift Through Rubble. Seeking Answers/Assigning the Blame/Pointing to the War in Gaza, Misinformation, and Identity Politics.” Online, the subheadline said, “In interviews, lawmakers and strategists tried to explain Kamala Harris’s defeat, pointing to misinformation, the Gaza war, a toxic Democratic brand, and the party’s approach to transgender issues.”

The Times reported that “lawmakers, strategists, and officials” who the newspaper interviewed “conceded that Ms. Harris had paid a price for not breaking from Mr. Biden’s support of Israel in the war in Gaza, which angered Arab American voters in Michigan.”

A photo cutline in the same article reported, “Ms. Harris faced anger from voters over the Biden administration’s support of Israel in the war in Gaza.”

In case any Times readers missed the point on the front page, the newspaper reiterated it on the opinion pages. Peter Beinart, a Jew who in 2020 renounced Zionism, wrote a piece for the Times complaining about what he called “Israel’s slaughter and starvation of Palestinians,” asserting, “The outrage has been particularly intense among Black Americans and the young.” The Beinart article was headlined “Democrats Ignored Gaza and Brought Down Their Party.”

And in case the point hadn’t been made sufficiently with the combination of the Beinart article and the front-page headline and news article, a second opinion article, this one by Ben Rhodes, a former aide to President Barack Obama, explained the Democratic Party’s losses partly on the grounds that “as a party committed to American leadership of a ‘rules-based international order,’ we defended a national security enterprise that has failed repeatedly in the 21st century, and made ourselves hypocrites through unconditional military support for Israel’s bombardment of civilians in Gaza.”

Not one of the three Times articles reckoned with the reality that President-elect Donald Trump also gained with pro-Israel voters who were angry that the Biden-Harris administration withheld some arms shipments to Israel. Nor, for all the talk about the supposed importance of Arab voters in Michigan, did the Times adequately explain how, if this was all about Israel and Arab voters, Harris managed to lose all the other swing states, too.

As The Algemeiner reported, a survey of swing voters by Blueprint, a Democrat-leaning research firm, found the issue of Israel and the Palestinians barely registered as motivation for choosing Trump over Harris. Voters were more worried about inflation, immigration, even transgender issues. Among those voters for whom it was a factor, the survey found more people concerned that Harris was too “pro-Palestine” than those upset she was too “pro-Israel.”

On social media, some prominent voices rejected the Times theory. “Disregarding all the exit polls in order to retroactively scapegoat the Jewish state for the D’s actual defeat is just as dangerous and indefensible as proactively scapegoating the Jewish voter for the R’s potential loss. Why does @NYTimes publish such ridiculous nonsense?” asked Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

A Democratic member of the US Congress from New York, Ritchie Torres, said the black voters who Beinart was writing about cared more about inflation than anything happening in the Middle East.

“Beware of white progressives who project their own ideological biases onto working-class communities of color,” Torres wrote. “Here’s the ground-level truth. If you’re a young man of color struggling to pay your rent, put food on the table, and keep your family afloat, the furthest issue on your mind is a conflict 5,000 miles away. The existential issue for you is inflation. The crippling cost of living is the cause of your discontent. Anyone claiming otherwise is representing their own ideological imagination rather than reality.”

“The far left seems to have a simple rule of scapegoating: When in doubt, blame Israel,” Torres added.

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

The post ‘Ridiculous Nonsense’: New York Times Scapegoats Israel for Kamala Harris Election Loss first appeared on Algemeiner.com.