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Wikipedia’s Serious Problem: Bias Against Israel
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
The report that Wikipedia’s volunteer editors are labeling the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an unreliable source of information on certain topics — including antisemitism related to Israel and Zionism — is a much more serious problem than an attack on a particular institution. Instead, it speaks to how much the bias against Israel and the indifference to antisemitism has spread to other organizations and informational platforms in this country.
There are those in the Jewish community who go so far as to claim that any criticism of Israel is really a cover for antisemitism. This is absurd. Israel is a country like any other, and its policies are subject to criticism, and even condemnation, as we see taking place within the country itself. Serious people, including those at ADL, reject outright the idea that Israel is beyond criticism, and that when criticism of Israel appears, it is a manifestation of antisemitism.
On the other hand, equally absurd — but much more dangerous because it is accepted in certain mainstream institutions — is the notion that any form of criticism of Israel can never be classified as antisemitism. This is a dangerous and misinformed idea, which underlies the spread of hate that we have witnessed since October 7. The most extreme manifestation of this was the rationalization or outright denial of the barbaric Hamas massacre of October 7. This attack — the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — was supposedly framed in terms of legitimate resistance to Israeli policies. In other words, nothing Israel could do to defend itself is defensible.
While the distortion embodied in these justifications for the murder of 1,200 Israelis, the rape of scores of women, the taking of more than 200 hostages is so obvious, it wasn’t the most perilous form. Even a person with hostile views toward the Jewish State could see through the immorality of justifying one of the worst acts of terrorism since 9/11.
Far more dangerous, because of its respectability, is the concept that no criticism of Israel can ever be antisemitism. This is often expressed with phrases like, “we don’t hate Jews, we hate Zionism.” And those sources — such as the ADL — which identify areas where hostility toward Israel can be a form of antisemitism and a generator of antisemitic incidents, are treated as biased and unreliable by Wikipedia and other groups and publications.
In fact, the manifestations of anti-Israel activity and the explosion of anti-Jewish behavior in a multitude of areas of society cannot be separated from classical antisemitism.
Jews were demonized for centuries — from being accused as “Christ killers,” to charges of blood libels and murders of children for ritual purposes, to sinister conspiracy theories as embodied in the fraudulent Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion document, which accuses Jewish leaders of plotting to take over the world.
All of this deeply embedded hatred culminated in the Holocaust, the Nazis’ systematic murder of two-thirds of the Jews of Europe.
After the horrors of the Nazi extermination of the Jewish people, outright Jew-hatred was stigmatized — but millennia of prejudice against the Jewish people did not suddenly disappear. Over time, it transformed itself into something more legitimate: hatred of the only Jewish state in the world.
To those who cared, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it was obvious that delegitimizing the Jewish State was merely a post-Holocaust form of antisemitism.
While these ideas existed for decades, it was October 7 that gave them new life. Beyond the rationalization of the Hamas terrorism itself, the anti-Israel protests on campuses were characterized by classic demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish State and its Jewish supporters.
Denial of the fundamental right of the Jewish state to exist — as embodied in the popular protest phrase, “From the river to the sea” — is along the historic lines of delegitimizing Jews through conspiracy theories.
Demonization of the Jewish State through denying what Hamas did, or justifying or labeling Israel’s struggle to defend itself after the worst day since the Holocaust as genocide — or accusing Israel of deliberately targeting children, in the spirit of blood libel charges — are only some of the ways in which expressions have not been mere criticism of Israel.
And the effect of all this — the attacks on Jews on campuses and elsewhere — was highly predictable. Hate speech, whether from the right, the left, or Islamist, inevitably leads to hate incidents.
In deeming ADL reporting as “unreliable,” this subset of Wikipedia’s editors has ignored all these forms of antisemitism that have emerged over the last eight months. For us, we will continue to do our work, always recognizing the distinction between free speech and criticism of Israeli policies and the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state, which fits into the pattern of historic antisemitism.
It is important that leaders in society make clear that they know what’s going on here — that it’s exactly this kind of thinking that has produced the opportunity for antisemitism to openly raise its ugly head in a way that we haven’t seen for decades. If people don’t confront the reality, this hatred — legitimized by mainstream sources — will spread and create even greater dangers for American Jews and American society.
The first step in standing up against this spreading support for hate is to express support for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism, which articulates when legitimate criticism of Israel becomes antisemitism.
Ken Jacobson is Associate National Director of ADL.
The post Wikipedia’s Serious Problem: Bias Against Israel 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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