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Here in the year 2021, rampant anti-Semitism continues to plaque American society. “The
FBI’s latest religious hate crime statistics show, once again, that Jews are overwhelmingly the most targeted religious
group in the United States. [Emphasis mine]
“Last year {2019}, 60 percent of the 1,715 victims of religious harassment were Jewish. When you
consider that Jews are just 2 percent of the American population, you see the seriousness of the problem.
“At least two factors are contributing to the crisis: anti-Israel bias in the media (which too
often demonizes Jews and the Jewish state) and anti-Israel bigotry on college campuses (which normalizes anti-Jewish
prejudice).
“Studies show that anti-Zionist campaigns promoted by faculty in particular are connected
to the uptick in antisemitism [Emphasis mine]. . .” (Ref. 1)
The recent fighting between Israel and the extremist "Palestinians" in Gaza, Samaria, and Judea
has only made this situation worse.
“The number of anti-Semitic hate crimes in the United States increased significantly in 2019,
according to the FBI, in a year that saw three lethal attacks against Jews.
“Anti-Semitic incidents again comprised the majority of hate crimes based on religion. In addition,
the number of hate crime murders overall more than doubled nationwide last year.
“But the Anti-Defamation League cautioned that the FBI’s numbers probably represent just a fraction
of total hate crimes committed in the country.
“. . . In 2019, hate crimes against Jews comprised 62% of all hate crimes based on religion,
up from 58% in both of the previous two years. [Emphasis mine]
- - -
“The FBI recorded 7,314 total hate crimes last year . . . As in previous years, the majority were
based on race. African-Americans experienced the most hate crimes, 1,930. Hate crimes based on religion made up approximately
20% of total hate crimes.” (Ref. 2)
Back in 2016, the The Wall Street Journal took note of the rising tide of anti-Semitism
in America. The problem has continued to worsen ever since.
“March madness is no longer limited to the basketball court. This month {March 2016},
American campuses are being invaded by the latest form of college hazing: Israeli Apartheid Week. Jewish students
are made to walk past displays that distort their history, defame their national homeland and shame their religious heritage,
while those on campus who are not complicit in the ritual try to ignore their humiliation. [Emphasis mine]
“The annual campaign boasts a remarkable world-wide growth over the past dozen years. It now
claims participation by 150 universities and cities, and this year has already struck the U.K. (Feb. 22-28) and Europe
(Feb. 29-March 7). In the first week of March, Israeli Apartheid Week came to Columbia University, with the Students for
Justice in Palestine erecting an ‘apartheid’ wall on campus (‘Our revenge will be the laughter of our children’ read one
slogan). The Israeli Apartheid Week website lists colleges across the country where events will be held. The month will
close out with an observance at Rutgers University.
“The displays representing Israel’s alleged suppression of Palestinian Arabs are part of a much
larger anti-Jewish front whose academic spearhead is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. That effort stems
from the original 1945 Arab League boycott calling on all Arab institutions and individuals ‘to refuse to deal in, distribute,
or consume Zionist products or manufactured goods.’
“Whereas student agitation-propaganda is driven by Arab-Muslim-leftist coalitions like the
pro-Palestinian group at Columbia, the BDS movement is largely a faculty initiative, centered in the fields of Middle East
Studies and swaths of the humanities and social sciences. These groups adapt aggression against Israel to the tropes and
tactics of 'progressive' protest movements. [Emphasis mine]
- - -
“. . .{At} Connecticut College, a philosophy professor . . . had the temerity to criticize Hamas
terrorists in 2014. A campus-wide smear campaign tarring him as a racist ensued, and the administration criticized him rather
than his attackers; he has yet to return to teaching.
- - -
“The agents of anti-Semitism are anti-Semites [Emphasis mine], and unless they
become the object of scrutiny, the belligerents will achieve their goal. Blaming Israel for the suffering of Palestinian
Arabs is first and foremost a strategy of deflection, intended to divert attention from dysfunction in Arab and Muslim
societies. So it does. Where are the campus rallies for women’s rights in Islam, relief efforts for Syrian refugees, vigils
for Christian victims of the Islamic State? Where is the outrage of historians, archaeologists and anthropologists at the
destruction by radical Muslims of ancient monuments and of indigenous societies that are presumably theirs to defend?
“University administrations and faculties have been complicit in allowing anti-Jewish politics to
subsume other forms of racism and to flourish in their place. Administrators hypocritically invoke free speech in defense of
faculty members who provide an ostensibly ‘academic’ rationale for opposition to Israel. By now, entire disciplines use their
academic conferences to attack the Jewish state. Campus anti-Israel coalitions exploit freedom of speech and assembly
to assail the only Middle Eastern country that guarantees those freedoms. When will educators confront and expose this
degenerate corruption of their institutions and their calling? [Emphasis mine]
“Israel is in every exemplary sense a ‘startup nation,’ but touting its positive qualities cannot
win against the tactics of Israeli Apartheid Week and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. . . Anti-Semitism
. . . flourishes because onlookers who think they have no stake in the conflict choose not to face down the belligerents and
because we have not seriously sought an antidote. If Western society had paid the same minuscule attention to infectious
diseases as it does to pandemics of anti-Semitism, tens of millions would still be dying of cholera and bubonic plague.”
(Ref. 3)
In Israel and in its neighboring Islamic countries, the ordinary Muslim masses are led to slaughter
by extremist leaders who treat the ignorant masses under their control like lemmings being led to the edge of the cliff. The
leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority, the Moslem Brotherhood, and other extreme Islamic terror organizations
view the multitudes that they are supposed to serve and protect as nothing more than cannon fodder and stubble to be consumed
by their burning hatred of Jews and Israel. These tyrannical leaders all too clearly understand that their failure to advance
the welfare of those they rule must be blamed on someone other than themselves. Otherwise, the unwashed masses will rise up
against them and dethrone them, as was attempted in Syria. In order to retain control over those that they are exploiting,
these despots, tyrants, and theocrats feed their subjects on a steady diet of hatred and violence which is directed against
the most accessible scapegoat – Israel and the Jews. The ignorance of the Muslims, “Palestinians”, and Arabs that fall for
this ongoing atrocity is palpable. But what is even more appalling is the support for this Jew- and
Israel-bashing that we find among supposedly intelligent and sophisticated people! One can only conclude that these people
are now showing their true anti-Semitic biases which have been festering in the dark recesses of their very soles. Either that,
or these supporters of Islamic extremist Jew- and Israel-hatred are truly ignorant and are the unwitting dupes of those that
are feeding them anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel propaganda so prevalent throughout the open media and on our college campuses.
Sadly, here in 2021, the overt and the closet anti-Semites continue to crawl out of their dark holes in ever-increasing
numbers.
A prime and on-going, but increasingly discredited, anti-Semitic movement is the BDS movement.
The simple and unmistakable fact is: BDS is Anti-Semitic! BDS - Boycott, Divest and Sanction - is nothing
but blatant anti-Semitism and those who continue to promote it are anti-Semites – either overtly or because they are ignorant
dupes of anti-Semites!
Many of the bigots and Israel-haters who support BDS also want Israel to be declared guilty of the
crime of Apartheid. Fortunately, there are fair-minded individuals and organizations who ignore the call from BDS to label
Israel as Apartheid, and the call to condemn Israel’s military for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Such is the case
with a number of American Christian religious organizations, such as the Episcopal Church and the Mennonite Church in the
USA which have both defeated efforts to promote BDS resolutions at their deliberative bodies.
Supporters of BDS ignore the fact that BDS seeks to de-legitimize the one and only true
open and free democracy in the Middle East - Israel. Promoters of BDS never acknowledge Israel's repeated efforts
to achieve peace with the “Palestinians” and the rest of the Arab world. They never condemn the refusal of “Palestinians”
and Arab extremists to accept Israel’s outstretched hand. (NOTE: A Palestinian is anyone who lives in what was formerly
the British mandate of Palestine. A "Palestinian" is an Arab resident of the Gaza Strip and the portions of the West Bank
currently under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Arabs who are citizens of Israel are referred to as
Israeli-Arabs.)
Some BDS promoters are motivated by a counterfactual and nonsensical belief that Israel is singularly
responsible for the continuation of the Israel-"Palestinian" conflict. BDS promoters fail to speak up about the corruption of
the Palestinian Authority and the violence and ideology of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. They ignore the atrocities of ISIS
and Boko Haram, two groups that have engaged in horrific crimes against humanity on two different continents – often
specifically targeting Christians. They have failed to condemn the Syrian government, which has repeatedly used chemical
weapons against its own citizens in that country's civil war and in which well over 200,000 Syrians have been
killed.
No organization with a serious commitment to peace and human rights in the Middle East can allow the
crimes committed by ISIS, Boko Haram, and the Syrian government to pass without comment, but the BDS advocates never offer
condemnations of these groups – only Israel is singled out.
The conclusion is inescapable: proponents of BDS are irrationally obsessed with Israel and
indifferent to Arab and Muslim extremist misdeeds, no matter how outrageous and horrific. Misdeeds perpetrated by Arab
and Muslim extremists simply do not offend their sensibilities. BDS does not promote peace, but is part of a
decades-long anti-Semitic propaganda war against Israel and Jews.
While ideas about religious liberty and tolerance are central to America’s founding and national
story, different religious groups have suffered discrimination in the United States at various points in our history. Today,
some religious groups continue to be discriminated against and disadvantaged, according to an analysis of a 2019 Pew Research
Center survey.
According to the survey, most Americans (82%) said Muslims were subject to discrimination. In the
same survey, roughly two-thirds of Americans (64%) also said Jews faced at least some discrimination in the U.S., up 20
percentage points from the last time this question was asked in 2016.[4]
Here in my home state of Massachusetts, acts of anti-Semitism continued to be reported. The New
England Holocaust Memorial in Boston was vandalized in August 2017. An arson at a Needham synagogue and vandalism at a Fall
River cemetery contributed to a record high number of anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S last year. An ADL survey in 2020
indicated that two-thirds of American Jews feel less safe today than they did a decade ago and there's a level of high
anxiety amongst people about safety and security at places of worship. And with fewer people gathering to worship,
anti-Semitism is moving from in-person to online.
Here in Massachusetts and across the country, there have been hundreds and hundreds of incidents
where people are infiltrating online Jewish meetings and services. These days, Jewish organizations have to prioritize their
virtual security in the same way that we have had to ensure that their physical buildings are secure.
Even during the pandemic there were Coronavirus related acts of anti-Semitism. In April of 2020, a
man was arrested after attempting to blow up a Jewish assisted living center in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. The attack was
planned to take place at the height of the pandemic, just as Massachusetts was actually entering its
surge.[5]
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared: "We're facing an anti-Semitism crisis, and not
just in this city. It's happening across our country and planet." De Blasio's warning came on the same day that thousands
of people responded to recent anti-Jewish crimes in the New York area by joining a solidarity march in Manhattan. New York
City has seen a substantial increase in reports of anti-Semitic crimes during the last two years.
According to the New York Police Department, reports of hate crimes against Jews in that city rose
26 percent last year, after rising nearly as much as 23 percent in the previous year. According to the director of the Center
for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino in California, the 2019 total was the
highest seen in New York City since the FBI began reporting hate crime data in
1992.[6]
Anti-Semitism is now a significant problem on America’s college campuses. “When Max Price was elected
to Tufts University’s student judicial body, he likely didn’t expect to have to fight a move to impeach him and remove him
from office for being Jewish. And yet Price’s recent experience simply replicates the kind of crude anti-Semitic intimidation
now so commonplace on college campuses that it qualifies for 'dog-bites-man' status, too routine to merit much attention.
“Price’s ordeal wasn’t exactly ho-hum as far as he was concerned. A member of Tufts’ Community Union
Judiciary, Price was among those tasked with monitoring student-initiated referenda for misrepresentations of fact. When the
Tufts chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine introduced a referendum demanding that Tufts 'apologize' because a former
university police chief traveled to Israel with the Anti-Defamation League for a seminar that included Israeli and Palestinian
police officers, Price identified significant inaccuracies in the text.
“This did not go over well with the SJP, which first demanded that Price be barred from consideration
of the matter, and then that he be disciplined, impeached and removed from his position altogether.
“ ‘I was called a racist, a fascist, a Nazi, an enemy of progress, slandered in the student
newspaper,' said Price. Over the course of two days, Price found himself interrogated at length about his Jewish identity
and the beliefs that flowed from that identity. It was the kind of treatment that plainly never would have been tolerated had
Price been Black or Latino, grilled on whether he was fit to pass on student governance issues on the basis that he had
personal feelings about racial discrimination.
“It was only when the Louis D. Brandeis Center shined a spotlight on the disgrace at Tufts that the
SJP withdrew its bid to remove Price from office.
“ ‘It was an attempt to place Jewish identity on trial,’ said Ken Marcus, chairman of the Center,
a civil rights organization established to combat anti-Semitism. ‘Max Price refused to be silent.’ Marcus notes that college
students are highly vulnerable to social harassment, and the intensification of anti-Semitism makes Jewish students
particularly vulnerable. ‘Most undergraduates placed under the pressure Max felt would have given up,’ said Marcus.
‘And that’s the whole point.’
“Jewish students all over America are regularly targeted by campus campaigns to stigmatize them and
drive them underground for believing in a Jewish homeland and the right to Jewish self-determination. Last year, University
of Southern California sophomore Rose Ritch resigned as vice-president of the school’s student government, ‘harassed for
months by fellow students because they didn’t like one of my identities.’ Hounded as a ‘pro-Israel white supremacist’ and
victimized by a social media drive to ‘impeach her Zionist ass,’ Ritch recounted her decision to resign last summer. ‘Because
I openly identify as a Jew who supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state — i.e., a Zionist,’ she wrote, ‘I was
accused by a group of students of being unsuitable as a student government leader.’ Resignation, she concluded, ‘was the
only sustainable choice I could make to protect both my physical safety and my mental health.’
“This was no surprise for Rachel Beyda, the UCLA sophomore whose confirmation as a member of the
student’s council’s judicial board was blocked after she was grilled on her ‘conflict of interest’ as a Jew reviewing
governance issues. ‘Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community,’ one student demanded
to know, ‘how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?’ The council’s rejection of Beyda was rescinded
only when a faculty adviser pointed out that being Jewish was not a ‘conflict of interest.’
“What Price, Ritch and Beyda have endured is, unfortunately, the New Normal. Recent years have
exposed a whole lot of ugly, and the metastasis of anti-Semitism posing as progressivism on American campuses is very ugly
indeed. If there is any chance of shrinking this cancer, it will come from those on campus with the sense of justice to
resolve to call it what it is." (Ref. 7)
Here in the northeast, more than 100 anti-Semitic incidents across five New England states were
reported to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in 2020. In my home state of Massachusetts, Zoom videoconferencing attacks took
place amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Anti-Semitic incidents remain at “historically high” levels with Massachusetts recording the sixth
highest number of incidents in the country. In 2020, the ADL recorded 2,024 anti-Semitic incidents throughout the
U.S. - the third-highest year on record.
A new anti-Semitic phenomenon, “Zoombombing”, that targets schools and Jewish institutions reared its
ugly head. After the pandemic started in March of 2020, there was an increase in anti-Semitic Zoombombing — the intentional disruption
of live videoconferences. The majority of these anti-Semitic incidents in Massachusetts targeted K-12 schools and Jewish
institutions, including the disruption of virtual funerals, memorial services and religious
services.[8]
As Israel was being attacked with rockets from Gaza and rocks from the plaza in front of the al Aqsa
Mosque, the Jew haters of the world were climbing out from under their rocks. Here in the U.S. and Canada, Jews were being
physically assaulted.
“Pro-Palestinian mobs have exported the violence wracking Israel to the streets of North America,
attacking Jews this week in numerous incidents in the U.S. and Canada.
"In Los Angeles, police are searching for the perpetrators after a mob of pro-Palestinian demonstrators
physically attacked a group of Jewish men at a restaurant.
- - -
“Video uploaded to social media showed a group of about 30 men get out several cars and attack the
men while yelling anti-Semitic slurs.
“ ‘It was a hate crime. It was prepared, they came to fight with Jewish people’ . . .
- - -
“In New York, a video uploaded to social media showed a mob of dozens of pro-Palestinian supporters,
many wearing Arab kaffiyeh head coverings, attacking three Jewish men outside the Ess-a-Bagel restaurant as police tried to
intervene.
“In Albuquerque, a Jewish University of New Mexico student . . . was hospitalized with internal
bleeding and a concussion after a group of men beat him up when he was wearing a shirt that said, ‘Just Jew It’ . . .
“{The} regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Mountain States region, said the ADL is
‘outraged and appalled’ by the violent attack, as well as the alleged anti-Semitism that prompted it.
“In the predominantly Jewish Chicago suburb of Skokie, pro-Palestinian vigilantes smashed the windows
of the Persian Hebrew Congregation synagogue and hung a ‘Freedom for Palestine’ sign on the door. . . Skokie police called the
incident a ‘hate crime’ . . .
“In Canada, pro-Israel supporters were attacked in Toronto and Montreal, with the pro-Palestinian
attackers screaming ‘death to the Jews’ and ‘we will finish what Hitler started’ . . .” (Ref. 9)
By late May of 2021, New York City reported that there was an “alarming streak of anti-Semitic hate
crimes in the city”. As a result, Mayor de Blasio spoke out to say that such behavior would not be tolerated and he promised
“a stronger police presence in Jewish communities.” Members of the NYPD’s strategic response group - which is deployed for
everything from terrorist threats to violent crimes - were headed to Jewish communities.
In Brooklyn, three men attacked two Jewish teenagers, punching them, menacing them with a baseball
bat and yelling anti-Semitic slurs. The hateful incident followed tense confrontations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian
demonstrators in Times Square, where a pro-Israel protester suffered a brutal beating.[10]
So, in the year 2021, we here in America are finding that it’s not just Blacks that have a
discrimination problem – it’s also America’s Jews that have a discrimination problem – a problem that goes by the name of
ANTI-SEMITISM!
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References:
- Ready to change the FBI statistics?, CAMERA, 8 December 2020.
- Anti-Semitic hate crimes rose by 14% in 2019, according to the FBI, Ben Sales, Jewish Telegraphic
Agency,
16 November 2020.
- March Madness, the Anti-Semite Bracket , Ruth R. Wisse, The Wall Street Journal,
23 march 2016.
- Many Americans see religious discrimination in U.S. – especially against Muslims, David Masci,
Pew Research Center, 17 May 2019.
- Anti-Semitic Crime In The U.S. Reaches Record Levels, Quincy Walters, WBUR News,
12 May 2020.
- Are We Experiencing a Nationwide 'Anti-Semitism Crisis'?, Jacob Sullum, reason.com,
8 January 2020.
- Anti-Semitism part of campus progressives’ agenda, Jeff Robbins, Boston Herald: Page 15,
9 March 2021.
- ‘Hate found a way to rear its ugly head’, Rick Sobey, Boston Herald: Page 10,
28 April 2021.
- Pro-Palestinian Mobs Physically Attack Jews Across US, Canada, Yakir Benzion, United With
Israel,
20 May 2021.
- NYPD sending more cops to Jewish neighborhoods in wake of anti-Semitic crimes, de Blasio says,
Shant Shahrigian, Daily News, 23 May 2021.
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