By Philip Giraldi
May
02, 2021 "Information
Clearing House" -
- "
UNZ"
-Several
things are happening simultaneously.
Most important, Israel has lost the
public opinion war in much of the world
through its brutality during the recent
attack on Gaza and it continues to lose
ground even in the wake of a cease fire
due to
mass arrests of Palestinians and
armed police intrusions in and around
the al-Aqsa mosque. The government of
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is by
its actions making clear that the ethnic
cleansing of Palestine will continue at
a time that he chooses. This in turn has
produced a storm of criticism, including
from Jewish groups and individuals,
that is condemning the bloodshed and
also sometimes explicitly seeking to
distance Judaism the religion from
Zionism, the political movement.
Some have
suggested that we have finally reached a
tipping point in which Israel has gone
too far, evident in
the Irish Government’s condemnation
of Israeli “de facto annexation” of
Palestinian land. Foreign Minister Simon
Coveney told the Dial that “The scale,
pace and strategic nature of Israel’s
actions on settlement expansion and the
intent behind it have brought us to a
point where we need to be honest about
what is actually happening on the ground
…”
The Jewish state
has even succeeded in alienating many
who are normally supporters in countries
like the United States, quite possibly
leading to an eventual shift in policy
in Congress and at the White House. That
view might be exaggerated given the
power of the Israel Lobby and its
ability to make past atrocities go away,
but it might obtain some back-handed
credibility from the ferocity of the
counter-attack being waged by Israel and
its friends against the celebrities and
politicians who have finally developed
backbones and have spoken out in defense
of Palestinian rights.
The Jewish
state’s reaction to criticism is being
fueled by repeated assertions that
anti-Semitism is surging in the
United States and Europe. The media has
become relentless on the issue, which is
in any even irrelevant even if it were
true. Last Saturday, internet news site
Yahoo featured links to no less than
three articles on increasing attacks on
Jews, two coming from NBC and one from
BBC.
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Despite the
recent one sided slaughter in Gaza,
American Jewish organizations even had
the hubris to declare last Thursday “In
light of the surging wave of antisemitic
violence,
“A Day of Action Against Antisemitism.”
Frustration of many people with Israeli
behavior is indeed increasing, but the
assumption that any shouted insult or
organized protest directed at Netanyahu
and/or his gang of cutthroats at a time
when they are mass-killing Arabs
represents pure hatred of Jews is quite
frankly unsustainable. It is hatred not
of religion but of what Israel is doing,
supported by Washington and Israel’s
powerful domestic lobby, and most people
understand clearly that distinction.
The underlying
narrative being offered is that Jews are
always the victims, even when they
initiate violence, because, they would
argue, they are only acting of necessity
and preemptively as self-defense. That
argument means that they are never
guilty of what many might call war
crimes, and they are adept at
fabricating stories about their
opponents labeling them as both
terrorists and cowards willing to use
civilians as human shields to
protect themselves. This effort to
burnish the apartheid regime’s record
also means in practice that there have
to be regular invocations of the tale of
increasing anti-Semitism as well as
direct attacks on anyone who dares to
appropriate or in any way diminish the
so-called holocaust.
Numerous critics
of the Israeli bombing of Gaza have been
attacked by the Israel Lobby and its
allies in the media. The idea is to
humiliate the critic and put so much
pressure on him or her that he or she
will actually apologize for what was
either said or written. Even better, the
Israeli partisans often push far beyond
that point to obtain a complete
recantation of what appeared in the
first place. In the case of actors or
entertainers, for example, the weapon
used is obvious. If one wants to
continue to be gainfully employed in an
industry that is dominated by Zionist
Jews it is necessary to either keep
one’s mouth shut or quickly apologize
claiming that one was “misinformed” or
“misspoke.”
Several recent
mea culpa’s for criticizing Israel have
made the news as has also the virtual
crucifixion of a congresswoman for her
citation of the holocaust. Actor Mark
Ruffalo may have believed that he was
doing the “right thing” by speaking out
on Palestinian suffering. He tweeted
“Over 30 children killed. Mothers dead.
Hundreds injured. We are on the brink of
a full-scale war. Sanctions on South
Africa helped free its Black people –
it’s time for sanctions on Israel to
free Palestinians. Join the call” and
also in another tweet referred to the
killing as “genocide.” He came under
intense pressure and
soon apologized, tweeting “I have
reflected & wanted to apologize for
posts during the recent Israel/Hamas
fighting that suggested Israel is
committing ‘genocide’. It’s not
accurate, it’s inflammatory,
disrespectful & is being used to justify
antisemitism here & abroad. Now is the
time to avoid hyperbole.”
Ruffalo did not
quite crawl on his belly to preserve his
career, but the metaphor certainly comes
to mind. And what Ruffalo experienced
was a walk in the park compared to what
was dished out to British pop singer Dua
Lipa who was subjected to a full-page
New York Times ad paid for by no
less than “America’s rabbi” Shmuley
Boteach’s World Values Network. The
singer Dua Lipa as well as
Palestinian-descended models Gigi Hadid
and Bella Hadid were accused of
“anti-Semitism” after they expressed
public support of the
pro-Palestine cause. The Boteach ad
claimed that the three women were
“ignorant” and spreading “disgusting
libel,” calling on them to instead
“condemn [Hamas] now” arguing that “the
three mega-influencers have vilified the
Jewish state in a manner that is deeply
troubling… Hamas calls for a second
Holocaust.”
Dua Lipa did not
however recant when confronted by the
hideous Boteach’s rant. She responded in
part “This is the price you pay for
defending Palestinian human rights
against an Israeli government whose
actions in Palestine [include both]
persecution and discrimination.” A
number of other celebrity-critics of the
Israeli slaughter in Gaza also stood
firm, including
comedian John Oliver and Susan
Sarandon, but there were also more
victims of the wrath of Zion. The
Associated Press, itself having been on
the receiving end of the Israeli bombing
of Gaza,
fired a reporter Emily Wilder for
what were alleged to be pro-Palestinian
views while an undergraduate at Stanford
several years before. Wilder, who is
Jewish, recently also posted a question
which was used against her, asking why
the US media regularly uses the word
Israel but avoids referring to
Palestine, legitimizing the statehood of
the former at the expense of the latter.
In Fairfax County
Virginia there were demands to remove a
school board member Abrar Omeish who,
during the attack on Gaza,
had tweeted “Hurts my heart to
celebrate while Israel kills
Palestinians & desecrates the Holy Land
right now. Apartheid & colonization were
wrong yesterday and will be today, here
and there.” She soon came under pressure
and quickly recanted with “War is
terrible for everyone. I hear those
hurting. I’m here for each of you.
People of all faiths deserve Holy Land
peace. Ensuring justice & honoring
humanity of all remain urgent. I look
ahead to robust & empathetic engagement
with Jewish leaders. Let’s build
together.” Local resident Jennifer Katz
was not satisfied, however, telling the
board that the tweet “could be
reasonably interpreted as a
microaggression” against Jewish
students.
But perhaps the
most bizarre nonsense to surface from
the knee-jerk defense of Israel effort
played out, perhaps not surprisingly, on
Capitol Hill where Congresswoman
Marjorie Taylor Greene, to put it
mildly, got in trouble. The first-term
Republican Representative from Georgia
had already attracted widespread
criticism from both Democratic and
Republican colleagues for her alleged
trafficking in conspiracy theories but
she unleashed the hounds of hell when
she made an observation regarding the
government’s compelling people working
in grocery stores to submit to the COVID
vaccines.
She said “You know, we can look back
in a time and history where people were
told to wear a gold star. And they were
definitely treated like second-class
citizens, so much so that they were put
in trains and taken to gas chambers in
Nazi Germany.”
Congresswoman
Greene is not renowned for her brain
power and it was the sort of comment
that is so stupid that it is best
handled by ignoring it, but as it
concerned the so-called holocaust that
was not the end of it. She has been
shredded by the leadership of both
parties and also by
individual legislators as well as
the usual suspects in the media. She had
previously been stripped of some of her
committee assignments over other
misdemeanors, but this time around her
“colleagues” have been calling for her
censure at a minimum and even possible
expulsion from the House of
Representatives. The lesson learned is
that you trifle with the sanctity of the
holocaust at your peril. It belongs to
Jews and is a vital component of the
uniqueness of Jewish suffering
narrative.
Over the next few
weeks there will no doubt be a flood of
stories and commentary reminding
everyone in America about just how much
the Israelis were victims of a
premeditated Hamas attack and what
wonderful people they really are. It
will be an attempt to regain the
propaganda advantage for the Israel
Lobby. And yes, more heads of critics
will be rolling in the dust, with
recantations by celebrities adding
sparkle to the event. But even at the
end of that process the true horror that
modern day Israel represents will be
remembered by many and as the game goes
on there will hopefully be many more
American voices raised in protest.
Philip M. Giraldi,
Ph.D., is Executive Director of the
Council for the National Interest, a
501(c)3 tax deductible educational
foundation (Federal ID Number
#52-1739023) that seeks a more
interests-based U.S. foreign policy in
the Middle East. Website is
https://councilforthenationalinterest.org
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville
VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org