Zionism

December 28, 2017 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Antisemitism in 2017: A Year in Review! – Part I

Another year is coming to an end, and as expected, it isn’t too difficult to find antisemitic events that can be used to punctuate the last twelve months amidst our global village. The Jewish people continue to be the “Scapegoats of Humanity,” while Israel is still painted as the colonialist invader of “Palestine.” One more year of propaganda is only hammering the peg of anti-Jewish sentiment deeper into the soil of our planet. In this first part of a two-part series are some highlights from January to June 2017.

JANUARY: How can the UN both remember and ignore the Holocaust?
Every January 27, the international community remembers the Holocaust with International Holocaust Remembrance Day initiated in 2005 by the United Nations through UN Resolution A/RES/60/7. It is different from Yom Ha Shoah (Day of the Catastrophe) or Holocaust Remembrance Day that was initiated by David Ben Gurion in 1953 and takes place every year in Israel on the 27th of Nisan.

I am not sure why it took the international community 60 years to declare a day for Holocaust memory, especially in light of the death of more and more of the survivors in the last few decades and the push by many pseudo-historians to deny that it ever took place. Nevertheless, the UN recognizes the Holocaust. But there are two sides to that coin! United Nation’s webpage for the event has the following statement: “Denying historical facts, especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust, is just not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to call for the elimination of any State or people. I would like to see this fundamental principle respected both in rhetoric and in practice by all the members of the international community”. (UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.)

But when we look at the UN’s role in contemporary antisemitism and demonization of Israel, one wonders if it applies to current events?

FEBRUARY: Will Donald Trump Make America Great or Unsafe for Jews?
Along with Donald Trump’s victory came support from a variety of groups that carry a very negative reputation such as Neo-Nazi and Alt-Right groups. Mr. Trump never endorsed any of these fringe elements but his opponents made the connection for him, and before you knew it…Trump was the new Hitler. If I have to explain to anyone why Trump IS NOT even close to being like Hitler, they probably don’t deserve to be told. Trump isn’t a violent dictator, he isn’t a sociopath, he has no intention of disarming America and he isn’t obsessed with destroying all those who do not fit his ideal racial profile like homosexuals, handicapped people, Jehovah’s Witnesses and of course 6,000,000 Jews. Hitler was all that. Hitler was pure evil. Comparing Trump to Hitler isn’t demonizing Trump as much as it is exonerating Hitler for his actions.

In the meantime, many Jewish people in America are starting to feel uneasy. 57 Jewish Community Centers in more than twenty states have received bomb threats in the last month. Then there was the man who plastered a Chicago synagogue with swastikas and broke its window, and those who wrote antisemitic remarks such as “Jews belong in the oven” on NY subway windows. Is Trump encouraging Jew haters to come out of their caves and spew their venom across America? Some really believe that, but I don’t believe that antisemites need to be prompted by a new president to come out and harass the Jewish community. They have done it long before him and will do it long after him.

MARCH: Switzerland strikes an unprecedented blow against BDS!
France–the one European country with both the largest Muslim AND Jewish communities–has also been involved in fighting BDS in the form of lawsuits against BDS activists. But what Switzerland just did was unprecedented. It was the first of all the European parliaments to pass a bill to prevent their country from financing organizations that clearly promote racism, antisemitism and BDS. In and of itself, this is a major breakthrough. In our age of over-reaching political correctness, it is a breath a fresh air to see a whole country stand against BDS, especially in Europe!What we shouldn’t miss in this bill is the fact that BDS is now bundled with racism and antisemitism equating the movement with the other two expressions of hatred. In essence, it claims that BDS is antisemitism, and it is!
The hypocrisy is obvious when you consider the fact that many other countries that have repeatedly violated human rights and are not even considered a threat.

APRIL: Ahead of his time, General Eisenhower was right about the Holocaust!
The voices of the Shoah are fading away, while the voices of historical revisionism are shouting that the Holocaust was either grossly exaggerated or simply didn’t happen. Its memory is in the hands of family members of Holocaust victims. But some people realized early on that the horrendous, organized genocide of the Jewish people had to be documented. One of these people was General Dwight Eisenhower.He caught the importance of documenting and remembering the Holocaust the minute that he walked into the camp at Orhdruf. As he visited this sub-camp of Buchenwald with Generals Bradley and Patton, he started to realize the magnitude of what he was witnessing and immediately wrote a letter to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General George Marshall in which he said: …I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.” And yet, despite the commendable efforts made by Eisenhower and others, the Holocaust increasingly runs the risk of being relegated to some obscure corner of history, even worse…Some will soon believe that it simply never happened.

MAY: Do Jews Have a Future in France Under Emmanuel Macron?
Under Macron, we can expect political correctness to become the rule of law, especially as it pertains to radical Islam. We will probably soon see an influx of new migrants come to the “New France.” How will that affect the 500,000 French Jews, who have already started to immigrate to Israel in large numbers over the last five years? In the near future, it would appear that the Jews of France wouldn’t be at risk. After all, over 93% of French Israeli voted for him. But is it possible that they really voted against Le Pen instead?

Macron’s multiculturalism and globalism will do very little to stop Europe’s Islamist invasion. As much as Le Pen’s agenda was extreme in many ways, she did have the intention of controlling immigration. Macron might just open France’s borders further and allow for thousands of unchecked migrants. Once again, the French Jewish community is at risk, even if the vast majority voted for Macron. It appears that they were more interested in putting a bandage on France’s wounds instead of amputating the infected limb. Time will tell, but what do you really expect from a French president who claims “there is no such thing as French culture?”

JUNE: Will Nikki Haley Succeed in Reforming the UNHRC?
The United-Nations Human Rights Council is one of the many agencies borne out of the United Nations. They seek to defend human rights and yet they target Israel–a strong promoter and enforcer of human rights–as a violator. They buy into the Palestinian narrative on a regular basis. On June 9, 2017, during the opening of the 35th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights compared that Palestinians to Holocaust victims in a statement.

Ms. Haley boldly but not blindly came to the defense of Israel when saying: “According to Hillel Neuer of UN Watch, in its first decade (2006 to 2016), the council adopted 68 resolutions condemning Israel and 67 condemning the rest of the world’s countries combined.” She delineated the three reasons why she believed that the UNHRC is flawed: Bias against Israel, blatant double standards against Israel, and the fact that human rights abusers actually hold seats on the council. Her challenging the body of the UNHRC is courageous and necessary. It remains to be seen if the UNHRC can be reformed since many of its members are either Arab or Muslim countries that support the Palestinian narrative.

The second part of “Antisemitism in 2017: A Year in Review!” (July through December) will be published in the next few days.

January 15, 2017 By Olivier Melnick 10 Comments

The anti-Israel Paris Conference needs to be “Trumped!”

Less than a week before Mr. Obama walks into the sunset–or at least walks out of the White House– further damage to US/Israel relations is still possible. Beyond a shaky relationship that has been crumbling over the past eight years, Israel is a risk once again because 72 world leaders are being manipulated by her fiercest foes. They are about to meet in Paris on January 15 and decide on the fate of the tiny Jewish State. Like a thorn in the flesh of our global village, according to these leaders, Israel must accept and recognize Palestine for her [Israel] own good.

Neither Mr. Netanyahu nor Mr. Abbas will be attending the Paris Conference. Mr. Abbas isn’t interested in negotiations (nothing new here) and Mr. Netanyahu, while opened to negotiating, will only do it with no preconditions AND in person with Mr. Abbas. But the world has “a wonderful plan for Israel” even if it leads to its destruction!

Several ambassadors wrote a letter ahead of the conference, explaining why it is in Israel’s interest to accept a two-state solution and finally recognize Palestine. They are asking France to lead the way in recognizing Palestine, and this could very well take place on January 15 in Paris, UNILATERALLY.

Last December, in passing resolution 2334, the United Nations officially made the building of settlements in the “disputed territories” illegal and punishable by international law. Not all within the US government were thrilled with the US abstention that facilitated the passing of resolution 2334 by the UN. As a matter of fact, several senators are currently proposing that the UN be defunded of taxpayers money if they don’t reverse the measure. President Elect Donald Trump has also expressed his disagreement and has asked Israel to hang tight until January 20, 2017, the official date of his inauguration into office.

We mustn’t forget that earlier in 2016, UNESCO decided that the Temple Mount–one of the oldest Jewish site– biblically, archeologically and historically wasn’t Jewish but was a Muslim site. Both the UN and UNESCO (as a UN agency) joined by the current US administration are simply ignoring factual, historical truth. In a recent article, journalist Maria Polizoidou said it well,
“The US and the UN – both the Security Council and UNESCO – are not who determine what is historically true and what is not. These shameful votes should be reversed immediately; if not, all funding should be withdrawn from the United Nations, by United States and all freedom-loving democracies. They are now, to paraphrase the words of the Soviet Union’s Vladimir Lenin, ‘paying for the rope with which members of the UN will hang them.'”

The Paris Conference on Israel/Palestine without Netanyahu or Abbas will possibly lead to a vote in favor of recognizing “Palestine.” The two main countries that are interested in such a move are France and the United States (under the current administration.) President Hollande of France will be out in May and Obama will be out in on January 20th. Both are lame ducks and have nothing to lose. They both believe that their legacies would benefit from a declared state of Palestine on their watch. By the end of Sunday, the arrogant world leaders who chose to convene in Paris might have enough momentum to push forward yet another United Nation resolution on January 17, only three days before our new POTUS is sworn in. If they could only take these few facts in consideration:

• The land of Canaan was given to the Jewish people through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by divine decree in a covenant without preconditions as seen in Genesis 15:18-19: On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.” Geographically speaking the real estate includes much more than current Israel even if you add the Gaza Strip and the West bank back in. They might not believe that the Bible is a binding document, but they will find out soon enough that it is!

• The two-State solution isn’t an option for the Palestinians. Any map of “Palestine” published by the Palestinian side includes all of Israel “from the River to the Sea” with no room for Jews.

• Israel became a state on May 18, 1948 after being voted in by the United Nations and back then Palestinians didn’t exist.

• No other sovereign state ever had to give land conquered at war back to the enemy except for Israel. The territory gained during the Six-Day War isn’t to be returned unless Israel wishes to commit a geographical suicide.

The hatred of the Jews existed long before Israel was reborn. The voluntary or forced shrinking of the Land of Israel will never stop those who loathe the Jews from hurting them in the Land or anywhere else in the world. For anybody to think that Israel is the biggest obstacle to world peace in general and Middle East peace in particular is ludicrous. This is a false premise historically, geographically, archeologically, politically AND last but not least…Biblically. How could these 72 countries ignore the carnage in Syria, the ethnic cleansing in so many other parts of the world and the myriad of crimes against humanity committed daily, and yet, concentrate their effort on pushing the Jewish state off the cliff?

But then again, there is always a chance that the whole thing will get “Trumped” in a few days. President Elect Donald Trump has been called a “Nazi”, “Hitler”, a “Racist” and many other names. He has much on his plate and many opportunities to show his true colors early. He might surprise us all.

Am Yisrael Chai!

September 11, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 2 Comments

Get University Credits for being Antisemitic!

The sick American university system has just gotten a little bit sicker. Some will remember the glory days when places like Duke, Notre-Dame, UCLA, Yale, NYU were sought after institutions. They were so because they had a reputation for quality higher learning, an ethical academic staff and for being a fair platform for a balanced exchange of ideas without threats, criticism or xenophobia. Gone are those days!

It is a known fact that much moulding of the mind occurs at the College and University level. Students come in their freshman year with opinions somewhat formed even in their infancy stage and by the time they graduate, their opinions are solidly formed. American universities are more liberal than conservative and as such, their influence might appear to some as unfair, or biased at the very least. But this is America, “Land of the Free.” Free speech, free thinking and free press are very present on US campuses, and that is a good thing…at least in essence.

Unfortunately, all of this has been challenged lately by the rise of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction) movement against Israel as well as the increase in what we can call Campus Intifada. Universities like UCI (University of California Irvine), USC or even UC Berkeley have hosted many conferences and events promoting the Palestinian narrative. The Muslim Student Association (a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood) and Students for Justice in Palestine (first established at UC Berkeley in 1993) are at he helm of this movement.

One would expect that a university campus would be a platform where a civilized exchange of ideas could take place. After all, it would be acceptable to promote the Palestinian narrative if Zionism was given equal air time. But it is almost always never the case. Pro-Palestinian speakers and lecturers are invited to spread their antisemitic poison, unchecked and unbridled, while the pro-Israel side is ignored, repressed, insulted and even abused. So much so that the Board of Regents of the University of California had to finally adopt a policy earlier in 2016 that links anti-Zionism to antisemitism. While we cannot honestly claim that anti-Zionism is always antisemitism cloaked in social justice, it is often the case. A healthy criticism of Zionism has the right to exist in any democracy, but not at the expense of the Jewish people or the Jewish students opposing it. But when it comes to Israel and Palestine, most of the world is guilty of using their own set of double standards.

I applaud the Board of Regents new policy. It was needed and will hopefully encourage other US campuses to follow suit. That is of course if it is properly enforced and judging by the latest class offered at UC Berkeley in the Fall of 2016, it seems to be hardly the case. Dr. Hatem Bazian (affiliated with American Muslims for Palestine) is sponsoring the class titled: Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis. The course description remains vague, yet its foundation will undoubtedly be a shaky mix of historical revisionism and antisemitic narrative. Reading requirements from people like Ilan Pappé, will obviously tip the scale towards the Palestinian side. As a matter of fact, instead of looking a both sides of the Middle East crisis academically and ethically–two words that once would have been redundant within the same sentence–the class syllabus is pretty much a shameful piece of Palestinian propaganda.

Based on the false assumption that Palestinians have been in the Land of Israel for centuries, the class will most certainly paint Israel as the colonizing invader who doesn’t belong. This argument is easily debunked if one is interested in factual history. But this is hardly the case anymore. It seems that all parties interested in the pro-Palestinian narrative are really more interested in the anti-Israel agenda, wherever that will lead them. At the end of the day, if an antisemitic agenda leads one to choose camps that are less than ethical and possibly lethal to Israel…it will be a small price to pay.

So it is fair to say that being pro-Palestinian might be more of a by-product of being anti-Zionist than a just cause in and of itself, and this definitely qualifies as antisemitism. Starting in the fall of 2016 at UC Berkeley, you will even be able to get university credits for it!

July 26, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 4 Comments

For Once Its Not the Jews’ Fault!

99 years ago, a very important document was written in the United-Kingdom by foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour to the leader of the Jewish community Baron Walter Rothschild. It has become known in history as the “Balfour Declaration.” The text of that letter reads as follows “I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet. “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.”

The Balfour Declaration is a document that has been foundational in the world’s recognition of Israel’s right for self-determination within the boundaries of her own historical and biblical land of Eretz Yisrael. It was followed by another important agreement including the original Balfour Declaration, known as the San Remo Resolution, where the Mandate for Palestine was drawn together (land boundaries were decided four years later.) As a result of the San Remo Resolution being drafted, Great Britain ended-up being responsible for the drawing of the Mandate and land boundaries for Palestine. This became latter known as the “British Mandate for Palestine.” Fast forward to 1947 and the United Nations voted in favor of Resolution 181 and the partitioning of Palestine between Jews and Arabs. On May 14, 1948, under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, one day before the end of the British Mandate, Israel became a modern nation. Within hours five neighboring Arab countries declared war on the newborn Jewish state. One way or another, this war has been going on for seventy-seven years.

Just days ago, in a move that we could see as being both creative and ludicrous, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas decided to sue Great Britain for the Balfour Declaration. Abbas asked his foreign minister, Riyad al-Malki to help with the lawsuit. According to the Palestinians, it is the Balfour Declaration that set in motion all the bloodshed seen in the Middle East in the last eight decades. In fact, Abbas insists that the Balfour Declaration paved the way to the rebirth of Israel, and thus Great Britain is to be held responsible for ALL ISRAELI CRIMES committed against Palestinians since.

This would be a very bold move to make, even if we were dealing with to people groups fighting for territory. Britain might have been involved in initiating the agreement, but whatever took place after the United Nations voted for the partitioning of the region, even if it was connected to the Balfour Declaration, remains the responsibility of Israel and her Arab neighbors. Dan Margalit of Israel Hayom says “But the Balfour Declaration didn’t exist in a vacuum. The world supported it. Even King Faisal of Iraq, whose family originated in Saudi Arabia, reached an agreement with Weizmann on the terms. The declaration was approved in 1920 by an international conference that met in San Remo after World War I. The approval of the mandate by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922 gave the Balfour Declaration international validity, almost like the 1947 U.N. resolution to establish a Jewish state in part of the land of Israel.

But here is a bigger problem; Palestinians didn’t exist in 1917 (Balfour), 1920 (San Remo), 1924 (San Remo Land boundaries), 1947 (UN partition vote) and 1948 (Israel’s Declaration of Independence.) As a matter of fact, Palestinians didn’t come onto the scene as a “people” until the mid 1960s. So in essence, Abbas is retroactively inserting the Palestinians into history to justify the injustice he is claiming took place in 1917 and subsequent years. It is akin to quoting Abraham Lincoln saying: “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet”, except that the latter statement is funny because it was made tongue-in-cheek. Abbas is dead serious about the Palestinians going way back in history.

The original Palestinian was invented, forcibly placed in Israel as a “displaced refugee” and further coerced into staying through several generations, born within the refugee camps and/or territories. Palestine went from a geographical area to a political agenda aimed at the complete destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. It took about fifty years to get where we are today. The current acceptance of the Palestinian narrative has become the new normal and is used as the foundation to historically justify a lawsuit against Britain for the Balfour Declaration. That justification doesn’t rest on factual history but this will not stop the PA from proceeding with the suit.

So what is next, a law suit against Italy for the San Remo Resolution of 1920? What about suing the United Nations for allowing Israel to become a modern nation in 1947/48? I suppose the Palestinians could even go as far as suing themselves for signing the Oslo Accords in 1993! Taken to an extreme, they could sue God Himself for giving the Land of Canaan to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants (Genesis 12:7, 13:15, 15:18-21, 35:9.) After all, it looks like God started it all! Ironically, for once the Jews are not being blamed and I’ll take that as a small victory.

June 29, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 9 Comments

Southern Baptists support Israel “for such a time as this!”

The Southern Baptist Convention (the largest evangelical denomination in America), just passed a resolution that boldly proclaims support for Israel. This is not highly unusual for the SBC that has a solid reputation for supporting Israel and the Jewish people. Yet, it comes at a time when other evangelical denominations such as PC USA have chosen to pledge allegiance to the Palestinian cause and are heavily promoting its narrative with whatever baggage comes with it (Christian Palestinianism, BDS, Campus Intifada to name a few.)

The SBC has a long history of biblical support of Israel coming from a rather conservative and mostly dispensational view of the land and its people. That biblical foundation can be found in the new resolution, especially in articles 1-4, 8 and 11 reading as follows:
• The Old Testament declares God’s promise to Abram, “I will make you into a great nation…. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1–3)
• Israel represents the descendants of Jacob as an ethnic, cultural, and national entity (Genesis 32:28)
• The New Testament affirms that salvation is from the Jews and that God’s Word concerning Israel will be fulfilled (John 4:22; Romans 9–11)
• We are to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for the salvation of Israel (Psalm 122:6–7; Romans 10:1)
• We thankfully remember that we are indebted to the Jewish people, who gave us much of our Bible and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
• At this critical time when dangerous forces are mounting up against the nation of Israel, we recommit ourselves to pray for God’s peace to rule in Jerusalem and for the salvation of Israel, for the Gospel is “God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew” (Romans 1:16).

This 2016 resolution (#5) is different because it is extremely bold. It clearly speaks out against the vile agenda of the new antisemitism. The biblical approach taken by SBC regarding Abraham, the Jewish people and Jerusalem has become somewhat of an expected position by the SBC–not that every single one of its sixteen million members adhere to it in one accord. But this wan’t just a theological resolution, it was also a political move by SBC, as delineated in articles 5, 6 and 9. This is what makes it very unique:
• The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement seeks to isolate the nation of Israel economically and socially.
• We are concerned by anti-Israel activities in this country within certain university campuses, academic and professional associations, and popular culture.
• We support the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign state and reject any activities that attack that right by promoting economic, cultural, and academic boycotts against Israel.

SBC made a bold statement against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement. To date, twenty three US states as well as some evangelical denominations have taken a stand against BDS. More and more people are seeing the destructive agenda of the Palestinian Authority through the BDS propaganda. They are also realizing that it is extremely biased at best and certainly seldom relying on factual truth if ever! I would have liked to see the SBC statement to read more like: “The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement seeks to unjustly isolate the nation of Israel economically and socially. But even without that clarification, their statement is already going further than many other denominations.

Continuing its political stand for Israel, the SBC resolution also denounced the [antisemitic] activities across many American university campuses. This is also known as Campus Intifada and is more present on the West coast in places like UC Davis, UC Berkeley and UC Irvine. It consists of pro-Palestinian groups gathering on US campuses where antisemitic speakers come to boldly accuse Israel. These are US university campuses you say…So what about Freedom of Speech? I would tend to agree, except that when pro-Israel groups or speakers attempt to speak or simply dialogue, they are harassed and abused with very little disciplinary action from university faculty or management.

It was very brave for the Southern Baptist Convention to put out such a resolution. The current evangelical trend is to not show support to Israel. Christian Zionists are turning into Christian Palestinianists as the biblical narrative is increasingly suffering from historical revisionism. This is why conferences like Christ at the Checkpoint are becoming more and more attractive to mainstream evangelicals including “once reputable” names such as Hank Hanegraaff.

This pendulum swing creates a grave danger for Israel and diaspora Jews at a time when they already suffer from a resurgence of violent antisemitism. Jewish people suffer at the hands of the liberal left, the extreme-right AND radical Islam. Biblical Christianity understood and applied properly should offer a “No-Strings-Attached” sanctuary to Jews worldwide. In light of current events and the rise of End-Times antisemitism, the SBC made a very unpopular move. In other words, they made a biblically correct move, knowing very well that it was politically incorrect. Jews and Southern Baptists might still disagree on who the Messiah is but this obviously doesn’t negate the Southern Baptists’ unconditional love for Israel, simply because the SBC answers to a higher authority and takes the Bible very seriously. They made the right move for such a time as this!

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