Jewish Archives - Page 4 of 4 - The New Antisemitism

May 20, 2015 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

BDS really stands for Bullying, Delegitimizing and Slandering!

In my travels, I meet a lot of people from the Evangelical Christian community. Many of them have never heard of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) and frankly, this frightens me. This movement has picked up a lot of momentum in the past few months and has become quite pervasive.

I find it ironic that most of the people taking such a political stand have very little knowledge of how it got started and by whom. This decade old movement was started in 2005 by the Palestinian civil society. They claim that Israel must meet three obligations for BDS to stop:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

Too often, there is an unspoken expectation from the Palestinian side. There is a great effort made to misinform or simply not inform the people they are trying to influence. I think there is a word for it; it is “propaganda!” The hope is that most people would accept the lies and historical revisionism simply as facts, and too often they do! UN Resolution 194 contains one short paragraph out of 15 on compensation to refugees, not even Palestinian refugees in particular, but refugees in general. I wish people would take the time to verify statements before they buy them and then sell them back as facts. It was Abraham Lincoln who once wisely said:” Do not believe everything you read on the Internet.” Get my point?

BDS was borne out of a Palestinian desire to enroll otherwise unengaged and apathetic people in their fight against Israel. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas’ goal might be the total destruction of Israel, at the end of the day you can only bomb and kill so many people before the more reasonable people in the world turn on you–although it seems that lately the “killing limit” might have been increased.

But what if you could get support from different groups of people, this would greatly help your cause, wouldn’t it? BDS does just that and it does it well, in the government, the universities (here and here) and even some Christian denominations such as PC USA (the same PC USA that unsuccessfully tried to blot out “Israel” from their prayer and hymn books in 2014).

Anybody can feel good refraining from buying Israeli products. This seems like a peaceful and worthy protest that could make a difference and force Israel away from occupation and apartheid. Of course, the current BDS supporters are plagued with decisions to Boycott that forces them to be very inconsistent at best. Divestment is usually a matter of reinvesting your funds elsewhere, and there are plenty of opportunities for such a move. When it comes to boycott, it is a bit trickier. They will gladly stop buying Jaffa® oranges or Osem® cookies from Israel but don’t ask them to stop using the Intel® chip in their personal computers or their mobile phones all together (both originated from Israeli ingenuity).

It is often the same people who choose to boycott Israel who also completely ignore the blatant abuses of human rights by countries like Russia, China, Yemen, Syria, Qatar and many more. The same people also irrationally ignore Hamas’ abuse and murder of their very own people like in the case of the 2014 Gaza War.

BDS is most rampant on US university campuses. As a matter of fact BDS is the main weapon used on US campuses to delegitimize Zionism and demonize Israel. Anti-Israel proponents are organized, eloquent and very resourceful. After visiting several US campuses, Haaretz reporter Ari Shavit recently concluded: ” Zionism has failed to provide “a reliable, relevant and inspirational narrative” to counter the “near-overt anti-Semitism” of the BDS offensive. “And when they arrive on campus and are exposed to anti-Israel venom, the Jewish and pro-Israel identity of many of them collapses.”

They often nip the pro-Israel narrative in the bud, even though their own narrative is flawed and biased.

• BDS uses a false premise of Israeli occupation and apartheid policies. It is our responsibility to expose their lies and educate those who don’t know BDS or who believe that it is a cause worth fighting for.
• BDS proponents are inconsistent in their boycott and need to be made aware of their hypocrisy and/or ignorance about Israel’s contribution to the modern world (and the list keeps growing everyday), not to mention everyday products used by millions.
• BDS sends the wrong message to a lot of people thinking that they are helping to make the world a better place when in fact they are supporting terrorists.
• BDS counts on people’s ignorance but desire for justice to sell their falsified agenda of Palestinian victimhood.

Yet in spite of all the efforts made by BDS and its proponents across the globe, their true colors are starting to show. AIPAC very recently backed an amendment to a trade bill that would make BDS’ destructive progress more difficult within Congress. Additionally, the Illinois State House of Representative unanimously (49-0) passed an anti-BDS bill recently. The bill would stop pension funds from investing in companies that participate in the BDS movement. Bravo to both!

Laurie Cardozo-Moore of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN) is also very vocal and active in exposing and fighting BDS. Cardozo-Moore calls BDS anti-Semitism and I fully concur. Looking at the unbelievable one-sidedness and hypocrisy of BDS, we can only deduce that it is more than a political attempt at bringing justice and equality. BDS is proving to be the politically correct way to hate Israel!

A great resource to fight BDS can be found at stopbds.com. Even though it is meant to equip students, most of it is very helpful to equip people eager to learn the truth and apply real fairness and justice.

Another thing we can do is to make sure that buy Israeli products in the USA to beat the BDS proponents at their own game. Here is a partial list of what BDS wants you to boycott. While my mentioning of this list doesn’t mean that I endorse all of it, you will undoubtedly find plenty of brands that you already support, just review them, keep at it and tell others. This is the least we can do.

What BDS proponents and victims too often have in common is a lack of a biblical approach to Israel and the Jewish people. Biblical truth provides a solid foundation for Israel. It describes a people created by God through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the twelve tribes of Israel as well as precise land boundaries starting early in Genesis 12:1-3 and continuing through chapters 15, 17 and following. Zionism isn’t this evil colonialism feeding on Arab blood, but without a biblical backbone, Zionism lacks the strength to fight the hypocrisy, hatred, and double-standard of the BDS campaigns around the world.

BDS relies on the Bullying, Delegitimizing and Slandering of Israel and does it on a foundation of lies that can be debunked. If truth matters to you as much as it does to me, join me and speak up!

April 25, 2015 By Olivier Melnick 4 Comments

Does Amnesty International Think that Anti-Semitism isn’t Worth Fighting?

In a world crippled by xenophobia and injustices of all kinds, we should welcome the work of organizations like Amnesty International (AI). Since 1961, this grassroots movement has been a global voice of outrage against racism, violence and injustice. Today, with over three million members and established branches in 68 countries, AI continues to fight for human rights and justice. Their mission statement is: “Amnesty International is a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights”. A quick review of the half-century of work done by AI will suffice to prove the great need for such an organization. They have fought many fights and won many victories small and large.

Yet before I can rejoice for the work that they do, I must once again ponder and ask myself why would Amnesty International seem to ignore anti-Semitism?

During its annual conference in the UK, in March 2015, Amnesty International decided to table a motion to deal with the rise of anti-Semitism in Britain. Of all the motions presented, it was the only one that was defeated. The reason given by Amnesty International was: “After a really interesting debate where everyone condemned discrimination against all ethnic and religious groups, our membership decided not to pass this resolution calling for a campaign with a single focus.” 

Of course, if you dig a little, you quickly realize that Amnesty International operates with a set of double standards when it comes to Israel and the Jewish people. It was only three years ago when AI fought against Islamophobia in Europe in what clearly appeared to be a single focus campaign. As a matter of fact, they even published a 123-pages report to substantiate their claims. To be sure, I am not opposed to AI’s work to fight Islamophobia; on the contrary, I support it. What really irks me is the fact that they would be so biased as to ignore one side and promote another.

Furthermore, their report of what took place during the Gaza War in the summer of 2014 is tainted with lies and inaccuracies. Of course, because of the impeccable reputation that AI has in the public arena, fact-finding is put aside and outrage against the Israeli “oppressors” and “bloodthirsty murderers” erupts.

Consider these statements recently made by AI when they were asked if they believed that Hamas was using human shields–something that has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt: “Amnesty International is monitoring and investigating such reports, but does not have evidence at this point that Palestinian civilians have been intentionally used by Hamas or Palestinian armed groups during the current hostilities to “shield” specific locations or military personnel or equipment from Israeli attacks”. The rest of the report is so one-sided that it will make you sick reading it.

Apparently, there are also some key staffers at AI like Kristyan Benedict who harbor clear anti-Semitic sentiments. Benedict was recently heard comparing Israel to ISIS. There is pro-Palestinianism and then there is anti-Semitism. Amnesty International can be found guilty of both. Their last conference in the UK proved it further when they chose to defeat the motion to fight anti-Semitism.

The new world standard for measuring justice and human rights seems to be irrationally connected to anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism. It is clear to me that these two words are simply code names for anti-Semitism. If AI doesn’t revise their position soon, they could become “Scapegoating International”, but then again, are there even enough people who care to show their outrage at their bias?

For Amnesty International, anti-Semitism might not be worth fighting for, but they certainly are not my role model. The Bible is my standard, and it isn’t a double standard. It looks at the Jewish people as “the apple of God’s eye” in Zechariah 2:8. It also shows many of Israel’s shortcomings, just as it does show the iniquities for the rest of mankind, proving the need for a redeemer. The prophet Isaiah spoke of that Mashiach in Isaiah 52:13-53-12 in a very descriptive way. If Amnesty International is looking for true justice, I believe that they will only find it with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Any other man made agenda is flawed.

April 15, 2015 By Olivier Melnick 4 Comments

Yom HaShoah: Retell the Story or Repeat History! | by Olivier Melnick

It was in 1953, only eight years after the close of World War Two that Yom HaShoah became an official national memorial day in Israel. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion established that day as a yearly memorial of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Since then, every year and all over the world, Jewish people remember the Shoah or “Catastrophe” as they perpetuate the memory of their lost, loved ones. In Israel, on that day, a minute of silent reflection is observed at 10:00 AM as a siren is heard all over the country. It isn’t unusual to even see motorists stop in the middle of the road and get out of their cars to observe that solemn moment.

Historically speaking, the Shoah is a unique genocide for at least one reason. It is the only attempt at annihilating a people group–The Jews–by even going outside of the area where they resided to gather them and bring them back to a certain death. It was an orchestrated, organized attempt at the total destruction of European Jewry. With all other genocides, as brutal as they might have been, there was always a way for potential victims to escape and/or immigrate. This was rarely the case for the Jews during the Holocaust years.

The importance of perpetuating the memory of the Holocaust cannot be underestimated. It is not about dwelling on the past for the sake of dwelling on the darkest days of Jewish history, but rather for the sake of preventing another “Catastrophe” in the future.

General Dwight Eisenhower caught the importance of documenting and remembering the Holocaust the minute that he walked inside the camps. As he visited one of the sub-camps 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: …The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick….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 currently runs the risk of being relegated into some obscure corner of history, even worse…Some will soon believe that it simply never happened.
How could we possibly go from NEVER AGAIN to NEVER HAPPENED in 70 years? Holocaust denial is gaining a lot of momentum globally. Consider this:

The Nazi party was at the source of Holocaust denial when they labeled their genocidal efforts “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question”, a euphemism protecting the Nazi genocide from early criticism.

Holocaust denial officially got organized by Willis Carto (Liberty Lobby) in 1978 with the founding of the Institute for Historical Review(IHR).They regularly promote Holocaust denial while claiming the opposite, as we can see by their support of pseudo-scholars such as David Irving (UK) or Robert Faurisson (France). One of the most visible Holocaust revisionist and denier in the USA is probably Bradley Smith who since 1991 has advertised in college publications to promote Holocaust revisionism.

French extreme-right long time leader of the Front National party, Jean Marie Le Pen (now semi-retired) first said that the Holocaust was “a detail of history” in 1987, and just re-iterated his position in 2015.

Iran just organized its second Holocaust Cartoons Contest, seeking to minimize, revise and/or deny the truth about the Holocaust–All the while preparing for a second one!

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas wrote his dissertation in which he doubted the existence of the gas chambers and the high number of Jewish victims. In 2014, he backpedalled to admit that the Holocaust was a heinous crime yet the statements he made in English and in Arabic vary greatly.

Unfortunately, I could keep adding to this list. The point is that in 2015, 70 years after the events of the Shoah, we run the great risk of forgetting it. The last remaining survivors are in their 80s and 90s, with some even over 100 years old. It will not be long before we will no longer be able to talk to anyone who lived through that era. That is one reason why it is crucial to repeat and repeat the story of the Holocaust. The dwindling number of survivors coupled with the sick desire of some to negate the whole tragedy is a very dangerous combination.

Of course, much of history remains recorded for us in numerous books, journals and pictures. But as it pertains to Israel and the Jewish people, once again the standards are different. I am convinced that with an evergrowing animosity for the Jewish state and the global Jewish community, many would feel no guilt if the Holocaust ceased to be remembered, commemorated or even acknowledged.

Iran is working around the clock to acquire a nuclear bomb, Hamas has the destruction of Israel as part of its charter, many liberals and academics are preaching anti-Semitic messages on university campuses and even extreme right-wingers are now resurfacing.

Some claim that the Holocaust never happened, some claim that it was greatly exaggerated, some claim that it was used as Jewish propaganda and some think that we talk too much about it. The frightening truth is that according to a recent survey by the ADL, 1/3 of the world population believes that the Holocaust was a myth... One third!

If you and I do not retell the story of the Holocaust to our peers and our children, history will repeat itself! Yom HaShoah might be one day a year, remembering the Shoah must remain an on-going daily effort.

In memory of my Grandfather Maurice Weinzveig, born 4 December 1898, Olikka, Russia
Who perished in Auschwitz. One in six million.

NEVER AGAIN

February 13, 2015 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

Equal Opportunity Vagueness Is a Real Danger!

France is still trying to recover from the terrorist attacks of early January 2015. But it wasn’t just France that was affected, as many around the world are starting to realize that the danger of radical Islam isn’t specific to the Middle East and/or exclusive to the Islamic State. Our global community was hit. There is still a very long road ahead of us if we really care to defeat people with an ideology in line with that of ISIS. But at the very least, it is now impossible to ignore the danger.

Yet it is one thing to acknowledge a real danger and it is another to strategize and move forward to fight it. For the most part, the world is being forced to recognize the brutality and barbarism of the Islamic State, but few if any have made any progress in the war against that enemy. Its is quite mind boggling that some governments have yet to clearly label the Islamic State as a radical Islamic group. Leading the pack is the Obama administration whose vagueness regarding the Islamic State is a real danger.

We can all agree that the beheadings, crucifixions and burnings have placed the Islamic State to the forefront of our contemporary enemies, yet for any government to even hesitate in calling the group a radical Islamic terrorist group, is a grave mistake. Last September, in one of his addresses, President Obama declared that the Islamic State was neither Islamic nor a State. In regards to being a state, I would agree with Mr. Obama; the Islamic State might have declared a caliphate a few months back, but it doesn’t qualify them as being a bona fide state. They are more of an illicit economy as the Wall Street Journal labeled them.

On the other hand, they are every bit “Islamic” if we understand the meaning of the word Islamic. It is a misconception to believe that Islam is simply a religion of peace, because it is much more complex than that. Yes it is true and extremely important to understand that many Muslims want nothing to do with the Islamic State barbaric methods, yet any serious student of the Qur’an cannot ignore that it contains plenty of verses about violence, deception and killings of the infidels.

What we could call “orthodox Islam” is a lot closer to radical Islam that one might think. There simply are many Muslims who do not adhere to that kind of literal approach to the Qur’an. They have distanced themselves from the extremism taught in those verses. These people are what we call “moderate Muslims”, yet they are not even recognized by radical Muslims as true Muslims. I think that a better description would be to call them “cultural Muslims.”

To avoid calling the Islamic State “Islamic” is a vagueness that is far from accidental. It is deliberate! It remains uncertain if the choice is made out of fear of reprisals or simply because of political and/or ideological alignment. Nevertheless, the Islamic State IS Islamic from a Qur’anic standpoint.

Continuing with the vagueness that has stricken our President in the past few months, we also need to question his motives when he claims that the Paris Kosher Market attacks were random attacks. In an interview with VOX in the last few days, Mr. Obama didn’t identify the victims as Jews but simply as”a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.” Of course, the fact that Amédy Coulibaly (the killer) entered a “kosher” store, said that he was linked to Islamic State and killed the people inside because they were Jewish was purely anecdotal and I guess irrelevant! What an insult to the Jewish community!

Mr. Obama was further defended by the White House press secretary Josh Earnest who very awkwardly backed him up. This didn’t satisfy the press and drew the ire of the social networks. Then, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki added a couple of days later that we should let the French government decide if the events were of an antisemitic nature. Give me a break; if a radical Muslims barges into a kosher store and kills Jewish people, there is NOTHING RANDOM there. The French government has authority since this took place on French soil, but that doesn’t invalidate the original intent of the act itself.

Finally, the White House decided to back pedal and do damage control on Thursday when they made a statement declaring the events of the Paris kosher store as anti-Semitic. Again, the vagueness applied to the description of the terror attack at the supermarket is very dangerous because it reduces the tragedy to a random act of violence, removing it from the hate crime that it was.

Is this part of the conditioning of the masses to lead them to ignore both a real danger and a real victim? This vagueness is terrifying to me because it was only 70 years ago that some of my family members went from being human beings to being prisoners to just being a simple number. Eventually, the whole process led to a need to exterminate my people who had been reduced to the status of animal.

Calling the Paris terrorist attack “random” is in and of itself “targeted” because often we say a lot more by saying less, and once again Mr. President your vagueness doesn’t appear to be accidental!

August 26, 2009 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

HATRED BREEDS HATRED: WHO’S BETTER NOW!?

Two recent events have prompted me to write this article as I always seek to educate those around me (physically and virtually).

I constantly have to remind myself that in the process of exposing the vitriolic lies spread by anti-semitism and greatly through radical Islam, I am always a stone’s throw from hating back those who hate us. It has been a personal battle of mine to live Matthew 5:44 daily:

“But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you”

It is so much easier to get on my “holier than thou” soap box and point the finger at the enemy(ies), but we MUST resist the temptation and respond to hate with love, the love of Yeshua the Messiah that is!

If we claim that we have the truth and that God lives in us, if we claim that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is LOVE, then we’d better show that love to those we know are lost and without it.

The question is: “Are we showing the love of Yeshua?”

In the case of a Florida church, I am not convinced that their approach to Islam is building rather than burning bridges. The fact is, few if any real bridges exist between Christians and Muslims.

Apparently, the church put up a sign on their property saying “Islam is of the Devil”. Additionally, they printed the same message on T-shirts that some of their congregants started to wear, including in school. The result was that the kids were sent home for “breech of dress code”.( read full article here)

It looks to me that some people are stuck in Matthew 5:43 “ You have heard that it was said, ‘ YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, and hate your enemy.’ and didn’t read 5:44 “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you”.

Responding to hate with more hate is the opposite of what Yeshua told his followers to do. It looks to me like some of us believers in Yeshua need to take a closer look at His Word.

On another note but on the same topic, there is a new movie directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt, titled “Inglorious Basterds”. I must confess that I have not seen and have no intention to see the movie. But after talking to people who did and reading reviews, it appears that the movie focuses on “killing Germans” as some sort of revenge. This can only generate more anti-semitism as it will fuel the hatred that the world already has against Israel and the Jewish people.

I lost my own grandfather in Auschwitz after he was taken by the Gestapo from the home where his daughter (my mom) still lives in, near Paris. I guess I have a good reason to hate the Germans. My mother even more so,as they took her dad in front of her eyes when she was only 14.

But Yeshua changed me 26 years ago when I invited him to become My Messiah, My Lord and Savior. He loved me enough to die for me, I love Him enough to live for Him and if to live foHim means to love my enemies and pray for them…..

SO BE IT.

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