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May 19, 2020

Israel’s New Government: The More, the Weaker

Leave a Comment / Israel, Rosner's Domain /

One of the maxims in many professional fields concerns the nature of force multipliers. If you have one fighter jet and then add another, the power of the combined force is more than double the force of one jet. If you have three workers and add another three, the six workers can do more than double the work of the initial three.

This is probably true in most fields. However, it is not the case in the field of politics, as Israel is about to learn. In fact, in politics the reverse is true. Thirty four ministers — the largest cabinet in Israel’s history — are not a force multiplier. They are a force divider. The more ministers in a government, the less power it has to solve problems. So, Israel’s new government isn’t just the largest ever, it’s also the weakest ever. And it is weak by design. Two leaders — Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud and Benjamin Gantz of Blue and White — will benefit from having a weak government. The weaker it is, the more power they have to determine which way it goes.

Thirty four ministers — the largest cabinet in Israel’s history — are not a force multiplier. They are a force divider

It’s possible I’m judging them harshly by saying it was their intention to weaken the government. I suspect Netanyahu understood what he was doing, while Gantz just went along with it because he had no other choice. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is the result, and that’s a very large, confused government. A government in which one minister holds two portfolios as diverse as “water” and “higher education,” each of which belonged originally to another ministry (energy and education). That is, an office devised not as a tool for directing policies but devised to solve a political problem. In this case, the need to have an office for minister Ze’ev Elkin.

So now Israel finally has a government with many ministers, each of whom controls a fraction of an office, or two, or three. By the time these ministers learn something about these many fractions, the government is going to change. Two ministers are slated to become ambassadors abroad (one already agreed, the other did not). More than one is slated to move to another office in about a year and a half, when Gantz is slated to replace Netanyahu as prime minister. That is no way to devise long-term policies. That is a way to keep politicians busy and make sure they also keep their heads down.

Policies will be set by two leaders: Netanyahu and Gantz. All others are relatively minor actors of relatively little consequence. The more — the weaker.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL – DECEMBER 26: (ISRAEL OUT) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) with Israeli Transport Minister Israel Katz (R) and Interior Minister Gilad Erdan (L) attends a discussion to vote on the dissolution of the Israeli Parliament in the Knesset on December 26, 2018 in Jerusalem, Israel. Party leaders in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, which has a thin majority, decided to dissolve the government and call for elections in April, eight months earlier than required by law. (Photo by Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)

Could such an arrangement work? Is it good for Israel? As with the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, we are now entering a trial period. There are hopes and fears. There are risks and opportunities. The ministers, no doubt, are going to spend time on turf wars. They are going to adjust to a learning curve because about half of them are new. They will have to make do with less resources (there is an economic crisis), less attention (there is a health crisis), less flexibility (there is a strict coalition agreement). If you tend to believe that most things politicians do is harmful, then this government will be relatively unharmful. Tightly controlled by two leaders, with the possible addition of two (Finance Minister Israel Katz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi), the government will function the way government should function.

Of course, there is also a less encouraging scenario. Imagine more than 30 ministers having to fight for public attention when all they have is a small office and a small budget. Miri Regev, the new transportation minister and former culture minister, wrote the guidebook on this. Be revolutionary, be outrageous, be provocative, use your few resources to buy a loudspeaker and then use the loudspeaker to annoy as many people as possible. That’s how Regev made the minor ministry of culture a highly visible office. Other ministers with small offices could be tempted to imitate her.

The result would be a cacophony of attention-grabbing desperados.

The result would be a mess.

Shmuel Rosner is The Journal’s senior political editor.

Israel’s New Government: The More, the Weaker Read More »

Was Europe Complicit in the Holocaust? A New Book Says Yes

Leave a Comment / Books /

The chain of events that led to Kristallnacht began in Warsaw during the summer of 1938, as we are shown in the opening pages of “Europe Against the Jews, 1880-1945” by Götz Aly, translated by Jefferson Chase (Henry Holt & Co. /Metropolitan Books).

The Polish government issued an order that revoked the Polish citizenship of Jews who had been living in Nazi Germany for more than five years. “In response, at the end of October, German police arrested 17,000 Polish Jews, brought them to the Polish border, and forced them across,” Aly explains. He leaves out the tragic story of Herschel Grynszpan, whose parents were among the deported Jews and who assassinated a German diplomat in Paris as an act of protest against their maltreatment, thus providing Hitler with a pretext for the excesses of Kristallnacht. But he marks Kristallnacht as the turning point that put Germany on the path to the Holocaust.

Aly concedes the Germans alone were responsible for conceiving of the Holocaust, building the infrastructure of mass murder, and putting the machinery into operation, but he also insists “the genocide could not have been carried out solely by those who initiated it.” Indeed, he shows us the culpability of “administrators, police, state officials and thousands of non-German helpers who all played a role in the atrocities.” The point of his book is to spread the blame: “There is no way we can comprehend the pace and extent of the Holocaust if we restrict our focus to the German centers of command.”

Aly, a leading German historian of the Holocaust, is the recipient of the National Jewish Book Award as well as Germany’s prestigious Heinrich Mann Prize. His 2011 book, “Why the Germans? Why the Jews?: Envy, Race Hatred and the Prehistory of the Holocaust,” was reviewed in the Jewish Journal, and his new book can be seen as a kind of sequel, if only because Aly widens the lens to take in the persecution of the Jewish people by people and governments outside of Germany.

As I am sure he knew in advance, Aly’s book will be deeply off-putting to readers across Europe. He offers a catalog of the anti-Semitic ideas, policies and actions that are found in European history outside of Germany and before Hitler’s ascent to power. At the turn of the 20th century, Lithuanian anti-Semites warned that “Jews would turn Lithuania into the ‘Polish province of New Palestine.’ ” During the two years following the end of World War I, more than 1,500 pogroms took place in Ukraine. “Hitler cited France as an example of how he wanted to impose ethnic categories,” Aly writes, “if necessary with brute force.” The Hungarian fascist party known as Arrow Cross, “while related to the National Socialists was more radical”; its members “became reliable pillars in the new populist Communist regime after 1945,” a fact that explains the “stubborn refusal after the Second World War to talk about the Holocaust.” Croatia did not merely turn over its Jewish citizens to the Germans for deportation, but carried out its own program of mass murder.

Significantly, Aly finds only “two notable exceptions to the voluntary participation in the Holocaust” among the allied and occupied countries of Europe. One is Denmark, whose entire Jewish population was saved, and the other is Belgium, whose officials “refused to become complicit” and forced the Germans to do their own dirty work. When called upon to manufacture and distribute Star of David patches, the mayor of Brussels bravely declared, “Many Jews are Belgian citizens, and moreover we cannot commit ourselves to enforcing an edict that so obviously runs contrary to the dignity of human beings, whoever they may be.” The SS general who served as German military administrator was forced to send a sheepish message to Himmler: “Appreciation for the Jewish question not very widespread here” was the message the head of the German military administration sent to Himmler.

Even the United States attracts his attention, and he pointedly invites us to ponder the state of mind of Americans, both Jewish and non-Jewish, when he confronts us with the following uncomfortable fact: “In August 1920, the New York Times quoted the publisher of the Jewish Daily News, Leon Kamaiky, describing the situation and dreams of Polish Jews as follows: ‘If there were in existence a ship that could hold 3,000,000 human beings, the 3,000,000 Jews of Poland would board it and escape to America.’ ” Such fears contributed to the decision of the U.S. government to adopt a closed-door immigration policy that reduced the number of Jewish arrivals from nearly one million between 1901 and 1910 to only 18,000 from 1931 to 1935.

Hitler did not fail to notice that the western democracies were quick to criticize his anti-Semitic policies but slow to open their doors to Jewish refugees. Nor did Hitler’s future ally, Romania, one of whose leaders issued a dire warning in an interview with a Nazi party newspaper: “We have to force the Western democracies to choose between opening up new territories for Jewish immigration or accepting a violent solution to the conflict.” Among the members of the British Commonwealth, as it happened, only Australia offered to accept Jewish refugees, but limited its hospitality to an annual quota of 500 Jewish souls.

Aly repeatedly assures us he seeks only to reveal the origins and workings of the Holocaust in their entirety and not to diminish the German responsibility for its crimes against humanity. But he insists that some blame attaches to “the countries they occupied or dominated,” where anti-Semitism had existed long before Adolf Hitler found a way to recruit his willing foreign collaborators.

Jonathan Kirsch, book editor of the Journal, is the author of “The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplomat and a Murder in Paris.”

Was Europe Complicit in the Holocaust? A New Book Says Yes Read More »

Ayatollah Khamenei Issues Poster Calling for ‘Final Solution’ Against Israel

Leave a Comment / Israel, News /

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office released a poster on May 19 calling for the “Final Solution” against Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the poster states in all capital letters, “Palestine will be free.” Below it are the words “The final solution: Resistance until referendum.” The poster depicts protesters at the Temple Mount holding Hezbollah and Palestinian flags, as well as photos of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a United States precision airstrike in January.

 

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted, “Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the #1 state sponsor of anti-Semitism + terror, is calling for the “final solution” to destroy the Jewish state. He uses a Nazi slogan associated with genocide and envisions terrorist groups storming the Temple Mount. Let that sink in. Disgusting.”

 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center tweeted, “Fanatic Jew-hating Ayatollah and company inspired by Nazi antecedents. Await protests from #Berlin and #Vienna.”

The poster was released to commemorate Quds Day, which the Iranian government holds every year on the last Friday of Ramadan to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Quds Day will be on May 22. A May 18 virtual Quds Day event in Canada featured a video calling Zionism a “Satanic endeavor.”

On May 18, Khamenei tweeted, “The West Bank must be armed, just as Gaza. The only thing that can reduce the Palestinians’ hardships is the hand of power. Otherwise, compromise won’t reduce a bit of the cruelty of this usurping, evil, wolf-like entity.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center tweeted, “Khamenei can’t sleep – plotting to destroy #Israel. Iranian people can’t sleep, terrified by COVID-19 and suffering economic deprivation, even as terrorist lackeys get millions from Terrorism Central in #Tehran.”

In 2015, Khamenei reportedly released a book in Iran outlining how he planned to destroy Israel, which would involve using Iranian terror proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah to bombard Israel with terror attacks, causing Jews to leave Israel. Khamenei then plans for Palestinians worldwide to vote on a referendum turning Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into one nation of Palestine. Only Jews in Israel would be allowed to vote on this referendum in Khamenei’s reported plan.

Ayatollah Khamenei Issues Poster Calling for ‘Final Solution’ Against Israel Read More »

‘Arrowverse’ Showrunner Greg Berlanti on Whether He’s Jewish or Not

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Hollywood /

Greg Berlanti is the executive producer of “Arrow,” “Supergirl,” “Titans,” “Riverdale” and “The Flash.” Between keeping his die-hard DC fans satisfied, the mega-producer also directed “Love, Simon” (2018) and currently is producing the upcoming film revival of “Little Shop of Horrors.”

One of the most pressing questions Berlanti faces, however, isn’t about a storyline or industry secret: It’s whether or not he’s a Jew.

“My son thinks I am Jewish,” Berlanti told his entertainment lawyer, Patti Felker, on a Zoom call hosted by the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles on May 12. “Nothing anyone can say, including my husband, will dissuade him from believing this. He just believes it.”

Raised in Westchester County, N.Y., “Our community was Jewish and Italian,” Berlanti told Felker, who secured him with a six-year $300-million deal with Warner Bros. in 2018. “I’m not sure that I knew I was one or the other until I was 9 or 10 years old.”

It turns out Berlanti was, in fact, Irish-Italian. He was an altar boy for five years and now considers himself a “recovering Catholic.” So why did Berlanti’s own son think he had Jewish roots? Because both Berlanti and his husband, ex-L.A. Galaxy soccer player Robbie Rogers, decided to raise both of their children in the Jewish faith. The fact neither of them had any Jewish heritage didn’t matter.

“I knew that I wanted the child to grow up with a sense of faith, but I had felt very alone in my Catholic faith, growing up,” Berlanti said, touching upon his experiences as a gay man. “So we made the conscious decision to raise our children Jewish. To that end, we sought out a Jewish egg donor — not the easiest thing to find, by the way.”

Even though Berlanti and  Rogers have not converted to Judaism, they are raising two Jewish kids: a 5-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter. This alternative path was informed by Berlanti’s personal connection to Judaism. “I was always enthralled and comfortable around the Jewish religion. It was something calling to me as a kid,” he said. “It was the faith that I, in particular, was the most comfortable, beyond our faith.”

Berlanti’s household celebrates Shabbat and other Jewish traditions. Currently, their eldest attends Jewish day school. Recently, the couple went on a trip to Israel, which Berlanti described as a “really profound experience.” The fact that his son believes he already is Jewish, and not his husband, has alleviated some of the pressure for Berlanti to convert.

“At some point, I’m going to have to make that transition, but [my son] just believes that I am and delights in going on and making fun of his other father and saying, ‘Ha, ha, you’re not Jewish.’ ”

As the creator of the 2002 drama series “Everwood,” which centered around a Jewish family in a small town in Colorado, Berlanti said he was exposed to anti-Semitism firsthand.

“I chose to make the hero family of the show one of the Jewish faith — and then we chose to dramatize that in a lot of ways,” Berlanti said. “This was back when there was regular mail and you would get fan mail in boxes once a month as opposed to watching your show get torn to shreds or celebrated every second on Twitter. I was surprised by the amount of vitriol then, and it moved me.”

It was around that time Berlanti reached out to Felker to learn how he could advocate for Jewish people beyond representing them on screen. He wanted to know “what could I be doing in a practical way to help, because that was really disheartening for me to see.”

Berlanti, who has been at the forefront of diverse representation in Hollywood, still believes Jewish characters are not getting their due.

“There was a phase where there actually started to be more LGBTQ characters on television, in particular. They’re still not in mainstream movies, really. There’s a real dearth of those characters in films, as there are Jewish characters in mainstream films,” Berlanti said, noting how pitching diverse characters remains difficult because studios would pat themselves on the back for already having “a gay show” or a “Jewish show.” Berlanti finds this approach problematic. “It’s unwise and it’s unfair,” he said. So you have to push against it.”

“I was always enthralled and comfortable around the Jewish religion. It was something calling to me as a kid. It was the faith that I, in particular, was the most comfortable [with].” — Greg Berlanti

However, he added that he fears the COVID-19 pandemic might cause the industry to regress when it comes to inclusion. “The fact is, like so many businesses, what I’m sure is going to happen after this all lifts is there will be a sense of ‘let’s just do what we know. What we know is successful.’”

Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman Photo: Kimberley French/The CW

But Berlanti has been the poster boy for straying from his previous successes. Since beginning  his career as a writer on “Dawson’s Creek,” which ran from 1998-2003, he has gone on to produce more than 30 television series, from teen thrillers including “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” to the White House miniseries “Political Animals” and “Batwoman.”

“When I started out, I did a lot of teen soaps, and it was really hard for me to get my first job in the superhero space,” Berlanti said. “For a time, I was seen as just a family drama person, and then we do something like the show “You” (2018), that’s on Netflix, and that’s obviously a thriller and is wicked and sinister.”

“It’s all storytelling to me,” he said. “Things that excite me are things I haven’t gotten to necessarily explore. The only way forward is to do new, fresh stuff.”

Ariel Sobel is the Journal’s social media editor.

‘Arrowverse’ Showrunner Greg Berlanti on Whether He’s Jewish or Not Read More »

L.A. County Aiming to Reopen on July 4, Supervisor Says

Leave a Comment / Los Angeles, News /

Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said on May 19 that the county is aiming to reopen on July 4.

The July 4 reopening — a Saturday — would include restaurants, malls and retail businesses.

Barger said in a statement, “The economic and sociological impacts created by the COVID-19 shutdown have hurt our vulnerable populations the most. The County, in partnership with our Task Force members and key stakeholders, is prepared to move forward with recommendations that ensure the safety and well-being of employees and customers while safeguarding public health.”

On May 19, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, announced that California is easing its criteria for counties to move further into reopening. The new criteria states that counties can reopen if they have a positivity rate that isn’t higher than 8% and a hospitalization rate that isn’t higher than 5% for 14 days.

L.A. County issued a modified shelter-in-place order on May 14 that was indefinite; County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said at the time that the order would last for the next three months but would be modified over time.

There were 1,183 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases in the county on May 19 and 76 deaths from the virus, bringing the county’s respective totals to 39,573 and 1,913.

 

 

L.A. County Aiming to Reopen on July 4, Supervisor Says Read More »

Stories the Virus Took from Us

Leave a Comment / Columnists /

In 2019, a series of anti-Semitic attacks in the United States left Jews horrified and rallying for change.

In 2020, we’ve had to prioritize the hardship of the coronavirus lockdown, pushing aside once pressing issues because we don’t have the mental or emotional bandwidth. Here are some updates on anti-Semitic attacks in 2019 readers may have missed:

Poway, Calif: On April 27, 2019, the last day of Passover, John Timothy Earnest, then 19, was suspected of opening fire at the Chabad of Poway in San Diego County, killing Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounding three others.

This March, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office announced it would seek the death penalty against Earnest, who’s currently in the San Diego Central Jail and not eligible for release or bail. His trial is set for June 2.

On April 26, Chabad held a virtual program to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Gilbert-Kaye’s death. Meanwhile, Rabbi Mendel Goldstein stood in the synagogue alone this year, held a Torah dedicated to Gilbert-Kaye and recited Yizkor. In December, a Poway street was renamed Lori Lynn Lane.

In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, her friend Roneet Lev said if Gilbert-Kaye had been alive during the COVID-19 pandemic, “She would have rushed around to check on people, make sure they were still OK, her mask on and probably a little askew. She would have found a way to help.”

Jersey City, N.J.: On Dec. 7, authorities say David Anderson, 47, and his accomplice, Francine Graham, 50, who identified with the Black Israelites, killed Michael Rumberger, 34, in Bayonne, N.J. On Dec. 10, authorities say they shot and killed Detective Joseph Seals, 39, in Jersey City before entering the JC Kosher Supermarket and killing co-owner Mindy Ferencz, 33, store clerk Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, 49, and customer Moshe Deutsch, 24. Anderson and Graham were killed in a shootout with police, and authorities say they found a live pipe bomb 500 feet away in their van.

Although the New Jersey attorney general described the attacks as anti-Semitic, the Southern Poverty Law Center still has not called the suspects a hate group, but a “black supremacist group,” and the term “Black Hebrew Israelites” seems to have faded from the memory of the American public (and American Jews).

Nessah Synagogue, Beverly Hills.: On Dec. 14, the Iranian American Jewish community was traumatized when 24-year-old Anton Redding was suspected of breaking into and vandalizing  Nessah Synagogue. Using surveillance videos and forensic evidence, law enforcement identified Redding in Hawaii and took him into custody on Dec. 18. In Los Angeles County Superior Court, he pleaded not guilty to vandalism of religious property and second degree burglary, as well as a penalty enhancement for a hate crime.

The COVID-19 pandemic seemingly has stopped us from asking: What ever happened to Anton Redding?

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department told me Redding was released from custody on April 7, while the District Attorney’s office confirmed Redding has a preliminary hearing on July 7 at the Airport Courthouse.

I believe an attack against one community is an attack against us all. Anyone who wants to remain updated about Redding’s case can visit lasd.org, click on “Resources,” select “Find an Inmate” and enter the suspect’s full name (Anton Nathaniel Redding) and date of birth (12/28/1994).

Monsey, N.Y.: 2019 ended with an attack on Dec. 28, the seventh night of Hanukkah, in when Grafton Thomas, then 37, allegedly entered a rabbi’s home armed with a machete and injured five people, including then-71-year-old Josef Neumann, a father of seven.

In February, after 59 days in a coma, Neumann opened his eyes. But on March 29, he succumbed to his injuries. His death barely made the news.

On April 20, a Rockland County judge deemed Thomas mentally unfit to stand trial on charges of attempted murder and a hate crime.

Let us not forget these stories. May the memories of the victims be a blessing.

Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer, speaker and activist.

Stories the Virus Took from Us Read More »

Abbas Ends Palestinians’ Agreements With Israel, Including Security Cooperation

Leave a Comment / Israel, News /

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared an end to all agreements with Israel, including security cooperation, effectively turning over to Israel’s government the running of the entire West Bank.

“The Palestine Liberation Organization and the State of Palestine are absolved, as of today, of all the agreements and understandings with the American and Israeli governments and of all the commitments based on these understandings and agreements, including the security ones,” Abbas said in a speech in Ramallah, which functions as the capital of the Palestinian Authority.

“The Israeli occupation authority, as of today, has to shoulder all responsibilities and obligations in front of the international community as an occupying power over the territory of the occupied state of Palestine, with all its consequences and repercussions,” he said, according to the Wafa news agency.

It’s not clear what steps Abbas will take next. In the past he has threatened to end agreements that he claims Israel has already abrogated before retreating from the threats. The finality of this statement, however, seems to be heralding the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, the last vestige of the Oslo peace talks, as well as the dismantling of security cooperation with Israel, which Israeli security chiefs have said has been critical in keeping the West Bank relatively quiet.

Abbas said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank left him no choice, and he blamed the Trump administration’s “peace vision” unveiled in January. The plan allows Israel to annex some territory, but in coordination with the Palestinians.

Abbas said the PLO remained committed to the two-state outcome, adding that he planned to seek recognition of statehood in a number of international forums.

The Trump administration and Israel have cautioned the Palestinians against seeking statehood recognition, describing it as a unilateral act — the same term Palestinians use to describe Netanyahu’s annexation plans.

The U.S. has little leverage to use on Abbas, with the administration having cut almost all assistance, except money for security cooperation.

Abbas Ends Palestinians’ Agreements With Israel, Including Security Cooperation Read More »

Delta to Resume Flights Between Israel and New York With Masks Mandatory

Leave a Comment / News, United States /

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Delta Airlines will resume flights between New York and Israel next month, with face masks mandatory for staff and travelers.

The flights will be “less than daily,” Delta announced on its website.

The airline’s first flight to Israel since mid-March will depart from New York’s JFK international Airport on June 3, with a return scheduled for June 6. The flights will operate on Saturday nights, Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.

Along with the masks requirement, the announcement said that only 50 percent to 60 percent of the seats will be filled to ensure proper spacing during flights.

United Airlines has been flying to Israel from Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles and San Francisco airports throughout the coronavirus crisis.

Israel still has a ban on non-citizens entering Israel and requires a 14-day self-isolation for Israelis arriving from abroad. Those restrictions could be lifted at the end of the month.

Delta to Resume Flights Between Israel and New York With Masks Mandatory Read More »

Palestinians’ Revisionist History Chains Them to a Lie

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

The story I am about to tell is well known. It is hardly worth repeating. And that’s nice, since it involves my family.

I am speaking of the house at Walowa 19 in Radom, Poland. My father was raised there before the Nazis invaded. It was a large house. Only three of his 11 siblings survived the Holocaust — one only because he fortuitously moved to Israel in 1933. Scores of my father’s nieces and nephews were killed, too.

What? You’ve never heard of Walowa 19?

Of course you know nothing about it. Why would you? My father moved to Germany immediately after the Holocaust, then made his way to the United States. Several hundred thousand Jews from Poland who outlived their families − a rare breed and an improbable statistic, since 90% of Polish Jewry was annihilated as compared with 66% of European Jews − have similar stories.

My father spent little time in displaced persons camps. He never expected to be returned to Walowa 19. No special international agency was created to enable Jews to suspend their lives until their former worlds could be reclaimed — exactly, as Palestinians demand, olive tree for olive tree.

What happened to my father’s right of return?

He was never offered one. Jews were not welcome in Poland after the war. Those who returned discovered that their neighbors had seized Jewish homes assuming —more like hoping — that the Nazis had succeeded fully in its Final Solution. In fact, the cruelest of coda to the Holocaust was that after barely surviving the most singular of genocides, many Jews were greeted with a murderous homecoming.

I was born in New York City. At no point did my father wear the key to Walowa 19 around his neck, anticipating the day he would slit the throat of the Polish Catholic who occupied his family’s house. He was too busy renewing the family saga in America.

The reason to be reminded of Walowa 19 is because Israel just celebrated its 72nd birthday: May 14. The Palestinians mark that day as well, but not as a celebration. They have ritualized it as the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe.”

A harsh word, for sure. Native Americans who inhabited the United States long before mercenary Europeans ventured across an ocean in search of treasure, expansion and freedom, have no such word in any of their dialects to demonize the Declaration of American Independence.

Palestinians must free themselves from a self-sabotaging Nakba-consciousness that has been nothing but poison.

During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, Arabs living in what became Israel fled on the advice of armies who vowed to end the Jewish state before it had time to enjoy a moment’s peace. Admittedly, after the grossly outnumbered and poorly armed new nation turned back its enemies, some Israelis kicked out some Palestinians.

Thus began the Palestinian preoccupation with rewriting history so as to lay the groundwork for their inevitable return. They were not absorbed into other countries, which, after one generation, is required under the United Nations’ agreements of every other refugee group.

It didn’t help that nonwestern countries peddled false reassurances that Israel would be eliminated from the family of nations, leaving behind one unpartitioned Palestine — the 23rd Arab state, and no Jewish one.

After rejecting five opportunities—1947 U.N. Partition Plan; Oslo Agreements of the 1990s; 2000 offer from Prime Minister Ehud Barak; 2008 offer from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; and the 2020 “Peace to Prosperity” Plan—for independent statehood, Palestinians have made it plainly known they will not share any land with Jews.

After rejecting five opportunities for independent statehood, Palestinians have made it plainly known they will not share any land with Jews.

So finite is their determination and infinite their rage, Palestinian leaders never even returned with counterproposals. Instead, there have been decades of violence — hijackings, kidnappings, suicide bombings, stabbings, car rammings and, of course, thousands of rockets from an unoccupied Gaza.

Actually, Israel’s creation in 1947 through international consensus resulted in a twin birth. The Palestinians, however, insisted on one to be stillborn. The United Nations voted to partition British Mandate Palestine into two states for two peoples. Had it been accepted, that Palestinian state would have been vastly larger than any of the other statehood offers that would follow. Instead, the size of their stalled country continues to decrease with each rejection.

Israel accepted the boundaries of its new nation even though it represented less than 30% of what the Balfour Declaration first contemplated. The founders wished to seize the moment. Yes, a bigger state would be better. But they wanted to commence building a nation immediately: arid land to turn green; water to desalinate; Nobel Prizes to rack up — the start of a nation that would one day be called the Start-Up Nation.

Palestinian demonstrators run from tear gas fired by Israeli troops during a protest marking the 70th anniversary of Nakba, at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip May 15, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Meanwhile, Palestinians, with each passing year, unfailingly commemorate the Nakba with gnashed teeth, keys dangling from necks not as entitlements but as nooses derailing their national aspirations.

It is a cautionary tale of two once-stateless people. One achieved spectacular success while the other squandered every opportunity and flounders still, refusing to concede the verdict of history or to acknowledge the mistakes of their leadership. Most tragically, they have abdicated any responsibility for securing the future of their people.

There is yet another object lesson to the legacy of Walowa 19.

To mark the first anniversary of Gaza’s weekly March of Return, Hamas officials urged children to stay home from school and participate in the “Day of Rage” — mostly by hurling rocks, flying incendiary kites and rolling burning tires toward Israel’s security fence.

If I told my parents, who had forfeited all rights to their Polish homes, that I was going to stay home from school, board a jet and participate in the Cold War by throwing rocks at the Polish border patrol, they would have bashed my head in with a rock.

Sorry, but Palestinian children belong in school. And their parents must free themselves from a self-sabotaging Nakba consciousness that has been nothing but poison.

Jews regaining their homeland after 2,000 years of exile is not a “catastrophe.” The perversion of that word is not only ahistorical and counterfactual, it is a distortion of political reality and the primary reason why Palestinian statehood may never become more than a dream.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and distinguished university professor at Touro College, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. His work has appeared in major national and global publications. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio and appears frequently on cable TV news programs. His most recent book is  “Saving Free Speech … From Itself.”

Palestinians’ Revisionist History Chains Them to a Lie Read More »

GWU Condemns Anti-Semitism, BDS, Says Interim Dean ‘Will Adhere to All of Our Policies’

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George Washington University (GWU) released a statement on May 19 condemning anti-Semitism and the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

On May 8, the university had announced that it was appointing anthropology professor Ilana Feldman as its interim dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs. GW for Israel denounced the move, pointing to Feldman’s support for the BDS movement.

University Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs M. Brian Blake addressed the matter in a May 18 statement.

“The university’s policy on the BDS movement is very clear — GW does not support divestment or other actions called for by BDS,” Blake said. “While the University supports academic freedom for all, members of the administration — including those in an acting or interim capacity — are required to comply with all University policies or actions, including those on BDS, and foster an atmosphere that allows all voices to be equally heard.  As vice dean, and now as interim dean, Dr. Feldman has and will adhere to all of our policies and specifically committed to adhering to GWU’s policy regarding freedom of expression.”

He added: “The University also prioritizes the safety and security of everyone in our community. We do not tolerate discrimination in any form, including anti-Semitism and racism. We believe in an inclusive and robust community that respects all points of view. These values are intrinsic to the GW community.”

 

Jewish groups praised GWU’s statement.

“We are encouraged by the fact that GW acknowledged our concerns about this professor potentially abusing her power to implement destructive boycotts,” StandWithUs CEO and co-founder Roz Rothstein said in a statement to the Journal. “We urge the university to ensure that whoever takes over as permanent dean does not have a record of promoting campaigns of hate or blatant violations of academic freedom.”

AMCHA Initiative director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin also said in a statement to the Journal, “Ever since this appointment was announced, we have been deeply troubled that given [Professor] Feldman’s past willingness to fuse her personal political activism with her professional responsibilities, she would use her new position to implement an academic boycott of Israel, harming GW students and faculty and violating their academic rights. We greatly appreciate that GW recognizes the potential threat of faculty abuse, and that they feel compelled to address it.”

However, Rossman-Benjamin argued that the statement has its shortcomings.

“They don’t address the main problem — academic BDS differs from BDS in the very real harms it causes to campus community members,” she said. “GW’s statement further does not provide assurances that Feldman or any other faculty member won’t be permitted to carry out the actions of an academic boycott. Without these assurances, there is no stopping faculty from bringing their political activism onto campus and depriving students of their rights. GW can and must do better here with a clearer and more specific statement.”

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