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The Muslim Holy War comes to America’s College Campuses

November 26, 2015/in Culture War, Education, Featured, Policy, Politics, Religion/by The Peoples Cube

The above posters and stickers were plastered all over five major American campuses in the second week of November – two universities in D.C. and three in Southern California – making fun of local anti-Israel groups, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA), pointing out their support for Jew-hatred and violent jihad.

While the identities of those who designed the posters and put them up around the campuses can be neither confirmed nor denied, the responsibility for the campaign was claimed by the David Horowitz Freedom Center here and here. In addition, FreedomPost.us posted a one-minute video with the posters (below) in their story, If You’re A Hamas-Supporting Anti-Israel College In SoCal Or DC, These Posters Are On Your Campus.

The University of California Los Angeles newspaper, THE DAILY BRUIN, responded with an article Offensive posters targeting SJP resurface on campus for third time. The UCLA couldn’t wait to reveal its bias and went for the jugular already in the first word of the title. Rather than attempting to look into the MSA and SJP who like to harass Jews at UCLA, the article offered them the pulpit from which they predictably gunned for the messenger.

SJP outreach director, Ani Der-Grigorian, concluded that the reason SJP and MSA were being grouped together was not their shared hatred of Israel, but Islamophobia. She also complained that UCLA officials have done little in response to the posters and that they “haven’t sat down with us about how unsafe this makes our members feel.” No one bothered to wonder if their own anti-Semitic activities ever made any of the UC Jewish students “feel unsafe.”

The UCLA article states that “Felipe Bris Abejon, SJP education and resources director and first-year political science student, said he was the first to notice the posters on Bruin Walk around 10 a.m., when he found one stuck to the bottom of his shoe.” There was no explanation as to whether the poster stuck to his shoe as a result of repeatedly kicking the wall on which it was displayed, or it crept from behind and attacked the shoe with malicious intentions, but the very fact that it was documented to be stuck to the SJP education and resources director’s shoe is clearly “offensive.”

In Washington, D.C., The American University newspaper, The Eagle, published a tearful article titled, Islamophobic posters found on campus made Muslim students feel unsafe.

“I had people calling me [on Sunday], telling me that they were legitimately scared,” said Aman Abdelhamid, the president of AU’s Muslim Students Association chapter, who claims she felt “severely troubled” by the posters. “The posters…had really strong implications, really threatening messages.”

One might think that Abdelhamid was “severely troubled” after seeing Palestinian children with knives being raised to stab Jews. Or that she felt shocked and ashamed after learning that her fellow president of a Muslim Students Association, Anwar Al-Awlaki, later became an Al-Qaeda leader and was killed in Yemen by an American drone strike. Against all expectations of human decency, however, it appears that Abdelhamid felt “severely troubled” and “threatened” only because all of the above became suddenly exposed.

The article, which initially dismissed the information in the posters as false, has since been edited and appended this notable correction at the bottom: “An earlier version of this article misattributed the New York Times article and stated that Anwar al-Awlaki was not president of an MSA chapter. He was, at Colorado State.” One might think that would change the entire narrative. It didn’t.

Ntebo Mokuena, president of the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, who personally took down some of the posters while being escorted by the campus police, also made similar statements, claiming that some of the local students “offered to walk with Muslim students who did not feel safe traveling alone.”

No word on whether Jewish students have ever been offered the same aid and comfort during the anti-Semitic events that the MSI and SJP regularly hold on the same American University campus.

Laith Shakir, treasurer of AU’s SJP chapter, posted the pictures of the posters on Facebook, saying that they “spew Islamaphobic hate speech” and that he is glad a Public Safety officer “is currently patrolling the campus, finding and documenting these posters they’ve identified as inflammatory and hateful.”

“Not only is all of the information presented here categorically false,” writes Shakir, “it also propagates an exhausted talking point: if you are (or even just look) Muslim, and you’re involved in campus organization, you must also be involved in a terrorist group. Thus, Muslims and people who ‘look Arab’ are inextricably linked to violent extremism. The promoted hashtag [StopTheJihadOnCampus] isn’t trying to just “stop the jihad” (which, itself, is a nonsensical phrase); instead, it’s trying to eradicate anyone who could conceivably be labeled as Arab or Muslim from organizing on campus.”

One might think that at a time when unhinged Islamic terrorism is making everyone in America and around the world feel “unsafe,” reasonable Muslim individuals with a conscience, a modicum of decency, and respect for their host country would pause, step back, and abstain from “organizing” anything except the opposition to such terrorism.

One might also think that “organizing” against international Islamic terrorism would take priority over all other “organizing” for any morally upright Muslim activist who claims that “terrorism gives Islam a bad name.”

What should one then make of those Muslim activists who, instead, jump into action and promote their religion by capitalizing on public fears, panic, and confusion, thus riding the tidal wave of terrorism to which they claim they have no connection, while declaring themselves to be the “victims” and complaining about “feeling unsafe”?

An unbiased observer would probably tell them to calm down and get off that wave. That would certainly help you stop feeling “unsafe.” That would also help you stop looking like a lout without a trace of conscience, reason, decency, and respect for your host country.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Muslim Brotherhood-linked student group rallies not against jihad terror, but against “Islamophobia”

Global Jihad? Never Heard of It: UC Berkeley’s Bazian Still Hyping ‘Islamophobia’

CNN Erases Israel

EDITORS NOTE: This column was originally posted on The Peoples Cube.

Iceland’s Meltdown

September 21, 2015/in Commentary, Culture War, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Tabitha Korol

The city council of Reykjavik, Iceland, has fallen under the spell of a small, but toxic, Muslim population. Because of the customary Islamic narrative against Israel, the capital’s outgoing councilwoman, Bjork Vilhelmsdottir, declared a boycott against all Israeli products, citing oppression of Palestinians and the “wall”; she is also planning a mission to “help Palestinians.” Further, Iceland’s interior minister, Ogmundur Jonasson, led an anti-Israel protest complete with “blood-soaked” Israeli flags and accusations that Israel is committing a holocaust against the Palestinian people. Contrary to the Islamic narrative, Jews are the indigenous people of Israel, Gaza and Judea/Samaria (West Bank), and the constant target of Palestinian aggression, requiring the wall, one of innumerable similar barriers in the world, including Europe, that save nations from their barbarian neighbors.

The administration appears severely uninformed of Palestinian aggression and their refusal to make peace with the Jewish state. Although Iceland’s Foreign Ministry clarified that the boycott decision “doesn’t match the foreign policy of Iceland,” this small uprising could portend further discrimination as Islam gains a stronger foothold on the island nation – and Icelandic history should have served as warning that Islam is no friend of democracy.

Iceland’s first encounter with Muslims began with two raids in 1627, The Turkish Abduction – one led by a Dutch Muslim and his Barbary pirates from Morocco and Algeria, the other by the Barbary corsairs from Algiers and Sale’. The Muslims captured and sold into slavery an estimated 400 to 900 prisoners, and plundered livestock and silver (and a nearby English sailing vessel). Barely assisted by Dano-Norwegian naval patrols and having no standing army, Icelanders remained unarmed and vulnerable to Barbary corsair attacks, kidnappings and murders.

Muslims were also skilled in overland conquest. Through 1400 years of Islam, the marauders have kidnapped people for military or administrative power, for converts, wives, concubines and personal slaves as well as to replenish their relentless slave trade. They have tortured and slaughtered 900 million across continents. Nurtured in hate and usurpation, the hordes bring with them animosity, incendiary riots, property destruction, hate crimes and death to Europe – Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, England, etc. Muslims have turned Sweden’s third largest city, Malmo, into a twilight of social chaos and increasing violence, earning it the title “Rape Capital of the World” and Germany’s Munich into “Europe’s Biggest Brothel.” The explosive Islamo-fascism has caused the majority of Jewish citizens to flee.

When Palestinian Arabs realized that their many war tactics – centuries of deadly pogroms, terror tunnels (18 tons of concrete , cost of $3 million and the death of 160 child laborers), an estimated 20,000 rockets and mortar fired on Israeli civilians since 9/11 – could not conquer the Jewish state, they opted for war against Israel’s economy and culture by convincing a gullible world that it is Palestinian Arabs who are the victims, the David against the Goliath of Israel. Their boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) campaign is designed to defame Israel as an apartheid state, reduce her support, and enlist corporations, churches, associations, and academia in the international community to deny Israel’s right to self-defense and her very existence.

And it is now that Iceland has awakened. But it was not to speak out against Islam’s perpetual war against Iceland’s democratic ally; not to rally against the devastation in neighboring Sweden, with its Muslim youths rioting and burning hundreds of cars and buildings in 200 ghettos, raping countless women, and murder; not to condemn Muslims’ igniting or pelting emergency vehicles with rocks or the epidemic increase in rapes and calls for beheadings and a Muslim state in Norway; not to denounce the murder of Jews in France, the ruinous riots in southern Italy, or increase in terror worldwide. Rather, Iceland was stirred awake by the lie of Palestinian victimhood and, as a result, seeks to isolate Israel and inflict upon her financial damage.

What these Scandinavians fail to realize is that they, too, are at the beginning of a growing Islamic population and the chaos that is certain to follow. They fail to recognize the use of propaganda to unite the citizens in a common cause. And if Icelanders will not protest to save others, they will be unable to save themselves from the Islamic menace that festers in every multicultural paradise. Nei, they spoke out to condemn Israel, the only Jewish country in the Middle East and herself a victim of Islam.

The process has begun and Icelanders will now get their first mosque, with “foreign donors” funding its construction, and naïve taxpayers providing Reykjavik’s prime landmark location, selected and approved by Mayor Jon Gnarr, a self-described anarchist. The mosque, although far too large for the current Muslim community, will be built to accommodate the projected thousands, complete with minarets and a muezzin whose voice will be heard through the land five times a day. The Islamic community is a mere 1% of the city’s 120,000, but growing exponentially due to immigration and conversion. More than 11,000 Icelanders have offered to share their homes with the incoming new immigrants, welfare recipients, rioters, rapists, and jihadists. At 5%, they will exert influence inconsistent with their numbers, become more aggressive and push for Sharia Law. At 10% they will become more lawless and violent, and 20% will bring rioting, murder, jihad militias, and destruction of non-Muslim houses of worship. Beyond 40%, Icelanders can expect massacres and attacks, and at 50%, genocide, persecution of infidels and apostates, and Sharia will triumph.

To paraphrase Sir Winston S. Churchill, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.” As Iceland may slowly slip from a constitutional republic to lawlessness and totalitarianism, we ask the government of Iceland to enact legislation, such as has been done by the United States of America, to oppose politically motivated actions that penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, such as boycotts, divestments or sanctions, and to recognize that such actions against Israel are anti-Semitic aggression against the Jewish State.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Muslim praying in a mosque in Iceland. Photo by Eggert Jóhannesson from the Iceland Monitor.

The War of a Million Cuts

June 7, 2015/in Must Read, National Security, News, Policy/by Jerry Gordon

In early June 2015 the new government of Israeli PM Netanyahu took on the international Boycott, Divestment Sanctions (BDS) action by French cell phone giant Orange. Orange was seeking to withdraw its name from an Israeli company, Partner Communications, Ltd. The Los Angeles Times reported this latest BDS kerfuffle involving Israel:

Orange said Thursday that it “ultimately” planned to pull its brand name from Israel, giving a boost to an international boycott movement while enraging the Israeli government and the local franchisee.

In a news release from Paris, the company said it wished to “ultimately end this brand license agreement.” It insisted it was making a business decision, saying it did not want to maintain the brand’s presence in countries where the French company does not actually operate, as is the case in Israel.

The statement capped a tense 24 hours after Orange Chief Executive Stephane Richard at a Cairo news conference Wednesday said that the company would love to terminate “tomorrow” the contract granting the Israeli cellular company Partner Communications Ltd. use of the Orange brand. He added, however, that the legalities would have to be sorted out or the French company would incur staggering expenses.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius responded swiftly saying:

Although it is for the president of the Orange group to determine the commercial strategy of the company, France is firmly opposed to a boycott of Israel.

Also, France and the European Union have a consistent policy on settlement-building that is known to all.

This occurred in less than 48 hours after Orange CEO Stephane Richard’s meeting in Egypt with BDS campaign representatives. He said he “would to ultimately cut ties with Israeli Partner Communications, Ltd. (Partner) because of cell phone use in the disputed territories where Palestinians allege human rights abuses occur. Richard admitted he couldn’t do that as the French government owns 25% of the cell phone company which has a 10 year contract with Partner, allowing it to use the name “Orange.” Richard was pummeled for his statement in comments by Prime Minister Netanyahu and from Israeli American Hollywood mogul, Haim Saban, who holds a significant stake in Partner. Netanyahu called on France to repudiate BDS and what he deemed the “miserable actions” of Orange. Saban said on Israel’s Channel 2 that Richard “succumbs” to antisemitic pressure groups and ought to be fired.

L’affaire Orange ended just as abruptly as it began with a phone conversation between Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom and cell phone CEO Richard. The Jerusalem Post reported this exchange posted by Shalom on his Facebook page:

I spoke with the CEO of Orange, Stephane Richard, and I told him that the people of Israel are angered and hurt by his statements. I told him how it saddened me that he had turned into a tool in the struggle against Israel and that he had lent a hand to the assault by Israel-haters who are trying to harm Israel not just militarily but economically. Richard apologized for his remarks that he made during a conference in Egypt and told me that he is a friend of Israel. He claimed that his comments were not properly understood and that he spoke only about the economic aspect [of his decision]. He apologized on behalf of himself and the company for the remarks, and he said that they condemn all forms of boycotts.

As the L.A. Times reported the original statement by Orange CEO Richard caught Israeli officials flat footed. That prompted Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely to hold an emergency meeting which resulted in a letter sent to Richard saying: “I appeal to you to refrain from being a party to the industry of lies which unfairly targets Israel.”

Still concerning the Israeli Foreign Ministry was the recent adoption of a BDS resolution voted by the UK Student Union and the recognition of a Hamas–related ‘Palestinian Return’ NGO in a vote by Turkey and Iran at the UN. There was also the spike reported by the ADL in BDS resolution votes at US universities seeking divestment of endowment holdings of securities of Israeli companies and securities of US companies doing business with Israel. The UK Student Union vote prompted Israeli PM Netanyahu during welcoming remarks for visiting Canadian Foreign Minister Robert Nicholson to say:

They boycott Israel but they refuse to boycott ISIS. [ISIS] burns people alive in cages and the national student groups in Britain refuse to boycott ISIS and have boycotted Israel. That tells you everything you want to know about the BDS movement. They condemn Israel and do not condemn ISIS; they condemn themselves.

The Anti-Israel BDS campaign formally began in 2005 with formation of the Palestinian BDS National Committee. The international Palestinian BDS project is modeled on the South African Anti-Apartheid sanctions campaign of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. It was an outgrowth of the UN Human Rights Commission Durban I Conference against racism in 2000 prompted by Palestinian and so-called ant-racist anti-Israel NGOs. The International Palestinian BDS initiative endeavored to depict Israel as allegedly violating Palestinian human rights as an occupying power in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Israel’s kerfuffle with French cell phone giant Orange is an example of a long overdue strategy articulated in a new book by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, The War of a Million Cuts: The Struggle against the Deligitimization of Israel and the Jews, and the Growth of New Anti-Semitism. Dr. Gerstenfeld is the former chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a recognized expert on European and Global Antisemitism. His latest work on the rise of the “new Antisemitism” is a masterful compendium of the origins and contemporary sources of Jew hatred, delegitimizing and demonizing Israel and world Jewry, as well as a strategy for Israel to combat this political war against the Jewish State. In our 2013 interview with Dr. Gerstenfeld, “Anti-Israelism is Anti-Semitism,” in response to a question on what Israel and world Jewry could do to combat this, he replied:

In post-modern times, there is no single remedy against widespread hate-mongering. The government of Israel has to set up a much more comprehensive infrastructure to fight this war and it must properly fund it. One must develop a detailed concept of how this is going to be done.

In The War of a Million Cuts, Gerstenfeld proposes, the equivalent of the US WWII Office of War Information, funded at upwards of $250 million by Israel. He notes the compelling rationale:

There is no Israeli organizational structure that is capable of overseeing the battlefield, let alone one that combats incitement abroad as well as anti-Semitism in a systematic way. This is despite the fact that the war of a million cuts has been raging for so long.

Such an overview of the battlefield would involve understanding who Israel’s most dangerous hate-mongering enemies are, what their various modes of activity are, how their operations interrelate, what impact they have, and so on. Such an agency would also assess and develop the best ways of combating the aggressors and guiding Israel’s allies on how they can help fight the enemy. No other country is confronted with a propaganda onslaught of such magnitude.

With Israel’s premier expertise in cybersecurity, that might entail development of a’ big data’ approach to target and fine tune messaging to combat Anti-Israel propaganda. Illustrative of that was the development by both the IDF and ad hoc social media groups at Israeli universities to rebut pro-Hamas and Palestinian disinformation through adroit use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube videos in the midst of Operation Defensive Edge. In the US colleagues involved with the National Security Task Force of the Lisa Benson show held a combined Facebook Twitter Rally in the midst of last summer’s Hamas rocket and tunnel war that at its peak was sending more than 600 messages per hour. That effort caught the attention of several US Congressional Representatives and even a reporter from Al Jazeera America using the hashtag “#defundsHamas.”

Carolyn Glick in a Jerusalem Post op-ed on the Orange and more recent BDS attacks against Israel noted the daunting task ahead in the expanding war against BDS:

Israel’s ability to defend itself and its citizens is constrained first and foremost by its shrinking capacity to defend itself diplomatically. Its enemies in the diplomatic arena have met with great success in their use of diplomatic condemnation and intimidation to force Israel to limit its military operations to the point where it is incapable of defeating its enemies outright.

The flagship of the diplomatic war against Israel is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Participants in the movement propagate and disseminate the libelous claim that Israel’s use of force in self-defense is inherently immoral and illegal. Over the years BDS activists’ assaults on Israel’s right to exist have become ever more shrill and radical. So, too, whereas just a few years ago their operations tended to be concentrated around military confrontations, today they are everyday occurrences. And their demands become greater and more openly anti-Semitic from week to week and day to day.

These latest BDS attacks against Israel aroused casino mogul and GOP campaign financier Sheldon Adelson. Following this episode, he called for an emergency meeting of likeminded anti-BDS colleagues at his flagship Casino in Las Vegas

On June 4, 2015, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina signed into law a model anti-BDS law for adoption by other states and possibly at the federal level through amendment of the existing 1977 Anti-Boycott legislation that bars participation of U.S. persons in boycotts, not sanctioned by the government. The blog Legal Insurrection reported:

[The new law prohibits[s] the state from doing business with firms or individuals who engage in a “boycott of a person or an entity based in or doing business with a jurisdiction with whom South Carolina can enjoy open trade.”

The South Carolina bill was signed into law a few weeks after Illinois passed legislation prohibiting the state from investing its pension funds in businesses that boycott Israel. Shortly afterwards Prof. Jacobson [of Cornell Law School] reported that New York had started working on a bill similar to the Illinois bill.

According to a spokesman for the Israel Allies Foundation, “a bloc of sponsors across 18 states has already committed to introducing similar legislation in their next legislative cycle.” The Israel Allies Foundation is working on fighting BDS at the state level.

If adopted in other jurisdictions in the U.S. the South Carolina model might bring a halt to state university student associations passing anti-Israel divestment resolutions. It also might bring up short groups like J Street, the New Israel Fund and some Federations that have supported BDS proponents.

It may augur well that a colleague of Dr. Gerstenfield’s at the JCPA, former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dr. Dore Gold, was appointed Director General at the Israeli Foreign Ministry along with Deputy Foreign Minister Ms. Hotovely. What could emerge from these events and Netanyahu government appointments just might be the political warfare agency suggested by Gerstenfeld to ultimately rein in the rampant Jew hatred in the world directed in an unceasing BDS campaign demonizing Israel.

In The War of a Million Cuts, Gerstenfeld examines in definitive detail the classical forms of Antisemitism from early Church, nativist European blood libel accusations to the sanguinary racist forms that originated in the Spanish inquisition. These later emerged in 19th Century France and Austria with Antisemitic motifs of dual loyalty accusations and motifs of global media and financial controls depicted in editorial cartoons by the figurative Jewish octopus often conveyed in Arab and Iranian propaganda in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Those motifs include those drawn from Czarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and pictorial dehumanization of Jews which ultimately led to Hitler’s final solution – murdering six million European Jewish men, women and children. As a child, Gerstenfeld was hidden with a Dutch Christian family during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands during WWII.

His latest book covers the re-emergence of Antisemitism in post-war Europe against the background of the creation of the third Jewish commonwealth, Israel and the Palestinian conflicts that triggered a new international Anti-Israel campaign. A campaign fostered in part by the growth of non-selective mass Muslim immigration into Europe and the West which brought with it Islamic Jew hatred drawn from foundational Qur’anic documents. Gerstenfeld portrays these common motifs and themes drawn from these ancient and contemporary sources and the means by which they are disseminated in print and electronic social media. Against this background, he highlights evidence from contemporary surveys exposing the depths of virulent Antisemitism in France, Holland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Sweden and the UK which threaten both domestic Jewish populations and Israelis. In addition to Palestinian and Islamic organizations and media, the new Antisemitism derives from anti-Israel positions of international mainstream Christian NGOs and churches, European extremist left and neo-fascist political parties, nominally friendly state leaders, biased Western media, academia and even self-hating Jews. Then there is Lawfare by the Palestinian Authority in international and even US courts directed at criminalizing Israel’s self defense and civil actions against accusations from corrupt Palestinian leaders. Despite the absence of an official Israeli political warfare agency Gerstenfeld commends NGOs, social media and academic groups in the US, EU and Israel that combat Anti-Israelism. Groups like Palestine Media Watch, NGO Monitor, CAMERA, StandWithUs and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East that monitor, disclose abuses and drawn attention to these developments arousing activism.

In his 2013 book, Demonizing Israel and the Jews Gerstenfeld developed the stunning estimate of 150 million Europeans who dislike Israel and Jews. This figure is based on survey responses to questions about Israel’s alleged “genocidal” behavior towards Palestinian Arabs conducted in major EU member countries.

How bad the level of global Antisemitism is reflected in a statistic that Dr. Gerstenfeld drew from the 2014 ADL Global 100 survey results. For every Jewish person in the world there are 700 Antisemites. That would make Antisemites the equivalent of the third largest country in the world with an estimated 1 billion people.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

The World According to UK’s National Union of Students

June 6, 2015/in Commentary, Culture War, National Security, News, Politics/by Henry Jackson Society

Some scripts are so perfect and so perfectly predictable that they write themselves. One such example cropped up this week.

Of course the National Union of Students (NUS) in the UK can be relied upon to be predictable, if nothing else. Far from representing students, the organisation some time ago fell back onto only representing students of the hardest of hard left views. They have spent recent years attempting to subvert the counter-extremism efforts of consecutive governments, whether Labour, coalition or Conservative. And only recently did they decide to do a number of events in conjunction with CAGE, the radical Islamist organisation with which ‘Jihad John’ (Mohammed Emwazi) was associated.

That said, the NUS does sometimes do things that even its supporters are embarrassed by. For instance last year the NUS refused to issue a motion condemning Islamic State (IS). To do so, the delegates argued, would be ‘Islamophobic’. Our Associate Director, Douglas Murray, among others, made hay with this in the national media at the time. After all, if condemning IS is ‘Islamophobic’ what is one to do? Roll over and let them chop everyone’s heads off? Or issue a call for mutual understanding to the head-choppers (perhaps with a dose of apology for colonialism by way of appeal to the slave-keeping colonialists of IS).

So far, so ridiculous. But this week the NUS showed that there is always further to go. For this week the group that would not condemn IS chose to pass a motion condemning and calling for a boycott of the world’s only Jewish state. It didn’t occur to them – or didn’t bother them – that this might be Judaeophobic. Such concerns are apparently only in one direction. But it did provide a moment of clarity.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was among those who pointed out the extraordinary double standards of the NUS. There are those who think he should not have spoken about this – that it is somehow beneath a Prime Minister. But it is not. Today BDS activity is a strategic threat to the State of Israel. The NUS may only be one group of far-left anti-Israel agitators, but they are having success with that campaign. Such success that in 2015 it almost seems normal – indeed predictable.

Of course the representative body for students in Britain wouldn’t even use words against IS. Of course they are willing to use not just words but actions such as boycotts against Israel. This is a sickness, a perversion of our time. But it should have a light shone on it, from the highest possible positions of power. Because it is only by shining a light on this modern mode of acceptable bigotry that the world has any chance at all of seeing the real darkness it contains.

FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK

Having just returned from a trip to the USA this week, I have been struck by the much greater attention being paid to foreign and international security policy by our American cousins at present than we see on the UK political scene.

Our General Election last month was a case in point. Foreign policy did not emerge in any of the televised debates and discussions, nor intrude upon the concerns of the public in the endless polls run during the campaign. It was as if threats such as Islamic State (IS), Russian expansionism and Iran’s nuclear programme were of interest neither to those who govern, nor the governed themselves. Perhaps this can be explained by the old adage that there a no votes to be won in foreign policy. Or just reflective of the inward looking nature of our political dialogue today when compared to Britain’s glorious and internationalist history.

The same – fortunately given the importance of these issues to our security and wellbeing – cannot be said about the forthcoming US presidential election. Putative candidates have been falling over themselves to declare that they are the candidate best placed to protect the US in an uncertain world. We even had a Republican contender, Senator Lindsey Graham, declare his bid this week by putting foreign policy at the front and centre of his campaign, saying “I have more experience with our national security than any other candidate in this race. That includes you, Hillary.” Whether true or not, that makes for an increasing contrast with our own politicians.

However, as I pointed out to the many American interlocutors I engaged with during my visit, it is one thing to speak about foreign policy, and quite another to actually practice it. We have heard lots from the Obama administration for years about its vision of the world. Yet it has done exceedingly little to create alliances or push policies that will actually turn visions into reality.

It is tempting to muse that given some of the views emanating from the White House, that may not have been a bad thing. But the fact remains that the world is an indisputably better place when it has strong and clear leadership from the USA. We should therefore hope not only for a profound debate on foreign policy during the presidential campaign, but also for a candidate – from whichever party – willing to once again occupy the ‘bully pulpit’ of the presidency.

Dr Alan Mendoza is Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society

Follow Alan on Twitter: @AlanMendoza

Oxfam and BDS Hypocrisy by Wallace Bruschweiler and Alan Kornman

August 31, 2014/in Commentary, Culture War, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Alan Kornman

The definition of peace between the Palestinians and Israelis is when the two can work alongside each other, earning equal wages, benefits, and economically energizing their neighborhoods, in a ‘so called’ peaceful environment.

Peace broke out in Maale Adumim, West Bank at the SodaStream factory 15 minutes west of Jerusalem. 600 West Bank Palestinians, 300 East Jerusalem Arabs, and 300 Israeli Jews entered, without knowing, into a voluntary peace deal at SodaStream. All this achieved without outside interference from the United Nations, United States, and UK.

The SodaStream factory had an on-site synagogue and mosque. Jew and Palestinian break bread everyday sharing the same cafeteria in peace and harmony. The economy of Maale Adumim, West Bank was benefiting from the positive financial benefits as SodaStream’s Palestinian workers were building homes, buying local goods, and saving money for their future.

How Did This Peace Work?

Al Monitor asked SodaStream’s President Daniel Birnbaum to explain how this peace worked between Israeli and Palestinian.

“You know, as far as many of them(Palestinians) are concerned, the only Israelis they know are settlers and the policemen at checkpoints. Most of them had never even been to Israel until I took them on a tour last summer. Then they saw Israelis on the beach and in the street. They saw plain, ordinary people.

On the other hand, it was also an opportunity for us to break through the barriers of hatred and to get to know the other side, so that we could finally recognize that not every Palestinian is a terrorist. I’m proud of that. I want people to finally realize that we’re talking about people and that peace is possible, despite the politicians. If there were another hundred companies like us extending a hand to the other side, we would have a peace agreement, because everybody wants it, including the Palestinians.”

This SodaStream economic peace effort was a glimmer of light at the end of a very dark and bloody tunnel. Then, out of nowhere, Oxfam and BDS Movement came into play with a world wide action which at the end of the day is hurting over 3,500 Palestinians.

900 Palestinians and Arabs Betrayed By Oxfam and BDS’ Nonsense

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) is a global campaign to increase economic and political pressure on Israel i.e. branding Israel as an apartheid state. BDS puts public pressure on companies like SodaStream by protesting and intimidating retailers around the world for selling their products.

The BDS movement has evolved into a non-affiliated arm of Palestinian terrorism. Oxfam/BDS are hell bent on Israel’s economic destruction. Sacrificing the economic future of 900 Palestinian workers was a very small matter to the BDS movement.

Oxfam

Oxfam’s mission statement: “Working with thousands of local partner organizations, we work with people living in poverty striving to exercise their human rights, assert their dignity as full citizens and take control of their lives.”

Oxfam International in its zeal to hurt SodaStream violated its own mission statement.

Oxfam went on a personal rampage mission to destroy SodaStream, in January 2014, after their international spokesperson, Ms. Scarlett Johansson, appeared in a SodaStream worldwide TV ad campaign.

Oxfam got hot under the collar when Ms. Johansson’s publicist gave this reason for leaving Oxfam. “Ms. Johansson, respectfully decided to end her ambassador role with Oxfam after eight years… She and Oxfam have a fundamental difference of opinion in regards to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.”

In a January 30, 2014 Oxfam press release the ‘aid’ groups politics become crystal clear, “Oxfam believes that businesses, such as SodaStream, that operate in settlements further the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to support. Oxfam is opposed to all trade from Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law.”

Oxfam International, with an operating budget of $1.2 Billion US and net assets of $396 Million, decided to exact their pound of flesh from SodaStream. Ms. Scarlett Johansson publicly exposed Oxfam’s political bias against the State of Israel in favor of the BDS Movement. The only one’s who got hurt at the end of the day were the 900 Palestinian and Arab workers who were earning four times more than the average wage in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).

Back To Square One

JTA reports, Daniel Birnbaum, SodaStream CEO said, “We are committed to continue serving as a bridge and to sowing hope.” The flames of that hope were extinguished because of outside influences from Oxfam International and BDS, both showing their anti-semitism.

“SodaStream’s case, some say, is one example of how boycotting an Israeli company doing business in the West Bank can end up hurting the very goals that boycott proponents say they are trying to achieve: Palestinian rights and Israel-Palestinian peace.”

Conclusion

SodaStream will soon be closing their West Bank plant and moving it to the Be’er Sheva area in the Negev. With an average of 4 people per household approximately 3,600 Palestinians and Arab workers are being directly impacted by the SodaStream West Bank plant closing.

Many of these Palestinian and Arab workers had been earning enough money with SodaStream to apply for mortgages and building homes. When those mortgage payments can’t be paid and the foreclosures start there will be much anger and frustration in these West Bank communities. There is no work in the West Bank for these Palestinians to move into comparable earning jobs and support their families.

Now there are 3,600 additional frustrated and angry Palestinians in the West Bank. Their anger, strangely enough, will not be focused on Oxfam International and the BDS Movement who are responsible for them losing their livelihood.

That anger will be focused like a laser on the Jews and Israel. If I was a Palestinian community organizer I would be channeling this anti Jew/Israel anger by building more violent terrorist cells in the West Bank and East Jerusalem with all these now unemployed SodaStream workers.

Qatar would be smart to give these families a little bit of money and food to tide them over for a short time instead of financing a Gaza weapons buying spree. When the money and food runs out, desperation sets in. Generosity in the Arab world comes with a very high price tag.

The payment will almost certainly be the radicalization of these once proud Palestinian SodaStream workers.

Sadly, there are no profits in peace between the Palestinians and Israelis for groups like Oxfam and the BDS Movement who thrive on poverty and misery.

The Big Picture

The idiocy of Oxfam BDS campaign created a situation where some EU and USA large wholesalers had to cancel orders of Israeli products. The unintended consequence is that Russia is now buying up from Israel what the EU and USA are unfortunately boycotting.

The Muslim Brotherhood, American Institutions and the BDS Campaign against Israel

August 13, 2014/in Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Ruth Roman

While the American people witness unthinkable atrocities against primarily Christians throughout the Middle East and the African Maghreb at the hands of Islamic terrorists, many of their church governing bodies and other institutions have decided to boycott Israel. That’s correct, Israel; America’s long-time ally and the only true democracy in the Middle East.

The Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement of Israel, known as BDS, has its origins in 2001, in South Africa at The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR). At this NGO conference the Palestinian Solidarity Committee of S.A. distributed copies of anti-Semitic literature that was determined to be extremely offensive and toxic to many of the attendees.

In the U.S., the BDS movement against Israel has been an ‘influence operation’ by the Left and Brotherhood offshoots, such as C.A.I.R., the Muslim Student Assoc., Students for Justice in Palestine, ISNA and others groups. On college campuses throughout the country massive demonstrations against Israel have taken place in the form of “Anti-Israel Apartheid Week” and “Anti-Israeli Apartheid Week,” even in Florida at Florida Atlantic University.

The penetration of the hierarchy of U.S. religious institutions encouraging anti-Israel bias has come from many fronts, the U.N. based World Council On Churches, which many believe espouses pro-Russian, anti-Western stances and The Interfaith Boycott Coalition, described as “a faith based wing of the U.S. campaign to end the Israeli occupation;” supported by Brotherhood front groups. (Perhaps this was the real intention of the Muslim push for ‘Interfaith Dialog’ with our churches.)

Unfortunately, many of our church leadership have succumbed to this stealth campaign, including the Presbyterian, Methodist, Unitarian and other Churches. Moreover, U.S. companies that conduct business with Israel have been targeted as well such as Caterpillar and Hewlett Packard.

Natan Shcharansky, founding member of the Helsinki Group, uniting Soviet dissidents has established a “Three D Test” for legitimate criticism of Israel, when criticism crosses the line into anti-Semitism:

First: Double Standard- singling out Israel for criticism while ignoring the more egregious behavior of major human rights abusers in the Arab and Muslim world and beyond.

Second: Demonization of Israel- distorting the Jewish State’s actions by means of insidious and false comparisons with Nazis and/or South Africa’s Apartheid regime.

Third: Delegitimization- when Israel’s fundamental right to exist is denied-alone among all nations in the world- this too is anti-Semitism.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore, Special Envoy to the U.N. on Middle Eastern Affairs, president and founder of PJTN, serving in the capacity as the World Council of Independent Christian Churches, spoke recently at the Fort Lauderdale Tea Party and Broward Executive Republican Committee. Ms. Cardoza-Moore’s organization, PJTN, is focused on educating Christians about their Biblical responsibility to stand with their Jewish Brethren and defend the State of Israel.

Propaganda that the Jews ‘never inhabited the Middle East’ has been perpetuated despite the Biblical, Archaeological and Historical evidence, states David Horowitz. In 1402 B.C. Jews organized the Kingdom of Israel. Artifacts, coins and menorahs on buildings found in archaeological digs coincide with Biblical and historic records of Jewish ancestry in the land of Israel.

Historically, Jewish tribes have been present in the Middle East since 4000 B.C., even once occupying Saudi Arabia, until driven out and annihilated under the arm of Islam, which was founded in 613 A.D.

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