People need to realize, face facts: Jews, Israel CONTINUE to gain, consolidate power over dumb goyim

Apollonian

Guest Columnist
Greatest Threat to Free Speech in the West: Criminalizing Activism Against Israeli Occupation

Link: https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16...nalizing-activism-against-israeli-occupation/

Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Fishman
February 16 2016, 1:56 p.m.

THE U.K. GOVERNMENT today announced that it is will be illegal for “local [city] councils, public bodies, and even some university student unions … to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products, or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.” Thus, any entities that support or participate in the global boycott of Israeli settlements will face “severe penalties.”

This may sound like an extreme infringement of free speech and political activism — and, of course, it is — but it is far from unusual in the West. The opposite is now true. There is a very coordinated and well-financed campaign led by Israel and its supporters literally to criminalize political activism against Israeli occupation, based on the particular fear that the worldwide campaign of Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment, or BDS — modeled after the 1980s campaign that brought down the Israel-allied apartheid regime in South Africa — is succeeding.

The Israeli website +972 reported last year about a pending bill that “would ban entry to foreigners who promote the [BDS] movement that aims to pressure Israel to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights.” In 2011, a law passed in Israel that “effectively ban[ned] any public call for a boycott — economic, cultural, or academic — against Israel or its West Bank settlements, making such action a punishable offense.”

But the current censorship goal is to make such activism a crime not only in Israel, but in Western countries generally. And it is succeeding.

THIS TREND TO outlaw activism against the decades-long Israeli occupation — particularly though not only through boycotts against Israel — has permeated multiple Western nations and countless institutions within them. In October, we reported on the criminal convictions in France of 12 activists “for the ‘crime’ of advocating sanctions and a boycott against Israel as a means of ending the decadeslong military occupation of Palestine,” convictions upheld by France’s highest court. They were literally arrested and prosecuted for “wearing shirts emblazoned with the words ‘Long live Palestine, boycott Israel’” and because “they also handed out fliers that said that ‘buying Israeli products means legitimizing crimes in Gaza.’”

As we noted, Pascal Markowicz, chief lawyer of the CRIF umbrella organization of French Jewish communities, published this celebratory decree (emphasis in original): “BDS is ILLEGAL in France.” Statements advocating a boycott or sanctions, he added, “are completely illegal. If [BDS activists] say their freedom of expression has been violated, now France’s highest legal instance ruled otherwise.” In Canada last year, officials threatened criminal prosecution against anyone supporting boycotts against Israel.

In the U.S., unbeknownst to many, there are similar legislative proscriptions on such activism, and a pending bill would strengthen the outlawing of BDS. As the Washington Post reported last June, “A wave of anti-BDS legislation is sweeping the U.S.” Numerous bills in Congress encourage or require state action to combat BDS.

Eyal Press warned in a must-read New York Times op-ed last month that under a Customs Bill passed by both houses of Congress and headed to the White House, “American officials will be obligated to treat the settlements as part of Israel in future trade negotiations,” a provision specifically designed “to combat the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, a grass-roots campaign.” But as Press notes, under existing law — which is almost never discussed — “Washington already forbids American companies to cooperate with state-led boycotts of Israel.”

The real purpose of this new law, as Press explains it, is to force American companies to treat settlements in the West Bank — which virtually the entire world views as illegal — as a valid part of Israel, by outlawing any behavior that would be deemed cooperative with a boycott of companies occupying the West Bank. U.S. companies would be forced to pretend that products produced in the occupied territories are actually produced in “Israel.” The White House announced that it will sign the bill despite its opposition to the AIPAC-backed pro-settlement provision.

Rahul Saksena of Palestine Legal said that “the BDS provision in the federal customs bill, and the dozens of anti-BDS bills being introduced in Congress and state legislatures across the U.S., are examples of the lengths that Israel’s fiercest advocates and the lawmakers who bend over backward to accommodate them will go to shut down any conversation critical of Israeli policies and supportive of Palestinian freedom.” Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs for J Street (which opposes BDS), told The Intercept: “The references in the Customs Act to ‘Israeli-controlled territories’ are just one instance of a larger effort to sneak Green Line-blurring language into legislation at both the state and national level.”

Under the existing laws, American companies have been fined for actions deemed supportive of boycotts aimed at Israel. For decades, U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries, for instance, have been required by law to refuse to comply with the Arab League boycott of Israel. Penalties for violators include up to 10 years of imprisonment.

In 2010, G M Daewoo Auto & Technology Company, a Korean firm owned by General Motors, was fined $88,500 by the Office of Antiboycott Compliance for 59 anti-boycott violations, including the “crime” of declaring on a customs form: “We hereby state that the carrying vessel … is allowed to enter the Libya ports [sic].” At the time, Libyan law did not allow Israeli goods or ships that had previously stopped in Israel to enter Libyan ports, and the company’s seemingly banal declaration that it was complying with Libyan law was deemed by the U.S. government to constitute support for a boycott of Israel, and it was thus fined.

THE SUPPRESSION OF anti-occupation activism is particularly acute on American college campuses. Among other things, that is deeply ironic. In the U.S. over the past year, there has been a widespread media debate over censorship on college campuses. Notably, the pundits who have most vocally condemned this censorship and held themselves out as free speech crusaders — such as New York’s Jonathan Chait — have completely ignored what is far and away the most widespread form of campus censorship: namely, punishment of those who engage in activism against Israeli actions.

This campus censorship on behalf of Israel was comprehensively documented in a report last year by Palestine Legal titled “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech.” The nationwide censorship effort has seen pro-Palestinian professors fired, anti-occupation student activists suspended and threatened with expulsion, pro-Palestinian groups de-funded, and even discipline for students for the “crime” of flying a Palestinian flag. The report documents how pro-Israel campus groups and alumni “have intensified their efforts to stifle criticism of Israeli government policies.” The report explains: “Rather than engage such criticism on its merits, these groups leverage their significant resources and lobbying power to pressure universities, government actors, and other institutions to censor or punish advocacy in support of Palestinian rights.”

Notably, the students and administrators justifying the campus censorship of anti-Israel views invoke the very same “PC” rhetoric of “safe spaces” and “hate speech” denounced by ostensibly free-speech pundits. The University of Illinois student who led the campaign to fire Steven Salaita for his pro-Gaza tweets, himself a former AIPAC intern, told the New York Times: “Hate speech is never acceptable for those applying for a tenured position; incitement to violence is never acceptable. … There must be a relationship between free speech and civility.” Another “pro-Israel” student demanding Salaita’s firing said, “It’s about feeling safe on campus.”

This was a classic and extreme case of oppressive censorship on campus — the University of Illinois ended up paying Salaita close to $1 million to settle the resulting lawsuit — yet very few of the pundits who turned “college censorship” into a nationwide cause uttered a peep about this case or the countless other instances of suppression of anti-Israel criticism.

It is now routine for students advocating BDS or otherwise working against Israeli occupation to be disciplined or endure other forms of sanctions. As the Palestine Legal report documents:

These heavy-handed tactics often have their desired effect, driving institutions to enact a variety of punitive measures against human rights activists, such as administrative sanctions, censorship, intrusive investigations, viewpoint-based restriction of advocacy, and even criminal prosecutions. Such efforts intimidate activists for Palestinian human rights, chill criticism of Israeli government practices, and impede a fair-minded dialogue on the pressing question of Palestinian rights.

This report, the first of its kind, documents the suppression of Palestine advocacy in the United States. In 2014, Palestine Legal — a nonprofit legal and advocacy organization supporting Palestine activism — responded to 152 incidents of censorship, punishment, or other burdening of advocacy for Palestinian rights and received 68 additional requests for legal assistance in anticipation of such actions. In the first six months of 2015 alone, Palestine Legal responded to 140 incidents and 33 requests for assistance in anticipation of potential suppression. These numbers understate the phenomenon, as many advocates who are unaware of their rights or afraid of attracting further scrutiny stay silent and do not report incidents of suppression. The overwhelming majority of these incidents — 89 percent in 2014 and 80 percent in the first half of 2015 — targeted students and scholars, a reaction to the increasingly central role universities play in the movement for Palestinian rights.

As we reported in September, the University of California — the largest academic system in the country — has been debating proposals to literally outlaw BDS activism by formally equating it with “anti-semitism”: as though opposition to Israeli government oppression (opposition shared by many Jews) is somehow the equivalent of, or is inherently driven by, animosity toward Jews. If anything, what is actually “anti-Semitic” is to conflate the Israeli government with Jews generally (an ugly anti-semitic trope with a long history). Yet that is the Orwellian tactic being used to justify the criminalization of anti-occupation activism, as it converts that activism into “anti-semitism” or “hate speech” and then bans it on that basis.

This attempt to formalize suppression of anti-occupation advocacy on college campuses is long-standing and widespread. The New York state legislature actually passed “a bill that would suspend funding to educational institutions which fund groups that boycott Israel.” Such legislation is becoming commonplace, as the group United With Israel boasted just last month:

Florida became the fifth state in the U.S. to introduce a resolution to confront the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement when it passed a law on December 21, similar to the first anti-BDS legislation introduced in Tennessee last April.

By doing so, Florida has joined Tennessee, New York, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Another 35 states are reportedly considering similar legislation.

The commendably consistent pro-campus-speech group FIRE, while expressing some criticisms of the BDS movement, has repeatedly documented and denounced attempts to suppress BDS advocacy on campus:

FIRE’s position on the Israel-focused BDS movement is driven by our concern for academic freedom — for students and professors, and for its continuing importance as a meaningful concept in and of itself. Students and professors must be perfectly free to support boycott, divestment, and/or sanctions against Israel or any other country they wish, and they must not face punishment for this support. As you might expect, FIRE has opposed attempts to punish organizations for supporting BDS, and we have certainly defended professors’ rights to be highly critical of Israel — or, frankly, any other country, person, or idea.

YET THIS CENSORSHIP effort to ban BDS and other forms of Israel criticism continues to grow, in multiple countries around the world. It’s not hard to understand why. The Israeli government and its most powerful supporters have invested vast sums of money and considerable political capital into the campaign to institutionalize this censorship.

Last year, GOP billionaire Sheldon Adelson and Democratic billionaire Haim Saban donated tens of millions of dollars to a new fund to combat BDS on college campuses. Also last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “decided to implement a 2014 resolution to establish a special task force to fight the anti-Israeli sanctions”; that task force has funding of “some 100 million Israeli shekels (roughly $25.5 million).” BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray reported in 2014 that anti-BDS legislation has become a major goal of AIPAC. As part of the controversy at the University of California, Richard Blum, the mega-rich investment banker and husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, threatened the university that his wife would take adverse action against the university if it did not adopt the harsh anti-BDS measures he was demanding.

None of this is to say, obviously, that suppression of anti-occupation activism is the only strain of free speech threats in the West. The prosecution of Western Muslims for core free speech expression under “terrorism” laws, the distortion of “hate speech” legislation as a means of punishing unpopular ideas, threats and violence against those who publish cartoons deemed “blasphemous,” and pressure on social media companies to ban ideas disliked by governments are all serious menaces to this core liberty.

But in terms of systematic, state-sponsored, formalized punishments for speech and activism, nothing compares to the growing multi-nation effort to criminalize activism against Israeli occupation. Rafeef Ziadah, a Palestinian a member of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, told The Intercept: “Israel is increasingly unable to defend its regime of apartheid and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people and its regular massacres of Palestinians in Gaza so is resorting to asking supportive governments in the U.S. and Europe to undermine free speech as a way of shielding it from criticism and measures aimed at holding it to account.”

It is, needless to say, perfectly legitimate to argue against BDS and to engage in activism to defeat it. But only advocates of tyranny could support the literal outlawing of the same type of activism that ended apartheid in South Africa merely on the grounds that this time it is aimed at Israeli occupation (some of Israel’s own leaders have compared its occupation to apartheid). And whatever else is true, commentators and activists who prance around as defenders of campus free speech and free expression generally — yet who completely ignore this most pernicious trend of free speech erosion — are likely many things, but an authentic believer in free speech is not among them.

Correction: The first paragraph has been edited to reflect that the ban on boycotts will be illegal under the UK Government’s new plan, not that it already is illegal, as well as to clarify that the penalties imposed on local entities violating the boycott ban are statutory, not criminal, in nature.
 
Winds of Change: Israel Joins the US Central Command Area

Link: https://www.inss.org.il/publication/centcom/

On the eve of a new administration in Washington, the Pentagon announced the transfer of Israel from the US European Command (EUCOM) to the Central Command (CENTCOM). Like the Abraham Accords, this decision brought to the surface deep, discreet, and longstanding relations between the parties, in this case the IDF and CENTCOM. It reflects a substantive change in the region, and will facilitate greater cooperation between Israel, the US, and other states in the Command. What significance is there to this development, and what are its implications?

Assaf Orion, Udi Dekel
INSS Insight No. 1432, January 20, 2021

On January 15, 2021 it was reported that the Trump administration decided to transfer Israel from the US European Command (EUCOM) area to the Central Command (CENTCOM). The decision, published on the eve of the change in administration in the United States, seeks to promote regional security arrangements, particularly in face of threats from Iran. Like the Abraham Accords, this decision brought to the surface deep, discreet, and longstanding relations between the parties, while narrowing gaps between policy and organization and the emerging strategic environment. Israel's move to CENTCOM has potential benefits for the United States, Israel, militaries in the region, and the partnerships between them, alongside challenges requiring more work.

On January 15, 2021, the Pentagon announced a change in its 2020 United Command Plan (UCP), whereby Israel was transferred from the US European Command (EUCOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR) to the Central Command (CENTCOM). The decision was made in the framework of the biannual DoD reassessment of the commands and their boundaries against the operational environment, seeking to mitigate risks and protect the interests of the United States and its partners. The same day, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump had recently ordered the Pentagon to transfer Israel to CENTCOM, to spur Israeli-Arab cooperation against Iran: the decision comes on the heels of the changes in Israel's relations with countries the region, following decades of hostility toward it on the part of many countries in CENTCOM's AOR. Like others, the article bundled the decision with a series of actions taken by the Trump administration in its final days in order to shape the Biden administration's agenda. Given the violent riots in the Capitol, and along with the barrage of last-minute decisions and orders, the inclination to broadly tar all the outgoing administration's decisions as political and negative is perhaps predictable. The transfer of Israel to CENTCOM's AOR, however, justifies a broader, deeper, and more professional assessment.

Indeed, the transfer of Israel to CENTCOM is not an irregular or unwarranted decision. Over the history of the UCP, many changes were introduced following strategic and technological developments that justified redrawing boundaries between regional commands or the creation of new ones, such as the Cyber and Space Commands. CENTCOM was established in 1983, following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and perhaps also due to the Islamic Revolution in Iran. It was decided at the time not to add the “confrontation states of Israel, Syria, and Lebanon” to CENTCOM, to allow it to be "more effective and credible in dealing with other Arab and Muslim states," and these three countries were therefore left under the responsibility of EUCOM. In 2004, following the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush approved the transfer of Syria and Lebanon to CENTCOM. Israel, along with the Palestinian Authority, remained under EUCOM responsibility. A change of command areas, therefore, is part of the Pentagon's routine, adapting organization to the strategic environment, and reflecting ripened recognition of such changes.

A joint exercise for the IDF and the United States Army | A joint exercise for the IDF and the United States Army | Photo: IAF

The regional commands are responsible for United States forces and relations with its partners in their areas. EUCOM, which currently focuses on Russia and its threats against Europe and NATO, is responsible for strategic and operational planning, operations, intelligence, logistics, training, technology and procurement, and coordination with US partners in Europe, including Israel. A prominent sphere in EUCOM's joint operations with the IDF is missile defense, in which they work together to plan, coordinate, exercise, and link their respective operational systems, sometimes also with selected NATO countries. Tens of thousands of IDF soldiers and US EUCOM troops have taken part over the years in joint missions in both peacetime and in contingencies.

Yet even in the highly impressive realm of missile defense cooperation, gaps emerged in the comprehensive response to threats. While EUCOM is responsible for Israel's defense, the missile threats against Israel come from CENTCOM's AOR: both the launching areas stretching from Iran to Lebanon and Yemen, and the airspace in which Israel must act against them. CENTCOM also has the relevant US intelligence and strike capabilities in the region. Thus a comprehensive operational response to threats against Israel requires combining the IDF's efforts with those of CENTCOM and EUCOM, and with other strategic parts of the US defense establishment.

What has Changed?

According to the Pentagon, the Abraham Accords paved the way for the transfer of Israel to CENTCOM. In fact, however, like Israel's relations with the Gulf states, its relations with CENTCOM did not emerge overnight, or even recently. Rather, they come after years of quiet development and gradually higher profile. General Joseph Votel, who played a significant role in promoting CENTCOM-IDF relations, conducted the first official visit by a CENTCOM commander to Israel in April 2018. The current CENTCOM Commander, General Kenneth F. McKenzie, made a formal visit to Israel in November 2019, yet this was not his first time in Israel. Visits and meetings with CENTCOM commanders and their staffs have occurred since early in the last decade. In early 2016 it was reported that a tripartite dialogue channel existed between the IDF and the two commands (ICE: for IDF, CENTCOM, EUCOM), led by the IDF Deputy Chief of the General Staff. This channel began secretly a decade earlier, and has since continued with meetings of commanders and staff officers, mainly in Israel and in EUCOM headquarters in Germany.

A joint exercise for the IDF and the United States Army | A joint exercise for the IDF and the United States Army | Photo: IDF

A frequent argument in the past against Israel's joining CENTCOM was the hostility between Israel and the Arabs, and the damage that would be caused to their trust in CENTCOM if direct relations were conducted with Israel. This argument, justified at the time, lost its validity long ago. As a harbinger, in 2018, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot participated in a conference of chiefs of staff hosted by US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford, with colleagues from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other partners from the CENTCOM area. The commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, who is also in the CENTCOM area, chose to boycott the conference. Tension between partners in a Command area, however, is not unique to Israel. The prolonged crisis between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt, which was only recently declared settled, took place between host countries to CENTCOM bases, and there are also harsh disputes in the EUCOM area between Turkey and the other NATO members.

Some assert that when Israel attacked Iranian threats against it in Iraq and Syria, CENTCOM benefited from plausible deniability because Israel belonged to EUCOM, and that this deniability will now be lost. There are no serious grounds, however, for asserting that the strategic, intelligence, security, and military relations between the United States and Israel can hide behind the boundaries of a command theater. The decade of regional upheaval, the expanding Iranian influence in the region, the war in Syria, and the rise of ISIS greatly increased the need for better coordination between the IDF and CENTCOM, and for the sharing of intelligence essential for their operations. Israel has conducted its campaign between wars in the CENTCOM area for many years, and the level of coordination between them is unquestionably much deeper than the de-confliction updates between the IDF and the Russian forces in Syria. The source of the tensions between Israel's activity and CENTCOM's considerations does not stem from the Command's boundaries, but from the trans-border operations of Iran and its proxies region-wide, and from concerns that US forces in the region will be attacked in response to Israeli activity, primarily in eastern Syria and Iraq, and also in Iran itself.

Implications of the Move: Opportunities and Challenges

On the positive side, Israel's joining CENTCOM will simplify the existing coordination and cooperation with United States forces, and create potential for better integration in planning, preparation, and operations. In addition, the new configuration will help the United States promote a regional coalition with participation from Arab countries and Israel against the threats by Iran and Salafi-jihadi groups, and provide a platform for promoting security relations between US allies, as well as regional security arrangements under American sponsorship: early warning and intelligence, counter-terrorism, air defense, anti-missile defense, training, and stockpiles. This will also make it possible to gradually transfer some of the defense burden in the region from the United States to some of its partners. Under the CENTCOM umbrella, it will be more natural and easier for the IDF to maintain military contacts with parties in the region; obtain United States military support in communications with neighboring militaries, even when Israel still has no peaceful relations with their countries; and improve the regional response to common threats. One necessary step will be to station IDF liaison officers in the CENTCOM headquarters at the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, and in the future, possibly also in the Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar.

A joint exercise for the IDF and the United States Army | A joint exercise for the IDF and the United States Army | Photo: IDF

On the challenges side, Israel assists EUCOM as a forward operational branch for drawing operational lessons, and the latter seldom needs to ease tensions between Israel and its other partners, except possibly Turkey. In an emergency, Israel has EUCOM available and attentive to its needs, including in deployment of missiles defense ships and batteries and in munitions supply. With CENTCOM, however, Israel's emergencies are usually part of crises in its wider AOR, and so Israel will have to deal with a short blanket of resources, and to compete with the needs of US forces and other partners in the region. EUCOM's experience and its deep rooted relations with the IDF are a valuable asset for both sides. In order to maximize the potential of Israel's transfer to CENTCOM, it is important to retain its superb relations and work interfaces with EUCOM, while institutionalizing its relations with CENTCOM. Israel should prearrange an option for continuing to benefit from EUCOM's advantages, including in future security crises, given its key role in NATO. It will be wise to preserve the ICE channel, even after it has fulfilled its historic role in promoting relations between the IDF and CENTCOM under EUCOM sponsorship. Another open question is where the Palestinian Authority fits into the Command areas.

An End and a Beginning

Militaries are organizations required to promote policy in their areas of responsibility. Policy usually strives to catch up with the rapidly changing reality, while the organizational structure lags far behind. The gaps between policy and organization and the emerging environment may be bridged with flexible processes, understanding that cross-border problems require out-of-boundary responses. Like Israel and the Gulf states, the IDF and the US Armed Forces have been able to identify at an early stage the challenges that they share and the essential partners for coping with them, and accordingly have worked together quietly. Just as the rich relations that were conducted discreetly for many years surfaced publicly with the Abraham Accords, the shift of Israel to CENTCOM constitutes the Pentagon's official recognition of this imperative for the sake of the interests and security of the United States and its allies in the region. After a wedding, however, comes marriage; the decision and declarations are only a first step. Israel and its partners in the United States and the region must wisely realize the potential of the new stage in their robust relationship, maximize its benefits, and navigate its constraints, for the benefit of all partners and their security.
 
[Gee whiz, but these dumb kikes can't figure-out that as they become more powerful, gentiles naturally fear them (justifiably) evermore--is that logical? But kikes don't care about logic.]

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European Extremists Increasingly ‘Choosing’ Antisemitism to Further Their Causes, ADL Report Warns

LInk: https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/02/...ism-to-further-their-causes-adl-report-warns/

Antisemitism is increasingly becoming a political weapon of choice for extremist movements and politicians in Europe, with potentially dangerous consequences for Jewish communities on the continent, a new Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report asserted on Thursday.

The report — “Choosing Antisemitism: Instrumentalization and Tolerance of Antisemitism in Contemporary European Politics” — examined how in recent years, antisemitism has emerged as a decisive factor in the politics of various European countries. This has included the use of often overt antisemitic rhetoric to engage certain groups of voters, or the propagation of revisionist versions of World War II that minimize local collaboration with the Nazis and promote the records of nationalist leaders.

In Germany, the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which occupies 94 seats in the country’s parliament, had “trivialized the Holocaust as part of their appeal to ‘Holocaust fatigue’ among German voters,” the report observed.

In Hungary, “since the arrival of more than a million immigrants fleeing conflict in the Middle East in 2015, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has repeatedly accused American Jewish financier George Soros of promoting the settlement of these migrants in Hungary…Soros frequently has been used as a perennial bogeyman by Hungary’s ruling nationalist Fidesz party in rhetoric that at times has featured antisemitic dog-whistles,” the ADL noted.

The heads of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations praised the Biden Administration's announcement Tuesday of sanctions...

Meanwhile, in Poland, “political campaigns used overt antisemitic rhetoric during elections to win votes,” and in Ukraine, nationalist groups “glorified World War II-era fighters to promote nationalist narratives, while trivializing their involvement in the Holocaust.”

The report additionally examined how Russian President Vladimir Putin manipulated reports of antisemitism in Ukraine as part of a broader campaign to justify Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea region.

“The Russian government led by President Vladimir Putin has engaged in a disinformation campaign against Ukraine, which includes concocted, unfounded or exaggerated accusations of antisemitism,” the ADL report commented. “Russia’s characterization of Ukraine as a fascist, xenophobic and antisemitic state was starkly at odds with reality.”

The ADL report also analyzed how antisemitism within the opposition Labour Party in the UK under its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was tolerated and indulged in order to appease the party’s far left.

“Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party provides the clearest example of how antisemitic rhetoric surrounding Israel and Zionism and other forms of antisemitism were tolerated for years within a major political party to accommodate a radical wing of that party,” the report said.

In a statement accompanying the report, ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said that antisemitism was “being wielded as a political cudgel to attack opponents, to cast blame on others or to simply whip up public anger.”

Said Greenblatt: “While the tactics vary widely from country to country, they do not bode well for the Jews of Europe. Political antisemitism, even if not directly targeted at Jews, can result in Jewish communities feeling unsafe and alienated, and lead some Jews to question whether they have a future in those countries.”
 
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Federal court upholds Arkansas law that restricts Israel boycotts, ruling it does not violate First Amendment​

By Andrew Lapin June 22, 2022 3:21 pm

Link: https://www.jta.org/2022/06/22/unit...ts-ruling-it-does-not-violate-first-amendment
6-22-22-gavel-1-2160x1200.jpg
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(JTA) – A federal appeals court upheld an Arkansas state law requiring all public contractors to promise they won’t boycott Israel on Wednesday, overturning an earlier ruling that the contract violated the First Amendment.

The ruling by the the St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was a major victory for pro-Israel activists who have pushed around 30 states to adopt so-called “anti-BDS” laws — intended to strike back against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement targeting Israel — in recent years. The plaintiffs say they plan to appeal to the Supreme Court, a process which could result in a nationwide showdown over the constitutionality of all anti-boycott laws.

It was the first time a federal appeals court ruled in favor of laws forbidding public contractors from being involved in any Israel boycott movements.

Such laws have been heavily opposed by civil liberties groups and press freedom advocates, who say they violate free speech. Federal courts have previously ruled that similar anti-boycott state laws in Georgia, Arizona, Kansas and Texas are unconstitutional.

But the Eighth Circuit, minus one dissenting judge, found that an anti-boycott contract provision does not infringe on the signer’s free speech rights because it “does not require them to publicly endorse or disseminate a message.” Instead, the court said, the clause requests “compliance” with a financial regulation — which the court says is a form of “noncommunicative” speech not protected by the First Amendment. The Eighth Circuit is considered to have a conservative makeup.

Arkansas had introduced the law in 2017, and the public University of Arkansas was sued by Little Rock-based alt weekly the Arkansas Times in 2018. The paper had sued the university because its Pulaski Technical College affiliate, a regular advertiser with the paper, had refused to continue advertising unless the Arkansas Times signed the anti-boycott pledge, citing the state law.

“Though boycotting Israel could not have been further from our minds and though state funding is a significant source of our income, our answer was no. We don’t take political positions in return for advertising,” Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt wrote in a New York Times op-ed last year explaining his paper’s decision. The paper was represented in court by an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union, and its case was featured in the recent documentary “Boycott,” which followed legal battles over state anti-BDS laws.

The lawsuit was dismissed by a district court judge in 2019, who ruled that the boycott ban was not a First Amendment violation because it only extended to the paper’s commercial activities, not its editorial content. The newspaper appealed the decision, and a three-judge panel for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the law was unconstitutional before the full court granted the state’s request to rehear the case.

“We are not aware of any cases where a court has held that a certification requirement concerning unprotected, nondiscriminatory conduct is unconstitutionally compelled speech,” the court said in its ruling.

Jewish and pro-Israel groups including the Orthodox Union, the American Jewish Committee, StandWithUs and the Brandeis Center joined 16 states in filing briefs defending the state law.

Eugene Kontorovich, a George Mason University law professor who has played a major role in crafting anti-BDS laws and organized a filing from professors in support of the Arkansas one, celebrated the ruling. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency he hopes it will pave the way for federal anti-BDS legislation.

“The Court ruled that the laws only regulate business activity, not expressive conduct, and thus raise no issues under the First Amendment,” Kontorovich said. “It is time the idea that these laws intrude on constitutional rights be retired, so that states should not have to give taxpayer dollars to companies engaged in bigotry.”

Liberal and progressive Jewish groups including J Street, T’ruah and Jewish Voice for Peace joined the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and several pro-boycott groups in filing briefs on behalf of the Arkansas Times.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah, told JTA that while her group doesn’t support Israel boycotts, it filed a brief on behalf of the paper because it believes that boycotts are constitutionally protected speech.

“This decision is extremely dangerous because it essentially says that boycott itself, the economic activity, is not protected free speech,” Jacobs said.

Opponents of the law warn it could pave the way for other statewide bans on boycotts relating to issues that have nothing to do with Israel — such as recent Texas legislation that restricts state contractors from working with entities that boycott fossil fuel companies and firearms makers. “That has really serious implications for something most of us have long believed is a free speech right,” Jacobs said.

Also opposing the legislation was Rabbi Barry Block of Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, the largest Jewish congregation in Arkansas. In previous testimony, Block said the legislators who drafted the law did not consult the local Jewish community.

The Arkansas Times and its ACLU legal representatives said in a statement that they intend to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
“We are obviously disappointed and note that these laws, which were originally passed in over 30 states, have been overturned in every court except this one,” Leveritt said in a statement. “We consider being banned from doing business with our state government for refusing to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel a ridiculous government overreach that has nothing to do with Arkansas.”
 

Canada Outlaws “Condoning, Denying or Downplaying” the Holocaust Mythos: Jewish Political Theology Enshrined in the Criminal Code​

August 11, 2022/54 Comments/in Featured Articles, Free Speech/by Prof. Andrew Fraser

Link: https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2022/08/11/canada-outlaws-condoning-denying-or-downplaying-the-holocaust-mythos-jewish-political-theology-enshrined-in-the-criminal-code/


According to the OED, a “mythos” is a “traditional or recurrent narrative theme or pattern; a standard plot in literature.” For many, the Holocaust Mythos conjures up the hope of universal redemption from the absolute evils of racism, anti-Semitism, and militant White nationalism. Arising out of the allegedly planned extermination of the Jewish people by “Nazi” Germany and its collaborators, the story has acquired canonical status in officially-constructed “memory cultures” throughout the West. In Canada, where the politically correct Trudeau regime clearly craves recognition as a humanitarian superpower, the government has followed in the footsteps of Germany and several other European states by enshrining the official narrative in the Criminal Code, s. 319. Henceforth
(2.1) Everyone who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust
  • (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or
  • (b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
Even before the criminal law was amended to outlaw the “[w]ilful promotion of antisemitism,” schools, universities, churches, and the media in Canada routinely stigmatize anyone who publicly dares to doubt the truth of the Holocaust Mythos. The Canadian parliament, therefore, meekly echoed Jewish historian Alon Confino who describes the Holocaust as “a foundational event that tests the limits of our humanity.” Another Jewish historian, Matthew Feldman, acknowledges that the received interpretation of “the Holocaust” as “history’s greatest crime” emanates a quintessentially religious aura. No Member of Parliament wanted to be seen “profaning” the memory of Jewish victims of “the supreme example of human inhumanity” by voting against the proposed amendments. For its part, the Trudeau government can be confident that enforcement of its postmodern anti-blasphemy law will not be impeded by the much-hyped Charter of Rights and Freedoms. For a long-time Charter sceptic such as myself, this is no surprise.
After the massive violations of a host of fundamental rights and civil liberties supposedly “guaranteed” by the Charter during the recent Covid pandemic, suppression of presumptive rights to form and publicly express controversial opinions on the history of the Third Reich is about par for the course. Is it merely coincidence that this restriction of free speech reflects the power and serves the interests of one particular, highly-visible, economically well-endowed, socially privileged, and politically powerful ethnic group? Curiously enough, at least one prominent Jewish spokesman fears that to make “condoning, denying, or downplaying the Holocaust” a criminal offence will not be good for the Jews. Nevertheless, Carolyn Yeager, an American blogger of German ancestry, has documented the widespread support for such legislation within the organized Jewish community in Canada.
When it was announced, the text of the Trudeau regime’s proposed amendment to the Criminal Code was buried in Annex 3 of the federal budget papers presented to Parliament in the spring of 2022. By the end of June, the government’s amendments had sailed through Parliament as part of a long and complex budget bill, receiving royal assent without debate on their merits (much to the relief of MPs, one suspects). The current legislation adopts the definition of the Holocaust originally proposed in a private member’s bill blatantly mirrored by the government measure; namely:

Holocaust means the planned and deliberate state-sponsored persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by the Nazis and their collaborators from 1933 to 1945

As it happens, such a definition has been repeatedly “denied” or “downplayed” by the so-called “functionalist” school of mainstream historians who portray the Holocaust as an evolving reaction by bureaucrats, military personnel, and collaborators to events during the war years rather than the product of an “intentional,” “planned” or “deliberate” scheme directed from the top down. It remains to be seen whether s. 319(3)(1)(c) will provide an adequate defence for someone publicly promoting a “functionalist” interpretation of the Holocaust. According to this provision, no-one shall be convicted if “the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds they believed them to be true.” This defence does not, of course, prevent prosecutions in which the process is itself intended to serve as the punishment. Outside the respectable realm of decorous academic debate, however, renegade “revisionists” risk the full measure of legal retribution.
Why, then, is the foundational event of Christianity, the paschal mythos surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, less deserving of protected legal status than an officially prescribed, crypto-theocratic single-sentence story arising out of the Second World War? Is it merely coincidental that the Holocaust Mythos features a narrative arc remarkably similar to the Easter story? Although set in the twentieth-century, the Shoah is a story of undeserved Jewish suffering in the “death camps” of Eastern Europe followed by their triumphant, ethno-religious resurrection in the promised land of Israel.
In Canada from now on, anyone publicly “condoning,” “denying,” or even “downplaying” the Jewish Holocaust narrative faces the threat of two years imprisonment. This repressive measure was announced shortly after Christian pastors were charged merely for holding Easter Sunday church services in contravention of public health orders during the contrived Covid “emergency.” When contrasted with the obsequious reverence accorded to contemporary Jewish sensibilities, such blatant disrespect for age-old Christian rituals represents a remarkable challenge to the political theology of every Anglo-Protestant church.
Are the truth claims of the official Holocaust Mythos any more or less contestable than the biblical and ecclesiastical narratives concerning the historical Jesus? One often hears the claim that “the Holocaust” is the best documented “event” in human history. But when, where, and by whom have the relevant and reliable documents been subjected to free, fair, and public forensic cross-examination and opened to continuing debate between all interested parties?
How did we reach the present sorry state of affairs? The answer to that question requires a fundamental critique of contemporary Anglo-Protestant political theology and, in particular, that of the Anglican church. After all, given a literal definition of “political” as meaning “affairs of state,” any aspect of the theology professed by the Church of England is political in the sense that it is an established, state church. True, in the first half of the twentieth century, the Anglican churches in the old White dominions were not state churches, but their overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon membership by and large trusted their governments and, following their lead, accepted the declarations of war against Germany in 1914 and 1939 without significant demur.
Moreover, in Great Britain, the bishops of the Church of England were members of the House of Lords. De facto, the government of the day decided who were to be identified as enemies of the British people and punished as such. Assigning guilt for the state of war between Germany and the British Empire was a matter of state policy. In both the Versailles treaty (aka, the Diktat) imposed on Germany in 1919 and the Nuremburg trials following Germany’s defeat in WWII, the imperial and dominion governments upheld the charge that Germany alone was guilty of waging a war of aggression.
But political theology denotes more than the everyday activities of an established church complying with state policies. According to the German jurist Carl Schmitt, politics, in the deepest sense, has to do with the existential distinction between friend and enemy. Because the Church was not an autonomous ecclesiastical polity of, by, and for the English people, friends and enemies of the British state were, ipso facto, friends or enemies of the Church.
Unfortunately, neither the WASP laity nor the ecclesiastical leadership of the Church of England, either “at home” or in the dominions, have done much to defend and preserve the ethno-religious dimensions of Anglican identity. This stands in stark contrast to the well-known ethnocentrism of the Jewish people. By enshrining the Holocaust Mythos in the Criminal Code, the Canadian government has embraced a quintessentially Jewish political theology.
Dirk Moses, the Frank Porter Graham Distinguished Professor of Global Human Rights History at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, in his well-received book on The Problems of Genocide, identifies the narrative structure of the Holocaust Mythos as “the archetypical genocide” in international law. He observes that both law and popular culture present “the image of the largely agentless and innocent—that is unpolitical—Jewish victim [as] the ‘ideal’ or ‘exemplary’ victim.” Orthodox Jews typically “emphasize…the traditional religiosity of Jewish victims” and “[t]his theological interpretation has permeated general commemoration, which thereby constitutes a political theology.” The officially-prescribed, global “memory culture” adopts that particularistic political theology whenever it associates Jews with “the archetypical and universal form of victimhood”.
There is no denying the particularistic, ethno-religious significance of the Holocaust Mythos. This was evident, for example, when a cross-party trio of Jewish MPs rose in the House of Commons to offer their fulsome support during the second-reading of Tory M.P. Kevin Waugh’s now redundant private member’s bill to criminalize “Holocaust denial” in Canada. The Trudeau regime, of course, has a broader agenda, aiming to burnish its self-proclaimed credentials as the first post-national state. The government, therefore, will probably “deny” or “downplay” the ethno-religious favouritism inherent in its decision to sanctify Jewish political theology by force of law.
Whatever the consequences of that decision in Canada however, Anglo-Protestants throughout the Anglosphere now have a rare opportunity to consider how their ethno-religious interests might be adversely affected by the criminalization of public dissent from the officially-prescribed Holocaust narrative. We should pray that the opportunity to reflect upon who “we” are, where “we” came from, and perhaps even where “we” are going will not be missed. Sadly, however, Anglo-Protestants, especially Anglicans, have embraced a liberal humanitarianism that now makes it all but impossible to distinguish between “us” and “them.”
 
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