There’s nothing evil about Arabs and Muslims and other groups trying to replace the Jewish state of Israel with a state more to their liking. No country or people have a right to exist. As Michael Scheuer wrote: “This writer carries no brief for Israel. All that is written and argued about ‘Israel’s right to exist’ is nonsense. Neither Israel nor the United States nor any other nation has a right to exist. A state’s ability to survive depends solely on its own social cohesion, economic viability, and domestic political, international, and military behavior and actions, not on some non-existent right the Israel-First lobby dreamed-up to use to propagandized the American people into eternally supporting a nation that is completely irrelevant — and, indeed, bloodily counter-productive — to genuine U.S. national security interests.”
A 2010 State Department document provides the U.S. government’s only official definition of anti-Semitism. It is a detailed document that adds elements of anti-Israeli bias to the traditional definition of Jew hatred.
This definition — developed to help the State Department monitor anti-Semitic trends in foreign countries — is now at the center of a debate raging about its use at the University of California. Moreover, both critics and supporters of the State Department’s take on this age-old phenomenon agree that its modern-day interpretation could have implications for the way that Israel-related issues are discussed on all college campuses.
Several pro-Israel activists supported by Jewish groups and with the blessing of UC’s president, Janet Napolitano, would like to see California’s public university system adopt the State Department definition, potentially deeming many of the anti-Israel protests and actions carried out on campus anti-Semitic.
“What we are saying is that our government, in one of its agencies, already has a good way of addressing anti-Semitism and of identifying the contemporary version of anti-Semitism,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founder and director of AMCHA Initiative, which has been leading the UC drive. “Then why shouldn’t we use it?”
On the other side, Palestinian groups, backed by civil libertarians, argue that adopting this definition would chill protected free speech by students and faculty members, and intimidate critics of Israel.
Pro-Palestinian activists, in a letter to the State Department, argued that its definition includes “prohibitions that are so vague that they could be, and have been, construed to silence any criticism of Israeli policies.”
STEVEN COMMENTS: Antisemitic ideas are more widespread than you might imagine. Check out this recent clip of Ellen DeGeneres doing a “kids say the darndest things” sort of segment. At 4:10 into this clip, a little aspiring screenwriter tells Ellen the plot of his Indiana Jones-like script, in which a mysterious lost island is threatened by “the Jewish” who are “trying to take over the world” I wonder exactly where the little boy got that idea?
Chaim Amalek Steven, I’m about 99.9% sure that those lines were a gag inserted into the piece by writers who might well be Jews themselves.
Steven Ben-Off Abrams Possibly. You really think that was fed to the kid by one of Ellen’s writers?
Chaim Amalek Yes. Look at how she reacts. She had practiced this. Also, they put the words into the mouth of the blond haired boy because well, tow headed males are the enemy even if tykes. They were not going to have a black kid say those words.
Chaim Amalek Also, the old school Jews with clout are often tone deaf. Hence, Sheldon Adelson.
Steven Ben-Off Abrams I know its quite possible because I work in TV and know that just about everything that seems spontaneous and “real” is actually pre-scripted and fake, but I cant see the comedy value in having a little boy (who is doing a segment about how children react to 20th century technology, not about social issues) go an an Antisemitic tangent. (???!!!) It seems so bizarre to me, and so lacking in entertainment or comedy value that, in this case, I do tend to think it was spontaneous, not scripted or planned.
Chaim Amalek There is no way that no adult talked to these kids beforehand to check out that they were ready and what they would say. This was staged.
Chaim Amalek Also, he stumbled over the word “Jewish” which suggests it may have been new to him.
Steven Ben-Off Abrams Still, it’s hard to understand why anybody on the staff of the Ellen show, which trades in cutesy heartwarmingness (and definitely NOT in anything resembling edgy humor) would have written that thinking its funny or would appeal to Ellen’s audience of shut in housewives. And the idea that some paranoid Jewish Ellen writer told the kid to say that, in order to suggest ubiquitous antisemitism in kindergartners, is insanely cynical.
