It’s worse than simply not playing fair. They are dirty. They lie. They cheat. They manipulate. The end always justifies the means. Let’s level the field

By: Meir Jolovitz

More than a century and a half ago, the American theologian and author James Freeman Clarke suggested that “a politician thinks of the next election – a statesman of the next generation.”

His sentiment was echoed decades later, by a somewhat kinder Winston Churchill who opined that “some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.” But it was the comedian Eric Idle who trumped them both with, “A lot has been said about politics; some of it complimentary, but most of it accurate.”

It seems a truism of politics that the good always look for the good in the bad, and the bad always look for the bad in the good. Both usually find it. For the former, it seems a frequent and foolish exercise of self-deception, where they cannot come to terms with the reality that the bad might actually be that bad; and for the latter it is a necessary exercise that serves a political plan that allows them to deny the possibility of any such good. The result: an unbridgeable divide.

It is really much simpler than it sounds. And, there is ample evidence. The problem is, the good is too often gullible, and the bad, hardly at all.

Maybe Hitler really wants only the Sudetenland. And for Hitler, it is the Jews who are the cause of all the world’s ills. For the former, this exercise of self-delusion advances a false narrative, because it is easier than believing what one doesn’t want to believe. It is at best the suspension of common sense and at its worse a surrender to a policy of political suicide. For the latter, theirs is a contrived and calculated agenda capitalizing on the other’s utter naiveté, or its misbegotten good will.

Perhaps not ironically, the fools tend to be those who are the “good” – the very essence of the classically liberal Western democratic thinking – something which is not lost on the “bad.” Axiomatically, the one will be compromising, the other will not, a fact that most poker players might play to advantage.

The Israelis are good. Their enemies, bad. No need for footnotes. And yet…

Israel has so frequently suspended rational thinking and better judgement in the hope that it might find a suitable peace partner from among those who have long subscribed – often quite openly – to a genocidal solution to the conflict between Muslim and Jew.

Fully cognizant that the Muslim and Arab war against the Jewish State is religious and not territorial, the good nonetheless agrees to a discussion of territorial concessions to the bad. When concessions, however unwise and ill-considered, don’t work, Israel offers more.

Political partisanship or affiliation seems not to matter: Ben Gurion, Begin, Rabin, Netanyahu, Barak, Sharon, Olmert. They all offered irrational concessions. Some were accepted, others rejected. The Arabs, the bad actors who stood on their principles, never thought Israel’s conciliatory gestures were excessive enough. In Israel’s willingness to appease, its imprudence was matched by Arabs intransigence. Maybe there is a God after all, the same who hardened the heart of Pharaoh.

The confrontation between good and bad is found everywhere. And too often misunderstood.

This past week, as a prelude to the 2020 United States presidential election, we were witness to a campaign that was in full progress. Despite the fact that the Democratic field of candidates now numbers 18 (a figure that might change even while one reads this, and not necessarily fewer), President Donald Trump is the singular campaign issue. And it unites them all.

In an almost Orwellian inversion of reality, the coming American election is framed by the Democrats as good versus bad. Amusingly, or absurdly, the party of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, of Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and CAIR, presents itself as the good.

Understanding that language dictates the narrative, and the narrative defines the debate, the Democrats have launched an all-out, ever-evolving, assault on the president. Not his party, but against the man. It is somewhat noteworthy to remember that they haven’t targeted the Republicans as a party despite having done so in every previous election historically. Now, instead, it’s Trump. “Deranged” is one of the kinder comments.

Target Trump. Character. Campaign finance laws. Child detention “concentration camps”. Collusion with the Russians. Conspiracy. Cover-up. Quid pro quo. And now, a new catch-word that was the product of the recommendation of several focus groups put together by the anti-Trump hysteria: bribery.

One might argue that the anti-Trump campaign has actually ‘devolved’ in broadcasting its message over time. From porn stars, to Russians, to Ukrainians, and you can bet, soon to whatever the Democratic strategists and marketing specialists are cooking up next. After all, the election is still almost a year away. This much we know – it will be conveniently categorized under the familiar title of “abuse of power” and something or other employing that nomenclature of no one being “above the law.”

Little time nor effort is given to discuss and debate the strongest American economy in a generation. The best employment figures. Or the strongest stock market ever. On the same day that Wall Street announced that the Dow Jones broke the record for an all-time high for the 101st time during Trump’s presidency,

Congress and the media was instead focused on the transgressions of a president who made Marie Yovanovich sad when she was dismissed as American ambassador to Ukraine. As he was constitutionally and legally allowed to do. The way Barack Obama had asked his nascent State Department to request that every George Bush-appointed ambassador submit their resignation in 2008, effective in January 2009 when the new president was to be inaugurated.

In the US, the practice is commonplace – irrelevant to the fact that it might hurt someone’s feelings and make them sad. It is the president’s prerogative and privilege as he so chooses. Sorry Marie, but Trump could fire you simply because he thought you didn’t use enough conditioner after shampooing.

It didn’t matter. Target Trump. Make him look bad employing the most recent coup de jour. Long forgotten were Stormy Daniels, James Comey, Michael Cohen, Brett Kavanaugh, and Jamal Khashoggi. Imagine. Making a former ambassador who had been praised repeatedly as “tough as nails” for having served in two war fronts – Somalia and Ukraine – sad. That was the new news. The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and an army of political analysts and Internet pundits refocused the chief reason to impeach the president to the hurtful feelings that he callously ignored. You cannot make this up.

The Democrats are much smarter than the Republicans. Well, certainly more deceitful. Actually, both, because the two are here synonymous. While the Obama administration was not called upon to hold inquiries to investigate its nearly two-dozen scandals – many clearly within the Democrats’ present interpretation of “abuse of power” – nor held accountable for the misconduct of so many American foreign policy blunders, for eight years the Republicans surrendered to the belief that there must have existed some good in the bad.

One can readily recall several scandals that rose to the level of impeachment during Obama’s tenure – certainly abuses that were significantly more injurious to American interests than that of the testimony of another anti-Trumper who heard from someone who had in turn spoken to someone who knew someone who was pretty certain that Trump had done something wrong.

Sounds comical. It is not. That was the lead testimony of another former ambassador, William Taylor the first day of the anti-Trump impeachment hearings.

Bad actors don’t play fair. Someone must have said that before – maybe Moses, or Churchill, or maybe someone from the Game of Thrones. Whoever, it is true.

But it’s worse than simply not playing fair. They are dirty. They lie. They cheat. They manipulate. The end always justifies the means.

One of the great old curmudgeons of American history, journalist H.L. Menken stated that “under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to try to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.”

The same might be said of both American and Israeli political affairs, where political adversaries root for the other party to fail, even at the cost of seeing the best interest of the nation compromised.

Politics in Israel, at a time where the two major political parties are at each other’s throats is very similar to what we now see being played out in America. The media in Israel and the US plays similar roles as well. At issue – whether or not the legal system should be fully exercised, and weaponized, to bring down the incumbent, because after all, the political process – the elections – cannot be fully trusted. The argument that this might bring to question the greater good of the nation is moot. Rather, it is being suggested by those who favor the political inquisitions – that these “show trials” actually serve for the greater good of the nation. Orwell called it doublespeak.

We live at a time when optics matter as much as facts, maybe more. Logically, we are offered political theater at every turn, with kangaroo courts as the vehicle. Stalin would offer a wink. Good has little chance against the bad, unless it learns, before the clock runs out, to pick up the same weapons. It is time to confront them. Expose them. And shame them. Truth be told, our adversaries are somewhat perplexed that we have not.

The former Russian poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky, who knew a thing or two about the injustices of Soviet political oppression, explained it well by offering us two relevant quotations: “Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.” Often, perhaps. And if that truly be the case, this as well:

“Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose.”

In Israel, and in America, it is time to level that playing field and to be those few – and say ‘no more’ to losing.

    (INN)

Meir Jolovitz is a past national executive director of the Zionist Organization of America, and formerly associated with the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.

How can Jews expect non-Jews to raise their voices and fight the fight if so many Jews are too comfortable and cocooned to actually stand up for themselves?

By: Dov Hikind

Anyone who has read Deborah Lipstadt’s Anti-Semitism: Here and Now or Bari Weiss’s How To Fight Anti-Semitism is aware of three primary strains of the modern anti-Semitism virus: far-Right, far-Left, and radical Islamist.

Each strain has its own particular qualities, modes of expression, reasoning, history, and adherents. Anti-Semitism from the far-Right tends to be the province of white supremacists who buy wholesale into racial replacement theory, and charge the Jew with being a racially inferior caste, “rootless cosmopolitans” bent on world domination through global financial manipulation.

Anti-Semitism from the far-Left tends to be the province of (largely white, but also minorities who are) ultra-progressives who demonize Jews as colonialists and oppressors who shapeshift just enough out of their fair Jewish skin to benefit from white privilege.

Radical Islamism is a combination of both far-Right and far-Left anti-Semitic ideologies with the added sprinklings of age-old Hadiths that refer to Jews as “descendants of apes and pigs” and a modern-day blood libel of being “baby killers” who have no historical connection to the Land of Israel. In most parts of the world, when a Jew is attacked for being Jewish, one of these strains can easily be discerned. Except … for New York City. Suddenly, here, these neat definitions no longer adequately define the hatred that’s motivating mostly young minorities to attack Jews in broad daylight. Why is anti-Semitism in New York City any different?

The city of Ellis Island has always been a “melting pot”; of peoples, cultures, languages, and … ideas. It is now also the melting pot of anti-Semitic ideologies that is boiling over. The Islamic reformer Maajid Nawaz recently summed up the nexus of these three strains thusly: “All racism is equally evil. Anti-Semitism is the most dangerous form of racism because it has the capacity to unite fascists of the far-left, far-right & Islamist extremes. I call this the #TripleThreat.”

It’s only in New York City where a young minority, himself the target of white supremacy, will attack a Jew and hurl the insult that “Hitler should’ve finished the job,” seemingly ignorant to the fact that Hitler would’ve finished him off too if only he had the chance!

We’ve been told by law enforcement that most of the violent anti-Semitic attacks and vandalism against visibly identifiable Jews and institutions by these youngsters are borne of ignorance, that “they don’t even know what a swastika is,” and yet that hasn’t changed the reality that New York City is far outpacing the country and world in the steep rise of anti-Semitic hate crimes. What can this be attributed to? And does it represent a new strain of anti-Semitism?

Social media, for one, has broken down the barriers between borders and rigid ideologies, so that we now see David Duke, a white supremacist, lend public support to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose brand of anti-Semitism is of the far-Left, radical Islamist strain typical. Furthermore, New York City, as the largest population of Jews, and specifically Orthodox Jews, in the country, presents an easy target for any anti-Semite who has acquired the amalgamation of hateful anti-Semitism strains.

What this all signifies, so perfectly, is that at the root, anti-Semitism is … irrational. The “reasons” for hating Jews have evolved with time, but the hatred at its core remains the same.

It’s irrational because only Jews are accused of being white and not sufficiently white in the same breath. It’s irrational because only Jews are targeted for hate crimes with such disproportionality that the numbers are literally off-the-charts in comparison with any other minority group, despite being a tiniest of minorities. It’s irrational because only Jews are judged by the actions of the few by the very same people who claim to be fighting racism and bigotry which reduces people to broad generalizations. It’s irrational because only Jews are attacked on campus for the actions of another sovereign state, whereas no other student group is attacked in the same way.

Are Muslim students attacked on campus for the actions of Saudi Arabia or Iran? Are anti-black, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim, or anti-any-minority groups given space to express their hatred and intimidate students on campuses or is that passive allowance of hatred just reserved for Jews? Is there a movement that calls for the boycott, divestment and sanctions of any other country other than the sole Jewish state? Is that BDS movement used to intimidate any other student groups on campuses across the globe other than Jews?

To understand root anti-Semitism is to suspend rationality as that’s the only way to maintain track of the many inherent contradictions, paradoxes and oxymorons posed by the various strains currently available on the market. Ask an anti-Semite why they hate or attack Jews and they’ll respond with anything from Jewish money (apparently only Jews have it and only Jews are responsible for capitalist gentrification), Jewish power (apparently only Jews exercise their constitutional voting and representation rights as an interest group), Jewish control (apparently only Jews control corporations especially the ones that are ironically anti-Jewish), and Jewish crimes (apparently only Jews are in jails and they represent all Jews).

And it’s only about Jews that one is even interested in the “reasons” behind bigoted hatred. There is no good reason to hate an individual you know nothing about! Not if they’re black, white, Muslim, Christian, atheist, or Jewish! But you wouldn’t know that when it comes to the Jews, because “good people” who are “smart” will tell you, well, hmm, you know, it’s not that Jews deserve to be attacked, but, Israel, and Palestinians, slumlords, and Rothschild, and, and, and … And it’s precisely because hatred of Jews can be so expertly rationalized despite its core irrationality that the response to violent anti-Semitism has been so tepid. Were it dogs or cats that were routinely and randomly receiving beatings, punches, kicks, broken bones and bloodied faces by violent criminals the outrage would be massive and instantaneous! Millions would march on Washington! But for Jews? Not so much.

The brave anti-Nazi German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.” Here’s the kicker, though. Not only are so many “good people” silent about anti-Semitism, but so many Jews! Too many have either given in to the Right by becoming good “white Jews,” or the Left by becoming good “Jews in name only,” or radical Islamism by becoming “Jews against Israel.” So how can Jews expect non-Jews to raise their voices and fight the fight if so many Jews are too comfortable and cocooned to actually stand up for themselves? Or worse yet, feeding into the very hatred we’re trying to repel?

So how do we ‘fight anti-Semitism’? Unfortunately, just as anti-Semitism can no longer easily be defined or isolated, neither can the solutions come easy. Let me be clear: there is no easy way out! There is no kumbaya moment to be had! There is no amount of ‘dialogue’ (though important) or defensive myth-debunking (also important) that will eradicate the various strains of anti-Semitism or its amalgamation. Instead, we must be prepared to fight. Both figuratively and literally.

It’s only 75 years since the Jewish ashes at Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek ceased blowing in the winds of Europe. It’s only those who have truly forgotten the magnitude and scope to the endless depths a depraved nation can descend to in the name of ‘high culture anti-Semitism’ who are in danger of repeating the same horrors. Thus, as Jews we have to be prepared to do two things: to fight anti-Semitism ‘here and now’ so that day indeed doesn’t arrive again; and, should our efforts prove futile at prevention, then all the same we must be prepared to fight the big fight, when all the evil forces of the world are again arrayed against the Jewish people.

Hitler openly threatened to annihilate world Jewry; no one took him seriously at the time. Hitler went about annihilating world Jewry, and still no one took him seriously until six million were annihilated. Now again, in our generation, we have leaders like Ayatollah Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah who call for the destruction of the lone Jewish state, and pathetic puppets like Jeremy Corbyn celebrate those leaders while claiming the mantle of humanitarianism.

History is in fact repeating itself. But the present is not the same. Israel, the Left wants you to believe, is the primary cause of anti-Semitism. That Jews contribute to their own hatred is an antiquated charge going back to ancient Greece. But what the anti-Semites don’t realize about the Jews who know their history is that there was always a “reason” for Jew-hatred that fit the social milieux, while the core of the Jewish people has always remained the same.

So if the hate has had to change and find new reasons and masks through which to express its deepest misanthropic demons, it tells us that it’s utterly irrational, and therefore that core of the Jewish people isn’t falling for it again!

Despite what radical ‘Jews in name only’ will say, the core of the Jewish people are proud Zionists. So unlike in 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland and the ghettos were created, or 1941 when the killing squads started the Holocaust by bullet and then Holocaust by mobile gas van, or 1942 when the final solution was devised at Wannsee, followed by the advent of death camps, cattle cars, gas chambers and crematoria, with six million Jews gone in a flash as the world stood in silence, we shall now raise our voices ever higher.

We won’t be silenced. And we won’t tolerate the silence of so many “good people” who can’t be bothered to rid society of this ‘longest hatred’. For as long as the anti-Semitism virus survives and thrives, it shall always be remembered in history’s hindsight as an irremovable stain and blemish on every society that thought of itself as advanced but was yet so utterly cruel and barbaric.

And now that God has brought the Jewish people back to Israel from the darkest depths of history’s hell, we will fight back, and fight hard against all those evil forces who so much as raise a hand to destroy our people. Just as anti-Semitism at its core remains unchanged and irrational, so too the resolve of the Jewish people to choose life is the inexplicable flame that can and will never be extinguished.

   (Israel HaYom)

Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Anti-Semitism, served in the New York State Assembly for 36 years as an outspoken advocate for his constituency, battling discrimination, antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and human rights violations.