Wednesday, May 26, 2021

How Anti-Semitism Rises on the Left and Right

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-anti-semitism-rises-on-the-left-and-right 

 I think I see anti-Judaism anywhere that I see people explaining their circumstances by thinking about the Jews in a way that seems driven by prejudgment rather than reality. In that sense, I wouldn’t draw a distinction between a Muslim in Paris who suffers all kinds of discrimination at the hands of the French state, but who enacts his rage first and foremost against a Jewish target, and a white nationalist or a black nationalist or a left-Labour politician in England. I think all of them—to the degree that they are explaining what needs to be overcome in their world in terms of overcoming the Jews—are participating in a similar kind of thought.

Black conservatism

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_conservatism

Some elected black conservatives include Florida representative Allen West, U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Oklahoma representative J.C. Watts, and former Connecticut representative Gary Franks. Other notable black conservatives include economist Thomas Sowell, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, perennial political candidate Alan Keyes, and Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. In 2009, Michael Steele became the first black man to chair the Republican National Committee. In 2011, Herman Cain was considered the leading Republican presidential nominee for a period of time. In addition there are a number of up and coming voices in the arena of political talks shows, and guest analysts such as Dr. Carol Swain, professor of political science from Vanderbilt University with multiple appearances on CNN, Fox News, PBS, C-SPAN, and ABC Headline News.

What is fueling Antisemitism?

Far-right extremists who have taken over the GOP rely on fear and division to maintain power. They use antisemitism to fuel that fear and division, putting Jews and our neighbors in danger. The danger is real: Donald Trump’s presidency coincided with an uptick in hate crimes and violence, including the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

It isn’t just Trump. As 61% of American Jews know, antisemitism is a problem in the Republican Party. To fight it, we have to understand how antisemitism — along with racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia — is part of the machinery of division and fear, and learn to recognize when right-wing extremists use that machine for political and material gain.

How the GOP brought antisemitism from the margins to the White House

 https://www.972mag.com/gop-antisemitism-white-nationalism/

The timeline, which stretches from May 2016 to the present, reveals what Sophie Ellman-Golan, an independent strategist who created the website with Bend the Arc, calls a “staggering” track record of antisemitism directly or indirectly linked to the Republican Party.

With more than 150 entries on the timeline, the list of incidents is too widespread and diverse to summarize. But picking months at random is instructive. A look at August 2019, for example, shows that Minnesota Representative Tom Emmer claimed Jewish billionaires have “bought Congress.” Trump called American Jews disloyal if they voted for Democrats.

 

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s space laser and the age-old problem of blaming the Jews

 https://www.vox.com/22256258/marjorie-taylor-greene-jewish-space-laser-anti-semitism-conspiracy-theories

You can see Byford’s analysis at work in the most popular right-wing conspiracy theory in America today: QAnon.

The closest thing Qanon has to a central thesis — that Democrats are part of a secret global cabal of pedophile Satanists that Donald Trump will soon expose and destroy — is not on its face anti-Semitic. “The vast majority of QAnon-inspired conspiracy theories have nothing to do with anti-Semitism,” the Anti-Defamation League wrote in a 2018 report. And yet, the ADL also found that anti-Semitic content had permeated QAnon-friendly spaces on the internet.

 

Jerusalem Christian missionary training center poses as yeshiva

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/306910

A wide-ranging probe by Yad L'Achim revealed that Tzemach David is the tip of the iceberg in the missionaries' efforts to earn the trust of the Israeli public through deceit and manipulations.

Tzemach David is housed in a building called the Bram Center, after Abram (Bram) Poljak, a pioneering missionary in Israel.

 

3 people confess tampering brakes to keep cable car open – Italian media

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/three-arrested-for-italian-cable-car-disaster-that-killed-14-report-669197 

The owner of the company operating the cable car, director of the service and an engineer purposefully deactivated the emergency breaks to hide malfunctions.

Congress split into two different hemispheres

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/congress-republicans-democrats-two-hemispheres

 So, there are two distinct hemispheres on Capitol Hill now. One where lawmakers appear to make progress and may yet solve some seemingly intractable political and policy issues. Infrastructure. Police reform. Protecting the Capitol. Even probing the riot itself – although House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy,R-Calif., now says he opposes that package.

And then there is the other hemisphere where the wounds of January 6 and the November election never seem to scab over.

 Sometimes, lawmakers may even cross over into both hemispheres, depending on the issue or the politics. It’s not uncommon for there to be dichotomies on Capitol Hill. Strange bedfellows. Members working together on one set of issues. Opposing each other – sometimes vehemently – on others.

But rarely has it been so personal. So raw. So exposed.

And that’s why these distinct hemispheres may never merge.

Media torches Marjorie Taylor Greene for Holocaust analogy after normalizing Nazi comparisons for past 4 years

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/media-torches-marjorie-taylor-greene-for-holocaust-analogy-after-normalizing-nazi-rhetoric-for-past-4-years

 After Greene had doubled down on trivializing the Holocaust, making the analogy that vaccine passports were similar to the yellow star Jews wore during the Holocaust, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as well as other Republican leaders, condemned her "appalling" comparison and other top GOP lawmakers followed suit.  

Greene's comments follow years of news organizations normalizing such hyperbolic rhetoric towards former President Trump, his voters, and Republican politicians for the past four years

Even the Holocaust isn't out-of-bounds in Marjorie Taylor Greene's age of outrage

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/25/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-holocaust-outrage/index.html

 In many ways, Greene's behavior -- after being stripped by a Democratic-led House of her committee assignments for past anti-Semitic statements and condoning violence against Democratic leaders -- is in the image of Trump.

She seems to pick the most incendiary possible comment, designed to attract outrage and attention, and that brings down a media storm -- which she (and Trump) then turns on its head to suggest she is the one being persecuted.
"The media and Democrats and everyone feeding into it is allowing them to hide the truth, which is the digusting (sic) anti-semitism within the Democrat Party," Greene said in a tweet thread on Tuesday.
As is often the case in such controversies, her statement, which was really a new attack filled with rage, contained an apology that was not an apology.
"Sorry some of my words make people uncomfortable, but this is what the American left is all about," Greene wrote. The Georgia lawmaker's firebrand reputation has made her a celebrity in conservative media -- and one of her party's most prolific fundraisers since she arrived in Washington in January.
The next likely stage of the latest Greene saga could be expected to feature pro-Trump media propagandists claiming that "mainstream" journalists are willfully misinterpreting her remarks, powering new disinformation on biased news networks that helped to convince millions of Republicans that Trump's lies about a stolen election are true.

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

White supremacists, far-right groups behind most US domestic terror incidents in 2020, group says

 https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/america-in-crisis/white-supremacists-far-right-groups-behind-most-us-domestic-terror-incidents-in-2020-group-says

 The vast majority of domestic terror events that have taken place in 2020 were conducted by white supremacist groups and other "like-minded extremists," according to a study by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).

The CSIS, which describes itself as a "bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization," added in its study that while there has also been an increase in terror plots conducted by "anarchist" or "anti-fascist" groups this year, they accounted for 20% of domestic terror plots.

Long Island rabbis accused of ‘Mafia-like’ methods in kosher turf battle

 https://nypost.com/2021/05/23/long-island-rabbis-accused-of-mafia-like-methods-in-kosher-turf-battle/

A clique of rabbis on Long Island are being accused of Mafia-like tactics to maintain what amounts to a monopoly over the local kosher certification process — sparking a twisted turf war that has outraged local residents and businesses alike, The Post has learned.

A lawsuit filed last month by Chimichurri Charcoal Chicken — located on the busy Rockaway Turnpike across from a McDonald’s — claims the rabbis behind the Vaad Hakashrus of the Five Towns and Far Rockaway ordered observant residents to stop eating at the chicken joint last year after it started using a competing certification service.

 

Jewish groups sound alarm on rise in antisemitic hate crimes amid tensions between Israel, Hamas

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/05/22/israel-hamas-conflict-jewish-groups-sound-alarm-antisemitism-us/5220334001/

 Five Jewish groups penned a letter to President Joe Biden on Friday expressing concern about the recent surge of antisemitic hate crimes in the U.S. amid the military confrontation between Israel and Hamas, which agreed to a cease-fire this week.

The American Jewish Community, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of North America, Hadassah and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America called on the president to use his platform to condemn antisemitism and take a number of actions to combat anti-Jewish hate in the U.S.

"We are grateful for the current ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas, but we fear that the way the conflict has been used to amplify antisemitic rhetoric, embolden dangerous actors and attack Jews and Jewish communities will have ramifications far beyond these past two weeks," the groups wrote.

For Orthodox Brooklyn’s private police, a code of silence hides domestic abuse

 https://forward.com/news/470033/for-orthodox-brooklyns-private-police-a-code-of-silence-hides-domestic/

 New York’s Community District 12, which covers the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, has by far the city’s lowest reported rate of domestic violence: 459 incidents per 100,000 residents in the most recent year the police department has published data.

But that doesn’t mean the largely Haredi community does not have a domestic violence problem. In fact, an analysis of crime data and court records, coupled with interviews of abuse victims, social workers, police officers and experts, show that the low rate instead reflects a code of silence in the insular religious enclave — and, until recently, a longstanding — if unwritten — agreement between the authorities and Orthodox leaders to let the community handle the problem internally.

“In Borough Park they like things taken care of in-house,” said Yael Machtinger, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies domestic violence in religious communities. “It’s definitely part of the culture that they don’t really want to be airing out their dirty laundry.”