Op-Ed: Obama ISIS 'Strategy' Bolsters Iranian Hegemony

Iran is no less dangerous than ISIS, so what is Obama doing?

Dr. Joe Tuzara

The Obama administration's ambiguous 'bombing strategy' in Syria and Iraq is hardly going to achieve a decisive 'defeat' of the self-styled Sunni caliphateת but inadvertently will bolster Iran's hegemonic ambitions in the unstable Middle East.

Even when given the benefit of the doubt, President Barack Obama's strategy, driven  by public opinion, against the 'Islamic State' (ISIS/ISIL) is snookered by a lot of malarkey.

In a desperate attempt to regain lost credibility in time for mid-term elections, Obama's vague, ambivalent or even contradictory political statements have no efficacy against ISIS but are intended to save his morally bankrupt presidency.

It is only as a result of his rapidly sinking polls and the beheadings of Americans that Obama, for the first time was forced to reassure the nation of his understanding the dubious threat from ISIS.

It could be convincing except for one tiny caveat: just a few minutes after giving a somber speech on the beheading of two American journalists; Obama teed off on the golf course 'grinning and fist-bumping' - this was blatantly disrespectful, a sharp insult to American sensitivities.

And the ripple effects had a powerful impact that convinced Americans who witnessed such an uncaring reaction of the real policies of the Obama presidency.

More than likely, for many, this was the last 'straw that broke the camel's back.' And along with Benghazi scandal, Washington's focus on ISIS comes at the expense of the more urgent threat posed by a nuclear Iran.'

Obama's unending litany of broken promises, staggering incompetence andunprecedented betrayals cast serious doubts about his credibility to defeat ISIS.

Consistently apologizing for Islam, Obama's ridiculous broadcasting to the enemy all the things he is not going to do clearly undermines US military efforts to achieve their mission. In doing so, the risk-averse president has indicated he was not absolutely serious about defeatingt ISIS, despite claims to the contrary.

As much as the White House would like us to believe that there would be 'no boots on the ground', Kurdish military and intelligence sources confirm that US and German special operations forces are already “on the ground" andUK weapons shipments were sent to Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

And while there’s no doubt that many of us are confused by Obama’s patently misleading focus pm ISIS, his mismatched smorgasbord of tactics masquerading as 'strategy' are dumbfounding.

For example, although the Obama administration believes it can support what it says are moderate rebel forces in Syria to aid in the fight against ISIS,many critics warn that there may be no truly moderate force in the country of any significant strength.

An expert who traveled with Syrian rebels said the 'moderate' rebels in Syria the Obama administration has been touting are really Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamists openly aligned with al-Qaeda central and with al-Zawahiri [Osama bin Laden's deputy].

And herein lies the paradox in the president’s proposition: without boots on the ground to defeat ISIL, Washington is forced to rely on the tacit support of countries like Iran which, in other circumstances, are inimical to Western interests.

It is also rather difficult to understand why our arch-enemies, Iran [and Syria], needed prior notice about the impending attacks against ISIS and puts into question America's depth of commitment in fighting ISIS.

Consider  it a frantic struggle to do some semblance of 'wag the dog' in an election year, or consider it Obama's strategy to 'destroy and ultimately defeat' an offshoot of al Qaeda, likely to  rescue Iran from ISIS.

What is happening in Syria and Iraq is the greatest deception of all time: creating chaos via proxies is a massive distraction and huge opportunity for Iran to buy more time to build nuclear weapons.
Why does it matter? Because ISIS constitutes the greatest threat to Iran, rather than to the stronger militaries of America, Israel and the West.

In a real sense, Iran is no less dangerous than ISIS. It is also no secret to the intelligence community about Iran's involvement in 9/11 attacks and Iran's continuing harboring of al-Qaeda operations cells on its soil.

In fact, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah operatives are currently orchestrating the fighting in Syria and assisting Shiite-led Iraqi militias that are basically a proxy for Iran, responsible for thousands of American troops killed by Iran-made improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Notwithstanding those gritty realities, Obama's blatant appeasement and 'secret' back channel engagements with Iranian mullahs are a 'red flag' that say that no matter what happens after the November 24 deadline for a final nuclear deal; the self-serving, narcissistic president has no intention to convince the ayatollahs to abandon terrorism and Iran's disputed nuclear program.

Indeed, what is happening in Syria and Iraq is the greatest deception of all time: creating chaos via proxies is a massive distraction and huge opportunity for Iran to buy more time to build nuclear weapons.

Worse, Obama's counterterrorism strategy that forbids the FBI to use religion in identifying terror threats, as ISIS openly recruits in US mosques- does not actually fit into how to end all conventional wars on terror.

If the FBI we’re not allowed to define the enemy, how can they identify the enemy?

The 'terrorist organization calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is, in fact', ‘Islamic.’ ISIS relies on the fatwas of political Islam, and their barbaric and ruthless behaviors 'represent Islam in every way.'

Either unbelievably out of touch with reality and/or obfuscating truth, Obama's tenuous argument that America is safer today was misleading and/or deceptive because the United States is now under the greatest threat since 9/11.

Given that the  'relative risk to American [interests] is low', there can be no doubt that Obama is functionally aligning himself with Iran, Syria and Hezbollah..

Take, for example, the liberation of an Iraqi town near Amerili, where US airstrikes indirectly helped Iran's Hezbollah brigades. That would be seen as aligning with the Shiite leaderships in Baghdad and Damascus where Iran is indisputably a major player.

Intelligence sources also revealed that Obama’s war against ISIS based on the [Somalia] and  "Yemen model'' will not comprehensively defeat Al Qaeda but actually benefit Iran.

The truth is ugly and extremely cruel: Obama is to blame for the entire Syrian-Iraqi mess. And his profound Islamist Muslim Brotherhood sympathies make it difficult to defeat ISIS.

Furthermore, Obama's micro-managing to make all the bombing calls of ISIS targets in Syria is more problematic [and is doomed to failure].

If that weren't enough, it was actually President George W. Bush whoaccurately predicted in 2006 the establishment of a 'Caliphate' should the US withdraw from Iraq.

Maybe it was difficult to see or understand the bigger picture: but under Obama's watch ISIS has been able to broaden the global reach of their terror networks' considerably.

Unfortunately, it is just a matter of time before Iran, al Qaeda and ISIS winds up together into a global 'pan-Islamic alliance' against western civilization, threatening Israel.

As difficult it is to decipher the ISIS crisis, the disintegration of Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite autonomous states either living under the dark shadows of a Sunni Caliphate or a nuclear armed Iran is a possible outcome.

Unless Obama remarkably changes course or Israel intervenes, the prescient president's ineffective bombing campaign and reluctance to destroy the rootcauses of radical political Islam, make him ipso facto complicit in creating a 'balance of terror' in a volatile region where endless war is the norm.

Joe Tuzara, M.D. was clinical research-physician-general surgeon for Saudi Arabian, Philippine and American healthcare systems and is currently an American freelance writer as well as op-ed contributor.

Op-Ed: A Jewish Perspective on Hamas

Ancient Jewish history can put the present into perspective and enable us to take the long view, but not everything has a precedent.

Rochel Sylvetsky is op-ed and Judaism editor of Arutz Sheva's English site. She is a former Chairperson of Emunah Israel,1991-96, CEO/Director of Kfar Hanoar Hadati Youth Village, member of the Emek Zevulun Regional Council and the Religious Education Council of Israel's Education Ministry, volunteer managing editor of Arutz Sheva. Her degrees are in Mathematics and Jewish 

Edmund Burke wrote that "people will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors". And although the 2014 war in Gaza is – or was, depending on whether the ceasefire holds - a modern war, that is the case only with respect to technology and perhaps the large number of people in the immediate area of hostilities.

Certain aspects of current hostilities in the Middle East and particularly in Israel, seem to be repeats of ancient Jewish history.  Not of a past doomed to be repeated because its lessons have notbeen learned, to paraphrase Santayana, but ofprocesses and events that seem part and parcel of the saga of the Jewish people and, because of that, may help to put them into perspective.

Anti-Semitism, like the legendary phoenix, is lifting its head from the ashes – and in this first post-Holocaust century, those ashes are real even if the phoenix is not. Jew-hatred is not the subject of this article, however, as anti-Semitism is not a repeat of ancient Jewish history, but an ongoing part of Jewish existence, beginning with Pharaoh's fear that the Jews would take over Egypt (perhaps the "Protocols" first edition was written on papyrus…) and his attempt to cow them into submission and murder their male issue. The alleged causes, methods and relative successes of anti-Semitism vary, but anti-Semitism itself seems to be a given.

On the other hand, what seems to be an echo of the past is that Islamists, under the guise of a holy war, are repeating the practices of the decadent Canaanite nations of biblical times, with children wearing suicide belts and dying during tunnel digging in an Allah-directed form of child sacrifice to the idol of Moloch; women captured and sold on the market and the wholesale slaughter and beheading of prisoners.

Anyone reading the Books of Judges and Samuel will observe that this is quite similar to the world in which the ancient Israelites lived and with which they were forced to contend several thousand years ago, centuries before the advent of Islam.

This is also the first era during which the Jews lived in and governed their own land – as they do today.

In the post-conquest period following the Israelite's entry to the Promised Land, Gaza and its north and northeast environs (the ancient sites of Gath, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron, reaching just about to Tel Aviv's Yarkon River) was the home of the Philistine people. The Philistines migrated to the area from the Greek Isles, but considered it their own after a successful incursion that took place around the time the Israelites arrived on the scene (since this is not a history paper, we will skip an earlier group of Philistines who feature in the story of the Patriarchs).

The Mediterranean Sea was Philistia's western border, but the warmongering and aggressive tribe had no defined eastern border and continuously tried to overthrow Jewish rule in order to conquer larger portions of the Land of Israel and decimate its people.

The Israelites faced repeated attacks, forays, skirmishes, battles and full-scale wars, mostly initiated by the ever-encroaching Philistines, and the fledgling Jewish nation attempted desperately to rid themselves of the constant danger posed to civilians and soldiers. At first, exclusive access to iron-mongering technology gave the Philistines an advantage in weaponry, but the Israelites soon managed to overcome that obstacle.

Some of the Jews' ideas were ingenious, such as Samson's one-man commando unit that infiltrated the other side in such outlandish and courageous fashion that he was tolerated by the enemy – even marrying Philistine women – until, overpowered and humiliated, he was abducted. Dying while imprisoned, he managed to take many Philistines with him (Judges 14-16).

King Saul's son Jonathan, an intrepid officer willing to endanger his life for his troops, independently hatched a daring plan while the Israelite camp awaited the start of a pitched battle, and succeeded in routing the Philistines - for a time at Michmas (Samuel 1; 14)

David's unconventional method of killing Goliath, which sowed paralyzing fear in the attacking army, is an enduring example of a raw recruit thinking out-of-the-box and being allowed to act on his idea (Samuel 1, 17).

These examples bring today's IDF commando units and IDF originality, improvisation and self-sacrifice to mind.

Verses interspersed throughout the Early Prophets describe small scale hostilities, terror and the fact that sometimes a few years of tranquility were achieved after successful battles, specifically during the last years of the Prophet Samuel's life.

Seven military operations of varying magnitude against the Philistines are described more fully in the Bible: in two of them, at Aphek and Eben Haezer (Samuel 1; 4 and 7) the Jews suffered defeat and the loss of the Holy Ark, while at Gilboa, King Saul fell on his sword to avoid capture by the cruel and barbaric Philistine enemy (Samuel 1; 31).

King Ahaz of Judah fought them unsuccessfully to retain the coastal lowland and the Negev (Chronicles 2;28) On the other hand, at Michmas (Samuel 1; 14) and in the battle involving David and Goliath (Samuel 1, 17), the Jews were the victors.

One of the last kings of Judah, Hezekiah, finally delivered a crushing defeat to the Philistines that included the taking of Gaza (Kings 2; 18) just as the Assyrians came on the scene. Not long after, the Assyrians exiled and dispersed the warmongering nation.

An examination of dates shows that it took well over 300 years for the Israelites to finally vanquish the Philistines, with David's famous killing of Goliath serving only as a temporary setback.

And that is where perspective comes in.

Prophets, including Jeremiah and Amos, addressed the problem of the Philistines. Zephaniah prophesied that "Gaza will be abandoned". Zakhariah predicted that God "will cut off the pride of the Philistines" and "Gaza will writhe in agony".

That was for the future.

Theological biblical meta-narrative and prophecy aside, on a practical level, the Jews seem to have managed to live with the fact that they had to keep on fighting  and that after every defeat, the determined Philistine enemy would regroup and try again.  

They, too, had families and loved ones. We don't know much about how they reacted to this ongoing war; we know they praised David's successes. We see from the description of what they did to Saul that Philistine treatment of dead bodies is that of Hamas and Hezbollah (Samuel 1, 31), and we know that the imprisoned Samson was blinded by them.

It was probably hard to get Israelites to live near Philistia.

The ancient Israelites fought bravely and hard, fought to win, although they,too, must have also known that if the Philistines were destroyed, someone else would soon take their place. "In every generation, they try to destroy us" is the sentence in the Passover Hagaddah that is acknowledged  by every Jew, Orthodox to atheist, from time immemorial.

Eventually, the Philistines were defeated decisively and disappeared from the pages of history, leaving no written records but giving rise to the more modern term "philistine" for someone who is savage, anti-culture and wholly materialistic.

The Jews, too, were defeated by an external enemy and exiled, but did not disappear.  In fact, those exiled, returned, at first in small numbers, to build a Second Temple. A new phenomenon, the existence of a large and flourishing Jewish Diaspora parallel to life in the Land of Israel continued throughout the Second Temple Period. Eventually, the Talmud was written down both in Israel and Babylon.

Jewish history from Joshua's time onward can be divided roughly, vis a vis the Land of Israel, into:

a. The centuries when almost all Jews lived in the Land of Israel – contending with nations such as the Philistines, but building the first Holy Temple and a vibrant society;

b. The 2nd Temple period when those living in the land were in contact with a flourishing Diaspora (Babylon, Egypt and Rome and others);

c. A period of almost total exile from the land, lasting for two thousand persecution-filled years;

d. The present era, characterized by a reestablished and flourishing state in which the Jewish population is now almost equal to that of the Diaspora.

Many people have pointed to parallels between the present and the 2nd Temple era, a few even suggesting the rebuilding of the Temple, and others simply hoping that, despite repeated wars and genocidal rhetoric, the Arab world would  either learn to live with Israel or be forced to do so.

This model, however, has recently changed abruptly to one that may have no parallel in Jewish history, in which both the independent State of Israel and the flourishing worldwide Diaspora are concurrently threatened by violent and expanding anti-Semitism fueled by a growing world jihad.

Israel's citizens will learn to live with the fact that the battle against Hamas and its fellow terrorist organizations may not be won in a one-time operation. That seems to be the appropriate perspective to take from a study of the Israelite's struggle with the Philistines, but there seems to be no Jewish history paradigm for the broader and current threat.

In today's configuration, the world as a whole, and not just the Jewish people and other endangered minorities, will have to decide whether to take the side of international Philistinism or that of Judaeo-Christian values, Western culture and hard-won freedoms.

(Note: The Tanach describes the Almighty's reward or punishment that was behind each battle fought by the Israelites, but obviously, that cannot be compared to our period when there is no prophecy, so it is not included.)

Op-Ed: Why Are Those Jews So Assertive?

The selectivity of the outrage against Israel would be nonsensical if it were really about human rights. But it’s not.

Matthew M. Hausman, J.D.

Matthew M. Hausman is a trial attorney and writer who lives and works in Connecticut. A former journalist, Mr. Hausman continues to write on a variety of topics, including science, health and medicine, Jewish issues and foreign affairs, and has been a legal affairs columnist for a number of publications.

The recent war in Gaza spawned anti-Semitic riots across Europe, demonstrations in the United States, and the publication of malicious blood libels all over the world.  There were civilian casualties to be sure, but the numbers reported by Hamas were inflated and included many terrorists falsely identified as noncombatants.  Though the loss of civilian life is regrettable, it occurred in Gaza because of Hamas’s strategy of using human shields and launching rockets from schools, hospitals, mosques and residential neighborhoods. 

Time Magazine recently ran a video report claiming..that the IDF was harvesting the internal organs of dead Arabs.
As usually happens when Israel defends herself, she was falsely accused of human rights abuses and war crimes.  Her detractors were mute, however, when Hamas deliberately targeted Israeli civilians and killed its own citizens.  They were also silent as hundreds of thousands were being killed in Iraq and Syria, and have been restrained in their response to the wave of bloody jihad being waged across the Mideast by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”). 

The selectivity of the outrage against Israel would be nonsensical if it were really about human rights.  But it’s not.  Israel is maligned instead for having the temerity to defend herself and, in a larger sense, the existential rights of Jews everywhere.  Even in the twenty-first century, the world appears to prefer docile Jews who know their place over those who forcefully defend themselves, their values and their homeland. 

The international community can accept suffering Jews, subservient Jews, assimilationist Jews, and dead Jews.  What it cannot tolerate are confident Jews who protect themselves and their interests without compromise or apology.  

It seems that many progressives feel the same way when they denounce Jewish assertiveness as chauvinistic and advocate dialogue with organizations and movements that seek to destroy Israel and her people.  Regardless of whether such behavior arises from a ghetto mentality, Stockholm syndrome, self-loathing or simple ignorance, Jews who reflexively criticize Israel but rationalize Islamist terror and rejectionism are complicit in enabling the anti-Semitism that is sweeping the globe.    

Multiple surveys have documented rising anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States, and the data are consistent with law enforcement statistics showing increased violence against Jews and their property.  Anti-Semitism is apparent among those who disparage Jewish nationalism, call for boycotts of Israel, and make false accusations of apartheid to delegitimize the Jewish State.  It is also common in Arab-Muslim society, where it is taught in schools, heard in sermons, and disseminated in false claims of Israeli atrocities and Jewish conspiracy theories that are reported as fact in newspapers from Egypt to Saudi Arabia and all points in between.

Progressive apologists artificially distinguish between disparagement of Israel and hatred of Jews, but it is a distinction without a difference.  The United Nations Human Rights Council spends much of its time accusing Israel of heinous crimes without a scintilla of proof, but ignores actual atrocities that routinely occur everywhere else in the Mideast. 

The UNHRC expresses little if any concern regarding the harassment and murder of Copts and other Christians, the repression of women, and the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities in Arab or Muslim countries, and has not addressed the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Syria and Iraq nearly as much as it has condemned Israel.  Though it entertains bogus claims of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, it does not chastise Hamas for starting the conflict in the first place, or for using human shields, executing its own people, and calling for jihad and genocide. 

Only Israel is singled out for opprobrium, although she is the only free and open democracy in the Mideast – one in which citizens live where they want, speak and worship freely, vote, and serve in government, regardless of religion or ethnicity.  The UNHRC’s anti-Israel agenda can only be explained by institutional Jew-hatred, which is enabled by a parent body that tolerates human rights violations by dictatorial and theocratic regimes and provides a bully pulpit for global anti-Semitism.  A cynical observer might suspect the U.N. of actively promoting Jew-hatred based on the disproportionate number of resolutions against Israel for imagined offenses as compared to the organization’s silence regarding real crimes committed by countries that engage in ethnic cleansing and seek Israel’s destruction.  The hypocrisy reached a crescendo when Israel was unfairly blamed for acting “disproportionately” in a war that was instigated by Hamas.

Hamas violated international law by using human shields, shooting rockets from residential areas and institutions, and targeting civilian populations.  In contrast, Israel went to unprecedented lengths to minimize the risk to civilians.  The IDF gave advanced warnings to Gaza residents via mass leaflets, texts, emails, and mechanized phone calls.  Israel’s conduct was a far cry from that of coalition allies in Afghanistan, where carpet bombing killed or injured many noncombatants.  Or of Great Britain, whose bombing of Dresden during World War II inflicted heavy civilian casualties. 

Despite the humanity shown by Israel in the face of unprovoked aggression, and although Hamas started the war by firing rockets at Israeli civilians, supporters of Hamas and the Palestinians violently protested and attacked Jews wherever they were found.  After the war began, Jewish men and women were beaten in France, England and Sweden; synagogues and Jewish institutions were attacked and vandalized across Europe; and Great Britain saw an astronomical increase in anti-Jewish agitation. 

Moreover, protest rhetoric from Europe, the Mideast and the liberal entertainment industry was anti-Semitic in both tone and content.  Although some vacuous celebrities who condemned Israel are now scurrying to deny they are anti-Semitic, the implication of nefarious stereotypes and blood lust imagery betrays the hollowness of their denials.  Or their ignorance.

Apologists for Hamas continue to promote the fallacy that demonstrations against Jewish targets are understandable responses to supposed Israeli aggression.  But how do violent assaults against Jews constitute political statements?  How could attempts by Muslim mobs to force their way into synagogues in France and Switzerland be considered acceptable forms of protest?  And how do cries of “death to the Jews” by hostile protestors or the publication of blood libels by Arab and left-wing media outlets constitute legitimate commentary?

Such acts are acceptable only if the target group is deemed deserving of abuse, and this has certainly been the case for Jews during their long years of exile in Europe and the Arab world.  The Nazis may have mastered the art of genocide, but they did not create anti-Semitism.  European hostility to the Jews was constant after the rise of Constantine, manifesting in massacres, canonical abuses, ghetto confinement, bloody crusades, pogroms, social isolation and economic exclusion. 

Notwithstanding lip service paid to Jewish suffering after the Holocaust, an undercurrent of hatred persisted that continued to portray Jews as aliens even though many had lived on the continent longer than some of the peoples who came to be known as Europeans.  There were pogroms in Poland after the Nazis were defeated and merciless persecution by the Soviets until the end of the Cold War.   

Despite the myth of tolerance for “People of the Book,” Jews in Islamic lands have been subjugated, abused, confined and segregated, forcibly converted and massacred, and have seen their synagogues desecrated and property confiscated over the centuries.  As a conquered people dispossessed of their birthright, moreover, they were treated derisively and denied the right to sovereignty in their homeland.  A review of Maimonides’ Iggeret Teman (“Letter to the Jews of Yemen”), written in the twelfth century, shows how brutally Jews were treated during the Golden Age of Islam. 

As hostile as Europeans have been to Jews historically, many of the recent anti-Semitic incidents in France, England and elsewhere have been linked to the Middle Eastern immigrant communities in those countries, often with approval and support from the radical left.  Interestingly, the anti-immigration right-wing parties in Europe – particularly in France – have been more tolerant of Jews, who live by the law of the land, than of immigrants who believe in Sharia and seek to impose it on others.

Though anti-Semitism was never eradicated, its proliferation today is enabled by a mainstream media that demonizes Israel and fails to report war crimes and abuses committed by Hamas and other Islamist groups.  The media employs moral equivalency to present terrorism as an understandable consequence of alleged Israeli crimes and western interventionism.  The massacres of civilians in Syria and Iraq are reported, but not with the same urgency used to slander Israel and impugn her legitimacy.  And until the beheading of American journalist James Foley, there was scant acknowledgment of the threat posed by ISIS in the Mideast and beyond.  The mainstream press accepted President Obama’s dismissive characterization of ISIS as junior varsity last January, and until recently depicted those who warned of the threat and demanded a strategy for confronting it as alarmists.

Whereas the President certainly had incentive to misstate the nature of the ISIS menace because it undercut his assurances that global terrorism was on the increase, the media was obligated as the watchdog of government to parse and refute such statements.  But it failed miserably to do so, which was not surprising given the lack of objectivity with which it covers the Obama administration and events in the Mideast in general.  The media shows its partisan stripes whenever it misreports Israeli defensive actions as aggressive, or refuses to retract stories of Israeli attacks on civilian targets later shown to have been bombed by Hamas, or turns a blind eye to Hamas war crimes, or accepts inflated Palestinian casualty statistics without verification. 

The media legitimizes Hamas by failing to characterize its actions honestly, and strengthens a cultural mindset that considers attacks on Jews to be understandable reactions to the Arab-Israeli conflict.  There is a presumption that Israel is always at fault – regardless of who fires the first shot – and a tendency to sensationalize alleged Israeli transgressions without vetting sources or checking facts. 

Mainstream outlets often repeat dubious claims as fact, such as when Time Magazine recently ran a video report claiming, among other things, that the IDF was harvesting the internal organs of dead Arabs.  The offending allegation was retracted and deleted last month after Honest Reportingexposed it, complaining that it constituted a blood libel.

The banalization of anti-Semitism is also facilitated by those who promote BDS efforts, support Hamas and Hezbollah as legitimate political parties, and express hatred for Israel using traditional anti-Jewish buzzwords.  The situation is exacerbated by Jews on the left who defend anti-Semitic progressives by artificially distinguishing them as political anti-Zionists.  Such distinctions are disingenuous, however, as both terms reflect the same hatred.  To say that the Jews – unlike any other people on earth – have no indigenous right to sovereignty in their homeland is to treat them differently and deny their history.  This is surely anti-Semitic. 

Unfortunately, the tendency to excuse or ignore anti-Semitism is not limited to the hard left, but can be found among mainstream liberals who validate Palestinian claims that repudiate Jewish history, advocate dialogue with groups that have extremist ties, and continue to vouch for an administration that has been more hostile than any other to the Jewish State.  This tendency was already apparent back in 2008, when Jewish Democrats refused to question Mr. Obama’s long-standing associations with anti-Semites and Israel-bashers, and belittled the concern of those Jews who did. 

It is also apparent in the reluctance of some to acknowledge the possible influence of anti-Semitism in crimes committed against Jews.  This may have been the case with the murder of Rabbi Joseph Raksin, who was shot and killed while walking to Shabbat services last month in Miami, Florida.  Some were hesitant to suggest the murder was a hate crime, and the police were quick to deny any evidence of bias.  However, the investigation is still open and no arrests have been made.  It would thus seem peculiar to discount potential motives before all the facts are in, particularly when the synagogue to which Rabbi Raksin was walking had recently been defaced with anti-Jewish graffiti, other acts of targeted vandalism had been reported around that time, and a pro-Hamas rally had been held in the community a few weeks earlier. 

If anti-Semitism in fact plays a role in such incidents, the reluctance to assess and identify it will not eliminate the problem.  To the contrary, history suggests that timidity only invites further abuse, compromises the Jews’ standing in society, and paves the way for exclusion, dehumanization and genocide.  Jewish survival has never been assured by avoiding confrontations or placating aggressors. 

For the phrase “never again” to be more than an empty platitude, Jews need to confront their detractors, defend their values, and protect themselves without shame or embarrassment.  Constructive audacity is as important for protecting the Diaspora community as it is for Israel.  Lack of fortitude, however, could be disastrous for both.