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Atlantic
2 days ago
- Politics
- Atlantic
America's Anti-Jewish Assassins Are Making the Case for Zionism
The founding father of Zionism, the modern movement to create a Jewish state, had a Christmas tree. In 1895, Theodor Herzl, the Jewish journalist who would later convene the world's first Zionist Congress, was busy lighting the holiday ornament with his family when the chief rabbi of Vienna dropped in for a visit. The cleric was not amused—but the episode helps explain what Zionism is, why it came to be, and why it still finds adherents. Far from seeking to flee non-Jewish society, Herzl—like many European Jews of his era—ardently hoped to be accepted by it. He did not circumcise his son, and initially proposed that Jews evade anti-Semitism by converting en masse to Roman Catholicism. Only after such ill omens as the rise of Karl Lueger, the Vienna mayor who would serve as inspiration to Adolf Hitler, did Herzl reluctantly conclude that Jews would never be accepted in gentile society and pivot to pursuing Jewish statehood. Moving to a then-backwater in the Middle East was the last thing that Herzl wanted to do. It was also the last thing most Jews of his time wanted to do. Like Herzl, they simply sought to live in peace in the places they'd called home for centuries. And some, like Herzl, slowly realized that this was not going to be possible. As the historian Walter Russell Mead has put it, 'Zionism was not the triumphant battle cry of a victorious ethnic group,' but rather 'a weird, crazy, desperate stab at survival' made by those who foresaw their impending doom and despaired of other options. Seen in this context, Herzl's influential manifesto Der Judenstaat ('The Jewish State') was the 19th-century equivalent of Get Out for European Jews: a warning that well-intentioned liberalism would not save them, and that they needed to escape while they still could. Ever since, much of the world has worked to prove Herzl right. This past Sunday in Colorado, a man infiltrated a solidarity event for Israeli hostages in Gaza and began setting the Jews there on fire. The attack left 15 wounded, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor. The Boulder assault occurred just weeks after the execution of a young couple outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., where a leftist extremist allegedly emptied his clip into one of the victims as she tried to crawl away. That shooting followed the attempted assassination of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro on the second night of Passover. The firebomber in Colorado was captured on video shouting 'end Zionists' during his rampage. The murderer in Washington produced a keffiyeh and reportedly declared, 'I did it for Gaza.' Shapiro's would-be killer told a 911 operator that he targeted the Jewish governor 'for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.' Although these assailants all attacked American Jews, they clearly perceived themselves as Zionism's avengers. In reality, however, they have joined a long line of Zionism's inadvertent advocates. As in Herzl's time, the perpetrators of anti-Jewish acts do more than nearly anyone else to turn Jews who were once indifferent or even hostile to Israel's fate into reluctant appreciators of its necessity. Consider the Holocaust, the greatest anti-Jewish atrocity in modern memory. The Third Reich and its many collaborators exterminated two-thirds of Europe's Jews. At the same time, the enemies of the Nazis—including the United States and Canada—refused to let most desperate Jewish refugees into their countries. This inevitably funneled many people toward their destination of last resort: mandatory Palestine. The creation of Israel was the consequence less of Jewish choices than of all other Jewish choices being foreclosed by non-Jewish powers. In 1948, Israel declared independence and fought off the attempt of five invading Arab armies to strangle it in the cradle. Some 800,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homeland. Wide swaths of the world promptly took out their displeasure at this outcome on the Jewish populations nearest at hand. In the years following Israel's founding, nearly 1 million Jews left their ancestral homes in the Arab and Muslim world. Many fled abuse in countries such as Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia, where Jews were imprisoned, tortured, murdered, and stripped of their possessions, despite having lived in these places for millennia. At the time, few of these people were Zionists. They loved their home countries, which refused to love them back, and faced persecution when they arrived in Israel. Today, this Mizrahi community and its descendants comprise about half of Israel's population and form the backbone of Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing base. The Soviet Union, despite presenting itself as the vanguard of universal brotherhood, also turned on its Jews. The Communist police state cast the community as subversive, institutionally discriminated against its members in higher education and the professions, and labeled countless Jews who had no interest in Israel as 'Zionists.' The state executed secular Jewish artists and intellectuals under false charges, repressed observance of the Jewish faith, and threw those who protested into Gulags. Eventually, after decades of international pressure, nearly 2 million Jews were allowed to leave. More than half moved to Israel, where they would become one of Israel's most reliably conservative constituencies. Simply put, Israel exists as it does today because of the repeated choices made by societies to reject their Jews. Had these societies made different choices, Jews would still live in them, and Israel likely would not exist—certainly not in its present form. Instead, Israel is a garrison state composed precisely of those Jews with the most reason to distrust the outside world and its appeals to international ideals, knowing that these did precisely nothing to help them when they needed it most. In this manner, decade after decade, anti-Semitism has created more Zionism. Put another way, the unwitting agents of Zionism throughout history have been those unwilling to tolerate Jews in their own countries. Bruce Hoffman: The Boulder attack didn't come out of nowhere Given this dynamic, a rational anti-Zionist movement would devote itself to making Jews feel welcome in every facet of life outside of Israel, ruthlessly rooting out any inkling of anti-Semitism in order to convince Jews that they have nothing to fear and certainly no need for a separate state. Such an anti-Zionist movement would overcome Zionism by making it obsolete. But that is not the anti-Zionist movement that currently exists. Instead, Israel's opposition around the globe—whether groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah or their international apologists and imitators —often seems determined to persuade those Jews who chose differently than Herzl did that he was right all along. Attacks such as those in Colorado, Washington, and Pennsylvania, not to mention the white-supremacist massacre at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, have raised the costs of being Jewish in America. Synagogues, schools, and other Jewish institutions collectively pay millions of dollars to secure their premises, resulting in communities that are less open to the outside and attendees being forever reminded that they are not safe even in their places of worship. And now American Jews thinking of attending communal events must stop to consider whether would-be attackers will associate them with Israel and target them for death. America, at least, was not always this way. The country has long stood as the great counterexample to the Zionist project—proof that Jews could not just survive but thrive as equals in a pluralistic liberal democracy, without need for their own army or state. After Barbra Steinmetz, the 88-year-old Holocaust survivor in Boulder, was attacked, she had a message for the country. 'We're Americans,' she told NBC News. 'We are better than this.' That is what most American Jews and their allies believe, and the justification for that belief was evident in Colorado this week, where Jared Polis, the state's popular Jewish governor, forthrightly condemned the attack. But if the perpetrators and the cheerleaders of the incipient American intifada have their way, that spirit will be stifled. Such a victory, however, would be self-defeating. According to video captured at the scene, the Boulder attacker accidentally set himself on fire in the middle of his assault. It would be hard to script a better metaphor for the way such violence sabotages the cause it purports to advance. If the anti-Zionist assassins succeed in making Jewish life in the United States less livable, they will not have helped a single Palestinian, but they will have made their opponents' case for them. They will have proved the promise of America wrong, and the darkest premonitions of Zionism right.
Canada Standard
6 days ago
- General
- Canada Standard
Will Israelis Repent for Gaza Genocide Re-Humanization Takes Courage
The genocide in Gaza continues unabated as I write these lines. Belatedly, a few Israelis have begun decrying the starvation and mass murder that their armya peoples armyhas perpetrated since October 2023. These acts, supported by the majority of the countrys Jews, exceed in cruelty and brutality the violence that the IDF routinely used against Palestinians since before the unilateral declaration of independence in 1948. Dispossession, deportation, and death have been their tragic fate. The difference this time is not only in the degree of violence. Israeli leaders no longer hide behind diplomatic discourse and euphemisms. Their plan is clear: make Greater Israel *goyimrein*, cleansed of non-Jews. Residents of Gaza and the West Bank are being forced to leave their land and move elsewhere. This plan has long been discreetly envisaged by successive Israeli governments, but the fear of international sanctions prevented them from acting it out. Today, 82% of Israelis support the definitive expulsion of the Palestinians. However, consistent American and Israeli efforts to bribe countries to accept the exiled Palestinians have so far not borne fruit. One cant help recalling the Evian international conference of 1938, convened in order to resettle European Jews being expelled by the Nazis. Western delegates expressed sympathy for the Jews, but only the Dominican Republic agreed to accept 100,000 people (in practice, no more than a few hundred could actually reach the distant island in the Caribbean). With no country willing to take in Jews, Nazi authorities devised plans for the final solution of the Jewish problem. Millions of European Jews, alongside other inferior people, were systematically murdered between 1941 and 1945. The enthusiastic adherents of National Judaism (dati-leumi in Hebrew) and their allies in other strata of Israeli citizenry believe they can impose their will on the Palestinians. This relatively small segment of the Israeli population, whose core consists of settlers in the West Bank, has become the most dynamic and unswerving actor in the making of Israels Palestinian policy. Quite a few of these wearers of knitted kippahs occupy key positions in the Israeli state. The tail is successfully wagging the dog. Most Israelis continue to enjoy life, go to the gym, attend meetings of Weight Watchers, and otherwise take care of themselves. The starvation and massacre of tens of thousands of civiliansmostly women and childrenin Gaza, and of hundreds of people in the West Bank, all of which their spouses, fathers and siblings do in their name, leave most of them indifferent. Israel has dehumanized and demonized the Palestinians for decades, and this dehumanization has become brazen in the wake of the Hamas raid in October 2023. Max Blumenthal recently characterized Israeli society as satanic. But Israelis may one day wake up from their moral slumber and realize that Palestinians are human. Since the utter destruction of Gaza by Israel makes it impossible to house the two million survivors in their former homes turned in a demolition site, Israelisin an act of collective repentanceshould take them in. They should treat them as fellow humans and help them cure the terrible traumas caused by the IDF. They should compensate Palestinians for lost property, allowing them to stand on their own feet rather than depend on charity. This long-overdue act of repentance should create a society where everyonefrom the river to the seawill enjoy equal rights. This re-humanization is a challenge, but it is the only scenario that would free both the oppressed and the oppressors from the burden of incessant brutality. Quite a few people will qualify the proposed act of repentance as suicidal. Peter Beinart, in his recent book Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza, points to other historical examplesIreland, the American South, and, of course, South Africaand acknowledges that the rulers often perceive equality as an existential threat: White South Africans were just as afraid of being thrown into the sea as Israeli Jews are now. Yet, he argues, according to numerous studies, oppression fuels violence, whereas equal rights and the possibility of political change mitigate it. Since the late 19th century, Jewish intellectuals saw that the hubris and chutzpah of the Zionist settlers would create a death trap for the colonizers and the colonized alike. Ahad Ha-Am was an icon of cultural Zionism, as opposed to its political variety that has replaced all others. He published the following warning in 1891: I recently came to the Land of Israel and saw with my own eyes that we did not find an empty land here, but a nation full of life, dwelling in it, and loving the Land of Israel no less than we do. We are accustomed to thinking that the Arab is a wild Ishmaelite and we fail to notice that the Arab, too, is a human being, with feelings, and he senses very well that his land is being taken from him by force. Critical voices both inside and outside of Israel portray the Zionist experiment as a tragic mistake. The sooner it is ended, the better for all humanity. In practice, this would mean guaranteeing equality for all inhabitants and transforming the existing discriminatory regime into a state of all its citizens. But Israeli society is conditioned to see such projects as an existential threat and a rejection of Israels right to exist. The sacrifice of tens of thousands of civilian lives to ensure this right has not shaken this ideological mantra. Beinart observes that In most of the Jewish world today, rejecting Jewish statehood is a greater heresy than rejecting Judaism itself. We have built an altar and thrown an entire [Palestinian] society on the flames. True, Beinart in New York and the author of these lines in Montreal can afford to indulge in dreams of equality. We are not the ones to face the consequences. But there are more and more people in Israel who see the moral and practical dead end of continuing the oppression and dispossession. Jewish tradition teaches that it is never too late to change course, to repent, and to make amends. Of course, to make such a sharp turn requires courage. A well-known Jewish insight is quite clear about it: Who is the greatest of all heroes? He who turns an enemy into a friend. Most people in Israel vehemently reject as exilic this traditional Jewish wisdom that upholds peace as the supreme value. They see in it only comfort of the weak. But, in fact, this is what real strength is all about. Yakov M. Rabkin
Business Recorder
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Recorder
Israel's new military offensive
EDITORIAL: The 'Never Again' phrase associated with the Holocaust for long symbolised a universal commitment to prevent the kinds of systematic targeting and extermination to which the Nazis subjected European Jews and some other communities. Ironically, it is the Jewish state now doing the same onto the Palestinian people in Gaza as well as the occupied West Bank. During the last 19 months of Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza at least 53,573 Palestinians – too many of them children – have been killed and 121,688 others wounded whilst the enclave's entire 2.2 million population remains trapped without access to food, water, fuel, and healthcare facilities (almost all hospitals have been bombed out). Israel has now expanded its military assault on Gaza with increased bombardment by air and more troops on the ground. Prime Minister Netanyahu has openly said his aim is to take control of the entire enclave – through extermination and/or expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. The escalation with its unspeakable death and destruction has prompted widespread calls for restraint and accountability. Even Israel's traditional European allies find it difficult to stand by it. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in parliament on Tuesday that he was 'horrified by the escalation from Israel' and called for a ceasefire. He also reiterated his government's opposition to settlements in the occupied West Bank and demand for a 'massively scaled up humanitarian assistance into Gaza' backed by suspension of free trade talks with Israel as well as further sanctions against Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary David Lammy slammed 'extremism' in some sections of Israel's government adding, 'we cannot stand by in the face of this new deterioration. It is incompatible with the principles that underpin our bilateral relationship'. Nice words these, but the Foreign Secretary stopped short of saying anything about the sale of military equipment, including components of combat aircraft Israel uses to drop 2000 lb bombs on the Gaza people, making London complicit in the ongoing genocide. Together with Britain, leaders of France and Canada have also 'strongly opposed' the expansion of Israel's military offensive in the besieged enclave, threatening to take 'concrete actions' if it does not ease its onslaught and lift restriction on aid supplies. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot spoke of a growing call from some other countries to review a longstanding association agreement with Israel. These are important developments. Moving forward, it remains to be seen how far the Europeans are willing to go to stop ethnic cleansing of Gaza and grave human rights abuses in the West Bank that the colonial settler state wants to take over to create 'Greater Israel.' In any event, the US is fully on board with Israel, even trying to make arrangements for Gaza Palestinians' involuntary resettlement elsewhere in the region – a stark reminder that 'Never Again' no longer represents a commitment to stand against genocide and human rights abuses wherever they occur. Of all the people, nonetheless, it was a former deputy chief of staff of Israel's military, Yair Golan, who recently told a radio interviewer: 'a sane country does not engage in combat against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not pursue goals of population expulsions.' Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
NDTV
24-05-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Auschwitz Museum Warns Against Fake AI Images Of Victims
The Auschwitz museum warned on Friday against Facebook posts with "harmful" AI-generated fictional images of victims of the Nazi German death camp, condemning them for "falsifying history". The museum at the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp has long used its own social media accounts to publish authentic victim photos, names and information to raise Holocaust awareness. Now the museum has discovered that at least a couple of Facebook pages were producing similar victim bios but with fictional information or photos. "People have started to notice that there are pages, including one called '90's History' where there are short bios of the victims as well as photos that were clearly made by artificial intelligence," said museum deputy spokesman Pawel Sawicki. "Producing artificial images of real people, or what is even more troubling, producing false identities of victims, is certainly troubling and also very harmful for the memory of those who died at Auschwitz," he told AFP. Such posts were harmful because "producing artificial information, last names, is falsifying history", said Sawicki. This sort of disinformation could even lead to Holocaust denial, he added. "There is of course a danger that if we have these fake people, then perhaps someone could claim that the whole thing is made up," said Sawicki. He said the museum was in touch with US tech giant Meta, which owns Facebook, in the hopes that it could look into the matter. Nazi Germany built the death camp in the city of Oswiecim after occupying Poland during World War II. The Holocaust site has become a symbol of Nazi Germany's genocide of six million European Jews, one million of whom died at the camp between 1940 and 1945. More than 100,000 non-Jews also died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, including non-Jewish Poles, Roma and Soviet soldiers.
Time of India
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Germany and Israel mark anniversary in shadow of war
Germany and Israel mark anniversary in shadow of war Germany and Israel are commemorating the beginning of their postwar relationship, with the war in Gaza omnipresent. Sixty years ago, on May 12, 1965, Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations after a long period of preparation. It was anything but a matter of course at the time: World War II had ended just two decades earlier and the memory of Nazi Germany's genocide of the European Jews was present in both countries. Even now, 80 years after the end of the war, relations with Israel remain extremely important, but also difficult. Israeli President Isaac Herzog is coming to Berlin to mark the anniversary. Together with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, he plans to visit the "Platform 17" Holocaust memorial at Grunewald station in southwest Berlin. Operation Sindoor Amid flare-up hours after thaw, officials say things will settle down with time Ceasefire on, but pressure stays: Key decisions by India against Pak that still stand 'Will work with India & Pakistan to seek solution on Kashmir': Trump Some 10,000 Jews were deported from the train station to concentration camps during the Nazi era. Herzog will meet with more than 100 German and Israeli youth, well aware that antisemitism has risen sharply, especially among young people in Germany, since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip more than a year and a half ago. Herzog and Steinmeier will then travel to Israel together and visit a kibbutz on the border with Gaza. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Tariffs are coming in Kentucky. Here are 7 things you can do to prepare yourself DollarPerks Read More Undo Merkel spoke of the 'reason of state' in the Knesset The visit takes place during the first days of the new German government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democrats(CDU). Like all chancellors before him, Merz is aware of Germany's special responsibility for Israel. When former German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) visited Israel in 2008 and spoke in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, she used the term "reason of state" (Staatsräson) to describe this responsibility. In her view, Germany has a special political responsibility for the existence and security of Israel. The "reason of state" is a political maxim, not a legal one. But chancellors after Merkel (and most of those before her) have always acted and continue to act in line with this fundamental principle. Despite all the criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza, German politicians have repeatedly emphasized that Israel has the right to defend itself after the terror attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023. The European Union as well as the United States, Germany and several other countries classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. Almost 1,200 people were killed in the attack, and around 250 people were taken hostage. In practice, however, fulfilling this maxim can be extremely difficult. Criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza is also growing in Germany. Israel has been blocking aid deliveries to the Palestinian territory since the beginning of March, resulting in hunger and death. The war in Gaza, which Israel started in retaliation for the 2023 Hamas attacks, has so far killed more than 52,600 people in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory, according to figures from its health authorities regarded as reliable by international organizations. In his first interview as chancellor, Merz told public broadcaster ARD: "Israel is of the utmost concern to us. The new foreign minister will be traveling to Israel next weekend on my behalf. I don't want to anticipate. We are currently preparing this trip together. But it must be clear that the Israeli government must also fulfill its obligations under international law, under the international law of war." Netanyahu and the International Criminal Court In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, among others, over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Germany is one of the founding members of the ICC and would have to arrest Netanyahu if he came to Germany. Nevertheless, the day after the German election in February, Merz said after a telephone conversation with Netanyahu that, as chancellor, he would find ways and means "to ensure that [Netanyahu] can visit Germany and leave again without being arrested in Germany." Merz has not repeated that phrase since his election as chancellor. Instead, the new chancellor said on ARD: "Israel has the right to defend itself against this brutal attack by Hamas terrorists on October 7 and everything that followed. But Israel must also remain a country that lives up to its humanitarian obligations, especially where this terrible war is now taking place — in the Gaza Strip, where this confrontation with the Hamas terrorists is necessarily taking place." The dispute over the arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister shows how complicated the relationship between the two countries still is today, and how it is influenced by the Gaza war . Although the previous Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, of the environmentalist Greens, often visited Israel after the outbreak of the war, Netanyahu's last visit to Berlin was more than two years ago in March 2023, when Netanyahu visited then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). Germany also holds so-called government "consultations" with Israel — meetings between the entire cabinets of both sides. The consultations are intended to underline the special importance of the relationship. Germany holds such meetings with just 12 countries worldwide. The last consultations with Israel took place more than seven years ago.
