Growing Anti-Semitism Causing Concern

When the subject of anti-Semitism is discussed many areas in the world are more likely to be included before anybody would even think of including the United States as a place of major concern. The most often chosen discussed areas where there is growing anti-Semitism are the Muslim Middle East and North Africa and Europe. The Muslim anti-Semitism is often claimed to be driven mostly over Israel and the Palestinian statehood issue. This is not the entire truth and more than likely being chosen as the reason behind anti-Semitism is done so as not to need to address the historic anti-Semitism which has risen periodically throughout Muslim lands since the inception of Islam in Mecca and especially Medina. Another misrepresentation has been the claim that after the Holocaust and the end of World War II that anti-Semitism had disappeared from Europe and the West. The truth is that anti-Semitism had simply retreated beneath the societal radar and had become unacceptable which only served to put it in apparent remission but did not cure these peoples of the disease called anti-Semitism. The proof of this having been the case is the rapid growth of the national socialist political parties which have adopted much of the original Nazi racial puritan ethic which has a definitive anti-Semitic strain driving the movement. This has been most evident in those countries which are experiencing economic difficulties or other stressful pressures on their social fabric. Still, much of the public try and dismiss these political groups as passing blips on the political spectrum and simply if ignored they will pass away before they cause any real harm. If my memory serves me, that was exactly the thoughts of polite European society about the rise of the national socialists in Germany and elsewhere prior to their rise to power in Nazi Germany, and the rest is, as they say, history.

 

North America and the United States in particular are considered to be paragons of acceptance where anti-Semitism is something which has been relegated to a miniscule minority whose numbers are so minute as not to be any actual concern. If this were only true. What masks much of the anti-Semitism is that it exists in the form of either anti-Israel or anti-Zionist political movements. The claim that virulent anti-Israel and anti-Zionist adherents are protesting only Israel and do not necessarily have any hatred towards Jews is more often a false premise than truth. This article is not intended to argue this point but rather to address the rise of anti-Semitism within North America and particularly within the United States. Where in the general society there is not much evident anti-Semitism in any of its incarnations; but in the arenas from which our future leadership is being molded and educated, the elite colleges and universities, the growth of anti-Semitism is extremely troubling. The initial foot in the door has been the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and pro-Palestinian movements and in particular the BDS Movement which demands Universities and whomever else they can persuade to fight Israel through Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions. The one item which these groups will stress and go to great lengths to emphasize are that under no circumstance are they or do they condone in any form anti-Semitism. To quote Macbeth, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

 

The truth is in their actions and we need to judge these people by their actions and not simply listen to their words. On many campuses there exist different main events behind those utilizing the political difficulties concerning Israel in order to promote their masked anti-Semitism. These are BDS Protests and Palestinian Solidarity Weeks or Months. These events are often accompanied by general measures taken presumably to demonstrate the “sins” of the State of Israel. One such is to present eviction notices to certain students that they are to leave their dorm room within the next few hours as they are scheduled to be destroyed. This is done implying that Israel simply randomly destroys Palestinian homes for absolutely no reason other than just because they are Palestinian owned homes. The students whose doors receive the fake eviction notices are known Jewish students, Hillel members, and those known to support Israel. Another event is to place checkpoints around the campus where any students wearing Star of David jewelry, Yarmulkes, or other ways are known to be Jews are stopped and treated roughly and demeaned simply because they are Jews and presumed to support Israel. The truth is they seldom give such treatment to Christian or other supporters of Israel. Then there are the Walls of Shame where they place a wall that supposedly represents the anti-terror fence which in urban areas or areas where snipers have targeted Israeli homes and vehicles they erect actual walls but the vast majority of the barrier uses fencing. Often this wall is covered with the names of Palestinians who have been arrested by Israel on terrorist charges, also the names of terrorists Israel has killed in the commission of acts of terror and even the names of those who died in suicide bombings for which they blame Israel. As these demonstrations have grown in size and numbers there has come with them a general atmosphere on numerous campuses where all things Israel are condemned and anybody who supports Israel is scorned and many professors are known to grade these students harshly with some even being failed. Some campuses the atmosphere has grown so toxic that Jewish students have taken to hiding the fact that they are Jewish and those who have not taken such precautions are physically attacked. The situation has reached such epidemic proportions that there are currently lawsuits filed against Universities for not providing a safe and secure educational environment and not protecting students from religious persecutions in Federal Courts under civil rights laws.

 

But the problems of today will pale in comparison to what is likely to be coming in the near future. Directly resulting from the poisoned educational environment which casts Israel directly and Jews by inference as evil and undesirable entities and such premises tainting administrations especially in the social sciences will produce a core of future leaders tainted to varying extents as a result. The percentage does not need to be as significant as many would like to believe to do immense damage. The reality is that should the current trends continue to grow at the same rate as they have been growing in recent history, the problem will soon become a major influencing factor in our advanced educational systems. Studying such occurrences throughout history produces a very troubling picture where what begins as a small movement within the elite educational society will rapidly gain adherents and reach a societal movement often as quickly as a decade and more readily within three decades. The anti-Israel and anti-Zionist movement infecting the elite educational societies in the United States and in Canada are already closing in on their first decade and have grown significantly to the point that even some traditionally Jewish colleges and universities have supported BDS protests and Palestinian solidarity protests. One of the hotbeds of these movements has been the California College System, one of the largest university and college systems in the United States. The one factor which guarantees that these events and support structures driving them will remain well funded and will have all the resources they require is the simple fact that Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and other Muslim organizations will continue to supply monetary support. This support has been most evident when one researches the Middle East Departments of almost every American major university where Arabists hold most of the positions of power and influence. Where much of this problem has remained largely out of sight and is not covered in any depth in the mainstream media, the ramifications and ramifications of this situation will produce its foul and rotten fruit which will unfortunately become evident and recognized likely far too late to avoid the worst results even I might predict. This coming from one who is often dismissed as a pessimist but too often prove out in time to have been a realist.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How Jews Living in West Bank Affect the Palestinians

We hear so much noise about the areas known historically as Judea, Samaria and Benyamin which were recently retagged as the West Bank in order to make them sound less Jewish. We hear about the need for the Palestinian Authority to be granted full autonomy of an independent nation with complete control over this West Bank as well as Gaza. Part of the problem with this presentation is that the Palestinians have two completely separate, mutually exclusive, actively competitive, viciously antagonistic governing agents with Hamas controlling and ruling over Gaza while the Palestinian Authority Fatah organization controlling and ruling over Area A the West Bank. Hamas is led by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh while the Palestinian Authority leader is President Mahmoud Abbas. Since the two factions split after the Hamas violent coup which placed them in control of Gaza in June 2007, all efforts to reunite the two groups have utterly failed. Part of the problem is that Hamas is based in Islamic religious governance while the Palestinian Authority is aligned with Fatah which is secular socialist governance and such philosophies are very much similar to oil and water, they do not mix well. The power struggle between these two groups drips with the avarice and hatreds such that the resultant atmosphere is not conducive to healthy economic policies therefore depressing economic growth potentials due to crippling corruption. The situation has resulted in totally failed governance in almost every category which has become completely reliant on foreign generosity lurching from one financial catastrophe to the next. Such poor governance constantly leads to the need to plead to the world for emergency funding. This has resulted in high unemployment for the Palestinian Arab people living under the direct controlling rule of either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority in either Gaza or Area A in the West Bank. Yet there is one group who has 100% employment as the Palestinian Authority places every Palestinian terrorist or criminal who has been sentenced to prison in Israel, whether they are members in the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, or any other terror related group, where they receive some of the highest salaries which are directly proportional to the number of Israelis they were able to maim and murder. This would almost be the guaranteed condition over the entire areas of Gaza and the West Bank should the entirety of these areas be placed under solely Palestinian governance.

 

Should anybody desire to find a more optimistic and promising atmosphere where the overwhelming majority of the people are employed and making significantly higher salaries resulting in a higher standard of living, one need not leave the West Bank, one simply needs to visit the areas where modern governance encourages economic ventures and the size and scope of government is limited. These areas are not under either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians living in these areas are largely employed with comparatively no unemployment when compared to the Palestinians living in Area A. The major difference in the condition for these Palestinians is they live among Israeli settlers. Much of the world decries the supposed conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live in areas where they share the lands with the Israeli settler who are mostly Jewish. There are so numerous different origins of the Israelis living in Samaria and Judea that any attempt to stereotype them as just religious Jews is not only pointless but in complete denial of reality. The Jews who have chosen to live in what the world refers to as the West Bank consist of religious and secular Jews, Israeli Arabs both Christian and Muslim, Secular Jews, Zionist Jews, Jews seeking a more relaxed atmosphere in which to live, farmers, people working locally as well as many whose work is in Tel Aviv who commute, IDF soldiers, physicians, nurses, computer programmers, entrepreneurs, and people from every walk of life one can find. There is a major Israeli University in Ariel called, oddly enough, Ariel University.

 

But what is most interesting is the completely impossible situation under which the Jews and Palestinian Arabs face living close to each other with all the serious relationship problems which are the constant fare in the mainstream media coverage of the Jewish settlers living beyond the Green Line. For the best example of how all of this has an effect, all one need do is visit Ariel University, Barkan Industrial Park, Shahak Industrial Park, and the other industrial parks, farms, vineyards, wineries, business parks, and other businesses and witness a bit of the truth about the Israeli controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. What becomes evident very quickly is that there is no distinction between Jews, Muslims, Christians and those of other religions, Jews and Arabs, Asian ancestry and European ancestry, or religious and secular. Approximately half of the employees along with their supervisors and management in both large and small industrial enterprises are West Bank Arabs employed there right next to West Bank Jews. The same goes for students and professors to a great extent at Ariel University. Throughout the main settlement areas of the West Bank the Jews and Palestinian Arabs live and work together in harmony without any trouble, violence, oppressions or any of the myriad of misconceptions that spring from a media more interested in forcing the issue of the oppressor Jews dispossessing the unfortunate Arab victims of Jewish hegemony. The fact that the Palestinian Arabs who live and work among the Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria have a much higher standard of living is a little secret of which the mainstream media refuses to inform the world. The fact that the rule is cooperation and an improved life for those Palestinians fortunate to reside in the developed mixed Jewish and Arab areas and that the terrorism and violence are the exception must be suppressed as there exists an entire industry based upon the Jewish oppressions of the Arabs. The problem is people living and working in harmony just does not sell newspapers or newscasts anywhere near as well as explosions and violence. The real truth is that the standard of living for the Palestinian Arabs throughout Gaza and the West Bank was among the fastest growing GDP of anywhere in the world from 1973 through 1992. Then, starting in 1993 when Yasser Arafat returned and the very same Palestinians were placed in a semi-autonomous self-ruled areas under the Palestinian Authority the GDP and standard of living reversed and has continued to drop ever since. The wonderful and hopeful truth which the media insists does not exist is that where Palestinian Arabs live together in relative harmony and mutual tolerance with Jews in Area C of the West Bank, sharing the advantages of the rule of law and entrepreneurial opportunity live better lives than their Palestinian brothers living in Area A and Gaza where the leadership is under the Palestinian Authority or Hamas which consist of dictatorial regimes. If people throughout the world truly wish the best of possibilities for the Palestinian people, perhaps they would be better able to decide where to place their efforts after taking an actual investigation of the separate Areas in the West Bank and Gaza and ask the Palestinians who reside within and amongst the Jews in Area C and those living in Palestinian autonomous areas of Area A and Gaza and then decide which group lives a more productive and preferred life. Finding the truth would definitely be an eye-opening experience which would likely deliver a viewpoint not covered by the mainstream media and actually actively hidden by the mainstream media.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Palestinian State a Concealed Islamic Arab Weapon

Bring up the subject of a Palestinian state and you are virtually guaranteed to begin a heated debate at any gathering. Everybody has their own idea of who is to blame for the frozen negotiations, what it would take to restart the negotiations, where to place borders, all the way to whether the Palestinians who resort to violence terrorists or freedom fighters and millions of arguments inbetween. What is almost never discussed is the period after such a state would be formed and what a future with a country Palestine formed and independent alongside of Israel. This should be a situation that should be given serious consideration before even thinking of entering any negotiations which could result in allowing such a state to come into existence.

 

Everybody gets all stuck on things such as placement of borders, control over the Holy Basin and the Old City of Jerusalem. Another important debate concerns the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees into Israel, a really hot button issue. But it is rarely discussed except as an alternative to the Right of Return is allowing the refugees to return into the newly founded Palestinian state. This issue should not be seen as an alternative to the Right of Return for refugees to inside Israel but what allowing them to return from the numerous camps into Palestine would mean going forward. The Palestinian state will have sufficient problems becoming economically viable with its current population but should another five plus million Palestinian refugees who likely have few employable skills after spending their entire lives sequestered in camps where they were denied virtually all basic rights with extreme limitations on employment positions that were permitted. The plight of the Palestinian refugees who were kept almost in prison camp conditions in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and others have been denied any opportunities to live a normal life. Considering the population of Palestinians currently in the West Bank and Gaza is currently approaching five million so if all the refugees kept in camps in other countries were to return the population would basically double. With the current unemployment in the Palestinian population approaching twenty percent, adding in such a large number of new refugees who would also pose a challenge to find appropriate employment along with the fact that once the Jewish businesses are moved back behind the borders, many of the Palestinians employed in these industrial parks will end up losing their jobs as the border between Palestine and Israel will not likely be very porous. But the real problem would come much later down the road.

 

The one prediction which many people hold is that whatever form the Palestinian state ends up taking, if it is designed to be a stand-alone entity then it very likely will become a nonfunctional state as the foreign aid from the world began to dwindle. As the state began to experience life without the financial support it currently enjoys there would be those who would turn to terrorism as old habits die hard. Should things get really bad, desperate even, and terrorism rose to a level similar to either intifada, then it may become necessary that Israel make an incursion into the Palestinian state even if it meant causing a war. The likelihood of such  becoming a reality is increased when one recalls that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Salafist groups, and even Fatah and the PLO which make up much of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have all reserved the right to continue the struggle until they have liberated all of Palestine from the River to the Sea. That alone is a guarantee that terrorism is planned to continue even after the Palestinian state has been established. So, with this as the likely scenario, what would be the result?

 

Should Israel face an ever growing terrorism problem where the attacks of any form, be they suicide bombers, rockets or full-fledged incursions by armed groups raiding and terrorizing Israeli citizens, destroying property, burning crops, and stealing herds, eventually Israel would have to respond with the IDF. Once the Palestinians are living in their own universally recognized state then any terrorist attacks would be tantamount to an act of war. A repeated and growing terrorist threat would definitely be interpreted as acts of war. What would be the result if Israel had to take military interventions to attempt to destroy terrorist infrastructure? How would the world react in such an instance? Taking into consideration how the world reacts to current uses of force by Israel in response to terrorist attacks, any such endeavor by Israel would probably result in the United Nations holding panicked meetings to determine how to prevent Israel from simply annexing the Palestinian areas undoing everything that it took to establish the Palestinian state. And what might be even worse is if Israel intervention did result in the annexation of the Palestinian areas sending everything back to square one, there would be a dangerous difference as the Palestinian population would be double resulting from the refugee influx. This would mean that Israel would find it necessary to monitor and police twice the number population while attempting to pacify any terrorist cells or forces. Such a situation would be today’s problems on steroids with demonstrations and riots reaching levels and sizes which would eventually result in a situation where the resultant casualties could easily become horrific. Such a calamity would be guaranteed if the Palestinians used a similar tactic as was utilized during the second intifada where men with semi-automatic and full-automatic assault rifles stayed concealed behind youths both male and female and would open up when the from behind the youths throwing rocks and bricks waiting to get in close range and then open fire. These situations potentially become high casualty clashes with very unfortunate results. Simply put, allowing a Palestinian state has problems of unimaginable proportions should the full numbers of refugees be allowed to be repatriated into the Palestinian state. It would be advantageous to address this potential situation before allowing the formation of the Palestinian state and set a reasonable number on the refugees allowed to return while making as many as possible to be finally absorbed by their host nations just as Israel absorbed and repatriated the nearly eight-hundred-thousand plus refugees who entered Israel from the combined expulsions and other violent actions taken by the Arab and Muslim world in the first decade after the formation of Israel. This is something that should have been addressed long ago but instead the Arab and Muslim world made the fateful decision that the Palestinian refugees and their families for the ensuing generations were to be utilized as a bludgeon with which to pound Israel rather than accept them as fellow human beings and shown them the respect due any person, especially those who turn to you for help. But we must deal with things as they are, not as we would have wished them to be. The problem is that now these unfortunate victims have swelled in numbers to the point that they are now potential human threats to the possibilities for a successful Palestinian state in the future.

 

Beyond the Cusp