My America Where Have You Gone

 

America, with two synagogues the targets of anti-Semitic shootings within six-months, it is difficult to recognize you. Yes, we have witnessed anti-Semitism more often than most, but we expected this when more often than not being the only Jew residing for miles around. Sure, we have heard all the anti-Semitic banter which goes on in certain neighborhoods where they perceive it is safe because all the Jews live over in that fancy and expensive neighborhood and none live here where some make minimum wage. They were, of course, wrong as they were eventually informed. Whenever moving into one of these neighborhoods, the idea was to get a lay of the land, figure out who was who and identify the true anti-Semite from the one who basically was unknowingly going along to get along and probably never knowingly met anyone who was Jewish. Yes, there are numerous neighborhoods across America which meet these criteria. Those whose laughing and hardly ever repeating the anti-Semitic jokes and stories were the ones who became very curious and asked a gazillion questions when they realized there was a Jew amongst the neighborhood. Then there were those others who, at worst, were arming themselves with eggs and toilet paper and the house took the better parts of a day to clean up. Amazingly, many others would pitch in and help clean up the mayhem from the night before. These events almost always came at the same time as crucial holidays such as Easter, Christmas and, of course, Halloween. But they did not enter synagogues with weapons and murder people. The worst of the Jew haters largely resorted to name-calling, look which could kill and other passive aggressive acts. That was then, this is the new world where anti-Semitism comes with violent assaults upon Jewish places of worship and now the newspaper which claims to “print all the news that is fit to print,” has published in its international edition an anti-Semitic cartoon worthy of Joseph Goebbels (see below).

 

New York Times anti-Semitism on Full Display for the World

 

The America I knew would be up in arms and enraged at these open displays of hatred and disharmony, discordance, acrimony, mind-bending hate and open-ended accusations by all sides against any who dare disagree with their particular politics. That is the current state of social media which is anything but social. We retain some who serve up dishes of bile just to keep ourselves grounded and to assist us in attempting to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Then again, we remember when exclusive meant that if you had to ask the price of an entrée offered on the menu, not to worry, you could not afford it and likely could not even afford just desert. That is no longer the definition of that word, today it means that should you deviate one iota from a narrowly defined ritual which fell within specific beliefs, then you were not only not welcome but also to be the target of scorn, contempt, derision and even the most ego destroying fate possible, being unfriended. But in some parts the hate is hot and so overt that lives are the cost of falling outside of acceptable, and it goes beyond anti-Semitism; sometimes it was purely political, sometimes it was purely hate and other times it was a bit of both such as the shooting at Republican Congressional baseball practice on June 14, 2017, in Alexandria, Virginia. Another item which is frightening is that these perpetrators of such violence have no regrets beyond the fact they were unable to murder more of their intended target group. What is worse is that in some places, politicians will defend these actions blaming the victims inevitably claiming that they brought this upon themselves. If only they would have acted more proper, defined as holding the political and social desires and positions that the speaker holds and any deviation is considered ample provocation for violence.

 

Then there are the great cover-ups by much of the Western European media. One of our favorite editorialists, Giulio Meotti has written three very engaging articles of late, “Killed a Jew? In France that makes you unfit for trial,” “Write it correctly: Islamic massacre of Christians” and France, the aspiring Judenrein Islamic Republic showcasing some of the problems in Europe. When we speak with politically active friends from the United States, they tell a tale of woe, sorrow and regrets over the state of civility, or should we say the lack thereof, and how the disruptive level of hatred is coming from so many directions that it makes it almost impossible to meet the expectations of most people. They tell of how at work, as conservatives, they keep a low profile never discussing anything about politics and never ever expressing any comments about morality and their regrets on the current state of civility and society. They try to explain how the way we acted speaking proudly of our beliefs and positions would prevent being promoted, could get us fired and would definitely have us treated as pariahs. Things in one of our old stomping grounds have changed and we cannot say for the better unfortunately. Our dear friend from even out in the western regions of the United States, not California, Oregon or Washington, but we are talking Colorado and to a far lesser degree Wyoming. They tell the story of those others who are moving from California and other leftist strongholds to their former haven and immediately forming committees and boards making demands for changes and literally begin to transform their new home to resemble exactly their former home which they left as it had become unbearable. Sometimes we wonder if people even know how to think anymore. These people are doing exactly the same thing which failed before expecting a different result. There is a name for that and Albert Einstein defined that for us, he called it insanity.

 

We would like to say that we have no idea where the signs we are seeing will lead but that would be a small white lie. The reason for small is because we do not know exactly, white because we wanted to have at least one trigger word, and lie because we do have a general idea where things are headed. If you learned a fair amount of history either in regimented study or on your own, then you can likely see the writing on the wall. For those who are unable to see the writing, it stated the following; War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength and concluded with 2+2=5. There is just a whiff of the stench of Big Brother when the government collects every electronic signal in the world and stores it all on the set of buildings pictured below somewhere in Nevada. Of course, nobody is listening to your every word, but say the wrong word and a computer raises a little flag and then a real person has to decide if you are a threat or the word bomb got into your text because you said, “Wasn’t last night just the bomb?” There is an entire list of such words and other conditions programmed into this data center of all data centers. But you would have to work at it to get on their lists, or would you. Gain ballot access as a third-party candidate and be flagged as not a kook and you become a “person of interest” which gets you monitored. But that was then and this is now.

 

National Security Agency NSA Utah Data Center

 

Civility has lost all meaning and has been replaced with a strict set of guidelines which leaves one walking a virtual tightrope so as not to disturb the easily disturbed. There are trigger words, and just in case you are becoming more sly about your word transgressions, there are a larger set of things which come under the definition of microaggressions. College courses come with trigger word warnings which probably will come into use in the course. These warnings are there so that college students, our future leaders, can avoid the unbelievable stress of hearing a word such as “shooting,” “rape” or any of a variety of phrases, many of which would be expected in any course say on the history of warfare. Colleges have safe spaces where students can flee after being triggered by a microaggression and find counseling, coloring books, puppies, kittens and soothing music. Basic training in the military now have stress cards which basic training troops can flag their Drill Sargent all but forcing them to be granted some time out as they collect their strength, thinking, body, mind, attitude or whatever they feel is needful of some alone time. Is nothing sacred anymore? When in basic training, we were referred to as maggots amongst some other far more colorful names. No time out cards, just a boot in your, you figure it out. Just avoiding any of those horrible trigger words or causing a microaggression. What is rather amazing is how the political tables have changed when referencing both Republican and Democrat positions and how civility has found a new home after being squandered where its former place had been. Civility and acceptance with those on the political left where the main theme was everybody is much the same and all should and could be friends. Differences were more accepted by the liberals of those days. Now those on the left demand that everyone sticks to a rigid definition of what is acceptable and what is beyond the pale. Some of the most glaringly obvious examples has been shown by those of the LGBTQ community and the Women’s Movement. In both cases, any reference which is perceived as supporting Israel is forbidden. This was made an exclusionary criterion of the Chicago Dyke March where a Jewish LGBTQ groups were denied the right to join the march as their flag displayed a Star of David which was far too Jewish and implied a pro-Israel probable position (see image below). Teresa Shook, one of the original co-founders of the Women’s Movement, has declared her ire at the anti-Semitic leanings of the new leadership and demanded on Facebook that they step down as they have been completely ineffective in preventing hate from seeping into the movement. These are just a small sampling and the one item all too many of these episodic exclusions have in common is their anti-Semitic nature. This has even spread of late into the House of Representatives where recently elected trio of Representatives Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib have made news with their anti-Israel and potentially anti-Semitic tirades. Israel is rapidly becoming a partisan issue with the far-left desiring breaking all ties between the United States and the Jewish State.

 

Multi-Colored Flags with a Star of David

 

It used to be that virtually all anti-Semitism came from the fringe of the far-right, sometimes referred to as the Paleo-conservatives, where it was rare and merely a very minor group. With the more recent anti-Semitism forming at the opposite end of the political spectrum, anti-Semitism has seeped into the politics of both ends of the political spectrum. The far right appears to have grown as some have found cover from the left anti-Semitism which has brought many out of the woodwork. This may have had some play in these recent Synagogue shootings. What is more troubling has been the excusing of anti-Semitism, especially in Europe where it is often covered up. Add in the influx of Islamic immigrants bringing their Jew hatred with them from the Middle East and North Africa, and you have a growing group which will not stay at the margins of either Europe or America. Their anti-Semitism, often in the form of anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism, has already begun to infect the societal bodies of the Western World. Thinking about where this will lead and some of the inevitabilities makes one’s brain hurt and does not leave one comforted about the future. Imagine a world where the only places where anti-Semitism is not prevalent are regions of Asia and Africa with the Americas and Europe mired with anti-Semitism. This will be a world where Jews almost exclusively reside in Israel and have no place left in the Western World. This is the future which is beginning to become the obvious outcome if the Western World does not awaken to where they are being taken. The thing to remember is the quote of the wise words from Martin Niemöller who awakened to the inevitable result of where the Third Reich was heading and wrote this statement about the horror he saw coming, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.” Is this the end coming for what has been the most free and advanced society the planet has known? The possibility is sickeningly possible as one need remember that Germany was considered the great Weimar Republic with unmatched freedoms, many of the greatest minds on the planet such as Hertha Sponer, Albert Einstein, Hugo Grotrian, Ingrid Franck, Wilhelm Westphal, James Franck, Otto von Bayer, Lise Meitner, Werner Heisenberg, Peter Pringsheim, Fritz Haber, Wernher von Braun, Gustav Hertz, and Otto Hahn to name just a few. Germany was at the forefront of physics, mathematics, chemistry and virtually every field of cultured society before the rise of the Nazis. Is this the path the world is going to trudge down once again? If that is so, then we need to pray for a divine intervention.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The State Department is Playing Hide the Evidence

 

President Trump has been out to have the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas and UNWRA* and other related Palestinian groups stand responsible for their actions, especially when those actions stand in direct opposition to their words spoken in English, especially when spoken to the United States authorities. The paying of salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons and pensions to the families of terrorists who have died in the commission of their attacks, all these payments have been based on the numbers of Israelis murdered, has become one of the items which President Trump has insisted, under pain of forgoing funding, must be terminated by Palestinian governance. When the Palestinian Authority transferred these payments to be paid by the PLO which the Palestinian Authority would provide the funds for their making these payments and then told the State Department that these payments were no longer made by the Palestinian Authority, the State Department informed the Congress and the White House that these payments had stopped. The State department knew of the new arrangement for paying these terrorist rewards and that it was simply transferred to be paid through the PLO with the Palestinian Authority providing the funds, a hide the payment through a subsidiary of the government subterfuge. The White House and the Congress both were already aware of the conniving and underhanded scheming Mahmoud Abbas and the half-truth the Palestinian Authority was attempting to pass by President Trump to allow the continued full funding of the Palestinian Authority.

 

Seal of the United States Department of State

 

Now we have a new State Department attempt to protect the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA from even more trouble as the GAO** completes their investigation of the Palestinian Authority school books now used by UNRWA. As the GAO readies to present their results of their study of the Palestinian Authority schoolbooks now used by UNRWA, they are required to allow the State Department to consider how the report will be rated. And what did the ever Palestinian Arab loving State Department rate this report? The State Department indicated the report will need to be classified and cannot be released publicly. The public and the rest of the world will not be permitted to know the contents of these textbooks reviewed by the GAO because the State Department finds that they might pose a threat to their beloved Palestinians. One can only wonder why the State Department feels that this information needs to be classified such that nobody from the public, the media or anybody lacking a security clearance, which can include members of Congress and the White House who have yet to be cleared for Classified information. Actually, one does not need to wonder as they can read UNRWA’s Anti-Peace Curriculum Violates UN Charter and learn that there still exist problems with the curricula replete with links to the pertinent information and sources. Further, Near East Policy Research Director David Bedein briefed Senator James Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the United States Senate Near East Subcommittee of the United States Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, September 13, 2016 where he reported on the reality on the presumably new textbooks provided UNRWA by the Palestinian Authority. In addition to the article, there are plentiful links to the files which served to provide the background for David Bedein’s presentation to Senator James Risch (R-Idaho) and his legislative director, Chris Socha, and are listed at the bottom of this article. Let the State Department try and protect their precious little friends at the expense of Israel, but it does not have to be at the expense of the public or President Trump or anybody who desires to know the truth and not have the time, resources or valid reason for receiving a security clearance to be able to read the GAO report.

 

But all of this is just the tip of the iceberg that describes the lengths the State Department has gone to in order to aid not only the Palestinian Authority and the PLO and other terror entities surrounding Israel but in aiding the enemies of the United States over the years. During World War II it has been reported that the Government officials from the State Department to the FBI to President Franklin Roosevelt himself argued that refugees posed a serious threat to national security. Further in this same article it states, “As the historian Deborah Lipstadt points out in her book Beyond Belief, The New Republic portrayed the government’s attitude as ‘persecuting the refugee.’ The Nation didn’t believe that the State Department could ‘cite a single instance of forced espionage.’ But these voices were drowned out in the name of national security.” To read more about the actions by the State Department as reported in a Treasury Department investigation into the State Department actions intentionally applied to prevent news of the Holocaust from surfacing and preventing allowing Jews to escape that genocide by refusing entry and dragging out refugee investigations and perpetrating any delaying tactic available in preventing the Jews escaping to the United States in this article. Obviously, the State Department has not altered their policies regarding interests which have any favorable relationship with the Jewish People. This is perfectly inline with the State Department recommendation to President Truman not to recognize Israel when she declared her independence and coming into the world as a nation. But then, things have not changed even the slightest as the State Department continues to refuse to allow documents for Jews from Jerusalem to state that they are from within Israel as reported here. There are some things which will never change and the State Department distaste for Jewish People and the Jewish State is likely amongst them. Their actions have always been bent towards the Arabs as their fear of the oil weapon from the Arabs might strike again. Of course, that does not explain their preventing Jews from escaping the Holocaust and their attempts to prevent the entire truth of what was being done to the Jews of Europe by the Nazis and cannot be explained by oil. Maybe it is not as much the Arab oil as it is the Jewish People that the State Department has problems with and why they so consistently work for the enemies of the Jews. We will leave that for our readers to decide.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

*UNRWA = United Nations Relief and Works Agency

** GAO = Government Accountability Office

 

 

Poland Finds Poland the Innocent Victim of Jewish Death Camps

 

The Polish Holocaust Law is no longer a simple signature away from law; Polish President Andrzej Duda has autographed the legislation making it the law. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has not objected giving the law his silent consent as he invited Israeli journalists so as to be allowed to explain to them how the law was righteous and the Polish completely innocent victims just as were the Jews under the Nazi occupation. What the Israeli journalists ended up witnessing were two simultaneous demonstrations urging Duda to sign the law which some compared to Germany in the 1930’s after Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass when the point of no return was crossed by the German people. The nationalist demonstration was the larger of the two and was punctuated by chants which included rants such as, “Take off (your) kippah (yarmulke in Polish), Sign the law!” “Enough Jewish lies!” “Jews try to rob Poland!” “Stop Jewish aggression in Poland!” Do any of these have a familiar sounding echo to you and remind you of previous times in numbers of places throughout history where the only difference was the name Poland changed to the nation in question? Such were the chants in Nazi Germany, Inquisition Spain, Purified France, Martin Luther’s Germany (not to pick on Germany), the Czar’s Russia, Mousseline’s Italy, Hadrian’s Rome, the Hellenists’ Greece, Pharos’ Egypt, Nebakanezzer’s Babylon, Haman’s Persia and on and on throughout history. Yes, we Jews remember these chants as they have always signaled it was time to grab your bags and get out of town as ignoring such threats has always proved foolish if not deadly.

 

We are more than willing to grant that many or at least some of those who supported this law are not anti-Semitic and are simply more upset with innocent Poles being tarnished by the Nazis and their horrific history. We wish to be optimistic that the main driving force of this law was to differentiate between the majority of the Polish people during World War II and their Nazi oppressors who victimized numerous Polish who fought against the Nazi presence. The problem arises when we consider the reports of such hateful rhetoric by the majority of the demonstrators and the seeming backing for this law seemingly arising from the anti-Semites. Let us state right up front that we do not believe that the average polish person is an anti-Semite or that any more than a minority hold anti-Semitic beliefs. Where the frightening truth invades our hopes was when referencing the Anti-Defamation League Global Anti-Semitism Survey shows some disturbing numbers for Poland. Their 2015 survey of Poland, the last time a full survey was conducted, shows that Poland has a population of approximately thirty-one-million and of those approximately eleven million hold anti-Semitic feelings which is thirty-seven percent. The survey has a breakdown by gender, age, and the percentages in answers to the survey questions themselves. The highest response was sixty-one percent agreement on the question “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust.” At the other end, a mere fourteen percent responded agreement with the statement, “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars.” The high agreement with the first kind of explains partly the reactions and force behind the new law.

 

The Polish Holocaust Law outlaws blaming Poland as a nation for Holocaust crimes committed by Nazi Germany. This includes stating that such places as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Belzec and Chelmno as well as numerous camps built in Poland so that the prisoners could be worked to death out of the public eye; this policy was called Vernichtung durch Arbeit (annihilation through work), and large numbers of non-Jewish Poles were held in these camps which is one of the facts being pressed during the discussions over the Polish Holocaust Law (see map below). No longer may anyone refer to these camps as being Polish without facing fines and possible imprisonment. Exchanges by two Polish authors on a TV broadcast dealing with the new law were jesting when it was stated, “Jewish death camps” followed by the mocking question asking, “who actually did run the crematoria?” Even presumably joking, such language is beyond the pale. Once these phrases were aired on Poland Television, they were immediately picked up by numerous others, anti-Semites and others who simply believed that these were perfectly harmless jokes as they were permitted to be televised which give things an air of respectability. At the aforementioned nationalist rally, some of the speakers stated, “So my daughter would need to learn in her school that Poles killed Jews in Jedwabne, is not it scandalous?! Jedwabne lies, that baloney!” and “It all is about money. Jews would like to rob us of everything what we has build here after 1945.” and “Those who came here now under the red flags and in Israel’s interest, to attack Polish patriots.” These comments are counter to the records in history. Jedwabne was the location where three-hundred Jewish villagers burned alive by a group of their neighbors in Poland after gathering them in a barn for a meeting in 1941 after the war. These were former residents of Jedwabne who had survived the camps and ghettos and other efforts of the Nazis. Making matters even more serious, Jedwabne was just one as was Kielce Pogrom on July 4, 1946 where over twenty Jews were murdered by a mob which included many officials which became obvious when authorities indicted commander of the Kielce Office of the Security Service, Major Wladyslaw Sobczynski, and the Chief of Police, Colonel Wiktor Kuznicki, as well as his deputy, Major Kazimierz Gwiazdowicz; of the three, only Kuznicki received a one year sentence, while the other two were acquitted. Further information can be found about the Polish cities of Bial, Kielce, Krakow, Lublin, Lodz, Rzeszow and Warsaw in the PDF report “Patterns Of Anti-Jewish Violence In Poland, 1944-1946” by David Engel.

 

German Exterminations and Work Concentration Camps Located in Poland

 

This law will also make references to these incidents as Polish illegal as the law will be enforced as a means of relegating all of Polish violence against the Jews forbidden speech. Everyone who has ever pointed to the Concentration Camps being in Poland knew and meant that these were built at the insistence of the Nazis, run by the Nazis, and the murdering was committed largely by the Nazis and the Polish were also victims of the war having had their nation invaded from both ends, one by the Nazis and the other by the Communists. This bred a great hatred of both the Nazis and the Communists in the Polish people, something which continued after World War II when Poland came under Communist occupation and rule. The catch is that there were a fair number who blamed the Jews for the Communist takeover of Poland after the war. By this law, making any reference to the location as an identifying characteristic of any of the Nazi Ghettos, Concentrations Camps and Murder Camps will be punishable by fines and even imprisonment. By fiat, the Polish government has made all the locations on the above map located in some alternate universe in a place called “Not Poland” and in this universe; it is evil to claim otherwise. This law applies to all whether polish or visitor. This has already cost Poland the tourism where Israeli high school students were brought to Poland and were given classes and lectures about the horrors of the Holocaust. As of now, references to the Holocaust as happening in these camps on Polish ground would place the teachers in Polish prison. These trips have already been suspended and are unlikely to ever be resumed. One can also bet that a great number of Jews worldwide will now avoid Poland believing it to be anti-Semitic or, at the very least, unwelcoming to Jews. The avoiding of Poland will be strongest amongst the Jews who lost their families in the camps, specifically the camps in Poland.

 

There is another application of this law which might come to be used in a political manner. The Polish might decide to also apply the law to any political individual who mentions in some way the relationship between Poland and the locations of the Exterminations and Work Concentration Camps and the Ghettos. Such references would more likely be made by Israeli politicians thus should an anti-Israel, anti-Zionist or especially an anti-Semitic leader come to power in Poland, they might attempt to use this law against Israeli politicians who made mention of the camps being located in Poland, and especially if they implied Polish participation in the construction or having turned over Jews to the Nazis and other forms of cooperation. We in Israel are very aware of those in Poland who bravely fought the Nazis and the Righteous Amongst the Nations from Poland who harbored and saved Jewish lives, but we also have painful reminders of those Polish who aided the Nazis in their efforts. Such a use of the law to indict foreigners under this law should they ever step within the borders of Poland will surely result in many deciding that a visit to Poland under any circumstance to unfavorably risky. This law will definitely drive a wedge between Poland and Israel if not others as well. If this law is ever applied to one who referenced Poland and the location of the Nazi camps and the treatment of the Jews, then Poland will become a place which many will find too dangerous to visit. This law will bring Poland only evil and bad times will lay ahead. The politicians who passed this law and President Andrzej Duda along with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki will rue their complicity in this law as time passes. This is a dark day for Poland and does nothing to change the facts about the Concentration Camps and the Ghettos forced upon them by the Nazis. Still, there did exist some degree of Polish cooperation with the Nazi occupiers and that cannot be altered by or erased by or otherwise made different or to somehow disappear by passing a law making their mention illegal in Poland. If anything, this law reminds us of an old saying, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” which comes from Hamlet by Willian Shakespeare. In this case, we would have to say, The Poles doth protest too much, methinks.

 

Beyond the Cusp