Anti-Semitism and the Threat of Identity Politics

From Gideon Rachman, at FT:

Gideon Rachman: For the past 50 years, anti-Semitism has not been a political issue in the west. But that appears to be changing.https://t.co/E0ECLVO6xy

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) April 2, 2018

For the past 50 years, I have had the pleasure of living in a period when anti-Semitism was not a political issue in the west. But that appears to be changing.

Last week thousands of people marched in Paris to demonstrate against anti-Semitism after the murder of Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who, according to President Emmanuel Macron, was “murdered because she was Jewish”. That same week a smaller demonstration took place in London, to protest against anti-Semitism in the Labour party. This Sunday is likely to see the re-election of Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, who uses barely coded anti-Semitic rhetoric. Even the US is not immune. Last August saw the far-right marching in Charlottesville, amid chants of “Jews will not replace us”.

So are we reliving the 1930s? Not really. Contemporary anti-Semitism contains some loud echoes of the past — for example, the resurgence of the idea of Jews as a shadowy international network. But the new element is the way that anti-Semitism is now mixed in with bigger fights about Islam and Israel.

For the far-left, a key enemy is often Israel, which is seen as an embodiment of western racism. For the far-right, the main enemy is Islam, which it identifies with terrorism and mass immigration. Both far-left and far-right often claim to be immune from anti-Semitism — either because they are anti-racists (the left) or because they are pro-Israel (the right).

These complexities are embodied by Mr Orban. At a recent rally, the Hungarian prime minister used language laden with anti-Semitic imagery: “We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty . . . not national, but international, [and who] does not believe in working but speculating with money.”

The bogeyman of the Orban campaign is George Soros, a Hungarian-Jewish financier. But the main accusation hurled at Mr Soros by Mr Orban is that he is planning to flood Hungary with Muslim refugees. The Hungarian prime minister’s decision to build a wall to block the flow of migrants has made him a hero of the far-right in the US and Europe.

Mr Orban’s hostility to Mr Soros and suspicion of the “Islamisation” of Europe is also shared by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who paid a cordial visit to Hungary last July. There are many on the far-right who are fans of both Mr Orban and of Israel. Their common enemy, “radical Islam”, is, they argue, the real threat to Jews in modern Europe.

Many of Europe’s Jews are, however, appropriately wary of “support” from the far-right. When Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front, tried to join the march in memory of Mireille Knoll, she was kept at arm’s length by the main French Jewish organisation.

A similar ambiguity surrounds Donald Trump. Some Americans point to his links to the alt-right and reluctance to condemn the Charlottesville march. On the other hand, Mr Trump’s beloved daughter, Ivanka, has converted to Orthodox Judaism, which is not a decision normally associated with anti-Semitism. And there is no doubt that the government of Israel is much more comfortable with President Trump than with his predecessor, Barack Obama.

The far-left in Europe could use the Trump-Israel link to argue that their rage is aimed at nationalism, not Jews. But there is an obsessive quality to their hatred of Israel that is telling. Killings in Gaza are met with outrage, while deaths in Syria or Yemen barely register. Some of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that circulate in the Middle East have also leaked into leftwing politics. One of the people whom Jeremy Corbyn, the UK Labour leader, was happy to entertain at the House of Commons was Raed Salah, an Islamist leader who peddles the idea that Jews were warned to leave the Twin Towers in New York before 9/11...

More.

This is a little too equivalent a take. I don't see Orban or European nationalists particularly anti-Semitic. In fact, the nationalist right seems to be the only faction aggressively defending Israel and the Jews. It's not the 1930s, at all. As we've seen time and again, attacks and murder of Jews is nearly a complete leftist phenomenon. Jews are leaving France because of Islamic jihad, not the National Front.

Jews Are Being Murdered in Paris

From Bari Weiss, at NYT:

THIS—>Jews Are Being Murdered in Paris. Again. https://t.co/2gTRwJAk8l

— Christina Sommers (@CHSommers) March 30, 2018

The New Democratic Party

Excellent piece, from Caroline Glick:

Over the past week, two incidents occurred that indicate that the party of Harry Truman and Bill Clinton is becoming increasingly comfortable with blaming the Jews.

First, last Thursday, Obama loyalist and former CIA operative Valerie Plame approvingly shared a fiercely antisemitic article on her Twitter feed.

The article, “America’s Jews are Driving America’s Wars,” was written by Philip Giraldi, a fellow former CIA officer and outspoken Jew-hater.

Giraldi’s piece included all the classic antisemitic tropes: Jews control the media and culture; they control US foreign policy; and they compel non-Jewish dupes to fight wars for Israel, to which the treacherous Jews of America are loyal.

Giraldi recommended barring Jews from serving in government positions and participating in public debates related to the Middle East. And, he added, if an American Jewish Israel-backer refuses to recuse himself, the media should duly label him, “Jewish and an outspoken supporter of the State of Israel.”

Such a label, he contended, “would be kind of like a warning label on a bottle of rat poison.”

Plame, who ultimately issued a contrite, defensive apology for circulating Giraldi’s anti-Jewish screed, initially justified her decision to repost the article and say it was “thoughtful.”

She added, “Many neocon hawks ARE Jewish.”

And she should know.

Plame rose to fame in 2003, when she was at the center of a chain of events that led to the delegitimization of Jewish neo-conservatives in the Bush administration through a campaign of antisemitic innuendo and legal persecution.

In 2003, Plame’s husband, former diplomat Joe Wilson, published an article in The New York Times in which he falsely denied White House claims that Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium yellow cake from Niger for the purpose advancing his nuclear program.

Apparently in retaliation for his false allegations, then-deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage leaked to syndicated columnist Robert Novak that Wilson’s wife Valerie was a CIA officer. Plame was a covert operative at the time, making Armitage’s leak a crime.

The Justice Department appointed special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to oversee the investigation and prosecute the leak. Fitzgerald knew almost from the outset that Armitage was the source of the leak.

Yet he failed to prosecute him.

Instead, Fitzgerald went on a fishing expedition to root out then-vice president Richard Cheney’s Jewish chief of staff Scooter Libby. After a multiyear investigation, Libby, who did not leak Plame’s identity, was indicted and convicted on a specious count of perjury.

The effect of Libby’s indictment, prosecution and conviction was to place all his fellow Jews in the Bush national security team under constant and deeply antisemitic scrutiny. This defamation of Jewish American security experts in many ways paved the way for Barack Obama’s wholesale use of antisemitic undertones to defend his nuclear deal with Iran.

As Omri Ceren from the Israel Project recalled in a long series of Twitter posts after Plame circulated Giraldi’s article, Obama and his advisers repeatedly argued that “lobbyists” and Israel were seeking to convince lawmakers not to act in the US’s best interest. Instead they tried to manipulate senators into defending Israel and oppose Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, to the detriment of America. These exhortations, made repeatedly by Obama and his surrogates were then expanded upon and made explicit by their political allies in places like the Ploughshares Foundation, which served as focal points of Obama’s media campaign on behalf of the Iran nuclear deal.

Until she resigned on Sunday, Plame served on the Ploughshares board of directors.

Plame’s wing of the Democratic Party is not explicitly antisemitic. Obama never said, “Jews are undermining US national security.” Instead, he attacked Israel and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He attacked “lobbyists” and foreign interests.

Plame’s mistake last week was that, in tweeting a link to Giraldi’s article, she moved beyond Obama’s dog-whistle approach.

In a way, she can be excused for crossing the line, because the rising force in her party has little problem openly trucking in Jew-hatred.

That force, of course is the Bernie Sanders radical leftist wing of the party.

Around the same time that Plame was tweeting her way into ill-repute, Iran was showing off a medium- range ballistic missile capable of hitting Israel and Europe and Sanders was giving a foreign policy speech in Missouri.

Israel was a key focus for Sanders, who is now in charge of the Democratic Party’s outreach efforts.

Sanders said the US is “complicit” with Israel’s “occupation” of Judea and Samaria and Gaza. He said that he would consider cutting off US military aid to Israel. He argued the US should take a more evenhanded approach to Israel.

No similar statements have ever been made by any major presidential contender or political leader in either party.

And yet, they have raised no outcry among his fellow Democrats.

Sanders’s rise has unleashed forces in the party such as former Nation of Islam spokesman Rep.

Keith Ellison and BDS activist Linda Sarsour. Both have been outspoken in their antisemitism. Both routinely defame and delegitimize American Jews who support Israel. And both are all but unanimously embraced as leaders by their partisan colleagues.

Since Donald Trump’s election, most of the media coverage of US politics has centered on cleavages within the Republican Party. But while it is true that the Republican Party is dysfunctional, the Democratic Party is transforming into something never before seen in mainstream US politics.

In 2016, the party of Bill Clinton ceased to be the party of the working class. Hillary Clinton abandoned her husband’s Rust Belt base, referring to his voters as “deplorables.”

Today, the two predominant branches of the party are the Obama branch – which is comfortable with antisemitic dog whistles – and the Sanders branch, which is comfortable with Corbyn-style Jew-baiting and open discrimination of pro-Israel Jews.

Absent a major restructuring of the party’s makeup, Plame’s forced resignation from Ploughshares may be remembered as the high-water mark in the new Democratic Party’s efforts to root out antisemitism from its ranks.

Chicago Dyke March Collective Removes Pro-Israel Queers Waving Jewish Pride Flag from Annual LGBT Parade

It's come to this.

At Haaretz, "Chicago ‘Dyke March’ Bans Jewish Pride Flags: ‘They Made People Feel Unsafe’" (via Memeorandum).

Also at Twitchy, "TRIGGERED: Guess the country’s flag banned by tolerant lefties at Pride parade in Chicago."

"As a Jew, I'm not welcome here." If you get "triggered" by a Star of David you need to check your racism. https://t.co/BedsxAjlZJ

— Alex Ryvchin (@AlexRyvchin) June 25, 2017

Dyke March organizer explains the group's decision to expel Jews from Chicago Pride parade. https://t.co/9mgKhbXNig pic.twitter.com/8XYs109bUP

— John-Paul Pagano (@johnpaulpagano) June 25, 2017

Yeah so asking Pride marchers who display a Star of David to leave? That isn't "pro-Palestinian." It's anti-Semitic. https://t.co/h9qj8JT1JS

— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) June 25, 2017

The Dyke March Chicago also banned American flags as symbols of oppression. They allowed flags from other countries. Give me a fucking break

— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) June 25, 2017

The idea that America is uniquely oppressive among nations is one of the more idiotic things I have ever heard (and I've heard a lot!)

— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) June 25, 2017

Pop quiz: Do gays have more rights in A) Israel or B) the Palestinian Authority? https://t.co/fXAPuJenfO

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) June 25, 2017

H.G. Adler, Theresienstadt, 1941-1945

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, H.G. Adler, Theresienstadt, 1941-1945: The Face of a Coerced Community.

"Theresienstadt, 1941–1945: The Face of a Coerced Community, is the single most detailed and comprehensive account of any concentration camp."

If You're a Jew in Britain, It's Time for Your Own Brexit

From a "Soldier's Mother," Paula K. Stern, at Israelly Cool, "A Message for U.K. Jews."

And at Paula's blog, "Is today the day to leave England?":

The good news is that Jeremy Corbyn didn't win the election. Teresa May and the Conservative Party won by the numbers. But there are few today viewing the results of the election who fail to see that a clear message was sent. The only question is to whom the message was directed, and will they listen.

The Labour Party gained 28 seats, which is a victory in itself, but they are not in control. Not yet. Had the Labour Party been in the hands of a different main contender, we could think this was politics as normal. But it wasn't, and so it isn't.

This morning in the UK is very different than it was yesterday.

The Conservative party won in seats and votes, but lost 11 places in the Parliament. A stunning victory by Labour puts them at 259, a gain of 28 and puts Jeremy Corbyn within striking distance of the Prime Minister's office. Not this time, but maybe next time.

I will leave it to the UK to figure out the message that was sent yesterday. What it means for where England is headed - for its citizens and for the world is more than I can contemplate on a busy Friday with Shabbat just hours away.

For all intents and purposes, there is now a "hung Parliament" that is unlikely to accomplish much and may well send the country into new elections in the near future. That is the nature of the electoral system they have, as it is the one we inherited from them.

What is on my mind is something more personal, closer to my heart. If you are a Jew in Britain and you are not looking for your own "Brexit," you are making an appalling and perhaps even costly mistake. Read that sentence again. Does it scare you - it should. It frightens me. But what you'll find, if you search deep in your heart, is that it may annoy you, but you can't quite deny it, can you? It doesn't surprise you that there could be a time when you have to leave...as a few generations ago, too many didn't. You know that time may come...pretty much every Jew in the world knows that. This is the ultimate lesson of the Holocaust. You may love where you live, but there will always lurk the knowledge that no matter how comfortable it might be today, tomorrow it could change.

The only real question you have today in the UK if you are Jewish is whether today is the day to leave...

More.

And at FrontPage Magazine, "LABOUR POSTERS NOW INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM NAZI PROPAGANDA."

Labour Posters Now Indistinguishable from Nazi Propaganda https://t.co/y2jWjAD0IG pic.twitter.com/0voZDPeZRg

— = Linda🇺🇸Wray = (@_NCPatriot_) June 7, 2017

Lebanon Bans 'Wonder Woman'

Well, I guess the Lebanese are taking a page from the radical left's playbook right here at home. Leftists want to ban everything.

Gal Gadot's banned in the "Switzerland of the Middle East."

At the Los Angeles Times:

Lebanon officially bans “Wonder Woman” from theaters because its star, Gal Gadot, is Israeli https://t.co/1ZGBUGZlfi pic.twitter.com/6pniXMPV1l

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 31, 2017

'All Ryerson social work grad Rebecca Katzman wanted was to do her third-year placement at one of two respected Toronto Jewish organizations with a track record of addressing social justice issues...'

UPDATED: See Professor Miriam Elman's piece, at Legal Insurrection, "Another Ryerson Univ BDS Scandal: Jewish Student Prohibited from Placement with pro-Israel Toronto Jewish Agencies."

*****

Well, if you want to do work with a Jewish organization you'll be targeted with leftist hatred. Ms. Rebecca said she was unprepared for this.

At the Toronto Sun, "Jewish Ryerson student 'felt targeted' over placement request":

In my 29 years in the biz, never had a story shared so much on social media. Shame on @RyersonU social work faculty: https://t.co/MPfMZHtTox

— Sue-Ann Levy (@SueAnnLevy) May 30, 2017

TORONTO - All Ryerson social work grad Rebecca Katzman wanted was to do her third-year placement at one of two respected Toronto Jewish organizations with a track record of addressing social justice issues.

The 22-year-old, who will graduate with her Bachelor of Social Work degree on June 8, said her desire to be placed at either the Prosserman Jewish Community Centre (JCC) or the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was “sparked” by a combination of actions at Ryerson — among them the anti-Semitism she experienced on campus.

However, she wasn’t prepared in the slightest for what happened with her third-year placement coordinator in the faculty of social work, Heather Bain.

After making it clear to Bain about her preferred placement, Katzman said the field coordinator advised her in an e-mail in late August of 2015 she did not follow up with the JCC or UJA because their values appeared to be “in opposition” to the values of the School of Social Work.

Bain listed those values as the advancement of anti-oppression; anti-racism; anti-colonialism and decolonization; feminism; anti-capitalism; Queer and trans liberation struggles; issues in disability and madness (cct); among others (many of which are not listed on the school’s own website.)

“My understanding is both agencies have a strong anti-Palestinian lean,” Bain continued, suggesting that if Katzman agreed to bring a “critical awareness” (of Palestinian solidarity movements) to either agency she might reconsider.

While the two agencies where Katzman wanted to be placed are known to be pro-Israel, she said their websites do not indicate any anti-Palestinian policies in the slightest.

Katzman, who waited until she was ready to graduate to tell her story for fear of retaliation from the faculty, said she was devastated by Bain’s e-mail.

“I felt targeted as a Jewish student,” she said, noting she’s coming forward because she wants the university to investigate as well as a public apology.

When she challenged Bain about her contentions, the field placement officer responded on Aug. 25, 2015 that she consulted with Jewish colleagues who are part of “Jews Against Israeli Apartheid movements” before making her decision not to pursue those placements.

When Katzman — with the support of a pro-Israeli campus organization called Stand With Us (she was awarded a fellowship from them) — indicated in a Sept. 4 follow-up e-mail she’d booked a meeting with then-Ryerson president Sheldon Levy to address the matter, both Bain’s boss. Kristie Wright and Bain herself wrote back indicating “misinformed information” had been provided to her.

They also indicated that the school of social work does not require their partner agencies to “align with Palestinian solidarity movements” to be considered for placement.

Katzman confirmed in a recent interview that at no time did they offer to place her at either agency and she ended up completing her third-year placement at an organization serving kids with autism...

One more reason why I'm not a leftist.

Leftism is an ideology of hate, straight up.

Still more.

Easter and Passover: Both Holidays Are About the Dead Rising to New Life

A lovely essay for Easter weekend, which (this year) is also the end of Passover week.

From R.R. Reno, at WSJ, "The Profound Connection Between Easter and Passover."

Easter and Passover share a profound connection: They both are about the dead rising to new life https://t.co/Q65bymKEzt

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 14, 2017

Hat Tip: Dr. Carol Swain.

Finished Exodus

I finished Leon Uris's, Exodus.

As noted, I read it about 30 years ago and when I was visiting the Cactus Wren Bookstore in Yucca Valley, in September, I picked up a used copy.

What struck me so powerfully this time around is how unabashedly pro-Israel is Uris in the book. And I was also struck by so many of the historical and political themes that are essentially timeless, including the existential nature of Arab and Islamic hatred of the Jews, as well as the key political issues arising out of Israel's establishment as a nation-state, the wars of Israel's independence, especially the refugee crisis (and Uris's discussion of it as a completely manufactured crisis by corrupt Arab dictatorships to generate international condemnation of the Jewish state).

It is, in other words, a book to make leftist heads explode.

In any case, I thought I'd google around for some of the contemporary debate. It's interesting.

Start with Martin Kramer, "Exodus, myth and malpractice":

Exodus by Leon Uris must rank high on any list of the most influential books about the Middle East. The novel, published in 1958, popularized the story of Israel’s birth among millions of American readers. The 1960 film, based on the book and starring Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan, reached many more millions. Exodus is still of interest, not for what it says about the creation of Israel (the commander of the ship Exodus said Uris “wrote a very good novel, but it had nothing to do with reality. Exodus, shmexodus”), but for what it reveals about mid-twentieth-century America. So more inquiry into the American context of Exodus is welcome—provided you get the facts right.

Last fall, Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, offered his audiences an account of how Leon Uris came to write the book. In a speech at Brooklyn Law School, Khalidi made this claim:

This carefully crafted propaganda was the work of seasoned professionals. People like someone you probably never heard of, a man named Edward Gottlieb, for example. He’s one of the founders of the modern public relations industry. There are books about him as a great advertiser.

In order to sell the great Israeli state to the American public many, many decades ago, Gottlieb commissioned a successful, young novelist. A man who was a committed Zionist, a fellow with the name of Leon Uris. He funded him and sent him off to Israel to write a book. This book was "Exodus: A Novel of Israel." Gottlieb’s gambit succeeded brilliantly. Exodus sold as many copies as Gone With the Wind, which up to that point was the greatest best-seller in U.S. history. Exodus was as good a melodrama and sold just as many copies.

Khalidi made a similar assertion in another speech a few weeks later, this time at the Palestine Center in Washington...

Keep reading.

Kramer really tracked down the origins of this claim of a "modern public relations" "melodrama."

He goes on:

The purpose of myth

In sum, the Gottlieb “commission” never happened. Uris’s biographers dismiss it, Gottlieb’s most knowledgeable associate denies it, and no documents in Uris’s papers or Israeli archives testify to it. It originated as a boast by Gottlieb to another PR man, made almost thirty years after the (non-)fact. And given its origin, it’s precisely the sort of story a serious professional historian would never repeat as fact without first vetting it (as I did).

Yet it persists in the echo chamber of anti-Israel literature, where it has been copied over and over. In Kathleen Christison’s book, it finally appeared under the imprimatur of a university press (California). In Khalidi’s lectures last fall, it acquired a baroque elaboration, in which Edward Gottlieb emerges as “the father of the American iteration of Zionism” and architect of “one of the greatest advertising triumphs of the twentieth century.” What is the myth’s appeal? Why is the truth about the genesis of Exodus so difficult to grasp? Why should Khalidi think the Gottlieb story is, in his coy phrase, “worth noting”?

Because if you believe in Zionist mind-control, you must always assume the existence of a secret mover who (as Khalidi said) “you probably never heard of” and who must be a professional expert in deception. This “seasoned” salesman conceives of Exodus as a “gambit” (Khalidi) or a “scheme” (Christison). There is no studio or publisher’s advance, only a “commission,” which qualifies the book as “propaganda”—an “advertising triumph.” In Khalidi’s Brooklyn Law School talk, he added that “the process of selling Israel didn’t stop with Gottlieb…. It has continued unabated since then.” It is Khalidi’s purpose to cast Exodus, like the case for Israel itself, as a “carefully crafted” sales job by Madison Avenue mad men. Through their mediation, Israel has hoodwinked America...

Now, also check Haaretz, "The 'Exodus' Effect: The Monumentally Fictional Israel That Remade American Jewry":

The pantheon of Jewish-American novelists is as populous as it is distinguished. Among its titans are two Nobel laureates, Canadian-born Chicagoan Saul Bellow and Polish-born Isaac Bashevis Singer; a justly celebrated string of Pulitzer winners from Edna Ferber through Philip Roth to Michael Chabon; and the creators of such works as "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Catch 22."

Yet, a half-century ago, when a single book transformed American Jews as no other work has done, before or since, its author was none of these.

The book was "Exodus" - and like its creator, Leon Uris, it was savaged by critics and academics, and resoundingly ignored by literary prize committees. When the book appeared in 1958, however, it sold in the millions. It was said that it was nearly as common to find a copy of "Exodus" in American-Jewish households as to find the Bible - and, of the two, not a few Jewish households apparently had only "Exodus."

Tailoring, altering and radically sanitizing the history of the founding of the State of Israel to flatter the fantasies and prejudices of American Jews, Uris succeeded well beyond his own wildest dreams, essentially remaking his eager readers and himself as well. That is, he helped foment a significant change in his fellow Jews' perceptions of Israel and, indeed, of themselves.

"As a literary work it isn't much," sniffed David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding prime minister, still in power at the time "Exodus" was published. "But as a piece of propaganda, it's the best thing ever written about Israel."

Some 40 years after the novel's publication, the prominent Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said would ruefully remark of its demonized treatment of Arabs that "the main narrative model that dominates American thinking still seems to be Leon Uris' 1958 novel 'Exodus.'"

More.

Then see the very critical Alan Elsner, at the Jewish Journal, "Rereading Leon Uris’ ‘Exodus’: a disquieting experience."

I'm sure there's lots more commentary, but you get the idea. For good measure, here's one more, from Adam Kirsch, at the Tablet, "MACHO MAN: Exodus recast Israel’s founders as swaggering heroes and secured Leon Uris a place on the Jewish bookshelf even though, as a new biography shows, he was a mediocre writer and a troubled person."

As you can tell, leftists love to unload on Uris. But the book is awesome, and your view of it will shape your view of the man.

Dennis Prager: America is in Jeopardy (VIDEO)

I love Dennis Prager.

I met him briefly at the David Horowitz West Coast Retreat in 2011.

I missed the 2016 PragerU Dinner, however. I'm sure that'd be a treat.

But don't miss Prager's outstanding book, Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.

Ben Cohen Reviews Socialism of Fools

A very interesting book review, at Commentary.

Cohen's reviewing Michele Battini's, Socialism of Fools: Capitalism and Modern Anti-Semitism.

Also, FYI, Cohen's the author of Some of My Best Friends: A Journey Through Twenty-First Century Antisemitism.

In any case, at the magazine:

Book Review, "Socialism of Fools". https://t.co/0dBPxQqVCs @BlazingCatFur

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 31, 2016

WATCH: Trump Tower Climber Was Donald Trump Supporter; Pre-Recorded 'Vote Trump' Video

Variety has the pre-recorded video, "Man Scales Trump Tower Using Suction Cups; Had Pre-Recorded Video Message: 'Get Out and Vote for Mr. Trump'."

And watch, via AP:



Also at ABC News, via Memeorandum, "Police Capture Man Climbing Trump Tower After Hours-Long Standoff."

Professor Stephen Walt, Anti-Zionist Israel-Hater, Denounces Donald Trump's 'Toxic' Foreign Policy (VIDEO)

You could have freakin' Jeremy Corbin's Labour Party Trotskyite anti-Semites proclaiming their foreign policy "realism," and Harvard's Stephen Walt wouldn't bat an eye.

But oh my goodness, Donald Trump starts pushing a non-interventionist approach to U.S. foreign affairs, and the hateful anti-Zionist author or "The Israel Lobby" declaims anything to do with the Manhattan mogul's allegedly "ignorant, offensive, and toxic" approach to American foreign policy.

You gotta love 2016!

At Foreign Policy, "Donald Trump: Keep Your Hands Off the Foreign-Policy Ideas I Believe In":

Apart from his other shortcomings, Donald Trump is giving a sensible approach to U.S. foreign policy a bad name. In recent years, a number of scholars and policy analysts have labored to articulate and explain why the United States would be better off with a foreign policy that was less interventionist, less costly, less hypocritical, less beholden to special interests, and above all more successful than the strategy of liberal hegemony pursued by the past three U.S. administrations.

This more restrained approach seeks to advance the U.S. national interest first and foremost. In other words, it maintains that the first goal of U.S. foreign policy is to make Americans safer and more prosperous. This alternative grand strategy would eschew ambitious attempts to remake the world in America’s image and would press key U.S. allies to take more responsibility for their own defense. The United States would not disengage from the world or retreat to Fortress America, but it would be much more selective in its use of military power and focus primarily on preventing potentially dangerous concentrations of power from emerging in Europe, Asia, or the Persian Gulf.

Unfortunately, because these ideas overlap with some (but by no means all) of Trump’s pronouncements on foreign policy, his increasingly incoherent, ignorant, and incompetent campaign threatens to tarnish this alternative in the minds of some observers. Assuming he loses — fingers crossed — the end result could perpetuate America’s present grand strategy despite its many shortcomings.

To give The Donald his due, he has thus far said three perfectly sensible and uncontroversial things about foreign policy. First, he has made it clear he believes the primary purpose of U.S. foreign policy is to advance U.S. interests. In other words, he thinks most states pursue their own interests first and foremost and the United States should do the same. Though most of the foreign-policy establishment claims to have loftier goals (i.e., spreading democracy, promoting human rights, halting proliferation, etc.), Trump’s emphasis on U.S. interests is hardly beyond the pale.

Second, he believes many U.S. allies are wealthy countries free-riding on American protection and failing to bear their rightful share of collective security burdens. He’s correct, and plenty of other U.S. leaders — including President Barack Obama and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — have said exactly the same thing on numerous occasions.

Third, Trump is skeptical of ambitious efforts to “nation build” in far-flung corners of the world, and he now claims to be opposed to dumb wars. It’s hard to argue with him on this point either, though let’s not forget that he supported the Iraq War in 2003 (and then denied that he had done so). Moreover, he sometimes sounds like he’d be willing to go to war at the drop of a hat. But a disinclination to enter more open-ended quagmires is hardly a controversial position at this point.

Reasonable people can disagree about these three assertions, but they are hardly bizarre or outside the boundaries of acceptable discussion. If Trump stuck with them and made them the centerpiece of his foreign-policy platform, the 2016 campaign might actually feature an instructive and long-overdue debate on the global role of the United States and the proper use of American power. Unfortunately, those three elements pretty much exhaust Trump’s wisdom on foreign affairs, and the rest of his views are a farrago of ignorant, offensive, and toxic beliefs that have no business anywhere near the Oval Office.

For starters, Trump’s views on international economics reflect a protectionist outlook that was discredited a couple of centuries ago. Tearing up the North American Free Trade Agreement or leaving the World Trade Organization would not restore American manufacturing or make the country “great” again; it would instead be a body blow to the United States and the world economy and could quite possibly trigger another global recession. Trump simply doesn’t seem to understand that trade is not a zero-sum game where one state “wins” and the rest “lose”; it’s not like one of his shady business deals, which have lined his own pockets and left lots of unhappy customers feeling bilked. Furthermore, Trump’s claim that he can single-handedly negotiate “great” deals to replace the existing global trading system just tells you that he doesn’t know how such deals are actually negotiated or how that order works.

On top of that, Trump’s thinly veiled racism and his penchant for insulting rivals are a recipe for diplomatic disaster. Seriously, how can someone who routinely demeans Hispanics and Muslims expect to conduct effective diplomacy with our neighbors in Latin America or with the entire Arab world?

There's more at the link.

But really?

Stephen Walt lecturing us on "veiled racism"? That is really rich.

To respond as plainly as possible here: Stephen Walt is a bad person who pushes evil anti-Israel tropes, and who hangs out with even worse people in real life.

I've documented this myself many times, but of course the facts are out there for anyone who dares to look.

Here's my post from 2011, "Harvard's Stephen Walt Speaks at Code Pink's Move Over AIPAC! Summit, May 21, 2011."

There's a long record of anti-Semitism at MoveOn.org. See, at FrontPage Magazine, "Moving On to Anti-Semitism." Also, at Moonbattery, "ADL Complains About MoveOn.org's Anti-Semitism."

Plus, at Isra-Pundit, "MoveOn.org = George Soros’ International Solidarity Movement: MoveOn.org’s virulent hatred of Israel is entirely consistent with the agenda of George Soros, who blames Israel for causing most of the world’s anti-Semitism."

More recently, from Moe Lane, "Moveon.Org Rediscovers Its Anti-Semitic, Racist Roots: Endorses [Apologizes To] Racist Anti-Semite Charles Barron For NY-08. [UPDATED And Corrected.]."

And then there's Code Pink, whose Israel-hatred I've documented frequently. Here, "Vile Anti-Semitism at Code Pink Protest in Oakland," and "Eliminationist Anti-Semitism, Right Here at Home: [Code Pink] Al Quds Rally, DuPont Circle, Washington, D.C., September 3, 2010."

Still more, "Code Pink Activists Meet With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

Also, at Commentary, "Move Over AIPAC, Here Come the Geriatric Anti-Semites."

And of course, it's been 10 years now, but who can forget the debate over "The Israel Lobby"? Here's a quick reminder, from Eliot Cohen, at WaPo, "Yes, It's Anti-Semitic."

Also, at the Tablet, "Mainstreaming Hate: How media companies are using the Internet to make anti-Semitism respectable," and "Stephen Walt Is the George Kennan of the Obama Administration: Plenty of pundits have jockeyed to be the top voice on the Middle East, but only one person’s ideas dominate the conversation."

Say what you will about Donald Trump's movement (and a lot has been said about the "alt right" components of his support), if you're morally consistent, you speak out against all of it. Israel-hatred has no place in American politics, much less in this election.

The fact is, Trump's a firm defender of Israel and his own daughter, son-in-law, and grandson are Jewish.

Also, at Haaretz, "WATCH: Trump Defends Israel After 'Nasty' Question: 'Let me just tell you that Israel is a very, very important ally of the United States. And we are going to protect them 100%'."

A New Teaching Guide for Combating Anti-Zionist Extremism

Actually, you shouldn't need a "guide to combating anti-Zionist extremism," but I suppose some professors wanting to fight the despicable leftists might need a primer to do so.

From Professor Miriam Elman, at Legal Insurrection, "VIDEO: Combating Anti-Zionist Antisemitism."

Black Marxist Cornel West Slams Hillary Clinton's 'Dangerous Neoliberal Ideology...' (VIDEO)

Man, this dude's a shuckin' and jivin' huckster par excellence!

He throws Bernie Sanders under the bus all the while calling him affectionately "Brotha' Bernie," heh. And West then gloms onto "Sista' Jill" Stein because she represents the "progressive" alternative to Hillary Clinton's "dangerous neoliberal ideology" and the "neo-fascism" of Donald Trump.

What a real piece of work, lol.

He's interviewed by communist Amy Goodman, at Democracy Now!, "Cornel West: Why I Endorse Green Party's Jill Stein Over 'Neoliberal Disaster' Hillary Clinton."

And see earlier, "Bernie Sanders Names Hateful Leftist Cornel West on Democratic Platform Committee." Brotha Cornel talks about ultimately dissing the platform committee with the "Hillary forces" refused to put "Medicare for all" and "the Palestinian issue" up for the final vote.

Also, see David Horowitz's chapter outing Dr. West's radical leftist hatred in his recent book, Radicals: Portraits of a Destructive Passion.

Bernie Sanders Names Hateful Leftist Cornel West on Democratic Platform Committee

Bernie Sanders named Cornel West to the DNC's Platform Committee, among many radical others.

Dr. West is particularly loathsome pick, though, considering his execrable leftist Jew-hating and Israel-bashing. UCLA Professor Judea Pearl excoriated Dr. West for becoming "a leading propagandist for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement."

Here's the background from Jonathan Chait, at the New Yorker, "Why Did Bernie Sanders Put an Obama-Hater on the Democratic Platform Committee?"

Plus, David Horowitz has a chapter outing Dr. West's radical left-wing hatred in his recent book, Radicals: Portraits of a Destructive Passion.

3 Dumb Ideas Progressives Have About Donald Trump (VIDEO)

It's Van Jones, heh.

He's just about the only leftist I've heard who's not in denial about the threat from the Notorious DJT.

Watch, on Facebook, "The only thing that can offset a "strongman" is a strong movement. WE CAN work together to make sure a Donald Trump White House is never a reality — Van Jones."

Here're the myths leftists need to reject:

Trump will self-destruct.
He’s bad on policy, so he will lose.
Demographics will save us.

Heh.

I love it.

Donald Trump Disavows Former Butler Who Allegedly Called for Obama to Be Killed

This is, of course, from David Corn, the far-left smear merchant who runs a cottage industry of character assassination against Republican presidential candidates. Who can forget the "47 percent" attack video that was the beginning of the end for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

At Mother Jones, via Memeorandum, "On Facebook, Trump's Longtime Butler Calls for Obama to Be Killed."

And at the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, "Trump campaign disavows former butler for saying Obama should be killed."

Sheldon Adelson Thinks Donald Trump 'will be good for Israel...'

I think so too.

At the New York Times:

Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, says he thinks Donald Trump “will be good for Israel.” https://t.co/5mYHQWskcr pic.twitter.com/ipicOvsCbn

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) May 6, 2016