THE "JEWISH PROBLEM" - CIRCA 2023

In 1917, in response to the two millennia old “Jewish Problem”, the British Government via the Balfour Declaration, announced their support for a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Little did they imagine that in Circa 2023 “The Home” rather than being a safe haven would become the rationale for why Jews continue to be a “Problem”.

The Jews are, circa 2023, still around. However, if the worldwide protests are anything to go by they are continuing to remain a “Problem”. For whatever reason, even though they are a tiny minority, a mere 0.02 percent of the world’s population, they are considered the pariahs of mankind. Consequently there has been a long history of persecution. Rage has once again been directed at them as a result of Israel’s response to an attack, on October 7, by an Iranian sponsored Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas. This even though the onslaught was more savage in execution than the clinical Holocaust. But this is a different Jewry now. They no longer take it on the chin. They are numbed at their loss, unable to comprehend how the world cannot see the savagery of October 7 and how such an unspeakable heinous cruel onslaught can increase the animosity towards them.

ISRAEL, THE JEWS, HAMAS AND THE ANTI SEMITIC RESPONSE TO OCTOBER 7

For the first time in two thousand years the Jewish people have a homeland, Israel, which is one of the smallest countries in the world. In fact it represents a fifteeth of the land occupied by the surrounding Muslim states. Some of those encircling entities’ central constitutional aim is literally genocidal -  drive the Jewish inhabitants into the sea. Not only them but all of the 15 million Jews in the world. The October 7 carnage achieved its purpose - a dramatic increase of anti semitism as well as nixing the diplomatic deal with the Saudi Sunnis. (See blog: “Hamas is Winning the (Propaganda) War”).

On October 7 Hamas made good on their repeated threats, savagely butchering, raping and beheading 1200 Israelis and taking 240 hostages. Perversely this horrendous act led to wide spread antisemitism and awareness that the world still had a “Jewish Problem”. In fact the Hamas Constitution specifically labels Jews, not only the Israelis as the enemy. Their barbaric act brought together an unholy coalition of Islamic Jihadists, right wing racists including neo-Nazis and left wing radicals. 

The country Israel has approximately 10,000,000 citizens of which 80 percent are Jews the others being Palestinians. It bears repeating that the the nation was legitimately constituted by the UNO who mooted a two State solution between them and the other 7 million Palestinians. Although many shy away from the reality they need to be reminded that the Israelis have attempted on five occasions, the last as recently as 2018, to implement this two state injunction only to be rebuffed by the leaders of the Palestinians and or the surrounding Arab states. Terrorist groups such as Hamas go further than just words. They put their hate into action.

 The other 7,000,000 Jews, the so called diaspora, reside outside of Israel and have been subject to hate and murder since time immemorial. The recent cycle reached a a crescendo on October 7, 2023. The Jews of the diaspora are thus considered a part of “The Problem”, Hate incidents in Europe have increased by over a 1000 percent. 

THE AFTERMATH OF OCTOBER 7

The sequel of the  October 7 gives the lie to the rationalization that supporting Hamas is not anti semitism as they are just terrorizing Zionists and fighting for a two state solution. The other justification for the Jew hatred is that the protagonists are not anti Israel they just support the Palestinian Muslims. In London there have been protests numbering 300,000 against the Israeli “aggression”. That same highly sensitive crowd never came out when other Muslims were slaughtered. Assad of Syria murdered 500,000 not to mention the tens of thousands in Myanmar and Yemen that were cold-bloodedly sacrificed. Nor did they rally on October 8. 

The fact that Hamas openly uses civilians as human shields is totally disregarded. Israel is responsible for the genocide of Palestinians. When the Israeli Defense Force fought in hospitals, claiming that they had intelligence backed by the United States that Hamas had command centers underneath, the world demanded proof. When they provided the evidence there were no apologies from UNRWA, The Red Crescent and the choir at the UNO. The media claimed that they had “not confirmed” the evidence. 

The cry is that is that the Israelis must stop fighting not that Hamas should call it quits. The Secretary General of UNO, no less, stated that this attack never occurred in a vacuum. He is right Hamas has been pelting rockets at Israel from within six years after Gaza was unilaterally ceded to the Palestinians in 2005. Hamas is not remotely interested in a two state solution. Their Constitution doesn’t mention it. Rather it claims all the land “From the river to the sea”. The constitution includes the fiction that the Jews are to be blamed for the French and American Revolutions and World Wars. The infamous fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion is propagated by the "freedom fighters".

The Israeli determination to eliminate Hamas is labelled “collective punishment” of the Palestinians. America and the other Western nations have been warned by a delegation of Arab leaders that they are accessories to Israel’s war crimes. It is apparently dangerous not to recognize “The Jewish Problem”.

There is a persistence of a false equivalency between the Hamas terrorists and the Israeli Defense Force. The former have no concern for the Palestinians they are supposedly fighting for as evidenced by their locating their military apparatus in their homes, schools, hospitals and mosques nor do they obey any of the rules of war. The Israelis travel with military lawyers, warn the civilians of impending fire, create humanitarian corridors and certainly don't fire at Hamas from synagogues - not that Hamas would care. 

THE JEWISH PROBLEM EXTENDS TO THE DIASPORA

 JEWS AS WELL

The October 7 massacre heralded attacks on the Jews throughout the world but notably in America where six snd a half million Jews live. At this point it suffices to point out that overall attacks against the Jewish Communities increased by four hundred percent. None of the aggressors cared about what the positions of these Jews were. - whether they were Zionists or not, whether they supported a two party solution or not or whether they were more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause or not. Their beliefs were irrelevant, they were all the same - Jews.  On College campuses Jewish students were literally fearful of attack.

Leaders play a key role in any movement. Musk, Trump and Kanye West make up a trio who have directly or indirectly spearheaded anti semitism in the USA

Elon Musk

In America no lesser person, than the world’s richest man, a cult figure, Elon Musk who has a 150 million followers is doing his best to highlight “The Jewish Problem”. Musk who controls the largest social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has turned the latter into a vehicle of hate. While he has denied being an anti semite, as most anti semites do, he has a track record that would indicate that he has not only provided a platform for the bile, he has launched a number of blatant anti semitic tropes.

 Musk believes in the “Great Replacement Theory”. The latter maintains that the Jews are in a world wide conspiracy to replace whites with minorities. He has slandered George Soros a Jewish humanitarian, who happens to be a highly successful investor, as wanting to destroy Western Civilization through his Open Society Foundation which inter alia supports migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. In addition he maintained that a young student Ben Brody was a FBI undercover agent in a neo- Nazi group. The 22 year old has been subject to threats and his mother even feared for her life. The attorney Mark Bankston, who successfully sued Alex Jones for his conspiracy theories on the Sandy Hook school shooting, has taken up his litigation against Musk. More recently Musk has latched onto the “Pizzagate” conspiracy where Hillary Clinton was supposedly running a pedophile ring.

Donald Trump - Can you be a neo-fascist and still love Jews?

Trump has managed to have it both ways - openly flirt with anti semites and repeat their narratives while claiming that some of his best friends as well as his favorite daughter and her children are Jewish. Twenty - five percent of the Jewish population voted for Trump who stated that some of the Charlottesville neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us”, were “good people”. He hosted Kanye West a.k.a. Ye and Nicolas Fuentes at Mar - a - Lago, Trump’s summer “Presidential” residence. The former is an unrepentant virulent antisemite and the latter a neo-Nazi who regularly praises Hitler.

Trump has berated the other 75 percent of American Jews who didn’t vote for him as “traitors towards Israel”. He shepherded in the Abraham Accords which brought Israel and a few Sunni countries into diplomatic contact, recognized Jerusalem as the capital and maintained that the captured Golan Heights was part of Israel. However he and Netanyahu, former authoritarian soul mates, are not on speaking terms because the Israeli Premier congratulated Biden on his ascendency to the Presidency.

But now to the central question as to whether a neo-Nazi can love Jews. Governor Pritzker the mild-mannered Jewish Governor of Illinois referenced some of Trump’s recent remarks which he likened to those of Nazi Germany. The latter included, that “undocumented immigrants were poisoning the blood of our country and should be detained in camps” and his usage of the term, “vermin” to depict those he considers undesirable. 

Pritzker was “deeply concerned” at Trump’s threat of revenge towards all of his enemies including all that didn’t vote for him should he be elected President. The Illinois Governor voiced the fear of many when he stated, “I don’t know where it’s going with Donald Trump. What I can tell you is that the things that he talks about are frightening to those of us who know the history of Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s.”

The impact on fringe groups in society when leaders verbalize these words of hate is profound and empowers them. A Federal Judge has found that Trump’s words inspired an insurrection. America has seen neo-Nazi marches besides the protests by the unholy alliance against Israel. The rise of antisemitism and to a lesser but significant extent of Islamophobia is the outcome of this toxicity. 

The bottom line for Trump is that he cannot be elected without the right wing extremists. He acts accordingly.

The impact of social media

According to CNN, hate groups and far-right internet trolls have seized on the tensions surrounding the Israel-Hamas war, while leveraging advances in artificial intelligence to further stoke antisemitism in the United States.

 Ben Decker CEO of Memetica, a threat analysis company that monitors online hate, was quoted as saying, “We’ve seen a real concerning conversion between far-right communities online and pro-Hamas sentiment”. Although this might appear paradoxical, Decker explained that far-right groups are supporting an Islamic movement - “White supremacist hatred of Jewish people outranks all else”. The Memetica CEO noted the effectiveness of Hamas’s strategy to publicize the terrorist attack on social media.  

Decker explained further, “The 4chan communities are actually reuploading the videos and archiving them so they can continue to share for years to come”.Karen Dunn, an attorney who sued the Charlottesville supremacists agreed that, “they, (white supremacists), hate everybody, but they hate the Jews the most”.

The trolls are encouraged to create images on AI. Specific instructions are posted using Microsofts new AI image tool. Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti Defamation League, which monitors and fights anti semitism, has had his voice recreated which has been used to spit antisemitic venom. Calls into numerous meetings have been made. Videos have been produced with superimposed sound featuring local anchors, Jewish politicians and famous broadcasters. 

These implicit calls to violence have not escaped the attention of law officials who have been monitoring this phenomenon. Christopher Wray, FBI Head, informed Congress that antisemitism has reached “historic levels”. The Department of Homeland Security have also been prominent in reacting to this growing circumstance of threats of violence..

Just two anecdotes 

Bear with Jay H. Ell as he relates just two anecdotes, one from a recent trip in Spain on a Jewish Heritage Tour and the other from South Africa. 

There are very few fine examples of intact Synagogues in Spain. Those that survived the Inquisition and Expulsion of Jews were also turned into churches. One such house of worship is in Toledo. It was a rarity as it was built in the 14th Century when the persecution of Jews was already rampant. Simon Halevi was the founder. The reason for the permission to erect the Synagogue El Transito was he was the then indispensable treasurer and counsellor to don Pedro or King Peter. His family dated from way back and in addition to being fabulously wealthy they were scholars and Kabbalists, (Jewish Mystics). Halevi as a Jew was easy to smear and jealous courtiers maintained that he was stealing from the treasury. He was arrested and tortured to death. 

As Jay H. Ell has written, Jews played a very prominent role in the opposition to apartheid in South Africa - a fact generously acknowledged by Nelson Mandela in his autobiography.. South Africa has not been spared from an exacerbation of antisemitic attacks inspired by the October 7 massacre. The paradox has been worsened by the ANC Government siding with Hamas in the current dispute. 

On the 85th Anniversary of Kristallinacht when Jewish businesses were broken into and looted by the Nazis, Jewish establishments In South Africa were likewise vandalized ,and their owners subject to abuse, anti semitic slurs and memes. Amongst the many that were targeted was an 85 year old business, Cape Union Mart. The latter has been outspokenly liberal and has contributed to South African and Israeli philanthropic movements. They employ 400 Muslims many in senior positions but that was all irrelevant in the victimization of this chain that had become an institution in South Africa. 

Who do you trust when you are trying in your little way to change the world from how it is to how it ought to be?

THE REAL DEAL - NOT JUST ANECDOTES!

The systematic gang rape with dislocation of some women’s hips in the process and the parading of the bleeding ravaged women through the streets has not met with any condemnation by any national or international “MeToo” movements. A pregnant woman had her unborn baby ripped from her abdomen and the terrorist shot the child. The feminist organizations have either remained silent or even questioned the veracity of the claims. Prominent in their almost complete silence are the feminist groups related to the UNO. This is particularly obnoxious as November 25, was designated by the UNO as an “International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women”.

Likewise all those businesses, institutions and organizations that following the George Floyd coldblooded murder appropriately supported the “Black Lives Matter” movement, are apparently not so vocal as to whether “Jewish Lives Matter”. The media have by and large been critical of the Israeli response reporting that they are responsible for the high civilian deaths rather than laboring the fact that Hamas are cynically ensuring their deaths as a means of propaganda to highlight “The Jewish Problem”. For over a month there was rarely any reference to October 7 from the narrative. There was also scant mention of the hostages and the fact that the taking of hostages is a War Crime till a deal was struck for the release of some and  it finally became the story de jour. In the process the horror of October 7 was relived.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The rationale for the “Jewish Problem”, circa 2023, has morphed from the Jews having the wrong religion then being part of the wrong race to them having a State. The latter’s democracy has been denigrated as being racist, perpetuating crimes against humanity and practising apartheid. While to put it at its lowest the current government in power is shocking, the citizenry of Israel have made it quite clear that the political landscape has already changed. Israel will remain a democratic oasis in a sea of authoritarianism. 

President Biden’s insistence on a two state solution is a breath of fresh air in the current stale Middle East environment. The Israeli citizenry recognize that Biden, the most powerful man in the world, pulled them up by their bootstraps and provided the empathy, the diplomatic cover, the wherewithal and the credibility to be where they are today. Biden reinforces all that is good in this world and maintains one's faith in the sterile political landscape.

Hamas is not only responsible for the murder of Israeli children they are guilty for the death of each Palestinian child as well as the destruction they have wrought on those they purportedly represent.

Hamas’s hostage taking has backfired as a propaganda tool. With the limited release of hostages the media are revisiting October 7, the merciless savagery that started this all.