Anti-Semitism Is on the Upswing, But Neither the ADL Nor the President Will Say Why

According to a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States increased dramatically in 2015, but it is “not clear what may have led to the spike.” Stefan Kanfer comments:

Not a single statement has issued from the Oval Office about attacks on Jews in the United States or on foreign turf. . . . Nor has Obama referred to the uptick in anti-Semitic episodes in academia. . . . Today, the anti-Semitism of the Third Reich continues in the groves of higher education, often cloaked in pro-Palestinian rhetoric. The vocabulary of the academic left brims with agitprop about “Zionist malevolence,” though many countries within rocket distance of the most liberal nation in the Middle East are notorious for the stoning of apostates, rape victims, and homosexuals.

Only the naïve, and the willfully ignorant, could fail to see another reason why anti-Semitism has increased both overseas and in America. The ADL recently did a survey of religious and ethnic bias in 101 countries. Anti-Jewish sentiment was most prevalent in North Africa and the Middle East, where 74 percent of respondents expressed anti-Semitic views. In those countries, millions are taught that Jews are subhuman, or a dangerous and controlling force in geopolitics—or both. Now, many of those millions are pouring into Europe and America—legally or illegally—welcomed by governments that pay scant attention to their background.

Read more at City Journal

More about: ADL, American Jewry, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Barack Obama, Jewish World

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF