An Exclusive Facebook Group Purged Its Jewish Members

Once a fixture of American life, the restricted social club has long been assumed to be a thing of the past. But the phenomenon seems to have made a return, in a 21st-century version, in the form of a Los Angeles all-female by-invitation-only Facebook group known as Girls’ Night Out (GNO). The exclusive group has over 30,000 members, and besides being a hub for restaurant recommendations and informal conversations, has also served to help small businesses find customer, actresses auditions, and so forth. Following the killing of George Floyd, GNO endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement and became more political—and then, writes Emily Benedek, it came for the Jews:

On August 22, a young Jewish group member saw a sign hanging over the heavily trafficked 405 freeway in LA that read, “The Jews want a Race War.” It upset her, and she asked in a GNO post what others thought about it. A member suggested some Jewish representation was also needed in the group, after noticing some “fishy anti-Semitic stuff.” At first, the comments responding to this suggestion were positive.

Then, on August 29, a member posted: “I feel that the Jewish administrator who is appointed must also acknowledge the occupation of Palestine.” Within hours, every Jewish member who had tried to explain why a litmus test for a “good Jew” was anti-Semitic was thrown out. Every Jewish member who asked why an American Jew should have an opinion on a foreign matter (however incoherently phrased) was expelled. Anyone who made a comment supporting Israel, explaining the history of Israel, or who “liked” such a comment, disappeared.

Soon it became clear that a single administrator was carrying out the resulting purge. Benedek continues:

[This administrator] threw out both a Black Jewish woman who attempted to explain the Jewish point of view, and a Black Christian woman (and an administrator) who objected to anti-Semitism on the site. But no one who expressed anti-Semitic views was expelled.

Of the numerous GNO members with whom Benedek spoke or corresponded, only one was willing to give her name.

Read more at Tablet

More about: Anti-Semitism, Black Lives Matter, Facebook, Social media

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