Those Dedicated to Fighting Bigotry Show Little Concern for Anti-Semitism

Aug. 26 2021

In his review of a recent book titled Jews Don’t Count, Kenneth Marcus relates the following episode:

Last May, Zoom-bombers hijacked a Stanford University townhall and broadcast racist messages that displayed images of swastikas and weapons and made use of the N-word. [But] the diversity committee at Stanford’s psychological-counseling division decided to omit mention of anti-Semitism in its post-mortem of the incident so as not to overshadow anti-black racism. To be clear, Stanford’s diversity experts do not avoid Jewish issues altogether. In January of this year, diversity trainers described how Jews are connected to white supremacy. Another has boasted that she takes an anti-Zionist approach to social justice.

This phenomenon is well-described by British comedian David Baddiel in Jews Don’t Count. . . . The problem, as Baddiel describes through such examples, is that Jewish identity is erased in progressive circles. This can be gleaned easily enough in discussions of “cultural appropriation.” Google “cultural appropriation food” and one finds outrage about affronts to Chinese, Indian, or Caribbean culture. But when one adds “Jewish,” one finds only articles chastising Jews for appropriating Palestinian foods. Baddiel finds not a single blog post, article, or tweet about the appropriation of bagels, chopped liver, chicken soup, or corned beef.

Thus the same people who are constantly on the look out for the tiniest evidence of bigotry directed at an ever-expanding roster of identity groups—which includes not just racial and religious minorities, but the “nonbinary,” the overweight, the “neural atypical,” and people with various sexual proclivities—are not in the least bothered by equivalent slights against Jews.

Read more at Commentary

More about: American society, Anti-Semitism, Political correctness

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy