The Woman Driven from Her Job for Condemning Anti-Semitism

July 13 2021

On June 11, in response to a series of attacks on Jews in the U.S., the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI)—the major professional organization of its kind—posted a condemnation of anti-Semitism and other “forms of hate” on its Facebook page. Soon an outraged response swelled on social media over the absence of any explicit condemnation of violence against Palestinians, although the statement made no mention of Israel. The virtual mob focused its ire on April Powers, the SCBWI’s “chief equity and inclusion officer” and the author of the post. As a result, Powers—a Jew—resigned, and the organization’s director apologized for the original defense of Jews. Kat Rosenfield comments:

What disturbs Powers the most wasn’t the harassment or the threats. It’s that when she tried to do the job she was hired to do, her Jewishness was seen as inherently suspect—and, for some, as a reason to discredit her. “It was, ‘You’re Jewish, you can’t be in a role like this,’” she said. “I lost credibility in that exchange because I’m Jewish.”

What happened to April Powers demonstrates how high-minded ideals about intersectionality and social justice now operate in practice. . . . According to the tenets of social justice, Powers’s “lived experience” and multiple minority status [as a black Jew] should have made her unassailable on the topic of her own people’s oppression, and anyone who tried to use Powers’s identity to discredit her should have been roundly condemned. According to the tenets of social justice, the continuing violence—vandalism, harassment, a rabbi stabbed in broad daylight just the other day—means that “we” should be listening to the [Jewish] community now more than ever. But [because] that community is Jewish, progressives suddenly have very different ideas about who deserves to be heard.

For the moment, at least, Jews are Schrödinger’s victims; they may or may not be deserving of sympathy, depending on who’s doing the victimizing. When a group of tiki torch-wielding white nationalists chant “Jews will not replace us!,” the condemnation is swift. But replace the tiki torch with a Palestinian flag, and call the Jews “settler colonialists,” and the equivocations roll in.

Read more at Common Sense

More about: Anti-Semitism, Political correctness, Social media

 

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