The Judaism of Self-Congratulation—and Finger-Pointing

Oct. 13 2014

During the Rosh Hashanah ritual of tashlikh, Jews traditionally gather by a river or stream and symbolically cast the previous year’s sins into the water. This year, a group of students and faculty at the University of Illinois used the ritual to condemn others: namely, supporters of Israel and the university itself, which withheld tenure from Steven Salaita over his public expressions of anti-Semitism. Among the collective sins being ostentatiously enumerated, Jonathan Marks writes, were “allowing violence against Palestinians to be committed in our name as Jews and as Americans” and “not speaking out against anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia.” Marks adds:

To be sure, all this is now part of the playbook of Jewish Voice for Peace, a group for whom the sum and substance of Judaism is criticism of Israel and the United States insofar as it refuses to cast Israel off. But the loathsomeness of this particular activity, because it turns even the High Holy Days into an opportunity for activists to hit Israel with one hand and pat themselves on the back with the other, remains fresh.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Idiocy, Jewish Voice for Peace, Steven Salaita, Tashlikh

The Mass Expulsion of Palestinians Is No Solution. Neither Are Any of the Usual Plans for Gaza

Examining the Trump administration’s proposals for the people of Gaza, Danielle Pletka writes:

I do not believe that the forced cleansing of Gaza—a repetition of what every Arab country did to the hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews in 1948— is a “solution.” I don’t think Donald Trump views that as a permanent solution either (read his statement), though I could be wrong. My take is that he believes Gaza must be rebuilt under new management, with only those who wish to live there resettling the land.

The time has long since come for us to recognize that the establishment doesn’t have the faintest clue what to do about Gaza. Egypt doesn’t want it. Jordan doesn’t want it. Iran wants it, but only as cannon fodder. The UN wants it, but only to further its anti-Semitic agenda and continue milking cash from the West. Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians blame Palestinians for destroying their countries.

Negotiations with Hamas have not worked. Efforts to subsume Gaza under the Palestinian Authority have not worked. Rebuilding has not worked. Destruction will not work. A “two-state solution” has not arrived, and will not work.

So what’s to be done? If you live in Washington, New York, London, Paris, or Berlin, your view is that the same answers should definitely be tried again, but this time we mean it. This time will be different. . . . What could possibly make you believe this other than ideological laziness?

Read more at What the Hell Is Going On?

More about: Donald Trump, Gaza Strip, Palestinians