RUTHFULLY YOURS

FROM THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE OF OUTPOST

http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/the-self-destruction-of-the-jews-rael-jean-isaac.html

Much has been made of the alleged self-destructiveness of Donald Trump who for two weeks lurched from gaffe to gaffe, but who speaks of the far more lethal self-destructiveness of organized Jewry in America? In this case what is involved is not off-the-cuff remarks but thought-out (incredibly foolish) policy positions.

There is nothing more detrimental to the future of Jews in America than a large, ever-growing Moslem population. So why do the major Jewish organizations seek to expand it? In 2013 the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) founded the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees as a coalition of Jewish organizations. As a start, it agitated for increasing the number of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States to 100,000 in 2016, roughly four times the already much-expanded number proposed by Obama and significantly larger than the 65,000 requested by the UN Refugee Association. Although the Multifaith Alliance is still heavily weighted with Jewish organizations, others (scarcely noted for their friendship to Israel) have joined, among them Church World Service, the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

As far as Jewish organizations belonging to the Multifaith Alliance go, it’s a veritable who’s who of them, starting with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which includes the entire spectrum of Jewish outfits, ranging from Americans for Peace Now on the left to JINSA and American Friends of Likud on the right. Not content with their support through the President’s Conference, some of its members have underlined their support by also joining individually, among them the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York, the Union for Reform Judaism, the National Council of Jewish Women, Ameinu and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. A substantial number of individual synagogues have also signed on. Perhaps the most egregious participant is the ADL, given that it raises over $50 million a year on the basis of its stated mission to fight anti-Semitism and it is 100% guaranteed that the more the Moslem population grows, the more anti-Semitism will gain strength.

It’s not as if the evidence is not overwhelming as to what can be expected. Terrorism, which the Multifaith Alliance cavalierly dismisses as an overblown threat (indeed it claims existing vetting is vastly overdone) is merely the tip of the iceberg. France provides the template. University of Paris professor Guy Milliere writes that there are over 570 no-go zones in France (the government calls them ”sensitive urban zones.”) Hundreds of thousands of young Muslims live there, many imbued with a deeply rooted hatred for France and the West. Recruiters for jihadist organizations tell them, directly or through social networks, that if they kill in the name of Allah they will attain the status of martyrs. Twenty thousand people are in the government’s “S-files”, an alert system meant to identify individuals linked to radical Islam and because the task of following so many is overwhelming, most on the list go unmonitored (including the Carlie Hebdo murderers and Mohamed Merah, the killer at the Jewish school in Toulouse).

French President Hollande has no credible answer. His party depends on the Muslim vote (polls show 93% of Muslims voted for Hollande in the last election). Milliere reports that the most important left-wing think tank in France, Terra Nova, has published several reports explaining that the only way for the left to win elections is to attract the votes of Muslim immigrants and to add more Muslims to the population. Already Muslims made up about 10% of the French population; even more worrying, 25% of teenagers in France are Muslims. Unsurprisingly, Jews have been the favored Muslim target with the result, by now well known, that thousands are fleeing, so that in some areas of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Netanya you are more likely to hear French than Hebrew.

Yes, the much larger United States is not in imminent danger of duplicating those French statistics (although down the road Muslim no-go zones are a distinct possibility). But for the small Jewish population, far fewer numbers pose a significant threat. Syrian refugees are only a fraction of the Muslims admitted by Obama—between 2010 and 2013 Obama imported 300,000 and these immigrants will soon be able to bring in relatives, who get favored status under our current system. Importing more Muslims is so obviously counter to Jewish interests that those hostile to Jews look for underlying Jewish machinations as an explanation. Taking puzzled note of the wall to wall Jewish support for vastly more Syrian refugees, one such internet antagonist suspiciously commented that it was strange behavior given that many of the immigrants might organize to challenge Jewish interests; that as citizens they were apt to support politicians who would vote for legislation that hurt Israel; and that they might commit terrorist acts against Jews.

What is already transpiring on U.S. campuses puts paid to empty hopes Jews might harbor that “Muslims will behave differently here.” AMCHA, the organization dedicated to investigating and combating anti-Semitism on American campuses, has found an alarming spike in anti-Semitic activity in the first half of this year. Its study, covering 100 public and private campuses with the largest Jewish undergraduate populations, documented 287 anti-Semitic incidents at 64 schools in that time period, a 45% increase over the previous year. The Algemeiner’s Ruthie Blum points out the schools at which Jews feel least safe are Columbia, Vassar and the University of Chicago—top academic institutions filled with Jewish students and faculty (and rich in Jewish alumni and donors).

The AMCHA study found that Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) resolutions against Israel were strongly associated with and fueled anti-Semitic outbursts. Professor Leila Beckwith, one of the study’s lead researchers, observed: “Instead of just boycotting Israel, the anti-Zionists are now boycotting Jewish students… Anti-Zionists are attempting to harm, alienate and ostracize Jewish students.” Campus Watch has listed some of those behaviors: “When the SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] deploys makeshift checkpoints on campuses where its members yell, ‘Are you Jewish?’ at passing students, when it disrupts Holocaust memorials and Jewish student concerts, when it assaults and intimidates Jewish students on campus, it is making the trees and stones of the Ivy League and the Public Ivies a place of terror and danger for Jewish students.”

The Muslim-dominated SJP is the chief force behind the BDS movement on campus. It was founded in 2001 by Nablus born Hatem Bazian, who earlier headed the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at Berkeley but recognized, according to “Profiles in hate: Hatem Bazian” put out by Campus Watch, “that there were practical limitations to what a group recognized as being Muslim could accomplish on campus.” With the name “Students for Justice in Palestine” Bazian shed the explicit Islamic colors of the Muslim Student Association and added a degree of separation from the Muslim Brotherhood (which was closely linked with the MSA). There’s an old saw that as California goes, so goes the nation and that is true of some of the worst organizations and policies (think radical deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill) that have swept the country. Thanks to the burgeoning Muslim population, SJP is now on upwards of 80 campuses in the U.S. and Canada. Formerly most active on both coasts, it is now entrenched in such out of the way places as the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where another monitoring group, Canary Mission, found that the SJP and MSA had created a “cesspool” of anti-Semitism.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist. The more Muslims are admitted to this country, the more intolerable life will become for Jewish students. The broader political scene will also change in ways deeply detrimental to Jews. The Democratic Party is already openly moving away from its traditional pro-Israel positions: one symptom, the choice of J Street favorite Tim Kaine for Vice President. (This has zero effect on much of the Jewish leadership. Former World Jewish Congress leader Isi Leibler chronicles in The Jerusalem Post the outrageous statement by ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt attacking the Republicans for passing the most pro-Israel plank ever issued by any party. His bizarre grounds? By deleting support for a two-state solution the Republicans undermined the policy of the Israeli government and hence were “anti-Zionist.”) Congressmen respond to the deeply held concerns of their constituents and as the Muslim vote becomes important in more and more districts, they will become less and less likely to be supportive of Israel.

So how are we to explain this lop-sided support by Jewish leaders for bringing in more Muslims? There is an occasional glimmer of recognition that it might be dangerous. In an article in The Forward entitled “Jews Push Washington to Admit More Syrian Refugees” Nathan Guttman notes that the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Rabbi Julia Andelman called up the story of God sparing the life of Ishmael although warned that the boy’s offspring would seek to harm his own people. What mattered, according to Andelman, was that “these are people seeking safety now.” Declaring that many are taking on the cause of taking in Syrian refugees as “a moral Jewish issue” Rabbi Jonah Pesner, who heads the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said: “The Jewish people want to be a light unto the nations. We all want to show that we are a beacon of hope.”

On full exhibit here is the moral preening of elites. Puffed up with self-righteousness they are able in good conscience to ignore the effect on those they claim to lead. It’s the current version of the old saying that it is the Trotskys who make the revolution, while the Bronsteins pay the price. (In the end of course both Trotskys and Bronsteins pay for the folly of the former.) Moreover, despite their oh so sensitive moral antennae, these people are oblivious to the fact that those really in danger of their lives scarcely figure among the refugees they demand be admitted. You have to be in one of the UN camps (at which point your life is not in danger) to be selected and the truly endangered Christians and Yazidis are for the most part too terrified of the Muslims who dominate those camps to go near them.

Moral preening is the form that the sin of pride takes for the Jews agitating for taking in more Syrian refugees. Given the deadly consequences of what columnist Peggy Noonan calls “mad virtue signaling”, we have here more evidence that pride deserves its “pride of place” as the first of the seven deadly sins.