RUTHFULLY YOURS

The United Nations, always fully reliable when it comes to hating Israel, has done it again. On March 14, I wrote at National Review Online about the coming selection at the U.N. Human Rights Council of a new “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” The selection has now been made, and the honor — as it were — goes to a Canadian named Michael Lynk.

Now, in the U.N., these hate-Israel jobs are important. You cannot take the risk that a selectee will be fair or balanced or unbiased. So you go for someone like Lynk.

For example, Lynk is a member of the advisory board of the “Canadian–Palestinian Education Exchange” (CEPAL), which promotes the “Annual Israeli Apartheid Week.” Three days after 9/11, he blamed the attacks on “global inequalities” and “disregard by Western nations for the international rule of law.” He signed a 2009 statement condemning Israel for alleged “war crimes” in Gaza. At the Group of 78’s annual policy conference in 2009, he said, as summarized in the group’s report, that he “used to think the critical date in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict was 1967, the start of the occupation.” Now he thinks that “the solution to the problem must go back to 1948, the date of partition and the start of ethnic cleansing.” In other words, Israel should not exist and its mere existence is a harbinger of ethnic cleansing and other crimes.

Sadly, university students, unions, and those in show business who believe they are lending their energy in support of the Palestinian people might take a moment to understand that they are supporting politicians — both from the Palestinian territories and from terrorist sponsors — who are, in fact, using the Palestinian people as pawns in a game of chess where oil, money and power are the rewards.

Rather than promote boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), well-meaning idealists might consider how best to assist the Palestinians, whose own leaders siphon off aid money they receive from other countries. Students might consider how to establish industries to improve the Palestinian job market, instead of boycotting Israeli companies that employ thousands of Palestinians. They might make an effort to understand the real situation and work towards promoting a lasting peace, instead of misguidedly worsening the plight of Palestinians.

Peace requires empathy; the BDS movement, with its secret aim of destroying a free and democratic nation, promotes nothing but resentment, division and hate.

The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is busy promoting anti-Semitism, with universities leading the charge.

Sadly, university students, unions, and those in show business who believe they are lending their energy in support of the Palestinian people might take a moment to understand that they are supporting politicians — both from the Palestinian territories and from terrorist sponsors — who are, in fact, using the Palestinian people as pawns in a game of chess where oil, money and power are the rewards.

Yes, you feel the pain of the Palestinians; yes, you understand their plight. But you also have seen how students can be used by political agencies. During the late 1970s, when the Shah of Iran ruled, like any dictator, he protected his own power at all costs. Freedom of expression and debate was nonexistent, causing intellectuals and university students to revolt, shouting “long live freedom.” University students are young and idealistic; they support the perceived underdogs, wherever they believe them to be.

The regime that replaced the Shah, however, was even more repressive. Every aspect of the life of every Iranian was controlled and decided by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranians were betrayed and used. Many innocent people had lent their voices to a group that had no respect for them, but regardless used their voices to advance their own political agenda.

In Iran, students protested the Shah in the name of freedom and inadvertently helped bring Ayatollah Khomeini to power. When Khomeini imposed the hijab on all women, even Christians, Jews and others had to wear it. He controlled every aspect of every life. It was only later that so many Iranians realized they had been used, and after the fraudulent elections of 2009, gave their lives, either by imprisonment or death, trying to protest the regime they had brought into being.

While Palestinian politicians are trying to win the public relations battle, the Palestinians are the ones continually suffering.

A close friend, David Isaac, is calling for funds to finish his documentary film series on Zionism. He’s started a crowdfunding campaign toward that goal.

I’ve seen the films he’s produced. He’s doing a magnificent job and they are top-notch. He’s made 37 films so far and needs to finish just 10 more to complete the project. The films are designed to be watched online and used in schools. He’s already partnered with an organization that operates an online course in over 25 Jewish Day Schools. They’ve made use of his films for the past two years and have expressed great satisfaction with the results. So the film series is making an impact.

You can reach his campaign page at this link:

http://jewcer.com/project/zionism-101-the-documentary-series

According to the United Nations, the most evil country in the world today is Israel.

On March 24, 2016, the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) wrapped up its annual meeting in New York by condemning only one country for violating women’s rights anywhere on the planet – Israel, for violating the rights of Palestinian women.

On the same day, the UN Human Rights Council concluded its month-long session in Geneva by condemning Israel five times more than any other of the 192 UN member states.

There were five Council resolutions on Israel. One each on the likes of hellish Syria, North Korea and Iran. Libya got an offer of “technical assistance.” And countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia and China were among the 95% of states that were never mentioned.

No slander is deemed too vile for the UN rights bodies that routinely listen to highly orchestrated Palestinian versions of the ancient blood libel against the Jews.

In Geneva, Palestinian representative Ibrahim Khraishi told the Council on March 24, 2016: “Israeli soldiers and settlers kill Palestinian children. They shoot them dead. They will leave them to bleed to death.” And in New York, Palestinian representative Haifa Al-Agha told CSW on March 16, 2016: “Israel…is directing its military machinery against women and girls. They are killing them, injuring them, and leaving them bleeding to death.”

This is from the New York Times- the paper of dreckord on Israel….rsk

Anti-Semitism is no doubt a problem on many college campuses. And the boycott Israel movement — which has inspired these arguments — is tainted with it. I have long been a vocal B.D.S. opponent at CUNY and helped to found a national organization of academics to fight it, and I’ve experienced the nastiness firsthand. Still, as obnoxious as some of its followers can be, the boycott movement on campus is thriving not because of, but in spite of, the anti-Semitism of some of its adherents.

Indeed, it is filled with young Jews. The pro-boycott group Jewish Voice for Peace is perhaps the fastest-growing Jewish organization on campuses nationwide. And many liberal Zionists share the movement’s complaints about the brutality and self-defeating nature of Israel’s nearly 50-year occupation, even if they believe B.D.S. language and tactics to be counterproductive to the goal of a peaceful, two-state solution — to say nothing of the movement’s contravention of principles of free expression.

This is what happened to CUNY, with that surprise session initiated by Republicans in the State Senate. As was the case with the California regents, a single Jewish organization was behind the anti-CUNY campaign. In California, it was the Amcha Initiative, one of whose founders was quoted in this newspaper over the weekend explaining that “B.D.S. is in virtually all of its aspects anti-Semitic.” With CUNY, it was the far-right Zionist Organization of America making the same argument. These accusations of anti-Semitism were then magnified by conservative columnists and repeated by the Republican state senators.

But contrary to what the state senators claimed, CUNY administrators did not ignore the accusations. They hired two former federal prosecutors to examine the complaints of anti-Semitism and “recommend appropriate action.” CUNY has also established a working group to go over its policies relating to the boundaries of acceptable speech. Abraham Foxman, the former director of the Anti-Defamation League and an alumnus of CUNY, has praised the university’s handling of these isolated incidents. And, to borrow a phrase, when it comes to anti-Semitism, if Abe Foxman is not worried, I’m not worried.

When GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s March 11th rally at the University of Chicago Pavilion was shut down last week by hundreds of leftist protestors, comprised of activists from Moveon.org, Black Lives Matter, Muslim groups, and even unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, the morally indignant protestors had one purpose: to disrupt the event, prevent Trump supporters from hearing the candidate’s speech, and, most importantly, suppress Trump’s ideas and beliefs.

Having already decided the Mr. Trump was a veritable racist, Islamophobe, and neo-Nazi, the mob of rioters—inside and outside of the venue—took it upon themselves to decide that Trump, and those who share his vision and ideas, do not even have the right to express their opinions, that their views have been deemed unacceptable by the self-appointed moral arbiters of our day.

The disturbing campaign to suppress speech which is purportedly hurtful, unpleasant, or morally-distasteful—a sample of which campaign was evident at the Chicago rally—is, for anyone following what is happening on campuses, a troubling and recurrent pattern of behavior by some of the same ideologues who shut down Trump: “progressive” leftists and “social justice” advocates from Muslim-led pro-Palestinian groups. Coalescing around the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, this unholy alliance has been formed in a libelous and vituperative campaign to demonize Israel, attack pro-Israel individuals, and to promote a relentless campaign against Israel in the form of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.

As the ideological assault against Israel and Jews intensified on university campuses, and pro-Israel individuals began answering back to their ideological opponents, the student groups leading the pro-Palestinian charge (including such groups as the radical Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)) decided that their tactic of unrelenting demonization of Israel was insufficient, and the best way to optimize the propaganda effect of their anti-Israel message was also to suppress or obscure opposing views.