RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/12/crossing-the-line-justifications-for-terror/

“As a historical scholar once put it: first, they said, You have no right to live among us as Jews; then they said, You have no right to live as Jews; the Nazi regime simply reduced the historical anti-Semitism to its logical endgame: You have no right to live. Once a nation and its citizens cross that line, once they can see the “other” as less human, or simply not human at all, then no atrocity is unthinkable.”

There are no innocent British: I struggled, as a ten-year-old in 1975, to understand the news reports on our television; why my parents were so upset, particularly my English mother. “Disgusting,” they would murmur. “What kind of people could do this?” Every other week, it seemed back then, a new IRA bombing would make headlines. In September 1975 an IRA bomb exploded in the lobby of London’s Hilton Hotel. Two people were killed and sixty-three injured, many suffering limbs blown off and other horrific injuries.

There is an excellent book by a former IRA member, Eamon Collins, called Killing Rage, in which he explains the cold rationale behind the IRA’s terror tactics. The fact was, while there were some attempts to target British soldiers and military targets, the IRA hard-liners argued that all Brits were complicit in the long-running abuse of Irish nationals, and no tears should be wasted on collateral victims. The cause was all. And any means was justified by the end goals.

There are no innocent Chinese: It is unfortunate that the West has learnt almost nothing about Japanese atrocities of the 1930s. Unlike the Holocaust, Japan’s shameful past has been effectively papered over, in part because of the tremendously successful efforts of the US since the war to rebuild Japan as a modern Western ally.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/israel/2023/12/who-is-none-too-keen-on-jews/

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a United Nations agency whose primary focus is to improve global public health. It claims to be politically impartial and to use its technical expertise to bring scientific evidence to bear on international issues whose politics impact health. However, the WHO r over-reaches this scope of practice and fails to uphold its founding principles, including egalitarianism and neutrality in global health governance. The 2023 Israel‑Hamas war is the latest reminder that the WHO, in its 75th anniversary year, perpetuates anti‑Israel bias and anti-Semitism.

Like any form of racism, anti-Semitism is an intolerable moral evil of concern to all people who value human dignity and justice. By anti‑Semitism, we mean Jew-hatred, as codified in the 2016 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition, and not a reasoned debate about or legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy.

Indeed, political divisions are evident in Israel itself. They accommodate calls to increase respect for Palestinians’ right to health without delegitimizing Israel’s right to exist and dehumanizing Jews and Israelis, including the 20 per cent of Israeli citizens who are Arabs. Contemporary expressions of Jew-hatred include anti-Zionism. Amid increased anti-Westernism, it weaponizes the anti‑Semitism  that is surging worldwide.

Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism because, as British commentator Melanie Phillips explained in 2019, to treat Israel “as a Jew among nations to be uniquely vilified, slandered, and exterminated” is anti-Semitic. This article demonstrates how the WHO exemplifies such bias, acts against the sovereign equality of states, and promotes Israel’s disengagement rather than cooperation in confronting health emergencies in crises like the Israel‑Gaza war. We will discuss how WHO’s treatment of, and communications about Israel, differ from its diplomatic response to other states and conflicts. WHO’s condemnation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and international pressure for a ceasefire serve as a case study.

Differential treatment of Israel

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/the-universities/2023/12/anti-semitisms-signature-moment/

Australian pro-Hamas petitions are swelling to a torrent. For example, “Historians for Palestine” signed by 120 academics, on top of one from 720 academics nationally. That loopy one begins:

As scholars, academics and students in Australia, a settler colony built on the dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, we stand in solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle for liberation and against Israeli settler colonialism.

There’s old petitions like the journos’ multiple efforts since 2021, the most recent garnering 320 names and continuing to amass new activist signatures. Then there’s is the arty crowd of nearly 4,000 arts “creatives” signing their own effusion.

There is even a ceasefire petition under way from “Current and Former Elected Representatives” at local, state and federal level. It says, “We stand with Palestine, the Palestinian people, including Palestinian Australians and for truth and justice.” This petition blasts Israel for rights “violations” dating to 1948 and “occupation” of Gaza since 1967 via blockades. It has just one weak phrase about “the acts of Hamas on 7 October 2023″ requiring investigation. For the real thing on October 7, see here (warning – extremely graphic).

Most sinister of all is the pro-Palestine open letter from 700 Victorian school teachers and staff, as reported today (December 18) in The Australian. The letter says that it is within teachers’ “professional and ethical duty to model an anti-violence position”. They are pressuring federal and state education ministers to advise principals that Palestinian advocacy is in line with the public sector code of conduct. (It isn’t). They claim this is required to “protect children’s and young people’s wellbeing” in regards to Palestine:

Our own students are also witnessing the catastrophic devastation unfold, which will have short and long-term effects on their social, emotional and cultural wellbeing, impeding their capacity to live and learn well,” it says. “In response to the indefensible actions causing catastrophic harm, it is essential for people and governments to take an ethical stand, including those who remain accountable to the responsibility of caring for children and young people.

The Australian quoted Teachers Professional Association of Australia secretary Edward Schuller that the group “vehemently oppose any attempt to push political agendas onto children”.

But the daddy of all rows is convulsing Australia’s top-rated Melbourne University, with 2,050 pro-Hamas staff, students and alumni slugging it out with embattled Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell. His offence was to issue a statement on October 25 correctly blaming the war on the Hamas terrorism of October 7. He called for civilised behaviour at the university “as a diverse, multi-cultural and multi-faith community”. He urged for no anti-Semitism, no Islamophobia and no racism.[1]

https://www.thefp.com/p/we-were-taught-to-hate-jews?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The following five ex-Muslims grew up in Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, but they were all indoctrinated, they say, with the same views on Jews and Israel. They remember a childhood shot through with antisemitic moments ranging from the mundane (one woman recalls her aunt claiming Jews put cancer in her vegetables at the market) to the deadly (a former extremist went as far as to pick a location in London for a terrorist attack he planned to carry out at 17).

These hateful ideas, repeated by their family members, religious leaders, and teachers, are part and parcel of the same animus, they say, that fueled Hamas’s attacks on October 7.

Some of the people you will hear from below have received death threats for speaking out on issues like antisemitism and sexism in the Muslim world. One uses a pen name to protect herself and her daughter from her terrorist ex-husband, who is currently jailed in Egypt. All of them came to reject their loathing for Jewish people and the West, and have rebuilt their lives in the wake of their realizations. Here are their stories, which you can read or click to listen to each author recite in the audio recordings below.

“To enter our classroom, we had to step on a painting of the Israeli flag on the ground.”

When I was born, Iran was still free. You could drink and dance, and women could wear whatever they wanted. I’ll never forget my first day of school after the Islamic Revolution. I was six, and my mother entered my room with a long, dark, and formless manteau and a piece of fabric for my hair and neck.

“My darling,” she said, “this is your uniform.”