By Fern Sidman
Addressing thousands at his much heralded “Restoring Courage” rally in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening August 24th, FOX News talk show host Glenn Beck exhorted his audience to immerse themselves in doughtiness and “to stand up for Israel” in the face of the existential siege that the Jewish state finds herself under by the international community.
By Fern Sidman
On Sunday, August 21st, former FOX News talk show host and conservative commentator Glenn Beck delivered an address laden with palpable emotion at the Roman amphitheater in Caesarea, Israel as part of the first fixture leading up to his “Restoring Courage” rally in Jerusalem on August 24th. Speaking to over 3000 mostly American attendees, Beck exhorted his audience at the monumental venue built in the first century by Herod the Great to, “not only love Israel but love the Jewish people as they are.”
by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*
I was recently told by my aunt in Baghdad that there was a widespread belief among Iraqis that some external force was behind the protests and uprisings across the Middle East. What outside conspiracy, I wondered, could be responsible for the Arab Spring? Not to worry, however; George Saliba — the Syriac Orthodox Church’s bishop in Lebanon — offers us a simple answer. In an interview with Al-Dunya TV on July 24, Saliba declared that “the source… behind all these movements, all these civil wars, and all these evils” in the Arab world is nothing other than Zionism, “deeply rooted in Judaism.” The Jews, he says, are responsible for financing and inciting the turmoil in accordance with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
These remarks are not an isolated case among Middle Eastern Christians. The anti-Semitic trend has become especially apparent in the aftermath of Iraq’s assault last October on the Syriac Catholic Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, leaving 58 dead and 67 wounded in the worst attack on the Iraqi Christian community since 2003.
By Fern Sidman
Receiving numerous rousing ovations and thunderous applause, FOX television personality Glenn Beck told an audience of over 5000 gathered at the Christians United For Israel (CUFI) national summit in Washington that if the pernicious trends in global anti-Semitism culminate in another genocide, “Then count me as a Jew, and come for me first”. Mr. Beck delivered these remarks as part of his keynote address at “The Night to Honor Israel” gala banquet at the organization’s sixth annual convocation on Tuesday evening, February 19th.
By Sara Akrami
When the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979, it had two strategies to eliminate its opponents. First, it killed its internal opponents using mass executions and barbaric torture. Second, it killed its opponents abroad using assassin-spies from its embassies around the world.
Many of these opponents living overseas were Iranian intellectuals and activists who had escaped from Iran after the establishment of this notorious Islamist government. However, the terrorism of the Iranian government was not only directed at its own citizens — or former citizens — it also claimed victims from other nationalities.
by Phyllis Chesler and Nathan Bloom
Recently, Yale shut down its Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA). Some claimed that the center was perhaps too “political.”
Almost simultaneously, on June 23, 2011, the University of California at Berkeley’s Center on Race and Gender issued its first annual “Islamophobia” report. The report is a project of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP), whose mission statement says: “The IRDP focuses on a systematic and empirical approach to the study of Islamophobia and its impact on the American Muslim community. Today, Muslims in the U.S., parts of Europe, and around the world have been transformed into a demonized and feared global ‘other,’ subjected to legal, social, and political discrimination.”
By Gary Gerofsky
With Iran about to produce one or more nuclear bombs; Syria in chaos with little Hitler Assad killing his own people to keep Syria in the hands of his family; Yemen about to go to Al Qaeda and tribes that would coddle terrorists; Egypt to become a Muslim Brotherhood mega state more interested in war than peace; “Fatas” (the Fatah-Hamas alliance) waiting for Obama to deliver them their “contiguous” state at Israel’s expense and without any preconditions; a nuclear Pakistan controlled by Taliban-ISI* command; Lebanon virtually in the hands of Iran’s Hezbollah; Iraq breaking up with major portions going to Iran; and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states wanting to become nuclear to go on the offensive against Iran or Israel or both, I suggest that the world get behind Israel in a big way before it is too late. (*The ISI — Inter-Services Intelligence — is Pakistan’s national intelligence service.)
By Fern Sidman
Fashionable Fifth Avenue in New York City was transformed into a sea of blue and white on Sunday, June 5th, as tens of thousands participated in the annual “Celebrate Israel” parade, while hundreds of thousands of onlookers cheered on the litany of synagogues, schools and organizations that participated in the jubilant march. Reports indicate that the attendance was the largest in its 47-year history.
By Fern Sidman
On Friday morning, June 3rd, several dozen people gathered across the street from the Jacob Javits Center on Manhattan’s west side to voice their outrage and indignation over the decision of the board of trustees of the City University of New York to grant an honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner. The site was selected as it was the venue of the commencement ceremonies for the 2011 class of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice; the same CUNY school that saw fit to bestow the honorary degree to the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright for his literary accomplishments.
Did you know that Jews and Muslims have a shared history in Europe? That Muslims have “deep roots” on the European continent and that Muslims are as imperiled by “Islamophobia” as Jews are by anti-Semitism?
Nothing could be further from the truth, and yet the first Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish Leaders issued a statement on May 9th and just held a meeting in Brussels on May 30, 2011. Oddly enough, the meeting was organized by two American Jewish groups, Rabbi Marc Schneier’s Foundation For Ethnic Understanding and philanthropist Ronald Lauder’s World Jewish Congress, as well as by the European Jewish Congress.
By Fern Sidman
Helen Freedman, executive director of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI), has announced that their upcoming semi-annual “Chizuk” mission to Israel will be dedicated to the memory of their beloved chairman Herbert Zweibon, Z’L who passed away in January of 2011. The tour will run from May 29th through June 7th.
By Gary Gerofsky
What surprised me more about President Obama’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than its content was the way the audience fawned all over him and clapped at his every platitude. It was like a meeting of the Soviet Politburo in the 1960’s. He reiterated his views on shrinking Israel (with land swaps but he knows that Israel has no significant amount of land to swap). America, he assured us, will be at Israel’s side during this entire process to hold her hand as she gets used to the inconvenient truth, based in Marxist ideology, that the proletariat (the Palestinians) need more room to expand at the expense of the successful bourgeoisie Israelis. Building a new country not based on Western standards and without asking it to stop its annihilationist charters and Islamist conquest is fine with the Obami. Israel is being asked to turn over the keys to people who have in mind its future destruction.
By Fern Sidman
On Wednesday evening June 1st, American Friends of Ateret Cohanim/Jerusalem Chai will celebrate Yom Yerushalayim (jerusalem Day) at their 32nd annual dinner at Terrace On The Park in Queens. This year outstanding individuals who have dedicated themselves to the re-building of a Jewish presence in the Old City of Jerusalem will be accorded honors as will those known as “Jerusalem’s Heroes”; the intrepid residents of the Old City, Kidmat Zion, Maalei HaZeitim and the Yemenite Village, without whom none of this could be possible.
By Gary Gerofsky
When I got involved in activism (around the time of the events of 9/11), my efforts included a bit of writing and some reading on topics I had previously only a cursory knowledge. At the time, I had never anticipated to be confronted and tripped up by people who I assumed to be on “our” side. My assumptions were soon burst when I began to observe and understand that the “new” left-wing of mainstream Jewish groups were: a) more interested in suppressing anyone who was slightly to their right (especially on the question of Israel) than in dealing with hate from jihadists, defending Israel or working against the campus threats; b) focused like a laser on control over the agenda and keeping certain people in power forever as primary objectives; and c) craving recognition and praise from the general community for a dialogue advertising inclusivity but in actuality excluding a whole lot of people and appealing to those with a proven record of hated towards the Jewish community.
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