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antisemitism

Israel’s Blue and White party and its minister for Diaspora Affairs, Omer Yankelevich, are supporting a new bill in favor of the radically misconceived idea that Israel should give a formal voice to Diaspora Jews regarding decisions that could affect Jews abroad. Israel is a sovereign state and should not share any part of its decision-making, however small, with Jews abroad. If the bill is passed, it is highly likely that Israel will find itself giving a voice to Jews who are outspoken opponents of its policies.
For about 20 years, the EU has been largely inactive, incompetent, negligent, and at times even evil in the battle against antisemitism. During that period, Jew- and Israel hatred has greatly increased in the EU. The EU Commission has announced that in 2021 it will present a comprehensive strategy on combating antisemitism. No such strategy can succeed without a detailed explication of the lengthy history of antisemitism in Europe. If the strategy does not explicitly admit that antisemitism is integral to European culture, it will fail. 
The extremely negative report of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on antisemitism in the UK Labour Party was published on October 29. The party’s former chairman, Jeremy Corbyn, criticized it, saying allegations of antisemitism had been dramatically overstated for political reasons. He was thereupon suspended as a party member. Since then he has been reinstated, but party chairman Sir Keir Starmer has refused to take him back in the Labour parliamentary faction. Corbyn thus continues to sit in the House of Commons as an independent MP.
In the final days before the American presidential election, sources inside the Trump government indicated that the administration might declare three major human rights organizations—Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Oxfam—antisemitic. These organizations practice what might be called “do-gooder” antisemitism, a widespread yet rarely mentioned form of this hatred. The prime operator of do-gooder antisemitism is the United Nations.
From a Jewish and Israeli point of view, there are two main issues to look at when analyzing the activities of American Jewish billionaire George Soros. The first are his damaging statements and actions against Jews and Israel, and the second are antisemitic attacks on Soros himself. For Jews, the problems that arise around these issues require fine tuning of their reactions to Soros’s statements and actions.
Israel has largely ignored the war of words against it. This includes malicious terms such as “apartheid” and ”occupation,” as well as anti-Israel phrases like “land for peace” and “two-state solution.” The UN’s falsely calling descendants of Palestinians who fled during the 1948 war “refugees” is another example. Well before any new negotiations take place with the Palestinians, the issue of Palestinian incitement as part of their cult of the glorification of genocide and death should be put on the international agenda.
For decades, there has been a steady stream of complaints about the BBC’s anti-Israel bias. Yet other than criticize the BBC publicly, there was little anyone could do. That may have changed. In June 2020, Tim Davie became the BBC’s new director general. He wants to make the BBC’s reporting impartial. This would be a good occasion for the publication of the secret 2004 Malcolm Balen report about BBC reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Historians covering the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 tend to focus on the strategic and regional ramifications deriving from the unexpected victory of the Japanese. Less attention is paid to the motives behind Japan’s decision to launch a surprise attack on Russia. An article written in 1935 by Israeli historian Prof. Joseph Klausner may solve this mystery. Based upon the testimony of a Japanese intelligence agent, the article points to the 1903 Kishinev pogrom as the decisive factor that led the Japanese to initiate war with Russia. 
In a recent public letter permeated with distortions published in The New York Times, 600 Jewish signatory organizations identified themselves with Black Lives Matter (BLM). This decentralized movement was founded by Marxists and had in its original platform expressions of extreme anti-Israel incitement. BLM is a racist, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic movement that should be exposed as such and fought. It intends nothing good for Jews or Israel, regardless how many Jews proclaim their allegiance to it.

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