Quacking like a Duck – Is Anti-Zionism really Antisemitism?

It’s been a few days since the ceasefire and the political pundits are weighing in on their ridiculous score-cards: did Hamas or Israel “win”? Will Bibi come out of this stronger or weaker? What about Qatar, Obama and ISIS?  It’s making my head spin.  The truth is that no one knows.  As I have written before, our conflict with extreme Islam is a “long game” with many ups and downs. A good friend and avid reader of my blog, Dr. Anthony Luder, who is much smarter guy than me, was able to sum up the results pretty well without engaging in crystal ball-ism:

This is not a knock-out, but a victory on points.
1. Hamas split: the leadership in Gaza has caved into Egyptian pressure and defied the sullen Mashaal and Haniyah, who is left to sip cocktails in the bar while his grandiose boasts evaporate. Hamas shown to be liars and bluffers to the whole world.
2. No release of Hamas terrorists, no port no airport at this point
3. Hamas strategy completely defeated – no more (or very few) tunnels, no airport shutdown, rockets useless. Next time we will have better answers to both + an answer for the primitive but deadly short range mortar.
4. No kidnapped soldiers
5. Loss of hundreds of men and many top leaders
6. Forced to admit they killed the three boys in June
7. Israeli intelligence reigns supreme
8. Europe shows early signs that it is waking up to the Moslem monster in its midst

However 2 big strategic losses:
1. Hamas lives
2. Abbas given a boost for his lawfare antics

Israel makes 3 clear strategic gains:
1. Solid ally in Egypt
2. Turkey and Qatar sidelined
3. Iranian ally bested. Hezbollah is watching 

One strategic result: (I won’t say gain) Kerry and Obama made to look completely irrelevant, ignorant, stupid, naive and impotent.

Was it worth 69 deaths, the wounded and disruption to life for 59 days?
Should we have wiped out Gaza?
Did Netanyahu and Allon do a good job?

And this is where it stands. Yes, we won and most Israel’s believe, in spite of the polls, that the leadership was responsible and clearheaded.  Even with the mistakes.

One thing is also clear and it relates again to a very disturbing aspect of Arab society.  Why it seems necessary for Arab and Muslim leaders to lie to their people.  It is done as an automatic response to any bad news Arab leaders do not want their people to focus on and it also appears that their constituencies expect and accept this status as village idiots.  This constant fiction offered to their people avoids introspection and self-analysis.  It does not allow their society to mature and grow. And when you contrast this to a Western society, in particular Israel, where there is an overabundance of criticism and chest-beating with an open press and free society, you can see how much stronger we are than our Arab neighbors.  It’s not genetics, it’s honesty.  When you are a society based upon Honor and Shame then you lie to enhance your Honor and reduce your Shame.

Just one small example. Towards the end of the last part of the war, Bibi’s job approval sank like a lead ballast from over 55% to about 35%.  This is part of the feedback loop in a healthy society.  Do you think Hamas leadership allows for such of poll?  Of course not.  And without that feedback, how do you improve? You don’t.  And the lack of honesty and feedback are the hallmarks of a dictatorial and repressive regime.

Now this leads to the obvious question as to why the Left and the media are so enamored by a society like Hamas (and the PA and Fatah for that matter since Abbas suffers from the same societal flaws) that does not display even the minimal values that the left consider so  important?  And why is the focus solely on Israel while minimizing Islamic and Arab societies and their role in this drama?

I have been looking for answers myself and I came across two recent and remarkable articles that really get to the heart of the matter.  The first is this amazing piece by a former AP reporter from Israel who describes conscious decisions on a day-to-day basis to focus on Israel and its sins while ignoring any conscious role the Palestinians have in this conflict.  I literally was at the edge of my chair reading it: AP Reporter Tells it Like it is Just a short quote to give you a flavor:

You will find nearly no real analysis of Palestinian society or ideologies, profiles of armed Palestinian groups, or investigation of Palestinian government. Palestinians are not taken seriously as agents of their own fate….Who they are and what they want is not important: The story mandates that they exist as passive victims of the party that matters….Having rehabilitated themselves against considerable odds in a minute corner of the earth, the descendants of powerless people who were pushed out of Europe and the Islamic Middle East have become what their grandparents were—the pool into which the world spits. The Jews of Israel are the screen onto which it has become socially acceptable to project the things you hate about yourself and your own country. The tool through which this psychological projection is executed is the international press.

A deeper look at this psychosis regarding Israel and Jews and how it reflects a morphing of medieval antisemitism into its current alignment of the Left with Islamists is brilliantly captured in this second prescient article Why I am a Anti Anti-Zionist – Willis. I had to check multiple times that it was written in 2003 and not last week! Ellen Willis is one of those remarkable Leftest with a clear understanding that there is something uniquely anti-Semitic  about being anti-Israel and anti-Zionist.  And regardless of whether you agree with her slight digression into male-dominated religions, she so nails the Left on their complete blindness to the absurdity of their beliefs, that this article is just a relevant as if it were written today.  Combining these two amazing pieces together we can conclude that:

1. Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism.

2. Antisemitism is about exaggerated claims of Jewish Power and Influence – regardless of whether the Jews are up or down. This is the essence of the Left’s and the media’s myopia and contorted reasoning.

3. In keeping with the “broken window” theory of social chaos (broken_windows_theory), it has become acceptable, again, to express blatantly antisemitic sentiments with or without the fig-leaf of this is about Israel and not the Jews.

4. The Left and the media are incapable to focusing on the real threats to our way of life — Islamic extremism in ALL its forms: Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Iran, Muslim Brotherhood.

I usually like to end my blogs with something uplifting.  I am always impressed when others put themselves out there to support what is right.  It’s inspiring. Muslim-works-with-Jews-to-save-Christians-in-the-Middle-East