52 No. 72 JUSTICE critical of Israel, Van Hollen has embraced the genocidewar crimes tone of some colleagues further to his left: “Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food.… that is a war crime – it is a textbook war crime. That makes those who orchestrate it war criminals. So now the question is, what will the United States do?”26 What to Do About these Allegations No doubt, the explosive and expansive nature of social media and the internet have aided and abetted those political figures who traffic in the tropes, innuendo and blood libels that have produced this storm of hatred toward Israel and its supporters. Someone like Ocasio-Cortez, who has called Netanyahu a war criminal, has a social media following in the millions. Presumably most of her followers have a limited, if any, contextual knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian issue; if you repeat a lie long enough, it will over time be construed as true. Part of that lack of context is a misunderstanding of the intrinsic connection between Zionism and the Jewish people. That said, those who are leading the “Israel is perpetrating genocide” campaign in American and European cities, know this full well. When a pro-Hamas demonstrator inside a New York City subway car demands to know which passengers are Zionists – which recently happened – one doesn’t need the IHRA definition to understand that the man was overtly antisemitic. There are only about 15 million Jews in the world, so any attempt to respond to the hatred must, out of necessity, be assisted by friends and allies. Since October 7, many have risen to the occasion. Several members of Congress have been outspoken defenders of Israel’s defensive war in Gaza and deplore all manifestations of antisemitism that have arisen in the wake of the war. Mainstream newspapers and broadcast media outlets have largely been hyper-critical of Israel, but there are some important journalists (mainly at the Wall Street Journal) and others, like Douglas Murray, who have been consistently friendly. Some influential military analysts, like Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.) of the Institute for the Study of War, and John Spencer, who heads the Urban Warfare Studies program at West Point, have been there from the beginning, offering insightful commentary of Israel’s prosecution of the war and of the ongoing threats to the region by Iran and its proxies. There are some Christian religious leaders who speak out regularly in defense of Israel and against the explosion of antisemitism. And there are some A-list celebrities, Jewish and non-Jewish, who in courageously speaking out on these issues have 26. Marc Rod, “Van Hollen accuses Israel of ‘war crime,’ says U.S. aid should be suspended,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, JEWISH INSIDER, Feb. 13, 2024, available at https://jewishinsider.com/2024/02/chris-van-hollen-gazaaid-israel-war-crime-food-hamas/ run the risk, in the woke environment in which we live, of being cancelled. In another era, we might not have had access to the range of foreign diplomats to make our case. But today, the public diplomacy carried out by a few Jewish organizations at the United Nations, the European Parliament, the Organization of American States and at embassies in dozens of countries, allow us to speak truth to power regarding the big lies and blood libels tossed daily at Israel and the Jewish community. Does this change votes at the UN General Assembly? Not necessarily. There is no substitute, though, for going toe-to-toe with policymakers and those who carry out those policies that impact Israel and the Jewish community. And then, there is academia. The upheavals on American college campuses, resulting in “encampments” of pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas demonstrators and the bullying, intimidation and physical harm against Jewish students, presents us with another challenge: we need to work with boards of trustees, college administrators and friendly faculty to reverse the damage done this year on campus after campus. We will need to press for more courses on the Holocaust, and on the history of Israel and Zionism – taught by faculty who are not out to make biased ideological points with their students and colleagues. “Zionist free zones” in these places conjure up sinister analogies to the 1930s. Supporting hearings in Congress that dive deep into the funding and organizational wherewithal behind these disruptive and lawless challenges to the freedom to learn, must be supported. It cannot be tolerated that Jewish students must shun some schools because they will be made to feel insecure and the object of antisemitic intimidation. Finally, there is “the vote.” Much has been made this year about the Arab demographic in Michigan, where, in a tight presidential race, votes in that community were seen to be essential. Over 5.5 million Jews in the United States live and vote in a number of key “battleground” and other politically vital states including Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Texas, not to mention New York, Florida and California.
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