If you read the left-leaning and much of the mainstream press it’s easy to believe the Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is the problem, or at least a big part of the problem, in the stalemated talks between Israel and the Palestinians. He is often described as “right wing” and “hard line” when nothing could be further from the truth.

Part of the reason, of course, is that he is from the Likud party. Likud is seen as the Israeli equivalent of the Republican Party by many American liberals. That is an oversimplification and is really incorrect. The Prime Minister himself corrects journalists, steadfastly referring to Likud as center-right. Israel is a multi-party system and, much unlike the Republicans, those right of center divide into a number of secular and religious parties. Prime Minister Netanyahu has committed himself to “two states for two peoples” and he is the elected leader of Likud. That position is an anathema to the truly right-wing parties, for example, National Union, which is in opposition to the current government.

This Prime Minister lost his government during his previous term when the right wing parties pulled out of the ruling coalition, including breakaway members of Likud. It wasn’t the left that brought him down; it was the right. Why? He signed the Wye River Memorandum and gave control of more land to the Palestinian Authority, including most of Hebron. I have no doubt that Prime Minister Netanyahu would do the same again if there was a real chance for peace. Right now there isn’t one.

The problem is, and always has been, the Palestinian leadership. They have had a total of three leaders since 1919: Haj Amin al-Husseini, who sided with the Nazis in World War II and wanted to bring Hitler’s final solution to Palestine, his nephew and chosen successor, Yassir Arafat, and Arafat’s hand-picked successor, Mahmoud Abbas, whose doctoral dissertation amounted to Holocaust denial. Yes, people can overcome their past. Anwar Sadat flew planes for the Nazis and led Egypt to war on Yom Kippur in 1973. Today we remember Sadat as a man who gave his life for the sake of peace. Sadly, Abbas is no Sadat. He insists on terms that he knows Israel can never meet as preconditions to negotiation, guaranteeing their failure in advance.

Look what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians in 2008: land equal in area to what Jordan and Egypt occupied prior to 1967 with land swaps to account for present demographics, a divided Jerusalem with holy sites under international control, and a symbolic, limited acceptance of some Palestinian “refugees” into Israel. It’s the most Israel probably could ever offer. The Palestinians didn’t even respond and offered no counter-proposal.

What on earth could Prime Minister Netanyahu offer that hasn’t already been offered? How is Prime Minister Netanyahu an obstacle to peace when he repeatedly says he will negotiate at any time in any place the Palestinians may choose? He’s made the same offer to Syria. The answer is simple: Prime Minister Netanyahu is not a problem except in the minds of those who always find reason to blame Israel and those who believe them.

If you read the left-leaning and much of the mainstream press it’s easy to believe the Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is the problem, or at least a big part of the problem, in the stalemated talks between Israel and the Palestinians. He is often described as “right wing” and “hard line” when nothing could be further from the truth.

Part of the reason, of course, is that he is from the Likud party. Likud is seen as the Israeli equivalent of the Republican Party by many American liberals. That is an oversimplification and is really incorrect. The Prime Minister himself corrects journalists, steadfastly referring to Likud as center-right. Israel is a multi-party system and, much unlike the Republicans, those right of center divide into a number of secular and religious parties. Prime Minister Netanyahu has committed himself to “two states for two peoples” and he is the elected leader of Likud. That position is an anathema to the truly right-wing parties, for example, National Union, which is in opposition to the current government.

This Prime Minister lost his government during his previous term when the right wing parties pulled out of the ruling coalition, including breakaway members of Likud. It wasn’t the left that brought him down; it was the right. Why? He signed the Wye River Memorandum and gave control of more land to the Palestinian Authority, including most of Hebron. I have no doubt that Prime Minister Netanyahu would do the same again if there was a real chance for peace. Right now there isn’t one.

The problem is, and always has been, the Palestinian leadership. They have had a total of three leaders since 1919: Haj Amin al-Husseini, who sided with the Nazis in World War II and wanted to bring Hitler’s final solution to Palestine, his nephew and chosen successor, Yassir Arafat, and Arafat’s hand-picked successor, Mahmoud Abbas, whose doctoral dissertation amounted to Holocaust denial. Yes, people can overcome their past. Anwar Sadat flew planes for the Nazis and led Egypt to war on Yom Kippur in 1973. Today we remember Sadat as a man who gave his life for the sake of peace. Sadly, Abbas is no Sadat. He insists on terms that he knows Israel can never meet as preconditions to negotiation, guaranteeing their failure in advance.

Look what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians in 2008: land equal in area to what Jordan and Egypt occupied prior to 1967 with land swaps to account for present demographics, a divided Jerusalem with holy sites under international control, and a symbolic, limited acceptance of some Palestinian “refugees” into Israel. It’s the most Israel probably could ever offer. The Palestinians didn’t even respond and offered no counter-proposal.

What on earth could Prime Minister Netanyahu offer that hasn’t already been offered? How is Prime Minister Netanyahu an obstacle to peace when he repeatedly says he will negotiate at any time in any place the Palestinians may choose? He’s made the same offer to Syria. The answer is simple: Prime Minister Netanyahu is not a problem except in the minds of those who always find reason to blame Israel and those who believe them.

The Center for American Progress (CAP), a prominent Washington think tank, are the folks behind the Think Progress website. Their views are both influential in and often representative of the Progressive (liberal) wing of the Democratic Party. They have always had anti-Israel writers. That’s nothing new. However, their writing has recently descended into anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism of the ugliest kind. Normally this is the sort of thing I would write off as far left and move on. What makes CAP different is that the group routinely advises the Obama administration on Middle East policy.

The statements in question are blog posts and Twitter tweets referring to American supporters of Israel as “Israel firsters”, a term which originated and until recently resided exclusively in the neo-Nazi fringe. It’s the old charge of dual loyalty or disloyalty to America leveled at American Jews since the 1920s. The term was used by Think Progress blogger Zaid Jilani according to pieces in The Washington Post, The New York Post and The Jerusalem Post.

Another example was penned by CAP’s director of Middle East Progress, Matt Duss:

“Like segregation in the American South, the siege of Gaza (and the entire Israeli occupation, for that matter) is a moral abomination that should be intolerable to anyone claiming progressive values,”

Other Think Progress writers have made statements that are equally offensive.

Is that really anti-Semitism per se? Faiz Shakir, who is editor-in-chief of the ThinkProgress.org website and a Vice President at CAP agrees that it is:

“Yes, I agree ‘Israel Firster’ is terrible, anti-Semitic language. And that’s why that language no longer exists on Zaid’s personal twitter feed, because he also knows and understands the implications.”

Despite this clear statement Progressives are still claiming that the whole issue is an attempt to smear CAP. One example, written by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com blames everything on “the predictable roster of neoconservative, hatemongering extremists…” while expounding on his own anti-Israel positions that are every bit as biased, misinformed and even repeat the popular and libelous “apartheid” charge against the Jewish state.

Who are the hatemongers Greenwald is talking about? Who made these charges? We’re talking about the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee. From The Washington Post article:

“The language is corrosive and unacceptable,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He added that the blog posts and tweets from CAP staffers “are the responsibility of the adults who run the place, not only the kids who play.”

From The Jerusalem Post and The New York Post pieces:

Speaking with the Jerusalem Post recently about CAP and Media Matters, the American Jewish Committee’s Jason Isaacson said, “Think tanks are entitled to their political viewpoints — but they’re not free to slander with impunity . . . References to Israeli ‘apartheid’ or ‘Israel-firsters’ are so false and hateful they reveal an ugly bias no serious policy center can countenance.”

These aren’t right wing groups, nor are they neocons. These are some of the most respected and influential Jewish groups in the country.

Perhaps the folks associated with CAP and their defenders, instead of lashing out at their critics, should remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, whose work we commemorated just a week ago, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.” Indeed, and many if not most American supporters of Israel, both Jewish and Christian, identify themselves as Zionists.

What makes this issue so very critical is the fact that this is the organization that advises President Obama on the Middle East. I am now genuinely worried the Obama administration’s schizophrenic policy towards Israel would turn to open hostility in a second term. I remember how President Bush was supposed to be the “best friend” Israel had in the White House and how that friendship evaporated in his second term. Those who read this blog between 2004 and 2008 will remember just how critical I was of the Bush administration.

During the 2008 campaign I blogged about my concerns about President Obama’s then foreign policy advisers. While I had endorsed John Kerry in this blog back in 2004 I could not, in good conscience, do the same for then Senator Obama. In the end Mr. Obama distanced himself from the ones that were most troubling to Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel. The President captured 78% of the Jewish vote as a result. I freely admit I voted for President Obama, mainly due to economic issues, but I had been sufficiently reassured that the new administration would not be hostile to Israel.

In order to repeat the 2008 results the President will have to repeat his actions from that campaign: distance himself from the fiercely anti-Israel and sometimes even anti-Semitic crowd at CAP. If he can’t do that then I can and will vote Republican for President for the first time since 1988. There’s an old proverb that dates back to at least the 16th century that is apropos here: “He that lies with the dogs, riseth with fleas.” If the President chooses to keep the folks from CAP as foreign policy advisers and if CAP, in turn, keeps these writers on board I have a real problem. How can I trust that the President doesn’t share some of their views or won’t come to adopt some of their anti-Israel policies? I am deeply worried about what the President is thinking about Iran, about Israel, about the Palestinians and about foreign policy in general and how things might change in 2013 if he is reelected.

I wish I could have President Obama’s social and economic policies and Speaker Newt Gingrich’s foreign policy. I can’t have both so I have to choose. So… I am definitely undecided at this point.

The Republicans and the right have been trying and failing to make Israel a right/left wedge issue for years. Now the Progressives in the Democratic party have done it for them. Is this really the path you want to go down?

When the Democratic Party is on the verge of losing someone who has voted straight Democratic Party line in every election since 1992 you know something is wrong. Mainstream Democrats had better think twice about the trend towards virulently anti-Israel positions in their Progressive wing. If the Democrats lose people like me at the time Republicans have shifted way to the right you know they are going to have problems winning elections.

[NOTE: Posted after the end of Shabbat.]

For months the American and European media reported on the so-called Arab Spring as if it was a breakthrough for democracy in the Arab world. Dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen have now been overthrown, with varying degrees of force and loss of life. The Western media acted as cheerleaders and Western leaders, including President Obama, first encouraged the overthrow of these regimes and then hailed these events as victories for freedom. Sadly, they were nothing of the sort.

Across the Arab world where elections, many of them the first free elections these countries have seen, are being won by Islamists who believe that democracy is a form of Western decadence. Assuming the Islamists come to power in some of these countries we could see the sort of one and done elections we saw in Gaza, where the winners, Hamas, promptly eliminated the democratic process that brought them to power as well as their opponents. It is very likely that the end result could be even more repressive than the dictators which have been deposed.

Somehow this hasn’t quite dawned on the press who are trying to find distinctions and differences between the various Islamist and jihadist groups who seem poised to come to power across the Middle East. The Associated Press, in reporting the results of the Egyptian elections, engaged in some truly amazing and contradictory double speak. The first few paragraphs of their article are factual. For example:

“The High Election Commission said the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party garnered 36.6 percent of the 9.7 million valid ballots cast for party lists. The Nour Party, a more hardline Islamist group, captured 24.4 percent.”

Having accurately described the parties involved the author(s) of the piece then find it necessary to tell us that, really, the Muslim Brotherhood might be moderates after all:

“The party has positioned itself as a moderate Islamist party that wants to implement Islamic law without sacrificing personal freedoms, and has said it will not seek an alliance with the more radical Nour party.”

Really? How could anyone come to that conclusion in the wake of what was said at the Brotherhood rally just before the election? The following is from The Jerusalem Post article on the rally since the American media somehow didn’t find this newsworthy:

“Muhammad Ahmed el- Tayeb, the imam of al-Azhar Mosque, told the crowd: ‘Al- Aksa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews… We shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds [Jerusalem]. We are telling Israel and Europe that we shall not allow even one stone to be moved there.’

Protesters chanted, ‘Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv: Judgment Day has come,’ and passages from the Koran vowing that ‘one day we shall kill all the Jews.’”

How is promising genocide for the Jewish people moderate? Can someone please explain that to me? Why are mainstream media outlets making excuses for these people?

John Henry, of the liberal Low Genius blog, hit the nail squarely on the head in a discussion on Facebook:

“I think that western minds have a very serious problem parsing the idea that there really are some people - ordinary people who live under these regimes - who *don’t want democracy*. We could go round for hours about why that is, but all the talk won’t address that simple issue: what do you do when a people, given the option, *choose despotism*?”

His comments referred both to the Russian elections and the recent elections in the Arab world. Here was my response to him:

“Mostly it falls into cultural differences and what these people are taught in their schools (assuming they have them), by their media, and in their houses of worship. One of the reasons American foreign policy fails in so much of the world is that we tend to look at everyone as if they are displaced Vermonters. All we have to do is show them freedom and democracy and “the American way” (whatever that is) and they will suddenly be just like us. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have operated under this illusion. The result is what we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Americans are absolutely despised and where we will likely end up with totally hostile regimes.”

Sadly the media also operates under the “displaced Vermonter” notion and wishes for events that have horrendous consequences that they can’t seem to fathom even though they should be obvious to anyone who knows the Middle East at all. I fear the end results will not only be more repressive regimes but also a destabilization of the Middle East and a bloody regional war started by an attack on Israel. An old saw seems to apply: Be careful what you wish for; it may come to pass.

Tonight at sunset is the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Observant Jews fast for 24 hours and go to services. It is meant to be a day of prayer, reflection and repentance.

There are three forms or good wishes I see around Yom Kippur every year: a wish for an easy fast, a wish for a meaningful fast, and the more religious Gmar Hatima Tov, a wish that the person receiving the greeting is inscribed in the book of life for good.

While roughly 70% of Israel’s Jewish population is categorized as secular I read this week that only 6% refrain from observances during the High Holy Days. I believe it is the same for many American and other diaspora Jews who disregard observance during most of the year. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are different.

So… if you are observing the Yom Kippur holiday this year, may it be a meaningful fast and a meaningful day for you.

This evening at sundown is the start of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.  It is also the beginning of the High Holy Days for Jewish people, 10 days of reflection and penitence.  It is the start of the year 5177, a year that is shaping up to be interesting to say the least.

New year’s resolutions are not part of the Jewish tradition but I am going to make one anyway.  In the coming year I will be reviving this blog and writing actively about Israel and Jewish issues.  If there ever was a time when we needed more pro-Israel voices, more hasbara than now, well… I haven’t seen it.  The old saw, attributed to Lenin, that a lie told enough times becomes the truth, has certainly shown itself to be true in discussions of and news coverage of Israel and the Middle East.  It is time I once again take an active role in debunking myths and discrediting lies and telling the truth about what is happening in our world.  It is long past time that Blogs of Zion once again becomes an active home for Israeli and pro-Israel voices.

I would like to take a moment to wish everyone Shana Tovah.  May the coming year be happy, healthy, prosperous and sweet for you.

Today I received an interesting response to one of my old blog posts on another website. I haven’t changed a thing so the spelling, usage and capitalization errors belongs to the anonymous author.

You people - christian and jewish zionists have decieved American and the American taxpayer to send over 150billion in aid to Israel and now they disrespect our President - your a traitor.

Very nice. This is, of course, mild, compared to some of the virulently hateful anti-Semitic comments I receive.

Since when has disagreeing with the President been considered disrespectful? I’ve always believed that a vigorous and open political debate is the hallmark of a free society. Also, since when is disagreeing with the President the equivalent of being a traitor? That may have been the case in the old Soviet Union and it may still be in Cuba today, but not in the United States.

Then let’s look at what this person had to say. Israel receives less than $3 billion a year in US aid, $2.4 billion of which is military aid, not $150 billion. President Obama’s 2010 budget calls for $2.8 billion in aid to Israel. According to the Congressional Research Service total aid to Israel, from the creation of the state in 1948 until 2007 was $101 billion. In other words, his number is from fantasy land, not the real world. He or she also neglects to mention that a large portion of aid is in the form of loan guarantees which Israel repays with interest.

What does the United States get for that aid? First there is almost completely unrestricted access to Israeli intelligence, the best there is in the Middle East. Second is the access to Israeli technology which is used extensively by the U.S. military. Third is the guaranteed availability of an entire (admittedly small) country as a base if ever the United States military wanted to use it. The U.S. also has been able to veto technology sales it doesn’t like. The Clinton administration encouraged Israeli technology sales to China, including some military technology. When President Bush decided that Israel should make no further sales the Israeli government complied despite the loss of billions in revenue.

“You people”, all us awful Jewish and Christian Zionists, are a majority of the American people, and a solid majority at that. According to recent polls 80% of Americans see Israel as an ally and nearly two thirds say they support Israel. Meanwhile President Obama’s latest approval rating is at 48% according to the latest Rasmussen Reports number. Maybe the majority of Americans are really “traitors” too.

Nobody has fooled the American people. The American people have made choices and the government has acted on them precisely because support for Israel is in the American interest. It’s a pity some people are so blinded by their prejudices that they make up numbers and throw around accusations without bothering about little things like facts.

I hope everyone reading this has a great Pesach.  For those of you who aren’t Jewish and don’t know much about the holiday, Pesach (Passover) is the celebration of the deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt as told in the biblical book of Exodus.  It’s all about freedom, something which is always worth celebrating wherever we find it.

Pesach is also about the food! Really good homemade matzo ball soup is to die for.  I’ve also have some Israeli chocolate this year and some triple dipped bittersweet chocolate covered matzoh.

I’ll be back during Hol Hamoed with more to say.  I’m sorry I haven’t been able to post as frequently as I’d like.  I’m also going to see if I can contact some of the old Blogs of Zion writers and get them to post occasionally again. With Israel under unprecedented pressure and so much misinformation out there we need more Zionist voices giving the other side of the story.

Would Muslims surrender Mecca? Should Catholics give up the Vatican? These may seem like ridiculous questions. The answer to both by any sane person would be “of course not.” Why on earth would the answer to “Would Jews ever surrender Jerusalem?” be any different? The answer is simple. It shouldn’t.

With the exception of a seven year period in the sixth century when the Persians restored Jewish sovereignty, the Jewish people were denied a homeland from 70 C.E. until 1948. During that time the Jewish people suffered pogroms, expulsions, mass murder, persecution, and assorted other forms of denial of basic human rights. Throughout that time the Jewish people prayed for one thing consistently: “Next year in Jerusalem.” It’s part of the Passover seder, the ceremonial feast, which the world’s Jewish population will celebrate in two weeks time.

Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, is a Zionist prayer in song, a prayer for a Jewish home in the land of Zion and Jerusalem. Jerusalem is stressed and is in the refrain, the only part of the anthem which is repeated. Here is a translation of the lyrics:

As long as in the heart, within,
A Jewish soul still yearns,
And onward, towards the ends of the east,
An eye still gazes toward Zion;

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

These words, taken from a poem and set to music in 1888, are the essence of Zionism. More, they are the essence of Jewish national and cultural identity.

In recent days some have said that Prime Minister Netanyahu, and indeed the nation of Israel as a whole, will eventually have to make a choice between concessions which amount to surrendering sovereignty over much of Jerusalem or the friendship between Israel and the United States. Actually, that is no choice at all. Jews simply will not surrender sovereignty over Jerusalem. Those, particularly in the United States, who argue that we should include Jews who have somehow become divorced from their traditions, culture, their very identity as Jews. If we have to say goodbye to those people and say goodbye to support from the White House then that is what we will do.

Notice that I have made this argument without even once referring to Jewish and Christian religious beliefs. Of course it is religion which makes Jerusalem holy to Jews, just as Mecca is holy to Muslims and the Vatican is holy to Catholics. These beliefs, which the majority of Americans happen to share, are also being challenged by the White House. That has never been a recipe for much political support.

During Israel’s 1948-49 War of Independence my father fought to lift the siege of Jerusalem. To him a Jewish state and the city of Jerusalem was worth fighting for. I can’t say my views are any different. Israel survived against what seemed like impossible odds without any American help then. If need be it will do so again.

Anyone who insists that Israel should offer sovereignty as a concession prior to any negotiations for peace, with nothing in return, is asking Israel to surrender. What is the point of a Jewish state if not to maintain Jewish identity and hold on to what is precious to the Jewish people? Anyone who demands such a thing is no friend of Israel or the Jewish people, even if they can claim to be Jewish by birth. Oh, and yes, that includes the Obama Administration and anyone within the administration who insists that Israel not build in Ramat Shlomo or anywhere else in our holy city and capital.

A most disturbing report by Avi Yelin for Arutz Sheva two weeks ago detailed how members of the tiny Jewish community in Malmö, Sweden’s southern city, are fleeing violent anti-Semitism. In a city with only 700 Jewish residents there were 79 crimes against Jews reported to the Malmö police last year, doubling the number reported in 2008. The article continues:

“Jewish cemeteries and synagogues have been repeatedly defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, and a chapel at another Jewish burial site in Malmö was firebombed last January”

Fredrik Sieradzki of the Jewish Community of Malmö is pessimistic about the future of his community unless there is a “complete change in attitude.” That seems unlikely in Sweden.

While various and sundry media reports claim that the U.K. has the highest level of anti-Semitism in Europe, Sweden cannot be far behind. For example, Sweden’s daily newspaper with the largest circulation, Aftonbladet, reported last August that Israel was murdering young Palestinians and harvesting their organs. The report is yet another piece of blood libel worthy of The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion. The reaction by the Swedish government, including Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, to Israeli outrage caused a serious rift in relations between the two countries. In a detailed report published last month, Mikael Tossavainen chronicles the events, the subsequent fallout, and the consequences of the Aftonbladet piece.

The diplomatic crisis is, to me, a secondary issue. Much more serious are the impact on public opinion. How many people believed the story? How many used it to further hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism in general? Just last week I reported that an anti-Semitic blogger claimed that Israel’s aid to Haiti after the earthquake last month was a ruse to allow for the harvesting of organs there. Last August Nathalie Rothschild wrote a piece for Spiked Online that started with this premise:

“An article about the IDF stealing organs suggests ancient myths are becoming acceptable again in polite society.”

That certainly seems to be the case in Sweden.

Yossi Klein Halevi, in a September article for Jewish World review makes a point that sums up the situation perfectly:

“Accusations like the Swedish blood libel aren’t just a threat to Israel’s good name, but could become a physical threat to Jews everywhere. The Israeli “crimes” raised by Aftonbladet are precisely the kind of rationale used by terrorists to incite violence against Jews. In the current atmosphere, where the most inconceivable conspiracy theories involving Jews are readily believed by millions in the Muslim world, Aftonbladet’s recklessness is, potentially, an incitement to murder.”

The problem is far more widespread than just the Muslim world. Violent anti-Semitism is becoming a worldwide epidemic.

The former Israeli ambassador to Sweden, Zvi Mazel, noted that the Aftonbladet incident is hardly unique, but rather reflects a trend across Sweden and, indeed, all of western Europe.

“In the last two decades, Israel has been indiscriminately attacked by European governments while the European press routinely distorts information coming from the Middle East. The Swedish press has been at the forefront of this trend, and with the article published last week by Aftonbladet it has clearly gone over the bend. About 80 percent of the newspapers there, especially the four national papers in Stockholm and hundreds of papers in the countryside, which set the tone in Sweden, are connected in some way to the Social Democrat movement and the trade unions, both of which are anti-Israel. There is a kind of dictatorship of the Social Democrats over the press in Sweden.

We have to face the facts. Israel cannot keep ignoring the onslaught coming from Europe, especially Western Europe and the EU countries. This demonizing of Israel is a very real threat that must be taken seriously.”

Lets look at the consequences of the demonization of Israel: Jews in Malmö now feel they must flee for their lives. Hatred of Israel is the justification for anti-Semitic attacks across Europe and the Americas as well. I have to conclude that those who routinely claim that constant criticism of Israel doesn’t equate to anti-Semitism are simply ignoring the facts and the consequences of their words.

Anti-Semitism in Europe is now reported to be at the highest level since World War II. The very people who hate Israel make it clear that now, more than ever, a safe, secure Israel is vital to the survival of the Jewish people. It remains a refuge for Jews who are reviled and persecuted the world over.