Why Are There Still Refugee Camps in Gaza?

This week, we’ve witnessed the aerial attack by Israel against a refugee camp in Gaza under which Hamas built tunnels and other facilities. I’ll leave it to another day (and some of my previous posts about Israel) to discuss the use of refugee camps (and hospitals, schools, mosques, and other civilian infrastructure, not to mention the civilians themselves) by Hamas as shields for Hamas members and ammunition caches and whether it is legal and/or appropriate (morally and/or strategically) for Israel to target a refugee camp (or civilian infrastructure) in order to kill the leaders of Hamas or reduce the group’s fighting effectiveness (but see some of my previous posts on Gaza and proportionate response, such as What Is a "Proportionate Response" to Terror? (Repost), A Few Random Thoughts About Gaza, and Again, I Ask: How Should Israel Respond ).

Instead, I want to take a little time to think about a different question: Why, in 2023, are there still refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, and Lebanon? For today’s post, I’ll largely limit the discussion to Gaza (for obvious reasons).

The Israeli airstrikes targeted the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern part of Gaza. According to page 81 of the Preliminary Results of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census 2017 (a report prepared by Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics [under the heading “State of Palestine”]; I’ll leave it to each reader to determine the extent to which they trust statistics put forth by Palestinian authorities), the population of the Jabalya refugee camp in 2017, was 49,462. The camp should not be confused with the adjacent, much larger town, bearing the same name. The Jabalya refugee camp was established by the United Nations in 1948 following Israel’s War of Independence (or the 1948 Arab-Israeli War depending on your preferred terminology). At the end of the War, Gaza was controlled by Egypt and the camp was created by the newly established United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to provide shelter for Palestinians who had left what was now Israel. Again, the question of who qualifies as a refugee and just how many refugees there were following the War (overall estimates [i.e., not just refugees who sought shelter in Gaza] tend to range between 600,000 – 800,000, but there is a lot of nuance to and disagreement about those numbers) are discussions for another post. Let’s just agree that in 1948 a large number of people sought shelter and support in the newly established Jabalya refugee camp which was operated in the UNRWA in territory controlled by Egypt. I don’t think any portion of that statement should be controversial.

At almost the exact same time, India was being partitioned (also from British controlled territory and also administered, at least in part, by the United Nations). In the process of partitioning India, it is estimated that somewhere between 14 and 18 million people migrated (not all willingly) between the newly created nations. Refugee camps were established in India, Pakistan, and elsewhere to house this mass migration. Yet today, while tens of thousands of people still live in the Jabalya refugee camp, as far as I’ve been able to determine, none of the refugee camps established to deal with refugees following the Indian partition still exist. Oh, yes, there are refugee camps in Pakistan (for refugees from Afghanistan) and India (mostly housing Rohingya refugees), but not for refugees from the 1947 partition and its aftermath. Those refugee populations were incorporated into the population of the countries in which the refugees took shelter. The same can be said about virtually every other conflict between 1947 and the present day. Refugees often begin in refugee camps administered by the United Nations (but not by the same UN agency that administers Palestinian refugee camps) but are then resettled or absorbed into the population of the country in which they sought shelter.

But not in Gaza (or the West Bank). The refugees in the Jabalya camp were not incorporated into the Egyptian population, even though Egypt controlled Gaza. Nor was much of an effort made to create a permanent status for those refugees. Instead, they continued to live in a refugee camp as refugees, as did their children and the generations that followed (that descendants of refugees are considered, themselves, to be refugees, is the rule only with regard to Palestinians; no other descendants of refugees from any other conflict continue to be classified as “refugees”). In 1967, following the Six Day Way, Gaza fell under Israel’s control. However, unlike other areas (like East Jerusalem and the Golan), Israel did not annex Gaza. So, I suppose, the question might be why Israel didn’t try to build a more permanent form of shelter and housing to replace Jabalya during the period from 1967 through 1993 when Israel ceded local administrative control in Gaza to the Palestinian authority. And I suppose that’s a fair question. Though because Gaza was not annexed into Israel, there was no duty incumbent on Israel to incorporate the population of Gaza, refugee or otherwise, into the general population of Israel. But one might also inquire why UNRWA – which operated the camp (and still does) – didn’t do more to move the residents of the camp into a more stable and permanent situation. The same query should be applied to Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan. And query what, if any, success Israel might have had in efforts to “resettle” Palestinians in Gaza, had it tried. Of course, the next question is why the Palestinian Authority from and after 1993 didn’t do anything to close the refugee camp and why Hamas has continued that inaction since taking over control of Gaza in 2009. From 1948 – 1967 and then from 1993 to today, Palestinian “refugees” have continued to live in refugee camps notwithstanding that those camps are in an area governed by either an Arab country or a Palestinian governing body.

It’s worth noting that following the 1948 War, there was also enormous movement of Jews from throughout the Arab world and North Africa to Israel. Similarly, beginning in the 1980s, there have been mass migrations of Jews to Israel from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union, many of whom had to flee from their homelands due to violence or other forms of persecution. Yet none of those hundreds of thousands (or more) of people still live in refugee camps in Israel.

Countries throughout the world, including the United States (which is the largest single donor country) provide literally billions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians. And yet tens of thousands of people still live in refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank. Could it be that the Palestinians chose to use the money either for weapons (Hamas) or other corrupt purposes (the Palestinian Authority)? Note that it is estimated that when in he died in 2004, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat had a net worth of over a billion dollars! Hmm. Where did that money all come from and what was it supposed to be used for?

Rather than use donor funds for their intended purposes, Arafat regularly diverted money to his own accounts. It is amazing that some U.S. officials still see the Palestinian Authority as a partner even after U.S. congressional records revealed authenticated PLO papers signed by Arafat in which he instructed his staff to divert donors’ money to projects benefiting himself, his family, and his associates.

Arafat's Swiss Bank Account. Current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is estimated to have a net worth in excess of one hundred million dollars. According to Israel: “Hamas leaders net worth: Abu Marzuk $3 billion [¶] Khaled Mashal $4 billion [¶] Ismail Haniyet $4 billion [¶] Hamas' annual turnover $1 billion.” And note that none of those Hamas leaders live in Gaza. How many houses (even with bomb shelters!), how much clean water, how much infrastructure, could have been built in Gaza with those billions? Keep in mind that just a few days ago, a Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official told Russia Today that “We have built the tunnels to protect ourselves from getting targeted and killed. These are meant to protect us from the airplanes” and that “It is the responsibility of the UN to provide [the Palestinians] with all the services as long as they are under occupation.” In other words, it is not the responsibility of Hamas to care for the people it governs or to use the money that it receives for their benefit.

I wonder. Is it possible that the leaders of Hamas (and the Palestinian Authority before them) don’t really care about the well-being of the Palestinian people, at least not to the extent that doing so would prevent them from lining their own pockets (or buying more rockets)? More importantly, is it possible that from a political or realpolitik perspective, there is a sort of perverse value in having Palestinians continue living in refugee camps? Just think of the visceral reaction that you probably had when you heard that Israel had bombed a refugee camp; somehow, that sounds so much worse that bombing a town, doesn’t it? Query further the attitudes and anger (or despair) that one can and should expect from people who have been living in refugee camps (along with several generations of ancestors) for seventy-five years at least in large part because their own leaders pocketed the money and made no effort to help them. It’s likely to breed a sort of resentment and anger that is easily targeted by those same corrupt leaders toward an external enemy instead of, perhaps, at those in leadership positions who have apparently chosen to keep those people in refugee camps.

One other point worth noting (though somewhat off-topic) for those who claim that Israel’s actions amount to a genocide against Palestinians. According to the Preliminary Results report referenced above, the Palestinian population has not been showing the sort of decline that might be expected were ethnic cleansing, let alone a genocide, occurring. According to page 11 of that report, the total population of the West Bank and Gaza increased over sixty-five percent (65%) in just twenty years!

Year	Population	% Increase	Cumulative % Increase
1997	2,895,683	–	–
2007	3,767,549	30.11%	–
2017	4,780,978	26.9%	65.11%

The current international definition of genocide (from the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) provides that “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” (Emphasis added.) Now, consider Israel’s actions largely designed to protect its own population (approximately 20% of which are Muslim and Christian Palestinians) taking note, in particular, of the increase in the growth of the Palestinian population, and ask yourself whether Israel’s actions really constitute genocide. Has Israel really been acting “with intent to destroy … a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”? By contrast, consider the actions (and statements in support of those actions) of Hamas, which include trying to murder the populations of entire kibbutzim and towns which is, itself, in furtherance of the stated goal of not only eliminating Israel but also of killing Jews. Who, then, is actually committing genocide?

Next time you hear people marching, Palestinians flags waving above their heads, to the chant of “From the river, to the sea, Palestine will be free,” think about how anybody could chant that they want a genocide and how any of us (or our institutions, like universities) could tolerate chants demanding a genocide.

Reflections on Yet Another War Between Israel and Hamas

This blog has been on hiatus for several years (for reasons that I’ll one day discuss in more depth), but the current situation in Israel has motivated me to lift my head out of my burrow, at least for the moment. I don’t want to rehash (or completely rehash…) the many ideas that I’ve talked about, often at length, between 2008 and 2017. Look up the Israel and Anti-Semitism labels on this blog and you’ll find plenty of articles, many of which remain sadly relevant today. (Note that in recent years, I’ve begun using the more modern “antisemitism” in place of the hyphenated “anti-Semitism” but that label has been in use for a long time.) However, there are a few thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head over the last few days and this blog seems to be the perfect outlet.

Before I continue, I want to make it clear that I think it is possible to support Israel and the right of Palestinians to live in peace, with dignity, and the right to self-determination. These are not competing views. I believe in that a two-state solution is the only viable solution, but that it will take a lot of work – by both parties – to find the courage, common ground, and trust to make that happen.

Justification

First, one of the recurring themes that I’ve heard from those who oppose Israel and/or support the Palestinians generally or Hamas in particular is that Hamas’ actions are justified because Israel is an occupying colonial power that has been waging war on the indigenous people of the region (or some variation on that theme). This view (let’s call it the “Historical Justification” worldview) has several serious flaws (some of which I’ve addressed in the past), but I’m not going to use this time to rehash history or the reality of who Israelis are (with the exception of a brief discussion of the point, below) or whether the Arab inhabitants are “more” indigenous than the Jewish population (made up of European Jews, Arab Jews, Persian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and Jews from many other ethnic backgrounds). Rather, I want to look at the hypocrisy of those who take espouse Historical Justification or what that position might really mean if equitably applied. So, solely for the sake of argument, let’s presume that Historical Justification is correct and agree arguendo that Israel is an occupying colonial power, that Israel has “waged war” on the Palestinians and in so doing has deprived them of self-determination and the ability to live share the same human rights as others (though it may be worth asking whether the human rights Palestinians desire – and are absolutely entitled to – are extended to the populations of other Arab and Muslim countries…). Again, I’m agreeing to the Historical Justification worldview solely for the purpose of argument and discussion.

I presume (perhaps incorrectly) that those who do advocate Historical Justification do so in good faith and would agree that a similar framework for Historical Justification should apply not only to Palestinians but also to other groups who are “oppressed” by “occupying colonial powers”. Thus, I take it, that those who condone the actions of Hamas because of Historical Justification would also condone Native Americans bombing busses in Minneapolis, firing rockets at Tulsa, and kidnapping babies from Phoenix, right? No? Please explain, with specificity, what is worse about the Palestinian situation than the Native American experience (from colonization to conquest to genocide to reservations and residence schools to loss of language to forced sterilization to broken treaties and on and on and on…) and then tell me why Palestinian use of force against a civilian population is acceptable but Native American use of force against America (or Canada) is not. When you’ve completed that assignment, please take a step back and apply the same rationale to other ethnic, cultural, or religious groups all across the globe who believe that they are oppressed or lacking in self-determination. Aboriginal Australians? Basque and Catalan people in Spain? Tibetans? Muslims in India or China? I’ll wait. And before you answer with something like “because Israel drops bombs on Palestinians” or builds a security fence, query whether violence directed towards Israel and Israelis plays any role in that aspect of Israel’s conduct.

Proportionality

I’ve written extensively in the past about the idea of a “proportionate response” and what exactly that means (for example, see What Is a “Proportionate Response” to Terror? (Repost) and Again, I Ask: How Should Israel Respond). Feel free to go back and look at those posts again and then consider how the idea of proportionality applies to the current situation. What is the proportionate response to an armed incursion that was directed at a civilian population and to whom apparently no quarter was given. Tossing grenades into bomb shelters? Check. Dismembering babies? Check. [Note: I recognize at the time of writing that there is some question as whether babies were actually dismembered or just burned and shot from point-blank range.] Kidnapping women and children and elderly Holocaust survivors? Check, check, and check. Taking refuge, hiding munitions, and then firing rockets from heavily populated areas where civilians have no choice but to act as human shields? Again, check. So, again I ask, how should Israel respond and what is the proportionate response? Should Hamas essentially benefit from hiding in and acting from heavily-populated civilian areas? Should Hamas benefit from hiding weapons in schools, from firing rockets from schools, from digging tunnels under schools? If so, what will stop this from happening again and again and again. Is Israel supposed to just shrug its collective shoulders and so, “Oh, well, nothing we can do other than build better bomb shelters or flee from our homes and return to Ukraine and Iran?” and then just await the next barrage of rockets, paragliders, and suicidal jihadis? Try telling that to the parents whose children were dismembered, to the husbands and wives whose spouses are currently being held somewhere in Gaza, to the residents of villages and kibbutzim that no longer exist. Or is Israel free to take such military action as may be necessary to once and for all eliminate Hamas as an effective fighting force?

After writing the initial draft of the preceding paragraph (news keeps happening…), I came across a quotation from Israel’s President Isaac Herzog who spoke about proportionality during a press briefing:

Herzog also got visibly agitated when responding to a similar question at the same briefing. Matt Frei, from UK broadcaster Channel 4, asked the Israeli president whether Israel is holding ordinary Palestinians in Gaza responsible for not removing Hamas. “With all due respect, if you have a missile in your goddamn kitchen, and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself?” Herzog retorted. “That’s the situation. These missiles are there. These missiles are launched, the button is pressed, the missile comes up from a kitchen onto my children,” he continued.

(Israel’s president says it is abiding by international law, when asked by CNN about war crime accusations, internal paragraph breaks omitted; story apparently no longer available because it was part of a running “live” news ticker. The quotation can be found elsewhere.)

Agency

I find it troubling that while everyone feels bad for the innocent in Gaza (as we should), there is no assignment of agency to any of the population of Gaza for any acts committed in the name of Islam, the Palestinians, or Gazans, as if that population plays no role whatsoever in Hamas’ actions, strength, or role within Gaza. Contrast, for example, how Jews – even across the globe (not just Israelis) are blamed for the actions taken by Israel.

Do Gazan mothers encourage their sons to join Hamas and praise them when they do join Hamas or do those mothers try to convince their sons to stay away from Hamas and find productive ways to work toward peace? Do international organizations staffed by Gazans (UNRWA among others) take affirmative actions – including telling their parent organizations – about Hamas weapons caches in or around their facilities or do they keep their mouths closed (see further discussion on this below)? Do Gazans push for Hamas, as the de facto ruling power, to build bomb shelters and other infrastructure to improve life in Gaza or do they just look the other way when Hamas uses donor funds to buy weapons, dig tunnels, and leave the civilian population in squalor? Do Gazans spend their days training for war or working to improve their own living conditions and infrastructure? Why hasn’t Hamas built its own water desalinization plant? Do Gazans march in the streets to demand more freedom from Hamas, to have elections, to engage in dialogue with Israel or do they sit by and allow Gaza to be run by a terrorist organization and willingly allow themselves to be used as human shields each time Hamas elects to open new hostilities? Do Gazans not aligned with Hamas and/or who want to live in a better environment, perhaps with peace as a realistic hope, have any obligation to make even minimal efforts to bring those ideas to fruition? Think about it: The people of Gaza are willing send their children off to die in order to “free Palestine” from “Zionist control”. They’re willing to die to kill Jews. They are willing to die to free Palestine but don’t seem willing to die to free Gaza from Hamas.

When Israel told Palestinians in northern Gaza to relocated to southern Gaza (where there is a fair amount of open space and farmland), even dropping leaflets telling Palestinians where to go and where not to be, did Hamas arrange for an evacuation of its citizens out of Gaza City? Of course not. Instead, Hamas told the people of Gaza City not to follow the Israeli instructions; Hamas told people to stay in Gaza City. Why do you suppose Hamas would rather that people stay in Gaza City rather than relocate to southern Gaza? Hmm. Could it be that the goal is to make it harder for Israel to target terrorist infrastructure, weapons caches, rocket launch sites? Could it be that the goal is to make it harder for Israel to engage in targeted assaults aimed at rescuing hostages? Could it be that Hamas knows the value of using the civilian as human shields? I saw a video of a woman in Gaza complaining about the Israeli airstrikes and noting that Gaza had no early warning system (air raid sirens) or bomb shelters. Why, do you suppose, Hamas has not built an early warning system or bomb shelters? Israel is castigated for inflicting “collective punishment” on the Palestinians of Gaza yet no similar castigation seems to be aimed at Hamas for using the entire population of Gaza as human shields. Collective punishment vs. collective sacrifice?

Language

Another thing that has been forefront on my mind is the language that has been used to describe aspects of the current conflict. As you listen to or read about what’s happening, pay attention to the vocabulary both used and unsaid. For example, are the members of Hamas who shot concert-goers at point-blank range, who dismembered babies (or at least burned and shot them at close range), who threw grenades into bomb shelters, and who kidnapped women, children, and the elderly referred to as “militants” or “terrorists”? For example:

The BBC has defended its decision not to describe Hamas militants as “terrorists” in coverage of the recent attacks in Israel. UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the policy is “verging on disgraceful”. A BBC spokesperson noted it was a long-standing position for its reporters not to use the term themselves unless attributing it to someone else. Veteran BBC foreign correspondent John Simpson said “calling someone a terrorist means you're taking sides”. But Mr Shapps said the BBC needs to locate its “moral compass … I actually think it is verging on disgraceful, this idea that there is some sort of equivalence, and they'll always say, well there’s two sides,” he told LBC.

BBC defends policy not to call Hamas ‘terrorists’ after criticism.

I don’t know about you, but to me there is an important distinction between a militant and a terrorist (and if there wasn’t, why would the BBC have a policy on the wording?). Pay attention to which word is used and by whom. Furthermore, in all of the discussions regarding Hamas’ actions, in particular the kidnapping of Israeli (and non-Israeli!) civilians and transferring them back to Gaza, there is a great deal of contempt being expressed – appropriately so – but how often have you heard those actions actually described as “war crimes”? The Geneva Conventions specifically identifies the taking of hostages as a war crime. I’m not talking about soldiers who may be captured and who are deemed “prisoners of war” (but for whom specific protections are mandated, such as from mistreatment, yet we’ve seen video of captured Israelis being beaten by their captors or even Gazan civilians), but soldiers appear to be a small percentage of the hostages taken by Hamas. And now Hamas is threatening not only to kill hostages (more on that in a moment) but to even do so in the brutal manner “popularized” by ISIS and to broadcast the executions on social media. Israeli parents are being warned to keep their children off of social media for fear that their children may inadvertently see Hamas commit war crimes and show them to the world. Ask yourself why, even as Hamas’ actions are being condemned, they are not being explicitly labeled as war crimes.

Another interesting word choice that I came across comes from the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), headquartered in a suburb of Indianapolis. ISNA published a letter on Twitter (sorry, but I refuse to call it X), but oddly not on its website, that largely blames Israel for the violence and demands that the United States stop its “one-sided and unconditional support for Israel.” No great surprise there. The parts of the letter that I found interesting were the opening where ISNA expresses deep sadness for the “recent outbreak of war and violence in the Holy Land and Gaza” before going on to express solidarity with their “brothers and sisters in Palestine” and conclusion where ISNA calls on “all parties and governments around the world to exert pressure on Israel to cease its violence and war on the Palestinian people.” It’s not surprising that ISNA puts all of the blame on Israel. But, at least according to ISNA, Hamas didn’t attack Israel and Israeli citizens. Nope. Instead, in ISNA’s worldview (and you’ll see this sort of language frequently), there was simply an “outbreak” of war. You know, everyone was sitting around having a lazy Saturday morning when suddenly, out of nowhere, war and violence just broke out, the same way a thunderstorm or an earthquake might. In ISNA’s worldview, no blame is assigned to Hamas for actually – well, anything. Israel is to blame for all sorts of wrongs and because of those wrongs, war and violence just … happened. Note further where ISNA thinks that the war broke out. Yes, in Gaza, but not in Israel; rather, according to ISNA war broke out in the “Holy Land”. Apparently, ISNA can’t bring itself to acknowledge that the land on the other side of the Gazan border belongs to Israel and was included as a part of Israel as far back as the UN Partition Plan in 1947. Which of course begs the question when ISNA states that it expresses solidarity with its “brothers and sisters in Palestine”. What, precisely, does ISNA mean when it says “in Palestine”? Is ISNA expressing solidarity only with its Muslim brothers and sisters in Gaza and the West Bank? Or is it also expressing solidarity with Muslims (what about Arab Christians?) who live in Israel and are Israeli citizens? Are they included or excluded from that expression of solidarity with those “in Palestine”? If they’re included, that would appear to suggest that ISNA is denying the very existence of Israel. Now, consider this while remembering that the Hamas emblem depicts all of “Palestine” rather than the region divided into two states: Israel and Palestine.

Oh, and the swords just scream “peace” don’t they?

Threats

Do you think that any mosques or Islamic centers in America are worried that they might be attacked by angry Jews? Are supporters of Hamas or the Palestinians worried that they’ll be attacked by a mob of Jews as they walk down the street or take their children to school? Yet virtually every Jewish installation across the country has had to increase security (and security at Jewish facilities has already been dramatically increased after all of the attacks perpetrated in recent years including the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh and the 2022 hostage-taking at a synagogue near Dallas by a Muslim man). Once again, to quote Arsenio Hall, “things that make you go hmmm.” And just a few hours ago, fear began to spread online after the former head of Hamas appeared to call for – well, it’s unclear exactly what he called for and whether it’s limited to the Middle East or across the world. But many are interpreting his statements as a call for terrorism or violent demonstrations. Can you imagine if the head of a Jewish organization called on Jews to attack mosques? No. You can’t. Because it doesn’t happen. But my daughter did call to ask me if she was safe in the large American city where she now resides.

Threats and Warnings

Beyond kidnapping civilians and taking them across the border back to Gaza, “The spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obeida, said the group would execute a civilian hostage every time an airstrike hit Gazans ‘in their homes without warning.’” Israel Orders ‘Complete Siege’ of Gaza and Hamas Threatens to Kill Hostages. Did you notice anything interesting or unusual about that threat? Hamas didn’t threaten to execute a hostage for each airstrike; rather, the threat was limited to airstrikes that hit Gazans “in their homes without warning”. A few things. First, does Hamas give warnings to Israelis before rockets rain down? I believe that the general warning to civilians in Ashkelon a few days ago was a first. Did Hamas warn people at the open air festival or having breakfast in their homes on the kibbutzim? And, I suppose, you could read that threat as explicitly exempting Israeli airstrikes that either: (a) don’t hit homes; or (b) for which a warning is provided. Right? Remember as I’ve discussed previously, in the past Israel has directly warned occupants of buildings that are being targeted for airstrikes:

Israel often tries to warn civilians of an impending attack. Israel will often drop leaflets warning civilians to avoid a particular location because it will be targeted. And prior to targeting certain buildings, Israel has begun using a “door knock” or “roof knock” warning. Israel launches a non-explosive missile at the building to warn those who might be hanging around (or acting as human shields) that a more serious attack is imminent. Even the United Nations (not known as a friend of Israel) recognized that “In most cases, prior to the attacks, residents have been warned to leave, either via phone calls by the Israel military or by the firing of warning missiles.

Gaza

I’ve also heard repeated, almost ad nauseum, that Gaza is the “most densely populated area” in the ___ (fill in the blank; I’ve heard “region,” “Middle East,” and even “World”). Much of the reporting is likely to give the impression that Gaza is densely populated from north to south, east to west, with barely any room to breathe. However, like so much else, the truth is a bit more nuanced than that. First check out the following map of population density in Gaza:

(From Maps show the extreme population density in Gaza). Only the area in purple is densely populated (and the darker the purple, the denser the area). Another map from the same article is also instructive:

The article also includes a comparison of the density of Gaza City (the darkest purple at the northern end of Gaza) with other cities: Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, and Washington.

But why not compare Gaza City to any of the 235 (!) urban areas (from the same source) that are denser than Gaza City (including Jerusalem (!), Istanbul, Cairo, Seoul, Mexico City, Berlin, and New York City)? See db-worldua.pdf (demographia.com) (Schedule 4 beginning on page 61). But I guess providing closer comparisons or examples from within the region doesn’t lend itself to the propaganda point quite as well.

Putin

Another thing that caught my attention and made me laugh (in that sort of morbid laughter that horrible situations sometimes require):

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday urged “both” sides in the fighting between Israel and Hamas to “minimize or reduce to zero” civilian casualties. Speaking from Moscow on the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Putin suggested the lack of a two-state solution has led to the current “explosion of violence,” saying, “Israel, as we know, was created, but Palestine as an independent sovereign state was never created, it did not happen…. We understand that the bitterness on both sides is very great, but no matter what the level of bitterness on both sides is, we still need to strive to minimize or reduce to zero losses among the civilian population, among women, children and the elderly,” Putin said. “If men decided to fight among themselves, let them fight among themselves. Leave children and women alone,” he added.

Putin calls to ‘minimize or reduce to zero’ civilian casualties in expanding conflict (internal paragraph breaks omitted). This caught my attention for two reasons. First, with regard to Putin’s suggestion that women and children should be left alone and that civilian casualties should be minimized or reduced to zero, one has to wonder whether Putin: (a) has looked at the civilian casualties caused by his military’s targeting of civilians in Ukraine (estimated at 9,806 as of October 8, 2023, including 560 children [Ukraine: Civilians endure ‘unbearable’ toll amid ‘unrelenting’ attacks], (b) is aware of the continued war crimes committed by his military as they kidnap Ukrainian children and transfer them to Russia (Deportation, Treatment of Ukraine’s Children by Russian Federations Takes Centre Stage by Many Delegates at Security Council Briefing), and/or (c) is familiar with the word “hypocrite”. But perhaps more troubling is Putin’s attempt to rewrite history (or his unfamiliarity with actual history). Putin claims that “Israel … was created, but Palestine as an independent sovereign state was never created, it did not happen…”. But we have to remember that the United Nations Partition Plan created both a Jewish and Arab state. The Jews immediately accepted the plan and announced the creation of Israel. The Arabs rejected the plan and attacked. So if “Palestine … was never created,” who is to blame? I bet I can guess who most people will blame.

Black Lives Matter

I want to touch on something that may be a little more controversial, but seems important. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, American Jewry was front and center advocating for the Black community. More than six hundred Jewish groups signed and published a letter supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, just as Jews had been actively involved in the civil rights movement, including being among the founders of the NAACP and the Freedom Riders to the south in the 1960s. The bond between Jews and the Black community has a long and vibrant history. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!” Yet, even with all of that, it seems that some Black civil rights groups have become, if not fully antisemitic, at least anti-Zionist and/or supporters of the Palestinians (rather than supporters of a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution of the conflict). Now, in the wake of the recent attack by Hamas, some groups associated with Black Lives Matter appear to have amended a caveat to their view. Recall the anger when those on the right suggested that saying “Black lives matter” meant that “White lives don’t matter”? “Of course,” the Black community (and other communities of good will), answered, “all lives matter, but we’re not talking about all lives, we’re talking specifically about Black lives that don’t seem to matter to some.” Well, now it seems as if some in the Black Lives Matter community are amending that view to something more like “all lives matter … except Jewish lives.” How else to explain posts like this from a Black Lives Matter group:

Even when BLMChicago took down the post (quietly and under pressure) and then (finally) tried to walk it back, the best that they could come up with was (emojis of Palestinian flag and colors omitted):

Yesterday we sent out msgs that we aren’t proud of. We stand with Palestine & the people who will do what they must to live free. Our hearts are with, the grieving mothers, those rescuing babies from rubble, who are in danger of being wiped out completely

No condemnation of Hamas or the slaughter or kidnapping; no hope for a mutual peace. Just recognition of the plight of Palestinians and a green light for them to “do what they must to live free”. I can’t help but wonder if BLMChicago knows that the Jewish population of Israel includes about 133,000 Black Ethiopians (around 2% of the population) who were rescued from Ethiopia by Israel or that approximately 45% of Israel’s Jewish population is comprised of people of color (Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East and North Africa). So do groups like BLMChicago believe that Black lives (or the lives of people of color) in Israel don’t matter or that they matter, but just not as much as Palestinian lives?

Condemnation of Israeli civilians being slaughtered by Hamas should be the end of a sentence; it shouldn’t be followed with “but what about…” Condemning the actions of Hamas does not mean that Israel actions or responses are being condoned or that Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives.

UNWRA

One more quick point that I want to make on a subject that I kept meaning to discuss in more depth but never got around to (and which I alluded to above): UNRWA. As you follow coverage of the conflict, you’ll likely see or hear references to UNRWA (pronounced “un-ra”), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is the United Nations organization created to address Palestinian refugees after the 1948 War and administer Palestinian welfare efforts. Yes, UNRWA remains actively involved in Palestinian lives seventy-three years after it began operations in 1950. Among other functions, UNRWA operates schools in Gaza; schools where Hamas has been caught hiding and firing rockets and building tunnels and which uses textbooks that incite violence. UNWRA has also been caught employing staffers who post antisemitic messages on social media. But, perhaps, the craziest part of all of this is that UNRWA exists solely for the relief and works of Palestinians. It has no part to play with regard to Jews who became refugees after the 1948 War. More importantly, all other refugees in the world come under the auspices of the UNHCR (United National High Commission for Refugees) which has a very, very different definition for “refugee” than the definition used by UNRWA (the UNHCR definition is far narrower and doesn’t generally include descendants of a person who fled conflict). Thus, the literally millions of refugees of wars across the globe after 1948 (estimated to be as many as 35 million by Refuge Point) are subject to a far more restrictive and limited regime than the Palestinians. (If the definition of “refuge” applied to Palestinians were expanded to other conflicts, my children and I might be able to identify ourselves as refugees from Ukraine or Poland.) Yet in virtually none of those other wars are people living in refugee camps decades and decades after the cessation of principal hostilities. But in Gaza and the West Bank (and Jordan and Lebanon), refugee camps exist to this day, most administered by UNRWA. Why haven’t those people forced the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Jordanian and Lebanese governments to build the necessary infrastructure to dismantle the refugee camps or to take over providing and schooling these “refugees” in lieu of the United Nations?

And just for a note of comparison, when Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia massacred 460 – 3,500 Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, approximately 400,000 Israelis protested in Tel Aviv to demonstrate anger at the massacre and demand an investigation into Israel’s role and responsibility. And even today, Israel is still struggling with and coming to terms with those events as part of a inward-looking reflection not too dissimilar to that engaged in by Americans during and after Vietnam or now in the aftermath of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I haven’t seen Palestinians protesting to demonstrate anger at Hamas’ actions.

Conclusion

I’m sure that I’ll have many more thoughts and much more to say over the next days, weeks, and months. Whether I say it here or not remains to be seen. I will acknowledge, in advance, that some of my language in this post may not be as precise as it should be; anger and fear are emotions that can overwhelm caution and care. As always, I welcome discourse on the subject, but I’m not likely to respond favorably to those who choose simply to insult me, call me names, threaten me, and so forth. But I am very willing to engage in good faith discussions on solutions and ways to work toward peace.

My Friend Died Yesterday; Her Name Was America

It is very difficult to describe the depth of my pain and sorrow this morning. I have long thought of America as an ideal, imperfect, but always striving to be that more perfect union. A land where the petty hatreds that have torn at the fabric of humanity for millennia could finally be laid to rest as all people would be treated equally and with dignity, a land where people could choose to live according to the dictates of their faith (or lack thereof) with the respect of their neighbors, and where people of all races could mingle knowing their differing values and views, traditions and hopes, would be welcomed to the giant melting pot. Where e pluribus unum was more than just an old motto carved into monuments.

And I know that some of those who voted for Donald Trump share that ideal.

For years, beginning when I was in junior high school and continuing through the present, in one capacity or another, I have worked to help further that vision of America and to help bring about the promise of equality and an expansion of civil rights, whether with regard to religion, race, sexual orientation, or any of a host of other categories. And, since the very beginning of 2008, I’ve written this blog. I’m pretty certain that if you go back and read about the issues on which I’ve written, you’ll discover my passion for equality, dignity, and civility has been a consistent theme. I’m sure that from time-to-time, my anger or frustration, have gotten the better of me, but I’ve strived to offer people an opportunity to engage me in civil discussion over important issues, at the core of which are the rights and dignity of all Americans.

I understand that people were angry with how the system was working (or not working). I understand some people felt dislocated by the transition in the economy from manufacturing to services and tech. I understand that some people felt left out by globalization and other rapid changes in our economy. And I certainly understand that many people feel as if their voice doesn’t matter because of the influence of money and special interests in our political system. I get that. And I get that not everyone who voted for Donald Trump did so on the basis of animus for those who don’t look or think the same way that they do.

But last night, I seemed as if nearly 60 million people told me that all of the ideals that I’ve worked for, all of those ideals that I hold at the core of what our country is supposed to represent — supposed to be — didn’t matter. They told me that they don’t care about equality for the LGBT community. They told me that they don’t care about voting rights for African-Americans. They told me that they don’t care about splitting up immigrant families or the harm to undocumented immigrants for whom America is the only home they’ve ever known. They told me that they don’t care about the plight of those fleeing civil war and horrific brutality. And they told me that they don’t care that they are aligning with those who view me as a subhuman who should be led to the gas chambers with my family because I am a Jew. Excuse me, I meant to say (((Jew))).

So when I woke up this morning and reflected on the election, I had to consider something that others have told me from time-to-time: This isn't really my country. I can only wonder if some see this as only as “their country” which they have now “taken back” from “the other” while allowing those who don’t fit into the majority cohort to stay here as something … well, something less. It is a country that belongs to its white, Christian majority that has tolerated the presence of Jews, Muslims, and others, has grudgingly granted something approaching equality to people who aren’t white, and which is reluctantly grappling with the question of what to do with the fact that there are homosexuals (and transgender people) in our midst. But I now understand, more so than I have previously, that the minority communities of America are not, at least to a large swath of the population, “real Americans”.

Please understand that I'm not suggesting and don't believe that all of the people who voted for Trump are racists, anti-Semites, xenophobes, misogynists, bigots, or the like. But I am extremely troubled that those people chose to ignore or forgive those traits when they cast their vote. A vote for Trump may not, in and of itself, represent racism and its associated bigotries, but it did validate Trump’s racist views and the views of the alt-right, KKK, and the like. Those votes told Trump that his use of racism and bigotry was a winning tactic and, as such, will likely persist and increase in the American political lexicon and playbook. And it emboldened those who viewed him as giving voice to what they perceive as an embattled white (and, in particular, white Christian) America.

So after this election, how do you look at your gay cousin who must now worry that his newfound equality (still a work in process) will be stripped away, his marriage nullified, his adoption of a baby reversed? How do you look at your Muslim colleague who wants nothing more than to live in peace with his neighbors now that he knows that a huge swath of his country and his President-elect think he is a terrorist who hates America and intends violence upon us? How do you look at your Latino co-worker who worries that her mother may be deported or that she cannot serve as a judge simply because of her heritage? How do you look at your African-American acquaintance who worries that her husband or child will be shot by police for driving without a broken brake light? How do you look at your Jewish friend who heard vicious anti-Semitism from Trump supporters, such as exhortations to put America's Jews into gas chambers?

Perhaps it's because far to many of you have no gay cousins, Muslim colleagues, Latino co-workers, black acquaintances, or Jewish friends, most likely because our society has become so bifurcated and polarized and “those people” live only in the “blue” urban areas that seem foreign and alien to you. Perhaps you don't see those people as being your friends, of being real Americans, of being human and entitled to the same dignity you expect for yourself. I don’t think Donald Trump’s presidency is going to make minorities feel more a part of our society or make you think of them as being more American.

But even if you don’t really care about the gay cousin, Muslim colleague, Latino co-worker, black acquaintance, or Jewish friend, how do you look at your daughter who now knows that you can forgive the admission of sexual assault, use of terms like "pig" and "bimbo", serial philandering, and pussy grabbing? And how do you explain to your son that the things that his President brags about are unacceptable … but that you voted for him anyway?

To me, America was both my country and an ideal; an ideal that I put years and years of effort into making more perfect so that all of us could live together in peace. Last night that ideal was ripped away.

Let me conclude with the hope that I expressed nearly a year ago, when I began to see the rise of Donald Trump as a serious candidate:

It’s time to recapture the idea of America from demagogues like Trump. It’s time to recapture the idea of an America in which competing ideas can be discussed civilly and in which the notion of a melting pot, of e pluribus unum, is celebrated. It’s time to put hate and fear aside in favor of efforts to make friends across barriers and to take the time to learn about others who may be different than we are. We can disagree on policies but recognize that we are all Americans who value the concept of America. We can disagree on those policies but learn to discuss them without hate or rancor, without viewing those with whom we disagree as the enemy or intent to destroy the idea of America.

But our democracy worked as designed. A minority of voters elected a racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic, misogynistic, know-nothing, fascist.

I feel like a good friend died yesterday. Her name was America.

Let’s Look at Who Has Endorsed Donald Trump … and Then Ask Why

I started this post about 10 days ago, but time has been limited. Anyway, yesterday afternoon, I was able to listen to some of Hillary Clinton’s speech on the same issues that this post addresses. Part of me was thrilled that these issues were being discussed, but if I’m being honest, I have to admit that a small part of me was annoyed that she addressed these points before I could post my blog. Oh, well. I don’t feel like just throwing away the work I’ve done, so I’m posting what I have completed.

It is well worth taking the time to go and listen to Clinton’s speech on these topics:

 

I want to spend some time examining what some of Donald Trump’s supporters are saying about him, his candidacy, and the issues that he is discussing (or, perhaps to be more accurate, the issues that they hear him discussing).

I’ll start with Thomas Robb, the national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (he is the successor to David Duke), pastor at the Christian Revival Center, and proponent of anti-Semitic Christian Identity theology. When Robb appeared on Alan Colmes show, he was asked, specifically about Donald Trump and “white culture” (emphasis added):

ALAN COLMES (HOST): What will Donald Trump do for white culture?

THOMAS ROBB: Well, I was going to say a wall built. You know, you say it won’t happen, maybe it won’t, I don't know. It needs to happen. I’d like to see our national debt reduced. Probably it won’t happen, but it needs to. At least he’s saying something. That’s the point. Whether he does it or doesn’t do it, whether he can accomplish it or doesn’t accomplish it, at least he’s saying things that many, many people in this country are identifying with and are saying, “Yeah, that needs to be done.” So it isn’t Donald Trump that you guys are concerned with. You’re not afraid of Donald Trump. You’re afraid of the masses of people, the millions of people supporting Donald Trump becoming awakened to what they feel to be a country that’s being taken away from them. 

For a little context for Robb’s comments, it’s worth noting that his website states (sourced from the Southern Poverty Law Center):

We believe that the Anglo Saxon, Germanic, Scandinavian, and kindred people are THE people of the Bible — God’s separated and anointed Israel.” The statement goes on to declare, “Our people must … resist the call of Satan, which the Bible says will come disguised as light and love … brotherly – interracial love

Robb also said, following the election of President Obama in 2008, that he saw a “race war … between our people, who I see as the rightful owners and leaders of this great country, and their people, the blacks.”

Charming fellow, no? You have to wonder whether he views “his people” — who he thinks of as the “rightful owners” of the country — to also be the “rightful owners” of “the blacks” to whom this country clearly does not belong (at least not in his racist worldview).

Then there is Don Black, a former KKK leader who runs the white supremacist (Nazi?) website Stormfront (to which I will not link), which was until recently often thought of as the largest hate site on the Internet and which remains very influential among white supremacists, Nazis, anti-Semites, and others who are … um … let’s just say less than welcoming of the idea of racial and religious diversity.

Don Black … said he noted a spike in visits to his site after Trump unveiled his proposed Muslim ban. Trump “has clearly been a benefit to us,” Black said, referring to his community of white supremacists.

“There's an insurgency among our people that has been seething for decades that have felt intimidated and demoralized,” he added. “The Trump candidacy has changed all that.”

(White Supremacists Are Loving Donald Trump's Presidential Campaign, Vice News, December 13, 2015.) Black also said, “Most of our people are pretty disenchanted with politics. Most of them usually don't vote, because there's no one to vote for… They will vote for Trump, though.” And:

All I know is that our people — white nationalists and white Middle America out there who would never call themselves that — are inspired and energized,” he said. “And I don't think that's going to go away. Trump is doing a great thing.”

Again, for context, here are some other things that Black has said (sourced from the Southern Poverty Law Center):

The people that visit Stormfront have a righteous indignation to the Israelization of America. Zionism unbound, that is what goes on in Washington, D.C., these days. … [T]he Jewish people demolish homes abroad and condition peoples minds with the media here in the U.S.A.

And:

I remember [the 1950s] quite well, that a lot of people were mad about blacks. They were mad about school integration and black crime…. [B]ut … it was kind of rare to find someone that really, fully understood the Jewish involvement … behind all of this promotion of the destruction of culture and our heritage, the destruction of our schools and our neighborhoods. … [W]ith the Internet — and, I think, with this involvement in the Middle East, American involvement in the Middle East — everything’s changed. I mean, we have to calm down people sometimes on Stormfront about the Jews.

And:

I get nonstop E-mails and private messages from new people who are mad as hell about the possibility of Obama being elected. White people, for a long time, have thought of our government as being for us, and Obama is the best possible evidence that we’ve lost that. This is scaring a lot of people who maybe never considered themselves racists, and it’s bringing them over to our side.

Consider this last quote in light of the quote above from Thomas Robb where he talks about “becoming awakened to what they feel to be a country that’s being taken away from them”.

Then there are these statements from Richard Spencer:

I think with Trump, you shouldn’t look at his policies. His policies aren’t important. What’s most important about Trump is the emotion. He’s awakened a sense of ‘Us’ a sense of nationalism among white people. He’s done more to awaken that nationalism than anyone in my lifetime. I love the man.”

And:

What I care about is not just about being comfortable. It’s not just about safety, or national security. White people are unique in the sense that, we are the ones who are going to explore the world. We’ll need our own state eventually, for our Faustian destiny to explore the outer universe. That is what we were put on this earth to do. We weren’t put on this earth to be nice to minorities, or to be a multiculti fun nation.

And:

When I look at Thomas Jefferson’s writings, the Declaration of Independence, it makes me want to vomit. The idea that a ‘creator’ made all human beings equal? That’s ridiculous. The idea that all human beings are equal is such an appalling sentiment. We’re here on this earth for such a short period of time. The idea that we would dedicate ourselves to something as stupid as ‘equality’ or ‘democracy’ is morally insulting to me.

And:

I think we should be pro-Russia, because Russia is the great white power that exists in the world. I’m a Slavophile! I admire Vladimir Putin. I think Trump and Putin, together, could bring about a united white world. It’s beautiful

Or these (sourced from the Southern Poverty Law Center):

Martin Luther King Jr., a fraud and degenerate in his life, has become the symbol and cynosure of White Dispossession and the deconstruction of Occidental civilization. We must overcome!

And:

Immigration is a kind a proxy war—and maybe a last stand—for White Americans, who are undergoing a painful recognition that, unless dramatic action is taken, their grandchildren will live in a country that is alien and hostile.

And:

Our dream is a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans. It would be a new society based on very different ideals than, say, the Declaration of Independence.

Seems like a nice guy, too, don’t you think?

[All of that and I hadn’t even gotten to my discussion of David Duke!]

One might also ask why the Trump campaign has given press credentials to white supremacists while, at the same time, withholding press credentials from serious journalists? Again, seriously.

It’s also worth noting that, in some ways, there is a sort of mutual admiration between white supremacists and Trump. How else can we explain Trump retweeting, not once, but often, false statistics, images, and other memes from white supremacists on Twitter (including some with user names like “WhiteGenocideTM” and “WhiteGenocideT1” and others with Nazi-inspired avatars or profiles that praise Hitler)? Trump of course dismisses these sorts of concerns asking “Am I gonna check every statistic?” Um, yes, Donald, if you want to be President, you have an obligation not to perpetuate racist lies and to make an effort to be sure that things that you say are true. After all, if you get your “news” from the National Enquirer or the dark underbelly of white nationalist websites, then what decisions might you make as President?

And remember when Trump tweeted the anti-Semitic image meme about Hillary Clinton? Yeah, well guess where the image that he used, with her face superimposed on a pile of money next to a Star of David and the word “corrupt”, originated? Would you be surprised if it was sourced to a white supremacist message board?

So ask yourself this: Why is Donald Trump reading white supremacist message boards or the tweets of white supremacists and neo-Nazis? And if he isn’t actually reading those message boards or tweets, then who among his advisors is doing so and why does Trump just go along and tweet or retweet those people?

Of course the first of the real questions to ask yourself is: Why are racists, bigots, Nazis, white supremacists, and the like so enamored with Trump? What is it about his candidacy that attracts those holding racist views and what is it about his candidacy that seems to have emboldened people to openly express those views. Then, after pondering those queries, ask yourself this follow up: How comfortable will you be with a President who gives voice to these views and may even give them a place at his table?

Please don’t allow Donald Trump to be elected President. Please.

Trump Implicitly Condones Anti-Semitism (part 3): The Hate Continues

I wonder how Donald Trump will respond when, sometime in the not too distant future, one of his grandchildren asks him, “Zadie* Donald, why do some of your supporters hate Jews … like me?” I wonder how Ivanka will answer her children when they ask why Zadie didn’t tell his supporters to stop saying anti-Semitic things. It could make for some uncomfortable Passover Seder conversation in years to come, don’t you think?

Earlier this month, I posted Trump Implicitly Condones Anti-Semitism and Trump Implicitly Condones Anti-Semitism (redux): The Use of Stereotypes. Sadly, since publishing those posts, the situation has only gotten worse.

My initial post came on the heels of an outpouring of anti-Semitic abuse directed at a reporter who wrote an article about Melania Trump. I wrote about Donald Trump declining an offer to give a message to his “fans” about the anti-Semitism they were spewing in his name. Since then, not only has the situation not gotten better, it has gotten demonstrably worse. For example, when asked, indirectly, about anti-Semitism directed at the reporter who interviewed and wrote about her, Melania Trump didn’t do much to repudiate the anti-Semitism (emphasis added):

“I don’t control my fans,” Melania says, “but I don’t agree with what they’re doing. I understand what you mean, but there are people out there who maybe went too far. She provoked them.”

Now to casual readers, this may seem a fairly innocuous statement, but Jewish readers are most likely very familiar with Melania’s final claim of provocation. You see, Jews have been blamed for causing or provoking anti-Semitism for millennia. Literally. Read any anti-Semitic hate site and you’ll quickly come across charges that Jews bear the blame for anti-Semitism (see, for example, one of the images posted below, asking why Jews have been expelled from countries over the millennia). The best that Melania can say is that she doesn’t “agree” with what her fans are “doing” (you know, like making death threats or posting images of Julia Ioffe as a prisoner at Auschwitz) and that such people “maybe went too far”. Maybe. Or maybe not, I suppose, right? And Donald? He told Megyn Kelly that anti-Semitic and other abuse directed at reporters and others is “in response to something that they did.” In other words, in Trump’s view, anti-Semitism and other verbal abuse is acceptable if it is in response to something he (or his fans) view with disfavor.

Is that the kind of country we want? One in which someone who expresses an opinion contrary to that of a particular demagogue politician becomes the target of vicious hate?

Ah, but that is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of the continued failure by Trump and his inner circle to try to stop the virulent anti-Semitism being spewed in Trump’s name. For example, consider the following:

Josh Greenman is an opinion editor for the New York Daily News. He posted some graphs of analysis from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center about Trump’s tax policy proposals. In response, an apparent Trump supporter (with an avatar that included a “Make America Great Again” hat and a profile that includes “MAGA” [the acronym for Make America Great Again]) responded simply:

Jew

Greenman replied, asking the Trump supporter not to “hold back” and received this reply:

Your time as the gate keeper is up. Bolshevik propagandists like yourself are a blight on America. Move to Israel.

In other words, for the horrible act of posting an tax policy analyst’s results of an examination of the tax policy articulated by a major party candidate for President, a reporter was labeled “Jew” (and clearly that was meant as an epithet) and communist and targeted with the classic anti-Semitic canards of undue influence and control, causing harm to the country in which he resides, and dual loyalty with Israel. One reporter. One tweet. And not even his own tax analysis. Just retweeting what a respected tax analyst published. What might have happened if Greenman said something really critical about a Trump policy? What might happen if a reporter like Greenman were to publish something critical of a President Trump? Kind of chilling to think about, no?

Then we come to perhaps the most extreme incident (at least of the last few weeks). On May 18, 2016, The Washington Post printed a column by Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Post entitled “This is how fascism comes to America”. The column, and Kagan’s warnings and conclusions, make for interesting reading. The column concludes (internal link omitted):

This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac “tapping into” popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him.

Jonathan Weisman, a deputy Washington editor for The New York Times tweeted a link to Kagan’s column, including a sentence from that conclusion. The flood of hate was not long in coming. It began with a Twitter user who, like the person described above who interacted with Josh Greenman, also has an avatar with a “Make America Great Again” hat and a nearly identical profile (which is common among a certain class of Trump supporters) who simply tweeted to Weisman:

Hello (( Weisman ))

Weisman apparently didn’t recognize that the use of multiple parenthesis around a name or term is a popular meme within the anti-Semitic and white supremacist movement to denote a Jew or a supposedly Jewish-controlled business or institution. So Weisman took the bait:

Care to explain?

So the Trump supporter did just that:

What ho, the vaunted ashkenazi intelligence, hahaha! It's a dog whistle, fool. Belling the cat for my fellow goyim.

(I had to look it up, but apparently “belling the cat” as used here describes the “collective action problem” or “the situation in which multiple individuals would all benefit from a certain action, but has an associated cost making it implausible that any individual can or will undertake and solve it alone. The ideal solution is then to undertake this as a collective action, the cost of which is shared.”)

Weisman then spent the next eight hours or so retweeting some of the anti-Semitic hate directed his way from a number of different people. Here are just a few of the tweets and images Weisman highlighted with his retweets (see The Washington Post and Haaretz for additional details):

• all kike-americans that would put Israhell first should be dropped from a helicopter over Tel Aviv
• Poor @jonathanweisman is 4 open borders, sexual degeneracy, and turning the US into 3rd world shithole. Elite Jews went 2 far and have 2 go.
• Real conservatives principles demand ovening the jews.
• Savagery is their nature; being from Central Asia they were selected for sociopathic cutthroatedness.
• I’m not anti-Semitic. I love Semitic groups like SSNP and Hezbollah that kill filthy Jews
• in fact, Jews are the biggest murderers of Levantines, so it’s pro-Semitic to hate them.
• Roughly 85% of #Jews consistently vote as #progressives, hence aren’t fit to be American citizens.
• after the Mexicans and Muslims you filth are next.
• you must be very thirsty without your daily feeding of blood.
• Parasites don't know any better. Its just in their nature. You have to get rid of them to survive.
• You’ve been indoctrinating Jews and goyim with guilt and milking the “Holocaust” for 7 decades.
• Jews have foisted debt, immigration, & war upon us for 100 years. The pendulum has begun to swing back, and it is glorious.
• Yeah I don’t mind that a bunch of pornographers, moneychangers and 5th columnists got what they had coming.

The following exchange sort of neatly summarizes how the exchanges went. At one point, Weisman tweeted about the outpouring of anti-Semitism flooding his Twitter feed:

Generations of American Jews did not believe this still existed til now.

That tweet was in response to one that said:

FAR better to welcome #Facism here than to continue along the #JEW created #Marxism road

And the response to Weisman’s tweet about the continued existence of anti-Semitism:

get used to it you fucking kike. You people will be made to pay for the violence and fraud you’ve committed against us.

So now that the expression of virulent and repulsive anti-Semitism from Trump supporters is being talked about on Twitter and, more importantly, in periodicals like The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Haaretz, and others, you’d expect some kind of response from Trump, his campaign, and/or his more mainstream supporters. Yet Trump has said … nothing. Still. Given how rapidly Trump usually responds (especially on Twitter) to stories that he disagrees with or which anger him, it seems almost impossible that he isn’t aware of either the discussion of anti-Semitism among his “fans” or the criticism of him for failing to repudiate that anti-Semitism. Don’t forget that Wolf Blitzer gave Trump a chance to say something. And yet … silence.

And it is a dangerous silence because Trump’s anti-Semitic “fans” take that silence as acceptance of or even incitement for more of that behavior. And query whether, sometime soon, that silence will become a matter of incitement for … something worse. Query what happens if Trump is elected and has the power of the government at his disposal.

It seems that almost every day I come across more examples of anti-Semitism from Trump supporters, often aimed at members of the media (who, you’ll recall, Trump regularly lambasts as “dishonest” or worse). For example, Jeffrey Goldberg tweeted about an email that he received telling him that if Trump is elected, Goldberg will be “sent to a camp”. ThinkProgress reported on a number of its reporters who received anti-Semitic comments from Trump supporters:

Kira Lerner and Alice Ollstein — both political reporters and both Jewish — say they have encountered anti-Semitic remarks online while covering Trump.

“I immediately blocked them,” Ollstein said. She pointed out that the attacks were unique to this election season, noting, “I’ve been reporting in Washington, DC for six years, and this is the only time it’s ever happened to me — either in person or online.”

The same is true for Bryce Covert, ThinkProgress’ economics editor. Covert says she received a deluge of anti-Semitic tweets in May after she published an op-ed in the New York Times decrying Trump’s policy agenda as disproportionately benefiting white men. The tweets personally attacked her for being Jewish and referenced her family — even though she never mentioned her Jewish heritage (she’s half-Jewish) in the story.

“The Trump supporters had to really dig deep to figure out that I’m Jewish,” Covert said. “They unearthed this tweet of mine from months ago referencing my Jewish grandma.”

“I haven’t gotten any anti-semitism in my mentions for writing about any other candidate,” she added.

ThinkProgress made this further observation:

The connection between Trump and internet-based anti-Semitism has gotten so bad that The Donald’s name and image is now brandished as an excuse to unleash insults whether or not he is being discussed. In mid-May, a Twitter account sporting an image of Trump attacked a Jewish reporter at the Charleston Post and Courier for commenting on shifting opinions regarding the Confederate flag, tweeting, “I guess daddy didn't love her enough to get her a nosejob for her Bar Mitzvah.” The account’s bio notes that liberals should be sent “straight to the ovens.”

Jake Tapper, John Podhoretz, Noah Rothman, Dana Milbank, and others have all reported increased anti-Semitism directed their way, apparently from Trump supporters.

And before you tell yourself that this vitriolic hate is directed only at the “liberal media” consider the experiences of Ben Shapiro (I can’t believe I’m quoting him here…), one of the more notorious “journalists” on the right (he is a former editor of Breitbart), published in National Review:

I was wrong.

I’ve spent most of my career arguing that anti-Semitism in the United States is almost entirely a product of the political Left. I’ve traveled across the country from Iowa to Texas; I’ve rarely seen an iota of true anti-Semitism. I’ve sensed far more anti-Jewish animus from leftist college students at the University of California, Los Angeles, than from churches in Valencia. As an observer of President Obama’s thoroughgoing anti-Israel administration, I could easily link the anti-Semitism of the Left to its disdain for both Biblical morality and Israeli success over its primary Islamist adversaries. The anti-Semitism I’d heard about from my grandparents — the country-club anti-Semitism, the alleged white-supremacist leanings of rednecks from the backwoods — was a figment of the imagination, I figured.

I figured wrong.

Donald Trump’s nomination has drawn anti-Semites from the woodwork.

I’ve experienced more pure, unadulterated anti-Semitism since coming out against Trump’s candidacy than at any other time in my political career. Trump supporters have threatened me and other Jews who hold my viewpoint. They’ve blown up my e-mail inbox with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. They greeted the birth of my second child by calling for me, my wife, and two children to be thrown into a gas chamber.

Yes, seriously.

This isn’t a majority of Trump supporters, obviously. It’s not even a large minority. But there is a significant core of Trump support that not only traffics in anti-Semitism but celebrates it — and god-worships Trump as the leader of an anti-Jewish movement.

Shapiro continues on before concluding:

Now, this doesn’t mean that Trump is an anti-Semite. No politician is responsible for all those who follow him.

But politicians become responsible for movements when they pat those movements on the head. Trump has done that repeatedly. When Trump refused to condemn David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan days before the Louisiana primary, then blamed it on his earpiece, that was a signal to his anti-Semitic base. When Trump retweets accounts heavily connected to white supremacism, his anti-Semitic base celebrates. When he appears on national television and refuses to condemn his supporters’ anti-Semitic death threats against a reporter (“I don’t know anything about that … I don’t have a message to the fans”), his anti-Semitic base takes note. When his wife, Melania, states in an interview that that same reporter “provoked” anti-Semitic death threats, Trump’s anti-Semitic base nods.

Trumpism breeds conspiracism; conspiracism breeds anti-Semitism. Trump is happy to channel the support of anti-Semites to his own ends.

The anti-Semitism on the right may slink back beneath its rock when Trump is defeated. Or perhaps it will continue to bubble up, fed by the demagoguery of bad men willing to channel ignorant rage toward their own glorification.

For even more of the anti-Semitism directed at Shapiro from his fellow travelers on the right, please see his post The Anti-Semites Are Out In Force For Trump. It’s sickening.

Or there is this from journalist Bethany Mandel (an Orthodox Jew who writes for The Federalist and The Forward “usually from a conservative perspective”):

As any high-profile Twitter user with a Jewish-sounding last name can tell you, the surest way to see anti-Semitism flood your mentions column is to tweet something negative about Donald Trump. My anti-Trump tweets have been met with such terrifying and profound anti-Semitism that I bought a gun earlier this month. Over the coming weeks, I plan to learn how to shoot it better.

I implore my fellow Jews … no, I implore my fellow Americans: Do not let Donald Trump get anywhere near the White House because to do so would be to legitimize and elevate this vile hate that has taken hold within some of his supporters. Trump may not be Hitler, but it certainly seems that some of his most ardent supporters wish that he was. We cannot elect a fascist who draws support from racists and bigots and refuses to repudiate hate expressed in his name. That way lies danger … for all of us.

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*“Zadie” is Yiddish for grandfather and is a term of endearment used by many Jewish children.