Tuesday, my cousins come for an overnight before heading to Duluth for a couple of days, and then back to me for Shabbat. Since the overnight is Tuesday, there will be tacos....made with Impossible Beef because I want to serve cheese and sour cream and all sorts of stuff and if they were made with meat, most of that is off my very kosher table! I'm kinda excited about this, by the way. I haven't made tacos since Ziggy left the building. But all this vegetarian cooking for my vegetarian cousins is not what has me so excited about this visit.
See, the cousin whom I lovingly call Perdita, is, in reality, Barbara Mazor, champion of the fight against BDS at the Park Slope Coop in Brooklyn. In the past few weeks, the debacle at the Coop has made a whole lotta newspapers. This is not the first time I've written about the demonization of Israel and Jews at that august institution. Barbara started a blog, Stop BDS At The Park Slope Coop, about the fight. Back in March, 2012, I wrote an episode about it: When The Coop Is In The Balance. At that time, they were able to beat back the BDS movement, and she even changed the name of the blog to We Stopped BDS At The Park Slope Coop. But like all pernicious diseases, it percolated in the background. And now it's back.
The City Journal did a better job of explaining the issue than either the New York Time or The Guardian. They also quoted Barbara:
Barbara Mazor, who opposed the boycott movement alongside Maislen, told City Journal that the vote was “a lost opportunity to build a politics of co-existence.” The purpose of a co-operative, she said, is to “put your difference aside” to work on something collaboratively. Many members stressed that their ability to do so, even when they did not agree on everything, contributed to the Brooklyn neighborhood’s unique social fabric....
...In evaluating the vote, it is hard to ignore the influence of the wave of anti-Semitism and religious intolerance that has erupted in New York City since the October 7 attacks. Though many of the boycott’s leading figures are Jewish themselves—including Alyce Barr, who led the push to divest—Mazor suggested that the move “provides a lot of validation for people” who dislike Jews more broadly. “It provides encouragement for the most extremist actors, and it’s a permission structure for attacking Jews,” she said.
Mazor’s suggestion is borne out by members’ reports. Those who opposed the boycott were likened to antebellum “pro-slavery” supporters. When a member declared “Jewish supremacy is a problem,” 50 people applauded, Maislen told City Journal. One Israeli member working a shift who requested anonymity was told by a customer that she smelled “of Palestinian blood” and that “Jews are rejoicing in raping and killing Palestinians.”
This is not some tempest in a teapot. That the anti-BDS side was not permitted to present their side at the meeting speaks volumes to those of us watching this fight, ostensibly because of technical issues. Regardless, this was shutting down the opposition and screams of a variety if messages to whatever side you're on.
But here's the thing: how did we (meaning all Jews) become the genocidal maniacs in the court of public opinion after Hamas raped, murdered, decapitated, mutilated, and kidnapped over a thousand people attending a music festival on October 7th, 2023? What if those same terrorists did that at Coachella? What if they did it at Wembley Stadium? What would the response have been then?
I am fascinated by the colonization part. What do they think the Muslims were doing during their conquest period? Bringing free press to Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Algeria, Tunisia, or Libya? What do all those kind hearted protestors think were happening to the indigenous populations or, for that matter, all the Christians that lived there? And what about, in recent years, the plight of queer or gay communities living in those countries? Especially in places like Gaza? Are they holding Gay Pride Month parades there? Yet, those communities are silent on those issues. Dead silent. And that's not meant to be a pun.
How is it that millions of Israelis sheltering against bombing attacks that have been ongoing for decades makes them aggressors? And the ultimate question: why isn't Israel allowed to defend itself? Like this is news. Not.
In his Morning Musings on Substack, Peter Himmelman digs deeper into the heart of that question:
And on the other side we do not see merely opposing viewpoints. There are states, media networks, political movements, universities, NGOs, influencers, bots, and vast oceans of money invested in the creation and dissemination of anti-Israel—and often overtly anti-Jewish—sentiment. There is the propaganda machinery of Iran. There is Qatar's immense financial reach and its state-sponsored media network, Al Jazeera, arguably the most influential anti-Israel media platform in the world. There are Russian and Chinese information operations—coordinated networks that seed anti-Western narratives across social platforms, for which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a reliable accelerant. There are social media algorithms that reward outrage and flatten complexity. There are hundreds of millions of people predisposed to see the conflict through ideological, religious, or historical lenses that Israel has little power to alter.
With a PR machine like that, it's amazing Israel has lasted this long.
President Felon: Your elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked.
Kristen Welker: But Mr. President–
President Felon: And so is ABC and CBS and CNN.
Kristen Welker: But Mr. President--
President Felon: You’re a one-sided crooked network. Sorry. Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.
Kristen Welker: Mr. President, let’s — please, I traveled all the way to Wisconsin.
President Felon: I’ve sat in the rain with you--
Kristen Welker: I traveled all — I know. I traveled all the way--
President Felon: I sat in the rain with you for an hour.
Kristen Welker: --to Wisconsin.
President Felon: On and off in the rain, and I’ve given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what?
Kristen Welker: Mr. President--
President Felon: A country can never be great with a dishonest press.
Kristen Welker: – we traveled all — listen. We traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview.
And then he got up and walked out. Wanna know what I wanna know? If a country can never be great with a dishonest press, what are we supposed to do with a dishonest president? Read the transcript of the interview for yourself. The lies per square minute are astounding.
And pure ethics
And nice manners?
Why is it everyone now is a pain in the ass?
Whatever happened to class?
Do you believe that all the Palestinian people supported Hamas and wanted to kill Israeli soldiers.?Did Israel bomb too much into Gaza, kill too many children? Did the Palestinians support Hamas according to what you have read? Just some hard questions.
ReplyDeleteNo, that was not what I said, nor what was implied. Read the blog again. At the same time, recognize that a large portion of the Palestinian population celebrated and extolled those who committed the atrocities of October 7th. Watch the videos; those were not staged. Nor were the gang rapes and murders captured on Hamas phones and sent our worldwide.
DeleteToo many people died over the course of the 78 years of Israel's existence. Too many people died from suicide bombers praised and paid as martyrs. The death cult of Hamas cannot be ignored. We paid the price and do did the they. The participation of the Palestinian population is a matter of record, although I am certain there were some who would've preferred peace and prosperity. Instead of marshalling forces to topple Hamas, they did nothing...just like all those nice Germans who closed their drapes and pretended nothing was amiss in Deutschland. Too many people were used as human shields, suicide bombers, and enrolled terrorists because those people said nothing. Did nothing. They may have wanted something else....but they hid the hostages in the tunnels all the same.
Too many people, Dina. On all sides. Too many people. And that has given permission and sanction for others to now attack Jews on the streets of any city on the planet.