American Jews know anti-Semitism when they see it

By Stephen M. Flatow

 While the Jewish left keeps trying to convince us that most anti-Israel hatred is not anti-Semitism, a new poll has found that a large majority of American Jews see things such more clearly.

The poll, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, asked Jews whether certain types of anti-Israel statements or actions are anti-Semitic:

•  “Saying Israel should not exist as a Jewish state” — 75 percent say it’s anti-Semitic
• “Comparing Israel’s actions to those of the Nazis” — 70 percent
• “Protesting Israeli actions outside an American synagogue” — 67 percent
• “Calling Zionism racist” — 61 percent
• “Calling for companies and organizations to boycott, divest from or sanction Israel” — 56 percent
• “Calling Israel an apartheid state” — 55 percent

 Why are these results significant? Because for the past year, the U.S. Jewish left has been fighting against the acceptance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. According to that definition, comparing Israel to the Nazis, calling Israel’s existence racist and applying double standards to Israel are examples of anti-Semitism.

 Jewish left-wing activists have grown worried because many governments, Jewish organizations and others have embraced the IHRA definition. The Jewish left has good reason to worry since many groups and individuals in their camp indulge in precisely that kind of rhetoric. Being labeled “anti-Semitic” means that their views are illegitimate.

 So, in a desperate ploy, they organized several hundred left-wing academics to come up with their own definition, called the “Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.” The Declaration’s extremely narrow wording effectively excuses most anti-Israel vitriol as being just “criticism of Israeli policies.”

 Obviously, no reasonable person claims that every single criticism of an Israeli policy is anti-Semitic. But it’s also clear as day to most American Jews that a lot of extreme anti-Israel rhetoric, such as the examples cited above, is indeed anti-Semitic. Most Jews don’t need a legal definition to know, instinctively, that something or somebody is anti-Semitic. We’ve all experienced enough in our lives to know that if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck …

 This is a problem for several of the leading Jewish left-wing organizations, which in recent months have been edging closer and closer to the positions that most U.S. Jews consider to be anti-Semitic.

Calling for sanctions against Israel, for example. According to the ADL poll, 56 percent of Jews think that’s anti-Semitic. Well, in April, J Street and Americans for Peace Now publicly endorsed legislation that would stop U.S. aid to Israel if the Israeli army arrests Palestinian-Arab terrorists who are younger than 18 years old. That’s what we call a sanction.

 And just last week, the head of Americans for Peace Now went beyond that one bill and announced that there should be “U.S. aid reductions” if Israel is guilty of any “human-rights violations.” And who, exactly, will be the judge of what constitutes a “human-rights violation”? The United Nations? Amnesty International? Jimmy Carter? Clearly, the new Americans for Peace Now position is setting up Israel to be sanctioned.

Or the apartheid charge—most American Jews say that’s anti-Semitic, too. In recent weeks, J Street has publicly defended the outrageous Human Rights Watch report that accuses Israel of apartheid. While not directly using the “A” word, J Street has skated right up to the edge, by praising the report for “raising critical concerns,” and declaring that all criticism of the report is “vitriol” and “profoundly harmful to Israel’s survival.”

 J Street is now loudly complaining about the rejection of its recent application to join the American Zionist Movement. The J Streeters need only look in the mirror to understand why. Calling for sanctions on Israel and praising those who promote the apartheid smears are the kinds of positions that most American Jews consider anti-Semitic. And not too many Jewish communal umbrella groups are likely to admit an organization that advocates anti-Semitic policies.

 

(Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”)

This column first appeared on jns.org. 

 What is it with J Street and anti-Semites?

One would think that J Street, an avowed pro-Israel organization would distance itself from anti-Semites. Yet, it just can't seem to stay away.

I don’t pretend to know what goes on inside the heads of Jews so committed to bullying Israel that they will honor and even defend individuals who have made anti-Semitic remarks, as long as those individuals further the cause of undermining Israel.

This is my latest column from JNS.ORG.

Why does J Street keep honoring and defending individuals who have made anti-Semitic remarks?

 The latest is former President Jimmy Carter, who will receive an award from J Street at its upcoming convention on April 18. I’m not saying that Carter’s numerous attacks on Israel—as ugly and unfair as they were—constituted anti-Semitism. Not even his accusation that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Arabs is worse than the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 people were massacred.

No, I am referring to what Professor Deborah Lipstadt wrote in her essay, “Jimmy Carter’s Jewish Problem,” in The Washington Post, on Jan. 20, 2007. She wrote that in his responses to criticism of his anti-Israel book, Carter “has relied on anti-Semitic stereotypes in defense.”

 Lipstadt continued: “Carter has repeatedly fallen back—possibly unconsciously—on traditional anti-Semitic canards. … Carter reflexively fell back on this kind of innuendo about Jewish control of the media and government. Even if unconscious, such stereotyping from a man of his stature is noteworthy. When David Duke spouts it, I yawn. When Jimmy Carter does, I shudder.”

 Lipstadt was referring to the media appearances by Carter in 2006 in which he repeatedly suggested that all criticism of his book emanated from attempts by Jews to control the media and silence him. On “Larry King Live” on Nov. 26, 2006, Carter claimed that he had “witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts.” On “Meet the Press” on Dec. 3, 2006, Carter specifically singled out what he called “the Jewish lobby” as “part” of the alleged conspiracy to silence him.

 Before Carter, J Street’s favorite ex-politician was James Baker.

 The former Secretary of State was the keynote speaker at J Street’s 2015 convention. At first, it must have seemed odd that the overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic members of J Street would be honoring and applauding a lifelong conservative Republican. But apparently, Baker’s views on abortion and taxes were forgiven and forgotten in J Street’s enthusiasm for Baker’s harsh anti-Israel policies.

 Evidently, J Street was not bothered by the fact that Baker’s hostility to Israel sometimes crossed over into hostility to Jews.

 There was, of course, Baker’s infamous 1992 outburst, “F*** the Jews. They don’t vote for us anyway.” (The quotation came from unimpeachable sources. It was first revealed by former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, who later said his source was then-Secretary of Housing Jack Kemp, who heard Baker say it firsthand.)

 But that wasn’t all. Baker was also reliably reported to have said: “Jews remember the Holocaust, but they forget insults as soon as they smell cash.” (The source was David Bar-Ilan, then one of the editors of The Jerusalem Post, quoted in Ma’ariv March 5, 1992.)

 And according to The Los Angeles Times (March 7, 1992), Baker also referred to pro-Israel members of Congress as “the little Knesset.”

 We need to add Linda Sarsour to the list of prominent individuals whose anti-Semitism has not deterred J Street from embracing them.

 Sarsour’s hostile statements about Israel and Zionism have been as vicious as they come. She actively promotes the anti-Semitic BDS movement. She tweeted (in 2012): “Nothing is creepier than Zionism.” She told The Nation that “There can’t be … room [in the feminist movement] for people who support the State of Israel.” She calls for the replacement of Israel with a “State of Palestine.” Sarsour shared a stage with Rasmea Odeh, the convicted murderer of two Hebrew University students, and declared that she was “honored to be on this stage with Rasmea.”

 Does this record constitute anti-Semitism? ADL national director and CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has said that Sarsour’s BDS advocacy “encourages and spreads anti-Semitism.” Greenblatt’s predecessor, Abraham Foxman, has called Sarsour “bigoted.”

 Yet J Street founder and president Jeremy Ben-Ami signed a 2017 letter declaring that criticism of Sarsour is “dangerous, disingenuous and counterproductive,” charging that she has been “falsely maligned, harassed and smeared.” The letter’s only caveat was this tepid sentence: “We may not agree with Sarsour on all matters.”

 Ben-Ami “doesn’t agree” with anti-Semitism? Can anyone imagine him saying merely that he “doesn’t agree” with white supremacist David Duke or Holocaust-denier David Irving?

 So, what’s going on here? What is it with J Street and anti-Semites? I’m not a psychiatrist. I don’t pretend to know what goes on inside the heads of Jews who are so committed to bullying Israel that they will honor and even defend individuals who have made anti-Semitic remarks, as long as those individuals further the cause of undermining Israel. All I can say is that the decision by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and other umbrella groups to reject J Street’s applications for membership has been proven right time and again.

 (Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”)

No American weapons to anti-Semitic governments

By Stephen M. Flatow

At a time when violence against Jews is on the rise around the world, should the United States provide advanced weapons to a government that actively promotes anti-Semitism?

That’s the question we need to consider as the Senate debates Senate Joint Resolution 26, which would block the administration’s plan to provide Qatar with 24 attack helicopters, 2,500 Hellfire missiles and other sophisticated military hardware.

Qatar is the world’s leading financer of the Hamas terrorists. Qatari money pays for the missiles that Hamas fires at kindergartens in Sderot. It sponsors the flaming kites and incendiary balloons that have destroyed thousands of acres of Israeli forests and farm land in the nation’s south.

Qatar also assists other anti-American terrorist groups. According to The New York Times, Qatar provides groups such as ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Taliban with “safe haven, diplomatic mediation, financial aid and, in certain instances, weapons.”

As a result, numerous Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, broke diplomatic relations with Qatar, as well as closed their air space and shipping lanes to Qatari air and sea traffic.

For those reasons alone, American Jewish organizations should be actively lobbying to prevent arms to Qatar. But it is also important to consider the fact that Qatar is one of the leading purveyors of anti-Semitism in the world today.

— The government of Qatar finances the Al Jazeera international media network. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Al Jazeera has “a troubling record of providing a platform to all manner of virulent anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic extremists and of serving as a propaganda tool against the State of Israel.”

— The recent international book fair in Qatar’s capital, Doha, featured books such as The Myth of the Nazi Gas Chambers and Lies Spread by the Jews, and an Arabic-language translation of Awakening to Jewish Influence in the United States of America by white-supremacist leader David Duke.

— According to the ADL, Qatari government-controlled media outlets regularly publish editorial cartoons that “blatantly demonize Jews” and “cross the line from legitimate criticism of Israel or its policies into overt anti-Semitism. … These cartoons draw on the worst kind of anti-Semitic themes and give them new life, including conspiracy theories of Jewish world domination; blood libels; the association of Zionism with Nazism; the demonization and dehumanization of Israel and Jews; the invocation of William Shakespeare’s Shylock; and the use of stereotypical medieval Jewish imagery.”

— A study by MEMRI found that the textbooks used in Qatari schools “feature anti-Semitic motifs, presenting Jews as treacherous, dishonest and crafty, and at the same time as weak, wretched and cowardly.”

One of the assignments in the books requires students “to compare the Jews’ attitude toward the Muslims in the time of Muhammad and their attitude toward the Muslims today, in light of the material learned in the lesson. The students are apparently expected to infer that the traits ascribed to the Jews in the chapter—treachery, cowardice, etc.—are also applicable to the Jews today.”

At a time when the murders in Pittsburgh and Poway are still fresh in our memories, when Jews are being violently assaulted in the streets of Brooklyn, N.Y., and when hate groups are on the rise at home and abroad, what kind of message will it send if the United States provides weapons to a government that actively promotes anti-Semitism?

I am troubled that American Jewish and Zionist organizations have not spoken out against the proposed arms sales to Qatar. I hope their silence has nothing to do with the visits that some leaders of Jewish organizations made to Qatar not long ago or the hefty donations that Qatar has made in and off the Beltway.

This is not a time for Jewish silence. The Jewish community needs to unite around the principle of “No Weapons for Anti-Semites!”

(This article first appeared at jns.org.)

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My book, “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror”, is available with free shipping from the publisher Devon Square Press.

From Jeff Jacoby - 'Victims' who persecute

Jeff Jacoby's latest column deals with recurring anti-Semitism, or as it may more properly called, Jew-hatred.

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY always falls during the week that follows Passover. At first glance, the two would seem to have little in common -- one memorializes the millions of European Jews annihilated by Nazi Germany; the other commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from slavery in ancient Egypt.


Yet for all their obvious differences, a fundamental similarity links these two crucial chapters in Jewish history. Both were attempts at genocide, and in both cases the perpetrators justified their savageries by claiming that they were the real victims, threatened by the people they intended to wipe out.

Will Jew-hatred ever go away?  I don't think so because the world's weaklings need someone to blame for their weakness.

Read the full column here.

From India - Warrant against 3 Iranians in Delhi blast case

News out of India of arrest warrants being issued for 3 Iranian men involved in last month's terror attack on the wife of an Israeli envoy.  The Indians are asking Interpol to help locate them.

(To see some good old-fashioned anti-Semitism, read the posted comments following the article.)

The full story is here: Warrant against 3 Iranians in Delhi blast case - The Times of India

alisa flatow terrorism

Israel’s friends in the Arab world

alisa flatow israel stephen flatow

Frida Ghitis, writing in the Miami Herald, comments on Arabs speaking well.  The biggest problem that stops Arabs from fighting anti-Semitism in their midst is the lack of freedom of speech and, when the going gets tough for those who do write, the lack of support from others in the liberal sphere.

You can read the full column here.

From ADL - Arab newspapers waste no time; anti-Semitic cartoons all the rage.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has collected a series of anti-Semitic cartoons printed in response to the retraction of the Goldstone Report.

The cartoons ran on Al-Jezeera and in other media outlets in the Middle East including this one from Jordan, which you will recall has a peace treaty with Israel.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised at this latest outburst from some of Israel's neighbors, but I would like, just once, to be surprised at the absence of such hatred.

You can see the rest of the cartoons and read the ADL press release here: Arab Newspaper Editorial Cartoons React to Goldstone Retraction

Lincoln University harboring anti-Semite?

Lincoln University is the “first degree granting historically black university” located in southeastern Pennsylvania. It also harbors a radical anti-Semite on its faculty, Pakistani-born Kaukab Siddique.

Why do I think he’s an anti-Semite? Watch this video.




Siddique and his anti-Israel, Holocaust denying is the subject of an op-ed by Richard L. Cravatts, PhD. in the Jewish Press. He asks, "should academic free speech accommodate Holocaust denial?"

If you scratch a Holocaust denier long enough, you may reveal an anti-Semite, but not always. You will, however, probably find someone like the morally repellant Kaukab Siddique, a Pakistani-born tenured associate professor of English and journalism at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, who seemingly puts great faith in conspiratorial dramas in which a crafty and all-powerful enemy (i.e., Jews) weaves oft-repeated claims about the Holocaust just to elicit the world's sympathy and promote Zionism and the creation of Israel.

Siddique has been embroiled in an intellectual firestorm ever since his paroxysms of hatred toward Israel were exposed in a video taken during his appearance at a Labor Day rally in Washington and posted by The Investigative Project and reported on by the Christian Broadcasting Network. Siddique was filmed crying out to the crowd: "I say to the Muslims, 'Dear brothers and sisters, unite and rise up against this hydra-headed monster which calls itself Zionism...we must stand united to defeat, to destroy, to dismantle Israel, if possible [apparently not necessarily] by peaceful means."

It seems that Lincoln University will take no action because the above language was uttered at a non-university event. So what?

Imagine for a moment that a tenured professor at Lincoln was discovered to be a white nationalist, with his postings sprinkled on the pages of a hatesite such as Stormfront.org in which he railed, as visitors to that odious site do, against the dangers of non-whites to white culture, the harm non-whites do to society through criminality, high birthrates, and low morals, and the overall superiority of the white race to other groups.

Ask yourself, would that professor long survive at Lincoln University? I don't think so. But Lincoln University is not going to take action in the case of Siddique.


Therefore, I think it right that we complain to the Lincoln University administration about its refusal to address adquately Siddique's remarks and his continued presence on campus.

Read the full Op-ed.


That's what I think.

There's no room for a double standard on anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism, not "the occupation, lies at the root of terrorism directed at Jews in Israel and around the world. So what happens when a Hollywood player, Oliver Stone, reveals his anti-Semitism?

Jeff Jacoby, writing in the Boston Globe and on his website compares the reaction to Mel Gibson's tirade against Jews to Oliver Stone's. He asks, "is there a double standard?"

LATE IN JULY, a Hollywood honcho uncorks a blast of anti-Semitic bile, the sort of malignant stereotype about Jews one might expect from David Duke or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Is that newsworthy?

It certainly was in 2006, when Mel Gibson, arrested in Malibu for drunken driving, demanded to know whether the arresting deputy was Jewish, and then launched into an anti-Semitic rant: "F-----g Jews," he raged. "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

Calls went out for folks to boycott Gibson movies and to never work with him again. More than 1,000 news items were filed in the week after the incident.

Now, turn to Oliver Stone, the most recent prominent Hollywood figure to blame Jews for the world's ills and "Jewish domination of the media". One week later, less than 150 items have been posted. "On ABC, CBS, and NBC, the news shows completely ignored the story. The New York Times restricted its coverage to two short items in its "Arts, Briefly" section -- and few other papers ran even that much.

No widespread calls for a boycott of Stone and his work.

So, Jacoby wonders,

Gibson and Stone are both guilty of indulging in rank anti-Semitism (for which both promptly "apologized"), but only Gibson was buried under a newsroom avalanche of outrage and disgust. What explains that glaring difference? Surely the media don't think Jew-baiting is intolerable only when it comes from a right-wing Christian like Gibson. Surely they wouldn't overlook Stone's noxious rant just because he is a pluperfect left-wing activist.

Surely that can't be the explanation for so disgraceful a double standard.

Can it?

Oh, yes it can. And that's what I think.

Phyllis Chesler on "The Israelis and the Iranian Bomb"

I don't always see eye-to-eye with Phyllis Chesler. Her brand of strident feminism in religious spheres often leaves me cold. However, she has been a staunch opponent of anti-Semitism and a lot of other anti's over the years.

Today she writes about the surreal state of events surrounding Israel and its citizens.

In 2009, Israeli athletes were at one point shunned in the United Arab Emirates; humiliated in Vienna; and forced to play without an audience for their own safety in Sweden. The jackals took over the asylum and tossed a prominent Israeli advocate out of the United Nations; J-Street, the allegedly “pro-peace and pro-Israel” organization, held a Soros- and Arab-funded conference; and the calls to boycott Israeli academics continued apace. Today, Departments of Jewish Studies at American universities display anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian posters on their front doors.

She believes that Hitler and Himmler good not have done it better.

Yet, she confesses that she is writing less and less about these types of events. Why?

First, because other individuals and mainly grassroots groups are now doing so—and doing it well. I am no longer alone.

Second, because I cannot bear documenting the Big Lies and the atrocities without feeling that doing so can effectively stop them.

The world has gone mad; no sane grown-ups are in charge.

Are we running out of plans? Maybe.

Read the full article - The Israelis and the Iranian Bomb.

What do you think?

Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza

For those who have asked, my op-ed in the New Jersey Jewish News of April 2, 2009 can be read by going to "From new anti-Zionism to theater of the absurd."

There is no denying that anti-Semitism has been making a comeback in the past few years. But it’s not the old fashioned anti-Semitism of the Ku Klux Klan or the “dirty Jew” or Christ-killer epithet that I had thrown at me in the 1950s. The new anti-Semitism is subtle. It is masked as criticism of Israel, its army, and its politicians. Its proponents claim to be anti-Zionist. They purport to be concerned about Jews, but they stress that Israel is a brutal, belligerent country that dispossessed native inhabitants, keeps others living as second-class people, and has a total disregard for the rule of law.

I welcome your comments.

Theater J in Washington, DC - Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy?

We have previously written about the Caryl Churchill play, "Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza" and have discussed its anti-Semitic undertone. We complained about its appearance at the New York Theatre Workshop. As feared, the play is now making its rounds, including a stop at Theater J of the Washington, DC Jewish Community Center.

It's one thing when a play such as this is performed at a public theatre, but when it's performed at a venue sponsored by the community that it attacks, where are we headed.

The director of Theater J, Ari Roth, is on record as having said he knows people would be offended by the play and that he was "upset" by it. Yet he appears to have bent over backwards to produce the play by adding two other plays to deaden the impact of Seven Jewish Children, by arranging for friendly posts on the theater's blog, and communicating with the play's author.

I think it's ludicrous for a Jewish, albeit nominally, theater to present a play that brings a message equating Israelis with the worst of mankind. Here is the letter sent to Mr. Roth:

"March 29, 2009

Mr. Ari Roth, Artistic Director
Theater J, Washington District of Columbia Jewish Community Center
1529 Sixteenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036

Re Production of Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza

Dear Mr. Roth:

I am the father of Alisa Flatow a 20-year old woman murdered in 1995 by Palestinian terrorists who were raised since childhood on a never ending stream of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda to hate Israelis and Jews. By presenting “Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza” at Theater J, you have added another propaganda log to the bonfire of hatred that has been stoked by the Arab world since 1948.

Anti-Semitism has taken on a new face. It is masked by anti-Zionism. In other words, “we love the Jews, but hate what the State of Israel has done to the Palestinians.” Mr. Roth, in the former, its proponents shout “Jews to the ovens” as they did in Florida this past January. In the latter, they de-legitimatize the Jews’ 2,000-year old quest for a state of their own. In the end, there is no difference between the two because both seek the destruction of the Jewish people. Yet the latter is worse, because it hides under the mask of the theater arts. You have helped nourish hatred.

You reportedly said "people have a right to be offended, and I respect those who have read the play and are offended" and, that the script upset you. Unfortunately, you were not upset enough to decline production of the play and your silly attempt at balancing it with two other plays makes you the laughingstock of anti-Semites around the world because you have literally given them a stage from which to speak.

I believe in general that everyone has the right to make a fool of himself. You have done that here, but there is nothing to laugh about."

When will such foolishness--the desire to be open to all thoughts even those inimical to your own interests--be put to bed?

Shame on Hampshire College

Hampshire College, located in Amherst, Massachusetts, has fallen victim to the latest round of Israel bashing by a small group of pro-Palestinian anti-Semites who succeeded in having the college divest from companies doing business with Israel.

The college’s decision was made following a petition drive by the virulently anti-Zionist (read anti-Semitic) college group Students for Justice in Palestine. They are proud supporters of Hamas and critical of the Oslo Accords and the Palestinian Authority. In my book, they are not nice kids.

Opposition by American colleges and universities to divestment campaigns that single out one country is widespread. Most have seen through the fog of divestment campaigns and realize that there are other countries with human rights abuses far worse than those alleged against Israel but that Israel is singled-out for attention. Thus, the success of the SJP at Hampshire College has taken many by surprise.

Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz addressed the issue in his blog Double Standard Watch at jpost.com on February 15, 2009. He noted,

“Several months ago, a rabidly anti-Israel group on the Hampshire College campus began a campaign to try to get the college to divest from six companies that they claim helped ‘"the Israeli occupation of Palestine."’ Those who came up with this formulation regard all of Israel, including Tel Aviv, Haifa and Ben Gurion Airport, as ‘"occupied Palestine."’ In other words, their goal is to end the existence of Israel. This divestment effort is part of an international campaign against Israel.”

Despite college denials to the contrary, Dershowitz writes, “the student group, supported by many faculty members, claimed total victory, issuing a press release that boasted that Hampshire has become the first college in the United States to divest from Israel.”

Should we write this off to over-exuberant college students? I think not. Experience with anti-Israel campaigns by other pro-Palestinian groups at colleges around the country shows that the anti-Palestinian college crowd is well placed with backing from the anti-Israel camp. There is no interest there for Israelis to live side by side in peace with a Palestinian state. Their goal is to destroy Israel and the Jews who live there.