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Dear Letter to the Editor:
Notwithstanding the praise that some Jewish organizations have heaped on the Biden White House’s recent plan to fight antisemitism (“U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism”), the facts — for at least two reasons — demonstrate that this plan is toothless.
First, this plan embraces the Nexus Task Force definition of antisemitism.
The Nexus Task Force definition of antisemitism claims that opposition to Zionism is not antisemitism when in fact the foundational narrative of the Jewish Bible, the sole source of Judaism, is the Jewish people’s Return to Zion — what today is Israel. Zionism is Judaism and represents the Jewish people’s 3500 year indigenous presence in Eretz Israel. That is why Jerusalem is mentioned 659 times in the Jewish Bible. That is why at the conclusion of the Passover Seder Jews around the world stand and loudly proclaim the ultimate Zionist prayer: “Next Year in Jerusalem”.
Further the Nexus Task Force definition of antisemitism approves a disproportionate focus on Israel, whereas the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism makes clear any double standard towards Israel compared to other countries and cultures is antisemitic.
Second, the White House plan to “counter antisemitism” embraces C.A.I.R. (Council on American Islamic Relations), an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land terrorist prosecution, the largest terrorist financing prosecution in United States history.
On May 1, 2022 Johnathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti Defamation League, declared that Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and C.A.I.R. “epitomize the radical Left, the photo inverse of the extreme Right that the ADL has long tracked.”
Mr. Greenblatt continued: “They (JVP, SJP and C.A.I.R.) indisputably and unapologetically regularly denigrate and dehumanize Jews.”
Recently Zahra Billoo, San Francisco Executive Director of C.A.I.R., claimed all Zionist organizations are “enemies” and are part of “the Islamophobia conspiracy”
On behalf of C.A.I.R. she also claimed that the IDF trains US police officers to “kill unarmed black men, women and children.”
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt specifically described Billoo’s C.A.I.R. speech as “textbook vile, antisemitic, conspiracy laden garbage attacking the mainstream Jewish community. It sounds like something you would expect from white supremacists.”
Both the Nexus Task Force definition of antisemitism and C.A.I.R. represent the very antisemitism that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was talking about when he said at Cambridge, Massachusetts shortly before his death: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews; you’re talking antisemitism.”
Both show the same disdain for the Jewish people of Israel and their history as Joseph Goebbels and Julius Streicher showed for the Jewish people of Germany and their history.
Any plan or strategy to fight antisemitism that includes the Nexus Task Force definition of antisemitism and C.A.I.R. is self defeating before it even starts…. regardless of any vacuous platitudes by the White House and its supporters.
Richard Sherman
Margate, Florida
Absolutely right on, Richard! Vacuous is too polite a word. I call it a vile, insulting, lie! Everything about the Biden Administration is antisemitic, period! Why Jews keep voting for it, is beyond me. It seems that they have a death wish.