Year Flashback: Assessing then the various expressions of support for Israel - and for Hamas in the US
Looking back with hindsight as "Anti-Israel" Efforts have soared
A year ago today: A couple of days after “October 7” and the extent of the evil perpetrated by Hamas was becoming-ever clearer; I posted on Facebook…
”Thank you President Biden and the Biden Administration and the US Congress along with other State and local officials, various organizations and people across America. In the aftermath of Hamas' pogrom - slaughtering hundreds of Jews - not that different from the pogroms many of our ancestors must have faced "in the old country."
As then-US Ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan said at the time of the infamous November 1975 UN adoption of its "Zionism is Racism" resolution: "A great evil has been loosed upon the world."
People of good will obviously can and do differ over what Israeli policies should have been over the years. But those who at this time defend (or even praise) Hamas; or try to equate both sides...Those who question whether "Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism" might want to reconsider what the reality has proven in practice. Even as there have been a number of disgusting responses to Hamas actions as seen in some of those demonstrations and social media posts.”
I wouldn’t change a word of what I wrote at the time. In fact; the situation in the United States has gotten far, far worse and Israel’s “Detractors” have gotten far bolder. Their minimizing (or even completely ignoring) what occurred on October 7th. Their denigrating of Israel; their denials of the horrors that occurred; the use of terms such as “Genocide” (a term which started to be used in the very first days of October 7th. The open calls for the elimination of Israel. The efforts to intimidate “Zionist” students and professors on campus and protests outside synagogues and Jewish centers. The vast surge in antisemitic incidents, including violence, in the United States (and of course, Europe).
If interested: My piece in yesterday’s Times of Israel blog “How Israel’s Detractors Responded to October 7: The first 24 Hours”