Shammai’s Jewish Standard Column (publishing date: November 29, 2024)

For Shammai’s previous columns, click here.

A Blind, Deaf, Dumb World Three items in the news last week reaffirmed my belief that common sense has fled from the world. Two of the items speak volumes about the benefits that accrue from acts of barbarous terrorism—benefits the world supplies to its everlasting shame. The third speaks to the inflexible dogmatism that characterizes the progressive Democratic left. The first item reported on the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his now former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Both are charged with “crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.” That “8 October 2023” start date suggests that the ICC’s judges bizarrely believe that Israel overreacted to Hamas’ grotesquely brutal attacks just one day earlier, during which it killed over 1,200 Israelis and others, took 251 people hostage, brutalized, mutilated, and raped women in multiple locations, and killed at least 40 babies, some ripped from their mothers’ wombs. To demonstrate some form of even-handedness, the judges also handed down an indictment against Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri—a meaningless indictment because the Hamas leader was killed by the IDF in July. Apparently, the judges did not believe that any live Hamas leaders committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The second item reported on reactions to the overwhelming passage by the House of Representatives of the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the Treasury secretary—unilaterally and without the need to offer proof of any kind—could single-handedly end the tax-exempt status of any nonprofits the bill defines as “terrorist-supporting organizations” because they supply “material support or resources” to terrorist groups. Almost immediately after its passage, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and other pro-Palestinian nonprofits howled in protest. They see it as an attempt “to stop us from being able to continue to organize for Palestinian freedom and to end this [Israeli] genocide,” as JVP political director Beth Miller put it. The bill was introduced shortly after October 7th by two Jewish congressmen—Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) and Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.). Because the Treasury secretary is empowered to act unilaterally and is not required to provide any proof that a nonprofit actually does aid terrorists materially, not just verbally, the bill effectively gives legal sanction to potential abuses of power. The bill is flawed in other ways, as well, which is why nearly 60 centrist groups, including Jewish ones, also oppose it, as do I. Those flaws, however, are not what concerns me here. The third item is the Senate’s overwhelming rejection of three Joint Resolutions of Disapproval proposed in late September by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, very much a leader of the progressive Democrats in Congress, although he lists himself as an Independent. All three resolutions were designed to deny Israel certain weaponry the Biden administration had authorized. Eighteen senators, 17 Democrats and one Independent, voted with Sanders on at least one of his proposed resolutions. I do not support the House bill, as noted above. I do not support denying Israel anything necessary for its defense against the enemies that surround it, notwithstanding my distaste for Bibi Netanyahu and his radical, even racist, coalition partners. I am outraged, however, by the ICC’s absurd indictments, by the pro-Palestinian pro-Hamas arguments being advanced by the JVP and its ilk to oppose the House measure, and by the senators who supported Sanders’ frankly senseless resolutions. Are they all blind, deaf, and dumb? Do they not know the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, or Israel’s repeated efforts to resolve it peacefully? Do they not understand how the unqualified support for terrorism by the Palestinian Authority (PA) has so radicalized Israelis that Netanyahu is now Israel’s longest-serving prime minister? Do they not see that Hamas, not Israel, is responsible for the civilian death toll in Gaza because its leaders believe that piles of dead civilians are their best weapon to defeat Israel? Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hamad boasted as much on Lebanese TV last October 24. “We are proud to sacrifice martyrs,” he crowed in defending the use of human shields. Are they not aware that long before October 7th several major Islamic religious legal bodies, including the United Arab Emirates Fatwa Council and the Council of Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia (the kingdom’s highest religious body), issued formal religious rulings (fatwas) condemning Hamas for the tyranny it imposes on Gaza’s civilian population? The latest ruling was issued on March 9, 2023, by the Iraqi-based and multi-denominational Islamic Fatwa Council. Fatwah F02301 concluded that Hamas “bears responsibility for its own reign of corruption and terror against Palestinian civilians within Gaza.” It cited “the many forms of extortion and terror which Hamas practices against civilians in Gaza,” and stated that “Hamas has been promoting and engaging in ISIS-like behavior against Muslims and Palestinians alike, under the guise of ‘resistance.’” Therefore, the clerics ruled that it “is prohibited to pray for, join, support, finance, or fight on behalf of Hamas….” The clerics added that the fatwa “applies to Hamas…and all of Hamas’ affiliates, financiers, organizations, entities, representatives, deputies, jurists, current and future members, and followers within and outside of Gaza.” Despite such rulings, and intentionally or not, JVP and its over 32,000 dues-paying members support Hamas by their words and actions. So do the protestors on college campuses and city streets, and the progressive Democratic left (Bernie Sanders included). And so do the 102 non-Orthodox rabbinical and cantorial students who signed an open letter last May accusing Israel of “violent suppression of human rights” and of seeking to impose “apartheid in the Palestinian territories….” The Palestinian Authority (PA) is primarily at fault for the cognitive blindness so evident within the anti-Israel camp. It sends emissaries throughout the world to encourage people to paint Israel as an aggressor nation, a rogue state. The world listens to the Palestinian propaganda, believes what it hears, and rewards terrorism by demonizing Israel. On the other hand, probably because it does not want to, the world does not listen when the PA names schools, streets, buildings, and sports events after people who strapped bombs on themselves to kill Jews or provide lifetime stipends to their families. It does not listen when Palestinian leaders say in English, French, and German, “We want peace,” but say in Arabic, in one form or another, “From the river to the sea.” It does not take note of Sesame Street-like television programs that teach Arab children to hate Jews and to kill Jews, or the Palestinian textbooks that demonize Israel and Jews and praise martyrdom. Israel does not have such television programs or textbooks. Israeli children are taught tolerance of the Other, whoever the Other may be. The world ignores that, too, including the JVP, the 102 rabbinical and cantorial students who signed that open letter, the mobs of anti-Israel protestors, and the Progressive Democrats. They all prefer to believe the worst of Israel. They ignore other facts, as well, such as this one: For the first time since 1967, Palestinians had complete control over a territory all their own when Israel in 2005 completely turned over Gaza to them. They could have established a working government that could have joined with Israel and others to build a flourishing economy, thereby vastly improving the quality of Palestinian life, and concretely demonstrating that they really do want to live in peace with Israel. Instead, Hamas violently overthrew PA rule in Gaza and turned it into a perpetual war zone—not because it could defeat Israel on the ground, but because it could defeat Israel in the court of public opinion by forcing Israel to appear to be the monster that the pro-Palestinian non-profits, JVP included, insist that it is. Also ignored by the world is the fact that there could have been a Palestinian Arab state beginning on May 15, 1948, when Israel came into being pursuant to Resolution 181 of the U.N. General Assembly, but the Arab League chose war instead. There could have been such a state when the armistice was signed in 1949, but Egypt and Jordan, especially, preferred to take for themselves the land meant for that Palestinian state. There could have been a Palestinian state after the June 1967 war. Instead, the Arab League issued its infamous “Three No’s”: “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.” The Oslo Accords of the 1990s were supposed to finally put both sides on the track to peace. From the time the first Accord was signed on the White House Lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, until August 30, 1999, there were 89 terror incidents recorded. Israel nevertheless continued its peace efforts. In July 2000, then Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to turn 96 percent of the West Bank and part of East Jerusalem into an independent Palestinian State. The late PA leader Yasir Arafat responded by launching the Second Intifada just over a month later. It ended with 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis being killed, among other tragic results. So, yes, I am outraged, and so must we all be, regardless of how grieved we are by the deaths of innocents in Gaza or by any dislike we may harbor for Bibi Netanyahu. And we must act on that outrage in every peaceful way we can.