Adam Schiff will shut down the probe that found FBI abuses.

Burying the Other Russia Story

The Editorial Board Wall Street JournalNov. 9, 2018 

Arguably the most important power at stake in Tuesday’s election was Congressional oversight, and the most important change may be Adam Schiff at the House Intelligence Committee. The Democrat says his top priority is re-opening the Trump-Russia collusion probe, but more important may be his intention to stop investigating how the FBI and Justice Department abused their power in 2016. So let’s walk through what we’ve learned to date.

Credit for knowing anything at all goes to Intel Chairman Devin Nunes and more recently a joint investigation by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (Judiciary) and Trey Gowdy (Oversight). Over 18 months of reviewing tens of thousands of documents and interviewing every relevant witness, no Senate or House Committee has unearthed evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the presidential election. If Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found more, he hasn’t made it public.

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But House investigators have uncovered details of a Democratic scheme to prod the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign. We now know that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee hired Fusion GPS, which hired an intelligence-gun-for-hire, Christopher Steele, to write a “dossier” on Donald Trump’s supposed links to Russia. 

Mr. Steele fed that document to the FBI, even as he secretly alerted the media to the FBI probe that Team Clinton had helped to initiate. Fusion, the oppo-research firm, was also supplying its dossier info to senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion.

House investigators have also documented the FBI’s lack of judgment in using the dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump aide Carter Page. The four FISA warrants against Mr. Page show that the FBI relied almost exclusively on the unproven Clinton-financed accusations, as well as a news story that was also ginned up by Mr. Steele. 

The FBI told the FISA court that Mr. Steele was “credible,” despite Mr. Steele having admitted to Mr. Ohr that he passionately opposed a Trump Presidency. The FBI also failed to tell the FISA court about the Clinton campaign’s tie to the dossier.

This abuse of the FBI’s surveillance powers took place as part of a counterintelligence investigation into a presidential campaign—which the FBI also hid from Congress. Such an investigation is unprecedented in post-J. Edgar Hoover American politics, and it included running informants into the Trump campaign, obtaining surveillance warrants, and using national security letters, which are secret subpoenas to obtain phone records and documents. 

Mr. Nunes and his colleagues also found that officials in Barack Obama’s White House “unmasked” Trump campaign officials to learn about their conversations with foreigners; that FBI officials exhibited anti-Trump bias in text messages; and that the FBI team that interviewed then Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn reported that they did not think Mr. Flynn had lied about his Russian contacts. Mr. Mueller still squeezed Mr. Flynn to cop a guilty plea.

All of this information had to be gathered despite relentless opposition from Democrats and their media contacts. Liberal groups ginned up a phony ethics complaint against Mr. Nunes, derailing his committee leadership for months. Much of the media became Mr. Schiff’s scribes rather than independent reporters. Meanwhile, the FBI and Justice continue to stonewall Congress, defying subpoenas and hiding names and information behind heavy redactions.

There is still much more the public deserves to know. This includes how and when the FBI’s Trump investigation began, the extent of FBI surveillance, and the role of Obama officials and foreigners such as Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic who in spring 2016 supposedly told Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that Russia held damaging Clinton emails. When he takes over the committee, Mr. Schiff will stop asking these questions and bless the FBI-Justice refusal to cooperate.

Senate Republicans could continue to dig next year, but Mr. Mueller seems uninterested. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March asked Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber to look into FBI misconduct, but there has been little public reporting of what he is finding, if he is even still looking. Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz is investigating, though that report is likely to take many more months. 

***

All of which puts an additional onus on Mr. Trump to declassify key FBI and Justice documents sought by Mr. Nunes and other House investigators before Mr. Schiff buries the truth. A few weeks ago Mr. Trump decided to release important documents, only to renege under pressure from Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and members of the intelligence community. 

Mr. Sessions resigned this week and perhaps Mr. Rosenstein will as well. Meantime, Mr. Trump should revisit his decision and help Mr. Nunes and House Republicans finish the job in the lame duck session of revealing the truth about the misuse of U.S. intelligence and the FISA court in a presidential election.

When Media Foist False Narratives to Sow Social Discord, They Indeed Are the Enemy of the People DOV FISCHER  The American Spectator: 11-1-18 Jim Acosta of CNN and other media personalities get exercised when the President calls Fake News the “enemy of the people.” President Trump does not call all news outlets or personalities by that term — only the Fake News. Certainly, that term is quite an incendiary sobriquet. The President reciprocates with it because he gets attacked with incendiary abuse. No American President in memory has been picked on and lied about with the intensity and frequency that President Trump has had to endure. The media — because it is almost-monolithically Left-Democrat — regularly depicted Ronald Reagan as a moron, occasionally tying him to a movie in which he acted, Bedtime for Bonzo, where he went to bed in one scene alongside a chimpanzee. (They forget that he was cast in the film as a university professor.) Reagan endured it, avoided reciprocal name-calling, and history unequivocally has registered that he actually was quite brilliant, understood what so many others could not grasp, revived the moribund Jimmy Carter economy with creative strategies and tax-cutting boldness that George H.W. Bush myopically had called “Voodoo Economics,” stared down Mikhail Gorbachev and defeated a century of Communism, and launched an anti-ballistic military focus that his enemies mocked as “Star Wars” but that today is central to protecting Western democracies from incoming ballistic missiles. The “Iron Dome” missile-defense system that Israel has used so effectively against Gaza Hamas terrorist rockets is the fruit of “Star Wars.” The Left Media almost universally depicted the brilliant Reagan as an idiot, and he somehow shrugged it off. Donald Trump is different because we do not manufacture our Presidents with interchangeable parts on an assembly line. It very well may be that the past week’s Pittsburgh terrorist attack, and the way the President responded, and the way the Left Media then hit the President viciously anyway is the “Rosetta Stone” — the small piece of archaeological evidence historians will need — to decipher that Donald Trump was right to call the Fake News Left Media the “enemy of the people.” 1. “The People” Benefit From a Robust and Independent Press — and a Fake News Regime Indeed Is the Enemy of the People “The People” indeed benefit from a robust “press” — more accurately called “media” in this digital age of televised news, digital internet-based news, and so much more than the mere newsprint “press.” If Stalin’s Soviet Russia had been covered by a robust media (and if such media could have survived), “The People” would have learned that Stalin’s five-year economic plans disastrously were failing and were leading to mass starvation, moreover that he consciously was perpetrating genocide by starving millions of Ukrainians to death in the Golodomor, that he was putting millions of prisoners to work in tundra prisons to dig through ice manually to build canals and other infrastructure. An honest news media would have alerted the West, too, that Stalin was murdering millions. The New York Times had a sycophantically pro-Stalin liar, Walter Duranty, filing Fake News reports from the Soviet Union for more than ten years. The Times published the lies daily as “news” and made him their Moscow bureau chief for fourteen years. As a result, the West was lulled, cheated of the truth, made unaware of the evil. Yes, the Fake News indeed was the enemy of the people. Likewise, the New York Times— and the other mainstream media who took their lead from them — by and large refused to report on the unfolding Nazi Holocaust of six million Jews. Between 1939 and 1945, the New York Times published more than 23,000 front-page stories. Of those, 11,500 were about World War II. Only twenty-six — in six years — were about the Holocaust. The Times was passively complicit. A robust newsmedia can save lives by exposing and revealing, while a Fake News regime can serve to assist in the despoiling of a people. When media foist false narratives to sow social discord, or when they assist tyranny with falsehoods, they indeed are the enemy of the people. Social discord leads to streets being set on fire — witness Ferguson and Baltimore during the Obama Years. Social discord dispirits potentially valuable citizens who could help build a society, instead turning them against that society and motivating them to work towards its downfall or simply to drop out. In its worst aspect, social discord leads to armed insurrection and civil war. If the problem is that a Stalin is murdering millions by deliberately starving them while incarcerating millions others in slave camps in the Gulag, then insurrection and civil war can be righteous, potentially saving such a despoiled society. But when the society actually is doing quite well, when freedom reigns and people of all colors, creeds, religions, and ethnicities are enjoying remarkable opportunities to succeed and to live wonderfully rich and precious lives alongside their neighbors in respectful diversity, then Fake News media indeed are the enemy of the people when they seek to sow social discord in that welcome environment, aiming to up-end civil harmony. 2. Pittsburgh: The Rosetta Stone A maniacal dirtbag murdered eleven Jews in Pittsburgh. In time, perhaps after a decade or two of ACLU appeals, he will be electrocuted, injected, hanged, or hopefully all three. The dirtbag hated Jews, and he likewise hated President Trump. President Trump responded to the news immediately with profoundly sensitive and healing words aimed at condemning anti-Semitism and at comforting and consoling the Jewish community. Listen to his words. If the role of a President is to heal and unify, as President Reagan did after the Challenger tragedy, as President Bush did after 9-11, then this President did so eloquently, sensitively. And then came the sowers of social discord to destroy the moment…. The Left Media would not allow the President that moment to heal and unify. Instantly, they brought in one Left-Democrat anti-Trump “analyst” after another to blame Mr. Trump for the attack. They never blamed President Jimmy Carter’s anti-Jewish rhetoric for the 1977 Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue shooting in St. Louis. Nor Bill Clinton for the 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shootings of yeshiva students that included the murder of Ari Halberstam. Nor Clinton’s rhetoric for the 1999 Granada Hills Jewish Community Center shooting in Los Angeles. Nor Obama for the deadly 2009 Holocaust Museum shooting in Washington, D.C. Nor Obama for the 2014 Overland Park Jewish Community Center shootings in Kansas City that murdered three. But this time — with the same social dynamics as the others — they tried blaming the President. By sowing social discord with outright absolute falsehoods at a time that called for healing, the Left Media indeed were acting as enemy of the people. Facts are different from opinions. Facts can be discerned and evidenced. There is a reason that as many as 82 percent of Israeli Jews love President Trump, that more than 90 percent of American Orthodox Jews support President Trump. Likewise, a huge majority of British Jews — by more than three-to-one — support England’s conservative party and despise the Labour Socialists. Similarly, millions of Jews who have left the former Soviet Union hate Marxism and socialism, are solidly capitalist and conservative, indeed have changed the face of Israeli politics towards the more conservative Likud, now led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Throughout the world, Jews now vote conservative, are conservative — as reflected in our country, too, by American Orthodox Jews. The independent Pew Research Center has found that the Orthodox Jewish community will be the predominant Jewish community in a few decades, as the others disappear. Just as the voting patterns of the American Deep South have changed 180 degrees from Democrat to Republican in the century since the Civil War, so is the American Jewish metamorphosis now on pace to synchronize with every other Jewish community in the world that has moved towards conservatism. But Jews are not monolithic, as witness those in Hollywood and in certain media. So look at what the Fake News Left Media did after President Trump healed and unified: They received a news release from a small, utterly insignificant, nothing of a Radical Leftist group, calling itself “Bend the Arc,” which said that they did not want the President of the United States to visit Pittsburgh. The thing is, those Radical Leftists do not want the President to visit anywhere. Just as there are rabid Leftist Catholics (not to mention the more mainstream Leftist Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and the Kennedys) and rabid Leftist Protestants, these also are rabid Leftists. Within the normative mainstream American Jewish community, “Bend the Arc” is a joke, off the charts. Their CEO started off as a sex-club “dancer.” C’mon! As reported: “Cotler, who identifies as queer, recounted how a lesbian couple invited her to their [event] after she did a table dance for them at what she refers to as a ‘sex club.’” Feh! So this Leftist fringe group issues their statement — and the Fake News Left Media then falsely report that “the Jews of Pittsburgh” (not “some Jews”) do not want the President to visit. Consider these headlines — and they are a mere sampling: “‘You Are Not Welcome’: Jewish Community Leaders Do Not Want President Trump To Come To Pittsburgh” (Salon) “Pittsburgh Jewish Leaders Tell Trump To Stay Away Unless He Denounces White Nationalism” (NY Daily News) “Trump ‘Not Welcome’ In Pittsburgh After Synagogue Shooting” (Al Jazeera) “Pittsburgh Jewish Leaders Tell Trump To Denounce White Nationalism” (Reuters) All those stories thereupon cite the same insignificant radical-fringe “Bend the Arc” statement. Honestly — if there still is such a thing as honesty — that is outright Fake News. I know the American Jewish community. I have been a Vice President of the Zionist Organization of America, a congregational rabbi for decades, sat for six years during this past decade on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America, have sat on committees of Jewish Federations and Boards of Hillels, have a whole lifetime résumé in this area. My rabbinical colleagues and I were bristling all day, reading and hearing this Fake News. The rabbi of the temple where the murders happened, Rabbi Jeffrey Meyers, explicitly welcomed a visit by the President. To report such lies, at a time of such intense passion, is to stoke flames among the populace. It is not unfair to call such liars “Enemies of the People.” They do it similarly to convince Americans of Color that this President hates them. He beams so proudly that he has helped reduce poverty and unemployment in the African-American community. Likewise, in the Latino and Greater Hispanic communities. It is a hallmark of his every speech. How compare him to Hitler, for G-d’s sakes? Why sow social discord between and among races when the President, despite his classical Trumpian gaffes, actually takes so much pride in his being a President for all Americans, in a country where — in his trademark line — “we all bleed the same red, white, and blue”? Why denigrate his outreach to Black Americans, whether via Kanye West and Jim Brown or by speaking to a Young Black Leadership Summit? Why begin narrating his Presidency on Day One by reporting falsely, as Zeke Miller of Time magazine did, the lie that he had removed a bust of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King from the Oval Office? Why publish falsehoods to sow discord among the Black and Latino communities — if not to aim cynically to peel away their votes — by trying falsely to report that he is a bigot who hates them? Here is a man who was in the public eye, in the world’s media center in the heart of Manhattan, with a weekly network television show, building skyscrapers and hotels, golf courses and casinos — all bearing his name — and no stain of racism or bigotry of such sort ever got attached to him through all those decades in the limelight. Why cause enmity and divide the nation, disillusion African Americans and Latinos from recognizing that this President seeks their advancement alongside that of everyone else? Only to sow civil discord, to promote tension and unrest in the name of advancing an agenda that assures greater television ratings, higher advertising dollars, and a change in the elected government chosen of The People, by The People, and for The People. 3. The Proof the Pudding: Tagging the Most Pro-Jewish President in American History as an Anti-Semite. So it comes back to the Rosetta Stone — the way the Left Media falsely portrays this President’s relationship with one demographic, the Jews, demonstrating a pattern of Left Media mendacity aimed at sowing social discord throughout. Even before he was elected President, the Left Media was calling him an anti-Semite by clutching at straws to prove the false narrative. Just as they did by propping up “Bend the Arc” into a Fake News depiction as “Jewish Leaders,” they regularly dig up the most irrelevant and unrepresentative people from the Far Left who are JINOs— Jews In Name Only — as “experts” on Trump and anti-Semitism. It does not end. These are lies, damned lies, and more damned lies being perpetuated by enemies of the people. Just consider these facts about the Trump Administration and the Jews: Vice President Mike Pence personally physically helped repair damages at a desecrated Missouri Jewish cemetery. Nikki Haley, in stark contrast from Obama’s Samantha Power, was a fierce defender of Israel at the United Nations. The Trump Administration — unlike Obama — has vetoed every anti-Israel UN vote and even has warned the anti-Israel bigots that “We are taking down names.” Trump has appointed as America’s ambassador to Israel a person who is not a constant critic of Israel, unlike so many of the previous ones. The President moved America’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem, honoring a promise that others made but then lied about. He pulled the United States out of the anti-Israel and brutally corrupt UN Human Rights Council. He cut nearly $300 million from “aid” to Mahmoud Abbas that we annually were throwing down the garbage. He pulled America out of the corrupt and outright anti-Semitic United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). He pulled out of the disastrous Iran Deal that endangered the United States as well as Israel. He hunted down and deported perhaps the last known Nazi War Criminal still hiding in the United States. He has acted to protect religious liberty, a subject of great concern for Jews who observe Jewish religious practices and observances — substantially curtailing the “Johnson Amendment” that circumscribes sermons from the pulpit; supporting religionists against Obamacare requirements that compromise their beliefs on matters like birth control; supporting Masterpiece Cake Shop and their right to exercise their religious beliefs. His Secretary of Education, Betsy De Vos, has visited and praised yeshivot, Orthodox Jewish day schools. He commuted the viciously anti-Semitic prosecuting and sentencing of Sholom Rubashkin, releasing him from a virtual-lifetime sentence. He has named Kenneth Marcus as the Department of Education’s new Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights — bringing in someone who will treat the rising scourge of campus anti-Semitism on the Left as a bona fide civil rights issue. He closed the PLO Office in Washington, D.C. This is an anti-Semite? If so, may G-d smite us with an abundance of such anti-Semites! Although his daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law Jared Kushner are Orthodox Jews — as are their children, his grandchildren — that family connection in itself is not determinative. After all, we are told that George Soros is a Jew, and most every Jew I know would gladly trade Soros for two anti-Semites and a neo-Nazi to be named later. Soros is a major opponent of Israel and secretly funds organizations that oppose critical Israel policies. But the demonstrated life record of President Trump, a lifetime of working closely with Jews, amicably and warmly, makes him someone whom Jews throughout the world appreciate deeply. Again — every survey and poll of Jews who actually live the Jewish observances, the kosher laws, the Sabbath, the Torah demonstrates that he is warmly regarded in that community. The Fake News about Trump and Jews is the Rosetta Stone. Once one cracks that hidden code, everything else becomes clear. The Left Media indeed propound Fake News, lies, and falsehoods. They undertake to stoke anger among African Americans, among Latinos, among women. The People rely on them for the news, the truth — and, yes, for honest reporting when the President is wrong because The People benefit when they are told the truth, even when the truth is not pretty. But to depict him as an agent of Putin, as a man perpetrating treason, a hater? These are the lies that come only from Enemies of the People. Copyright © 2018 Rabbi Dov Fischer's Samizdat: Resisting The Sanctuary State, All rights reserved.  You are receiving this email because you opted to receive these samizdat.  Our mailing address is:  Rabbi Dov Fischer's Samizdat: Resisting The Sanctuary State Box 122 5319 University Drive Irvine, Ca 92612 Add us to your address book

American Interests After the Khasoggi Murder

Jewish Policy Center    October 31, 2018

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2018/10/31/american-interests-after-the-khashoggi-murder/

Now that the first blast of hot air is gone, it may be possible to discuss l’Affaire Khashoggi rationally. First, the stipulations:

• Jamal Khashoggi should not have been killed. Period.
• In the longer form, that stipulation reads that no one should be killed by governments that disapprove of what they say, write, or think. That applies to Saudi Arabia, but also to Russia, Turkey, Iran and China, and others, all of which have dispatched their enemies to far less fanfare. [By the way, where is Interpol President Meng Hongwei who disappeared on a visit to China from his home in France in early October?]
• Turkey is not a reliable source of information on Saudi Arabia. Its animosity goes back centuries.
• The United States is not responsible for Kashoggi’s death, as The Washington Post more than implied. It is not the judge and jury of his killers and was not in a position to protect a man moving between two other countries. Righteous anger is not a call to war.

If Lord Palmerston was right about friends and interests, then it is American interests for which President Trump along with Congress is responsible.

In the cauldron of the Middle East, America’s essential security interest is to prevent Iranian expansion into and weaponization of other countries.

Iran’s nuclear program does not stand apart from the Mullah’s Shiite hegemonic intentions, it underpins them. Whatever hope America has for religious tolerance, free expression, women’s rights, minority rights, loyal opposition, and so on in the region, they cannot succeed if the Islamic Republic does. Iran is the fountain of evil in the Middle East, with tentacles that go as far afield as Venezuela.

It is in the American interest to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and in the Persian Gulf.

The first priority is Iran’s war in Yemen. NOT the “Saudi war in Yemen,” as it has been characterized in the media (here, here, here, and here for just a few examples). Iran is aiming for a military position in the heel of Arabia from which it could close the narrow Bab el Mandeb Straits. Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – America’s allies – would lose their Red Sea exit to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. And the American base in Djibouti – our only one in Africa – would have Iranians at the door. Iran has already claimed the Red Sea is not safe for the U.S. Navy. The Navy responded that it will defend freedom of navigation both there and in the Persian Gulf, and to that end has been conducting military exercises in both.

It is in the American interest not to allow Iran to reach the Mediterranean Sea overland.

The second priority is Iran’s war in Syria. If closing the Red Sea to American allies is important to Iran, equally important is establishing a permanent presence in Syria along the land route to the Mediterranean Sea. Known as the “Shiite Crescent,” the route Iran seeks traverses Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, putting a “lid” on Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel in the north. The U.S. military position in Syria is to prevent that.

It is in the American interest to have the Arab states accept Israel as a legitimate, permanent presence in the Middle East.

Third is Iran’s subversion of the Sunni Gulf States. Here, Israel plays in interesting and increasingly important role. The burgeoning relationship between Israel and the Arab States is based not on friendship but on a realistic appraisal of the risks to the region posed by Iran.

Last week’s meetings between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Sultan of Oman, in Oman, refute the assumption that Israel’s only partner in the Persian Gulf was Crown Prince Mohammad bin Sultan (MbS). Unlike other Israeli visits to the region, this one wasn’t a secret; the Sultanate supplied video. Israeli Minister Miri Regev was in Abu Dhabi Monday and Minister Yitzhak Katz’s will be in Oman later this week.

Omani Foreign Minister Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah told a security meeting in Bahrain. “Israel is a state present in the region and we all understand this…Maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same [as  others states]…”

It is in the American interest to reject simplistic tropes about Sunnis and Shiites and to build a realistic understanding of the cross-currents among its present adversaries.

The cross-pollination of Iran and Qatar with Turkey and Hamas is counterintuitive for Americans who believe the Sunni-Shiite divide is the only one that matters. It is not. Persian Iran and Aryan Turkey have fought Arabs for centuries. They are both expansionist and have been at odds with each other as well as with Arabs – but they find a common interest now in the discomfiture of the Christian West and its Jewish partner.

Turkey takes the side of the Muslim Brotherhood in its fight against both Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It has allies in Shiite Iran and Shiite Qatar, the latter of which has made major investments in Turkey to offset the collapsing lira. Qatar also finances Sunni Muslim Brotherhood Hamas. Iran finances Sunni jihad in Africa and socialist Venezuela.

The U.S. needs to account for that cross-pollination.

It is in the American interest to follow Lord Palmerston through a particularly messy part of the world.















ZOA Urges Others-Join ZOA to Condemn and Counter those Creating Atmosphere of Jew-Hatred

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT MORTON A. KLEIN 212-481-1500
FOLLOW @MORTONAKLEIN7 ON TWITTER. WEBSITE: WWW.ZOA.ORG

NEW YORK, OCTOBER 28, 2018

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein and Chair Mark Levenson, Esq. released the following statement:
ZOA mourns and is horrified and devastated by the murder of eleven innocent Jews, and the injuring of other Jews and several courageous policemen, at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.  This massacre was committed by a monstrous, evil, despicable coward who deserves the fullest condemnation and punishment allowable under all applicable federal and state laws.
However, it is not enough to mourn and be horrified by this heinous taking of the lives of innocent Jews immersed in prayer.
It is time for a complete re-orientation of how we deal with the frightening growing evil of Jew-hatred. We must root out and condemn the lies that legitimize the hatred of Jews, Zionists (another way of saying Jews), Israelis (another way of saying Jews), and the Jewish state (another way of expressing Jew-hatred).  It is time to wake up, and for the leaders of all Jewish organizations, Christian and Muslim organizations, local and national government, university and media leaders and social media professionals to meet and join together, and to join with ZOA, in condemning, clamping down on, and countering the daily anti-semitic activities that the world remains largely silent about, and the evil lies spread against Jews and the Jewish state that are feeding into an atmosphere that encourages and legitimizes attacks on Jews.
ZOA urges President Trump to make a major public address on anti-semitism and bigotry, and quickly fill the post of the head of the government department responsible for fighting anti-Semitism.
What do we need to do?



We must act together, strongly, against all these forms of Jew hatred, if we want to reverse the frightening, vicious open anti-Semitism that creates the environment that leads to terrible, violent tragedies.



First, it is time to recognize that those who foment hatred and violence, or excuse it towards one part of the Jewish people, will attack all of our people.  The perpetrator of the Pittsburgh massacre is sadly a case in point. He expressed virulent hatred towards all Jews which include liberals and conservatives, both the pro-Trump Jews in the Trump administration, and the Jews on the other side of the spectrum at Peace Now and HIAS who bring lawsuits against Trump.  He concluded “all Jews must die,” and attacked Jewish people who have nothing to do with either the Trump administration or HIAS.  
The message that we must take from this is that Jew-hatred in any its forms is dangerous to all.
Anti-Semites hate all Jews – not right wing or left wing Jews.  It’s about time that all Jews realize this.
And the lies spread about Israeli Jews and Zionists are particularly insidious and dangerous to all Jews, because they are a method of spreading Jew-hatred while pretending to “only” be attacking the Jewish state.
Next, we must all be loudly condemning vicious anti-Semitic Jew-hating statements, and the bigots who make such statements.  For instance:
Louis Farrakhan calls Jews “termites” and “members of the synagogue of Satan,” and calls Judaism a “gutter religion.”   He should no longer be tolerated; rather he should be roundly condemned and ostracized.
There must be a huge outcry when former Presidents Obama and Clinton and Members of Congress and media personalities stand smiling together with Farrakhan and shaking his hand and sometimes praising him.
Linda Sarsour outright encourages violence against Jews by, among other things: posting and praising a photo of an Arab child with rocks in his hands, walking toward Israeli soldiers, as “the definition of courage”; tweeting her support for the intifada (the Palestinian-Arab terror wars against Jews in Israel) – describing the intifada as “invaluable on many fronts”; and sharing a podium with and praising convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted of murdering two Jewish college students in a bombing in Israel.  Sarsour also opposes the right of the Jewish state to exist, and expresses her unbridled hatred with tweets and statements such as “Nothing is creepier than Zionism,” “Netanyahu is a waste of a human being,” Zionists can’t be feminists, referring to a Democratic Jewish New York councilman “The Zionist trolls are out to play. Bring it,” and openly supporting anti-Semitic BDS. Outrageously, she demands people must “stop humanizing Jews.”
Sarsour must be condemned by all decent people who wish to end the scourge of Jew-hatred.  And yet, incredibly, she was honored at CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, and praised by politicians including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.  It’s time for universities and politicians to understand that by praising virulent Jew-haters such as Sarsour, they are creating the atmosphere that leads to anti-Semitic violence.
Marc Lamont Hill praises Farakkhan and terrorist Rasmea Odeh, promotes boycotts against the Jewish state, promotes the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) hate group, and writes that saying “Israel has a right to exist” is “Israeli propaganda.”  He must be condemned and promptly be fired from his Temple University and CNN positions.
Geraldo Rivera stated on Fox News show The Five (3/30/18) and in his recent memoir that he regretted not doing more to back the Palestinians in the Second Intifada against Israel. He must be condemned and fired.  The Second Intifada (2000-2005) was a terror war in which Palestinian-Arab terrorists slaughtered over 1,000 innocent Jews and maimed 10,000 innocent Jews in bombings of Jewish pizza stores, buses and Passover seders.  It is sickening and frightening that Geraldo regrets not doing more to back Palestinian-Arabs that carry out these massacres of Jews.  Geraldo also calls the Jewish state the “Unholy Land”; and falsely twisted the PLO/Hamas/Islamic Jihad hostage-taking and seizure of the Church of the Nativity into an “Israeli siege.”
Mahmoud Abbas (President of the Palestinian Authority) must be condemned by all for his outrageous $400 million per year of “pay to slay” payments to terrorists to murder Jews, and his repeated broadcasts of hate-mongering incitement against Jews and Christians – including praising terrorists who spill blood to remove Jews and Christians “filthy feet” from Jerusalem.  Yet, the media and too many others are silent about these outright calls to murder Jews and Christians.
Next, the world must unite in condemning the horrific attacks on innocent Israelis from Gaza.. The world must condemn the attempts by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian-Arabs whom they incite, to invade Israel to murder Jews; and launch barrages of rockets and terror balloons at Jewish civilians living in the Jewish State.
There should be New York Times and other editorials condemning the actions of Hamas and the Gazan attackers. Yet instead, we hear “blame the Jews” for defending themselves.  We hear lies that Israel is attacking “innocent demonstrators.”  We hear lies from politicians such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez that the Jewish state is massacring Palestinians. We must hear repeated condemnations by Jewish leaders and others of these propaganda lies.
Hatem Bazian is a professor at UC Berkeley who was just appointed to an important post on the Berkeley City Council by Council member Cheryl Davila.  Bazian has a long history of anti-Semitic actions and views. Davila also asked inappropriate questions about the views on the Palestinian Arab-Israeli situation of a member of a government committee, who was fired in turn. There should have been a condemnation of Davila’s appointment of Bazian, and her actions in firing the committee member. No group except ZOA spoke out. Where were the others? Allowing all these things to go unanswered creates a horrific atmosphere of Jew-hatred.  The world must develop a sense of decency, and condemn the Gaza rockets and terror balloons.
SJP leaders are screaming “Jews off our campus” and “Death to the Jews.”  Sarsour calls for de-humanizing Jews, and praising murderers like Rasmea Odeh, yet she receives an honorary doctorate at City College. There is not a strong enough outcry condemning the BDS and lies that underlie BDS. This failure to act and speak out allows these lies to permeate.
Next, we all must clamp down on and publicly and repeatedly condemn anti-Semitic hate groups who are creating an unsafe environment for Jews on our campuses and in the public square, including SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine), the misnamed “Jewish Voice for Peace,” CAIR, MPAC, Black Lives Matter, and other BDS groups.
We cannot tolerate the Jew-hatred of MPAC, whose leader opposes the existence of the Jewish state, and the Black Lives Matter platform, which supports the pernicious anti-Semitic BDS, and levels incendiary false accusations against the Jewish state, including falsely accusing the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing towards Palestinian-Arabs.  
Government and university officials, and Jewish and other groups can no longer fail to act when SJP screams “death to the Jews” on CUNY campuses (see, e.g., ZOA’s extensive documentation of SJP’s violent activities at CUNY, at “ZOA Letter to CUNY Leaders about Anti-Semitic, Violence-Inducing Rallies There,” Feb. 22, 2016).   SJP and its allies on campuses across the country are creating an environment that feels hostile and even unsafe for Jewish students.
At New York University (NYU) last spring, SJP and its partner JVP took BDS (anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions) to an extraordinarily sinister level.  They assembled over 50 other student groups to join them in boycotting Israeli goods, boycotting Israeli academic institutions and conferences, and boycotting several off-campus pro-Israel groups, including the ZOA.  Shockingly, this coalition of student groups also pledged to boycott NYU’s pro-Israel student clubs.  SJP is marginalizing and intimidating Jewish and pro-Israel students. Where is the media, Jewish groups, and politicians outcry?
Yet, even though these actions violate NYU rules and policies, ZOA’s repeated calls to NYU officials to put a stop to this bullying campaign have been met with silence.  University officials cannot continue to fail to respond to such hatred leveled at Jewish students.
At University of California Santa Barbara last March, SJP published a series of words and images on Facebook that, taken together, condoned and appeared to encourage violence against Israelis and Jews.  They included a cartoon – drawn in an outline of Israel, including Judea and Samaria – depicting a woman with an AK 47 assault rifle.  Facebook took the images down because they were so extreme.  Yet the university imposed no consequences and did not even condemn SJP’s postings even though SJP’s violent threats violated the code of conduct.  This silence in the face of anti-Semitism cannot continue.
Our university leaders are silent about these issues. Instead of condemning incitement and hatred towards Jews, university leaders legitimize such incitement by invoking “free speech.”  Why don’t university leaders, at a minimum, use their free speech to condemn the Jew-haters who are bullying Jewish students on their campuses?  Why don’t they abide by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which requires universities to provide a harassment-free environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students?
Jewish and other groups must join with ZOA in bringing Title VI and other actions against universities who are derelict in protecting Jewish students.  We can no longer tolerate the university inaction that contributes to the environment of anti-Semitic hate.  
And Jewish and other groups must stop legitimizing hate-groups such as CAIR and MPAC by signing joint letters with them.
Next, there must be an outcry against those who preach Jew-hatred from the pulpit.  In just the past year, Imams in mosques in New Jersey, Texas, California and North Carolina preached sermons calling for death to the Jews.  This, again, is outrageous and intolerable. Such Imams must be fired and condemned by Muslims, Jews and Christians and politicians such as Congressman Brad Sherman has done.
And next, we must stop the lies about the Jewish state that foment Jew-hatred.  Let’s condemn the haters who falsely claim that the Jewish state is an “occupier” of her own land, and who scream about “occupation” when there isn’t any.  Let’s condemn the haters who complain about not having a Palestinian state when the Palestinian-Arabs turned down a state five times — because their real goal is destroying the Jewish state.  There should be a tremendous outcry against these lies.
We must act together, strongly, against all these forms of Jew hatred, if we want to reverse the frightening, vicious open anti-Semitism that creates the environment that leads to terrible, violent tragedies.





Full story can be found here:
https://zoa.org/2018/10/10378852-zoa-horrified-by-and-mourns-pittsburgh-massacre-of-11-innocent-jews-urges-others-join-zoa-to-condemn-and-counter-those-creating-atmosphere-of-jew-hatred/












About the ZOA
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is the oldest and one of the largest pro-Israel organizations in the United States. With offices around the country and in Israel, the ZOA educates the public, elected officials, the media, and college/high school students about the truth of the ongoing Arab war against Israel. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.- Israel relations through educational activities, public affairs programs and our work on Capitol Hill, and to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in the media, in textbooks, in schools and on college campuses. Under the leadership of such presidents as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, Rabbi Stephen Wise, and current President Morton A. Klein, the ZOA has been - and continues to be - on the front lines of Jewish activism. www.zoa.org. For more information contact Morton A. Klein 212-481-1500.













The real reason behind Trump's nuclear treaty withdrawal isn't Russia

By Marc A. Thiessen The Washington Post 10-25-18 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-nuclear-treaty-withdrawal-sends-a-message-to-north-korea/2018/10/25/ace9c25e-d86c-11e8-a10f-b51546b10756_story.html?utm_term=.a4f50864c53d

 WASHINGTON -- In announcing his decision to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, President Trump cited Russia's repeated violations and the fact that the treaty does not bind China, which is engaged in the world's most ambitious ballistic missile development program.

But Trump's withdrawal may also be designed for another purpose. It sends a subtle but unmistakable message to North Korea: If you refuse to denuclearize, we can now surround your country with short- and medium-range missiles that will allow us to strike your regime without warning.

At the moment, the Trump administration appears to be making little progress in nuclear talks with Pyongyang. The threat of deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Asia could change the dynamics of those negotiations.

Recall that in 1983, President Ronald Reagan announced plans to deploy hundreds of U.S. intermediate-range Pershing II missiles in Western Europe in response to the Soviet Union's deployment of SS-20 nuclear missiles.

The U.S. deployment sparked mass protests throughout Europe, but it also put enormous pressure on Moscow -- and in so doing laid the groundwork for a series of arms control breakthroughs, including the INF Treaty. By withdrawing from the INF Treaty, Trump can now put similar pressure on Pyongyang. The treaty barred both conventional and nuclear land-based missiles with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles.

Freed from the treaty's constraints, the United States can now deploy hundreds of conventional short- and medium-range missiles to bases in Asia, including in Guam (2,100 miles from North Korea) and Japan (650 miles). There would no longer be a need to send U.S. aircraft carriers on temporary deployments to waters off the Korean Peninsula as a sign of military strength.

The deployment of intermediate-range missiles in the region would put North Korea permanently in our crosshairs. Pyongyang certainly does not want these U.S. missiles on its doorstep. Neither does Beijing, which knows such a deployment would restore U.S. military supremacy in the Pacific.

According to Adm. Harry Harris, former commander of U.S. Pacific Command, China possesses the "largest and most diverse missile force in the world" -- and 95 percent of its missiles "would violate the INF [Treaty] if China was a signatory."

The fact that Beijing has such missiles, while the United States does not, puts the United States at a strategic disadvantage in any conflict with Beijing.

As my American Enterprise Institute colleague Dan Blumenthal pointed out in The Washington Post, our only possible response would be to strike China with intercontinental ballistic missiles -- an unacceptable escalation. By contrast, the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty allows deployment of conventional mobile ground-based missiles in Guam and Japan, improving our ability to deter Chinese aggression.

Trump can deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles on ground launchers to the Pacific almost immediately after withdrawal from the treaty. Withdrawal would also pave the way for U.S. development and deployment of new missiles banned by the treaty, as well as new hypersonic weapons -- which travel five times faster than the speed of sound -- to compete with China's massive investment in these capabilities. This would be a massive strategic setback to both China and North Korea.

So by withdrawing from the INF Treaty, and clearing the way for such deployments, Trump has given the United States a massive new bargaining chip. North Korea now has a new incentive to denuclearize, and China has a new strategic interest pressuring them to do so.

It still may not work.

But if those negotiations fail, Trump's INF Treaty withdrawal has given the United States a fallback option that will allow Washington to more effectively deter both Beijing and Pyongyang -- and reassert American military primacy in the region.