The Jew News Review – August 3, 2024 – “300 Days: Bring them home Bibi!”

Shabbat shalom!

It was a week of whiplash news in Israel, VP stakes in the US, and some inspiring sporting events in Paris. But let’s start with a tip of the kippah, this time to old man Joe Biden, who in the midst of defending his ability to feed himself mashed foods with a spoon, negotiated one of the largest prisoner exchanges since the Cold War! The deal resulted in 24 prisoners being released from seven countries. President Biden and his administration worked with Germany, Slovenia, Poland and Norway to swap prisoners with Russia and Belarus. When President Biden convinced German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to free a convicted Russian hit man who killed a Russian exile in Berlin in broad daylight, Scholz reportedly told the president, “For you, I will do this.”

Way to go Joe! 

Meanwhile, “Momala” Harris continues to ride a wave of enthusiasm, ending this week with her securing enough votes from delegates to become her party’s nominee for president. And, she continued to interview six candidates for VP, with much of the focus around Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Kelly of Arizona, and Walz of Minnesota. All three would be excellent choices. On a purely tactical level, my pick would be Shapiro (a Jew), as there is probably no route to victory without Pennsylvania, but I worry that if they lose, everyone will blame the Jews. Walz is a great folksy, straight talking midwesterner, who I am liking more and more as a symbol of the ticket tacking to the center, and Kelly ticks a lot of boxes and would help the D’s expand their tent in the sunbelt. We shall soon see, as she is expected to announce her decision on VP this week in Pennsylvania.

The D’s are going to have to face the fact that, once the enthusiasm train starts to slow down, Harris will need the Etcha-A-Sketch to erase her past “woke” credentials. Andrew Sullivan’s piece this week is a telling reminder of exactly that: 

The record is somewhat difficult to ignore: Harris favored decriminalizing illegal border crossings, free healthcare for all illegal immigrants, funded bail for BLM rioters, abolition of private health insurance, a ban on fracking, and replacing ICE — “starting from scratch.” She is committed to the woke concept of “equity”, which means ensuring that all identity groups in America “end up in the same place” by government intervention. She favors what we now know are irreversible medical experiments on gay, autistic and trans children. She supports reparations for slavery. She wants to inculcate the core ideas of critical race, gender and queer theory in public schools from kindergarten onward.

The Never Trumper is thereby confronted with an inevitable tension. Not voting for Trump is an easy call, of course. But actually voting for the most left-wing candidate in US history — and one in the vanguard of the new left’s woke cultural revolution — forces us into a new, and awkward place: abandoning almost all our previous principles for the sake of preventing one man’s return to office.

Sullivan sees the bigger picture, and invokes Adam Kinzinger who put the case for Harris most succinctly: “She’s not Donald Trump.” And if you believe that Trump is an existential threat to democracy and the rule of law itself, this obviously makes sense. All policy questions should be subordinate to deeper Constitutional concerns. I get it.” Sullivan, a Never Trumper, and conservative straight shooter, is clearly having second thoughts. If he is a litmus test for the undecideds and Never Trumpers, we could be in trouble. 

In Israel, the news has been a week of whiplash. The war in Gaza just passed the 300 day mark, and while many were cheering the successful assassinations of some truly terrible terrorists, those targeted and strategic killings have put the Israeli people on edge, as they now anxiously await an Iranian response. While Israelis stock up on nonperishables for their bomb shelters and safe rooms, the United States just sent more warships and jet planes into the Mediterranean, and all major airlines have halted flights into Tel Aviv. Israelis are a tough people, and not shying away from the fight. But the really bad news had nothing to do with any external threats from Iran and its murderous proxies. 

The really bad news was a January 6th style attack by Israel’s radical right, led by right wing thug Itamar Ben Gvir, against their own IDF military base. The attack on the base was prompted by Israel’s military police detaining several guards from a detention facility holding Palestinian prisoners, who are accused of doing some pretty heinous things to one of the prisoners. Think Abu Ghraib. So, rather than letting the justice system process the accused, Ben Gvir inspired a mob of right wing nut jobs to storm the military base. Dozens of protesters gathered outside the base in solidarity with the detained soldiers, including at least three far-right lawmakers from the ruling coalition. Hundreds later massed outside Beit Lid, a second base in which the 10 men had been brought for interrogation. Dozens surged inside both bases, brushing aside the guards at the gates. Police were late to the scene, the police who are led by none other than Ben Gvir. Bibi’s response was tepid.

The incidents were widely broadcast across Israel, spreading an image of disunity at a time when the country is fighting enemies on multiple fronts. And while this news has been overshadowed by the coming war with Hezbollah, the wound to the Israeli psyche from this act of insurrection goes deep, and has left the country in the worst place it has been since October 7, and revived the battle over the soul of the country that began over a year ago around the proposed reforms of the judiciary. On one side were the Israelis who see their country as a liberal democracy in which the judiciary should act as a strong check on government overreach. On the other were those who feel it would be more democratic to bestow more power to the elected representatives of an increasingly conservative population than to unelected judges. “All red lines were crossed today,” Yair Lapid, the Israeli opposition leader, said on social media. “Lawmakers and ministers who participate in breaking into military bases with violent militias are sending a message to the state of Israel: They are done with democracy, they are done with the rule of law.” Ugh.

On the good news front, I’m sure most of you have read about the assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders this last week so I will not provide any details here. An awesome achievement combining the kind of cunning, intelligence, bravery and chutzpah usually associated with Mossad and the IDF, and Israel in general. What strikes me most about the assassination of Hamas’ political leader is the complete absence of any missile responses from Hamas in Gaza! My take is that the IDF has neutered Hamas to the point where they are currently incapable of such a response. And if that is true, for God’s sake Bibi, close the hostage deal! Bring them home! Follow Joe Biden’s lead on negotiating a great prisoner exchange deal. Maybe even head off any kind of Iranian response as part of the deal. You have earned more leverage with the assassinations, control over the Philadelphia Passage, and overall progress in Rafah, now get the deal done! Bring them home Bibi! And then resign, you big arrogant a-hole.

Let’s move on and get to the good stuff. Here then, finally, is your weekly buffet of baffling, beguiling, and sometimes bitter news for the Jews copied and pasted from the likes of The Forward, Kveller, Times of Israel, The Jewish Chronicle, JTA, and other reputable sources of all things Jewish-y.  

1. Jewish Olympiads – These olympics have been nothing short of awesome. Paris is beautiful, the US is doing great, every day brings more incredible story lines and performances, and the Jewish medal count is already in double figures! Israeli windsurfers Tom Reuveny and Sharon Kantor landed gold and silver, artistic gymnast Artem Dolgopyat scored silver, as Israel set a new record with 6 medals at the Games — and 3 in a single day! But the biggest Jewish story of the 2024 Paris Olympics so far may be Jessica Fox, the Australian canoe paddler who added two gold medals to her already unmatched legacy as the greatest in the sport’s history. Fox won gold in both the kayak and canoe events, bringing her career record to six medals — three of them gold — which is the most individual medals ever won by an Australian. So far, Fox has been joined at this year’s Jewish Paris podium by U.S. rugby player Sarah Levy, U.S. fencers Nick Itkin, Jackie Dubrovich and Maia Weintraub, Israeli judokas Raz Hershko, Inbar Lanir and Peter Paltchik, Australian racewalker Jemima Montag and U.S. swimmer Claire Weinstein. Together, counting team events, they have 13 medals: four golds, five silvers and four bronzes. As of Friday afternoon Eastern Time, that’s a higher medal count than all but nine countries.
2. On the war….
   1. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered a direct strike on Israel in response to Haniyeh’s killing. The Shin Bet, Israel’s version of the Secret Service, is on alert for potential assassinations, advising Netanyahu and other government officials both in Israel and abroad to lower their profiles.
   2. The U.S. reiterated its “unwavering commitment” to defend Israel if it’s attacked, said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
   3. Security has increased around the Israeli delegation at the Olympic Games in Paris. Even before the recent assassinations, the athletes received threatening “phone calls inviting them to their own funerals” and warning them of another “Munich 1972.”
   4. Several airlines are avoiding the airport in Israel. Lufthansa diverted a Tel Aviv-bound flight to Cypress. United and Delta have temporarily canceled flights to and from Israel.
3. Shapiro haters are Jew haters – Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, is facing a campaign to keep him off the ticket because of his stance on Israel. The stop-Shapiro push includes an article in a major left-wing publication, The New Republic, and a website and Twitter feed called “No Genocide Josh.” Jewish and non-Jewish commentators, among them Democrats in Congress, say that Shapiro is being unjustly singled out because he is Jewish. That’s because all of the other candidates — Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly — also have pro-Israel records. Among those agitating against a Shapiro pick are the Democratic Socialists of America, a group that recently made anti-Zionism a litmus test in deciding whom to endorse. Jewish Insider also discovered that one of the organizers of the “No Genocide Josh” campaign is “Dear White Staffers,” a once-humorous social media feed that has been relentlessly critical of Israel since Oct. 7. The feed is run by a staffer for Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee, a member of the hardline left-wing “Squad” whose members are harsh Israel critics. It took Rep Adam Schiff to call a spade a spade, “Singling him out, or applying a double standard to him over the war in Gaza, is antisemitic and wrong, Don’t go there.”
4. On campus….
   1. 🎒 A federal judge ordered the University of California, Los Angeles, to craft a plan by the end of this month to safeguard Jewish students on campus. (AP)
   2. 🏫  Five major Jewish organizations — the ADL, AJC, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hillel International and Jewish Federations of North America — issued a four-page recommendation to help universities tackle antisemitism this fall. (eJewishPhilanthropy)
   3. ⚖️  A federal court dismissed a lawsuit from a group of Jewish students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who claimed the school had not done enough to protect them. (Bloomberg Law)
5. And elsewhere….
   1. 🥪  An Oklahoma couple got lost at sea for two days, floating in the Gulf of Mexico. After they were rescued, they drove directly to a Jewish deli in Houston to enjoy a black-and-white cookie and a triple-deck sandwich with corned beef and pastrami called “Fiddler on the Roof of Your Mouth.” Said the man: “Where we’re from, we just don’t have that kind of food.” (NY Times)
   2. Bella Hadid, a supermodel and pro-Palestinian activist, said she regrets working on a campaign with Adidas in which she modeled a sneaker originally designed for the 1972 Munich Olympics, where 11 Israelis were murdered in a Palestinian terror attack. “I would never knowingly engage with any art or work that is linked to a horrific tragedy of any kind,” Hadid said. “In advance of the campaign’s release, I had no knowledge of the historical connection to the atrocious events in 1972.” She added: “Antisemitism has no place in the liberation of the Palestinian people.” Read the story ➤

Let’s close this week with a great response from Simone Biles to the orange turd’s suggestion last week that immigrants are stealing “black jobs”.

That’s a wrap. Enjoy the olympics everyone! And even if you are not a believer, let’s pray for Israel to stay safe, and let’s be careful out there.

Brad out.