Nearly 50 years ago, President Chaim Herzog tore up an antisemitic resolution at the United Nations declaring Zionism as “racism.”
Proving how little has changed since then, were it not for a U.S. veto, the United Nations Security Council would have passed a farcically antisemitic resolution last week.
Antisemitism has only intensified, both in Israel and around the world, and it is unfortunately only going to get worse.
Let’s start with Israel. Every infiltration, murder, rape and kidnapping on October 7 was an act of antisemitism. So are all 13,000 rockets fired from Gaza since then, and every missile and drone launched from Lebanon.
The people of Southern Israel are impressively resilient, but too many are still not calling out the antisemitism of their former friends in Gaza and the Arab world. The left-wing members of the Gaza periphery’s agricultural communities were proven wrong about the intentions of their neighbors on October 7. It is time to start facing reality.
Since Israel unwisely withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the only things that have not flown over the fence into Israel are doves of peace.
In fact, many peace-pushing doves were incinerated in their homes in the Gaza periphery, including veteran peace activist Vivian Silver of Kibbutz Be’eri, who was so burned to a crisp that it took months to identify her.
While the end to the war with Hamas may be in sight, an equally justifiable war with Hezbollah has yet to get into high gear despite emptying northern Israel of its residents for months. Just like Israel turned a blind eye to Hamas’s stockpiling of weapons that eventually had to be eliminated, the much larger arsenal in Lebanon cannot be ignored, and a war to eliminate this constant threat to Israel is inevitable. Regrettably, Security Council resolution 1701 is unlikely to succeed despite our best efforts in disarming Hezbollah.
Hezbollah’s goals are genocidal and antisemitic, and any demands from the international community that Israel sit silently with such a serious threat on its border are problematic. So is every city council resolution from San Francisco to Chicago demanding a cease-fire before the hostages come home.
The antisemitism that has reared its ugly head in America since October 7 had lurked beneath the surface for decades, and American Jewish leaders did not do nearly enough to stop it.
They should have seen how the students of notoriously anti-Israel Columbia University Professor Edward Sa’id were taking over the Middle East studies departments on campuses across the country, funded by Qatari money. Together their followers have created a culture of antisemitism and anti-Americanism.
Now Jewish kids find themselves terrified at the top American universities. Since October 7, they have faced physical violence, threats and intimidation, and sadly, there is no end in sight.
My own grandson, who headed a pro-Israel organization at Cornell, transferred from the Ivy League school to the all-Jewish Yeshiva University because he did not feel safe anymore, due to antisemitism he experienced from both fellow students and his teachers.
A powerful article in Commentary by former Harvard professor Ruth Wisse revealed how its efforts to achieve “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” and other decisions have entrenched antisemitism at the prestigious university for many years. DEI is antisemitism and Jews are suffering from it across America. Make no mistake. As long as DEI is present, traditional university life will not be restored.
Claudine Gay was finally deposed from her post as Harvard president, but she still makes a million dollars a year as a professor. Meanwhile, jobs of Jewish academics remain in jeopardy if they refrain from speaking out against Israel.
Jewish organizations made alliances over decades with many progressive and liberal causes. But most of those alliances evaporated overnight on October 7, when many of the progressive groups abandoned the Jews and sided with their genocidal enemy.
Universities and institutions that may have been nice to Jews for a while due to their many alumni Jewish donors felt free to exhibit their antisemitism when the government of Qatar trumped the Jews and gave them billions. It is no wonder the Qataris have not been called out enough for being the sponsor of Hamas and the funders of the October 7 massacre. Their resources are unlimited and tentacles are far reaching.
Much like the threats from Hamas and Hezbollah, for 20 years, we’ve known about the Qatari influence and did nothing about it, while the regime invested trillions in antisemitism. We knew top American universities had campuses in Doha and obtained unprecedented influence at almost every tier of education.
We must wake up America to realize that Qatar is not part of the solution to any problem, but it is the cause of too many challenging issues facing the U.S. nowadays. With Israel’s blessing, Qatar has been giving $320 million annually to Hamas and $800 million to the Palestinian Authority.
Instead of revealing the extent of Qatar’s brazenness to the world, the US and Israel are both making a mistake by using Qatari mediators to negotiate a cease-fire agreement. The United Arab Emirates, which normalized relations with Israel via the Abraham Accords and did not fund Hamas, would have been a much more sensible choice.
If the U.S. and Israel do not change their course, it is unfortunately likely that the influence of Qatar and its money will only grow. Al-Jazeera and AJ+, which are Qatari state media, will continue poisoning Western minds if they are not banished from Israel and the US, as they should have been a long time ago.
The U.S. must intensify its cooperation with the UAE, which changed its school curriculum to eliminate antisemitism and encourage tolerance, as mandated by the Abraham Accords.
What the UAE implemented can be a model for the essential educational reconstruction of Gaza. That process can be guided by the Culture for Peace Institute, which is dedicated to promoting understanding, tolerance, and peace among diverse cultures and communities worldwide.
It may take 20 years to inculcate a culture of peace instead of the antisemitism taught over the last 20 years. When the war ends is the perfect time to start the process in Gaza.
Gaza’s reconstruction should be conditioned on the educational reconstruction, because if not, more wars will take place that will result in much of what would be rebuilt coming down again.
The Abraham Accords provided a platform for educational institutions and organizations to develop programs that promote cultural understanding and appreciation. By including curricula on the history, customs, and beliefs of neighboring nations, educators can help future generations grow up with a more open and empathetic perspective on the region’s diversity.
The accords also went a long way toward ending the scourge of antisemitism, after Jew hatred throughout the entire Arab world was taken for granted.
It is good that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called out the antisemitism of Brazilian president Lula da Silva. But the antisemitism of the Irish, for instance, should have been called out for 75 years.
There must be zero tolerance for both kinds of antisemitism, in Israel and America. We must totally expose and not tolerate anyone involved in any antisemitic act, from Iran to Ireland to Brazil.
To properly fight antisemitism, we have to be united. When I spoke at the Knesset last week, I drove past the menorah across the street.
The menorah is there, because it is a symbol of unity. In the Tabernacle, it was the only item G-d said had to be made from one solid piece of pure gold.
It will be a challenge, but I pray that the people of Israel will remain united against our enemies and defeat them in Israel and around the world.
