Some are concerned about President Obama’s commitment to fighting anti-Semitism in light of reports that show a spike in anti-Jewish sentiments and incidents worldwide.
But other observers defend the president’s efforts thus far as appropriate in facing the challenges posed by the global trends.
These include violent attacks on synagogues and individuals in France, spray-painted swastikas and desecration of Jewish graves in Germany, and assertions by Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez’s government that “Semitic banks” have been ruining the economy.
One 2010 study at Tel Aviv University found a 102 percent increase in anti-Jewish violence worldwide from 2008 to 2009, including an increase in “coordinated and preplanned” attacks.
One concern among Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans in the last Congress was the speed with which Obama staffed the Office to Monitor and Combat Global Anti-Semitism, which was created by the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004.
The first special envoy to head the office in 2006 was Gregg Rickman, who stepped down at the beginning of the Obama administration and now is director of policy and government affairs at the American Israel Public Affairs Council.
Obama named Hannah Rosenthal, child of a Holocaust survivor and former head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, to head the office in November 2009.
The appointment wasn’t received well by some, including Rickman, who would not comment for this article but wrote in July 2010 that “Rosenthal seems to continue her stray from her main job fighting anti-Semitism. Her consistent attention to Islamaphobia suggests a real sympathy for those very people who lead the way in attacking Jews in Europe.”
Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill brought up concerns about the staffing levels of the office, which reportedly dropped to one at the beginning of the Obama administration.
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14 Responses
First of all, where did YWN get the photo that accompanies this article? It could as easily have come from a web site or publication that preaches that the US and its president are the puppet masters of Israel.
Second of all, as YWN reported recently, anti-Semitic incidents in France were down in 2010 compared to the prior year. These statistics are, admittedly, very vulnerable to good-faith error, or bad-faith abuse, but that is what YWN reports.
Lastly, the article above reports that an unnamed Tel Aviv University study found an increase in anti-Semitic activity in 2009 vs. 2008, but it does not report any analysis that connects this change with anything the Obama administration did, or failed to do, other than show up and win a US presidential election.
Anti-Semitism is a serious problem. It requires serious attention, not journalistic mush.
On a related matter —
In a message I left on the White House comment line (1-202-456-1111) today, I said:
Over the past several months many distinguished Americans have urged the President to pardon Jonathan Pollard and release him immediately from his unduly harsh and unjust prison sentence, where he has served over 26 years.
Due to the urgency of this matter — Mr. Pollard is in very poor health — we respectfully request immediate action by the President, or an explanation!
Obama is one clever _. _. _.
Who would seem to be a better person to be his “special envoy” to fight anti-Semitism than the child of a Holocaust survivor, – right?
But leave it to our slick president to find one who, apparently, is of a leftist, liberal hashkafa, and is more worried about yishmaelim being “dissed” than in doing her actual job, i.e. to look out for Jewish interests!
i just read “Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004”, it didn’t mention guantanamo having over 94+% semitic inmates being tortured every day, it didnt mention chechnya and afghanistan, it didnt metion global population genetics trends. the vast majority of actual anti-semitism is being committed by the usa against the expert racists exact definition of semitic which “used to” include the majority of jews…
it only stipulates anti-jewish events strategically increasing the ability to commit anti-semitic acts at the highest rate possible against the largest number of semitic people possible.
when you look at population genetics europeans have been committing genocide non-stop against the same people, they just made a deal with the tiny jewish population with a very low percentage of semitic individuals left which enabled them to target directly most populated semitic regions on earth.
these people in chechnya, yemen, afghanistan didnt do anything to anyone!, they’re not idolaters, they’re experiencing the same political situation you experienced in the 1940’s, they’ve been on their land for many thousands of years.
can someone explain to me this process that benefits us by having the actual semitic population on earth decrease as rapidly as possible? we argue over some tiny little borders that leave 0 room to expand and meanwhile the europeans take over 3 continents with genocide in a couple hundred years… we should ask our policy makers and diplomats specifically about population genetics because nobody is evaluating it except the european governments.
enahak…
Who ARE you, and what is YOUR agenda!?!?
“people in chechnya, yemen, afghanistan didnt do anything to anyone!”
WHAT are you babbling about???
Have you read a newspaper in the last TEN years?!?
-Who shot up a bus of American servicemen (yelling
“a-llah huAchbar!”) just last week in Frankfurt? – A chechniyan!
-Who attacked an American navy ship and killed many American sailors??? -Yemenis!
-Where is the main base of alKaida? -Afghanistan!
You stated the inmates of Guantanamo are “being tortured every day”.
Have you been to Guantanamo and witnessed prisoners “being tortured every day”? I think not.
Furthermore, if you knew that YOUR FAMILY was at risk of being killed in a terrorist attack that could be prevented by extracting information from a captured terrorist throught torture, would you let your family members die rather than do what ever was necessary to get the information?!?
Go crawl back under the rock you came out from.
(and YW Moderators: Why do you allow such garbage to appear on this website?)
enahak…
And… I should have added above how appropriate your name is. The opposite of all the wise, intelligent things HE stood for.
To No. 4, “enahak”: Your name may be the reverse of “Kahane,” but your grasp of facts and reasoning matches him perfectly: “mishigoss.”
AinOhdMilvado,
i would encourage you evaluate the truth of population genetics histories before you take a position.
you must be one of the 25% of the israeli jews that came straight out of the european population within the last few hundred years as genetic testing results have shown…. and you use the term “arab” without knowing it was the genetic classification of moses and abraham.
you want to take a possition on chechnya, afghanistan and guantanamo without knowing anything at all about this situation, shame on you.
would you condemn jews for defending themselves during the holocaust? its equivalent.
i’m only telling the truth and doing whats right; when you evaluate population genetics you see continuous conspiratorial genocides from the same source throughout history.
you ask the moderators to silence me, forward me your genetic results if your not a european ill go away. id like to see allot of these “anti-arab” jews and where they came from too. we have a right to know. lets put the lifes of those considered “semitic” by racist definition under a microscope (like they do) and get some numbers together, i dont know about you but my life’s feeling a little fishy over here.
pull the veil completely off the genetics information so we can all cry our eyes out at nightmare of the massive genocide thats visible, it makes the holocaust look like a little car accident.
please prove me wrong.
Enahak:
Dear Cornball,
I live in the modern era. The term anti-semitism is KNOWN to only mean atrocities and crimes against the JEWISH people. You can spin the anvil all day long but you’ll never convert a modern world into a touchy feely simpleton existence that regards a word as it is defined by concrete terms. We are not concrete thinkers. Abstract thought trumps juvenile stupidity. Best wishes and good luck with that, really.
#8 your “science” is not supported by any prominent scientists, or anthropologists for that matter;
#9, you don’t make sense to me, i would encourage you to evaluate what im saying for more than 20 seconds and know some true histories of population genetics before discussing this particular issue and jumping on a politically correct band wagon like the germans in 1940. this definition of anti-semitism is used by anti-semites. the problem is semantics, i agree 100% with you on that and unfortunately “english” law becomes based on exact definitions of their words instead of the concepts their words represent.
#6,7,9, allot of talking and still no knowledge or mention on population genetics… i wish you could see what your talking about. and i wish i could see “who” im talking to.
when you look at genetics you see theyve been committing genocide against the same people only changing definition of antisemitism midstream while continuing to commit the exact definition of antisemitism.
i guess this doesn’t effect you though huh.
Please give me names of any prominent scientists who support your theory. I am curious if you also believe in the Aryan race. Your comments would be well received on a site like stormfront or al jazeera, maybe you can stop bothering the jews. I really do not know why you have this bizarre obsession with harassing the jews with your stupidity on such a dumb point, we are taking about Jew haters label them however you want!
FYI I know many Jews who can trace their lineage back thousands of years.
To enahak: Take some time out from your study of “population genetics” and try to learn how to write coherently in English. Alternatively, you should reserve your discussions for a web site in your first language, which clearly is not English (not that there is anything wrong with that).