Lapid attempts to redefine Antisemitism

T. Belman.  The idiocy of the Left. They do the same with the holocaust.  They universalize it. Antisemitism and the Holocaust uniquely pertain to Jews.

“The anti-Semites weren’t only in the Budapest ghetto,” said Lapid, referring to the place his father and grandmother hid during the Holocaust. He said there were also slave traders—the Hutu who massacred Tutsis in Rwanda, Muslim fanatics and those “who beat LGBTQ people to death.”

By David Isaac

 The 7th Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism turned into a political football after Israel’s opposition seized on comments made by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday, in which he broadened the definition of anti-Semitism to include all hatreds.

“The anti-Semites are those who hunt people not because of what they did but because of who they are,” he said. “Anti-Semitism isn’t the first name of hate; it’s the family name, it is anyone who hates so much that they want to kill and eliminate and persecute and expel people just because they are different.”

“The anti-Semites weren’t only in the Budapest ghetto,” said Lapid, referring to the place his father and grandmother hid during the Holocaust. He said there were also slave traders—the Hutu who massacred Tutsis in Rwanda, Muslim fanatics and those “who beat LGBTQ people to death.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now heading the opposition, pounced on Lapid’s comments, tweeting on Thursday, “Yair Lapid erred in minimizing and stretching the concept of anti-Semitism this week … . If this is what the foreign minister says, how will the State of Israel go on demanding that the countries of the world continue to invest special effort in protecting Jewish communities abroad from anti-Semitic attacks?” said Netanyahu.

In a Facebook post, Knesset member Simcha Rothman from the Religious Zionism Party pointed out that Israel has made “great efforts” to convince countries to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, which identifies anti-Semitism’s unique characteristics. He said Lapid’s speech set back Israel’s efforts.

Rothman tells JNS that Lapid’s motive was to enlist “intersectionalists”—those who believe that all oppression is linked, in order to build alliances with other minorities. Rothman said that those who hate Jews will do so regardless, whether it’s because of intersectionality, which views Jews as a privileged elite, or for some other pretext. “Lapid doesn’t get it. He’s trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon,” said Rothman.

Recruiting non-Jews to the cause did appear to be Lapid’s motive. “We need allies. We need to enlist everyone who believes it is wrong to persecute people just because of their religion, their sexuality, their gender, their nationality or the color of their skin,” he said in his speech.

Lapid’s comments were met without comment at the conference itself, which offered a warm round of applause after his seven-minute talk. However, Yana Grinshpun, a senior lecturer at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris who spoke at the conference told JNS: “It’s incorrect to compare anti-Semitism to any form of discrimination. It has a millenary history for religious, theological, social, psychological and political reasons. It’s the longest hatred.”

Grinshpun said it’s highly unlikely that Lapid’s universalist interpretation of anti-Semitism will bear fruit. “If anything, what I’ve observed is a ‘universalism minus one,’ where Israel is excluded from the rolls of the oppressed,” she said.

She noted that she had started to receive shocked reactions regarding Lapid’s speech from France. People considered it “scandalous” and “ignorant,” she said.

The conference, which began on Tuesday evening at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem with opening remarks by newly installed Israeli President Isaac Herzog, ran through Thursday. It featured speakers from around the world with panels covering specific areas, such as online anti-Semitism, the role of radical Islam in spreading anti-Semitism and combating anti-Semitism in sports, among others.

Holocaust researcher and Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt delivered the keynote address on Wednesday. She appeared to endorse Lapid’s approach. “We have to situate the fight against anti-Semitism within the fight against all forms of prejudice. We have to do so for two reasons. First, because that’s where it belongs. Second of all, strategically, we won’t win this … without allies. And if we are off by ourselves, it will be impossible.”

However, Lipstadt also warned against the “weaponization of anti-Semitism” by which she meant only pointing out anti-Semitism among one’s political opponents. “Those on the right see anti-Semitism on the left, and they see it correctly and astutely. And those on the left see it correctly and astutely on the right. What they don’t see is the anti-Semitism right next to them. And who do we have the most credibility with—‘street cred’ younger people would say. It’s the people next to us.”

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July 17, 2021 | 6 Comments »

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  1. Word Press did more than just remove the icons which allowed readers to send the articles to others. As all have,, I have, just above this box, “logged in as Edgar G.”. When I tried to log back in again I couldn’t find the “log-in” and chanced to write about it. I saw then that I still had, above the comments box, “logged in as Edgar G. but when I tried to post it I was told I was logged out. Eventually I found the log in at an unaccusomed place…hidden away at the extreme left, when it had always been on the top right. So here I am again, and will see if my “Edit” has returned.

    Bingo…it has returned.

  2. I recently noticed that I do not ahve any “Edit” feature now. I’m going to try log out and log in to se if it wll clear up.

  3. The way Lapid beins you’s think the Africans and the Tutse were Jews…What have they to do with nti-Semtism. I Hesitate only to mention the LGBT people as they are distasteful to me. Aberrations of nature.

  4. Meningitis and brain tumor can have similar symptoms; double vision, etc.
    However the cure is very different.

    Likewise the Tsuti, Cambodian, Armenian genocides, and Holocaust my look different, but are entirely different when it comes to action needed to prevent future occurrences.

  5. From the ElderofZion blog–presumably Lapid does not consider this guy an antisemite:

    Google Cloud VP forced out after he publishes manifesto on antisemitism and Zionism
    Google has parted ways with its VP of developer relations for Google Cloud, according to an internal email that employees said followed a contentious all-hands meeting about antisemitism.

    “I wanted to share that today is Amr Awadallah’s last day at Google,” Eyal Manor, Google Cloud vice president of engineering and product, wrote in the email to staff Thursday evening and viewed by CNBC.

    Awadallah, who was vice president of Developer Relations and joined the company in 2019, wrote a 10,000-word manifesto on LinkedIn in June about his previous antisemitism. It was titled “We Are One.”

    “I hated the Jewish people, all the Jewish people”! and emphasis here is on the past tense,” his manifesto began. “Yes, I was anti-Semitic, even though I am a Semite, as this term broadly refers to the peoples who speak Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, among others.”

    In interviews with CNBC, several employees described a contentious staff meeting on Wednesday, which touched on the manifesto.

    Awadallah, an Egyptian American who is well-known in the cloud industry, also posted his manifesto on YouTube and Twitter in attempts to decry antisemitism by recounting how he became enlightened after he “hated all Jews.” In an awkward attempt to decry hate amid the Israel-Palestinian conflict, he listed all the Jews he knew who he said were good people. Employees said his public admission, which omitted major historic Jewish events, made it difficult for public-facing developer advocates who are tasked with being the face and bridge for Google developers internally and externally.

    Within the manifesto, Awadallah describes how he was “cautious” of VMware co-founder Mendel Rosenblum based on his last name but that he learned to appreciate him after getting to know him and his spouse, VNware co-founder and former Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene, who both invested in Awadallah’s company Cloudera.

    Employees who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the frustration with Awadallah’s leadership style had been building for months, leading up to this week’s all-hands meeting, where employees confronted him about their discomfort with his manifesto, working with him and the leadership attrition of his reporting leaders. The meeting, employees said, required mediation from a human resources employee who had to step in several times.

    “On one hand, I’m grateful that you not longer hate my children,” a Google director of Network Infrastructure and Tech Site lead said in a LinkedIn comment. “On the other, this has made my job as one of your colleagues much harder. The previous situation has made being a Jewish leader at Google tough. This has made it almost untenable.”

    While Awadallah in his manifesto acknowledged his prior prejudice in apparent pursuit of “peace,” he used anecdotes and personal stories to try to make a point about why his current assertions are correct. One way he does this is by sharing his 23andMe results, which showed he was 0.1% Ashkenazi Jewish, which he typed in boldface as a reason for why he’s technically Jewish, too. Employees said Awadallah had previously used his 23andMe results to justify his opinions.

    The manifesto attempts to be woke but in the end it is cringe-inducing and wildly anti-Israel. It isn’t a reason to fire someone, though, and it looks like employee dissatisfaction with Awadallah has been there for a while.
    The manifesto describes all the Jews that Awdallah respects – from colleagues to Stan Lee, Albert Einstein and Isaac Asimov – but he pointedly notes that the ones that he looks up to are all atheists, proving that Jews are a people and not just a religion.

    But by saying that, he is also saying that he disrespects any Jews who believe in God.

    He also goes on an incredibly ignorant rant about Israel, claiming that he has nothing against Zionism but then insisting that its practitioners are all about ethnic cleansing. That only leftist Israelis care about Palestinian lives. That most Palestinians want peace, and there are only a few fanatics who don’t. That Gaza is an open-air prison. That Israel is an apartheid state.

    I don’t see any malice – but a great deal of ignorance, and more than a little bigotry that peeks through as Awdallah broadly implies that only atheists can be moral humans.

    Again, I don’t think this should be enough by itself to fire the guy, although if I was a religious Jew or Christian working for him I would feel very uncomfortable. Apparently, this is the last straw of a long line of problems that people had with Awdallah.

    If nothing else, it proves yet again that intelligent people can be ignorant and bigoted, even as they think that they are immune from both.

  6. From today’s Arutz Sheva. Interesting that a large plurality of respondents still think Netanyahu is the most qualified to be Prime Minister, and only 14 per cent think Bennet is most qualified. If this poll is accurate, then the present government does not reflect the will of the Israli electorate.

    Poll: Yamina gains ground while New Hope plummets to zero
    68% of Israelis say new government is Center-Left, new poll shows, while coalition faction falls below minimum electoral threshold.

    New Hope chief Gideon Sa’ar with PM Bennett
    The new Israeli government under the leadership of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett received poor approval ratings in a poll published Friday, showing voters unsatisfied with the coalition’s performance on a wide range of issues.

    According to the poll, which was conducted by Maagar Mohot and published by Israel Hayom Friday morning, Opposition Leader and former premier Benjamin Netanyahu remains the top choice for prime minister with 46% of respondents saying he is their top choice.

    Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid came in second with 28%, while incumbent premier Naftali Bennett came in a distant third with just 14%, followed by Defense Minister Benny Gantz at 8% and Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar with 4%.

    A majority of Israelis believe the current government is either left-wing (33%) or center-left (35%), compared to just 25% who say the government is centrist, and seven percent who believe it is right-wing.

    Nearly half (48%) said they were either satisfied (29%) or moderately satisfied (29%) with the composition of the government, compared to 42% who said they were not satisfied. But an absolute majority (56%) said they were unsatisfied with the inclusion of the United Arab List (Ra’am) in the government, compared to 44% who said they were either satisfied (17%) or somewhat satisfied (27%).

    Respondents gave the government poor marks on its handling of the coronavirus and the economy, but were more evenly divided on the government’s handling of foreign policy, while a plurality were satisfied with its handling of security issues.

    If new elections were held today, the poll found that the Likud would remain the largest faction in the Knesset with 29 seats, down one from its current 30 mandates.

    Yesh Atid received 21 seats in the poll, followed by Shas at nine seats, with Yamina surging from six seats to nine seats.

    United Torah Judaism, Labor, and the Religious Zionist Party alliance with Noam and Otzma Yehudit each receiving seven seats.

    The Joint Arab List, Meretz, the United Arab List (Ra’am), and Yisrael Beytenu each received six seats in the poll.

    The New Hope party, formed by breakaway Likud lawmaker Gideon Sa’ar, failed to cross the threshold in the new poll, receiving 0% of votes.