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Out of Respect for the Dead

Nov 1, 2018 Posted by Sarah Stern In All, Anti-Semitism, Articles, Terrorism

The dead have not all been buried. Yet, they have been used as cudgels for partisan political attacks. Immediately after the ghastly attack on worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the single most horrific anti-Semitic attack in US history.

I would like to make one simple request: Out of respect for the dead, please refrain from the temptation of using this tragedy as a club with which to bludgeon one’s political opponents.

No matter how passionately you might feel about the moral rectitude of your own personal political party over the other.

It is time to focus on healing. Focus on what we can do to heal a scarred, fractured nation, and a scared, fractured people.

We Jews felt we have finally come to a place we can call home, where we can plant our trees, nurture them and let them blossom on fertile soil. That it could never happen here.

And then it happened here. In ironically, The Tree of life Synagogue.

We are still recoiling from the fact that our sacred space has been invaded. The place we go to strengthen our collective identity, our history and our faith; where we turn to in times of personal crisis, sorrow and joy, has been invaded and turned into a killing field by this wretched imitation of a human being, Robert Bowers.

As soon as this odious event hit the news, the most frequent response I heard was “Donald Trump set the tone for this.”

By laying the blame on someone else’s door, it takes personal agency away from where it directly belongs, on the murderer himself, Robert Bowers, the heinous act and the heinous screed of Nazism which he represents.

This, despite the fact that President Trump’s response to this was immediate and unequivocal, calling it “devastating” and laying bare “the hatred in this country”.

This, despite the fact that President Trump, at an Illinois rally, called this an anti-Semitic act, and “an attack on all of us”, to rousing applause.

This, despite the fact that Robert Bowers, himself, said he did not vote for Donald Trump, or never, “owned, worn or even touched” a “Make America Great Again” hat.

Yes, there are repulsive anti-Semites within the fringes of both parties, lurking among the shadows of the internet. The simple fact remains that within the extremes of both tents, our people are not welcome.

A simple google search to the Southern Poverty Law Center website reveals the bone-chilling fact that there are a plethora of neo-Nazi groups in this country, and these are the classic, right wing anti-Semites, whom one might well suspect that, as individuals, probably feel more comfortable within the republican party.

Yet, the most recent Pew Poll of January 2018 says that an overwhelming majority of republicans as opposed to democrats, support Israel over the Palestinians. The hiatus is staggering, with 79 % of republicans supporting Israel over the Palestinians, and 27% of democrats.

That is Israel– the only explicitely Jewish state—home for more Jews, 6.5 million, than anywhere else on earth.

Within the current House races there are some ominous signs.

In Minnesota’s 5th Congressional district, a Somali born candidate, Ilham Omar is running on the democratic ticket. She recently said , “I am just someone who is a public servant working to create a better society who just happens to be a Muslim refuge”, yet , on November 16, 2012 she tweeted “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them to see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel”

In New York’s 14th Congressional District, democratic candidate Alexandria Occasio-Cortez has called Israel’s defensive actions on the border of Gaza, where Hamas terrorists are trying to infiltrate Israel with the expressed intent of murdering as many Israelis as possible, “a massacre”, and has asked “Where is the outrage?”, before admitting that “I am not an expert on the issue.”

Rashida Tlaib, the democratic candidate in Michigan’s 13th district, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, has vowed that she will “absolutely” vote against any military aid to Israel.

However, when one expresses legitimate concern over these statements, one is immediately and conveniently accused of being “Islamophobic”, the ultimate conversation stopper.

Unfortunately, according to the ADL anti-Semitism acts were up by 57% in 2017, over 2016. Most attacks are occurring on college campuses, with a 50% spike in K through 12 schools and on college campuses.

Anti-Semitism is a very virulent virus, for which there is no known antidote, and which has found a welcome home within the extremes of both political parties.

And the leaders of both political parties have a moral imperative to call it out when they see it taking root in their midst.

So please, spare me the sanctimonious, one-sided political lectures. The finger pointing must stop.

We need to find messages of unity, of solace and of hope.

We need to remember that the vast majority of Americans are people of good will who would never countenance any act of ant-Semitism, for one nanosecond, and who have sent my people thousands of compassionate messages of friendship, solidarity and support.

We need to remember that most Americans had ancestors who came to these shores in pursuit of the very same thing our fathers and grandfathers sought: religious freedom. And that religious liberty is one of the core principles upon which this great nation was founded.

Let’s try to use this time to concentrate on what unites us, as a people, which is far greater than what has ever divided us.

Sarah N. Stern is Founder and President of the Endowment for Middle East Truth, an unabashedly pro-Israel and pro-American think tank and policy institute in Washington, DC.

EMET Stands with The Tree of Life Congregation

Oct 30, 2018 Posted by The Endowment for Middle East Truth In All, Anti-Semitism, Holocaust

We at EMET are profoundly saddened and chilled to the core at the deadly massacre at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh and we offer prayers of solidarity, strength, and support to the Squirrel Hill community, to all of those who suffered the loss of family members and friends, and pray for the recovery of all those injured.

Throughout the Diaspora, our synagogues serve as our links to our collective history, our identities, and our faith. They serve as our sanctuaries, our places to go in times of personal joy, crisis or sorrow. They are our original “safe spaces.”

All of this was shattered on Saturday morning when Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in a leafy suburb of Pittsburgh, shouting, “All Jews must die,” mowing down 11 people at worship. This attack was not only an attack on the Jewish people, but it was also an attack on the very values that make the United States the exemplary nation that it is. It is an attack on one of the core, founding principles of the United States, religious freedom.

We are painfully aware that on the extremes of both sides in this country, our people are not wanted. Anti-Semitism is a rather virulent virus, which has found a welcome home in both the extreme right and the extreme left. There are people who lurk in the margins of our society, in the shadows of the internet, who spew their hateful creed.

In its most common form today, anti-Semitism in America is found on our college campuses, where Israel is held to a standard that no other country could possibly be asked to live up to, particularly when faced with the same difficult conditions that Israel must live under. Swastikas and apartheid walls have sprung up on virtually every campus from Columbia to UCLA and hundreds of points in between. It has become far too acceptable for university administrators to give a “pass” to hateful symbols and slogans aimed at intimidating and chilling Jewish students, under the cover of free speech, something which they would never allow when aimed at any other minority group.

At anti-Israeli rallies throughout our college campuses, students are often heard shouting such expressions as “Zionist pigs,” “Hitler was right,” and even “Jews to the ovens.” The very symbol of the swastika, which has proliferated throughout our college campuses, represents the goal of the extermination of Jews.

This creates an environment that is hostile to Jewish students, and teaches non-Jews that a certain form of hatred in our country, anti-Semitism, is acceptable “free speech.”

What gives us some solace in this sorrowful time is that opposed to Europe of just one generation ago, and the world of radical Islam, including Hamas-controlled Gaza, where the massacre of Jews is exhorted, glorified and incentivized on a daily basis, the Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre was condemned by the vast majority of Americans, from the President on down.

The vast majority of people in this country are people of good will, but our history has taught us that we must remain forever vigilant of those who lurk in the margins of our society, and of the growing problem of anti-Semitism on our college campuses, which has taken the 21st-century form, of anti-Zionism.

Let us hope that we can make something positive out of the recent horrific events in Pittsburgh and work together as a community to prevent the proliferation of this latest form of anti-Semitism that our students must confront on our college campuses.

About The Endowment for Middle East Truth

Founded in 2005, EMET’s mission is to educate policymakers in Washington and the general public about the importance of Israel to the United States in their common struggle against radical Islam. For more information, please visit, http://www.emetonline.org. Follow EMET on Twitter and Facebook.

EMET Praises DoE for Working to Curb Political Biases on College Campuses

Sep 27, 2018 Posted by The Endowment for Middle East Truth In Anti-Semitism, BDS, Press Releases

Press Release: EMET Praises Department of Education for Taking Steps to Curb Political Biases on College Campuses

(Washington, DC, September 26, 2018) – Today, the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) praised the Department of Education (DoE) for taking steps to enforce a law that could help curb many professors and programs on university campuses, and teachers of the K-12 level, that espouses anti-American, anti-Israel, and at times, anti-Semitic viewpoints, in violation of federal law.

Some grants to universities and schools funded under Title VI of the Higher Education Act (HEA) have contributed much to the belief that America’s support for Israel is a strategic liability and a source of why the US is resented in the global community. EMET has long been working on Capitol Hill and beyond to reform Title VI of HEA to ensure that the biases are put to an end. Under the Obama Administration, DoE had willfully ignored the law in place to prevent these biases, and further enabled the politicization of Title VI programming.

All of this is about to change.

The Higher Education Act was originally signed into law on November 8^th, 1965, to strengthen the educational resources of American universities and colleges and to provide financial assistance to students in postsecondary and Higher Education. HEA was a later version of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), signed into law in 1958 by President Eisenhower. The original intent of Title VI of the NDEA was to prepare our students to serve the national security needs of the United States by funding foreign language and area studies programs at universities, particularly with respect to combatting the Soviet threat at the time. The area studies programs are known as National Resource Centers (NRCs). In 1965, Title VI legislation was included into HEA, most recently reauthorized as the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) in 2008.

For the 2014-2018 grant cycle, more than $13.4 million of federal grant money was awarded to 19 Middle East NRCs under Title VI of HEA. Grants for the next cycle will be allocated this fall.

Unfortunately, the original legislative intent of Title VI of HEA had been turned on its head. Research shows that many Title VI-funded NRCs – currently at 100 institutions of higher education across the U.S. – are replete with an anti-American and anti-Israel biases. Specifically, many Middle East NRCs, including at such prestigious institutions as Columbia University, Georgetown University, Princeton University, and Yale University, among others, are replete with Title VI-supported faculty and programs that advance the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement; whitewash terrorism and radical Islam; and create a false narrative of U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East.

Also, problematic, under Title VI, NRCs are required to extend their activities by creating programs of “public outreach,” including workshops where K-12 teachers are trained. Many of the workshops, and their lesson plans on the Middle East, are heavily influenced by Saudi money, reports show. Some of the training materials include essays of Islamist radicals who advocate for terrorism; textbooks painting Israel and the West as colonial powers; and lesson plans that promote Islam, but criticize Christianity and Judaism. As a result, Title VI-funded Middle East studies biases are trickling down to America’s most vulnerable and impressionable youth.

Since 2008, EMET has been the only organization on Capitol Hill regularly raising awareness about the abuses of, and calling for legislative changes to, Title VI, through one-on-one meetings with Congressional staffers and Members of Congress. EMET has also met with the Department of Education, a number of times, and with a senior member of the White House, to discuss the issue.

Thanks to EMET’s work, the Department of Education is now giving more consideration to the 2008 amendments of “diverse perspectives and a wide range of viewpoints” when evaluating applications for funding under Title VI of HEA. The Fiscal Year 2018 application for grants for NRCs states that it is an “Absolute Priority” that applicants fulfill the 2008 amendments, by providing “….(1) an explanation of how the activities funded by the grant will reflect diverse perspectives and a wide range of views and generate debate on world regions and international affairs; and (2) a description of how the applicant will encourage government service in areas of national need, as identified by the Secretary, as well as in areas of need in the education, business, and non-profit sectors.”

Sarah Stern, founder and president of EMET said, “For far too long, students at universities and on the K-12 level have received a steady diet of anti-Israel propaganda as a paltry substitute for a solid education, under some Title VI of HEA programming. After the 2008 amendments — that attempted to remedy the problem – the biases have only gotten worse. The Saudis continue to pour millions of dollars into many Title VI-funded Middle East Centers and faculty, resulting in extreme anti-American and anti-Israel biases in their classroom instruction and materials that they use in their teacher-training workshops, which are mandated by the Title VI legislation.”

Stern added, “I applaud the Department of Education for taking the matter of the misuse of funding under Title VI of HEA seriously, and for taking the significant step of emphasizing the “diverse perspectives” requirement, which may help remedy the abominable political biases within some of the programs. When the universities who have applied for these taxpayer funded grants in this cycle are turned down, they will receive an explanation as to why. If it is because they have not demonstrated a capacity to teach from a diversity of perspectives and a wide-range of viewpoints, perhaps they will be more careful to hire faculty who are not quite so monolithic in their biases against the United States and the State of Israel. The change in the anti-American and anti-Israel atmosphere will not happen overnight, but incrementally, we hope that this will create a much less hostile environment in the college classroom.”

About The Endowment for Middle East Truth
Founded in 2005, EMET’s mission is to educate policymakers in Washington and the general public about the importance of Israel to the United States in their common struggle against radical Islam. For more information, please visit, http://www.emetonline.org. Follow EMET on Twitter and Facebook.

EMET Praises the Department of Education

Sep 17, 2018 Posted by The Endowment for Middle East Truth In Anti-Semitism, Press Releases

Press Release: EMET Praises the Department of Education for Using State Department Definition of anti-Semitism

(Washington, DC, September 17, 2018) – Today, the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) praised Kenneth L. Marcus, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education (DOE), for employing the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism in a case against Rutgers University, involving discrimination against Jewish students.

The case, originally filed in 2011 and appealed in 2014, alleged that a Jewish student was harassed and physically threatened by the Outreach Coordinator of the University’s Center for Middle East Studies. Additionally, a campus student group discriminated against pro-Israel and Jewish students by selectively charging them an admission fee to an event. At the time, DOE’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) determined there was insufficient evidence of discrimination on the basis of “national origin” under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and closed the case.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. However, OCR has previously indicated in a 2010 Dear Colleague letter that “discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics may not be denied protection under Title VI on the ground that they also share a common faith. These principles apply not just to Jewish students, but also to students from any discrete religious group that shares, or is perceived to share, ancestry or ethnic characteristics (e.g., Muslims or Sikhs).” Essentially, according to the letter, OCR has the responsibility to investigate cases of anti-Semitism under Title VI of the Civil Rights. The letter did not, however, provide a definition or examples of what constitutes as anti-Semitism.

Mr. Marcus reopened the Rutgers case, and determined that OCR New York will investigate the case based upon the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which is also used by the State Department. “In determining whether students face discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived Jewish ancestry, we rely where appropriate upon widely established definitions of anti-Semitism. The IHRA working definition is widely used by governmental agencies, including the U.S. Department of State, and is used by OCR as well,” Mr. Marcus wrote in a letter dated August 27, 2018.

The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism used by the U.S. State Department includes examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regards to the State of Israel, including examples relating to: demonizing Israel, applying a double standard on Israel, and delegitimizing Israel. Employing the definition thus broadens the DOE’s criteria to identify, investigate, and punish all forms of anti-Semitism, including extreme anti-Zionism and anti-Israel harassment.

Anti-Semitic attacks on our nation’s college campuses have been on the rise. A July 2016 report by the AMCHA Initiative found that “There were nearly 100 more antisemitic incidents in the first six months of 2016 compared with the same time period in 2015,” when examining more than 100 college and university campuses with the largest Jewish student populations. A 2017 AMCHA report found that anti-Semitic incidents that were related to Israel were more likely to contribute to a “hostile environment” for Jewish students, than incidents of standard anti-Semitism.

EMET has been on Capitol Hill meeting with congressional offices for years to educate them about the rise of anti-Semitism on campuses, and to encourage them to ask the DOE to adopt the State department definition of anti-Semitism, to determine if incidents of harassment or discrimination potentially in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act were motivated by anti-Semitism.

Sarah Stern, founder and president of EMET said, “I applaud Kenneth Marcus and the Trump Administration for adopting the State Department definition of anti-Semitism to effectively combat the growing rise of anti-Semitism on our nation’s college campuses. For far too long, our Jewish students have been bullied, harassed and threatened simply for showing their support for the Jewish State of Israel. Finally, the Department of Education has recognized these attacks are often motivated by anti-Semitism. The Department of Education’s application of State’s definition of anti-Semitism will help to ensure that our students can safely and proudly continue to support Israel on campuses.”

“Appropriating Apartheid: The Palestinian Leadership’s Ideological War Against the Jewish State“

Mar 16, 2018 Posted by The Endowment for Middle East Truth In All, Anti-Semitism, BDS, Israel, Videos

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Following President Trump’s historic announcement recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and PA President Mahmoud Abbas waged a political and ideological war against the State of Israel. During a speech in Egypt, Abbas claimed that the Palestinians were the “original Canaanites” and lived in Jerusalem before the Jews. Abbas also called Trump’s statement “sinful” and “ill-fated,” and Fatah called for a “day of rage,” with approximately 800 Palestinians rioting as a result.

Abbas’ vilifying words and the Palestinians violent riots are only some of the political tactics the PA uses to undermine the State of Israel; another main tactic is the advancement of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). The BDS movement seeks to delegitimize, demonize, and ultimately destroy the State of Israel by using political and economic warfare, and false accusations. The BDS movement uses gross lies to demonize the Jewish State of Israel – such as by falsely comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa – to win activists on its side. Yet the movement is inherently anti-peace, while opposed to any type of negotiations with Israel or Israelis, even if it is for the benefit of the Palestinians, and often uses-anti-Semitic tactics to delegitimize and undermine Israel’s existence as a sovereign state. The global BDS movement also gains support from various parts of the international community, including some European countries and the United Nations. To what extent is the PA’s use of political warfare a threat to the State of Israel? Who are the main drivers and supporters of the BDS movement? And what steps should Israel take to combat these threats? Please join us as we hear from Dan Diker as he explores these questions and more.

About Dan Diker

Dan Diker is a Fellow and Senior Project Director at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs where he heads the Program to Counter Political Warfare and BDS. In 2011, Dan co-founded the Global Coalition for Israel (GC4I) together with Brig Gen (res) Yossi Kuperwasser, former Director General, and Ministry of Strategic Affairs. Has authored several books on BDS and the anti-normalization movements including: BDS Unmasked, (2016), Defeating Denormalization, (2017), and Students for Justice in Palestine, Unmasked, (2017) Dan is also a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism, IDC Herzliya, where he hosts Counter Terrorism Today on IDC International Radio. Dan appears as a Middle East and BDS commentator on news networks such as Al Jazeera, BBC, Fox, China CCTV, CBN , ILTV, and Russia Today. Dan Diker previously served as Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress, the global diplomatic organization representing Jewish communities in 100 countries. Dan received a BA Cum Laude from Harvard University and studied toward his MBA at the Harvard Graduate School of Business before earning an MA in Government and Counter Terrorism Policy, Summa Cum Laude, from the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. He is married with 5 children and immigrated to Israel in 1990. He can be followed on Twitter @dandiker84.

You Cannot Whitewash Away Polish Anti-Semitism

Mar 6, 2018 Posted by Sarah Stern In Anti-Semitism, Articles Tagged Anti-Semitism, articles

Photo Credit: Alik Keplicz/AP

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was forced last week to deny being a Holocaust revisionist, after suggesting that Jews were complicit in their own genocide.

Referring to a new Polish law making it illegal to say the country has responsibility for the Holocaust, an Israeli journalist and son of Polish survivors asked Morawiecki if he could face prison for recounting how his mother was betrayed by her Polish neighbors.

The Prime Minister replied: “Of course it’s not going to be punishable … to say that there were Polish perpetrators, as there were Jewish perpetrators, as there were Russian perpetrators, as there were Ukrainian, not only German perpetrators.”

Morawiecki’s remarks were a shameful adulteration of history. There were no “Jewish perpetrators” in the Holocaust. They were victims. The Jewish prisoners who participated in the extermination machinery did so under the immediate threat of death.

The new law, which Polish lawmakers chose to push — on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, no less — cannot be understood without an appreciation of the context from which it emerged, nurtured by the rise of nationalism in Poland and the tactic support of the populist government, which views itself as the guardian of Polish historical honor.

A dark trend is once again sweeping across the European continent. In Macerata, a small town in Italy, a neo-fascist admirer of Mussolini recently went on a shooting rampage, wounding five men and one woman of African origin. In Austria, a party with neo-Nazi roots now sits in the coalition government. And from Hungary to the Czech Republic, France and Britain, political parties and their supporters are reviving the old blood libel against Jews. Europe’s grip on its bloody past is far from assured.

Of course, Poland’s history with the Third Reich is complex. If the new law were to clarify that the Polish government had no official role in the Holocaust, it would be an accurate reflection of events. Likewise, Poland is right to object to the flippant use of “Polish death camps” to describe Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Majdanek and Chelmno rather than “Nazi death camps inside Poland.”

But in every country under Nazi occupation — Poland is no exception — most of the local population were either silent witnesses to the slaughter or willing participants in the annihilation of Jews.

Take, for example, the role of Polish collaborators. In July of 1941, 1,600 Jews, nearly the entire Jewish population in the village of Jedwabne, were murdered by their Polish neighbors. Some were hunted down and killed with clubs, knives and axes. Most were forced into a barn and burned alive.

The Polish police collaborated with the Germans on many occasions such as in Warsaw, where they remained on duty to control the 50,000 Jews still alive in the ghetto after the liquidation in the summer of 1942.

This is only part of the story. In Poland, complicity and heroism coexist. An important aspect of history that must not be forgotten or minimized is the sacrifice of the Polish Underground State. The organization, which came to the rescue of Polish Jewry, operated from 1939 to 1945 and was subordinated to the Polish government-in-exile.

The Council to Aid Jews codenamed “Zegota,” a unique organization one on a global scale, provided structural and monetary assistance to Jews hiding among the Polish population and those living in ghettos, saving the lives of tens of thousands. Thousands of other Poles sheltered Jews despite the fact they and their entire families faced execution by the Nazis, if they had been caught.

But the selfless act of humanity by a selective group of Poles cannot whitewash the more sinister chapters of Polish history. In Poland, and many other parts of Eastern Europe, historical revisionism is far from a new phenomenon.

The widespread hostility that Jews faced did not die with the defeat of the Nazis. After the closure of World War II, Jewish survivors that returned home were confronted with an anti-Semitism that was terrible in its fury and brutality.

The new communist government in Poland made no mention of the crimes committed against Jews by the Nazis. They, too, were Antisemites. In July 1946, a pogrom occurred in the Polish town of Kielce, resulting in 42 Jews being massacred, an event that Poland’s foreign minister would recognize fifty years later as an “act of Polish anti-Semitism.”

In recent years, things have regressed again. A rise in nationalism has always been bad for the Jews.

Matters were not helped when Poland, over the last decade, lost important public intellectuals who reminded their country of the horrors of the Holocaust with first-hand accounts. Among them Marek Edelman, a Jewish leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a leading figure in the Zegota underground organization.

The so-called “Holocaust Bill”, the new Polish law, promotes the avoidance of historical responsibility and deflects blame, in an attempt to rewrite history in the name of blind nationalism. But the Holocaust cannot be denied, avoided or played down. We are here to remember, educate and speak truth to power.

Originally published: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-op-viewpoint-poland-holocaust-history-20180302-story.html

Sarah Stern Interviewed on The Jason Rantz Show

Jan 25, 2018 Posted by The Endowment for Middle East Truth In All, Anti-Semitism, In The News

Jason Rantz interviews EMET president and founder Sarah Stern regarding a senior policy adviser to Sen. Patty Murray saying, “We don’t care about anti-Semitism in this office.”

Photo: JasonRantz.com

EMET Mentioned on The Mark Levin Show!

Jan 25, 2018 Posted by The Endowment for Middle East Truth In All, Anti-Semitism, In The News

Mark Levin mentions EMET’s Sarah Stern and Jennifer Dekel on his radio show, The Mark Levin Show, on January 17th, 2018 while speaking about the Free Beacon article on a senior policy adviser in Sen. Murray’s office saying, “We do not care about anti-Semitism.”

Photo: The Mark Levin Show

Education Department nominee Ken Marcus: a case study of the new anti-Semitism

Jan 18, 2018 Posted by Sarah Stern In All, Anti-Semitism, Articles

Photo: Louis D. Brandeis Center

When I was a child, having been born in the 1950s under the shadow of the Holocaust, I had naively thought anti-Semitism was mostly a thing of the past that vanished in the gas chambers and ovens of Auschwitz. Yet within the past few decades, I have witnessed anti-Semitism blossom into a socially acceptable hatred that has managed to make its way into the corridors of polite society in a fashion that is as overt, obvious and unconcealed as it is alarming.

It has migrated not only into college classrooms and campuses, but actually into the most respectable chambers of the U.S. Senate, in the very committees whose mandate is to authorize and appropriate taxpayer-funded programs to eliminate racism and anti-Semitism as well as other hatreds, and to appoint professionals within those agencies.

Recently, much of this anti-Semitic invective has been directed against a colleague of mine, Ken Marcus, who has been nominated to serve as assistant secretary of education for civil rights within the Department of Education. For reasons I will explain, Marcus has been the victim of an ugly and disgusting smear campaign.

Marcus served in a similar capacity from 2004-2008 under President George W. Bush, as assistant secretary of education for civil rights and later as staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He monitored and investigated complaints against minority groups such as African-Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ individuals and people with disabilities. A firm believer in free speech rights under the First Amendment, Marcus has always expressed the view that hate speech is protected speech under the Constitution, and that the best antidote for hate speech is more speech.

The standard for protected speech within an educational setting, however, is a bit more complex. When a student is subjected to physical/verbal harassment, vandalism or intimidation to the degree that it interferes with that student’s ability to learn—creating “hostile environment harassment”—it might very well cross the line.

During the past few years, when it comes to Jewish students, it seems that the line has been constantly crossed. A recent report from the Anti-Defamation League indicates that there was an alarming 67-percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents from 2016 to 2017. Most alarmingly, the greatest increase were in our nation’s schools, which saw an increase of 107 percent in anti-Semitic incidents experienced by Jewish students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses, meanwhile, rose 63 percent during that period.

It was precisely because of this trend that in 2012, Marcus founded the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, whose mission is “to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all.” Marcus simply wants Jewish students to enjoy the same civil rights and protections that the law provides to other minorities.

Since Marcus’s institution serves to advance the civil rights of Jewish students, the flood of complaints against his nomination have come in at a frenetic velocity from some predictable sources.

On Jan. 10, Dima Khalidi published a scurrilous piece in The Nation entitled “Students Beware: This Trump Nominee Doesn’t believe in Your Civil Rights.” Notably, Khalidi fails to mention the fact that she heads Palestine Legal, a group that routinely works to undermine efforts to combat anti-Semitism on college and university campuses. She argues that Marcus, as the leader of LDB, “has made a practice through his work at the center of targeting the First Amendment rights of students who are critical of Israeli policies and advocate for Palestinian rights.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout Marcus’s extensive career, he has consistently demonstrated uncompromising and objective support for the civil rights of all minority groups, and unflinching appreciation of everyone’s First Amendment rights.

As Jennifer Braceras—a former head of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, whose service overlapped with Marcus’s time at the agency, wrote in a recent article, “Marcus has never argued that speaking out against Israel is, in and of itself, sufficient to trigger federal civil rights law. To the contrary, he has expressly stated that skepticism of Israel’s ‘status quo’ is often wrongly characterized as anti-Semitic, when it ‘may well reflect only the concern, shared by some in the liberal Jewish American community, that Israel’s current policy toward Palestinian Arabs is unsustainable in light of gathering international pressure.’”

Perhaps Khalidi is unaware that Marcus, on behalf of LDB, has sent several letters to university officials decrying racism against Muslims and African-Americans on their campuses. In November 2015, Marcus penned a letter to Dr. Elliot Hirshman, president of San Diego State University (SDSU), expressing concern regarding an attack on a Muslim student. He wrote, “While our organization primarily addresses the rights of Jewish college students, we support the right of all students to be free from invidious discrimination.”

Does this sound like the sentiment of a racist or an Islamophobe?

Yet while I was recently talking about Marcus with a senior policy adviser to the Democratic ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, the adviser interrupted me with the response, “We do not care about anti-Semitism in this office.”

If I were an African-American speaking about a black civil rights organization, would the adviser have ever thought to utter similar words?

Perhaps Marcus’s crime is how he has recognized that, along with other minority groups, Jewish students in America need protection. If that is the case, then we have gone a long way from the halcyon days of my youth.

Originally published at: https://www.jns.org/opinion/education-department-nominee-ken-marcus-a-case-study-of-the-new-anti-semitism/

Jan 3, 2018 Posted by The Endowment for Middle East Truth In All, Anti-Semitism, Israel, Press Releases

EMET Commends the House Committee for Curbing anti-American, anti-Israel biases on College Campuses:

Education & Workforce Committee Reformed the Title VI International Education Programs

(Washington, DC, January 2, 2017) Today, the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) commends the House Committee on Education and the Workforce for including new language into Title VI of the ‘‘Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity 6 through Education Reform Act,’’ also known the ‘‘PROSPER Act,’’ H.R 4508. The PROSPER Act, which passed the House Education & Workforce Committee December 13, 2017, is the new name for the Higher Education Act (HEA), last reauthorized in 2008. EMET has long been working on the issue of International and Foreign Language Studies grants in Title VI of HEA, in an effort to reform this law that helps support many professors and programs on university campuses that espouse anti-American, anti-Israel, and at times, anti-Semitic viewpoints, in violation of federal law.

In October 2014, more than $3.3 million of federal grant money was awarded to Middle East NRCs under Title VI of HEA. More than $13.4 million will be awarded to 19 Middle East NRCs for the entire 2014-2018 cycle.

For example, Hatem Bazian, a champion of BDS and anti-Israel causes, is a senior lecturer at Title VI-funded Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Bazian co-founded the oftentimes anti-Semitic and pro-BDS student organization, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and is the chairman of the radical organization, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). AMP was the topic of a Congressional hearing on BDS in April, 2016, which exposed the organization as one of the main funders of the BDS movement, as well as having ties to the terrorist organization Hamas. AMP called the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration as a “sad date” in history, with Bazian stating, “Everything thing that has befallen Palestine – It’s partition, the settlements, random arrests and detentions, the Apartheid Wall, the siege on Gaza, and the millions of Palestinians living in exile and Diaspora – was made possible because of the Balfour Declaration.”

Also, problematic, under Title VI, NRCs are required to extend their activities by creating programs of “public outreach,” including workshops where K-12 teachers are trained. Many of the workshops, and their lesson plans on the Middle East, are heavily influenced by Saudi money, reports show. Some of the training materials include essays of Islamist radicals who advocate for terrorism; textbooks painting Israel and the West as colonial powers; and lesson plans that promote Islam and criticize the Jewish State. As a result, Title VI-funded Middle East studies biases are trickling down to our most vulnerable youth.

In 2008, EMET was instrumental in amending Title VI of HEA to require the need for “diverse perspectives and a wide range of views,” within the U.S. taxpayer-funded Title VI programs. Despite EMET’s exhaustive efforts in 2008, the U.S. Department of Education, which provides these grants to the universities, as well as the recipients of the grants themselves, have ignored their statutory requirements to provide “diverse perspectives.” Since 2008, EMET has been the only organization on Capitol Hill regularly raising awareness about the abuses of, and calling for legislative changes to, Title VI, through one-on-one meetings with Congressional staffers and Members of Congress.

Thanks to EMET’s hard work educating congressional staff and Members of Congress on the House Education and Workforce Committee for several years on Title VI, these changes were finally made. EMET was also instrumental in helping to draft and include amendments within the new PROSPER Act to strengthen the “diverse perspectives” requirement, and to create accountability for universities and Title VI-funded programs – including the NRCs – that fail to comply with the diverse perspectives requirement, among other amendments. Specifically, the new bill states that the “Secretary shall use [the diverse perspectives] requirement…as part of the application evaluation, review, and approval process when determining grant recipients for initial funding and continuation of awards.” And the bill further mandates that the Secretary annually “submit to the authorizing committees a report that identifies the efforts taken to ensure recipients’ compliance with the requirements under this title relating to the ‘diverse perspectives and a wide range of views’ requirement…”

Perhaps most notably, EMET’s work and diligence on Title VI biases prompted Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) to include an amendment to HEA which states: “Sec. 629 Compliance with Diverse Perspectives and a Wide Range of Views – When complying with the requirement of this title to offer a diverse perspective and a wide range of views, a recipient of a grant under this title shall not promote any biased views that are discriminatory toward any group, religion, or population of people.”

Sarah Stern, founder and president of EMET said, “I am thrilled by the new language included within Title VI of the PROSPER Act. Congressman Wilson’s amendment is nothing short of historic; students previously discriminated under Title VI of HEA programming for their religious and political beliefs – including politically divergent views, Jewish student groups, and pro-Israel groups – will now be guaranteed protections under Title VI. Furthermore, EMET has been calling for reforms to Title VI of HEA for years – and we are pleased that many of our recommendations have been included in the PROSPER Act, including an annual report by the Secretary of Education on ‘Compliance with Diverse Perspectives and a Wide Range of Views Requirement.’”

Ms. Stern added, “I applaud the entire House Education and Workforce Committee for taking the matter of Title VI of HEA seriously, and for taking the long overdue step to include language that will work to remedy the terrible anti-American and anti-Israel biases within the program. EMET was also pleased to collaborate with other civil rights and pro-Israel organizations on the issue, and looks forward to working with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) to help ensure the legislation passes and is subsequently signed into law.”

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Media Contact: Jennifer Dekel
Endowment for Middle East Truth

202.601.7422

jdekel@emetonline.org

Review Category : Anti-Semitism

Press Release: EMET Praises Department of Education for Taking Steps to Curb Political Biases on College Campuses