The lowering of the standard for truth among Americans

Commendably, organized American Jewry is finally focused on the campaign to boycott, de-legitimize, and sanction Israel. However, focusing primarily on Israel, and not also on America and Europe, is short-sighted.

The BDS campaign has not devastated Israel economically. Israel is thriving both economically and in terms of regional alliances—but fifty years of a well-funded propaganda campaign has all but destroyed Israel's good name and has rendered her and Jews everywhere vulnerable to diplomatic, academic, and mob attacks.

It has also lowered the standards for truth among Americans. This is a very important point.

An Islamic-style of Jew hatred has merged with Western, politically correct anti-racism to breed an unnatural passion for "Palestinians," (Fakestinians), which has infiltrated every corner, every crevice of our lives and world. It has infected Americans and Europeans on both sides of the aisle and of every class, race, and ethnicity.

This is utterly astounding, amazing really; something like this does not happen overnight.

The BDS campaign is rooted in the Arab League, PLO, and Soviet propaganda campaign that began in the mid-1960s. In the mid-1970s, the UN proposed its infamous Zionism=Racism resolution.

In 1967, the day after Israel won yet another war of self-defense, Israel--not the Arab aggressors--was seen as the alleged "occupier."

By the late 1970’s, Edward Said's treacherous, lying work had begun to have its way with Western academics, (and with Western-style academics in Israel), European governments, and international organizations.

I only realized how successful his campaign was in 1980, when Israel was demonized at a UN conference on Women in Copenhagen. The Soviets, the Iranians, the Arab League, the PLO-- roamed the hallways chanting "Death to Israel;" European feminists called upon "Palestinian" refugees but refused to hear Jewish-Israeli refugees from Arab and Muslim countries. By 2001, the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban was an even more out-of-control Hate Fest and riot against Israel.

As we approach 2017, UN Resolutions against Israel are as commonplace as they are grotesque. UNESCO’s recent decision to De-Judaize Jerusalem, the Western Wall, and the First and Second Temples is a grim and maddening continuation of this trend. At the same time, pro-Israel professors and students in America are increasingly being harassed, even fired.

Such Lies have infiltrated my private social world. For example: At a recent holiday dinner, our guests agreed that we live in criminal and anarchic times and that no great power has stopped global barbarism, no entity is willing to bring the world back from the brink.

A like-minded gathering, yes?

Not exactly. One man, a genial, well-heeled, well-educated Jewish-American suddenly began hectoring us about the "Palestinians."

"What if they did not hate the Jews and destroyed all their textbooks that demonize Jews and Israelis? What if they were peaceful? Wouldn't we have to admit that Palestinians have always existed and therefore deserve a state of their own? You can't deny that the Palestinian people have always lived there, can you?"

Oh my. Where to start?

The company included two author-scholars who, between them, have published 15 books and thousands of articles, many of them dealing with the history and nature of Islam, tribal gender and religious apartheid, Israel, and anti-Semitism, etc. Among us was a third author, who had also served four tours of duty in the IDF. I held my breath and prayed that we would not go to war at the table.

This man was punching way above his pay grade and I could not understand why.

The two author-scholars presented facts, cited statistics. I pulled down book after book from my shelves. We got nowhere.

"Look," he said. "I have some really good Muslim friends, they're Americans, totally Westernized, they are Palestinians. They strongly feel that this is their identity. Why deny them the identity of their choice?"

And then I understood that the pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist propaganda behind the relentless BDS campaign is successful precisely because so many Americans of all ages, are without knowledge; without respect for knowledge; do not know this; and frankly, don't care.

"Fair is fair," he said. In other words: What's good for the Jews has to be good for everyone else. If not, the Jews don't deserve whatever it is either.

Here's a man who's not an anti-Semite or an anti-Zionist; not an active member of any organization--yet who needs to believe the canard that non-Jewish "Palestinians" have always existed; or that they existed by the nineteenth century or no later than 1948, the year that another stateless people--the Jews--chose a national sovereign identity.

He would not listen to reason. It was quite astounding. How is this possible?

His mind-set is part of our ruling American zeitgeist. If Rachel Dolezal can say she's "black" even when she's "white" and direct a chapter of the NAACP; if a man can say that he's really a woman, trapped in a man's body; if all truth(s) are "relative;" if everything is "subjective;" if objectivity is no longer important; if doctored narratives have supplanted fact-based histories; if revisionism is preferred to truth--then, yes, anyone can say that they deserve their own nation state because they "feel" or "believe" that they do.

I am grateful to my combative guest for reminding me that ignorance is often arrogant and as such, is a great enemy; that educated people have been especially vulnerable to False Ideas; that, psychologically speaking, we must approach them as if they've been brainwashed by a cult.

Facts alone will not work. We must consider all known techniques for de-programming.

This is one of our greatest challenges.