To best understand why this impeachment is so troubling, I share with you what a friend from left-wing circles put out on Twitter: &#8220;I so want to believe that Lev Parnas has handed us the smoking gun, but I fear we are once again being led down the primrose path. As we have been at almost every turn since 11/8/2016.&#8221;
One might have imagined that, with so much of world history behind us, we would have learned better than to search for an excuse to charge or convict another person. You would think that this was obvious. Put “charging political adversaries with imagined crimes” on a Jeopardy! board, and the question is: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/menken-the-new-stalinism">“What were the Stalin Show Trials?”</a>
And that is why the current impeachment is both morally wrong and an abuse of congressional power. Impeachment, like any accusation of criminal or otherwise nefarious activity, was never intended to be a political goal — a way to get rid of someone you don&#8217;t like. It was intentionally reserved for a president who had been caught up in criminal or similarly shocking activity. The accusations against President Trump not only <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/13/obstruction-of-congress-is-an-utterly-ridiculous-impeachment-charge/">fail to meet the constitutional standard</a> of “high crimes and misdemeanors”; they aren’t crimes or misdemeanors at all.
Yet if you think my friend is atypical of Democrats, you haven&#8217;t been listening. The intent to abuse impeachment as a political tool is why The Washington Post reported that “The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun” on his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/20/the-campaign-to-impeach-president-trump-has-begun/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/20/the-campaign-to-impeach-president-trump-has-begun/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1579370691623000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEOk3eSOoKrdS1G32f9H33vTV2PsA">inauguration day</a>. It is why Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) came into office promising to “impeach the motherf***er” long before the phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ever took place.
This same political partisanship and hostility is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), barely shielding her glee and schadenfreude, appointed the uniquely unfit Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to now lead the prosecution of the president in the Senate.
To start at the beginning, it is why Schiff, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly lied to us about the president&#8217;s fictional collusion with Russia in the first place. Recall that he spent over two years asserting “ample,” “abundant,” and “damning” evidence of collusion between Russia and President Trump that Robert Mueller concluded simply doesn’t exist. Schiff was not simply asserting that these things were true; due to his position, he claimed access to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-pol-russia-investigation-schiff-trump-20190327-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-pol-russia-investigation-schiff-trump-20190327-story.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1579370691623000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFq2V3IsB9c4bqIF_Se5cus5iUijg">classified information</a> to which we were not yet privy and which ultimately proved him correct.
If Democrats had the least interest in a serious, measured prosecution of the president for actual crimes, Adam Schiff is literally the last person on earth they would let anywhere near the Senate trial — because there is no one on earth who lied more about inside information to which he or she purportedly had access, but did not, in order to slander the President.
Democrats, who are so quick to condemn the president for exaggerating as he brags about the size of his inauguration, his tax cut, his hands, and whatever else, have now appointed a man to lead them who maliciously lied in an attempt to destroy the president. They have become their own punchline.
America truly is a shining beacon of freedom. It has led the world in advancing civil liberties, mutual respect, and tolerance. Perhaps it is no coincidence that those who claim America is hopelessly racist and broken are leading the way to upend what the Founding Fathers called justice.
And perhaps it is no coincedence that both are so profoundly factually and morally wrong.
&nbsp;
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the managing director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593164733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHLN2_sFEnPCsMZZCT1wIePVktmOg">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>, and co-editor of the Orthodox Jewish journal <a href="https://cross-currents.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://cross-currents.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593164733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHDWEFT_osCyA6CYu82vPnKoRactA">Cross-Currents.com</a>. Opinions are his own.

Impeachment Trail on the Senate

MENKEN: The Impeachment That Threatens America

Democratic Party

Donald Trump

Impeachment

Twenty-five thousand people marched in New York City on Sunday under the banner “<a href="https://forward.com/news/437752/photos-from-new-yorks-no-fear-no-hate-solidarity-march/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://forward.com/news/437752/photos-from-new-yorks-no-fear-no-hate-solidarity-march/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEdxXniI836EDbYLXaD_1sLKEoQig">No Hate, No Fear</a>,” ostensibly targeting anti-Semitic violence directed at recognizably-Orthodox Jews. Only two things were missing: Printed signs with the words “anti-Semitism” or “Jews,” and more than a smattering of recognizably-Orthodox Jews.
The two phenomena are related.
Hateful violence emerges from a hateful ideology. The march was not merely useless, but from my perspective it was actually counterproductive; it provided cover for those spreading bigotry to proclaim, “look, we love Jews!”
In reality, it is not difficult to understand why attacks are happening at an alarming rate. Classic anti-Semitism is not merely spreading on college campuses across the nation, but is even welcomed in the halls of Congress.
The classic beliefs of the anti-Semite are simple: That the Jews constitute a supremacist cult who believe themselves entitled to take advantage of others, and most commonly do so by theft, fraud, and deceit. In 3,300 years of Jew-hatred, there hasn’t been an anti-Jewish trope that didn’t trace its roots to this basic idea.
Mark Twain noted, while reporting on Austro-Hungarian battles in the 19th century, that the Jews were opposed by all sides — even though they largely tried to avoid the conflict and keep their heads down. It is no different today.
To white supremacists, the Jews are “International Enemy Number One.” Neo-Nazi website Stormfront.com has a discussion thread entitled “Jews are dangerous,” which since March 2016 has garnered over 715 pages of hate.
Yet anti-white racists tar Jews with “white privilege”; the fact that Jews obviously suffered at the hands of European whites more than any other people escapes them. They include even Jews expelled from Syria, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere across the Middle East; they are still claimed to have “white privilege,” while those who drove them out, who have identical skin tones, are “people of color.” It is pure racism.
And by far the most popular current form of this bigotry is the modern invention of a purportedly unique &#8220;Palestinian&#8221; people, from whom we are told the Jews have ostensibly stolen land.
The proofs are legion. Until 1964, “Palestinians” actually referred to Jews living in British Mandatory Palestine. In 1922, the British divided modern-day Jordan from the rest of Mandatory Palestine, and even current Palestinian Authority chieftain Mahmoud Abbas says that Jordanians and Palestinians are “one people living in two states” — putting the lie to the notion of a homeless Palestinian.
Every indigenous people has its own name, such as the Apache, Pueblo, and Iroquois. They do not call themselves by the foreign term “Native Americans” — nor, of course, do they claim that the borders of particular U.S. states delineate their homelands. Yet the “Palestinians” appropriate their name from Roman imperialists, and have a homeland which, just coincidentally of course, precisely traces the borders of modern Israel.
And in case you still don’t get it, a “Palestinian” is anyone — <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/12/palestinian-relations-israel-druze-community-army.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/12/palestinian-relations-israel-druze-community-army.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEPKoy7m3b6gdWycicgEQSG0x-jdA">Druze</a>, <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/resources/special-focus/palestinian-bedouins" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.palestine-studies.org/resources/special-focus/palestinian-bedouins&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGivEiX4mLiUyA5ocNKQqaslGowFw">Bedouin</a>, Muslim, or <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/31/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestinian-christians-that-nobody-is-talking-about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/31/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestinian-christians-that-nobody-is-talking-about/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFEaXtRYS9FlIAN42-hnt0z0kzHgQ">Christian</a> — whose family ever lived in the ancient Jewish homeland. Rather, the &#8220;Palestinians&#8221; are defined by what they are not: The Jews who constituted the majority of Jerusalem’s populace prior to the advent of modern Zionism, and who never left the so-called “occupied” territories except due to deliberate ethnic cleansing — such as that conducted by Arab mobs in both 1929 and 1948.
Notice that these hateful tropes precisely correspond to what reporters heard on the streets of Jersey City and Brooklyn when they interviewed other residents after the hateful attacks there. Residents spoke about Jews unfairly buying them out, not renting to them, and driving them away. These lies are all rooted in the same animus as is the popular modern “Palestinian” narrative — which, in reality, is indeed far older than even Roman Palestine.
It is not mere happenstance that the machete-wielding thug who attacked people at a Chanukah celebration searched online not only for “Hitler” but for “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/nyregion/jewish-attacks.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/nyregion/jewish-attacks.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEkU392rry2GSMNaWT0let4P20pAg">Zionist Temples</a>” before attacking largely non-Zionist Hasidic Jews in suburban New York. Again, hateful violence emerges from a hateful ideology.
This hate will not be resolved by marching alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who, by her own admission, knows <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TJK1a8OHyw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D4TJK1a8OHyw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGDYPykbd-Strnhxd-vSk0bZpicTw">nothing about the Middle East</a> except that the Jews are (surprise, surprise) &#8220;stealing land&#8221; (in &#8220;Palestine&#8221;) and being unfair to others. It will not be fixed by the bigots of <a href="https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/2020-platform" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/2020-platform&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFjBpsnMOCNuBxgGntQEii02LkRrQ">IfNotNow</a>, who claim that Jewish refugees of Arab ethnic cleansing are “occupying” Arab land in the eternal homeland of the Jews.
It will be helped if universities finally acknowledge that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a hate group that <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/03/22/nyc-students-for-justice-in-palestine-pay-social-media-tribute-to-martyrs-killed-while-carrying-out-terrorist-attacks-against-israelis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/03/22/nyc-students-for-justice-in-palestine-pay-social-media-tribute-to-martyrs-killed-while-carrying-out-terrorist-attacks-against-israelis/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFmzgJzxBwGkw4Fso1d-wD6_CdnQw">honors almost exclusively</a> those who have committed <a href="https://dailynorthwestern.com/2017/05/16/campus/organizer-rasmea-odeh-speaks-at-northwestern-for-sjps-israeli-apartheid-week/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://dailynorthwestern.com/2017/05/16/campus/organizer-rasmea-odeh-speaks-at-northwestern-for-sjps-israeli-apartheid-week/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFn9UlTllaQBsAL2sPZ4P_oN_qREg">murderous, barbaric acts</a> against Jews both <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/far-left-students-praise-palestinian-terrorist-group-leader-at-liberation-event" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.foxnews.com/us/far-left-students-praise-palestinian-terrorist-group-leader-at-liberation-event&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHuZnEtXpCSJTWQAetp1M2T5YFTiA">in and outside Israel</a>. Today, the same universities that would deny funding to a KKK chapter sickeningly honor SJP as a <a href="https://nyunews.com/news/2019/04/10/president-service-award-palestine-israel-divest" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nyunews.com/news/2019/04/10/president-service-award-palestine-israel-divest&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGphZ56j8cr7z3aNOiAvbmLKRKuSg">“human rights” cause</a>.
And it will be helped when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recognizes that an outstanding anti-Semitic bigot like Rep. <a href="https://www.stopantisemitism.org/anti-semite-of-the-week" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.stopantisemitism.org/anti-semite-of-the-week&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFDAjYGdrBCwxgWCk9QIP5VbnWxHA">Ilhan Omar</a> (D-MN) does not belong on the Foreign Affairs Committee — or, indeed, anywhere else in Congress.
Until this hatred is repudiated, these attacks will not stop — yet on the progressive Left, this hateful ideology is supported, while it is the opposition that is censored. Those infected with this mindset cannot be part of the solution, as they are themselves part of the problem.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the managing director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593164733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHLN2_sFEnPCsMZZCT1wIePVktmOg">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>, and co-editor of the Orthodox Jewish journal <a href="https://cross-currents.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://cross-currents.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593164733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHDWEFT_osCyA6CYu82vPnKoRactA">Cross-Currents.com</a>. Opinions are his own.

New York City Jewish Solidarity March

MENKEN: To Stop Hateful Attacks On Jews, Oppose The Ideology Behind Them

Anti-Semitism

Israel

Judaism

New York City

Palestinians

Students for Justice in Palestine

Zionism

Despite Mark Galli’s recent claims in <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1577118452556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEhuGnDa89zSOJWekCYIVaIqckiQA">Christianity Today</a>, the overwhelming majority of both evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews reject the notion of impeaching the president and plan to vote for him in 2020. It is not hard to understand why.
Regarding impeachment, we begin with the same presumption of innocence given to every defendant. That is not merely a quirk of American jurisprudence, but a biblical principle summarized in the Sayings of the Fathers (1:6): “Judge every person favorably.” We are obligated to see the behavior of others, including the president, in a favorable light until we know otherwise.
Could the president’s call with his Ukrainian counterpart be seen as improper? Yes. But it could <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">also have been a reasonable request</a> for an investigation of criminal activity. At this rate, we will never know.
One cannot assert the president was wrong to want an investigation of Joe Biden’s involvement in Ukraine’s judiciary until we know both that Biden’s behavior was unquestionably above-board, and that the president knew or should have known that this was the case. Otherwise, we must presume (there’s that word again) that President Trump was genuinely concerned about the involvement of the previous vice president in Ukraine’s well-documented corruption. That does not become less appropriate merely because Biden is running for office again — if anything, just the opposite.
Then we must consider that President Volodymyr Zelensky, along with several other officials in both administrations, has insisted all along that there was no coercion, no bribery, and no “quid pro quo.” Galli’s assertion that President Trump “attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents” remains dubious, at best — not “unambiguous,” as he claims. We are therefore morally obligated to presume it is false.
The way to have defeated that presumption was through impartial examination of conduct on both sides. Democrats instead rushed to their partisan debacle, strongly suggesting that the truth did not lie with them from the outset.
President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment did not involve a special counsel — probably because they didn’t exist yet. This is the first time the House of Representatives deliberately bypassed an independent investigation prior to impeachment.
Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate scandal, served for over six months until Richard Nixon had him fired — which triggered the House of Representatives to begin impeachment three months later. Six months after that, Nixon’s resignation brought it all to an end. Do the math: 15 months after the prosecutor was appointed, the House had yet to hold a single vote.
Ken Starr was already serving as special prosecutor long before Linda Tripp contacted him with tapes of her conversations with Monica Lewinsky. Yet it took Starr nearly eight months to produce the report that cost Clinton his law license. The House launched formal impeachment proceedings a month later, and then took two months to adopt articles of impeachment. The process took ten months overall, shortened both because the special prosecutor was already hard at work and because of the obvious evidence of illegal activity.
Last week’s impeachment, by comparison, took less than two months from beginning to end. Mueller taught Democrats that a special counsel concerned for law and justice could not be relied upon to reach their predetermined and preferred conclusion. Instead, the House bypassed its own rules for involvement of the minority party and inclusion of exculpatory evidence, bandied about charges of bribery and “quid pro quos” and then, in apparent desperation, called it unlawful for a president to assert executive privilege. While Democrats wore dark clothing and were told to restrain themselves in the chamber, their actual mood was best exemplified by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN)’s video, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-democrat-rep-tlaib-posts-video-celebrating-impeachment-vote-trump-responds">chortling</a> as she went to “i<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-fresh-face-dem-congresswoman-were-gonna-hank-berrien">mpeach the motherf*****</a>.” And no wonder: Impeachment was Democrats&#8217; only notable accomplishment for the year.
As Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) so aptly put it, the standards used were so inadequate that they couldn’t secure a conviction for a parking ticket. Most Democratic senators will similarly express contempt for the presidency, the presumption of innocence, the democratic process, and the rule of law all with one shameful vote, but it is inappropriate in the extreme for Galli to advocate for such a travesty — and in the name of biblical values, no less.
What, then, of the next election? It is a sad fact that in a democracy, a presidential election is in some ways a glorified popularity contest. The president proved himself an expert at securing free coverage, which helped him win the nomination over more mainstream politicians. But a president’s personal failings, until they rise to the level of an impeachable offense, cannot override our primary concern when selecting a candidate for that office: The policies he or she will promote, and the impact those policies will have upon all Americans.
I recently commented that the Coalition for Jewish Values would like to demonstrate lack of partisanship by castigating the president for an objectionable policy decision, but he has stymied our efforts by not making one. On life, family, marriage, conscience — and, yes, Anti-Semitism and Israel — he has not merely satisfied, but has exceeded, any reasonable expectations. Just as relevant is that the Democrats who would replace him opposed each and every one of those policy choices. That is why the pro-values community remains likely to vote to re-elect the president in 2020, and why it should do so.
&nbsp;
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the managing director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1577118452556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEu2s6hwO2BttmAJk9V5rKcz_yh6w">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>, and co-editor of the Orthodox Jewish journal <a href="https://cross-currents.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://cross-currents.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1577118452556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHLGJT10b-69pv-fjRcdthOir71xA">Cross-Currents.com</a>. Opinions are his own.

President Trump Delvers Remarks At White House Mental Health Summit

MENKEN: Supporting The President Is The Moral Choice

Christianity

Religion

Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky

Succinctly put, President Trump last week made one of the most positive moves to combat anti-Semitism ever seen from a world leader. But the media, always anxious to paint the president’s every action as wrong and even anti-Semitic, are acting true to form. In this case, media outlets such as The New York Times are doing tremendous harm to Jewish students on campus — and to simple fairness, to boot.
The president&#8217;s executive order should be uncontroversial. It simply declares that the administration will treat anti-Semitic hatred similarly to discrimination against other minority groups under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. It states that “individuals who face discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin do not lose protection under Title VI for also being a member of a group that shares common religious practices.”
Instead, the Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/politics/trump-antisemitism-executive-order.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/politics/trump-antisemitism-executive-order.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576640644853000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEwvLMe8EnZgRBrkwEUYUDBc3GvZQ">led</a> with the false notion that the executive order “will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality,” rather than solely as a religion. As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/menken-secular-jews-claim-they-dont-exist-to-spite-the-president" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dailywire.com/news/menken-secular-jews-claim-they-dont-exist-to-spite-the-president&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576640644853000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEf7vEbO6-jBEVVyyBQKDjMY1OWDw">I wrote previously</a>, left-wing Jews immediately deemed this a “re-classification” of Jews that would lead back to concentration camps. Others claimed this serviced the trope of Jewish “disloyalty,” as if being Jewish would make someone less American.
The executive order was not, as critics wailed, “anti-Semitism of the highest order.” This reaction, however, was insanity of the highest order.
The basis for Jews being considered a distinct people is not the Nazis, but the Bible. The Book of Exodus teaches that God took the Jews from Egypt to be His nation, and references to the Nation of Israel abound from there onwards.
But this is all a moot point, because the executive order contains no such reference to redefining Jews or Judaism as a national origin. It merely borrows language from the bipartisan Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2019, which had stalled in Congress. This is why so many Jewish members of Congress, such as Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Reps. Max Rose (D-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), approved of this order. By Wednesday, even left-wing sources such as Vox’s <a href="https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/1204792506040422406" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/1204792506040422406&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576640644854000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHbyRww0Mc2uNU9HtLAfLFaR6D-Xg">Ian Millhiser</a> and Israel’s Haaretzwere <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-trump-to-sign-executive-order-on-anti-semitism-in-college-campuses-treating-jeiwshn-1.8255875" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-trump-to-sign-executive-order-on-anti-semitism-in-college-campuses-treating-jeiwshn-1.8255875&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576640644854000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG7WbQVIK05BOZyJSUtIbMhTfeImA">calling</a> out the Times for its rush to judgment
But the Times was unimpressed. It returned days later with a new reason why students should “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/trump-anti-semitism-order-college-students.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/trump-anti-semitism-order-college-students.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576640644854000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHluHUehq6KhvShpVGmoYOuF-NavQ">fear</a>” Trump’s executive order: It might squelch free speech and thus “backfire for Jews.” 
This executive order is as timely and necessary as it should be uncontroversial. On Tuesday, two murderers with links to the black nationalist and anti-Semitic “Hebrew Israelite” cult opened fire at a kosher market in Jersey City, New Jersey, killing four — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/nyregion/jersey-city-shooting.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/nyregion/jersey-city-shooting.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576640644854000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEmaFyxybO1dXb-g3lqd0FssRuR3A">including</a> a veteran police officer and a 24-year-old rabbinical student. 
To be sure, hate speech is protected like any other form of speech, and no executive order can stifle it. Nonetheless, a student organization should not receive university funding to create an unsafe environment for others.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), true to form, rushed to attribute the Jersey City killings to “white supremacy” and deleted her erroneous tweet <a href="https://unitedwithisrael.org/tlaib-blames-white-supremacy-for-nj-shooting-deletes-tweet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://unitedwithisrael.org/tlaib-blames-white-supremacy-for-nj-shooting-deletes-tweet/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576640644854000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE3bbi52gl0AppzsOY_r1HYjFuI6A">a little too late</a>. She is anxious that Americans perceive Jew-hatred as a neo-Nazi trait, in order to cover for its most salient and pernicious current form: The storm of anti-Semitic rhetoric within our colleges and universities posing as mere “criticism of Israel.”
The executive order directs federal agencies to consider the definition of anti-Semitism provided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) when identifying evidence of discrimination. Contrary to the Times’ quote from a Jewish leftist, the IHRA definition specifically states that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country” is not anti-Semitic. But modern examples of anti-Semitism include “justifying the killing or harming of Jews,” “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” and calling the state of Israel “a racist endeavor.”
And that, of course, is the problem: The so-called “pro-Palestinian” movement does all three of these on an ongoing basis. Its map of “Palestine” is not that of the British, the Ottoman Turks, or even the Romans, but rather that of modern-day Israel. It calls Israel racist and advocates for its destruction — all while attempting to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/germany-takes-stronger-stance-against-anti-josh-hammer">replicate the Nazi boycott</a> under the name “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.” The movement in general, and the Students for Justice in Palestine on-campus organization in particular, regularly holds events honoring murderers of Jews.
It is no surprise, then, that these bigots are protesting the executive order. Indeed, under the new rules, anti-Semitic hatred cloaked as “anti-Israel advocacy” will be no more acceptable than preaching white supremacy. That is how it should be. Anyone has the right to voice hatred and bigotry — but not with taxpayer funding.
Unlike leftist Jews with little real attachment to Judaism, the Orthodox Jewish community firmly adheres to our ancient faith — and Orthodox Jews are much more likely to experience anti-Semitism. A recent survey by Ami Magazine found that 92.5% of Orthodox Jews believed that President Trump and the Republicans were more dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, compared to 1.5% who gave the nod to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the Democrats. That is a stark contrast.
After this executive order, it is likely that the president’s support will trend even higher. History has taught us that anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, must be nipped in the bud before it metastasizes into a societal epidemic. President Trump is working to stop the irrational hatred of Jews from spreading, but the media are too consumed with their own irrational hatred of the president to care.
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Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the Managing Director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>, the largest Rabbinic public policy organization in America.

New York Times Headquarters in New York City

MENKEN: When Fake News Harms the Jews

Black Nationalism

Crime

Fake News

Media

Media Bias

New York Times

Trump Administration

Violence

Leftists have truly gone insane. The president just announced a smart and necessary policy change to protect Jews at America’s colleges and universities, and the Left would have us believe this important move to combat anti-Semitism was itself anti-Semitic.
The president said Tuesday evening that he will sign <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/politics/trump-antisemitism-executive-order.html">an executive order</a> that will call Jews a nationality, and thus eligible for protection under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin. Since religion is not one of the listed categories, Jews have been denied protections that other minority groups have enjoyed for decades — and anyone familiar with the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-how-pro-israel-students-campus-can-fight-josh-hammer">situation on campus today</a> knows that Jews urgently need those legal protections.
In an instant, leftist Jews abandoned the concept of Jewish peoplehood, the idea that we are a nationality, in order to claim that the president’s statement is wrong and even hateful. Only an anti-Semite would call the Jews a nationality, they argued, in order to dredge up the old trope of &#8220;dual loyalty.&#8221;
This is true to pattern. Just this past summer, leftist Jews <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/menken-aoc-dividing-americans-and-inciting-anti-rabbi-yaakov-menken" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dailywire.com/news/menken-aoc-dividing-americans-and-inciting-anti-rabbi-yaakov-menken&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576125458218000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGvFLxphO6399IxbhDX5bz4Ep05_A">abandoned overnight</a> the universal and obvious belief that comparing Nazi death camps to anything short of genocidal death camps was minimizing the Holocaust and morally reprehensible, simply because the progressive darling, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/menken-aocs-death-camp-defenses-are-both-dishonest-rabbi-yaakov-menken" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dailywire.com/news/menken-aocs-death-camp-defenses-are-both-dishonest-rabbi-yaakov-menken&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576125458218000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGIx0AS9ZtGGehyBsOGy_rS4tLmJA">did precisely this</a> on a shameful video. Now they would abandon the idea that the Jews are a people simply because the president acknowledged that we are.
It seems that there is truly no limit. If the president were to convert to Judaism tomorrow, leftists would attempt to explain that he was doing so for anti-Semitic reasons.
One who claims the Jews are not a nationality demonstrates complete ignorance of the Bible and Jewish history. Seriously, this is embarrassing. Do they think an affinity for bagels makes a person an authority on Jews?
How many times do the Five Books of Moses, the Torah, refer to Am Yisrael — the nation of Israel? It is a constant. The Book of Exodus teaches us that G-d took the Jews out of Egypt to be His nation.
In fact, the phenomenon of a “secular Jew” owes its existence to the fact that we are a people, rather than (exclusively) a religion. The idea of a “secular Christian” or “secular Muslim” is preposterous. But according to an <a href="https://www.ajc.org/news/survey2019" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ajc.org/news/survey2019&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576125458218000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGKfbP-brXKngHMK-q4gjJTrMpEGA">AJC survey</a> from earlier this year, nearly 60% of Jews describe being Jewish as mostly a matter of ethnicity and culture, rather than religion. Secular Jews claiming we are solely a religious group would write themselves — and most American Jews — out of existence.
There is nothing inherently anti-Semitic in claiming that one can be part of the Jewish nationality while being a loyal American, any more than Italian, Irish, and Swedish Americans are suspected of disloyalty to America. Several of the president&#8217;s closest confidantes, including his daughter and son-in-law, are observant Jews who advise him on American policy.
Meanwhile, the administration is addressing real anti-Semitism, which is flourishing in so-called “progressive” circles on college campuses. Organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are treated by students and administrators as “human rights organizations” while they hold events celebrating terrorism. The administration of New York University gave the “President’s Service Award” to a SJP chapter that honored a <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/03/22/nyc-students-for-justice-in-palestine-pay-social-media-tribute-to-martyrs-killed-while-carrying-out-terrorist-attacks-against-israelis/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/03/22/nyc-students-for-justice-in-palestine-pay-social-media-tribute-to-martyrs-killed-while-carrying-out-terrorist-attacks-against-israelis/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576125458218000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHD3ff4xfbAbvPEqtYL_Vz60DtvXA">butcher who murdered 38 innocents</a>, including 13 children. Is more evidence needed that something needs to be done?
Recognizing Jewish peoplehood offered the fastest and most effective route for the president to do that which Congress — paralyzed by a ‘Squad’ spouting the same anti-Semitic tropes that are the lifeblood of SJP — was helpless to accomplish.
There is one other place where anti-Semitism is clearly <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/11/12/united-states/what-is-causing-the-spike-in-anti-semitic-attacks-in-brooklyn" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.jta.org/2019/11/12/united-states/what-is-causing-the-spike-in-anti-semitic-attacks-in-brooklyn&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1576125458218000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH8cAbOGliEK4yrJuo4gc8QNu-w-Q">running rampant</a>: Brooklyn, New York, home to the highest concentration of Orthodox Jews in the United States. Coincidentally, a survey of the Orthodox community’s attitude towards the president was just completed by Ami Magazine, a Brooklyn-based Orthodox weekly.
According to an earlier survey conducted by the AJC, 54% of Orthodox Jews voted for the president in 2016. One year later, he had won the approval of 71%. By 2018, Ami found 82% of the Orthodox planned to vote to re-elect the president in 2020 — and in the most recent survey, 89% approved of his job performance. Offered the opportunity to identify the president who, since 1980, has done the most for the security of Israel, more than four out of five chose Donald Trump.
In other words, the Jews who know the most about Judaism and who are also those experiencing the most anti-Semitism believe that President Trump is the best friend Jews have had in the White House — possibly in history, but certainly in the modern age. They will universally perceive this latest move as yet another demonstration of simple fairness, as well as friendship towards the Jewish community.
The Jews who would write themselves out of existence simply to spite the president would do well to take note.
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Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the Managing Director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572711800204000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH11EKLvI-K343cUV437YwCbens2g">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>.

Torah in synagogue

MENKEN: Secular Jews Claim They Don’t Exist To Spite The President

Leftism

It was predictable, I suppose. The president told the Israeli-American Council (IAC) National Summit this past weekend that some American Jews “don’t love Israel enough” — and many of the Jews to whom he was referring immediately accused him of &#8220;anti-Semitism.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Trump: &quot;We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have people that are Jewish people that are great people &#8212; they don&#39;t love Israel enough.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/i26RNDbCIO">pic.twitter.com/i26RNDbCIO</a>
&mdash; The Hill (@thehill) <a href="https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1203497526059515904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Let&#8217;s not be silly. Demonization is a way to avoid uncomfortable truths.
To say the least, the IAC provided a Jewish audience. Half of them were Israeli-Americans — the other half equally ardent, predominantly Jewish supporters of Israel. They roared their approval. Clearly, they did not find his comments remotely anti-Semitic.
So who is right? The Israelis, Israeli-Americans, and fervently pro-Israel American Jews in the audience, or the naysayers on Twitter?
If we look at history, the answer is not difficult to discern. Does anyone imagine that anti-Semitism is a new thing? Have we nothing to learn from what Persians, Greeks, Romans, Inquisitors, Cossacks, and yes, Nazis, said about Jews?
Yes, there is a classic and deeply destructive trope about Jewish “disloyalty.” That lie has always and exclusively referred to Jews placing Jewish interests ahead of their host countries and its other citizens.
It isn’t hard to find this slander in evidence today, on both sides of the political aisle. When Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) implies that Jews are buying off her congressional colleagues to support Israel, and when so-called &#8220;groypers&#8221; say that Jewish neocons are instigating American wars for Israel’s benefit, that is precisely the disloyalty smear of which Jews have been accused for several millennia.
But saying that Jews are disloyal to Jewish interests? No anti-Semite has ever voiced such a complaint. It has literally never happened.
So how foolish is it to argue that the guy who moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, sent Nikki Haley to confront anti-Semitism at the United Nations, and recognized Jewish rights in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-trump-administration-is-absolutely-correct-to-call-israeli-settlements-legal">Judea itself</a>, “proved” his anti-Semitism by saying something no anti-Semite in history has ever said … before an applauding Jewish audience?
Let’s look at the reality. Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria, the area dismissively referred to by Jordan as the “West Bank” between 1948 and 1967, for more than 3,300 years. The only exceptions were brief periods after they were driven out: By the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple, by the Crusaders roughly 1000 years ago, … and by the Jordanian military in 1948.
Some American Jews seem to have forgotten this bit of Middle Eastern history. Arab rioters did not massacre the Jews of Hebron in 1929 because there was an “occupation.” And in 1948, the Jordanian army expelled every last Jew from the territory that Jordan illegally conquered.
To claim that it is wrong or illegal for Jews to move back onto land from which they were expelled at gunpoint is a moral inversion — and viciously hostile, to boot. The fact that some of those voicing this bigotry are Jews themselves simply makes it all the more shameful.
The president is proud to replace this hostility with outstanding friendship toward Israel and the Jewish people. As Jews, we should be proud to thank him for that, no matter our disagreements on any other agenda item. Yet some prefer to remain loyal partisans to those who have opposed his every friendly move, also tolerating open anti-Semitism in their midst.
Again, this is not a partisan battle. I have heard the president’s words from countless pro-Israel non-Jews over the past decade. “How can Jews care so little about Israel’s safety? Don’t they care about other Jews?”
That is the uncomfortable truth. According to an American Jewish Committee survey completed earlier this year, nearly 60% of American Jews regard being Jewish as more a matter of ethnicity and culture, rather than a matter of religion. Although the vast majority agree that Jews in America are less secure than we were just a year ago, that college campuses have turned <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-how-pro-israel-students-campus-can-fight-josh-hammer">increasingly hostile</a> towards Israel, and even that “a thriving state of Israel is vital for the long-term future of the Jewish people” — nonetheless, less than 40% strongly agree that “caring about Israel is a very important part of my being a Jew.”
Part of the reason there are still Jews today is because no matter what country mistreated or expelled us, our forebears always prayed towards our one, true homeland. We always wanted to return. That is firmly ensconced in the thrice-daily prayers still voiced by observant Jews in every part of the globe. Clearly, that is a matter of religion, rather than a matter of ethnicity or culture.
Even secular Israelis hold a very different opinion than that of the American Left. The majority of Israeli Jews descend from families that were violently driven from their homes across the Arab world. They know that this had nothing to do with occupation, and everything to do with their being Jews. When American Jews endorse the idea that it is they who are perpetrating ethnic cleansing and occupation, rather than being its victims, these Israeli Jews take this slander personally — and appreciate an American president who supports their rights all the more.
Do not blame the president for simply saying what so many other Jews and non-Jews who value and cherish the right of Jews to live safely in their Holy Land are already thinking.
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Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the Managing Director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572711800204000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH11EKLvI-K343cUV437YwCbens2g">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>.

Donald Trump IAC national summit

MENKEN: If You Want To Be Anti-Israel, Don’t Claim Trump Is An Anti-Semite When He Disagrees With You

Yesterday, Jim McGovern (D-MA) claimed that &#8220;we are here because the facts compel us to be here.&#8221;
What idiots does he imagine us to be? I mean this in all seriousness. Anyone who believes we arrived at impeachment due to facts has been hiding in a cave or is insane, regardless of political leanings. If this were about facts, impeachment would be nowhere on the horizon.
In late 1973, the House Judiciary Committee opened an impeachment process after President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of the independent special prosecutor investigating the Watergate break-in, Archibald Cox. Cox had issued a subpoena demanding copies of taped conversations in the Oval Office, which, he believed, might reveal Nixon’s involvement in Watergate and the subsequent cover-up. Nixon’s attorney general and deputy attorney general both refused the order to fire Cox and resigned in protest. U.S. Solicitor General Robert Bork was then sworn in as attorney general and obeyed the order, but said he did so only in order to avoid a long succession of resignations which would leave the Justice Department “crippled” and in chaos.
It was obvious that a crime had taken place, and it was equally obvious that the president was trying to cover up his involvement. Indeed, Cox’s suspicion was borne out — the tapes revealed that the president had tried to halt the Watergate investigation on frivolous national security grounds. The House resolution to authorize the impeachment inquiry passed 410-4, obviously including overwhelming Republican support.
Bill Clinton went through impeachment in 1998–1999 because the independent counsel appointed at the time, Ken Starr, produced a report to the House Judiciary Committee detailing that Clinton had committed both perjury and obstruction of justice. Clinton’s law license was suspended for five years due to the conclusions of the Starr Report. So once again, it was obvious that the president had committed a crime. The House vote was 258-176, with 31 Democrats voting in favor.
In neither case was anyone willing to state that he “was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed,” as Tim Morrison, the departing Russia and Europe adviser on the National Security Council, told the House Intelligence Committee yesterday.
We are here because partisans have wanted to reverse the 2016 election since the day Trump was elected, and the House takeover in 2018 was driven by leftists who demanded we &#8220;impeach the mother******&#8221; regardless of any justification. They believed the Mueller investigation would deliver the needed grounds, but — quite unlike the efforts of Cox and Starr — Mueller’s report exonerated the president. Dissatisfied House Democrats ran to hold hearings in any case, trying to pull a guilty verdict from the innocence found in the report.
It is no coincidence that those tremendously important, momentous hearings suddenly came to an end after the Ukraine phone call came to light — as no special counsel has officially ruled the Ukraine call similarly devoid of criminal conduct, the call offers a better pretense for the same pitchforks and torches.
And this is why the Democrats never demanded a special counsel or any independent, nonpartisan legal investigation regarding the Ukraine phone call and any hint of quid pro quo that might have been behind it. There is simply no time left if Democrats are to use the call to either remove Trump from office or destroy his re-election prospects before the 2020 election. That is why Democrats have bypassed all semblance of fairness, instead rushing to hold closed-door hearings and launch an impeachment proceeding far too early in the process.
Make no mistake: Were it not Ukraine, Democrats would have found another excuse to impeach. They had to, as impeachment was the goal. And we all already know this — no matter your political preferences or voting patterns, this much should be obvious to all.
This sort of move — to come up with the verdict first, and then find the purported crime to justify it — has ample historical precedent. The Salem Witch Trials are certainly an apt model, but Stalin’s Show Trials have a greater written record. It was Stalin’s head of secret police, Lavrentiy Beria, who bragged that he could make any innocent man into a convicted criminal: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”
That is why we are here. Despite McGovern’s protestations to the contrary, we are not so stupid as to believe this is about justice.
&nbsp;
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the Managing Director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572711800204000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH11EKLvI-K343cUV437YwCbens2g">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>.

House impeachment vote

MENKEN: How Dumb Do They Think We Are?

Richard Nixon

U.S. House of Representatives

A few days ago, a respected rabbi told me that when he heard Greta Thunberg&#8217;s speech before the United Nations, he understood how Joseph Stalin had managed to indoctrinate children so thoroughly that they were willing to report their own parents.
For those unfamiliar with the history of Stalin&#8217;s demonic rule over the Soviet Union, children were “educated” to believe that loyalty to country was more important than such antiquated, bourgeois concepts as loyalty to family. If a parent harbored ideas that made him or her an “enemy of the state,” children were encouraged and expected to report them to the authorities. This occurred countless times during and after the “Great Purge” of Trotskyites and others during the 1930s.
Thunberg received her own indoctrination regarding her parents’ betrayal: The world is coming to an end, the sky is falling, and the fault lies with the economy they built. Cars must be taken off the road, and carbon dioxide-producing power plants replaced with only solar and wind power — or we will all die. In her words, “entire ecosystems are collapsing,” though neither she nor her handlers can provide evidence of anything but growth. Since “we are in the beginning of a mass extinction,” there is no time for silly things like evidence or sober consideration. We must act, not think!
And she concluded with an implicit threat: “Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.” With rhetoric like that, how far-fetched is it to imagine that CEOs of energy companies might be imprisoned for imagined crimes against humanity?
Yet with all of that said, this is far from the most troubling example of Stalinism’s return. For that, we can look still closer to home: The effort to impeach President Donald Trump.
I must admit, it is troubling to imagine a U.S. head of state strong-arming the leader of a foreign government to do his or her bidding. I am referring, of course, to the possibility that Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor in order to end an investigation of corruption at an energy company that was then paying Hunter Biden $600,000 a year for consulting work (despite his utter lack of experience or knowledge of the energy industry).
And it is also troubling that Trump may have asked that Biden be investigated, not because of genuine suspicion of wrongdoing, but because it is politically expedient. Two wrongs do not make a right, and even in the immediate wake of the failed Mueller investigation, it was inappropriate.
But that doesn’t make Trump&#8217;s actions dangerous to democracy. It certainly doesn’t make his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky worthy of the Constitution&#8217;s prescribed “high crimes and misdemeanors” impeachment criterion. That would require conclusive proof that Trump withheld aid to force Zelensky to settle a personal score. Everything we were assured would prove this true has been found false, from the transcript on down. Zelensky himself has volunteered that that their phone conversation was as friendly and unthreatening as the transcript appears to indicate.
Neither is this new. I referred earlier to the “failed” Mueller investigation, but by what measure was it a failure? Mueller executed his mission precisely. It merely failed to produce the results that Democrats, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in particular, assured us would emerge.
Democrats set their target in 2016, immediately following the stunning defeat of Hillary Clinton by Donald Trump: Impeachment. The goal came first and the search for evidence came later. And this is where the comparison to Stalinism is not merely appropriate, but frightening in its precision.
From 1936 to 1938, a series of large trials were held in Moscow of senior Communist leaders accused of treason against Stalin’s government. Most of them even confessed to their alleged crimes. Yet in 1937, an American commission led by John Dewey proved that many of the specific charges made during the trials could not have been true.
These were Stalin’s “Show Trials.” The “guilt” of the accused was predetermined, and evidence, whether true, distorted, or fabricated from whole cloth, came later — and only then in service of the predetermined conclusion.
During the middle of Mueller’s work, Democrats took control of Congress with a new “squad” of loud leftists demanding they “impeach the mother******.” And time and again they have tried and failed to find a way to justify their predetermined conclusion. When Mueller produced the “nothingburger” that Van Jones of CNN predicted, the calls for impeachment only grew louder.
This is why Democrats now refuse to vote for a formal impeachment inquiry — because doing so would permit Republicans to subpoena witnesses that would bring the full truth to light. As another prominent rabbi once told me in a different context: “When you are searching for the law, you find the law. When you’re searching for a place to hang your hat, you find a nail.”
The Democrats are now using Ukraine as the nail upon which to hang their predetermined conclusion. It is the very opposite of justice — and incredibly dangerous for the future of our democracy.
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Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the Managing Director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>.

Stalin In Moscow

MENKEN: The New Stalinism

Communism

Greta Thunberg

Joe Biden

It’s as if Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is trying to validate President Trump’s criticisms of her and other radical Democrats in Congress.
Even while the news media is still obsessing over the president’s tweets calling out Omar and other members of the “squad” of far-left Democrats in Congress for their hatred of both America and Israel, Omar sponsored a new resolution supporting the boycott of Israel.
The startling text of the resolution <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/496/text">equates</a> the world’s only Jewish state not only to Apartheid-era South Africa, but also, incredibly, to the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, and even Nazi Germany.
To anyone who’s been paying attention to Ilhan Omar, this latest outrage comes as no surprise — it’s pretty much par for the course for this Somali-American socialist from Minneapolis.
Omar is a long-time supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement — a well-known <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/the-anti-semitic-bds-movement-advocates-illegal-discrimination/">hotbed of anti-Semitism</a>. Omar even <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/search/?s=ilhan+omar+bds#gsc.tab=0&amp;gsc.q=ilhan%20omar%20bds&amp;gsc.page=1">attacked</a> her fellow Democrats and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for criticizing BDS.
Naturally, the movement’s public supporters generally try to downplay its anti-Semitic nature, portraying it instead as an effort to defend the “Palestinian people” from “Israeli occupation.” While that disingenuous claim is patently ridiculous, it’s not even necessary to get bogged down by the fact that there has never been a country called “Palestine,” or even that the so-called “occupation” really just refers to the existence of the State of Israel (“from the river to the sea”).
Rather, we know that BDS is anti-Semitic because economic warfare against the Jews has always been at the forefront of anti-Semitic activity.
Boycotting Israel has a long and bigoted pedigree. Jews have historically been forced into ghettoes and prohibited from owning land outside them. We were denied access to trades and professions throughout the Middle Ages, the Nazis began their murderous regime with a boycott of Jewish businesses in 1932, and the uninterrupted Arab League boycott of “Palestine” (meaning the Jews, the idea of an “Arab Palestinian” being a later invention) that has been in place since 1945. BDS activists claim to be concerned with civil rights and making peace, but when it comes to the Jews’ long and bitter experience with persecution and oppression, they simply don’t care.
Yet, although BDS advocates try to cloak their hatred in sweet rhetoric, Omar can’t quite seem to grasp the nuance of that strategy. She has consistently veered off into overt anti-Semitism.
Omar has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/rep-ilhan-omar-defends-2012-tweet-accusing-israel-of-hypnotizing-the-world/">claimed</a> that Israeli Jews “hypnotize” the world. She’s <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/10/democrat-ilhan-omar-uses-anti-jewish-smear-about-money-she-might-as-well-call-us-hook-nosed/">used</a> anti-Semitic tropes about money-grubbing American Jews with dual loyalties to Israel while <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/02/11/693480995/house-democrats-urge-party-leaders-to-condemn-anti-semitism">spreading</a> conspiracy theories about AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, owning the Republican Party. She has even visibly <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ilhan-omar-slammed-for-saying-she-chuckles-when-israel-is-called-democracy-comapres-it-to-iran">scoffed</a> at the very idea that the State of Israel is a democracy!
The only real surprise, then, is that Omar would have the audacity to push this controversial resolution at a time when her own history of anti-Semitic remarks is at the forefront of the nation’s collective consciousness. Interestingly, some of the same liberals who have been yelling themselves hoarse defending Omar from President Trump’s “racist tweets” (in which he condemned her record of anti-Semitism) are now expressing incredulity.
Mark Pocan, one of the most liberal Democratic congressmen in the country — a man who just days ago <a href="https://fox6now.com/2019/05/21/wisconsin-us-rep-mark-pocan-we-must-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-against-president-trump/">tried</a> to have President Trump impeached because he dared to offend Ilhan Omar’s honor — cringed over her decision to introduce this legislation now.
“I think the timing would not be very wise to take up additional measures around the Middle East,” Pocan <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/omar-introduces-resolution-defending-boycotts-of-israel-likens-it-to-boycott-of-nazi-germany-soviet-union">told</a> Politico, referring to both Omar’s resolution and a separate one that the Democratic leadership in the House is pushing that would do exactly the opposite: Condemn BDS.
The Forward, a far-left Jewish magazine that regularly defends Omar and BDS, was also taken aback at her misstep, <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/427903/ilhan-omars-pro-bds-bill-is-important-but-shes-the-wrong-person-to-fight/">publishing</a> an op-ed arguing that Omar is the “wrong person” to lead the pro-BDS charge. Ya think?
Omar was under no pressure to push forward her bigoted resolution at this juncture. Her decision to do so at a time when her own anti-Semitic comments are receiving intense public scrutiny is an unforced error and a valuable gift to President Trump, reminding the country that his criticism of Omar is entirely justified.
Of course, Omar’s resolution equating Israel to Nazi Germany has about as much chance of passing the House as the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-vote-impeachment-resolution-against-trump-n1030791">impeachment resolution</a> against President Trump that was introduced the same day — which is, to say, none at all. Nevertheless, it’s still a revealing indicator of just how unapologetically radical Rep. Omar — the most controversial member of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Squad” of fellow leftists — really is.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the managing director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>, the largest rabbinic public policy organization in America.

MENKEN: Rep. Omar’s Anti-Israel Resolution Proves Trump Is Right About Her Anti-Semitism

Ilhan Omar

The Democratic Party is rallying behind three of the most vicious bigots Congress has seen in decades. I am alternately annoyed at the president for engineering this and impressed by his strategic thinking for the same reason.
It truly was obnoxious for the president to suggest that American citizens leave and go somewhere else if they don’t like it here. Obnoxious, but not racist.
These three women came to Congress with the idea that the United States is fundamentally broken, though they themselves celebrate their origins in developing regions. There is nothing wrong with finding the president&#8217;s weekend tweeting to be offensive, and to suggest they should “go back” is still worse.
But even more so, it is wrong to call this rude reaction racist. To misattribute this to diverse skin tone only needlessly exacerbates our tensions and divisions.
Which leaves us pondering a different question: Why would the president mix into the Democrats&#8217; perfect storm?
Until Trump opened up against the four women of the so-called “Squad” — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MN) — progressive and moderate Democrats were headed for an epic falling-out.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had pushed back against Twitter attacks upon her efforts to govern her Democratic caucus. And when Ocasio-Cortez (&#8220;AOC&#8221;) responded by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/outright-disrespectful-four-house-women-struggle-as-pelosi-isolates-them/2019/07/10/a33c63a8-a33f-11e9-b7b4-95e30869bd15_story.html">accusing Speaker Pelosi</a> of “singling out &#8230; newly elected women of color,” several members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) <a href="https://www.theroot.com/missouri-rep-lacy-clay-blasts-aoc-for-using-the-race-1836297417">castigated AOC</a> for “using the race card.” Democrats discovered what most of us already knew: Cries of racism are bigoted and hateful when used against innocent parties.
For AOC and similar “progressives” with a minority characteristic, the identity defense shields them from all criticism of their ideas. Instead of the race-blind society we so recently hoped to achieve, the “intersectionality” coalition divides America on racial and other minority lines, though with a notable carve-out: Jews are pushed off the minority map, regardless even of whether their families were driven out from Arab countries or were Holocaust survivors.
Remember that Ilhan Omar quite recently claimed that furious responses to her anti-Semitic remarks were “attacks” upon her as a Muslim, black, refugee woman. At that time, Jewish writers with obviously Middle Eastern names and features were castigated for “attacking a woman of color.” No CBC member or other Democratic leader cried foul at that time; on the contrary, even Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cory-booker-trump-ilhan-omar_n_5cc0b207e4b0764d31dc1184">employed the same tactic</a> against President Trump on Omar’s behalf.
But with Speaker Pelosi now targeted by this divisive language and identity politics, the Democratic caucus was ready to finally reject it — until, with just a few damaging tweets, the president closed the Democratic fault line. It is my suspicion that this was intentional.
Bringing Democrats back together leaves only Republicans on the side of Americans sick of being smeared as racist, homophobic, or misogynist simply for having different opinions.
Now Trump can go back to skillfully using the “Squad” to depict all Democrats as similarly leftist and unreasonable. Even his half-baked recollection of Omar <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-trump-falsely-claims-rep-omar-praised-al/story?id=64349788">“holding her chest out”</a> when she talked about al-Qaeda will work in Republicans&#8217; favor. The mainstream media played directly into this, depicting his imperfect recollection as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/us/politics/trump-fact-check-ilhan-omar.html">lie</a> — thus cementing Omar’s reputation as the sort of mainstream left-wing figure whom the media will defend.
America will now carefully revisit her comments from 2013, and observe that if the president didn’t have the details quite right, the accurate version is just as abhorrent. She literally joked about <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ilhan-omar-jokes-al-qaeda-america">her professor stiffening</a> when he spoke about a terrorist organization such as al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, as compared to a country such as America or England.
She was undoubtedly right — we don’t discuss England with the same “intensity” as we do al-Qaeda. We feel a high level of revulsion when discussing a terrorist organization that murdered thousands of Americans simply because it could; Omar appears to find this amusing.
In recent comments regarding “Palestine,” Omar <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1150504391566217217">called out</a> our “hypocrisy in not celebrating non-violent movements there and condemning it.” She said this at roughly the same time that the Hamas Interior Minister celebrated the completion of a new factory for <a href="https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1150483553790177287">building suicide belts</a> with “off-on detonation switches” that Gazan girls (and boys) can use once they break through Israel’s border fence — and called for Palestinians around the world <a href="https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-political-bureau-fathi-hammad-explosive-belts-knives-slaughter-kill-jews-all-over-world-israel-one-week-ultimatum/transcript">to slaughter Jews</a>.
Omar’s words will now continue to harm not just the &#8220;Squad,&#8221; but all Democrats. Pelosi needed to distance her caucus for her own self-preservation; polls now show that distaste for AOC and others could <a href="https://www.axios.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-poll-democrats-2020-aeaa3771-f142-4059-b79e-1fed569dfdf9.html">return control of the House</a> to Republicans in 2020. Trump’s tweets forced them back into a tight embrace.
It would be better that the Democratic Party itself reject the identity politics and divisiveness of the “progressive” Left, rather than go the way of the U.K.’s Labour Party, which Jewish members and their allies are now abandoning en masse as “toxic.” That already seemed unlikely, but now, at least at present, seems impossible. Mr. President, I only hope it was worth it.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is Managing Director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>.

MENKEN: Don’t Underestimate Trump’s Strategic Thinking

Al Qaeda

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Immigration

Intersectionality

Rashida Tlaib

Twitter

After Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) used &#8220;concentration camps&#8221; and &#8220;Never Again&#8221; together &#8212; a unique reference to the Nazi death camps &#8212; and then retweeted leftist Jews hoping to justify the linkage while she simultaneously denied that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48579/menken-aocs-death-camp-defenses-are-both-dishonest-rabbi-yaakov-menken">she ever connected them in the first instance</a>, I honestly thought it couldn&#8217;t get worse.
I was wrong.
Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) rapidly invented a way to attack those condemning her comparison of detention centers at the border to Nazi death camps. She employed a false dichotomy: She said we must &#8220;fight the camps &#8212; not the nomenclature,&#8221; as if it were a binary choice.
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DHS ripped 1000s of children from their parents &amp; put them in cages w inhumane conditions.
They call their cells &#8220;dog pounds&#8221; &amp; &#8220;freezers.&#8221;
I will never apologize for calling these camps what they are.
If that makes you uncomfortable, fight the camps &#8211; not the nomenclature. <a href="https://t.co/eJpJWeYiot">https://t.co/eJpJWeYiot</a>
&#8212; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1141392943787520001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The claim that concern for the horrors of Jewish history is incompatible with concern for the plight of others is more than simple slander. This sentiment divides Americans, divides Jews, and incites anti-Semitism &#8212; by promoting the classic trope that Jews care only about their own people and issues, and disregard what happens to others. To say that to take real interest in immigrants, we must forgive her trivialization of the Holocaust, is to employ this ancient and hateful lie for her personal and political benefit.
Conveniently for her &#8212; and also increasing the danger &#8212; many of her fans, especially leftist Jews, have adopted this model. In a pair of tweets, a left-wing Jewish writer distorted criticism of AOC&#8217;s remarks by the American Jewish Congress, a largely nonpartisan organization, into &#8220;ignor[ing] the plight at the border&#8221; and &#8220;fighting against people like AOC instead of fighting for migrants.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
You once protested the treatment of Jews by the Nazis, demanding America do more. Your president in 1934 even brought 5,000 Jews to America.
You then fought for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Now you ignore the plight at the border and focus on <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a>. How far you&#8217;ve fallen. <a href="https://t.co/Q46LwrGupn">pic.twitter.com/Q46LwrGupn</a>
&#8212; Elad Nehorai (@PopChassid) <a href="https://twitter.com/PopChassid/status/1142851641269530631?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Most ratios don&#8217;t mean much but this one is significant.
The Jewish orgs that are trying to be the voices of Jews while fighting against people like AOC instead of fighting for migrants are deliberately going against the will of the vast majority of Jews.
And we won&#8217;t let them. <a href="https://t.co/XUy7WsfYrN">pic.twitter.com/XUy7WsfYrN</a>
&#8212; Elad Nehorai (@PopChassid) <a href="https://twitter.com/PopChassid/status/1142884577305866241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Another member of the Jewish Left, careful to include a reference to family murdered in the camps (as if this were rare among Ashkenazi Jews), claimed regarding criticism from an account opposing anti-Semitism that &#8220;arguing about what to call this is shameful when what is needed is action. Most of us Jews are ashamed of you.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Arguing about what to call this is shameful when what is needed is action. Most of us Jews are ashamed of you. Many are fed up. My family were murdered in CAMPS. Some in their villages. I call these concentration camps. Done.
&#8212; Francine Polsky (@careaware) <a href="https://twitter.com/careaware/status/1143148176419033088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
And I was similarly attacked for simply linking to an article regarding an interview with Alan Dershowitz about AOC&#8217;s odious remarks. &#8220;Glad to see that you and the [Coalition for Jewish Values] have learned the lessons of the Holocaust,&#8221; my correspondent replied, &#8220;with you [sic] sincere concern for children who have been cruelly imprisoned &amp; separate from their parents.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Boy those are some Jewish &#8220;values&#8221; there. Glad to see that you and the <a href="https://twitter.com/cjvalues?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@cjvalues</a> have learned the lessons of the Holocaust with you sincere concern for children who have been cruelly imprisoned &amp; separate from their parents. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NotMyJudaism?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NotMyJudaism</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NotInMyName?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NotInMyName</a> <a href="https://t.co/tTICjBNgsL">https://t.co/tTICjBNgsL</a>
&#8212; Sascha Freudenheim (@SaschaDF) <a href="https://twitter.com/SaschaDF/status/1142779945128734721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
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For the record: <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/">As a matter of policy</a>, the Coalition for Jewish Values expresses an opinion where we believe traditional rabbinic sources mandate a particular viewpoint. The complex situation at the border, based upon practices initiated during the Clinton administration yet now faced with an unprecedented number of migrants, is not such a case.
And also for the record, &#8220;most Jews,&#8221; at least those with Jewish knowledge and concern about anti-Semitism, most emphatically do not side with AOC. Yad Vashem, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, a consortium of other Holocaust museums, individual scholars such as Abe Foxman and Deborah Lipstadt, and several other clearly nonpartisan organizations and individuals all called her linkage inappropriate, wrong, and amounting to a trivialization of the Holocaust. We appreciate the remarks of Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and yes, even Steve King (R-IA), when they all said AOC needs to learn more about the Holocaust. Clearly, this truth should transcend partisan politics.
Yet AOC later returned to her message when asserting that, &#8220;My Jewish constituents have made clear to me that they proudly stand w/ caged children who are starved, denied sleep &amp; sanitation,&#8221; in a tweet rejecting an invitation to join the In the Depths organization for a visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau.
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Mr. King, the Republican Party literally stripped you of your Congressional committee assignments because you were too racist even for them.
My Jewish constituents have made clear to me that they proudly stand w/ caged children who are starved, denied sleep &amp; sanitation.
Bye <a href="https://t.co/TQkaPEESoD">https://t.co/TQkaPEESoD</a>
&#8212; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1142866800297816065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Was she implying her &#8220;Jewish constituents&#8221; are opposed to her learning more about the Holocaust, and avoiding comparisons of ICE agents to Nazis? This is inexcusable, even for AOC. Even someone unable to walk and chew gum at the same time should still be able to care about both immigrants and Jew-hatred simultaneously &#8212; by caring about everyone. Instead, she took an expressly divisive and dangerous course, expressing the false notion that concern for both is somehow difficult.
Contrary to some AOC defenders, Nazism did not start with Germans detaining immigrants at the border. It started, as I said, with the idea that the Jews are a sinister cabal who care only about their own and take advantage of humanity at-large. This is the very message conveyed when they condemn concern for the horrors visited upon Jews as a lack of concern for problems faced by others.
Yes, something here is leading America to an ancient form of hate &#8230; but it&#8217;s not the detainment of immigrants at the border.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken is Managing Director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>.

MENKEN: AOC Is Dividing Americans And Inciting Anti-Semitism

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Nazis

You can learn a lot about a politician from how he or she defends things said off-the-cuff.
While holding court on Instagram Monday evening, socialist freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claimed that detention facilities for illegal immigrants at the southern border are concentration camps. &#8220;That is exactly what they are,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They are concentration camps.&#8221; And she went on to say that anyone who believes detention of illegals is appropriate (which includes major Democratic officeholders during the Obama administration) is not &#8220;concerned enough with humanity&#8221; to be worth trying to engage.
When Twitter erupted, Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) provided a series of mutually contradictory defenses. She could not decide whether she meant to compare the southern border to Auschwitz, whether they are in fact comparable, or whether it was appropriate to make the connection at all. So she tried all three within just three hours on Tuesday morning.
Defense #1: Nazi death camps were merely the most &#8220;extreme&#8221; and inhuman manifestation of a concentration camp system.
AOC sourced this from Esquire magazine, in which a left-wing writer asserted that the Nazi death camps were merely the most &#8220;extreme&#8221; of an evil broader phenomenon that includes forced labor camps in the Soviet Union, the imprisonment (and starvation) of Dutch Boers and native Africans in South Africa from 1900 to 1902, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II &#8230; and, of course, the detention of voluntary migrants trying to illegally enter America in 2019.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying.
This is not hyperbole. It is the conclusion of expert analysis <a href="https://t.co/2dWHxb7UuL">https://t.co/2dWHxb7UuL</a>
&#8212; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1140968240073662466?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Once one places all forms of confinement &#8212; even for those doing an illegal act, such as entering a country without a visa &#8212; into a single basket, a prison becomes a &#8220;concentration camp.&#8221; Given leftist opposition to the death penalty, this naturally leaves no other option for murderers other than letting them go scot-free.
Defense #2: Concentration camps are not death camps. How dare you imagine I meant otherwise!
When her first attempt (unsurprisingly) failed to placate her critics, AOC then tried an entirely different story &#8212; while pretending it was the same.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
And for the shrieking Republicans who don&#8217;t know the difference: concentration camps are not the same as death camps.
Concentration camps are considered by experts as &#8220;the mass detention of civilians without trial.&#8221;
And that&#8217;s exactly what this administration is doing.
&#8212; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1140990518974976000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Set aside for the moment that detention &#8220;without trial&#8221; still includes the pretrial imprisonment of those held without bond. AOC says that Republicans &#8220;don&#8217;t know the difference&#8221; between concentration and death camps. She is trying to hide that it was she who lumped them together.
On Instagram, she declared that she only wants to talk to &#8220;the people that are concerned enough with humanity &#8230; that &#8216;Never Again&#8217; means something.&#8221; Those two words are tied uniquely to the Nazi death camps. According to historical accounts, it was first written on signs at Buchenwald by newly rescued Jews. It was then popularized by the 1972 book, &#8220;Never Again! A Program for Survival&#8221; by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane &#8212; hardly someone you would have expected AOC to quote. Having used that catchphrase, her denial that she did intend to compare detention centers to death camps is patently ludicrous.
Defense #3: Concentration Camps Lead to Death Camps, So They Really Are the Same.
This third option is so grotesque that AOC, to her credit, could not manage to voice it herself. I have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47947/menken-jewish-lefts-allowance-hate-rabbi-yaakov-menken">previously written</a> about the tragic abandonment of Jewish values by leftist Jewish groups, to the point that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency rightly described the &#8220;agenda of the Reform [Judaism] movement&#8221; as that of left-wing progressives. So we should not be surprised that she found Jews willing to join her in trivializing the Holocaust.
She found this gem from Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Ok, Internet. Time to learn the difference between concentration camps and death (&#8220;extermination&#8221;) camps.
Germany started with concentration camps in 1933.
Death camps started in 1941.
Never again is now. <a href="https://t.co/W3rbM5asVc">https://t.co/W3rbM5asVc</a>
&#8212; Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheRaDR/status/1139633661786185728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Ruttenberg not only runs with the idea that detention of illegal immigrants is equivalent to concentration camps, but implies that they lead to death camps. &#8220;Never again is now,&#8221; she says &#8212; unless we allow illegals to flood into the country, at some point the U.S. will start using Zyklon-B!
But AOC wasn&#8217;t done. She then found and retweeted Bess Kalb, writer for a TV show and apparent expert in Jewish affairs:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Jew here. <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a>&#8217;s point is exactly why we say &#8220;Never forget.&#8221; The Holocaust did not begin with the murder of 6 million Jews. It began with the same dehumanization, deportation, and internment we see today. You, sickeningly, invoke the Holocaust to minimize their suffering. Shame.
&#8212; Bess Kalb (@bessbell) <a href="https://twitter.com/bessbell/status/1141006401461866496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Kass states explicitly what Ruttenberg merely implied: That internment of illegal immigrants is the first step to mass murder. Having thus trivialized the Holocaust, she then falsely claims that it is not AOC, but her critics, who brought it up.
So AOC not only soft-peddled Holocaust denial, pretending that Nazi concentration camps could be compared with the detention of those trying to cross our border illegally &#8212; she also provided three contradictory excuses, none of which make sense, and each of which patently contradicts the others.
For AOC and the leftist Jews who buttressed her ridiculous notions, it&#8217;s a bit late to apologize now. But it would be a good start.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken is Managing Director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>.

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Yaakov Menken