What the hell is going on?
The Oscars gets an antisemitic makeover, “pro-Palestinian” protesters visit a newly opened Holocaust museum, Palestinians have been dying at an *almost* perfectly steady rate, and more!
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Editor’s Note: “What the hell is going on?” is a weekly series in which we bring you the most bizarre, outlandish, and surreal developments from around the Jewish world during the past week.
At last Sunday’s Oscars, in an acceptance speech for “The Zone of Interest,” a film that follows the domestic life of a Nazi commandant whose house is just outside the Auschwitz concentration camp, director Jonathan Glazer made some strange comments.
Glazer, who is Jewish, said that he rejected “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.”
As one social media user observed, “Jonathan Glazer made a movie about a man who builds his own professional success on his ability to ignore the suffering of the Jews around him. The man is immune to irony.”1
Also at the Oscars, the films “Oppenheimer,” “Golda” and “Maestro” were nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. All three films feature non-Jewish actors and actresses who played Jewish main characters (Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Helen Mirren as Golda Meir, and Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein, respectively.)
In other words, these three biopics were essentially nominated for best portrayal of “Jew face.” Suffice to say none of them won the award.
At a London protest recently, a man was detained for innocently holding a sign that said “Don’t attack the law, Hamas is terrorist” — but thousands of provocative, harassing, and bullying pro-Palestinian demonstrators went unchecked, as usual.
In Amsterdam, at the newly opened National Holocaust Museum, fireworks were ignited and eggs thrown by “pro-Palestinian” protesters. Thousands of them were heard chanting “never again is now” and “ceasefire now” at Waterloo Square in central Amsterdam, near the museum, which held an opening ceremony and invited guests, including the Israeli president Isaac Herzog and Dutch King Willem-Alexander.
They also held Palestinian flags and signs that said “Jews against genocide” and “the grandchild of a holocaust survivor says: Stop Gaza Holocaust.”
Dutch Jewish anti-Zionist group Erev Rave organized the protest with the Dutch Palestinian Community and Socialists International, while human rights group Amnesty International put up detour signs around the museum to direct Herzog to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The protest organizers emphasized they were protesting against Herzog’s presence and the war in Gaza, not the museum and what it commemorates.
“For us Jews, these museums are part of our history, of our past,” said Joana Cavaco, an anti-war activist with the Erev Rav Jewish collective, addressing the crowd ahead of the ceremony. “How is it possible that such a sacred space is being used to normalize genocide today?”2
I am not sure what is worse: protesting a fake pretend “genocide” at a place that has nothing to do with said genocide, or baselessly claiming that a “genocide” is taking place at a museum that honors the victims of an actual genocide (and the reason why the word “genocide” was created in the first place).
In Los Angeles, a synagogue rented out its space to Muslims for the month of Ramadan — and to make them “feel comfortable” all the posters of Israeli hostages taken captive by Hamas, which hang on the walls of the complex, were covered.
Fortunately the synagogue administration reversed its decision and canceled the engagement with the Islamic Society of West Valley, after it also became clear that one of the Muslim speakers compared Israel’s actions in Gaza after October 7th, to Nazi Germany.
One person involved said that the synagogue management “completely screwed themselves this time. What is happening to our people? Where have we come that we have to hide the pictures of the abductees to respect the Islamic community?”3
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration continues to make bizarre statements. This past week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “Protecting civilians, getting people the assistance they need, that has to be job number one, even as they do what is necessary to defend the country and to deal with the threat posed by Hamas.”
In other words, the Palestinians are more important than anything and everyone else — yet again. Never mind that, last week, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on Palestinian civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza. Then the Palestinian propaganda circus blamed the IDF, and the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry added the victims to its overall casualty count. That is how it works, Blinken.
But that was not even the worst in the latest iteration of “Biden’s administration betrays Israel.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (who is Jewish) gave a speech in Congress a few days ago, saying:
“The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th. The world has changed, radically, since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past. Five months into this conflict, it is clear that Israelis need to take stock of the situation and ask: Must we change course? At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel, at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government.”
I mean, I don’t even know where to start. Meddling in another country’s democracy, trying to speak for Israelis as if you know better (you don’t), effectively victim-blaming Israel for October 7th…
At the same time, Schumer’s party has been infiltrated by politicians who believe Israel is an apartheid state (regardless of its government), Zionism is racism but antisemitism is not, and Jewish lives do not matter. (Awkward much, Schumer?)
The Free Press published a chart that shows civilian casualty numbers in Gaza according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. The line is completely straight, suggesting that, in the Israel-Hamas war, Palestinians have been dying at an almost perfectly steady rate.4
Antisemitism and free speech have become so out-of-hand at the university UC Berkley in Northern California that one professor is not leaving his office until the school takes these issues seriously.
Ron Hassner sleeps on a mattress on the floor of his office and teaches his 100-person “War in the Middle East” class over Zoom, while his five-person graduate seminar meets in his office. Ron uses the bathroom down the hall and does not shower. His son and daughter, both teenagers, bring him food from time to time.5
BBC journalists behind a damning report which accused Israeli soldiers of beating and humiliating medics at a Gaza hospital have “liked” videos celebrating Hamas terror attacks and anti-Israel posts online.6
Of course, two BBC Arabic reporters, Soha Ibrahim and Marie-Jose Al Azzi, were credited with writing the “damning report.”
Earlier this month, London-based Ibrahim “liked” a video on X of Palestine Action activists slashing an oil painting of former British prime minister Arthur Balfour, who helped pave the way for the creation of Israel.
On the day of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7th, she also “liked” a post on X which celebrated “the first of the martyrs of the operation.” The tweet featured a picture of an Egyptian man who was killed after shooting dead three Israeli soldiers last June.
Meanwhile, Al Azzi, who has worked at the BBC since 2019 and is based in Lebanon, described Israel as a “terrorist apartheid state” in a post from 2018 that has since been deleted.
What great journalistic integrity.
Things you will never read in English, like what the Palestinian Authority has to say about Hamas (in Arabic)7 —
Hamas is to blame for starting the war against Israel.
Hamas leaders have abandoned the people of Gaza while enjoying a luxurious life abroad.
Hamas is to blame for blocking the influx of humanitarian aid.
Hamas is controlled by Iran.
But yet again, the Palestinian Authority continues to refuse to condemn the October 7th massacre in English.
The Middle East franchise of Starbucks began firing approximately 2,000 employees at its shops across the region last week. That is 10 percent of its regional employees. Many of them will struggle to find a job amidst the 11-percent unemployment rate.
Starbucks does not own, operate, or franchise a single store in Israel. However, one of its founders is Jewish. So, in an effort to hurt Jews, Jew-haters ended up causing damage to underpaid Arab blue-collar workers.
What the hell is going on?
Seth Mandel on X
“Fireworks ignited and eggs thrown as Holocaust museum opens in Amsterdam.” Sky News.
“לוס אנג'לס: בית כנסת השכיר מתחם למוסלמים, וכיסה את תמונות החטופים.” Ynet News.
“Trump’s TikTok Flip-Flop. A Weed Debate. Another Presidential Contender.” The Free Press.
“Why This Berkeley Professor Is Sleeping in His Office.” The Free Press.
“BBC plunged into new bias row after journalists behind damning report accusing Israeli soldiers of beating and humiliating medics 'like' videos celebrating Hamas terror attacks.” Daily Mail.
“فتح: إن من تسبب في اعادة احتلال إسرائيل لقطاع غزة لا يحق له تحديد أولويات الشعب وهو المنفصل الحقيقي عن الواقع.” WAFA News Agency.
The Jewish world is having a hard enough time without members of our own people siding with the enemy against Israel. Yes, our people have a culture of being “argumentative”, but their ridiculous and dangerous words have become so extreme in light of Israel’s fight for survival that many people, including me, think the religious authority – the Beit Din – must step in and start issuing “excommunications”.
Throughout history, the reasons for excommunication have changed. Essentially, they changed from being crimes against G-d to crimes against the Jewish community. Now that Judaism is embodied again in an actual country, I think it is urgent for the Beit Din and the Israeli secular leaders – especially Bibi – to determine what kinds of public speech against Israel by a Jew constitutes treason and excommunicate individuals based on treason against Israel and/or Jewish communities in the Diaspora. (Their traitorous speeches affect us, too!)
During WW2 there were likely as many, if not more, citizens of Allied countries who were so frightened or confused they would have gladly spoken out against the Allies. Except they knew that if they did they’d soon be arrested as traitors. If that seems harsh, it wasn’t. Because if Hitler and the other Axis powers had won WW2 thanks to those “loose lips”, the Allied countries would not be here today (or not recognizable) and there certainly would be no Jews and no state of Israel.
Loose lips sink more than ships. They can destroy countries, cultures and civilizations. It’s time we deny “Jews In Name Only” the right to speak for Israel or for any Jew in the Diaspora. Traitors are traitors. We must call them what they are publicly so they have less value to our enemies.
What's going on is precisely what you have identified and much, much more. With the biased, Jew hating news media, Jewish apologists, propagandized universities and schools, politics, and money, it is a multi-pronged problem to fight against. Please mention the antisemitism that is now found in hospitals in the US. There have been doctors, nurses in healthcare, and those fresh out of school who have said they wouldn't accept or take care of a Jewish patient, and even went so far to allude, that they would let them die. Nothing reported whether these specific people have been removed from healthcare and their licenses revoked. You can be sure of one thing, there are many more of them out there. It's becoming not only serious but extremely dangerous for Jews. I am hopeful this craziness will turn around and return to some form of sanity and common sense, but until then....Am Yisrael Chai!!!