It’s Nuclear: On Iran, Obama and the Scope of Anti-Semitism

Does the president understand the depths—and destructive implications—of the ayatollahs’ radical views on Jews?

Yesterday, Jeffrey Herf, a professor of modern European history at the University of Maryland and the author of a number of books on Nazi Germany, published an article in The Times of Israel called “Obama and his American critics on Iran’s anti-Semitism,” which is worth a read. In it, Herf examines the “unusual” public discourse that has begun to swell—a chorus he breaks down bit by bit, who wonder about the bounds of Obama’s understanding of anti-Semitism, and “how his view on that subject affects prospects for a nuclear deal to stop the ayatollahs from getting the bomb.”

Herf argues that Obama, “apparently stung by criticism that his approach to Iran is facilitating rather than preventing its path to the bomb and that he bears primary responsibility for the tensions in American-Israeli relations,” has gone on the offensive by giving an interview to The Atlantic‘s Jeffery Goldberg (read our coverage here), then hitting up Adas Israel in Washington, D.C., in what CNN called “foreign policy damage control.” Herf then cites Michael Doran’s essay in Mosaic, “A Letter to My Liberal Jewish Friends,” in which the author argues that the existence of shared values”—a tenet of Obama’s speech—”though important, was not the key issue. It was, instead, the necessary criticism of Obama’s policies towards Iran’s nuclear program.”

Herf has longed for Obama to publicly discuss his views on “the role of anti-Semitism in the government in Tehran.” He was pleased when Goldberg told Obama about his concerns in negotiating with people who are “captive to a conspiratorial anti-Semitic worldview not because they hold offensive views, but because they hold ridiculous views.” 

Yet Goldberg did not press Obama to specify his views and understanding of anti-Semitism at the height of Nazi power, and during the Holocaust; instead, Obama reflected on the anti-Semitism of European leaders who have made “irrational decisions.” Herf was dissapointed, because he wanted to hear Obama elaborate on his understanding of “a key interpretive framework that the Nazis employed to misunderstand the political realities of the time. If the President understands this dimension of anti-Semitism it was not evident in his interview with Goldberg:”

…for the Nazis, anti-Semitism was not primarily a form of discrimination or an organizing tool. It was an ideology that justified mass murder and did so not for the ulterior purpose of organizing others but because they believed that exterminating the Jews in the world would save Germany from destruction and eliminate the primary source of evil in the world. The extermination was carried out for the sake of these beliefs. Nor was this ideology at the margins of Nazi policy; it was at its center. The President’s comments to Goldberg raise questions about whether the President fully or accurately understands the link between ideology and policy during the Holocaust.

Obama, writes Herf, “suggested that the ideological imperative would give way to practical and rational interests in maintaining power. In so doing, he diminishes the impact of the ayatollahs’ radical anti-Semitism on the whole spectrum of Iran’s foreign and military policy.”

Herf continues, by citing Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal and Walter Russell Mead of American Interest, who posit that:

…the radical anti-Semitism that lies at the core of the Iranian regime is not primarily or only a prejudice or, to use the more common term, a kind of racism which rests on distorted and false pejorative views of Jews. Rather, the ayatollahs’ anti-Semitism is of the radical sort which in the past led both to an absurdly irrational yet deadly misunderstanding of world realities and to the Holocaust. It is an anti-Semitism which, in Saul Friedlander’s terms, produced the era of extermination following an era of persecution. The views the President offered to Jeffrey Goldberg indicate either that he does not understand the nature of radical anti-Semitism, or does not believe that the ayatollahs are sincere in what they have written and said since Khomeini’s exile writings in the 1970s and the assertions that he and his and his successors have repeated since coming to power in 1979. He appears to assume a moderation and pragmatism in Tehran which is belied both by that regime’s core beliefs and its actions.

Therefore, Herf hopes that Congress, in examining Iran’s potential terms of the deal, “will raise the issue of Iran’s anti-Semitism not only as a form of prejudice but as a fundamentally irrational world view that is incompatible with a system of containment and deterrence.”

But wait, there is clearly more….MUCH MORE

Int’l Campaign Underway to ‘Blacken Israel’s Name’

JERUSALEM, Israel — What does the Presbyterian Church USA and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters have in common? They both support boycotting Israel, a sweeping movement that’s trying to delegitimize the Jewish state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a great struggle and international campaign is being waged against his country to “blacken its name.”

“It is not connected to our actions; it is connected to our very existence,” Netanyahu said. “It does not matter what we do; it matters what we symbolize and what we are.”

Just this week, the CEO of French mobile phone giant “Orange” said he’d cut ties with the Israeli operation company here, one of Israel’s largest, as soon as possible.

Earlier this week, Britain’s National Union of Students voted to boycott Israel and affiliate with the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement. The same group voted against a resolution last year condemning the terrorist actions of ISIS.

It’s all part of BDS, whose goal is to punish Israel by encouraging artists, companies, academia, countries and even churches to boycott its products, divest from its companies and impose sanctions on the Jewish state.

Proponents of the movement claim it will help end what they perceive as injustices against the Palestinians. Critics believe BDS aims to much more.

BDS expert Eran Shayshon says the clear agenda is to tarnish Israel’s reputation.

“The BDS movement doesn’t say out loud that it is against Israel’s right to exist; however, they do mention that they support the right of return, which everyone who understands something about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict understands what it means and this is the annihilation of the State of Israel,” Shayshon told CBN News.

“What the BDS is trying to do is to create an anti-Israeli spirit of the times — namely to negatively brand Israel and so to associate it with the former regime of South Africa,” he explained. “Clearly such equation is false.”

Will Roth, an Austrian-born Jew and CEO of the Israel, Europe Freedom Center, says the campaign has gone beyond words.

“When you go to certain areas, unfortunately, especially in Belgium and in Sweden, if you’ll just have a yarmulke  [Notes:Jewish skullcap] , not to say have some good word about Israel, there will be slurs upon slurs and usually they will be violent at the end,” he told CBN News.

Roth says it’s a fight that awaits him every day.

“When I went to talk at Marseilles University in France and the pro-Palestinian spokesperson just walked inside, very easily cheerfully, safely and I had to be guarded when I entered and someone also tried to stab me during the way up to the stadium,” he recalled.

But while BDS is sweeping Europe, it is slower to take hold in the U.S. Roth says that’s in part because Europeans become intoxicated by ideas while Americans tend to fight back.

The Presbyterian Church USA ended business connections in Israel, and the U.S. State Department boycotts cutting-edge cancer research at Israel’s Ariel University because it’s in Samaria — or the West Bank.

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters openly criticizes artists who perform in Israel, but some like Eric Clapton, Dionne Warwick and Alan Parsons performed in Israel anyway.

American actress Scarlett Johanson faced protests for her endorsement of SodaStream, an Israel company with Jewish and Arab workers based in an Israeli settlement, and with Oxfam, a group fighting global poverty.

Her work with SodaStream was seen in a Super Bowl commercial.

“Like most actors, my real job is saving the world. Start with plain water, add bubbles, mix in the perfect flavor. Look soda that’s better for you and all of us — less sugar and less bottles,” she says in the ad.

The commercial cost Johanson her relationship with Oxfam because its leaders felt her work with SodaStream furthered the poverty of the Palestinians.

According to Shayshon, Israel fights an uphill battle because the other side plays by different rules.

“While we try to explain our position and use facts, they do branding and this is a completely different field,” he explained. “When they shoot from Gaza, we said, ‘Well they started it ‘ and they shout, ‘apartheid, apartheid.’ There is a mismatch between our strategies and the responses and that’s our problem. We don’t understand the battlefield.”

And in this battle, Roth says American Christians are among Israel’s staunchest supporters.