I work for an organization often identified as part of the American Jewish mainstream – sometimes dubbed the “Jewish establishment” – whose position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been fiercely attacked, even defamed, and I’m sick of it.
In recent months, an alarming new trend in anti-Hindu activism in the United States has come to the fore as the latest manifestation of identity politics. There is a growing anti-Hindu movement in the US that bears a strong resemblance to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, as it is manifested on college campuses and in local politics. Blatant acts and hateful rhetoric targeting Hindu practitioners—or those identified as such, by their Indian names or ancestry—is something that the Jewish community can and should vociferously oppose.
Why is Israel returning to Africa? For Netanyahu, one reason dominates all others. “The automatic majority against Israel at the UN is composed—first and foremost—of African countries,” he told a gathering of Israel’s ambassadors to Africa in February of last year. “Whether in the end or at the outset, our goal is to change their voting patterns.”
In the wake of the unprecedented tragedy of the Holocaust, it was anything but obvious that a Jewish group would seek to engage postwar Germany. But that’s exactly what American Jewish Committee (AJC), alone among global Jewish organizations, did.