Category: Uncategorized

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on February 3, 2020.

The media network spreads awareness of information and calls for action by covering the findings of analysts and the activities of boots on the ground.

There is no silver bullet to fight and defeat antisemitism. Hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars and hundreds of organizations are devoted to this issue, but the age-old hatred is rising faster than ever in America.

Too many of these responses to Jew-hatred are reactionary and risk-averse. Organizations that aim to fight antisemitism frequently address general trends or individual instances of hate when such instances occur, rather than develop a broad, coordinated strategy to combat the groups that promotes hatred and violence toward Jews.

This is a crisis. We need to invest in new and unique approaches in the same way venture capitalists and start-ups find innovative solutions to dynamic and developing challenges. We need to invest our scarce resources in stopping Jew-hatred with the same commitment and devotion which the governments of Iran, Turkey and the Gulf states, as well as other enemies of the Jewish people, invest billions in spreading antisemitism. It’s time to go on the offensive, think outside the box, fund and use cutting-edge research, and create collaborative models that drive dynamic impact.

The multi-network collaboration model

The model I have been implementing to fight antisemitism in the United States brings together a network of philanthropists with three networks of nonprofit organizations: research and analysis groups, boots-on-the-ground organizations, and media outlets including social media. The model ensures that each group has enough autonomy to function without being bogged down by lack of funds, in-depth research, and collaboration with other complementing organizations.

The philanthropists who take part in the new multi-network model do more than just throw money at problems – they lead the efforts, spend time on brainstorming, encourage collaboration, and actively push for change. They utilize their financial resources to support the unique goals they share with the nonprofits they support and spread awareness about their important work through media and social networks.

In addition to investing money, these philanthropists invest their time, energy and social capital to help achieve shared goals. They support dozens of organizations, whether researchers and analysts, boots on the ground, or media outlets, and help them build synergies and force-multiplication. The philanthropic network and nonprofit groups must work closely together to achieve quality outcomes.

The participation of researchers and analysts is key to this model. Leveraging their data and expertise, they provide philanthropists and boots-on-the-ground organizations with unique insight and advise on the optimal and most strategic action to take.

The media network spreads awareness of information and calls for action by covering the findings of analysts and the activities of boots on the ground. By connecting these networks, we create synergies, eliminate redundancies, and drive maximum impact with limited resources.

The groups within the boots-on-the-ground network are on the frontlines; they put the unique information and the strategies developed by researchers into action. The network includes a diverse group of organizations from campus to Capitol Hill, including legal groups and advocacy organizations. They are supported by the resources of the philanthropic network, the data of research organizations, and the awareness generated by the media network, which allows them to focus on maximizing the impact of their unique capabilities.

The model in action

The multi-network collaboration model can yield a significant impact in combating antisemitism. The most recent example of this model’s success is “The New Antisemites” report, published in December 2019. This report highlights how the delegitimization campaign against Israel is driving the rise in antisemitism in the US and exposes a growing ideological alliance between the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and far-right hate groups that spread this evil.

The report, which was compiled by the research organizations and circulated by the media network, goes on the offense against the new antisemites emerging in America. It uncovers their identities, affiliations with Palestinian terrorist groups, current strategies and methods, ultimate goals and funding sources so that the public and decision-makers can take direct action against them before it’s too late.

The report is backed by a wide coalition of 60 organizations that are acting together to turn its findings into action. Together, the collaborating networks are influencing three key groups: the public, opinion leaders, and policy-makers. And in doing so, they are going on offense and revolutionizing the approach in the fight against antisemitism.

Antisemitism is not an individual experience; it affects all of us. It is also not just a Jewish problem, but an American problem, and it requires proactive, innovative and unified action. The multi-network collaboration model will get us there. It enables us to optimize our capabilities, find new solutions, and deliver far-reaching impact.

To stop the hate that seeks to destroy us, we must come together ready to act with passion, discipline, and vision. Nothing less than our way of life is at stake.

The writer is an Israeli-American “philantropreneur.” He can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @AdamMilstein, and on Facebook at facebook.com/AdamMilsteinCP.

This article was originally published in Fox News on November 1, 2019.

Antisemitism did not die with the fall of Nazi Germany and its mass murder of 6 million Jews. The ancient hatred of the Jewish people has mutated like a deadly virus and has now infected many college campuses across the U.S. as a mainstream movement – and is being embraced at a national conference at the University of Minnesota this weekend.

The conference is being held from Friday through Sunday by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which has been one of the main drivers of the antisemitic and anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on American college campuses.

The BDS movement was established by major Palestinian terrorist organizations in 2001 as a “non-military” way to eradicate Israel. SJP, its campus wing, was founded by the University of California at Berkeley Professor Hatem Bazian in 2005.

The SJP network is the leading student arm of the BDS movement in the U.S. Its annual conference serves as a conduit to push radicalism, violence, and antisemitism at colleges and universities across the nation.

The BDS movement seeks the destruction of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state by isolating Israel from every other country through economic, cultural, academic and diplomatic boycotts.

If BDS leaders had their way, no nation would sell products to Israel or buy Israeli products, no nation would have diplomatic relations with Israel, all Israeli educational and scientific institutions would be boycotted, and the Israeli tourism industry would die.

A report released Wednesday by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy called the SJP “a main driver of Jew-hatred on campus” and listed dozens of instances of antisemitism involving members of the hate group.

Bazian and the other SJP founders, financial patrons, and ideological supporters have been linked to Islamist and Palestinian terror organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Yet we see almost no pressure to keep this violent hateful incitement — reminiscent of the Nazi-era boycotts of Jewish businesses — off campuses and away from students.

SJP is guilty of bait-and-switch at all levels. It’s accepted as a “social justice organization” although it works to mainstream hate. It’s presented as a student-founded organization when it supports and coordinates its activities with the BDS National Council, which includes representation of “resistance” movements from internationally recognized terrorist organizations.

SJP claims to promote human rights and accurate information, while it actually spreads lies and propaganda that increase antisemitism – including  Nazi-era blood libel claims, conspiracy theories about Jews and dehumanization of Jews.

Students for Justice in Palestine encourage chaos, conflict, and violence on campuses. The group’s members violently disrupt pro-Israel events and regularly bully and ostracize Jewish students.

SJP does not promote open dialogue or debate between its BDS-supporting acolytes and pro-Israel students. It will not stop at anything less than the destruction of the Jewish state.

The environment SJP has created erodes the culture of discourse, liberalism, and tolerance that is foundational to not only the American university system but America itself.

While this coalition of hate operates on campus, BDS has also led to a resurgence of antisemitism beyond campus. The global campaign, supported by Jew-hating terrorists and activists, has revived the very same hatred that America worked to eradicate during and after World War II.

Unsurprisingly, over the last two decades, there has been a great correlation between the establishment of the BDS movement and the rise in antisemitic incidents in America and around the world.

A recent report published by the government of Israel – titled “Behind the Mask: The Antisemitic Nature of BDS Exposed” – shows how over the past 15 years, the BDS campaign has promoted demonization and delegitimization of the state of Israel, and by doing so has exacerbated antisemitic rhetoric against Jews in America and worldwide.

By hosting the SJP’s national conference at the University of Minnesota, the school is propping up hate. That is not OK.

All people opposed to antisemitism must pull our communal and financial support from institutions hosting the American mainstreaming of modern antisemitism. We must apply pressure from outside – mobilizing communities of shared values – and from within (drawing on students, faculty, staff, and alumni) to discourage this evil. The time is now to band together to put an end to the BDS movement.

America has all too readily ignored genocidal antisemitism before. We must recognize that the modern campaign has roots in hatred that runs just as deep and bloody as the ideology that fueled support for Nazi Germany.

Before the massacre of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, American universities welcomed leaders from Nazi Germany – even though their horrifying racist ideology was well-known – while setting quotas to severely limit the enrollment of Jewish students.

In the wake of the Holocaust, antisemitism was no longer acceptable on American college campuses. The hatred of the Jewish people was suppressed and marginalized for about 70 years.

However, as the memory of the Holocaust fades and slogans such as “Never Again” and “Never Forget” are becoming old clichés, Jew-hatred is coming back on campus in frightening ways.

Today, universities are once again lending their platforms and legitimacy to mainstream the new antisemitism. The lessons of the past are seemingly forgotten, as elite institutions like Columbia University invite notoriously antisemitic world leaders such as Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to address their students, opening their safe spaces to intolerance, prejudice, and hate.

The BDS movement and Students for Justice in Palestine are fundamentally anti-American as well as anti-Israel and antisemitic because they reject our most cherished values.

SJP should be ostracized on college campuses and students should be taught the facts about it and the BDS movement.

 

Adam Milstein and his wife Gila co-founded the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, providing charitable and philanthropic services to a wide range of organizations to strengthen the Jewish people, the state of Israel, and the U.S.-Israel relationship. 

The report showed how Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have ties to at least 13 anti-Israel NGOs.

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on October 2, 2019.

The dishonest proponents of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement have long claimed that they simply aim to further human rights. For years, they were able to recruit many progressives including Jews to support and justify their campaigns. Yet, in recent weeks, the true nature of this hate movement has been acknowledged in unprecedented ways.

After more than a decade of deception, new evidence is being presented by a range of governments, international organizations, and media outlets to show that BDS is nothing but a front for anti-Semitic hate groups and terrorists that seek nothing less than the destruction of the State of Israel. It is the new face of the old antisemitism. The world is just waking up to this horrifying truth, which sheds light on what America can do to address this growing hatred around the world.

On September 24, 2019, the United Nations — a body with no love for Israel and a well-documented history of bias against the Jewish State — released an unprecedented report on the worldwide spread of anti-Semitism. The UN acknowledged that anti-Semitism is growing around the world, wearing one of three faces: on the far left, the far right, and among radical Islamists. In the report, the UN recognizes for the first time that “the objectives, activities, and effects of the BDS movement are fundamentally anti-Semitic.”

The next day, the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy released a landmark report “Behind the Mask – the Antisemitic Nature of BDS Exposed that reveals the rampant antisemitism within the BDS movement, including its calls for violence against Jews and the dismantlement of Israel. The report demonstrates how the BDS movement has intensified hatred against Jews around the world and provides 80 examples of antisemitism by key activists in the BDS movement. It documents the true face of BDS: a 15-year-old campaign that promotes demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel, and, in so doing, has exacerbated antisemitic rhetoric against Jews worldwide.

It followed another bombshell Israeli government report from earlier this year, titled “Terrorists in Suits”, which revealed more than 100 different connections linking Palestinian terrorist groups to BDS organizations. The report documented how Palestinian terrorist groups and the anti-Israel boycott campaign work together in pursuit of their goal to wipe Israel off the map, given that the terrorists view boycotts as a complementary tactic to their violent activities.

The report showed how Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have ties to at least 13 anti-Israel NGOs, and have managed to place more than 30 of their members, including members who have previously sat in jail, some for murder, in senior positions inside of BDS organizations. The boycott organizations and terrorist-designated organizations fundraise together and share the same personnel. Contrary to popular belief, these officials have not abandoned their support for terrorism, but instead continue to maintain organizational, financial and active ties with terrorist groups.

All of these reports followed a similar acknowledgment last summer by the German Parliament, which likened the BDS movement to the Nazis. It voted overwhelmingly for a resolution, which made clear BDS is not only antisemitic but also deploys methods reminiscent of Nazi-era calls to boycott Jews. The resolution came after the top German intelligence agency published a comprehensive analysis of rising antisemitism stemming from the BDS groups. These BDS groups were found to radicalize all other hate groups to create an ecosystem that breeds violent antisemitic attacks.

Germany now is working to be on the right side of history as they vividly remember when Nazis urged gentiles not to buy products from Jews, a boycott that escalated into outright theft, displacement, and eventually, the slaughter of six million Jews. It is time for others to follow.

The majority of the recent reports on the connection of the BDS movement to both terrorism and antisemitism make many different recommendations on how to stop the growing antisemitism of our era, one of which is of particular note: that countries should accept the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and uphold its principles and outlaw the BDS Movement.

The IHRA working definition is a concise description of a complex hatred that takes many forms. It reads: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The people who lead the BDS movement bring many different kinds of antisemitic hatred into our public conversation, and the IHRA definition helps identify the sort of bigotry that they spread. It defines anti-Semitism as accusing Jews or Israel of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust, accusing Jews of dual loyalty, using blood libel to criticize Israel, comparing Israel to the Nazis, holding the Jewish state to a double standard, or, in one of its purest forms of hate, denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination.

Now that many in the world are finally acknowledging just how evil BDS is, our Jewish community and fellow Americans must follow suit. Governments and NGOs must adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Our local, state and federal government must pass laws and resolutions that condemn and delegitimize the vile hatred of BDS. Politicians and bureaucrats should stop funding educational programs that include BDS’s bigotry. Financial platforms not to provide services to BDS organizations that publish antisemitic content or that have links to terror, and we shall all demand that social media platforms remove antisemitic BDS content.

After a decade of excuses and inaction about BDS, it seems that some are finally waking up to the danger this movement poses not only to the Jewish people but also the basic values of the liberal societies in which we live.

It is on our leaders to build on the recent momentum to inform the public about BDS’ antisemitic agenda — its shadowy funding sources, its true aim of denying Jewish self-determination, its lopsided and underhanded tactics, and its connection to terrorism.

BDS is the new face of the old antisemitism, and when it comes to fighting antisemitism, the old adage “better late than never” is particularly apt for our moment. It’s time for us all to get to work.

Adam Milstein is an Israeli-American Philanthropreneur. He can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @AdamMilstein, and on Facebook www.facebook.com/AdamMilsteinCP.

Jew-hatred, also described as antisemitism, is becoming mainstream in America.

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on September 4, 2019.

Jew-hatred, also described as antisemitism, is becoming mainstream in America.

Jewish university students are under constant attack for expressing any support for Israel. Radical activists are working to insert anti-Israel and antisemitic ideas into curricula to indoctrinate high school students. America’s Congressional delegation now includes representatives of the Islamo-leftist alliance, who are driven to demonize Israel and spread age-old antisemitic stereotypes. Radical antisemites are growing bolder, less censored and less afraid to share their hateful views with the world through digital and social media.

In the decades following the Holocaust, “Never Again” was repeated by millions who had no idea they needed to do something about it. Somehow, in front of our eyes, “Never Again” is becoming “Again and Again” as radical movements that threaten all Americans but are united in their hatred towards Jews, are growing stronger in broad daylight.

Antisemitism is growing, but it’s going to get much worse. A perfect storm of circumstances is elevating the dangers significantly. Jew-haters are taking advantage of the radicalization of our society, utilizing the biased mainstream and social media to amplify their message and enjoy unparalleled access to weapons to attack our communities in frightening ways.

How did we get to this place?

Jew-hating looks different today than it did in the past. In medieval times, people hated Jews because of their religion. In the 20^th century, Nazism viewed Jews as a race to be eradicated. Today, the new-antisemitism, fueled by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, is disguised as hatred towards Israel – the only Jewish State in the world.

However, with the assistance of many useful idiots, some of them Jews, the BDS movement promotes hatred toward all Jews globally, radicalizes all the extreme movements and promotes violence against Jews and other minorities.

With new allies across the political spectrum, Jew-haters have found friends in unlikely places. Antisemitism no longer comes from fringe groups. Instead, an alliance of Jew-haters has been forged by the radical left, radical Muslims, and the radical right. This three-headed monster of bigotry is best exemplified in the unlikely alliance between David Duke and Ilhan Omar.

Antisemites today also enjoy an unparalleled ability to amplify their hateful ideas through biased news articles and social media, and niche channels to billions of people at the click of a button. This ranges from antisemitic lies on mainstream media to posts on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter which celebrate attacks against Jews and threatened violence.

The easy access to weapons has already facilitated two mass attacks against Jews in Pittsburgh and Poway, and many more attacks on the American people: Gilroy, El-Paso, Dayton and Midland, TX. Every week someone is ready to commit yet another act of domestic terrorism and in the inevitable gun assaults that will spread in our country, Jews are going to continue to be disproportionately targeted.

The threat we face is a danger not only to Jews to but all Americans as it threatens to undermine and destroy the freedoms of religion, liberty, prosperity, and security that we all hold dear. We must do everything in our power to stop this enormous storm before it swallows America whole. There is still time to turn the tide back to protect the Jewish people and safeguard American values.

What can each of us do to stop it?

Combating hate starts with accepting personal responsibility and changing our approach from defense to offense. For years, our strategy to defeat antisemitism was purely reactive and defensive, relying entirely on others to protect us. The fact that Jew-hating continues to rise has proven how much our existing methods failed us. We must do more and differently. We must get personally involved, go on the offensive and deploy out-of-the-box strategies.

To do so, we as a community must adopt several principles. First, we must embrace and support the state of Israel without any pre-conditions. Israel, the Jewish people’s homeland, may not be perfect, but it’s where our traditions, history, heritage, and courage originated from. And it is dedicated to safeguarding the Jewish people around the world. Israel is our insurance policy. Without Israel, the Jewish people are weak and defenseless. Without Israel, “Never Again” is meaningless.

Second, we must do a better job harnessing our community’s strength to protect ourselves. We are the single most successful immigrant community in U.S. history, and we should not hesitate to leverage our position to fight Jew-hating. Our leadership, resources, and influence have the potential to become a real game-changer in putting Jew-haters on the defensive.

Third, it’s a rare time in history where our enemies are the enemies of so many other communities. We must embrace our allies and build a broad coalition to fight Jew-hating and other forms of bigotry. We must become active partners in the coalitions that are fighting hate, bigotry, and racism in America. After all, antisemitism is not only a Jewish problem; it’s also an American problem.

As we go on the offense, we must secure the resources to support and expand strategies and tools developed to fight back and put Jew-haters on defense, including to familiarize ourselves with the bad actors’ finances, agendas, goals and objectives, networks and future plans.

Financial resources should be invested in developing research that will enable us to combat Jew-hatred by naming and shaming antisemites, exposing their illegal activities, their violent plans, and promptly alert the authorities and the media.

We must financially support organizations who go on the offensive against Jew-haters; use out of the box strategies and who are willing to collaborate and work synergistically to force multiply our efforts.

StopAntisemitism.org, for example, monitors Jew-hatred on the ground, on digital and social media, and leverages an unmatched technology to develop communication channels through which they engage Americans to report Jew-hatred alerts and incidents, and develop actionable strategies to counter and prevent hate and violence

Though a perfect storm of antisemitism of the worst kind is looming, we should not be seeking shelter. It’s time we work with allies and fight back at all cost. When it comes to Jew-hating, we can’t be passive and risk-averse any longer. It’s time to make the jump from defense to offense. Let’s think outside-of-the-box. Let’s act affirmatively. Let’s make an impact.

Adam Milstein is an Israeli-American active philanthropist. He can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @AdamMilstein, and on Facebook www.facebook.com/AdamMilsteinCP.

This article was originally published in Arutz Sheva on August 8, 2019.

BDS is even more dangerous than your run of the mill antisemitism. It radicalizes members of all hate movements, and by cloaking itself in a veneer of “political criticism,” this terrorist-led movement conceals its violent roots and vile aims.

Since 2010, the U.S. Department of State has had a working definition of antisemitism, sometimes updating it to adapt to new and often terrifying realities of antisemitic hatred around the world. This week, the definition, as listed on the official website, finally got the updated it needed: one that highlights the dangers of BDS and its vile antisemitism.

Now, the posted definition of antisemitism includes “drawing comparison of contemporary Israeli policy to Nazi policy” – a reaction to the deeply antisemitic rhetoric spread by BDS-supporters that Israel has become a new kind of Nazi state. Not only is that accusation blatantly untrue, it also spits on the memory of Holocaust victims and survivors and furthers the age-old antisemitic trope of Jewish conspiracy and power.

I commend the brave civil servants at the State Department, Secretary Pompeo, and Special Elan Carr for showing once and for all just how antisemitic and anti-American the BDS movement truly is. Though it’s only now being reintroduced in the State Department’s definition, for quite some time many of us have seen BDS for what it truly is: an antisemitic anti-American hate group that threats our way of life and the values we hold dear.

Since its establishment in 2001 by the major Palestinian terrorist organizations, the BDS movement has masqueraded as a nonviolent grassroots human rights organization that aims to “improve” the well-being of Palestinians. Instead of protecting the Palestinians, the movement is laser-focused on economically, culturally, and politically isolating and eradicating the State of Israel, using the model that was applied previously to the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Until recently, the BDS movement has been embraced by many around the world. It was able to hide its true intentions, building alliances with global civil rights groups. It sought protection for its hateful ideas using claims that it had freedom of speech, notwithstanding the fact it openly uses anti-Semitic propaganda that demonizes Jews living in Israel, the only homeland of the Jewish people.

This acceptance allowed BDS to promote hate and incitement to violence against Jews in Israel and everywhere. It’s the same acceptance that has allowed antisemitism to creep its way into public education in California.

In recent years, it has become increasingly evident the BDS movement is – and always has been –a front of Palestinians terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Fatah, which are still coordinating the major global BDS activities and have close links to many of its members and groups.

Many have come to understand that BDS is antisemitic. Even before the State Department’s new addition to the definition of antisemitism, they already defined antisemitism as animus toward Jews and cites the specific example of “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” This definition is accepted by governments and organizations fighting anti-Semitism around the globe. Self-determination is recognized as a human right and Israel, the one and only Jewish State is an inseparable part of the Jewish identity.

Thus, BDS by definition is antisemitic – the new addition only emphasizes it. But that’s not all. More and more evidence shows that the BDS movement’s antisemitism not only works to deny the Jewish people the right of self-determination but also drives violence against Jews and others, globally.

The  Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) published a report about the BDS movement’s activities on college campuses, which revealed that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the primary BDS organization on American campuses, associates with terrorist organizations while its members encourage intimidation and violence against Jewish students.

The JCPA report definitively shows that BDS promotes anti-Semitism has been a primary driver of violence and hate crimes against Jews.

Earlier this year, the Israeli government issued a report called Terrorists in Suits, which exposed the BDS movement’s links to terrorist organizations and demonstrated that BDS was established by Palestinian terror groups to eradicate the State of Israel and murder its Jewish citizens by using violent, but “non-military” means.

It provides unprecedented details about how the BDS movement was established by and continues to be financially supported and run by members of U.S. designated internationally recognized terrorist organizations. The terrorists leading the BDS movement are using military terror attacks against Jews in Israel while complementing these activities with non-military tactics to demonize and threaten Jews in Europe and the U.S.

While the antisemitic and violent nature of the BDS movement is just now beginning to become apparent in America, it is much clearer in Europe, where attacks on Jews have risen exponentially with the mainstreaming of BDS’s rhetoric. As a result, the European Union’s Justice and Home Affairs Council unanimously approved a declaration denouncing antisemitism, which focused explicitly on the denial of Israel’s right to exist that is passionately championed by adherents of BDS.

But BDS is even more dangerous than your run of the mill antisemitism. It radicalizes members of all hate movements and encourages violence. Two months ago, Germany adopted a bipartisan motion recognizing that BDS is anti-Semitic and its methods are reminiscent of Nazi-era calls to boycott Jews.  What led Germany to realize the resemblance of the BDS movement to Nazis?

The top German intelligence agency recently published its most comprehensive analysis of the rising anti-Semitism by Islamist extremists in the country addressing the rise in antisemitic attacks committed by migrants from Arab states. The Anti-Semitism in the Islamism ‘early warning’ report acknowledges that the vast majority of anti-Semitic crimes in Germany still come from right-wing extremists, but also suggests that Muslim communities – who are championing BDS in Germany – are a hotbed of hatred against Jews, infiltrated by Islamist organizations and movements and their propaganda—the kind that ferments anti-Semitic radicalization and “forms the breeding ground for violent escalations.”

This isn’t only in Germany. The NY Times recently published an article “They Spit When I Walk in the Street’: ‘The New Anti-Semitism’ in France”—detailing how French Jews are afraid to appear Jewish when walking in parts of Paris. Some supporters of Marine Le Pen’s populist right-wing party engaged in antisemitic rhetoric, yet the main source of violence in France against Jews are Muslim immigrants, many of whom are engaged in extreme anti-Israel activity.

A 2018 Austrian report on antisemitism analyzed “Imported antisemitic narratives” indicates Muslims residents consistently agreed with anti-Semitic statements more than the general Austrian population. About 65% of them agreed “If the state of Israel no longer exists, then peace prevails in the Middle East.”

Centrist and liberal opponents blame nationalist and populist parties in Western Europe for anti-Semitism. Ironically, Jews are far safer in Eastern European countries such as Hungary and Poland — where governments are controlled by right-wing populists.

It’s not just that BDS has co-opted Nazi-era anti-Semitic tactics to perpetuate hate. The movement also bolsters other fringe antisemites, like white nationalists and radical leftists, as evidenced in the recent amicus brief filed in support of the State of Arkansas’s anti-BDS law at the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The BDS movement that promotes hate against Jews is not inclusive, peaceful, or humane. It is an insidious push to legitimize antisemitism—the same hatred and bigotry that Europe and America have fought to destroy.

By cloaking itself in a veneer of “political criticism,” this terrorist-led movement conceals its violent roots and its goal of denying the Jewish people the same human rights afforded to other people around the world.

We must use anti-terrorist and anti-discrimination laws to defeat this vile BDS hatred.

We cannot let these hate-mongers destroy our academic, cultural, and political institutions. There is too much at stake – not just for Jews, but for all Americans.

We must act now to protect democracy and American values before it is too late.

Adam Milstein and his wife Gila co-founded the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation providing charitable and philanthropic services to a wide range of organizations to strengthen the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the U.S.-Israel relationship. Adam sits on the board of several national organizations such as StandWithUs, Stand by Me, and the Israeli-American Council (IAC). Adam is a “philanthropreneur,” and dedicates his time and energy toward pro-Israel and pro-American causes that fight hate, antisemitism, and bigotry on college campuses and beyond. As an active philanthropist on social media, Adam has been included in JTA’s 2019 ‘50 Jews Everyone Should Follow on Twitter,’ Richtopia’s ‘2018 100 Most Influential Philanthropists Globally’ and their ‘2017 200 Most Influential Philanthropists and Social Entrepreneurs’, The Jerusalem Post’s ‘50 Most Influential Jews of 2016’, JTA’s ‘25 Most Influential People on Jewish Twitter of 2016’, and The Algemeiner’s ‘Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life in 2015’.

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on July 23, 2019.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

Since its establishment in 2001 by the major Palestinian terrorist organizations, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has masqueraded as a nonviolent grassroots human rights organization that aims to “improve” the well-being of Palestinians. Instead of protecting the Palestinians, the movement is laser-focused on economically, culturally, and politically isolating and eradicating the State of Israel, using the model that was applied previously to the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Until recently, the BDS movement has been embraced by many around the world. It was able to hide its true intentions, building alliances with global civil rights groups. It sought protection for its hateful ideas using claims that it had freedom of speech, notwithstanding the fact it openly uses anti-Semitic propaganda that demonizes Jews living in Israel, the only homeland of the Jewish people. This acceptance allowed BDS to promote hate and incitement to violence against Jews in Israel and everywhere.

Abraham Lincoln once said: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” In recent years, it has become increasingly evident the BDS movement is – and always has been –a front of Palestinians terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Fatah, which are still coordinating the major global BDS activities and have close links to many of its members and groups.

Many have come to understand that BDS is antisemitic. The U.S.  State Department defines anti-Semitism as animus toward Jews and cites the specific example of “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” This definition is accepted by governments and organizations fighting anti-Semitism around the globe. Self-determination is recognized as a human right and Israel, the one and only Jewish State is an inseparable part of the Jewish identity.

Thus, BDS by definition is anti-Semitic. But that’s not all. More and more evidence shows that the BDS movement’s anti-Semitism not only works to deny the Jewish people the right of self-determination but also drives violence against Jews and others, globally.

Late year, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) published a report about the BDS movement’s activities on college campuses, which revealed that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the primary BDS organization on American campuses, associates with terrorist organizations while its members encourage intimidation and violence against Jewish students.

The JCPA report definitively shows that BDS promotes anti-Semitism has been a primary driver of violence and hate crimes against Jews.

Earlier this year, the Israeli government issued a report called Terrorists in Suits, which exposed the BDS movement’s links to terrorist organizations and demonstrated that BDS was established by Palestinian terror groups to eradicate the State of Israel and murder its Jewish citizens by using violent, but “non-military” means.

It provides unprecedented details about how the BDS movement was established by and continues to be financially supported and run by members of U.S. designated internationally recognized terrorist organizations. The terrorists leading the BDS movement are using military terror attacks against Jews in Israel while complementing these activities with non-military tactics to demonize and threaten Jews in Europe and the U.S.

While the Antisemitic and violent nature of BDS movement is just now beginning to become apparent in America, it is much clearer in Europe, where attacks on Jews have risen exponentially with the mainstreaming of BDS’s rhetoric. As a result, the European Union’s Justice and Home Affairs Council unanimously approved a declaration denouncing anti-Semitism, which focused explicitly on the denial of Israel’s right to exist that is passionately championed by adherents of BDS.

But BDS is even more dangerous than your run of the mill anti-Semitism. It radicalizes members of all hate movements and encourages violence. Two months ago, Germany adopted a bipartisan motion recognizing that BDS is anti-Semitic and its methods are reminiscent of Nazi-era calls to boycott Jews.  What led Germany to realize the resemblance of the BDS movement to Nazis?

The top German intelligence agency recently published its most comprehensive analysis of the rising anti-Semitism by Islamist extremists in the country addressing the rise in antisemitic attacks committed by migrants from Arab states. The Anti-Semitism in the Islamism ‘early warning’ report  acknowledges that the vast majority of anti-Semitic crimes in Germany still come from right-wing extremists, but also suggests that Muslim communities – who are championing BDS in Germany – are a hotbed of hatred against Jews, infiltrated by Islamist organizations and movements and their propaganda—the kind that ferments anti-Semitic radicalization and “forms the breeding ground for violent escalations.”

This isn’t only in Germany. The NY Times recently published an article “They Spit When I Walk in the Street’: ‘The New Anti-Semitism’ in France”—detailing how French Jews are afraid to appear Jewish when walking in parts of Paris. Some supporters of Marine Le Pen’s populist right-wing party engaged in anti-Semitic rhetoric, yet the main source of violence in France against Jews are Muslim immigrants, many of whom are engaged in extreme anti-Israel activity.

A 2018 Austrian report on anti-Semitism analyzed “Imported antisemitic narratives” indicates Muslims residents consistently agreed with anti-Semitic statements more than the general Austrian population. About 65% of them agreed “If the state of Israel no longer exists, then peace prevails in the Middle East.”

Centrist and liberal opponents blame nationalist and populist parties in Western Europe for anti-Semitism. Ironically, Jews are far safer in Eastern European countries such as Hungary and Poland — where governments are controlled by right-wing populists.

It’s not just that BDS has co-opted Nazi-era anti-Semitic tactics to perpetuate hate. The movement also bolsters other fringe anti-Semites, like white nationalists and radical leftists, as evidenced in the recent amicus brief filed in support of the State of Arkansas’s anti-BDS law at the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The BDS movement that promotes hate against Jews is not inclusive, peaceful, or humane. It is an insidious push to legitimize anti-Semitism—the same hatred and bigotry that Europe and America have fought to destroy.

By cloaking itself in a veneer of “political criticism,” this terrorist-led movement conceals its violent roots and its goal of denying the Jewish people the same human rights afforded to other people around the world.

We must use anti-terrorist and anti-discrimination laws to defeat this vile BDS hatred.

Adam Milstein is an Israeli-American active philanthropist. He can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @AdamMilstein, and on Facebook www.facebook.com/AdamMilsteinCP.

This article was originally published in Arutz Sheva on July 17, 2019.

Today, anti-Semitism comes not only from the far-right but from the far-left and radical Islam as well. How should Jews respond?

There’s no denying it: anti-Semitism is on the rise in the U.S. and around the world. From swastikas on UK universities to the attack on Rabbi Shlomo Tawil in Argentina to accusations of dual loyalty in the Halls of the American Congress, anti-Semitism is resurging faster and more aggressively than we’ve seen in generations. As a community, we must come together to defeat it before it’s too late.

As Jews, we’ve lived with the threat of radical groups trying to eradicate our people for centuries. But today, we are faced with a new challenge and a new kind of anti-Semitism.

Today’s antisemitism manifests as a three-headed monster that spews its vile bigotry through the radical Right, the radical Left, and radical Islam. Each one of these hateful groups hate Jews for different reasons, but they all pose a real threat not only to Jewish people and to Israel, but also to the US and the Western world. To fight these groups, we first need to understand who they are and what their goals are.

In recent years, North America has joined Europe in witnessing a growing alliance between radical Muslims and radical leftists. Radical Muslims stone women and detest feminism, execute gays, systemically oppress minorities, and disregard basic human rights. On paper, the radical left should be appalled by this ideology, but these unlikely allies turn a blind eye to the tyrants of radical Islam because they share a common hatred for Western influence in the world, pluralistic nationalism, and Jewish power.

This isn’t the first time. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Husseini conspired with Hitler less than 80 years ago. Today, the rhetoric of neo-Nazis and radical Muslims echo one another as both groups continue to spew hateful conspiracy theories and centuries-old anti-Semitic tropes.

The only way to defeat this three-headed monster is to put aside our internal political differences and band together as proud, courageous Jews.

But how? The struggle is two-fold.

First, we must put aside our own political differences and fight the alarming encroachment of anti-Semitism from the extreme fringes of our politics into the mainstream. We must be vigilant, calling out anti-Semitism wherever we see it. We must also educate the public about the dangerous and insidious nature of seemingly minor anti-Semitic comments. We must call out hate wherever we hear it, whether it’s spewed by Louis Farrakhan, Rep. Rashida Tlaib or David Duke.

Second, we must learn all we can about those who seek to destroy us. That means investing in research capabilities and drawing on the latest technology to uncover the anti-Semitic networks online and off. Then, we must use this knowledge to expose their unlawful activities and better protect our Jewish institutions in partnership with law enforcement.

In doing so, we can stop attacks before they occur. For too long we have behaved as if anti-Semitism is merely distasteful, but not a danger. Today, that danger is real. The deadly attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway – and the resurgence of anti-Semitic attacks around the world – make the stakes clear for us all. Anyone who exhibits or espouses anti-Semitism must be immediately called out and held accountable.

Together, as a global Jewish community, we can band together to fight those who seek to destroy us. Jews today are not powerless. We do not have to suffer in silence. Unlike Jewish communities in the past, we have human and civil rights, and the ability to fight back.

We are a proud people with a long memory, and lucky to live in a time with a strong and thriving Jewish state. We no longer have to be afraid and passive. We must switch from defense to offense. To defeat anti-Semitism, we must be proactive and fight this head-on. If we don’t, history shows that the results could be catastrophic.

Despite years of persecution, a few things have always kept us strong: our beliefs, our values, our culture, our history – and over the last 71 years, our Jewish homeland, the State of Israel.

History has shown that anti-Semitism does not discriminate. As novelist Norman Mailer once said, “When the time comes, they won’t ask what kind of a Jew you are.” Nobody asked the innocent Israelis stabbed on the streets of Jerusalem. Nobody asked the congregants in Pittsburgh or Poway.

It doesn’t matter if you go to synagogue every day, every week, once a year, or you haven’t been since you were a child. It doesn’t matter whether you affiliate with one political party or another. And it doesn’t matter if you consider yourself an American Jew, or an American who just happens to be Jewish.

When we see anti-Semites acting out their hateful bigotry, we are confronted with a choice: do we condemn the evil and hope for the best? Do we turn our backs on the future of our people and allow history to repeat itself? Or do we fight back?

About the Author:

Adam Milstein and his wife Gila co-founded the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, providing charitable and philanthropic services to a wide range of organizations to strengthen the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the U.S.-Israel relationship. Adam sits on the board of several national organizations such as StandWithUs, Stand by Me, and the Israeli-American Council (IAC). Adam is a “philanthropreneur,” and dedicates his time and energy toward pro-Israel and pro-American causes that fight hate, antisemitism, and bigotry on college campuses and beyond. As an active philanthropist on social media, Adam has been included in JTA’s 2019 ‘50 Jews Everyone Should Follow on Twitter,’ Richtopia’s ‘2018 100 Most Influential Philanthropists Globally’ and their ‘2017 200 Most Influential Philanthropists and Social Entrepreneurs’, The Jerusalem Post’s ‘50 Most Influential Jews of 2016’, JTA’s ‘25 Most Influential People on Jewish Twitter of 2016’, and The Algemeiner’s ‘Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life in 2015’.

To reach Adam –

Twitter: https://twitter.com/adammilstein

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adammilsteincp/

Email: [email protected]

Originally published in eJewishPhilanthropy on July 3, 2019.

By Adam Milstein

“United we stand, divided we fall.” This common phrase is used to promote unity and collaboration but is often difficult to implement in the world of advocacy, philanthropy, and nonprofits.

For instance, many pro-Israel organizations act to achieve similar – sometimes redundant – goals. Since each organization constantly needs to fundraise and stand above other groups, they find it difficult to work together and collaborate with each other.

In addition, and notwithstanding our community’s efforts to combat the growing Antisemitism in America, there hasn’t been much innovation in the space, and we seem to be doing more of the same.

To change this paradigm, we have to wield Solomon’s wisdom with David’s courage – in what I describe as the 21^st Century Solomon’s Sling: the philanthropic multi-network collaboration model.

Broadly, there are at least four networks that can work together to make a significant impact: philanthropists, researchers and analysts, boots-on-the-ground, and the media. Each organization within each network is completely independent and has a unique and important role. Some members of these networks serve multiple functions, and their activities may overlap with the activities of other organizations within different networks.

Philanthropists share their vision and contribute time, connections, and financial resources to support research teams and on-the-ground activists. This collective vision is shared by researchers, who provide insight and strategy, while on-the-ground activists take action. The media organizations enhance awareness of the network’s results – with policy makers, opinion leaders and the public.

This theory was inspired by the late philanthropist Newton Becker, z”l. He recognized that smaller organizations have the ability to punch above their weight by being nimble and utilizing out-of-the-box strategies – and that philanthropists have the ability to bring unique vision, connections and experience to contribute much more than just a check.

About 20 years ago, I was fortunate to begin transitioning from a full-time businessman to an almost full-time philanthropist. My wife Gila and I, inspired by Becker’s call to “do more than just write a check,” decided to devote most of our time to what I call “active philanthropy.”

Like any successful business venture, we realize that we must be fully committed to our philanthropic investments – not only by contributing financial resources, but also by sharing our business vision, connections, marketing skills, operational know how, foundation staff time, and constant focus on improving the effectiveness of the programs we are supporting. After working for many years with a variety of organizations, we realized there were ways to improve philanthropy focused on Israel and the Jewish people to achieve greater impact.

The multi-network collaboration model integrates these findings and also mirrors some of the lessons I learned as a business. In business, you need to go the extra mile and work harder than your competitors to succeed; in philanthropy, you have to think outside-the-box to solve big challenges. In business, you work with different vendors to perform outsourced activities and must ensure smooth cross-functional collaboration within your organization; in philanthropy, successful long-term nonprofits build synergies and collaborations that complement each other’s unique work to achieve a greater impact.

Two years ago, I resurrected a regularly scheduled meeting for Los Angeles-based pro-Israel philanthropists, once hosted by the late Newton Becker, called the Impact Forum, which puts the multi-network model into practice. It has cultivated a network of active philanthropists who support a network of small, start-up-like organizations. Some organizations are research-focused, some act as boots-on-the-ground, and others are part of the media. By creating opportunities for collaboration between these four networks, we build synergies that drive maximum impact with limited resources.

This success is tangible. The Impact Forum has raised more than $1.6M to fund small and medium size organizations. That money represents a significant percent of these organizations’ annual budget, which allows them to focus on creating impact, rather than fundraising. The Impact Forum has also been an effective platform to connect philanthropists to research teams, media outlets and on-the-ground organizations, and to ensure that organizations work together.

A recent example that showcases this model’s impact is the campaign to substantiate the links between the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and Palestinian terrorist groups. First, several researchers, think tanks, and the Israeli government published research reports demonstrating the ties between BDS organizations and U.S.-designated terror organizations. Then, organizations within our multi-network collaboration model distributed the information, reaching state and federal agencies, campus administrations, other institutions, and millions of people on social media. Researchers and activists worked together to show the BDS Movement’s true colors with the assistance of the media, demonstrating how it inspires and supports violence against the Jewish people while masquerading as a human rights movement.

As a result, several State Attorney Generals put a greater focus on enforcing their states’ anti-BDS legislation. They are now leveraging the evidence that the BDS campaign is Antisemitic and aids terrorist groups. Omar Barghouti, the founder of the BDS movement, recently had his U.S. visa revoked. Several civilian lawsuits have been filed against U.S. based BDS organizations that raise funds for Palestinian terror organizations.

The impact is clear: create collaborating networks to defeat our detractors’ networks. We need the unique vision, knowledge, connections, and financial resources of many philanthropists to motivate and empower our networks. This is the most effective way to unite the pro-Israel community and fight anti-Semitism.

The 21^st Century Solomon’s Sling, the philanthropic multi-network collaboration model, isn’t just a model for the Jewish or pro-Israel philanthropic world. It makes sense for all advocacy campaigns that seek to impact the world by shaping public opinion and influencing policy.

Adam Milstein and his wife Gila co-founded the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, providing charitable and philanthropic services to a wide range of organizations to strengthen the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the U.S.-Israel relationship.

To reach Adam:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/adammilstein

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adammilsteincp/

Email: [email protected]

This article was originally published in the Daily Caller on June 21, 2019.

By Adam Milstein

Across the globe, anti-Semites are growing bolder. Each smear is more overt. Each attack is deadlier. Hateful rhetoric once kept to the fringes of society has crept into the mainstream and is now disseminated online and in the halls of Congress.

But when the House tried to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism earlier this year, they couldn’t even get it on the floor for a vote. Instead, a revised resolution was passed 407-23, denouncing both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia “as hateful expressions of intolerance.”

The House resolution, while problematic, was still better than what transpired in the United Nations. Until Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon spoke out and rallied allies, the resolution only condemned Islamophobia, completely excluding anti-Semitism.

These two resolutions show the unfortunate trend of framing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia as equivalent phenomena and equal dangers. They are not.

Hatred of Muslims is real and can be deadly, as we saw in New Zealand recently. But as radical Muslim organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as well as federal lawmakers like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) have come to prominence in America, so have false accusations of Islamophobia.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 19: Protesters hold placards aloft as they march during the Stand Against Racism and Islamophobia: Fraser Anning Resign! rally on March 19, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. The protesters are calling for the resignation of Senator Fraser Anning, following the statement he issued within hours of the Christchurch terror attacks on Friday 15 March, linking the shootings at two mosques to immigration. Those attacks killed 50 people and have left dozens more injured. The accused attacker, 28-year-old Australian, Brenton Tarrant, has been charged with murder and remanded in custody until April 5. The attack is the worst mass shooting in New Zealand’s history. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

While anti-Semitism and Islamophobia sound similar, and both refer to prejudicial opinions about minority groups, they are not the same.

A phobia is a strong, irrational fear of something that poses no real danger. Judeophobia is an irrational fear of Jews. Islamophobia is an irrational fear of the Islamic religion or Muslims generally. Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, is rooted in hatred, not fear.

“Because anti-Semitism is the godfather of racism and the gateway to tyranny and fascism and war, it is to be regarded not as the enemy of the Jewish people, I learned, but as the common enemy of humanity and of civilization, and has to be fought against very tenaciously for that reason, most especially in its current, most virulent form of Islamic jihad,” said the famed English-American author Christopher Hitchens in 2011.

The late historian Robert S. Wistrich — arguably the world’s leading expert on anti-Semitism during his lifetime — framed anti-Semitism in the context of the difference between an “obsession” and a “compulsion.”

“Compulsion’ suggests being coerced; and I think of anti-Semitism as more inner-driven,” Wistrich said, citing French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s description that anti-Semitism is “not an opinion, but rather a crime of passion; and, in the final analysis, the anti-Semite wants, consciously or unconsciously, to kill the Jew.”

While anti-Semitism is what Wistrich deemed “the longest hatred,” Islamophobia is a relatively novel phenomenon in historical terms. The phrase was first used in the 19th century but became prominent after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 following the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. The fatwa not only imposed a death penalty on Rushdie, but also criminalized all the publishers and translators of the book. When Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 for his service to literature, Iran accused Britain of “Islamophobia,” saying its fatwa still stood.

“A stupid term — Islamophobia —has been put into circulation to try and suggest that a foul prejudice lurks behind any misgivings about Islam’s infallible ‘message,’” Hitchens wrote in 2007.

Since then, the Islamophobic label has been used more and more often to deter any scrutiny of any groups or individuals who happen to be Muslim, even when those are advancing radical or harmful ideas, like Iran’s Ayatollahs. The political uses of the term Islamophobia go a long way toward explaining why the Associated Press stylebook barred the term in 2012. In 2017, AP changed their minds and added it back.

Ilhan Omar, newly elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on the Democratic ticket, arrives for her victory party on election night in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 6, 2018. – US voters elected two Muslim women, both Democrats, to Congress on November 6, 2018, marking a historic first in a country where anti-Muslim rhetoric has been on the rise, American networks reported. Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee, won a House seat in a heavily-Democratic district in the Midwestern state of Minnesota, where she will succeed Keith Ellison, himself the first Muslim elected to Congress. (Photo by Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images)

“Islam is not a race … Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it is not ‘Islamophobic’ to say Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy,” said Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch-American feminist and former politician who abandoned Muslim faith and is an outspoken voice against female genital mutilation in the Islamic world.

CAIR’s crusade against Islamophobia — and free speech — is particularly laughable, as the organization has even called “Aladdin” Islamophobic.

The prime minister of France Manuel Valls demonstrated a wariness of the political purposes of the Islamophobia charge and refused to use the term following the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack.

Calling critics Islamophobic is a very useful way to stifle debate, and Islamic radicals know this very well. Because of the power of the charge, few today are brave enough to take a public stance against radical Islam. As a result, criticism of Islam, Muslims and related matters are censored often in favor of the Islamist.

Chelsea Clinton has experienced this. So have Bill Maher and Dennis Prager. My own opposition to the Iran deal, boycott campaigns against Israel, and support of a petition calling out Reps. Omar and Tlaib for their anti-Semitism have earned me the designation as well.

Today, the unfortunate reality is that any time somebody is brave enough to critique a dangerous ideology, the government of a Muslim country, or even a terrorist network, they’re silenced, shut down, and stigmatized for engaging in “Islamophobia.”

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on June 19, 2019.

By Adam Milstein

Today’s antisemitism manifests as a three-headed monster that spews its vile bigotry through the radical Right, the radical Left, and radical Islam.

Antisemitism is as old as the Jewish story itself. As Jews, we’ve lived with the threat of radical groups trying to eradicate our people for centuries. From Egypt to Poland to Persia, the Jews have experienced unbelievable persecution. Today in the 21st century, antisemitism is still alive and growing, even here in America.

Despite years of persecution, a few things have always kept us strong: our beliefs, our values, our culture, our history – and our homeland, Israel.

History has shown that antisemitism does not discriminate. As novelist Norman Mailer once said, “When the time comes, they won’t ask what kind of a Jew you are.” Nobody asked the congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh or at the Chabad of Poway.

It doesn’t matter if you go to synagogue every day, every week, once a year, or you haven’t been since you were a child. It doesn’t matter whether you affiliate with one political party or another. And it doesn’t matter if you consider yourself an American Jew, or an American who just happens to be Jewish.

When we see antisemites acting out their hateful bigotry – as we’ve seen from Pittsburgh to Poway to the halls of Congress – we are confronted with a choice: do we condemn the evil and hope for the best? Do we turn our backs on the future of our people and allow history to repeat itself? Or do we fight back?

For me, the choice is clear.

Today’s antisemitism manifests as a three-headed monster that spews its vile bigotry through the radical Right, the radical Left, and radical Islam. Each one of these hateful heads poses a real threat not only to Jewish people and to Israel, but also to the US and the Western world.

In recent years, North America has joined Europe in witnessing a growing alliance between radical Muslims and radical leftists. Radical Muslims stone women and detest feminism, execute gays, systemically oppress minorities, and disregard basic human rights. On paper, the radical left should be appalled by this ideology, but these unlikely allies turn a blind eye to the tenants of radical Islam because they share common hatred for Western influence in the world, pluralistic nationalism, and Jewish power.

Just as the radical Left has a history of vilifying Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish People (and the Jews who support it), the radical Right has colluded with radical Muslims to spread its pure hatred of Jews and the desire to brutally subjugate – or murder – the Jewish people.

This isn’t the first time. Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Husseini conspired with Hitler less than 80 years ago. Today, the rhetoric of neo-Nazis and radical Muslims echo one another as both groups continue to spew hateful conspiracy theories and centuries-old antisemitic tropes.

The only way to defeat this monster is to put aside our internal political differences and band together as proud, courageous Jews.

But how? The struggle is two-fold.

First, we must learn all we can about those who seek to destroy us. That means investing in research capabilities and drawing on the latest technology to uncover the antisemitic networks online and off. Then, we must use this knowledge to expose their unlawful activities and better protect our Jewish institutions in partnership with law enforcement.

Second, we must fight the alarming encroachment of antisemitism from the extreme fringes of our politics into the mainstream. We must be vigilant, calling out antisemitism wherever we see it. We must also educate the public about the dangerous and insidious nature of seemingly minor antisemitic comments. We must call out hate wherever we hear it, whether its spewed by Louis Farrakhan, Rep. Rashida Tlaib or David Duke.

For too long we have behaved as if antisemitism is merely distasteful, but not a danger.

The recent deadly attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway make the stakes clear for us all. Anyone who exhibits or espouses antisemitism must be immediately called out and held accountable.

Jews don’t have to be like sheep led to the slaughter. Unlike Jewish communities in the past, we have human and civil rights, and the ability to fight back.

We are a proud people with a long memory, and lucky to live in a time with a strong and thriving Jewish state. We no longer have to be afraid and passive. We must switch from defense to offense. To defeat antisemitism, we must be proactive and fight this head on. If we don’t, history shows that the results could be catastrophic.

Adam Milstein is an Israeli-American real estate investor and philanthropist. He and his wife, Gila, founded the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and he is a co-founder of the Israeli-American Council, where he serves as chairman of the board.