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Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015, the prime minister of France, Manuel Valls, refused to use the term ‘Islamophobia’ to describe the phenomenon of anti-Muslim prejudice, because, he said, the accusation of Islamophobia is often used as a weapon by apologists for radical Islamists to silence critics. January 11, 2015. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on May 6, 2019.

On March 5^th, 2019 the House was set to vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism in the wake of a freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s latest hateful comments on Jews and Israel. Unfortunately, that resolution never made it to the House floor for a vote. Instead, on March 7^th, a revised resolution was passed 407-23, denouncing both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia “as hateful expressions of intolerance”.

Around the same time, a resolution was introduced on the floor of the United Nations in response to recent attacks on minority groups, like the horrific murder of 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the slaughter of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life in Pittsburg. Until Israel’s ambassador Danny Danon spoke out and rallied allies, the resolution only condemned Islamophobia, completely excluding anti-Semitism.

The events illustrate how anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are often framed in our discourse: as equivalent phenomena and equal dangers. This framing is both incorrect and problematic.

Let me be clear.

Bigotry, prejudice, and violence must be called out and combatted forcefully – whether it is directed at Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or anyone else. Those who traffic in this hatred must be marginalized and, when possible, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

That said, by definition, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia refer to two very different phenomena – and should not be lumped together as one and 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 is a race-based ideology, rooted in stereotypes – not based on fear, but ancient hatred. One popular definition, explains: “Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for `why things go wrong.’”

‘Islamophobia’ as a term has existed since the nineteenth century, but became prominent in 1989 when Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa 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 services to literature, Iran accused Britain of “Islamophobia”, saying its fatwa still stood.

Since then, the Islamophobic label has been used increasingly to deter and ultimately criminalize 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.

Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015, the prime minister of France, Manuel Valls, refused to use the term ‘Islamophobia’ to describe the phenomenon of anti-Muslim prejudice, because, he said, the accusation of Islamophobia is often used as a weapon by apologists for radical Islamists to silence critics.

Like Valls, I have seen how these fabricated accusations of Islamophobia are designed to whitewash, obfuscate, and distract from dangerous and growing radical movements in the Muslim world.

Few stand up publicly today against radical Islam and those who do risk being silenced under the label of Islamophobes. The sword of Islamophobia is wielded to deliberately chill discourse and narrow the public marketplace of ideas. As a result, criticism of Islam, Muslims and related matters are censored often in favor of the Islamist.

Accusations of Islamophobia have been launched at people from Chelsea Clinton to Bill Maher. I’ve even come under attacks as an Islamophobe in response to my opposition to the Iran Deal, boycott campaigns against Israel and my support of a petition calling out Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib for their anti-Semitism and ties to terrorism-sponsoring organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

I’ve been determined to speak out on this issue because I see a growing threat of radical movements silencing our freedom of speech on the left, on the right, and among Islamists in this country. Often, they work together.

For instance, vile racist, Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, called Ilhan Omar the “most important member of the US Congress”. The left has embraced the same congresswoman, a woman who espouses anti-Semitism without restraint.

We cannot let accusations of Islamophobia silence us when we confront and defend ourselves against the radical ideologies that exist in some Muslim communities and are now growing in America. Ideologies that undermine our values and seek to destroy our way of life.

I am well aware that hatred of Muslims is a real and dangerous trend across the world. It’s killed innocent Muslim men, women, and children in New Zealand and other countries. But in the past few years, as radical Muslims organizations like CAIR and individuals like Omar and Tlaib have gained more power in America, false accusations of Islamophobia have sky-rocketed.

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.” 

The Muslim Brotherhood, its Palestinian wing—Hamas, and its American wing— CAIR, are designated as terrorist organizations by many countries around the world. Confronting CAIR, an organization that supports both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas terrorists, is not Islamophobic.

Confronting Omar, who supports CAIR and espouses anti-Semitic vitriol and hatred from the halls of congress, is not Islamophobic.

Confronting Tlaib, another supporter of CAIR, whose fundraisers have called Jews “satanic” and who wrote a column for known anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan’s publication, is not Islamophobic.

Make no mistake: each of these individuals and organizations deserves to be publicly criticized and discredited not because they are Muslim, but because they are contributing to the rise of anti-Semitism, extremism, and hate in America.

I stand in solidarity with Muslims everywhere who face prejudice and discrimination because of their beliefs. Any decent person ought to. Not only because we have a common enemy – radical forces that seek to destroy America – but also because it is the morally right thing to do.

Recently, 19-year-old white supremacist, John T. Earnest, opened fire at Chabad of Poway, killing one Jewish worshipper and injuring three more. The same suspect committed an arson attack against the Escondido Mosque a month earlier. His manifesto cited the inspiration for his attack as the white supremacists behind the New Zealand mosque and Pittsburgh synagogue shootings. All their actions are driven by radical ideologies that make no distinction between Muslim or Jew.

That’s why I will never tolerate hate, including against Muslims. That’s why I will continue speaking out against radical Islam and other extremist movements. That’s why I will not stay silent in the face of phony accusations of Islamophobia. That’s why I won’t let radical forces take away my freedom of speech. And I call you not to stay silent as well.

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

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on January 27, 2019.

Antisemitism is the world’s oldest hatred, cultivated across cultures, continents, and centuries by people with many different agendas. It led to the enslavement of Jews in Egypt, forced expulsion during the Spanish Inquisition, pogroms in Poland and Soviet Russia, genocide in Nazi Germany, and near extinction in the Muslim world. This history raises the question: why do so many people over so many centuries hate Jews? What makes Jewish communities such vulnerable targets? Many books documentaries, articles, and encyclopedias have been written about the origins of and reasons for antisemitism. But the real questions, we must ask today, are whether this hatred is exclusively a problem for Jews, and what can the Jewish people do to fight back against and stop this evil?

The answers begin with understanding who antisemites are and what they ultimately want.

Today, antisemitism manifests globally like a three-headed monster, coming from the radical Right, the radical Left, and radical Islamists. But a closer look reveals that Jews are not the only the main target of these extremists: each one of these radical movements has a bigger vision for our civilization and their hatred doesn’t discriminate just against the Jews. In Europe, Jews increasingly experience hate and violence from radical Islamists and their allies – from the French-Syrian Jihadist who shot and killed four Jews at a Jewish museum in Brussels, to the random zealot who happened to be a French ISIS member and murdered Jews in a kosher Paris supermarket in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting by his two close friends, which itself was lethal violence against a European satirical newspaper—a literal attack on freedom of speech. In Alexandria, Virginia, James Hodgkinson, a radical leftist attacked a group of congressmen during baseball practice, seriously wounding U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, several police officers, and bystanders. At the same time, extremism on the radical right in America has led to Nazi posters targeting Jewish students and drove Robert Bowers, a white supremacist terrorist to gun down 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Pursuant to the recently-released 2018 ADL Center on Extremism report, domestic Right-wing extremists murdered 50 Americans, more people than in any year since 1995. Only one-third of these Americans were Jews.

Antisemites, whether on the far right, on the far left, or among the radical Islamists, hate Jews for different reasons. However, and most importantly, their hatred is a threat to the core values of American society: democracy, free speech, and freedom of religion. We cannot sit idly by in the face of this imminent threat. It’s not only about the well-being of the Jewish people but about the values at the heart of Western society. Understanding, researching, and documenting these radical movements is not enough to alert the American people and to motivate them to combat the threat. To stop the growing movements of hate, we need to switch from defense to offense. In the past, Jews were not able to fight back. This time around, the Jewish people are better equipped to join our American brothers and sisters, go on the offense and defeat these radical movements. In historical perspective, Jews today have three comparative advantages in the fight against those radical movements: the existence of a Jewish homeland – the State of Israel, the unique strength and resources of the Jewish community in America, the opportunity to establish a large coalition of many communities that share the American values, and finally, recognition of our common enemies.

The startup nation of Israel is the most dynamic and powerful shield that the Jewish people have ever known, a dedicated haven for the Jewish people around the world. Israel is America’s strongest ally and shares our common values and common enemies. We can draw from Israel’s knowledge and strength to combat radical movements here at home by using all legal resources at our disposal to research, analyze, document and act against extremist individuals and organizations that pose serious dangers to our community. We need to become familiar with their agenda, goals, and objectives. We need to expose their illegal activities, learn about their plans, and alert the appropriate authorities, organizations, and media. We must engage the American public to be our eyes, ears, and boots on the ground and create real-time tools to prevent and stop extremist attacks. The Center for Combatting Hate in America (C4CHA), a newly founded watchdog group and action center is bringing these strategies together, leading the charge against violent radical movements in America. C4CHA will diminish the influence of hate groups and bigots by researching their members, networks, and activities, exposing their work to the public, and alerting authorities of imminent threats steaming from radicals and extremists.

It’s about time we stop being passive and risk-averse. We must respond to all violent hate attacks with strength and unity. We should go on offense and join forces with other allies to combat this evil at all costs.

Adam Milstein is an Israeli-American philanthropist. He can be reached at [email protected].

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on December 26, 2018.

The year 2018 has provided a series of reminders that antisemitism, the world’s oldest hatred, is alive and well in our country.

On October 27, eleven Jews were massacred in Pittsburgh as they prayed on the Sabbath. It is just the latest in a series of violent attacks that have targeted the Jewish community in recent times, which come not only from the radical right but also from the radical left, and from radical Muslims.

The enemies of the Jewish people don’t only physically attack us from the outside. They have also long worked to divide the Jewish people by turning our own against us. For example, a number of Jewish individuals and organizations have become leaders within the BDS movement, which seeks to destroy the Jewish state.

Jewish self-hatred did not begin with the BDS movement. Isaiah 49:17 says, “Your destroyers and devastators will depart from you.” History is replete with examples of Jews who hated the Jewish people so vehemently that they dedicated their entire lives to its destruction.

Take the new Jewish group IfNotNow, which together with their collaborators Jewish Voice for Peace set its sights on demonizing Birthright Israel – an organization that has helped over 600,000 young Jews from 67 countries connect with their Jewish heritage and with the State of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.

Last summer, IfNotNow launched a campaign to harass Birthright participants at JFK and Heathrow airports, and planted saboteurs to infiltrate and disrupt Birthright trips, using these stunts to secure slanted media that demonizes Birthright and its Jewish supporters. In doing so, they sought to erode support for a program that made a transformative impact for hundreds of thousands of young Jews – and to discourage participants from accepting this tremendous life-changing gift.

The leaders of IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, who are Jewish themselves, sympathize with Hamas and other terrorist organizations. They present their movement as an anti-occupation group but have never recognized Israel right to exist or the Jewish people right for self-determination.

Along the same lines, some media outlets within the Jewish community are now actively working with explicitly anti-Israel – and in some cases antisemitic – networks, such as Electronic Intifada and Al Jazeera, to attack and demonize pro-Israel leaders and organizations.

It was recently revealed by pro-Israel activist and journalist Noah Pollak that a Forward reporter was using Al Jazeera as a source for a story to smear pro-Israel entities.

It’s despicable that one of the United States’s most storied Jewish papers was working to attack pro-Israel leaders and organizations using material obtained from an Al Jazeera espionage operation, overseen by Qatar, the major sponsor of Hamas and the global Muslim Brotherhood.

The same newspaper has launched a campaign together with Electronic Intifada and Al-Jazeera to attack the financial supporters of the Canary Mission – a watchdog that compiles public statements and social media posts of antisemites and anti-Israel activists who demonize the Jewish state, deny the Holocaust and call for genocide of Jews.

In its 2016-2017 year-end report, Israel on Campus Coalition recognized that exposing and discouraging anti-Israel activists through online platforms such as Canary Mission created a strong deterrent against antisemitism and BDS. By publicly documenting the actions of anti-Israel students, these platforms have created a detailed record of the hate and anti-Semitism present on US campuses.

Enemies of the Jewish people also recognize the profound impact of Canary Mission. A recent article in the pro-BDS publication, The Intercept, was headlined: “It’s Killing the Student Movement: Canary Mission’s Blacklist of Pro-Palestine Activists Is Taking a Toll.”

New York Times bestselling author Edwin Black recently wrote that a generation from now, historians will judge the Canary Mission and others who acted to defend against anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bigotry – and those, such as the Forward, who did all they could to frustrate and obstruct those efforts.

Our Jewish community contains a multitude of diverse advocates and activists, but our strength lies in our support for each other and for the State of Israel, and the knowledge that justice is on our side. Our enemies know there are no one more credible and eloquent individuals to divide and destroy us than Jews who demonize the State of Israel and portray the IDF – undoubtedly the most moral army in the world – as craven war criminals. If we glorify and support the tactics that these hateful Jewish individuals and organizations practice, or even if we stay silent, will be responsible for their “success”.

As was demonstrated by the horrific murder of Jews in the Pittsburgh synagogue, our enemies don’t distinguish between us. Jews who support and serve the work of our enemies should not be allowed to continue to divide and self-destruct us from within.

The pro-Israel community must stand up to marginalize these bigots and their supporters. If we don’t, history shows that the results could be catastrophic.

Adam Milstein is an Israeli-American philanthropist. He can be reached at [email protected].

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on November 3, 2018.

Last Saturday, we witnessed the deadliest attack on American Jews in history. Eleven members of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh were violently murdered because they were Jewish. I was shocked by this horror, but I was not surprised.

Antisemitism is as old as the Jewish story itself. We honor the victims of the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah, we remember our struggles as slaves in ancient Egypt on Passover, and we even celebrate triumph over Haman’s plans to slaughter us in ancient Persia on Purim. It’s the terrible truth that we live with the constant realization that radical groups want to eradicate our people and all that binds us together: our beliefs, our values, our culture, our history – and our homeland, Israel.

History has shown that antisemitism can reach us anywhere. As novelist Norman Mailer once said, “When the time comes, they won’t ask what kind of a Jew you are.” It doesn’t matter if you go to synagogue every day, every week, once a year, or never in your life. It doesn’t matter whether you love Trump or you hate him. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Poland or you’re in Pittsburgh, and it doesn’t matter if you consider yourself a proud Jew or an assimilated one.

When we see antisemites acting out their hateful bigotry, we are confronted with a choice: What do we do? Do we condemn the evil and hope for the best? Do we stick our heads in the sand and ignore the ever-rising threats? Do we ask the government and other groups to defend us because we are passive or risk averse? Do we turn our backs on the future of our people and allow history to repeat itself?

Or do we fight back? Do we proactively work to fight not just for love, tolerance or even acceptance, but to make it so that our children today, and their children tomorrow, will be prepared and capable to confront antisemites and live safely and freely as Jews?

LAST YEAR, my wife and I traveled to Poland and saw the horrific conditions suffered by the Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which were built with a single purpose: to exterminate our people.

Our takeaway from the trip was that we must be vigilant, and fight against our enemies.

I previously wrote about how today’s antisemitism manifests as a three-headed monster. This monster spews its vile bigotry through the radical Right, the radical Left, and radical Muslims. Each one of these hateful heads poses a real threat around the world. These radical groups work to divide our community to make us weaker and easier to target. We put aside our internal politics and band together, as proud Jews, finding the courage and strength to fight these groups.

How? First, we must closely learn about those who seek us harm. That means investing more resources into research capabilities, drawing on the latest technology to uncover the antisemitic networks online and off-line. We must understand what antisemites are saying, what their plans are and how they operate. 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 progress of antisemitism from the extreme fringes of our public discourse into the mainstream. We must be vigilant in educating the public about the evil and the true intentions of antisemitism, whether it is spewed by Louis Farrakhan, Jeremy Corbin or David Duke. For too long we have behaved as if antisemitism is merely distasteful, but not a danger. The attack last weekend made very clear the stakes for us all. Journalists, politicians, celebrities, and business leaders must be immediately called out when they echo antisemitic canards.

Third, we need to utilize the research acquired and to invest more in the physical security of our Jewish schools, synagogues and other institutions. As Jews, we cannot ignore the fact that we are all targets.

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

We are a proud people with a long memory, who live in the time with a strong and thriving Jewish state. We don’t have to be afraid and passive. We shouldn’t stay beneath the radar to maintain our pristine and nice reputation. We must be proactive and fight this head on.

The writer is an Israeli-American philanthropist. He can be reached at [email protected]

This article was originally published in the The Daily Caller on October 30, 2018.

On Saturday, we witnessed the deadliest attack on American Jews in history. Eleven members of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh were murdered in cold blood because they were Jewish.

Like many, I was shocked by this horror, but I was not surprised.

The Jewish people have faced the lethal threat of Anti-Semitism for thousands of years — from the ancient struggle in Egypt to the Islamic conquest in the early middle ages to the Inquisition in Spain and the pogroms in Central Europe to the Holocaust.

We live with the ever-present fear that there are many people who want to eradicate Jews.

I saw this powerfully earlier this year, when I traveled to six European countries — the Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Germany – with 100 leading American philanthropists and scholars, and together, we tried to wrap our heads around the scope of the genocide carried out by Nazi Germany and its European collaborators.

We saw the horrific conditions suffered by the Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which were built with a single purpose: to eradicate the Jewish and Roma peoples. We saw mass graves in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland, where hundreds of thousands of Jewish families perished by firing squads because their gentile neighbors collaborated with or joined in when the German Killing Machine arrived.

At the Rumbula Forest Memorial, we paid our respects to some of the 2.4 million Jews who were killed in the Hidden Holocaust by bullets — some murdered by neighbors they had grown up alongside.

Far too many people view these places as simply historical sites, where you can learn something about the past, but nothing about the future. Up until now, many — including some within the Jewish community — couldn’t comprehend that the antisemitism that existed in Nazi Germany might happen again, especially in America. I wonder if the massacre in Pittsburgh will change their minds.

Facing these horrors up close focused our attention on the relevance of the Holocaust to our present day. How can we ensure that Never Again isn’t just a slogan, but a mindset and an action plan?

Three lessons from our journey stand out.

First, events like the Holocaust don’t happen overnight. They result from a process of systematic racism, intimidation and discrimination that lasts many years.

Antisemitism had long been present across Europe. Nazi Germany harnessed that hatred to humiliate, marginalize and weaken the Jewish people, as it prepared to unleash the largest genocide in history.

During the first six years of Hitler’s rule, more than 400 decrees and regulations boycotted, delegitimized and sanctioned (B.D.S.) all aspects of Jews’ public and private lives. Jews were dehumanized in the eyes of the public until gentiles believed genocide was a reasonable course of action.

The parallels to recent events should not be lost on us. In the last two decades, America and Europe, in particular, have seen a steady rise in antisemitism from the radical right, the radical Left and from radical Muslims. A growing alliance between radical leftists and radical Islamists has produced figures like Jeremy Corbyn, the head of the British Labour Party, who ignores and even espouses vile antisemitism.

This alliance has driven the rise of figures on the radical Right in Germany, Poland, Italy, Estonia and elsewhere, who are committed to denying the Holocaust, and trade in antisemitic stereotypes. The same alliance is definitely one of the reasons to the rise of the radical right in America.

It seems the only thing shared by all the radical movements is their hatred of the Jewish people. While European governments publicly express strong support for the importance of protecting their Jewish communities, history tells us that nothing lasts forever.

We witnessed this trend up close. In many of our meetings, European officials blamed the Holocaust solely on Germany – not the collaborationist leaders of their countries. None of these countries seemed to take ownership of their actions during the Holocaust. This denial has become public policy.

For instance, a law recently passed in Poland made it illegal to acknowledge the Polish people’s complicity in death camps, outlawing the phrase “Polish death camps.” At the same time, and some Germans — including the third largest party in the parliament — are now working to minimize the Holocaust, claiming it was a small spec of “bird poop” in their 1,000 years of glorious history.

This brings us to our second lesson: We must recognize and fight against antisemitism with all of our power whenever we encounter it.

When we don’t act, we legitimize antisemitism, allowing it to become mainstream. We become an accomplice to its growth and influence.

Before and during World War II, Jewish communities across Europe cried out for help. World powers were overwhelmingly silent. Jews trying to flee were turned away by countries across Europe and the Americas, with Britain blocking immigration to what is now Israel.

Unfortunately, some Jewish communities in Europe and elsewhere now downplay or even ignore the dangers the Jewish people face. We found this in some of our conversations with European-Jewish leaders, who expressed their unwavering confidence in their local government’s willingness and ability to protect them.

Jews in America today have the power to stand up and fight back against the antisemites. We should use this power now — before it’s no longer available. Standing up in unity and fighting back are two different causes of action and we need both.

This brings us to our third lesson. We must support Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people and ultimate insurance policy for all Jews.

Israel did not exist during the time of the Holocaust. It has already saved millions of Jews fleeing antisemitism around the world. In its infancy, Israel accepted Holocaust survivors from displaced persons camps. It launched countless operations to save Jews facing existential threats across the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and Europe.

In the 90s, the Jewish homeland welcomed approximately 1.6 million Jews from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, who had endured harsh antisemitism and hatred. More recently, rising antisemitism in Venezuela brought over half of the country’s Jews to Israel.

Israel has changed the game when it comes to the security of the Jewish people. This point was driven home for us during the trip by Maj. General Amir Eshel — the former commander of the Israel Air Force, who accompanied us to Auschwitz. In 2003, Eshel led a squadron of IAF F-15s in a flyover of Auschwitz, issuing an eternal promise from the cockpit that the IDF is “the shield of the Jewish people and its nation, Israel.”

Following the murder of helpless Jews in Pittsburgh, I was shocked and outraged to hear American Jewish leaders blaming Israel for the rise of antisemitsm in America and encourage Israeli public officials not to come to the memorial events.

How can Jewish leaders betray the only Jewish Country in world, which is the ultimate source of confidence and security for the Jewish future?

Remembering the Holocaust is not enough. We must turn the tragedies of the past into lessons for the future. Nothing less than the continuation of the Jewish people is at stake. It’s in our hands to ensure that Never Again really means Never Again.

Adam Milstein an Israeli-American philanthropist, the national chairman of the Israeli-American Council (IAC) and co-founder of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.

This article was originally published in The Jerusalem Post on August 20, 2018.

Misinformation matters because media outlets have great power. They shape the way we understand the world and, ultimately, drive our behavior.

This past May, the Los Angeles Times ran the headline “A Baby Girl Dies in the Haze of Gaza,” which told a story about eight-month-old Palestinian Layla Ghandour, who was allegedly killed by inhaling tear gas used by Israeli defense forces. This story was tragic and upsetting. It was also untrue. The New York Times and other major outlets published similar stories, framing Israel and Israeli soldiers as child-killing villains, amplifying Hamas’s false narrative about Layla’s death.

Following this wave of coverage, Layla’s cousin admitted that Hamas paid his relatives to lie to the media about Layla’s cause of death. In reality, Layla died from a preexisting blood condition. Of course, the family of a deceased baby deserves any rational person’s sympathy, but when the media falls prey to Hamas propaganda that uses the death of an innocent baby to degrade Israel, no one, except for Hamas, wins. Even today, this story continues to be available for a wide audience to read and reference, without any disclaimer that it is based on falsified information.

Then, amid this summer’s Great March of Return protests, each one a violent attempt to cross into Israel’s borders and kill civilians, the LA Times reported on June 18 that “about 130 protesters have been killed by Israeli troops.” In fact, the group of “protesters” consisted of a significant number of armed and active Hamas combatants. The Times ignored this fact and the intent of this march, as prior to this coverage, a senior Hamas official had admitted that most of the Gazans who died in the protests were Hamas members, terrorist operatives with the intention of killing innocent Israeli men, women, and children.

This misinformation matters because media outlets have great power. They shape the way we understand the world and, ultimately, drive our behavior. It is no exaggeration to say that their activity can have life-and-death implications. The pattern in coverage of the New York Times and LA Times is a case study that drives home a critical point for society.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the New York Times, Washington Post and other media outlets neglected their obligation to disseminate truth and remained virtually silent as Nazi Germany carried out the mass murder of Jews in Europe, relegating stories about Jewish genocide to short briefs on their back pages. While Jews starved in ghettos and concentration camps, watched their family members perish and were stripped of their humanity, they wondered where the world was. The press remained largely indifferent and the reluctance of editors of major outlets to report widely and consistently on these horrors contributed to consequences that the world will never forget. Newspapers and radio news broadcasts failed to fulfill their part in educating the American public about the horrific crimes committed by the Germans.

The New York Times and Washington Post, despite being Jewish-owned publications, included minimal coverage on the Holocaust. In essence, the media diminished the disturbing revelations about the extermination of Jews under Hitler’s Third Reich. If the extent of Hitler’s unspeakable crimes were exposed and understood earlier, more lives could have been saved. Surely more Americans would have been spurred into action if they had repeatedly read front-page coverage on the detestable conditions that Jews were forced to suffer.

The role of journalists is to shine a light where there is darkness, to tell the stories of the powerless and hold the powerful to account.
Decades later, in 1964, the media showed the world the power of fulfilling its duty to report the truth. When LIFE magazine shattered all misconceptions about smoking cigarettes, it demonstrated the life-saving potential of the media. Despite all the parties who had a stake in the triumph of cigarettes – farmers, politicians, advertisers, and the tobacco industry – LIFE conclusively revealed the deadly effects of cigarettes, featuring the US Surgeon General’s report announcing that cigarettes are a major cause of lung cancer and chronic bronchitis.

Imagine if this leadership in exposing the truth could be the model for how Israel is covered in the media. The LIFE story shows us that this reality is not out of reach. By reporting on confirmed facts and confronting their internal biases about the use of cigarettes, LIFE journalists saved and are saving millions of lives. They helped end the era of smoke-filled restaurants and classrooms, carefree smoking and glorifying cigarettes. For the first time in history, white and orange wrapping became synonymous with cancer and death.

The media outlets have that power, but they must be willing to fight for it.

We must hold the media accountable for honest reporting. We must reject and condemn stories that spread inaccurate information and newspapers that fail to broadcast corrections as dramatically as they broadcast untruths. If journalists fail to understand that antisemitism is a deeply embedded bigotry that persistently impacts their understanding of the world – and a hatred that is central to Hamas’ political actions – they cannot accurately report on actions at the Gaza-Israel border. A story pinning the death of an innocent Palestinian baby on Israeli soldiers should raise a red flag. Journalists must present facts and a careful understanding of the nuances that shade coverage of complex situations. A headline taken out of context should not be tolerated.

Media bias and misreporting are more than just a nuisance. They blur our vision for a better world. When we cannot see clearly, we risk our values, our democracy and ultimately, our humanity.

The writer is an Israeli-American philanthropist and co-founder of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation. He is co-founder and national chairman of the Israeli-American Council.

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on June 28, 2018.

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

This month, we had the privilege to learn more about the devastating and cruel truths of the Holocaust. We traveled to six countries – the Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Germany – with 100 leading American philanthropists and scholars, and together, we tried to wrap our heads around the scope of the genocide carried out by Nazi Germany and its European collaborators.

We saw the horrific conditions suffered by the Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which were built with a single purpose: to eradicate the Jewish and Gypsy peoples. We saw mass graves in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland, where hundreds of thousands of Jewish families perished by firing squads because their gentile neighbors collaborated with or joined in when the German Killing Machine arrived. At the Rumbula Forest Memorial, we paid our respects to some of the 2.4 million Jews who were killed in the Hidden Holocaust by bullets – some, murdered by neighbors they had grown up alongside.

Far too many people view these places as simply historical sites, where you can learn something about the past, but nothing about the future. Many – including some within the Jewish community – can’t comprehend that the antisemitism that existed in Nazi Germany might happen again, especially in America.

Facing these horrors up close focused our attention on the relevance of the Holocaust to our present day. How can we ensure that Never Again isn’t just a slogan, but a mindset and an action plan?

Three lessons from our journey stand out.

First, events like the Holocaust don’t happen overnight. They result from a process of systematic racism, intimidation, and discrimination that lasts many years.

Antisemitism had long been present across Europe. Nazi Germany harnessed that hatred to humiliate, marginalize, and weaken the Jewish people, as it prepared to unleash the largest genocide in history. During the first six years of Hitler’s rule, more than 400 decree’s and regulations that Boycotted, Delegitimized and Sanctioned (BDS) all aspects of Jews’ public and private lives. Jews were dehumanized in the eyes of the public until gentiles believed genocide was a reasonable course of a final solution.

The parallels to recent events should not be lost on us. In the last two decades, America and, in particular, Europe have seen a steady rise in antisemitism from the radical Right, the radical Left and from radical Muslims. A growing alliance between radical leftists and radical Islamists has produced figures like Jeremy Corbyn, the head of the British Labour Party, who ignores and even espouses vile antisemitism.

This alliance has driven the rise of figures on the radical Right in Germany, Poland, Italy, Estonia and elsewhere, who are committed to denying the Holocaust, and trade in antisemitic stereotypes.

It seems the only thing shared by all the radical movements is their hatred of the Jewish people. While European governments publicly express strong support for the importance of protecting their Jewish communities, history tells us that nothing lasts forever.
We witnessed this trend up close. In many of our meetings, European officials blamed the Holocaust solely on Germany – not the collaborationist leaders of their countries. None of these countries seemed to take ownership of their actions during the Holocaust. This denial has become public policy. For instance, a law recently passed in Poland made it illegal to acknowledge the Polish people’s complicity in death camps, outlawing the phrase “Polish death camps.” At the same time, and some Germans – including the third largest party in the parliament – are now working to minimize the Holocaust, claiming it was a small spec of “bird poop” in their 1,000 years of glorious history.

This brings us to our second lesson: we must recognize and fight against antisemitism with all of our power whenever we encounter it.

When we don’t act, we legitimize antisemitism, allowing it to become mainstream. We become an accomplice to its growth and influence.

Before and during World War II, Jewish communities across Europe cried out for help. World powers were overwhelmingly silent. Jews trying to flee were turned away by countries across Europe and the Americas, with Britain blocking immigration to what is now Israel.

Unfortunately, some Jewish communities in Europe and elsewhere now downplay or even ignore the dangers the Jewish people face. We found this in some of our conversations with European-Jewish leaders, who expressed their unwavering confidence in their local government’s willingness and ability to protect them.

Jews in America today have the power to stand up, speak out, and fight back against the antisemites. We should use this power now – before it’s no longer available.

This brings us to our third lesson. We must support Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people and ultimate insurance policy for all Jews.

Israel did not exist during the time of the Holocaust. It has already saved millions of Jews fleeing antisemitism around the world. In its infancy, Israel accepted Holocaust survivors from displaced persons camps. It launched countless operations to save Jews facing existential threats across the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, and Europe. In the 90s, the Jewish homeland welcomed approximately 1.6 million Jews from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, who had endured harsh antisemitism and hatred. More recently, rising antisemitism in Venezuela brought over half of the country’s Jews to Israel.

Israel has changed the game when it comes to the security of the Jewish people. This point was driven home for us during the trip, by Maj. General Amir Eshel – the former commander of the Israel Air Force, who accompanied us to Auschwitz. In 2003, Eshel led a squadron of IAF F-15s in a flyover of Auschwitz, issuing an eternal promise from the cockpit that the IDF is “the shield of the Jewish people and its nation, Israel.”

Remembering the Holocaust is not enough. We must turn the tragedies of the past into lessons for the future. Nothing less than the continuation of the Jewish people is at stake. It’s in our hands to ensure that Never Again really means Never Again.

The writers are Israeli-American philanthropists and co-founders of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation. Gila is the president of Stand By Me and Adam is the national chairman of the Israeli-American Council.

This article was originally published in The Jerusalem Post on May 9, 2018.

Both the US and Israel have withstood existential threats through courage and patriotism of their people.

Israel’s 70th birthday on May 14th has brought a surge of pride across America, as we #Celebrate70.

From the halls of Congress to hundreds of college campuses, to more than 16 Celebrate Israel Festivals in major cities from coast to coast, people across the country are sharing videos, images, words and melodies to rejoice in the miracle of the modern Jewish state and marvel at its unbelievable accomplishments.

The events this month have put on display the deep well of support that Israel enjoys in America, a sentiment that goes back throughout our country’s history. America’s second president, John Adams, once wrote, “The Jews are the most glorious Nation that ever inhabited this Earth” and “I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.” On May 14, 1948, a few hours after Israel announced its independence, president Harry Truman ignored strategic advice from the secretary of state because of his moral imperative to recognize the new Israeli government led by David Ben-Gurion.

The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel, called for the relocation of the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This year Jews around the world celebrated President Donald Trump’s official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the opening of the US Embassy there.

These decisions have been rooted in our common values and common experience. Both America and Israel were established by people in search of religious freedom and tolerance. Both were founded on the Western values of democracy, Judeo-Christian values, free speech and freedom of the press.

The American Dream is much like the Zionist Dream, rooted in the principle that everyone should have the right to self-determination and the opportunity to achieve success through hard work and determination.

Somehow, thousands of miles away and surrounded by enemies and with no natural resources, Israel has achieved just that.

Both the US and Israel have withstood existential threats through courage and patriotism of their people.

When I was born, Israel was less than four years old. My parents immigrated to Israel in 1948 from Latin America and joined a long line of Zionists who fought for the right of Jewish self-determination. My father fought in the 1948 War of Independence and in the 1956 war. When I was serving in the army in 1973, I fought in the Yom Kippur War that changed the history of the Jewish people – and strengthened Israel’s reputation as a country that would not back down.

America also fought a war for its independence, and it was not until Andrew Jackson’s decisive victory in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, that foreign nations recognized that America was an independent power with the right to exist. Now America is the strongest country in the world and Israel is a powerful nation standing strong against all odds.

The US and Israel are both deeply committed to helping the world. The US government works to spread democracy. American businesses bring life-changing inventions to countries who need it most and US-based charities aid people and support causes around the world. Israel follows America’s lead in helping make the world a better place. Israel established the first stable and successful democracy in the Middle East. After 70 years of growth, it has developed into the start-up nation – bringing innovations to the world – and is a light unto nations, providing aid to people in countries such as Nepal, Sierra Leone, Syria, Mexico, and Haiti.

Cultural diversity is at the center of both of our thriving democracies. America is of course, the original melting pot, bringing together immigrants from virtually every other country on earth, and Israel does the same. Over millennia, the Jewish people spread to every corner of the planet – Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, the USSR, Morocco, Brazil, the US and more – and the dispersion collectively became known as the Diaspora.

Israel is where we have come together again. Israeli Jews have taken their traditions from Austria and Zimbabwe, from Berlin and from Bangalore and brought them together in the Jewish homeland, creating a rich melting pot of cultures.

Israeli society takes the “melting pot” phenomenon a step further with its mandatory army conscription, which gives citizens of all backgrounds the opportunity to succeed and develop national pride. I witnessed it first-hand during my mandatory IDF service. People from different countries, who practice different religions, who have different skin colors, who were born to different family circumstances, all start at the same humbling place. And all – Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Druze, Bedouin, Coptic, Arab Muslim, Assyrian and more – can be part of the Israeli army.

When we #Celebrate70, we don’t honor only Israel’s incredible accomplishments, but Israel’s shared values and strong alliance with America. From partnerships in business, innovation, technology, and academia to celebrating history and culture, Israel and America are great allies. Our shared dreams, our shared values, and our shared commitment mean that this year, Americans across the country are proud to say, “Happy Birthday Israel, and many more.”

The author is an Israeli-American philanthropist, national chairman of the Israeli-American Council, real estate entrepreneur and president of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation.