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Barry Eisler's avatar

Mind-boggling that this even needs to be reported, but obviously it does. And important to note that in the same way our rulers were assuring us Joe Biden was Sharp As A Tack(™) while fully aware of his alarming senescence, the same people who blamed this attack on anti-semitism are fully aware of what’s really behind it.

It’s not even new—just a remake of the “They hate us for our freedoms, not for our policies” propaganda that followed 9/11.

There will be much more blowback for America’s funding and fueling of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And our rulers will continue to gaslight us that antisemitism, and not the genocide, is what’s causing the blowback.

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Ken Klippenstein's avatar

Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?

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Barry Eisler's avatar

Yeah. Never gets old, though I wish it would.

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Clif Brown's avatar

A couple of days ago I was on the street with my vigil as usual but with a new sign. This one urges the synagogue before which I was stand, to stand with Jewish Voice for Peace and against ethnic cleansing Zionism.

A teenager came up to me in a rage, shaking with it. He began denouncing me, sticking his phone/camera in my face. I replied in my usual way by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and "liberty and justice for all". To liberty and justice for all he added "except for Jews!" I suspect that he was motivated by the Boulder attack and, as a Zionist, unable to see the slaughter in Gaza as in any way to be compared to an isolated attack in the US.

He left for a bit then reappeared with a teenage girl to renew the attack. Failing to have an impact on me, they retreated to call 911 with a false report that I had spit on them. The police arrived and knowing of my 7 months of doing this vigil briefly asked me what had happened and then went to the two Zionists and explained that I was not doing anything wrong, that they could not tell me to leave. Disappointed, my assailants left. The police asked me if I wanted to make a report. I didn't.

The antisemitism in America alarm continues to amaze me, obviously a red herring put out for the sake of distracting from the slaughter in Gaza.

The 1st Amendment is real, people. Americans can lawfully and responsibly stand for liberty and justice for all right out in public. The tide is slowly turning. Please get out and help it along.

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Cécile Stelzer-Johnson's avatar

Well done Klipp. If not now, when? If not us, WHO?

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Getulio Gonzalez-Mulattieri's avatar

Solid work, Klipp.

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Ken Klippenstein's avatar

Thanks!

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Susan Becraft's avatar

I’m stunned that anyone in an official capacity finally stated the obvious. Unfortunately, it will have no effect. Thanks, Ken.

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Carly @ Boobs Betrayed's avatar

Great reporting!! Thank you!

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RealNoDeuces's avatar

Will you be asking homeland to condemn hamas?

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Rae Fae's avatar

Thank you for reporting on this. Many of us carry so much horror and grief as we watch this genocide, and our protests and repeatedly downplayed or dismissed. This is eroding the power of those in media and politics who claim to be on the side of justice as they turn away again and again, lost in their own games. Let it not be forgotten that trust of the people is essential!

👍🏻 👍🏻Ken Klippenstein!

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Ash's avatar

I'm unsure what your point is. Obviously, it is motivated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That doesn't change the fact he targeted a Jewish museum, not an Israeli one, and had no way of knowing he was shooting Israelis and not Jews.

The fact remains that no matter how mad one is about Gaza, one cannot attack Jews - even Pro-Israel Jews.

I don't believe during the Intifada we had Jews attacking Palestinians in the USA.

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Michael A's avatar

The point isn’t the violence itself; we can’t rationalize why the offender did what he did. The real issue is that by ignoring this throbbing boil in the public’s consciousness, the government risks pushing more unstable individuals toward even more extreme violence.

Working in mental health, you come to understand that there’s always a group of people teetering on the edge of rational society, barely managing their impulses. All it takes is a motive and a weapon, and they’re off. So the point he’s making is how the Israel Gaza war is galvanizing people across the country. The longer the government ignores it, the more likely it is to set off those who are already vulnerable to violent behavior.

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Julian Mehnle's avatar

I see your point, but the waters are being muddied by Zionists claiming left and right that Israel and Jews are the same thing. I'm not surprised that a dunce like Elias would get confused about who it is he feels needs to be attacked. This is the clearest evidence yet that Israel claiming to speak and act for all Jews is reckless, but probably fully intended in its recklessness.

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kathleen quinn's avatar

Ash -- just a detail (because I'm nerdy like that journalistically) but the DC attacker bought a ticket to the "Diplomat's Event" without knowing where it was being held. The address of the event was only given to people after they purchased the ticket. (Although he might have seen it was sponsored by AJC. Also, curiously, The Times of Israel quoted the Israeli ambassador to the US saying that the shooter attended the Diplomat's Event and mingled with those present, and in that way learned who the 2 embassy employees were. The ambassador said security personnel at the event decided to ask the shooter to leave, so he then waited outside for the couple. I've yet to any other media report this, so maybe the ambassador had incorrect information. However, the shooter was charged with 2 counts of "killing foreign officials." I don't know if you can get charged with that if you killed foreign officials unintentionally.

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X K's avatar
Jun 5Edited

“The fact remains that no matter how mad one is about Gaza, one cannot attack Jews - even Pro-Israel Jews.”

Save the self-righteousness for the Zionists and their fellow travelers in hatred and cynicism, who opportunistically conflate Zionism with Judaism. Christopher Hitchens said it best, “Zionism is a waste of Judaism.”

“I don't believe during the Intifada we had Jews attacking Palestinians in the USA.”

Your head screwed on right? For a thoughtful, intelligent, respectable – hence non-Zionist – examination of the meaning of “intifada,” see Mira Fox’s article in The Forward https://forward.com/culture/573654/intifada-arabic-israeli-hamas-war-meaning-linguistics/, and if you bother to read it, note the commentary on Elise Stefanik (R-NY) who equated “intifada” with a call for a genocide against Jews. Note also that Stefanik is an attack poodle for Zionism, whose largest campaign contributor during the last election cycle, to the tune of nearly $360,000, was AIPAC

https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/elise-stefanik/summary?cid=N00035523.

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kathleen quinn's avatar

Really a great piece of reporting and writing from you. One thing I found myself wondering about the Boulder attack is whether the attacker had satellite access to Arab-language TV from the Middle East itself, which of course covers Gaza much more extensively and graphically than US media does.

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Little Nell's avatar

I can’t stand Ritchie Torres. What a smug little bitch!

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kathleen quinn's avatar

I've noticed he's very opportunistic about Palestine. After some headline-making atrocities committed by Israel, he ducked out of some very rah-rah pro-Israel events, and I think has kept away from meeting up with the worst of the Israeli cabinet murderers who make visits to the US, His tub-thumping for Israel is really all about his career chances.

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Manuel Bert Suarez's avatar

You are doing great work Ken and many of us appreciate all you do to bring us some truth in what matters to us, the public person.

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X K's avatar
Jun 5Edited

A few comments, if you will… As with you, I simply cannot believe that this assessment was written as it was, i.e. accurately. The authors cannot possibly be still on the job. Should this somehow come up at a White House press conference, I wonder how the Chatty Karoline Leavitt pull-string talking doll will handle it. Her impertability to swat away “inconvenient truths” is both amazing and sickening.

In contrast to the straightforwardness of this assessment was a piece on the CBS Evening News earlier, an interview with the parents of the young woman killed in DC last week. An opportunistic if not tacit production of the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence or Propaganda or Whatever they call it, it was, of necessity, the opposite of the assessment. Unabashed use of antisemitism despite CBS having to know the contents of the manifesto, scant if any reference to her work at the Israeli embassy and certainly not to AIPAC, the beseeching to peace, the humanizing of the person lost along lines we have no way to ascertain. In other words, an opportunity for exploitive agitprop to benefit israel.

The video clip from the Welcomefest conference also spoke volumes (Ryan Grim has an opening reference to this “quite... large gathering of Democratic Party centrists” in his Drop Site News piece on the reconfiguration of the State Dept.). The fatuous “Freedom is a beautiful thing” reaction of the vacuous interviewer Josh Barros as the protesters took to the stage, to the “show must go on” cheering of the audience as the protesters were led away, to Congressman Ritchie Torres’ complete lack of a sense of irony to the protest (I did hear him correctly, didn’t I?) this Welcomefest crowd merits its own DHS assessment to evaluate how detached from reality they are.

Anyway, getting back to CBS and the rest of the MSM, there will be no mention of the DHS report per corporate media culture and guidelines, not to mention the considerable presence of former IDF publicity types working in important producer positions at NBC, CNN, and Fox, to name just a very few (see a chilling investigative piece by Alex MacLean at Mintpress News). The print exponent of the MSM in my own backyard is the Boston Globe which has had plenty to keep it busy - what with the protests at Harvard last year; the Trumped up (together with Miriam Adelson in the background) accusations of antisemitism; the illegal arrest and whisking away of Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts; the extortion of billions in Harvard research grants and contracts; the banning of the MIT student body president for making a non-preapproved speech on the genocide at an event before graduation – as said, plenty to keep it busy, and on all of which it has been AWOL so far as any meaningful, in-depth, reporting and editorial stances go. [Note: the Globe has been owned by billionaire Red Sox owner since 2013, which probably explains a lot, along the lines of, but on surface at least not so bad as) of Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post.]

The days get longer yet somehow things seem darker.

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Ak's avatar

There's a lot here and I admit I don't understand everything you're referencing. But it reminds me of how there's an ironic antisemitic undercurrent to much of the pro-Israel rhetoric, especially when it comes to Jewish people who are anti-genocide.

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X K's avatar

"But it reminds me of how there's an ironic antisemitic undercurrent to much of the pro-Israel rhetoric, especially when it comes to Jewish people who are anti-genocide."

Thanks for your reply. You're spot on. The "antisemitic" and "self-hating Jew" tropes are Hasbara strategy stink- and smoke bomb tactics, gratuitously tossed out into the public realm to camouflage and divert attention from the live-streamed genocide.

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Mathew Foresta's avatar
Ak's avatar

In addition to the lack of democratic (small-d) power here, people who are against genocide also don't like to be accused of antisemitism, despite this being the method of trying to silence them. From what I remember of school, we learned of genocide through the Holocaust (and at least at mine, we never talked about things like Rwanda or Aparthied or the Trail of Tears, for example). We learned to be outraged over such atrocities through an extreme and through calling out antisemitism. Calling people names as a cudgel to further genocide is even more disenfranchising.

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X K's avatar

"From what I remember of school, we learned of genocide through the Holocaust..."

You might be interested in "When 'Holocaust' Became 'The Holocaust'" from 2015 in The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/121807/when-holocaust-became-holocaust.

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Cécile Stelzer-Johnson's avatar

I have not seen if the attacker in Boulder CO. knew that these two victims were working for the Israeli embassy.

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Cécile Stelzer-Johnson's avatar

Our support of Bibi Netanyahu is WRONG. He is a terrorist and a criminal:

We are in contravention of our own Leahy laws that prevent supporting a country or administration that's committing crimes against humanity. The weapons that are killing Palestinians are American

We keep burying our head in the sand and calling out the antisemitism. Let's not forget that Palestinians lived all over there when the State of Israel was created.

If Bibi believed in Diversity, Equality and Inclusion, there might never have been an attack on October 7th 2023!

I don't think much of Hamas: they are terrorists... but so is Bibi and his Administration, and just like Trump, he is clinging to power to avoid prison, in his own country, but he wants to avoid capture by the International Criminal Court [Which we nor Bibi recognize.] Yet it is undeniable that he is murdering these folks every day and pushing them into starvation.

History will be hash on him, and on us if we keep stuffing money and weapons in this venture.

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