Asaf Romirowsky

Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found are a great way to understand the Palestinian narrative and in particular, advocates of the Palestinian cause like former President Jimmy Carter. Carroll uses time and space as the plot device while drawing on chess imagery, mirror themes, opposites and time running backwards. This topsy-turvy world provides the perfect "logic" explain why, according to Carter, in his last days in office President Obama should force the United States through the UN Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state.

The United Nations' Palestinian refugee industry

Of all the problems that dominate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, only one ensures that the conflict will never end: the growth in the number of Arab-Palestinian refugees. Western governments have enabled this industry.

Why UNESCO Shouldn't Treat Jerusalem as a Weapon

UNESCO's vote to deny Jewish and Christian connections to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount is dismaying but not surprising. Cutting those connections – understood by anyone with a passing knowledge of Judaism and Christianity - has been a goal of Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim supporters for decades.

Except for boilerplate about "affirming the importance of the Old City and its walls for the three monotheistic faiths" the resolution does not acknowledge that Jerusalem has any, much less unique, significance to Jews and Christians.

A modern blood libel

The blood libels against Jews have typically focused on some far-fetched accusations that the Jews are to blame for whatever ills inflicted a community. More specifically, the claim was that Jews needed the blood of Christian children to bake matzot for the festival of Passover.

Numerous cases of blood libels were recorded, and not all in Europe. As an extension of the phenomenon, false and incendiary charges against Jews were introduced by the church with political motivations (i.e., the Protocols of the Elders of Zion) and by the Nazi Germany propaganda machine which used the Big Lie technique to propagate charges against Jews which led to the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

Greens Should Follow Germany's Lead And Reject Israel Boycotts

While Iran's regime continues to expand its nuclear facilities and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's war has caused a half million deaths, the Green parties in North America are bizarrely preoccupied with boycotting the Jewish state. The parties' counterpart in Germany is, however, a vehement opponent of the anti-Semitic boycott movement. The German Greens should serve as a model for Canadian and U.S. Greens to revise their anti-Israel positions.

Last month, the Green Party of Canada became the country's first party to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS) targeting Israel.

Asaf Romirowsky's Book

Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief

by Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander H. Joffe
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 268 pp. $100
December 18, 2013

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