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| Musk and Shapiro at Auschwitz |
If the elections were held today, Ben Gvir’s party would have won 9 Knesset seats, compared with its current 6…
His courage and leadership earned Ben Gvir some scathing attacks on the left…
It’s… gratifying to see one government minister who has retained his common sense…
In light of his decisive leadership this year, especially since October 7, 2023… he has grown to become so much more than that. These days, he is the one leader of the Zionist right who doesn’t waver, and doesn’t utter false notes.
I see no reason not to vote for him again should Bibi lose his mind and declare early elections.
What Mr. Israel fails to understand (or purposely ignores) is that Ben-Gvir’s hateful rhetoric and behavior is like pouring gasoline onto a raging fire.
Not that generations of ‘cradle to grave’ indoctrination of Jew hatred instilled into the heart of every Palestinian isn’t enough to want us dead or gone. But Ben-Gvir only makes matters worse by exacerbating their anger and increasing their determination to commit another October 7th.
It also provides ammunition to the anti Israel governments of the world like South Africa to accuse Israel of genocide.
Then there is the far left Ha'aretz in which columnist Allison Kaplan Sommer smeared Elon Musk along with popular conservative commentator and Orthodox Jew, Ben Shapiro:
Escorted by far-right American Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro, the media was saturated Monday with images of the billionaire mogul and owner of the social media platform X touring the death camp with his young son propped up on his shoulders and holding his hand. A video showed Musk attending a Jewish religious service as a rabbi chanted the lament for the dead.
Instead of giving Musk the benefit of the doubt and allowing for the possibility that he is sincere in his strong denial of being an antisemite, she doubles down on bashing him accusing him of using Auschwitz to whitewash his underlying antisemitism. Implying as well that it was his underlying anisemitism that motivated him to allow hate speech against Jews on his social media platform, X. Bolstering that claim is his participation in an antisemitic campaign on X targeting the Anti-Defamation League.
What Kaplan Sommer fails to mention is that Musk was praised by Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the ADL for his visit to the site of the October 7th massacre accompanied by Prime minister Netanyahu. (whom she freely bashes) implying that Musk’s appearance there a publicity stunt used to hide his antisemitism. Nor does she place any value on the fact that Shapiro, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, a leader of European Jewry, and Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev joined him. In what world would these three Jews be willing accessories to such a deception?
It does not occur to her that Musk may have been sincere in both his visit to the site of the massacre and to Auschwitz. That he may regret his original comment. But even if he a closet antisemite (which I highly doubt), to criticize a highly publicized visit to Auschwitz and his earlier visit to the site of the October 7th massacre by one of the most prominent and successful entrepreneurs in the world takes a tremendous amount gall and hatred of the right. Apparently Ms. Kaplan Sommer feels that it is more important to bash the right than to suggest the obvious.
For what it’s worth. I do not believe that Musk is an antisemite. I don’t think Greenblatt, Shapiro, Marglolin, and Lev think so either. I think they believe that Musk's gesture of paying his respect to the victims and survivors of both the Holocaust and October 7th massacre is real.
The problem seems to be that political ideologues are blinded by their ideology and cannot look at any counter event objectivity. Which I think the two rags where these opinions were published are guilty of. Whether they realize it or not. It is therefore incumbent upon us to take anything published in a biased news source such as the Jewish press and Ha'aretz with a huge grain of salt