November 9 and 10, 1938, Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, was when the Nazis broke the windows of Jewish stores and burned them to the ground along with Torah

Prior to Kristallnacht, Jewish stores had to be clearly marked.

scrolls and other Jewish books. The day is also remembered as the beginning of the Holocaust, but it did not start that way.


Prior to Kristallnacht, Jewish stores had to be clearly marked as such in order to facilitate the Nazi boycott against Jews, which started in April of 1933. Jewish businesses are being tracked on the Internet today with the specific intent of facilitating the Arab boycott of Israel. The only difference between the boycotts of the two eras is that today Jewish businesses are being identified and targeted for boycotts globally, using the Internet as opposed to spray paint, and instead of public book burnings, we see global academic boycotts to silence Jewish thought.


The Internet is not only used to identify which products are made in Israel, but also to track companies that do business with or in Israel, as well as individual corporate executives who support or donate to projects in Israel. To complicate matters, some boycotters have created fake advertisements and false stories claiming certain businesses are anti-Semitic when the fact is that the company and its ownership are actually pro-Israel - all in an effort to get Jews not to buy from companies that are actually pro-Israel in order to have Jews ironically boycott their own friends.


Then there are the social enforcements of the boycott. In some circles, it has become fashionable to boycott Israel, as resolutions to that effect have passed in grocery stores, schools and churches. The Arab boycott of Israel is also being expanded to a general boycott of Jewish interests, both in Israel and around the world. We also see "political correctness" enter into the Arab boycott of Israel, by virtue of renaming their boycott a "divestment campaign," which sounds much better to some (despite "divestment" being a synonym for "boycott").


When some political commentators refer to Middle-Eastern terrorists as "Islamofascist Nazis," they are more right than most people realize. The fact is that today's Islamists are

In some circles, it has become fashionable to boycott Israel.

on the same path as the Nazis by pushing the Arab boycott of Israel globally. In both eras, people have been recruited to join the boycott under the guise of helping humanity. On campuses today, there are two primary categories of individuals who are recruited to assist in the divest-from-Israel campaigns - Marxists and peaceniks. The Marxists are rebels looking for a cause and the peaceniks are willing to believe almost anything that promises peace, in this case, economic warfare, which is what boycotts and divestment campaigns are.


In the mean time, terrorism and divestment both persist. Just as Germans stood by while their own neighbors and countrymen joined the Nazi boycott of Jews, many Americans are standing by today as their fellow Americans adopt the propaganda of Arabs who recruit others to their hate campaigns under the guise of peace. But hate can never bring peace.


Just as Joseph Goebbels led the Nazi propaganda machine against Jews, we see the same thing in the Arab League, which was created specifically to facilitate the Arab boycott of Israel. To encourage the acceptance of anti-Israel propaganda into the US culture, Arab League leaders have made major donations to universities after the hosting of divest-from-Israel conferences. Goebbels would have also been proud to see that, just as the Nazis used untermenschen or "sub-human" to describe Jews, in order to self-justify their own hate, Islamists refer to "Zionists," because they too do not want to even acknowledge the existence of Jews. Your tuition dollars are hard at work.


While some may not want to conclude that the Nazi propaganda machine has been reincarnated among Islamists, they forget that many high-ranking Nazis escaped Allied justice after World War II into Arab territories, many of whom became advisors to the newly forming Arab governments throughout the Middle East. As such, the Nazi influence in the Arab world should not be a surprise.


The goal of the Arab boycott is to destroy Israel economically.



The boycott of Jewish interests started in 1921 and Hitler showed the world how far it could be taken. Now, the Arab world is implementing the same policies using parallel methodologies; only the technologies have changed. The goal of the Arab boycott is to destroy Israel economically, eventually morphing their boycott into a campaign of dismantlement of Israel and to turn the Middle East Judenrein, or Jew-free. It is a goal that was previously downplayed by Arabs, but is now clearly being voiced by divest-from-Israel advocates.


One could also argue that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center were the American Kristallnacht. In both eras, people stood by in hopes things would get better on their own, which did not happen then and is not happening now. There needs to be a concerted effort by the moral peoples of the world to expose and stop the modern Nazi economic attacks on Jews worldwide. The words "Never Again" need to be said proudly, firmly, often and, most importantly, with strong conviction.


© Fred Taub, 2007