Today, I will reveal the honorees for First Annual—okay, they might have to be more frequent—Big Lie-Blood Libel Awards, for the individuals or collectives who have done the most recently to promote the Big Lie and the Blood Libel against the Jewish people.

But first: Just as the holy, peaceful, month of Ramadan—including four sacred Fridays and the feast of Eid-al-Fitr—blessedly passed with none of the predicted Islamic violence on the Temple Mount (the Noble Sanctuary), in the Middle East, and throughout the world, so the martial, belligerent, massive, unprecedented attack on Israel last night passed with virtually no damage. The coalition that completely blocked the attack included the US, the UK, France, and Jordan shooting down Iranian missiles and drones and Saudi Arabia providing logistic support. Imagine the degree of cooperation that such coordinated response must have involved. Now imagine the formidable coalition that will follow the war, annealed by alliance against this attack. My brother likens the attack to an amateur boxer throwing a hundred punches none of which lands, then waiting with tired arms for the professional blow that will pop his lights out. Now we’ll see what punch Israel uses. Its stock market finished higher today.

But back to our Big Lie-Blood Libel Awards, known colloquially as Goebbsies in honor of Joseph Goebbels, the master propagandist who put it to history’s most effective use.

The chart above shows today’s Goebbsie honorees against the timeline of the dramatically declining deaths in Gaza since the war started. These are total deaths in successive two-week periods (the blue line) as provided by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry and reported by the United Nations. There are many reasons to doubt these numbers, which are almost certainly over-estimates, but I am accepting them for present purposes because I want to focus on the steep decline—by Hamas’s numbers—and the remarkable fact that the lower the number of deaths got, the bigger the Big Lie got and the Bloodier the Blood Libel got as well. Five of the six Big Lies and Blood Libels shown here were smeared on Israel and the Jews when the number of deaths was about one quarter of what it was in the first month of the war—and declining.

Some background. The Blood Libel is the accusation that Jews ritually kill Christian children before Passover and use their blood to make Matzoh. It existed by the 12^th century and has occurred ever since, although not every year. It frequently resulted in pogroms and severe persecution of the Jews where the belief spread. It is also a Big Lie, since it was repeated so often that many believed it. It even became part of Nazi propaganda.

The Big Lie has always existed, but it was specifically named by Joseph Goebbels and separately by Adolph Hitler in Mein Kampf. Ironically, both used the idea to describe how Jews carry out their conquest of Germany and the world, and they emphasized that if you repeat a lie often enough the masses of people will believe you. However, both Goebbels, who was Hitler’s chief propagandist and one of his closest associates, and Hitler as the voice, purveyed the  Big Lie about the Jews—in one iteration, “Die Juden sind unser Unglück” (the Jews are our misfortune)—repeating it in speeches, radio, and film. It soon enough produced the consensus among “the masses” that led to the mass murder of Jews.

All of the honorees on the chart repeated the Big Lie now being leveled against Israel and the Jews, although in one case the grammar in which the Lie was couched was so convoluted as to be almost incomprehensible. The lie was also a Blood Libel, since the killing of innocents, including children, was supposedly deliberate. As far as I know, people are not yet accusing the Jews of using Palestinian children’s blood to make Matzoh, but I don’t use social media very much and with Passover imminent I would not be surprised to see this pop up somewhere.

In order of appearance, here are the nominees:

1. On January 11, South Africa argued its case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Despite having members known to be consistently anti-Israel (one of those was just elevated to be the Court’s President), the Court could not conclude that Israel is or was committing genocide; that requires a years-long process, which has to happen. But the court did not implement this item in the case: “South Africa has requested an Order for the immediate suspension of Israel’s military operations in and against Gaza.” (p. 78) This was the most important practical request from South Africa. Surely, if the Court thought that South Africa’s accusation of genocide was plausible, it would have ordered a ceasefire as requested. Instead, it issued warnings that Israel should act so as to prevent genocide, and that it should submit reports showing that it has done so. Since Israel had always acted as such, the reports write themselves. Incidentally, among democracies, Israel is ranked #30, South Africa #45; among countries ranked least to most corrupt, Israel is #33, South Africa #87. South Africa has extensive and growing ties with Iran.
2. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who I’m ashamed to admit is a Brooklyn Jew like me, told the Senate “The US should be working to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza, not aiding and abetting it,” and voted with 31 Republicans against aid to Israel; 67 Senators, including all Democrats, voted for the bill. Sanders has been anti-Israel in key Senate votes since 1988. His official and deliberate use of the word genocide to describe Israel’s actions makes him well worthy of the Big Lie-Blood Libel Award.
3. Hollywood movie-maker Jonathan Glazer used his two minutes of fame accepting an Oscar, with 19.5 million movie fans watching, to say: “Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.” Huh? Okay, it is possible with effort to parse this sentence, so awkward it’s almost opaque, but it’s not surprising that many thought he was “refuting” his “Jewishness.” What he is “refuting,” also speaking for his colleagues, is his “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation” that “has led to conflict for so many innocent people.” He places the blame for the conflict squarely on Israel’s “occupation” and “refutes” Israel’s “hijacking the Holocaust.” Because he made a movie about it, he seems to think that the Holocaust belongs to him and that he has a right to decide how the word is used. The movie has been widely praised and won the Oscar, but The San Francisco Chronicle called it “a dead film,” the New Yorker “an extreme form of Holokitsch,” and The New York Times “a hollow, self-aggrandizing art-film exercise set in Auschwitz during the Holocaust.”
4. I’ve discussed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (AOC’s) use of the Big Lie-Blood Libel, following the Goebbels playbook by multiple repetitions. Adding that Israel had “crossed the threshold of intent” in mass starvation of the Gazan people, “half of whom are children,” she joined a long line of blood-libelers, although she stopped short of saying that Jews’ “intent” in killing Palestinian children is to use their blood to make Matzoh. When she issued this Blood Libel the number of deaths in Gaza (as estimated by Hamas) was about a quarter of what it had been early in the war, a change due entirely to the care taken by the IDF to reduce civilian deaths while learning how to fight an enemy hiding behind children.
5. After three more weeks of declines in Gazan deaths, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), rival of Bernie Sanders for chief moralizer and most self-righteous advocate of all left-wing causes, followed AOC in the Big Lie-Blood Libel disinformation frenzy against the Jewish state. In an appearance at the Islamic Center of Boston, and referring to the ICJ, this supposed champion of truth and justice said, “If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they’ll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so.” Three months earlier, the ICJ did not find sufficient evidence even to call for a cease-fire.
6. Last but not least, Nicaragua, that lovely vacation spot—see State Department warnings— brought a case in the ICJ not against Israel but against Germany, for aiding Israel’s “genocide.” Clever of the corrupt, autocratic, violent, and refugee-hemorrhaging Central American country to level this charge against Germany, which—knowing full well what “genocide” means—has done more to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and the dignity of its victims than almost any other country. Again, among democracies, Israel is ranked #30, Nicaragua #143; among countries ranked least to most corrupt, Israel is #33, Nicaragua #172. Nicaragua and Iran have growing military cooperation.

And the Goebsie goes too…

Sorry, the committee (namely me) has found all six of these nominees so accomplished in the Big Lie-Blood Libel, it’s impossible to choose one. We will therefore take the unprecedented step of dividing the Goebbsie—a polished-lead non-working microphone—among them. They can take turns using it to try to spread their bloody, libelous lies.

Meanwhile, today alone, the US, the UK, Germany, many other Western nations, several Arab ones, and even UN Secretary General António Guterres have condemned Iran’s attack on and declared solidarity with Israel in this moment of crisis. Perhaps it is dawning on them that Iran, not Hamas, is the real threat, and that the world, not Israel, is the target.