Articles by David Harris

It seemed too good to be true. Finally, here was a story about Israel —the world leader in vaccinating its entire population, in all its rich diversity, against COVID — that the media might present in positive terms.

The recent spate of annual anti-Israel resolutions at the UN is a telling reminder that Israel is treated according to a totally different standard than all other countries in the international system. Of course, Israel deserves attention and scrutiny, as does every other nation. But it also merits equal treatment – nothing more, nothing less.

Whatever one’s view on the Trump era, his administration made notable headway in the Middle East, writes AJC CEO David Harris in his new Times of Israel blog.

Facilitating historic agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, taking a tougher approach regarding Iran and its malign behavior, moving the U.S. Embassy to its rightful place in Jerusalem, and messaging the Palestinians that time is not necessarily on their side if they continue to reject two-state deals, are significant developments that the incoming Biden administration should consider in thinking about the region as it is today.

I write as a friend, who has said more than once that the EU is the single most ambitious and successful peace project in modern history. But if the EU is serious about tackling antisemitism and preserving historical memory of the Holocaust, it cannot neglect, minimize or wish away threats to the existence of Israel, the world’s lone Jewish-majority country and home to nearly 7 million Jews.

The next four years will be informed by the pre-Trump era, but no, not entirely, as the world does not stand still. What is certain is that the rhetoric will change and Washington’s first instinct will be to seek European partners.

In his open, must-read letter to CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour, published by The Times of Israel, AJC CEO David Harris urges her to apologize for analogizing a deadly Holocaust-era tragedy, Kristallnacht, to the current Trump Administration. “You were weaponizing Kristallnacht, instrumentalizing the Holocaust to make your point,” writes Harris, the child of two Holocaust survivors, who asks Amanpour to “do the right thing, apologize for your comment, and issue a clarification.”

Die Welt, one of Germany’s most influential national newspapers, asked AJC CEO David Harris to write a piece about the latest deadly Islamist terror attacks in Paris, Nice, and Vienna. Harris assesses the challenges facing France and Austria, and other European countries, and offers ten policy recommendations for what governments should do to counter the jihadist threat and address integration challenges.

In the past decade, a number of pundits talked about Israel’s growing isolation under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. To the contrary, I have repeatedly said that Israel’s diplomatic position globally has been on the upswing.

Whatever one’s thoughts about politics today, America is not lurching towards Nazism or Bolshevism. To suggest otherwise is to misunderstand, at a fundamental level, the nature of these totalitarian ideologies and their legacies.

Europe has much to offer, most especially its remarkable experience of postwar peace-building and integration that today is the EU. It could perhaps one day serve as a model for other regions with a long history of conflict and animosity. But that won’t happen unless Europe sheds some of its archaic thinking about the Middle East, acknowledges and embraces the new dynamics at work as reflected in the UAE-Israel deal (and others to follow?), takes a fresh look at its own complex relationship with Israel, and ends its “low expectations” policy towards the Palestinians.

In the wake of the unprecedented tragedy of the Holocaust, it was anything but obvious that a Jewish group would seek to engage postwar Germany. But that’s exactly what American Jewish Committee (AJC), alone among global Jewish organizations, did.

Without an understanding of what happened in the past, it’s impossible to grasp where we are today — and where we are has profound relevance for the region and the world. Fifty-three years ago this week, the Six-Day War broke out.

In these times of profound uncertainty, triggered by the war against the pandemic, one comment keeps coming up in my world: “Where’s Winston Churchill now that we need him?”

As the world commemorates the Allied victory and recalls the war’s horrors, some are invoking the language of the Nazi era in response to COVID-19 restrictions. How appallingly inappropriate and insensitive!

It is a story that dates back centuries: A crisis occurs and conspiracy theories emerge to offer one-size-fits-all explanations. More often than not, Jews are implicated. So, too, has it been during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is as predictable as day follows night. A crisis erupts — pandemic, financial, security — and the conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork. Today, with the Coronavirus pandemic, is no different. It is equally foreseeable that, sooner or later, the Jews will be among those blamed. Isn’t the heart of antisemitism, past and present, the assignment to Jews of evil powers and demonic aims?

AJC CEO David Harris wrote a letter to the AJC community amid the unfolding public health crisis caused by the Coronavirus COVID-19.

On January 23, we stood together with united resolve in the face of history’s greatest horror, the Holocaust, at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp where more than 1 million Jews perished. Never Again. Not for Jews. Not for Muslims. Not for any of God’s children.

In the wake of the horrific knife attack on Saturday during a Hanukkah celebration in Monsey, N.Y., and following a recent spate of other anti-Semitic assaults in New York City and elsewhere in the United States, we must ask and answer two key questions: “Why now?” and “What can be done to stop such incidents?”