For months, I have been warning that the left in America is increasingly defined by its hostility toward Israel and anti-Semitism. Here’s the latest example.

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement recently presented the mayor of Atlanta, Kasim Reed, with a list of demands.

The first demand called for “a complete overhaul of Atlanta Police Department’s (APD) training institutions, and instead utilize models based on de-escalation rather than militarized tactics that aid or perpetuate mass incarceration.”

That’s not terribly surprising from a group that is expressing concerns about the alleged use of excessive force. But then the group stated: “We demand a termination to APD’s involvement in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, that trains our officers in Apartheid Israel.”

Calling Israel an apartheid state is obscene. Arabs vote in Israeli elections, they can serve in the Knesset and in other public offices. In fact, an Arab judge sentenced a former Israeli president to jail.

It is ignorant at best and blatantly anti-Semitic at worst. And it is a favorite tactic of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS). As columnist Melanie Phillips recently explained:

“Apartheid in South Africa was a real and demonstrable evil… That’s because accusing Israel of apartheid is a wicked and manipulative lie deployed as a weapon of war by Israel’s enemies to portray it as a rogue state which needs to be eliminated. BDS [is] thus … the attempt to destroy the only state in the Middle East which actually upholds human rights, and whose only crime is to exist at all as the homeland of the Jewish people.”

A more apt comparison of Israel to Africa would be “Operation Moses” and “Operation Solomon,” in which Israel airlifted thousands of black, Ethiopian Jews to safety during times of unrest and famine.

Thankfully, Mayor Reed rejected the BLM’s demand, saying:

“There was a demand that I stop allowing the Atlanta Police Department to train with the Israeli police department. I’m not going to do that; I happen to believe that the Israeli police department has some of the best counterterrorism techniques in the world, and … our police department [benefits] from that longstanding relationship.”

Tehran Is Teaching Hate

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial deserves our attention. It sounds the alarm on the hate and extremism that is being taught to children in Iran. This is important because, as the editorial notes, Obama’s nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic was a huge gamble on Iran changing its behavior. Here are some excerpts:

“President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran has a sunset clause, with almost every restriction on the mullahs’ nuclear program expiring in 15 years. So it’s worth paying attention to what the next generation of Iranians are being taught about their country’s mission in the world.

"Our best look so far comes thanks to a new report from Impact-se, a Jerusalem-based institute that monitors the content of textbooks across the Middle East. A ninth-grade social-education textbook reads: ‘All are submissive and obedient to the Guardian Jurist,’ that is, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Regime leaders are presented as infallible, divinely inspired and beyond criticism.

"A third-grade religion textbook’s section on cleanliness includes an illustration of Iranian children chasing away a filthy, mucuslike blob with a Star of David on its back. A fifth-grade text for the 2016-17 academic year shows Palestinian children attacking Israeli soldiers with rocks and slingshots. It’s accompanied by regime founder Ayatollah Khomeini’s portrait and his injunction that ‘Israel must be wiped out.’ …

"As for the types of weapons Iran may use, a 12th-grade religion textbook instructs that ‘Islamic learning is such that religious experts can extract from it new laws concerning … procurement and use of new weapons, in accordance with the new needs of society.’”

Did you catch that last sentence? Remember it the next time you hear an Iranian official or even Barack Obama claim that Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and the ayatollah has issued a fatwa against the construction of nuclear weapons.