Denmark: Copenhagen mayor awards BDS activists for their courage

Via Mondoweiss:

The award was presented to BDS activists Ronnie Barkan, Majed Abusalama and Stavit Sinai (known as “Humboldt 3”) by Copenhagen’s Mayor for Technical and Environmental Affairs, Ninna Hedeager Olsen, at a ceremony in Copenhagen’s City Hall Thursday. It stated that

    Mr. Barkan and his colleagues have worked tirelessly to reveal the Apartheid-like nature of the Israeli regime and its systematic violation of international law. By doing so, the Copenhagen Courageous laureates have sown the seeds for a peaceful settlement between Israelis and Palestinians based on truth and justice.

(Full statement here).

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Denmark: Imam charged over call to kill Jews

Via Times of Israel:

Danish prosecutors on Tuesday charged an imam with calling for the killing of Jews in the first case of its kind in the Nordic nation and which sparked political outrage.

Imam Mundhir Abdallah, who preaches in the Copenhagen neighborhood of Norrebro at the Masjid Al-Faruq mosque, which media have linked to radical Islam, is accused of citing a hadith or koranic narrative calling for Muslims to rise up against Jews.

“Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them,” Abdallah said in a Facebook and YouTube video post in March, according to a translation of the original Arabic provided by the US organization the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“These are serious statements and I think it’s right for the court to now have an opportunity to assess the case,” public prosecutor Eva Ronne said in a statement.

This is the first time the prosecution has raised such charges under a criminal code introduced January 1, 2017 on religious preaching.

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Denmark cuts funding and is reviewing all funding of PA NGOs

Via Palestinian Media Watch (Itamar Marcus and Maurice Hirsch):

• Denmark announced this week that it cut funding and is reviewing all funding of NGOs, in response to PMW exposing that money it provided was used to build a community center that Palestinians named for a mass murderer 

• Other countries cutting or freezing funding this year following PMW reports: Norway, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland
   
• PMW is changing European attitudes one country at a time 

On May 26, 2017 PMW reported that funds provided by Norway, the UN and a conglomerate of countries including Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland had been used to build a center for young women that was subsequently named after terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi. Mughrabi led a terror attack that resulted in the murder of 37 Israelis, including 12 children, in 1978.

Denmark
Last week, Denmark decided to cancel some grants and review further funding of Palestinian NGOs. The decision was made following an investigation initiated after PMW's report that the women’s center funded by Denmark, was named after a Palestinian terrorist murderer. Denmark announced that it will also tighten the conditions for providing funding to all Palestinian NGOs and that the majority of the aid, suspended after PMW’s report, will not be paid.

“Denmark will tighten the conditions for providing money to Palestinian NGOs, Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said... The review followed revelations [by Palestinian Media Watch] in May that a women’s center partly funded with European aid money... was named after Dalal Mughrabi, who took part in the Coastal Road massacre in 1978 that killed 37 people... Samuelsen also said that the 'majority of aid' suspended from the summer while the review was under way will not be paid.” 

[The Jerusalem Post, Dec. 24, 2017]

Norway

When PMW released its report documenting the center named for terrorist Mughrabi, Norway immediately demanded that the Norwegian money be returned:

Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende: 

"The glorification of terrorist attacks is completely unacceptable, and I deplore this decision in the strongest possible terms. Norway will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists in this way... We have asked for the logo of the Norwegian representation office to be removed from the building immediately, and for the funding that has been allocated to the centre to be repaid."

[Norwegian Foreign Ministry website, May 26, 2017]

Belgium
When PMW reported that a Palestinian school built with Belgium funds, was also named after terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi, Belgium condemned it and froze the construction of ten additional Palestinian Authority schools.

Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Didier Vanderhasselt:

“Belgium unequivocally condemns the glorification of terrorist attacks [and] will not allow itself to be associated with the names of terrorists... Belgium has immediately raised this issue with the Palestinian Authority and is awaiting a formal response... In the meantime Belgium will put on hold any projects related to the construction or equipment of Palestinian schools.”

[The Algemeiner, Oct. 7, 2017]

Additional Countries

Germany,  Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands also cut off funding to one or more Palestinian projects following PMW reports on the ways in which Palestinians are using donor funding to glorify terror.

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Danish MEP: 'Europe has decided to live in total ignorance of what is the situation on the ground, that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish State of Israel'

Via European Jewish Press:

"It seems that Europe has just decided to live in total ignorance of what is the situation on the ground, that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish State of Israel." said Anders Vistisen, Danish Member of the European Parliament, in remarks about the EU negative reaction to US President Trump decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.

"It is a fact," said Vistisen, who is first Vice Chair of the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET), as he addressed the General Assembly of the European Jewish Parliament in the premises of the EU assembly.

He found it a "paradox" that the people who are threatening to use violence and terrorism are seen as the "victims" while the people who are offering peace and offering to everyone to come to Jerusalem for worship are considered the "aggressors."

"I don’t think you'll find such an example elsewhere in the world," he said.

"I say as I can that I believe that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish People and of the Jewish state of Israel.  I strongly believe that the only way as Christian to go their and worship in peace is if it is secured by the State of Israel," Vistisen said.

He deplored that Israel’s existence is challenged in the European Parliament, recalling that despite his efforts "we couldn’t get a majority within the parliament for a resolution saying that Hamas is a terrorist organization."

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EU: In the W. Bank, the EU creates its own facts on the ground

Via Mosaic Magazine:

The European Union has begun building settlements for Palestinians and Bedouin in a small strip of the West Bank known as the “E1 corridor.” As the Oslo Accords place this territory under direct Israeli control, these building projects—conducted under the shelter of diplomatic immunity and without proper permits—violate both Israeli and international law. Israel has finally moved to dismantle some of these structures, and now the EU is demanding compensation. David M. Weinberg comments:

[I]llegally established Palestinian villages and Bedouin shantytowns have slowly closed the corridor between Jerusalem and [nearby] Maaleh Adumim, where a major highway runs, crawling to within several meters from it. These illegal outposts steal electricity from the highway lights and water from Israeli pipelines. 

Civil Administration data, presented last year to the Knesset’s subcommittee on Judea and Samaria, showed that 6,500 Palestinians were living in some 1,220 illegally built homes in the area, and the number undoubtedly has grown since then—thanks to the EU, [which] has poured perhaps €100 million into EU-emblazoned prefabs, EU-signed roads, and water and energy installations. [And not only] in E1, [but also] in Gush Etzion, in the South Hebron Hills, and even in the Negev. . . . 

In short, the EU’s support of the Palestinians has graduated from passive diplomatic and financial assistance to subversive participation in the Palestinian Authority’s illegal construction ventures. The explicit EU intent is to erode Israeli control of [this portion of the West Bank] and east Jerusalem while promoting Palestinian territorial continuity leading to runaway Palestinian statehood. . . . 

Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, and Sweden—members of the so-called “West Bank Protection Consortium,” a body that coordinates “humanitarian assistance” to Bedouin and Palestinian squatters in [the area]—are now demanding that Israel pay them compensation of more than €30,000 each. . . . First the EU builds illegal settlements in defiance of Israel, then it demands that Israel pay for these offenses when Israel acts against them.

 Read more at Israel Hayom

Denmark: For the first time troops guard synagogue and Israeli embassy for Yom Kippur

Via The Times of Israel:

The Danish military deployed troops in Copenhagen on Friday to guard the city’s synagogue and the Israeli embassy, hours ahead of the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday.
The deployment was the first by troops in the Danish capital since the Second World War. 

The synagogue and the Israeli embassy have been under police protection since two deadly attacks in 2015. 

“This is the first time they are used in this type of situation, so it’s unique,” Copenhagen police spokesman Rasmus Bernt Skovsgaard said. 

Danish police have protected Jewish institutions in the country since Omar El-Hussein, a Danish citizen of Palestinian origin who swore allegiance to the Islamic State group, opened fire outside the synagogue, killing one Jewish man and wounding two police officers in 2015. 

Hours earlier, El-Hussein attacked a cultural centre hosting a free speech and Islam forum attended by the controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who faced death threats for penning a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad. 

A filmmaker, Finn Norgaard, was killed in that attack. Police later killed El-Hussein.
The soldiers, who will be deployed until March 2018, are “well-trained and equipped to carry out this type of mission,” Lieutenant Colonel Steen Dalsgaard of the Danish army told AFP. 

Police will continue to guard the Jewish museum and the school.

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Denmark: Islamic rules and anti-semitism in Muslim schools

Via Gatestone Institute (Judith Bergman):

Some Muslim schools in Denmark appear to be employing anti-Semitic teachers, enforcing gender inequality, employing violence against students, offering poor education in general, and teaching jihad. (...)

The school leader at Al Quds School in Copenhagen, Waleed Houji, posted anti-Semitic images from the Muslim terrorist organization Hamas on his Facebook profile. A class teacher at that same school, Naji Dyndgaard, a convert, wrote anti-Semitic posts on Facebook. (...)

Two former teachers at the Nord-Vest school, Henriette Baden Hesselmann and Gitte Luttinen Ørnkow, described how the children at the school spoke of Danes in terms of "them and us". In a school poetry contest in 2008, several of the children composed poems that detailed their wish to beat up and break the legs and hands of the "Danish pigs". The former teachers described a school culture of intimidation and violence, with the head of the school board yelling at the students in Arabic and beating them. The former teachers added that all their students admitted that they were also beaten at home. The Jew-hatred was unmistakable, as the geography teacher discovered when he almost had to give up teaching a lesson about Israel due to the students' hostility. Another teacher was told not to draw stars in the children's books as a way of showing the children that they had done well, since the star was reminiscent of the Star of David. (...)

Following these revelations, several Danish opposition parties, including the Social Democrats, now wish to outlaw Muslim schools completely. According to Mette Frederiksen, leader of the Social Democratic party:

"...it's not a good idea with Muslim schools. When you are a child in Denmark, it is incredibly important that you grow up in Danish culture and Danish everyday life. No matter how you spin it, an independent school based on Islam is not part of the majority culture in Denmark... Nor do I like the lack of equality in schools and these very hateful words against our Jewish minorities. It emphasizes that we have parallel societies."

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UK/Denmark: Barbican accused of showing antisemitic film in science fiction season

Via Guardian:

The head of the UK’s main Jewish organisation has accused London’s Barbican arts centre of showing an antisemitic film, which she claims is “blatant propaganda about the Israel-Palestine conflict” masquerading as science fiction.

Gillian Merron, the chief executive of the Board of Deputies, an umbrella organisation representing British Jews, called on the London arts centre to remove the film In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain from the exhibition Into the Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction.

The film by a Palestinian artist, Larissa Sansour, and a Danish author, Søren Lind, which combines live action, computer-generated imagery and historical photographs, is described in the exhibition as telling “the story of a fictional ‘narrative resistance’ group which attempts to implant the existence of a fictional civilisation in history by burying fragments of pottery in the ground”.

In a letter to Sandeep Dwesar, the chief operating and financial officer of the Barbican, Merron wrote: “While the Barbican synopsis casts the film as a sci-fi feature about fictitious technologically advanced aliens who land in an area to implant a ‘false history’, I understand that the film is clearly filmed in Israel and that the dialogue is in Arabic and purports to show the ‘aliens’ seeding the land with porcelain in an effort to create the ‘false’ impression that they have a historical connection to it.
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Requesting its removal from the exhibition, Merron said: “It is therefore not much of a stretch to suggest that the film is a means by which to deny the historical Jewish connection to Israel and an exercise in delegitimisation. Accusing Jews of falsifying our connection to Israel smacks of antisemitism and is of grave concern.”

In reply, Dwesar said: “The short film has been programmed for its poetical vision before anything else. ... Having spoken to the curator and the artists, the intention is that the symbolic visual language in the film speaks of history and tradition, yet it cannot necessarily be placed in any distinct or quantifiable time period.”

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Europe: Israel has nothing to learn from the EU but the EU is encouraging terrorism in Israel

Via The Jerusalem Post:

Israel can learn from Europe how to battle terrorism, and not only the other way around, according to outgoing EU Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen. 

He told reporters last week at a farewell briefing that “we have a lot to learn from Israel, and Israel has a lot to learn from us.” 

This breathtaking declaration comes amid a wave of terrorist attacks in Europe by sleeper agents of ISIS, which as it is being vanquished on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq has activated its deluded sympathizers on the continent. 

While European governments are scrambling to meet the newest terrorist threat of murder by vehicle, pedestrians throughout the continent are being struck down by lone wolf terrorists who only need to hijack a car or truck and drive it into crowds. Such tactics have reached European shores after being well-established on a much smaller scale in Israel by Hamas and its ilk. (...)

Another important difference is that most of the terrorist attacks perpetrated in Europe are carried out by citizens of their respective countries, while in Israel only a small percentage of attacks – like the recent one at the Temple Mount – are carried out by Israeli Arabs. Most of our terrorist attacks are carried out by Palestinians.

This is why Faaborg-Andersen’s suggestion was so strange. If anything, Europe is still light years away from understanding the true nature of Islamist terrorism, which has for decades mainly victimized Europe’s Jews. 

“In Europe we have adopted a holistic approach to fighting terrorism,” the Danish envoy proudly pontificated, in apparent ignorance of grim reality. (...)

Retired British colonel Richard Kemp, the well-respected former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and a staunch defender of Israel, called Faaborg-Andersen’s statements “chutzpah.” “Not only does Israel have nothing to learn from the EU,” Kemp said, “but the EU is guilty of encouraging terrorism in Israel.” 

He was apparently referring to the EU’s timid kowtowing to the narrative espoused by Abbas, while ignoring the effects of his ongoing incitement of terrorists, whom he reimburses for their “heroic martyrdom” by paying both them and their families millions of dollars in stipends.

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Denmark/Germany: Berlin Mayor rebuked over Iman's call to kill Jews and stone women

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

A Danish Imam convicted for inciting hate after he preached for the extermination of Jews in Berlin during Israel's Operation Protective Edge in 2014 appeared on Friday in the capital city at a radical mosque, catapulting the city's mayor Michael Müller's administration into a new round of criticism for failing to rope in Islamists who advocate lethal antisemitism. 

Sheikh Abu Bilal Ismail said in a fiery 2014 sermon at Berlin's Al-Nur mosque: “Oh, Allah, destroy the Zionist Jews, they are no challenge for you.” He added, “Count them and kill them to the very last one. Don’t spare a single one of them. Make them suffer terribly.” 

The Lebanese-born cleric's sermon was caught on video and triggered international criticism. Ismail was slated to speak on Friday at the African mosque, but was replaced at the eleventh hour by a Syrian imam who warned about spies within the congregation.

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Denmark set to grant 8.3 million dollars to radical Palestinian NGOs

Via European Jewish Press:

Denmark’s Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen is set to announce a grant of  8.3 million dollars to a group that distributes funds to numerous anti-Israel organisations, according to Israeli watchdog NGO Monitor. The grant, to be announced during Samuelson’s visit in Ramallah, will go to the  Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (the Secretariat), a joint funding mechanism of the Danish, Dutch, Swedish, and Swiss governments, operating out of Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. (...) 

A large portion of the Secretariat's budget is distributed as core funding to radical Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that incite violence and terrorism, are active in global BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel and engage in legal warfare attempting to indict Israeli officials at the International Criminal Court (ICC). These organisations employ demonizing rhetoric, such as making spurious charges of Israeli "apartheid" and "war crimes."Among the groups receiving funds, were Al Haq, a legal organization that has spearheaded accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Israeli security forces, and Adameer, which was launched by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a left-wing terrorist group within the PLO. (...)

NGO Monitor has presented its information to the Danish government in December in an appearance before the parliamentary foreign policy committee. 

The Danish Foreign Minister was in Israel on Wednesday. During a meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the latter told him that the true reason for the absence of a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is incitement. Netanyahu asked that Denmark halt assistance to Palestinian Arab organizations that support BDS activity.

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Denmark: Copenhagen imam accused of calling for killing of Jews

Via BBC:

A video of an imam appearing to call for the murder of Jews in a sermon during Friday prayers at a Copenhagen mosque has caused outrage in Denmark.

Mundhir Abdallah was reported to police after being filmed citing in Arabic a hadith - a teaching of the Prophet Muhammad - considered anti-Semitic.

The hadith says the Day of Judgement "will not come unless the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them".

A Jewish community leader said his words were a "thinly-veiled" threat.

Videos of the sermon were posted on YouTube and Facebook by the Al-Faruq Mosque on Sunday, although Mr Abdallah reportedly gave it on 31 March.

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Denmark: Copenhagen Jazz Festival rejects Israelis for "political reasons"

Via CFCA:

Copenhagen - Alon Farber, an Israeli musician got this message from the Copenhagen Jazz Festival:

Hi Alon,
For political reasons, we are not presenting artists from Israel these years, unfortunately.
Regards,
Kenneth" 

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Switzerland funds NGOs that call for Israel's destruction

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Switzerland finances organizations in Israel and the Palestinian territories that call for the annihilation of Israel and for the death of Jews, according to a Basler Zeitung report.

A February article in the Swiss daily Basler Zeitung reported that some of the nearly $60 million its government has sent in support of Middle East projects funds initiatives that call for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. “Switzerland finances in different ways organizations in Israel and the Palestinian territories that call for the annihilation of Israel and for the death of Jews,” wrote Dominik Feusi, senior editor of Basler Zeitung.

According to the report, since 2013, the Swiss government has funneled nearly $700,000 to a human rights office in Ramallah that has functioned as a front organization, to avoid criticism by Western countries. The office is funded by Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, and seeks to cover up the antisemitic work of its partner NGOs, the report said.

Another organization supported by the Swiss government, the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, advocates a boycott against the Jewish state, the report said, adding that doing so contradicted the country’s endorsement of a two-state solution to the Israel- Palestinian conflict.

Switzerland has long faced criticism for its refusal to outlaw Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations.

In December, it participated in and helped finance a two-day conference in Geneva that included Hamas.

Other organizations mentioned by the report as recipients of Swiss funding include the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which routinely calls for the arrest of Israeli politicians and compares Israel with the former apartheid regime in South Africa, and Al-Haq, a Ramallah-based legal center that promotes lawfare against the Jewish state.

The report triggered sharp criticism by the Jerusalem-based watchdog organization NGO Monitor on Monday, which called for reforms of the Swiss government’s public expenditures.

“Parliamentary oversight over and investigation of Swiss government funding of these anti-peace NGOs is very important,” said Olga Deutsch, director of the European desk of NGO Monitor. “Other countries are doing the same and the Swiss MPs can set an example. It is clear that the millions of Swiss francs going to NGOs, including hate groups through secret processes, cannot continue.”

According to NGO Monitor, PCHR founder and director Raji Sourani has admitted to connections with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

“[It is] alarming that $2.38 million were granted to a Palestinian human rights organization with alleged ties to a terrorist organization, PFLP,” said Deutsch. “Swiss and other European governments need to do a better job at reviewing whom they support and endorse. More direct cooperation with their Israeli counterparts would probably be the best first step in that direction.”

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Denmark: Teen charged with plotting to bomb Jewish school

Via Times of Israel:

A Danish prosecutor said a 16-year-old girl has been formally charged with planning bomb attacks against two schools in Denmark.

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Prosecutor Lise-Lotte Nilas says the teenager is accused of “having made preparations to make bombs” using the explosive known as TATP. She said her targets were a school west of Copenhagen and a Jewish school in the capital.

Police thwarted the plans by arresting the girl on Jan. 13, 2016. A trial is set to start April 7, 2017 in Holbaek, northwest of the Danish capital.

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Denmark: Imam who called Jews 'sons of apes and pigs' says he is moderate

Via Elder of Zion:

From AP:

A Danish court has convicted an imam of violating Denmark's racism laws and given him a 14-day suspended jail sentence. The City Court in Odense says Mohammed al-Khaled Samha held a speech in September 2004 in which he described Jews as "children of apes and pigs." 

At the trial, Samha argued that his speech was protected, free speech. His lawyer compared it to the legality of posting cartoons of Mohammed that offend Muslims. The court didn't buy it.  

In the same video, Samha said "Palestine has been and will remain the land of Islam. It is the land of the great battle, in which the Muslims will fight the Jews, and the trees and the stones will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him’".  

In the closing statement, the imam said that he belongs to the more moderate community of Muslims in Denmark, and said that he cherished democratic freedoms in the country.

MEMRI clip and transcript

Danish Medical Association says it's ethically wrong to circumcise children

Via Jerusalem Post:

Chief Rabbi of Denmark Yair Melchior on Wednesday night clarified that legislation to ban brit mila (Jewish ritual circumcision) was not on the table, following media reports that the Danish Medical Association was pushing for legislation against the practice on anyone under the age of 18.

The chief rabbi released a statement emphasizing that while the Medical Association had issued a statement claiming that it was ethically wrong to circumcise a person without his consent as an adult, it also made clear that it would not pursue legislation on the matter.

The association said last week that circumcision should be “an informed, personal choice” that young men should make for themselves.

“It is most consistent with the individual’s right to self-determination that parents not be allowed to make this decision but that it is left up to the individual when he has come of age,” said Lise Moller, chairwoman of the doctors’ association’s ethics board, adding that male circumcision carries a risk of complications and should only be performed on children when there is a documented medical need.

However, the association also noted a ban could have serious implications, “both for the involved boys, who could for example face bullying or unauthorized procedures with complications, and for the cultural and religious groups they belong to.”

Melchior said that just as the Jewish community spoke out strongly against the statement, Gorm Greisen, chairman of Denmark’s Ethical Council, had also said on national television that there was no ethical issue involved in the matter or with parents making the decision for their child.

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Denmark: "If you can't accept a ban against circumcision, then leave"

Recently in Denmark, a Muslim doctor was banned from circumcising boys after repeated complaints about his professionalism.


This served as a rallying cry for many anti-circumcision activists.

Peter Orry, editor of JydskeVestkysten, one of Denmark's largest newspapers, wrote an op-ed calling upon Parliament to ban circumcision, which he sees as 'mutilation'.   Orry portrayed circumcision as child abuse, and said that if Danish Jews cannot accept a Danish ban, then they must accept the consequences and go elsewhere.
 

Denmark: 4 acquitted in synagogue attack

Via JTA:

Four Danish citizens accused of assisting the gunman in two deadly attacks in Copenhagen last year, including one outside a synagogue that left a Jewish security guard dead, were acquitted.

On Tuesday, a Danish court found that the actions of the four men were “not of such a character that the actions can lead to a conviction for complicity,” according to the verdict, the French news agency AFP reported.

Bhostan Khan Hossein, Liban Ahmed Saleban Elmi, Ibrahim Khalil Abbas and Mahmoud Rabea were accused of helping Omar El-Hussein carry out the attack against Copenhagen’s main synagogue on Feb. 15, 2015. They had faced life in prison if convicted.

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Denmark: At UN forum on anti-Semitism, General Assembly president explains what isn't antisemitism

The Palestinians say that all of Israel is occupied Palestinian land and that all Jewish towns in Israel are illegal settlements.  Palestinian children are taught from a very early age that all Jews are invaders and do not have any right to live in the Jewish homeland.

Is it okay to point out that this is antisemitism?

Via UN Watch:

When Israel, the U.S. and Canada hosted a forum on anti-Semitism at the U.N, the General Assembly president, former Danish foreign minister Mogens Lykketoft, spoke of Israeli “oppression” of the Palestinians:

    “We the United Nations gave an enormous responsibility to go up against all expressions of prejudice and incitement… But we have also to be extremely careful and precise in what is and what is not antisemitism. It’s not anti-Semitic to call for an end of the occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine, and to demand an end to illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.”

If this were a forum on discrimination against blacks, women, or gays, do you think the top U.N. official would lecture delegates on what statements are not discriminatory?

Do you think there would be any “But”?