In Jerusalem speech, Mayor de Blasio calls for 'broken windows' approach to hate acts around the world

From New York Daily News:

As his visit to Israel drew to a close, Mayor de Blasio decried the resurgence of anti-Semitism Sunday - calling for a “broken windows” approach to acts of hatred around the world.

“The cancer of anti-Semitism has grown again,” de Blasio said in a speech at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, citing attacks in France and cemetery desecrations from Poland to Hungary.

De Blasio said hate would flourish unless confronted head on - drawing a parallel to New York's experience fighting rampant crime in the 1990s.

“It can't be stopped by an indifferent society,” he said. “It takes consistency, sending a signal at every turn that no act of hate is acceptable, that even acts that appear small must be addressed.”

De Blasio noted that Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was able to turn the tide on crime by aggressively enforcing low-level offenses. Similarly, even small gestures of intolerance against Jews or other targeted communities should provoke an aggressive response from city and national governments, he said.

“That very simple notion of not looking away when the law was broken started to change us,” he said. "That's what we have to strive for in fighting prejudice and bias…The theory's quite simple: If we don't attend to one broken window, we implicitly extend an invitation to break another and another after that, and another after that."  more

Western militaries fear they might be upheld to same standard as Israel

Via the Weekly Standard:

Increasingly, the IDF, and Dabla specifically, have been taking grief from a surprising quarter for their unique policies on avoiding civilian harm: academics and lawyers who are otherwise friendly to the IDF, or at least not openly hostile. Take the case of Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, a distinguished expert on military law at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt. Dabla recently brought this law professor, and other top military law experts from outside Israel, to further train IDF combat commanders in the intricacies of the law of armed conflict.

Speaking at a smallish military base outside Tel Aviv, the German lawyer acknowledged that the IDF went to “great and noble lengths” to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza and other recent conflicts. However, he believes that the IDF is taking “many more precautions than are required” and in doing so, he fears the IDF “is setting an unreasonable precedent for other democratic countries of the world who may also be fighting in asymmetric wars against brutal nonstate actors who abuse these laws.”

He’s not alone. When Pnina Sharvit Baruch, a former Dabla chief, attends legal conferences around the world, she says she faces “recurring claims” from other militaries’ legal advisers that the IDF “is going too far in its self-imposed restrictions intended to protect civilians, and that this may cause trouble down the line for other democratic nations fighting organ-ized armed groups.” Today, Baruch is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

Israel’s fight with Hamas is not just an example of classic asymmetric warfare, it’s also just plain nasty. Why? Hamas may be a nonstate actor but its militants have access to a broad array of sophisticated weaponry that is more typically found in the arsenals of nation-states. Either way, bad news for Israel.

And maybe bad news for other Western nations as well. “The IDF’s warnings certainly go beyond what the law requires, but they also sometimes go beyond what would be operational good sense elsewhere,” says Michael Schmitt, director of the Stockton Center for the Study for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College. “People are going to start thinking that the United States and other Western democracies should follow the same examples in different types of conflict. That’s a real risk.” Schmitt is the author of a just-completed comprehensive analysis of the IDF’s targeting systems.  more

UK: "I wanted to smirk in my Protestant confidence, knowing that God is with me"

Oliver Marjot is a British Phd candidate studying at Harvard.  He came to Israel with Christan European smugness, wanting to hate, and discovered that things aren't so simple, and that Jews aren't as evil as he'd expected. 

 Via the Harvard Israel Trek blog ( h/t Daphne Anson):

I came to you, Israel, wanting to hate you. To be confirmed in my reasonable European certainty of your arrogant oppression, lounging along the Mediterranean coast, facing West in your vast carelessness and American wealth. I wanted to appreciate your history, but tut over the arrogant folly of your present. I wanted to cross my arms smugly, and shake my head over you, and then leave you to fight your unjust wars.

I wanted to take from you. To steal away some spiritual satisfaction, and sigh and pray, and shake my head over your spiritual folly as well. To see the sad spectacle of the Western wall, and bitterly laugh at your backward-looking notion that God sits high on Moriah Mount, distant and approachable. I wanted to smirk in my Protestant confidence, knowing that God is with me, even if you refuse to turn to him, standing instead starting blankly at a wall of cold stone, pushing scribbled slips of paper into the Holy mountain, not daring to raise your face, and ask with words.

(...)

I didn’t realise you were broken as well as wealthy, fragile as well as strong. I didn’t realise that you suffer from a thousand voices clamouring in your head, and that some of those voices care about justice and democracy, and that some of them love their neighbours. I didn’t realise that a thousand enemies press on your borders, hoarding instruments of death, as chaos and darkness and madness consume the world every way you look. I didn’t realise that you care about your past - that some of those voices of yours treasure the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob every bit as much as I do. I didn’t realise. Nobody told me. Or maybe they did, and I refused to listen  more

European ex Nazis paid $20 million in benefits by US

Many led nice lives after the war.  Even in the United States.

Times of Israel reports:

Social Security Administration report details millions paid out to 130 suspected Nazi war criminals

More than 130 suspected Nazi war criminals, SS guards and others who may have participated in the Third Reich’s atrocities during World War II collected $20.2 million in retirement benefits, according to the Social Security Administration’s inspector general.

In a report scheduled for public release next week and obtained by The Associated Press, the inspector general said nearly a quarter of the total, $5.7 million, went to individuals who were found to have played a role in the Nazi persecution and had been deported. More than $14 million was paid to people who weren’t deported but were alleged or found to have assisted the Nazis during a period in which millions of Jews perished in the Holocaust. 

The report comes seven months after an AP investigation revealed benefits were paid to former Nazis after they were forced out of the United States. AP found that the Justice Department used a legal loophole to persuade Nazi suspects to leave the US in exchange for Social Security benefits. If they agreed to go voluntarily, or simply fled the country before being deported, they could keep their benefits.

Congress reacted swiftly by passing legislation to close the loophole and bar Nazi suspects from receiving benefits. President Barack Obama signed the measure into law late last year.  More.

Obama: History of European antisemitism shows us that leaders were more interested in survival than murdering Jews

The Nazis risked their entire war effort in order to murder more Jews.   That should be one of the lessons of the Holocaust.

Obama seems to be unaware of it and shows here a complete misunderstanding of the antisemitic mindset.   This is not just an issue of attacking 'the other'.  Antisemites believes murdering off the Jews is integral to living.  That is is actually part of 'being interested in survival'.

Via Jeffrey Goldber @ The Atlantic (h/t Noah Pollak):

Goldberg: Stay with Iran for one more moment. I just want you to help me square something. So you’ve argued, quite eloquently in fact, that the Iranian regime has at its highest levels been infected by a kind of anti-Semitic worldview. You talked about that with Tom [Friedman]. “Venomous anti-Semitism” I think is the term that you used. You have argued—not that it even needs arguing—but you’ve argued that people who subscribe to an anti-Semitic worldview, who explain the world through the prism of anti-Semitic ideology, are not rational, are not built for success, are not grounded in a reality that you and I might understand. And yet, you’ve also argued that the regime in Tehran—a regime you’ve described as anti-Semitic, among other problems that they have—is practical, and is responsive to incentive, and shows signs of rationality. So I don’t understand how these things fit together in your mind.

Obama: Well the fact that you are anti-Semitic, or racist, doesn’t preclude you from being interested in survival. It doesn’t preclude you from being rational about the need to keep your economy afloat; it doesn’t preclude you from making strategic decisions about how you stay in power; and so the fact that the supreme leader is anti-Semitic doesn’t mean that this overrides all of his other considerations. You know, if you look at the history of anti-Semitism, Jeff, there were a whole lot of European leaders—and there were deep strains of anti-Semitism in this country—

Goldberg: And they make irrational decisions—

Obama: They may make irrational decisions with respect to discrimination, with respect to trying to use anti-Semitic rhetoric as an organizing tool. At the margins, where the costs are low, they may pursue policies based on hatred as opposed to self-interest. But the costs here are not low, and what we’ve been very clear [about] to the Iranian regime over the past six years is that we will continue to ratchet up the costs, not simply for their anti-Semitism, but also for whatever expansionist ambitions they may have. That’s what the sanctions represent. That’s what the military option I’ve made clear I preserve represents. And so I think it is not at all contradictory to say that there are deep strains of anti-Semitism in the core regime, but that they also are interested in maintaining power, having some semblance of legitimacy inside their own country, which requires that they get themselves out of what is a deep economic rut that we’ve put them in, and on that basis they are then willing and prepared potentially to strike an agreement on their nuclear program.

Obama clearly states the difference between 'anti-Zionism' (denying the Jews the right to their  homeland) and 'criticizing Israel'.

Goldberg: On this question, which is an American campus question, and which is a European question as well: Hollande’s government [in France]—Manuel Valls, the prime minister—David Cameron [in the U.K.] … we were talking about the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And I know that you’ve talked about this with Jewish organizations, with some of your Jewish friends—how you define the differences and the similarities between these two concepts.

Obama: You know, I think a good baseline is: Do you think that Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people, and are you aware of the particular circumstances of Jewish history that might prompt that need and desire? And if your answer is no, if your notion is somehow that that history doesn’t matter, then that’s a problem, in my mind. If, on the other hand, you acknowledge the justness of the Jewish homeland, you acknowledge the active presence of anti-Semitism—that it’s not just something in the past, but it is current—if you acknowledge that there are people and nations that, if convenient, would do the Jewish people harm because of a warped ideology. If you acknowledge those things, then you should be able to align yourself with Israel where its security is at stake, you should be able to align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not held to a double standard in international fora, you should align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not isolated.

But you should be able to say to Israel, we disagree with you on this particular policy. We disagree with you on settlements. We think that checkpoints are a genuine problem. We disagree with you on a Jewish-nationalist law that would potentially undermine the rights of Arab citizens. And to me, that is entirely consistent with being supportive of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Now for someone in Israel, including the prime minister, to disagree with those policy positions—that’s OK too. And we can have a debate, and we can have an argument. But you can’t equate people of good will who are concerned about those issues with somebody who is hostile towards Israel. And you know, I actually believe that most American Jews, most Jews around the world, and most Jews in Israel recognize as much. And that’s part of the reason why I do still have broad-based support among American Jews. It’s not because they dislike Israel, it’s not because they aren’t worried about Iran having a nuclear weapon or what Hezbollah is doing in Lebanon. It’s because I think they recognize, having looked at my history and having seen the actions of my administration, that I’ve got Israel’s back, but there are values that I share with them that may be at stake if we’re not able to find a better path forward than what feels like a potential dead-end right now.  more

UK: Royal Anthropological Institute journal speaks of 'Jewish Jihad', threat from British IDF soldiers

Via Jewish News:

The director of the Royal Anthropological Institute has apologised for any offence after an editorial in its journal compared the IDF to ISIS and said the Holocaust was used to justify Jewish extremism. 

Dr David Shankland was responding to complaints that a guest editorial by acclaimed American professor Laura Nader in April’s edition of Anthropology Today was “blatantly anti-Semitic”.

Nader wrote about “Jewish jihad,” comparing foreign Jews fighting in the IDF with Europeans fighting for ISIS in Iraq and Syria. She also suggested Jewish Britons returning from military service in Israel were “indoctrinated” and “a threat” but were not listed as such because Israel was a UK ally.

“We apologise for any offence, it is certainly not our intention to cause distress to any persons or community,” said Shankland.

“However, we have a long tradition of giving scholars and editors freedom of expression in our publications. This does not mean we agree with everything which is published… We welcome debate about any article.” 

UK: Guardian blames Israel for antisemitism

Teju Cole, writing in the Guardian, blames Israel for antisemitism.  (h/t Yair Rosenberg)

A neighbourhood like Sheikh Jarrah is an x-ray of Israel at the present moment: a limited view showing a single set of features, but significant to the entire body politic. The case that is being made, and that must continue to be made to all people of conscience, is that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is criminal. This case should also include the argument that the proliferation of bad laws by the legislature and courts of Israel is itself antisemitic in effect, to the extent that they fuel the ancient calumnies against Jewish people. Nothing can justify either antisemitism or the racist persecution of Arabs, and the current use of the law in Israel is a part of the grave ongoing offence to the human dignity of both Palestinians and Jews.

Poland: US Ambassador apologizes for article on Polish complicity in Holocaust

And thus the US starts dabbling in Holocaust negationism.

Via the Jerusalem Post:

Poland has summoned the United States' ambassador in Warsaw over an article written by a top US intelligence official on Poland's alleged responsibility for the Holocaust during World War Two, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

The article by FBI director James Comey, published in the Washington Post earlier this week, prompted an outcry in Poland and drew condemnation in the media and from politicians.

A foreign ministry spokesman said on his Twitter account that the US ambassador would be summoned to the ministry over the article, and that Poland would demand an apology.

Comey said in the article: "In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do."

Poland says the passage wrongly implied it was complicit in the Nazi genocide of European Jews.

(...)

Shortly after Poland's announcement, US Ambassador in Warsaw Stephen Mull told reporters he would attend a meeting at the foreign ministry on Sunday afternoon.

"Suggestions that Poland, or any other country apart from the Nazi Germany was responsible for the Holocaust are wrong, harmful and offensive," he added, speaking in Polish.

"I think that Comey's wider message was that there were many people in the world that aided the Nazi criminals, or there were people who did not respond sufficiently, ... also in the United States."

UK: Nazis meet to discuss how to fight the Jewish enemy

Via the Daily Mail (h/t glykosymoritis):

Nazi sympathisers, Holocaust deniers and their supporters from across the world have held a sickening secret rally in Britain at which speakers unleashed anti-Semitic rants, referring to Jews as ‘the enemy’ and ‘children of darkness’.

The meeting of the shadowy organisation will fuel fears of a growing resurgence in hatred towards Jews across Europe. The vile event was observed by a Mail on Sunday undercover team.
Held in London’s Victoria, the meeting was, said experts, the most significant gathering of Holocaust deniers Britain has ever seen, with speakers invited from Spain, Canada and the United States.

(...)

The star speaker at the event was Spanish self-confessed Nazi Pedro Varela, 57, whose adoration for Adolf Hitler and the murderous Third Reich is unbridled.

He was arrested in Austria for praising Hitler in 1992 and he declared to a baying crowd in Madrid on the centenary of the Fuhrer’s birthday: ‘There were never any gas chambers in Auschwitz.’

Also present was America’s leading peddler of Holocaust denial and ‘revisionist’ theories, Mark Weber, 63, director of the Institute for Historical Review, based in Newport Beach, California. He wrote in 1989: ‘The Holocaust is a religion. Its underpinnings in the realm of historical fact are non-existent – no Hitler order, no plan, no budget, no gas chambers, no autopsies of gassed victims, no bones, no ashes, no skulls, no nothing.’

(...)

At the London Forum, Pedro Varela’s words were carefully chosen, as he admitted shortly after being introduced by the event’s ‘host’, former soldier Jeremy (‘Jez’) Bedford-Turner, 45.

Varela told the meeting: ‘We have to measure our words... I was asking Jez “can I say everything I believe in this forum?” He told me “as long as you do that in an academical [sic] way, in a serious way, it’s possible.” ’

Nevertheless, Varela, speaking in heavily accented English, referred to mixed-race children as ‘blackos’ and described gay parents as ‘making a monster family’.

He added: ‘They say Jews have the gold in the world and the power in the press and they are going to rule the world… So, do we have to be realistic, be similar to the officer of the general staff of an army... What are the enemy’s faults? We should also be smart and clever, as are the children of darkness... Sometimes we are not that smart.’

He also appeared to call for a boycott of Jewish shops and businesses, saying: ‘In the Middle Ages, the Jews had all the gold in the world but they were living in the ghettos. They still have the gold of the world and are the masters of it...

‘But now the gold is important for us. It is like a sword. If we say, OK fine, I have no more interest in your gold and your money and your shops and your consuming, the wax sword is going to melt.’ Approached yesterday by our reporter in Barcelona, Varela said, when asked whether he denied the

more

Newsweek: Jews encourage Right-Wing antisemites by criticizing European anti-semitism

An article in  Newsweek this week, written by Charles Hawley, looks at the European Right's admiration towards Israel.

The headline News week chose for this article is "Netanyahu's Unholy Alliance With Europe's 'Anti-Semitic' Far Right", together with a picture of Netanyahu celebrating his recent victory.

There is actually nothing in the article indicating any type of alliance between Likud and Europe's Far-Right.  Because there is no such alliance.

In fact, based on the URL, the original headline seems to have been something like "Why is the Anti-Semitic Right Hailing Netanyahu's Victory?", which seems to be more in tune with the contents of the article.

The article mainly looks at how the European Far-Right views Israel.  But it also has some criticism towards Netanyahu.  

While not explicitly embracing the Right, Netanyahu has been vociferous in his criticism of growing anti-Semitism in Europe, particularly in the wake of the January attacks in Paris and Copenhagen. He urged European Jews to emigrate to Israel and intimated he saw Europe as an unreliable trading partner: “Western Europe is undergoing a wave of Islamisation, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. We would like to ensure the state of Israel will have varied markets around the world.”

Why is that bad?  Because, as Hawley explains "Such comments endear Netanyahu to the Right."

According to Newsweek, Jews should not complain about anti-Semitism, because it makes the European Right-Wing happy.

There seems to be a certain hidden assumption here that Netanyahu (and by extension, Israel) criticizes anti-Semitism as a way of achieving a non-related political agenda.  Netanyahu couldn't possibly care about European Jews.  He must be doing it as a way of implicitly embracing the Right.

And the Right-Wing is anti-Semitic!  So Israel is actually encouraging anti-Semitism in Europe!  

Note to Jews: Next time Islamic State terrorists kill you off in a European capital, please try to be less 'vociferous' in your criticism of the growing anti-Semitism around you.  If you can, please focus on the Far-Right antisemitism, and ignore everything else.  Otherwise you might offend Newsweek's sensibilities.  

There are Jews, both European and Israelis, who support European Far-Right parties.  This is due to the fact that Jews are finding themselves in an increasingly hostile environment.  So hostile that they feel the European Far-Right parties are the least antisemite of the bunch.  Maybe Newsweek should write an article about why that is.

Germany: Max Blumenthal blames Zionists for Holocaust

Max Blumenthal spoke in Stuttgart about the "Zionist collaboration with Nazi Germany".

Let me repeat that: Max Blumenthal came all the way to Germany in order to tell the Germans that they should blame the Zionists for the Holocaust.  Nazis might have wanted to kill Jews, but the Zionists were helping them!  Because the Nazis and the Zionists had "shared anti-Semitic interests".

Read more by Nurit Baytch.

Bill Nye blames European Jews for antisemitism against them

Note that Nye makes fun of Jews who want to go to Israel - "They grew up in German or France".  But then expects those same Jews to wait another century till their neighbors 'get to know them"

So Europe is their 'home' when they want to move elsewhere, but it's not their 'home' yet when they want to live there.

Transcript via NewsBusters.

REINER: But this undercurrent of anti-Semitism has always been there. Just like racism, it's always there and then it just bubbles up to the surface every once in a while. And it's horrible now.

MAHER: Yeah, I mean, Netanyahu is asking European Jews to come to Israel and ...

NYE (wryly): Come home to Israel -- that's what he said, right? 

MAHER: Well, I mean, he is the ...

NYE (interrupting again): But you never, the people have never been there. They live, grew up in whatever, in Germany or France.

MAHER: It's a shame that they should have to move, uh ...

NYE: Well, they probably won't either, 'cause it's not their home, you know.

REINER: But you can understand it. There were German Jews that lived in Germany during the Second World War and that was their home. And, you know, at a certain point, you know, if your live is in danger, you want to go to someplace where you're going to be protected.

NYE: So, what do you do about it? I think you get to know your neighbors. And it's gonna take, what, does it take a century, something like that?

Clip can be viewed here.

Norway: Max Blumenthal says Israeli soldiers slaughtered Palestinian civilians with chicken knives

Max Blumenthal spoke at Globalisation Conference  2014, Oslo, about Norwegian weapons export to Israel.  Blumenthal accused Israel of committing war crimes, and using unarmed, civilian Palestinians as testing grounds for new weapons.  (h/t Rotter)

YouTube Clip here

Blumenthal: "Norway plays a great role in Israel's impunity."

He then accuses Norwegian arms company Nammo Raufoss AS of supplying Israel with anti-tank weapons, so they'll field-test them on the Palestinians, who have no tanks.

Blumenthal continues with a story that should have made headlines, had it been true.  The Najjar family of Khuza'a made some headlines (here and here), since their homes were destroyed.  But the news reports forgot to mention the five bodies in the bathroom.

"I visited one of the homes of the Najjar family, and the home had been kind of roasted." 

(...) 

Next door to this home was the home of Hani Najjar , one of the lucky people who escaped from Khuza'a during the siege, when the Israelis initially invaded in July.  And when he returned he found five bodies in his bathroom who had been bound, they had been riddled with bullets, they've had their throats cut with the knives that he uses to slaughter his chickens, and they've been burned with grenades, and there's flesh and blood were still pasted all over the walls when I arrived." 

"This is the direct impact of arming Israel,of supplying Israel."

Update

Blumenthal's original 'report':

Hani Najjar of Khuza’a escaped only to find six corpses in his home — five in his bathroom and one in his kitchen — when he returned home. They had been handcuffed, had their throats slit with the knives he used to slaughter his chickens, riddled with bullets, then set alight. The bathroom was covered in dried blood and pieces of flesh when I visited. According to journalist Jesse Rosenfeld, at least some of the men were fighters associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The execution of combatants while held captive and defenseless is no less a war crime than if they were civilians.

Russia: RT's 'humorous' take on the Israel/Palestine conflict

Netanyahu, on the right, portrayed as a religious Jew

Via Elder of Ziyon:

RT.com, the Russian state-funded English-language media outlet, posted what is meant to be a humorous "rap news" piece that purports to give the truth about Israel. The show is created by two Australians. 

The number of lies and slanders in this 7 minute piece rival anything in Arab media. 

The piece shows a trigger-happy Netanyahu justifying Israel's existence based solely on Jewish suffering, wantonly killing a Hamas leader who was willing to recognize Israel. The Six Day War is shown as a malicious land grab and UNSC 242 is misrepresented as insisting that Israel return all lands, which Bibi says is antisemitic.His actions are justified by American media and John Kerry, afraid to say anything to offend Israel.

Ukraine: Kansas shooter called donation hotline to threaten Ukrainian Jews

Frazier Glenn Cross, who has been indicted in the shootout at a Kansas Jewish community center last weekend in which three people were killed, threatened Jewish leaders in Ukraine last month, said Rabbi Dov Bleich, the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine. Speaking to haredi newspaper Hamevaser, Rabbi Bleich said that Cross made the threat through a toll-free phone number that was set up to collect donations for the Jewish community in Ukraine.

More: Arutz 7

How to stump a leftist conspiracy theorist

Dr. Marko Maunula is a professor of American history at Clayton State University in Georgia.  Originally from Finland, he writes in the Finnish weekly Suomen Kuvalehti about American life.  He recently wrote several interesting articles about antisemitism.

In one recent column Maunula writes that he spoke to a leftist student of his about the Syrian civil war.  It's a plot by the Rothschilds, the student said, in order to gain control of the Syrian Central Bank.  The Jews also control the media, which is why we don't know the truth about what's happening, and they also control Hollywood, which puts up a smokescreen to obscure the truth.

Maunula responded with a question: what do you want to do about it?  If you think Jewish success is a problem, what should be done?  Should Jews be banned from working in the finance, media and entertainment industries?

The student, of course, did not have an answer.

Manula says he's had such discussions before with both American and Finnish leftists.  They always come back to the same themes: the Jewish-Western-banker conspiracy.

This shows the two aspects of Leftist paranoia:
1. Antisemitism - the Jews are responsible for all evil.
2. Lack of any real solution - the system doesn't work, but nobody says what should replace it.

Maunula told his student: either you punish success and ban Jews from the fields where you think they over-excel, or you learn from it and try to excel as well.

What do you think they did?