Russia: Murmansk Jewish leader's car set aflame on Christmas

Via Barents Observer:

At midnight on the 7th of January, as Russia was celebrating the Orthodox Christmas, someone put the community leader’s car on fire. Ilya Raskin believes it was not coincidental.

«The Jewish community sees this not only as an act of vandalism and hooliganism, but also as a well-directed antisemitic and extremist act, aimed at stirring inter-ethnic and inter-religious strife,» he says on his Facebook page.

Next to the car, which was partly destroyed by the fire, was found a gasoline can, 7x7-journal reports. Raskin says to the online news magazine that he intends to address the FSB and the prosecutor’s office about the case.

He argues that the timing indicates that there was an antisemitic motive behind the fire.

read more

Belgium: Human-rights activist says Israel is the 'master of the world'

A Belgian delegation headed by a socialist MP Gwenaelle Grovonius was barred from entering Gaza.  Obviously it's big news on Belgian media.

This caused an indignant Jean-Marie Dermagne to post the following message on Facebook:

"Yet another affront which would justify the breaking of diplomatic relations [between Belgium and Israel].  Israel is the master of the world."

Jean-Marie Dermargne is a lawyer, a former president of the Bar of Dinant, a member of the Human Rights League, a vice president of the Union of lawyers for democracy (Syndicat des avocats pour la démocratie), director of Sirde /UCL/ LLN (Catholic University of Louvain). 

During a  debate on Belgian State TV he was presented as Dieudonné's lawyer - at the end of the show, Dieudonné and his wife sent a note refuting the claim and demanding that Dermargne stop saying that he is their lawyer - they named their two official Belgian lawyers. It seems that Dermagne used to be their lawyer but no longer, but he didn't see fit to say so...  

Interestingly and to add to the confusion, Jean-Marie Demargne is also listed as a supporter of RésistanceS, an outfit created by Manuel Abramowicz, a self-styled expert on the far right.

On his Facebook profile photo, Dermagne looks pensive and sports a bracelet with the Palestinian flag.

UK: MP receives antisemitic Christmas card

It's that time of year again.  Stella Creasy, Labour & Co-op MP, received an antisemitic Christmas card (h/t Yair Rosenberg)

Belgium: 'Israel's Apartheid Wall' featured at the Grand-Place in Brussels over Xmas

A government-funded Belgian NGO (Association Belgo-Palestinienne Wallonie-Bruxelles) headed by a prominent Socialist Party member Pierre Galand staged an anti-Israël event in one of the most remarkable landmarks in Belgium and Europe, the Brussels Grand-Place, during the Christmas period.  A mock wall entitled "Israel's Apartheid Wall in Palestine" was erected in front of the nativity scene.

For many years Pierre Galand has led a uniquely vicious anti-Israel campaign, even by European standards, with the approval of the francophone Socialist Party and the Free University of Brussels. Mainly for political gain - there are 300,000 Muslims in Brussels alone - and many harbour anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments - and only 20,000 Jews. More and more Muslims keep coming and more and more Jews keep leaving (about 500 Jews left Belgium in 2014 out of a total population estimated at 40,000).

Sweden/Denmark: Christmas is a great opportunity to explain why Jews are evil

Via Elder of Ziyon:

A number of Arab media outlets published an extended harangue on how evil Jews are.

Dr. Mustafa Yusuf Leddawi, who lives in Gaza, uses the holiday season to say that Jewish rabbis hate Christmas and Christians. How can it be any other way, since Jews persecuted and crucified Jesus? Not only that, but he informs us that Jews tortured early Christians with iron combs, ripped out their limbs, gouged out their eyes and cut off their tongues?

Christians, we are told, know about how much Jews hate them, and about how Jews murder their children to get blood for their matzoh. Even today, Jews are stopping Christians from getting to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas!

The article appears on several Iraqi-European sites, such as the Swedish al-Noor Media and Culture Center, and the Danish Global Media Network.

Norway: Jesus' Manger will soon be empty, because of Israel

Jan-Erik Smilden, Norwegian journalist reporting from the Middle East, bemoans the sad state of Christians in the Middle East.

His op-ed piece is titled "The Manger will soon be empty".  Sub-heading: "The Christians in the Middle East are experiencing one of history's worst Christmas seasons, and it will probably get worse."

So, he probably starts off  by talking about the Christians of Iraq, or Egypt, right?

No... wait.  He bemoans the sad state of Palestinians Christians in Bethlehem.

What is the main reason Bethlehem is now empty of Christians?   (it isn't, but Smilden thinks it is, so we'll go with it for now)

It's not the inter-Christians battles over the Church of the Nativity.

It's not the problems with the Muslims.

It's not even the fact that Hamas is now in political control of the city.

What could it possibly be?

Of course.  Israel.

The Israeli occupation is the main reason for the fact that there are now less than 20% Christians in Bethlehem.

[Apparently, the fact that the Palestinian Authority changed the borders of the city in order to include more Muslims is a negligible reason.  Because luckily we have Israel to blame.]

Why?  The wall, the wall, have we mentioned the wall?

Israeli takeover of lands, which, Smilden points out, affects Christians and Muslims equally.  But he somehow uses it to explain why there are less Christians specifically.

The war in Gaza, which is apparently all Israel's fault.

Religious tensions in Jerusalem  (that's newspeak for "Muslims trying to kill Jews") - which is also apparently all Israel's fault.

The last two affect tourism in Bethlehem, which is the lifeblood of the city.

Israeli tour guides who don't let their charges stay overnight in Bethlehem.   Same goes for Christian-Zionist tour guides, who don't care about the Palestinians and think they're all terrorists (his words, not mine).

Anyway, after discussing Bethlehem for three paragraphs, he finally starts his article about Christians in the Middle East.  A short summary about the fact that there's barely any left, one paragraph about Syria and Iraq ("they've got it the worst") and another about the Egyptian Copts.

Too bad Smilden hates Israel more than he actually cares about his chosen topic.  Even his editor (who, I assume, wrote the headline), didn't think it was about Christians in the Middle East.

Because, really - how can you compare whining about Islamic State beheadings when Palestinian Christians have Israeli tour guides to deal with?

France: "Today, Jesus would be born at a checkpoint" writes flagship magazine

France's flagship left-of-center magazine, L'Express, has an article titled "Today, Jesus would be born at a checkpoint". There is no mention in the article of Palestnian terrorism.

In August 2014, Christophe Barbier, the publisher and leading editorialist of L'Express wrote these words:

"How will Jews who fear an antisemitic upsurge in France and opt to leave behind them those other Jews who cannot or do not want to go away clean themselves from an accusation of cowardice?"

Michel Gurfinkiel comments:

French Jews have been subjected to unprecedented violence and intimidation for weeks. Many of them are losing heart and considering emigrating, or are actually emigrating — by the thousands — to Israel or other places, including North America and Australia. Still, in the eyes and under the pen of the country's leading journalist, they should be reviled as "deserters." 

In fact, Barbier goes even further. He blames French Jews for many more sins beyond emigration: indulging in self-defense, "bunkerization," support for the Benjamin Netanyahu government in Israel, and, last but not least, an alleged growing sympathy for Marine Le Pen and the far Right. French Jews, as he sees it, are becoming a threat to France as a nation and as a republic. He warns them: "If they think that it is problematic to be Jewish while French, they vindicate those who say that it is problematic to be French while Jewish."

More: Meforum

UK: "If Mary and Joseph Tried to Reach Bethlehem Today..."

Mehdi Hasan, political director of the Huffington Post, UK, has a post up entitled, “If Mary and Joseph Tried to Reach Bethlehem Today, They Would Get Stuck at an Israeli Checkpoint.”

(...)

Seriously, this sort of historical revisionism, treating ancient Jewish Judeans as if they were Palestinian Arabs, and then analogizing modern Israel to the oppressors of Jesus and his family, a common trope in the UK, would be laughable if it were not  so pernicious. Pernicious not simply because it’s a ridiculous distortion of history, and not simply because it’s often accompanied by a large dose of anti-Semitism, with Palestinians playing the role of Jesus and the Israelis being the foreign oppressors crucifying him.  But pernicious because it goes to the true heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict–the failure of the Arab side to recognize that the “Zionists” are not the “European settler-colonialists” of Third Worldist imagination, but a people with a three thousand year plus tie to the Land of Israel, whose religion was born there, who ruled two separate kingdoms there, who have prayed toward Jerusalem for two thousand years in their ancient Hebrew language, and so on.

More: Washington Post

NGOs Use Christian Anti-Semitism to Urge Israel Boycott

The "Christmas spirit" seems to be in the air among all the anti-Israel NGOs - and a new annual report by NGO Monitor released Tuesday reveals how that has found expression in a whole array of religiously motivated slanders of the Jewish state with a distinct undertone of anti-Semitism.

In the report, NGO Monitor analyzed Christmas cards, nativity scenes, and holiday messages released by well-known NGOs, charities and church groups. What it found was groups such as Pax Christi, Sabeel, and a slew of others used religious motifs to attack Israel and advance BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaigns.

"The recurring exploitation of religious holidays and theological language to advance discriminatory anti-Israel campaigns shows that nothing is holy for the BDS movement," said Naftali Balanson, managing editor of NGO Monitor. "The church groups that support these NGOs, as well as the governments that fund them, must immediately repudiate the disturbing antisemitism emanating from NGOs that purport to promote human rights." 

More: Arutz 7

Norway: Norwegian Church justifies Palestinian terror, denies Israel's Jewish history

It won't all fit in the headline, so I'll try to summarize here:

In honor of Christmas, and in the spirit of the season, the state Church of Norway hereby:
1. Justifies Palestinian terror
2. Denies the Jewish history of Israel and of Jesus and thereby denies Jews the right to their homeland
3. Prays for all those who are afflicted by the Holy Land conflict (though Jews are only mentioned as oppressors and occupiers)
4. Denies that Palestinian Christians incite hatred and murder against Jews

In other words: Lots of peace and love and harmony.

Via MIFF:

A new anti-Israel Facebook page "Tal sant om Betlehem" (Speak the truth about Bethlehem), features a petition by leaders of the Norwegian Church.  The signatories include Bishops Solveig Fiske, Tor B. Jørgensen and Erling Pettersen; Berit Hagen Agøy, General Secretary of the Ecumenical Council; and various priests, as well as leaders of the Palestine Committee.


The petition says as follows (translation and emphasis mine):

It is soon  Christmas.  As Christians we will celebrate the miracle of Jesus' birth in the manger.

We will remember the story of Joseph and Mary who traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, two towns in Northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, respectively.

This petition insists that we have a calling to ask for solidarity with all those who are affected by the conflict in the Holy Land, and to witness the injustice the occupation entails for Christian and Muslim Palestinians.

Churches there have long urged Western churches to stand up against injustice and to share their pain.  We think it's wrong for the Church to deny injustice in today's Palestine when we commemorate the miracle of Palestine of yore, and we will emphasize the following:

* We will speak the truth about the city where Jesus was born, a Palestinian city of Christians and Muslims, where the entire population suffers under the occupation. The city is encircled by walls, fences and checkpoints. A portion of the wall was built within the city streets of Bethlehem. We will preach the gospel of the Prince of Peace, and the message of love and justice for all peoples and all believers.

* We will protest against a political status quo; that Israeli violence, arbitrary arrests particularly of children and adolescents, closed borders, travel restrictions, trade barriers and other humiliations remain the day-to-day life for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The violence of the Occupation leads to Palestinian violence, and 2014 is a year of increased unrest and more were killed than have been for a long time.  A lasting political solution must be based on a principle of equality between all peoples and ethnic groups, Jews, Christians and Muslims.

• We will pray for the Palestinian Christians who administer the places where Jesus was born and the angels sang to the shepherds. We know that the Palestinian churches preach a message of reconciliation. They carry the hope that peace and justice will one day prevail. We encourage all believers in Norway to support the way of peace and righteousness. This way the occupation can be stopped, both occupier and occupied freed from the yoke of oppression, and dignity given back to all.

Norway: Christian priest accuses the Jesus-killer Jews of persecuting Christians

Via MIFF:

Pastor Olav Vikse wrote in a recent community newsletter an article about "Christmas in Palestine".  Which he uses to attack Jews on all fronts.  They never did what God wanted, were unjust, oppressed the poor, and... killed the Son of God.

When a reader complained, Vikse answered him that Christians have more Jewish blood than the Jews, and that it's a shame people try and defend Jesus-murderers while leaving their Christian brothers to suffer.

The rest of the article goes into the suffering of Christian Palestinians, by (and only by) the Jews.  No mention of any terror attacks either, which just might explain why the Israelis are so mean.

He also discusses who are the 'real' Jews, racially speaking.  He cites a Christian Palestinian who claims he's 64% Jewish, while the average in Israel is 'only' 50%.

Norway: University of Oslo journal - "Jerusalem emptying of its Christians"

The recent issue of Apollon, the University of Oslo's research journal, focuses on the Middle East.  Or rather, Israel and the Palestinians.  Because when you look at the Middle East from Oslo, you only Israel.

Out of 28 pages, 10 are about Palestinians, 3 about US-Israel relations, 9 about the Arab Spring (which also discusses Israel) and Islamism, and 6 about holy sites in Lebanon, Christians in the Middle East and Arab linguistic history.   Not one article focuses on the trivial topics of Syria or Islamic State.

Here's two of the articles.

"Christians in Bethlehem fighting to be"

The main and only threat is, of course, Israel.

And: "Christians in the Middle East: Jerusalem and Damascus emptying, new comers to Riyadh and Dubai"

That's right.  According to the excellent researchers at the University of Oslo, Christians are fleeing Israel and finding shelter in Saudi Arabia.

If anybody bothers to read the article, at the very very bottom they'll discover that Christian worship is banned in Saudi Arabia and their millions of Christian guest workers are a 'sensitive' issue.

The picture, btw, is of Egyptian Copts.

More: Dagen

Sweden: "Bethlehem is a prison, Israel kills children"

One more Christmas article bashing Israel.

In an article which appeared in Swedish newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning, a group of Swedish women who spent Christmas in Bethlehem claimed that Bethlehem is a prison.  "Israel has closed off Bethlehem behind a high wall.  Today, on Christmas Eve, we think of those residents."

The women write that getting into the city is easy, but that Palestinians and residents of Bethlehem have a hard time getting out.

Describing the checkpoints, the women accuse Israel of treating the Palestinians like animals: "When you see them patiently standing there, in the grid-paths that resemble cattle pens, waiting for the young Israeli conscripts to check their certificates, you wonder if it's really happening."

Gunfire is often heard by the Wall in Bethlehem, teargas stings the eyes.  "Palestinians can be imprisoned for the slightest transgression.  Children are abducted and imprisoned, sometimes killed  Shortly before we arrived in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old boy was shot dead, his crime was throwing stones."

Christians and Muslims work together for peace, they say.  Everybody they met in Bethlehem spoke of peace.  There are some Jews who also want peace, like 'Breaking the Silence', "But every minute Israel violates international law and UN human rights regulations."  The women are careful to deny any motive of antisemitism.  "We are not talking about the Jewish people, but of abuses committed by the State of Israel's current government".

France: Notre-Dame celebrates Christmas by bashing Israel

French blog extrême-centre reports (via Philosémitisme Blog) that during Christmas mass in the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, the priest lashed out at the 'ugly wall running through Bethlehem'.   No mention of Christian persecution.

Outside, activists were handing out leaflets against Israel.

Belgium: Christmas Israel bashing from Nazareth to Bethelehm

In honor of Christmas, Belgian newspaper Het Belang van Limburg sent reporter Roel Damiaans and photographer Tom Palmaers 'in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary', from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Despite the fact that Nazareth is an Israeli town and despite the fact that Joseph and Mary were Jewish, Damiaans and Palmaers did not manage to meet even one Israeli or Jew.  The Jewish angle of their trip to the Jewish homeland: Their first report from Nazareth starts off with "Hava Nagila".

They did however meet many Palestinians who told of their suffering under Israeli rule (just like Joseph and Mary, so many years ago).  They also met with Palestina Solidariteit, a Flemish pro-Palestine group.

Jospeh and Mary made their way on a donkey, so Damiaans and Palmaers interviewed a family whose donkey suffers from Israeli army tear-gas attacks.  No mention at all of why the Israeli army would attack a defenseless donkey, and his poor owners.

defenseless donkey, attacked by Israelis

Of course, no visit to Bethlehem is complete without mentioning the Security Wall.  Headlined "Art on an Ugly Wall", Damiaans and Palmaers say as follows in their post on the topic: "For years Israel has been building the Separation Wall.  By far the ugliest edifice we've ever seen.  A trap to control people like animals, a concrete mesh around the open-air prison that is Palestine."

They do not show us their own visit of the wall.  Instead they posted a clip of Banksy art.

Norway: Labour Party posts anti-Israel Christmas card

The irony: Israeli Jews are the only people today who can't access Bethlehem.    

The Workers' Youth League, the Norwegian Labour Party's youth movement, posted a Christmas card reminding readers that if Jesus were born in Israel, the three kings would have never been able to get to Bethlehem.

More: SMA

UK: Church celebrates Christmas by building life size replica of Israel's security wall

More Christmas time love, this time in the UK.

St James’s Church in London installed a life size replica of Israel’s security wall, as part of an anti-Israel Christmas time campaign.

More: RichardMillet's Blog

Also check out BBC Watch's explanation on how big the 'Security Wall' around Bethlehem actually is.

Norway: Palestinian women's plight linked to Mary, Jesus

Christmas time is always a good time to bash Israel and the Jews by putting the Palestinians in the role of Jesus.  The Christian audience doesn't need to be reminded that 'the Jews killed Jesus'.

Under Israeli rule, Bethlehem was a Christian city.  Now, under Palestinian rule, it's a Muslim city.  But that will not prevent the media from comparing the Palestinians of today to Mary and Jesus, and implicitly accuse Israel of being just as bad as the Jews back then, who did not recognize the Messiah among them, and turned away a pregnant woman to give birth in the manger.

Norwegian newspaper VG published an article in its latest weekend supplement titled "A Child is Born in Bethlehem".  The headline refers to a well-known Christmas hymn and is all about the difficulties Israel causes pregnant Palestinian women.

More: MIFF