Norway: Newspaper apologizes for using phrase ‘Jewish question’

Via Jerusalem Post:

Editor in chief said the print headline was an editing error and the words "should never have been used"

Norway's largest print newspaper apologized this week for running an article about Israel and antisemitism that used the phrase "the Jewish question" in the headline.

That phrase has a long history of being used to demean, dehumanize and stigmatize Jewish people, both before and during the Holocaust.
 

Espen Egil Hansen, the editor in chief of Aftenposten, issued a lengthy apology for the original article - which ran in the newspaper last week. In a full page commentary in Monday's newspaper, Hansen apologized for the original article, which was headlined in print: "The Jewish question splits the left on both sides of the Atlantic." The article examined accusations of antisemitism against figures including US Rep. Ilhan Omar and UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Hansen took full responsibility for the unfortunate wording.

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UK: Bigoted columnist: Jews ‘Poisoning the wells’

Via Honest Reporting:

Update:

Shortly following our complaint, the Daily Mail has made a shocking edit to Peter Oborne’s article, adding the words “according to a number of respectable sources” to justify the blatantly antisemitic allegation promoted by Oborne. The Daily Mail’s reaction is almost as sickening as Oborne’s original offense.

Original article:

The official visit of future British monarch, Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, to Israel has, so far, been a very positive event. It’s disappointing then to see British journalist and commentator Peter Oborne using this opportunity to write a nasty anti-Israel piece in the Daily Mail.

It’s disgusting, however to see Oborne spreading blatant antisemitism:

Yes, you read that correctly – Oborne is charging Israeli settlers with poisoning Palestinian wells, which he claims to have personally witnessed.

Jews poisoning the wells is a classic antisemitic canard that dates back to Medieval European times when Jews were accused of being responsible for spreading disease such as the Black Death. This in turn led to massacres of Jewish communities. (…)  

Oborne makes this antisemitic claim only a few years after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas retracted the very same charge made in a June 23, 2016 speech to the European Parliament.

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UK: Far-left paper pulls op-ed blaming Israel for anti-Semitism

Via JTA:

A far-left British newspaper that regularly features articles by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn apologized for running an op-ed linking rising anti-Semitism to “Israel’s crimes.”

On Wednesday, The Morning Star pulled offline an article titled “Rising Anti-Semitism Cannot be Tackled without Addressing Israel’s Crimes.”

“This article has been removed from the website as it crossed a line in attributing anti-Semitism to the policies of the Israeli government and made demands on the ‘Jewish diaspora’ and ‘Jewish community’ as if these were responsible for Israeli policy or obliged to account for it,” the paper said in explanation.

John Elder, which some Labour activists said is a nom de plume, wrote the op-ed.

“The Morning Star deeply regrets publication of the article, which was submitted by an external contributor and which we failed to vet with the care necessary on a subject of such importance,” the paper said.

Once affiliated with Britain’s Communist Party, The Morning Star is popular with many members of Momentum, the movement within Labour of Corbyn.

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Poland: Magazine asks “just how strong is the Jewish lobby?” on its front cover

Via Everyday Antisemitism:

Right wing Polish magazine Do Rzeczy has published an antisemitic issue which features the question “just how strong is the Jewish lobby?” on its front cover.

The weekly right wing magazine was founded in 2013 and represents Christian conservatism in the country.

The article pits the mysterious “Jewish lobby” against Poland, asking “can the Polish government handle it?”. Poland is currently governed by the far right Law and Justice Party, a party infested with antisemitism from the top all the way down to the grassroots.

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UK: Jews worry too much...

Via Weekly Standard (Irwin M. Stelzer):

Jews worry too much. That seems to be the point of a recent article in the otherwise sensible Economist. Sure, two German rappers won that country’s highest music award by bragging their torsos are “better defined than an Auschwitz inmate’s” and vowing to “make another Holocaust.” But, says the Economist, the intended targets of this aspirational Holocaust were “unclear” and could “possibly [be] rival hip-hop artists.”

No reason to worry then that Germans were not alone in figuring out “whom.” The rappers’ invitation to another Holocaust was broadcast on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

There’s more. Pears Institute scholar David Feldman is quoted by the magazine for the proposition that “competitive victimhood” prompts “claims of oppression by Jews, Muslims, and other groups [to] step on each other’s toes.” Anti-Semitic, is merely part of a “general wave of chauvinistic sentiment” that has also seen hostility towards Muslims, gays, and Roma to rise. The comfort that Jews should take from this is similarly unclear.

In the past, French, German, and other European Jews could look to a short hop across the channel for a safe haven. Now, not so much. 

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Holland: Antisemitic cabaret program on Dutch socialist television channel

Via Bad News from the Netherlands blog:

A cabaret program on the Dutch Socialist VARA television by Sanne Wallis de Vries has used Israel's Eurovision winning song as a parody.  

Her text contains antisemitic motifs such as jokes about Jews and money.  

It also accuses Israel of using Buk rockets which Israel does not have. These rockets were used to bring down a plane of mainly Dutch passengers in the Ukraine. They all died.

read more in Dutch here

German paper under fire for ‘anti-Semitic’ Netanyahu Eurovision cartoon

Via i24 News:

A German newspaper apologized on Wednesday for publishing a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dressed as Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai and holding a rock with a Star of David on it.

“It can be seen as anti-Semitic,” the editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung acknowledged Wednesday after evoking outrage.

The Munich-based newspaper, one of Germany’s top dailies with a circulation of 1.1 million readers, printed the cartoon Tuesday, as Israel was being scorned worldwide for its handling of the protests on the Gaza border.

The cartoon that appeared in the opinion section, by veteran caricaturist Dieter Hanitzsch, portrayed Netanyahu with oversized ears, nose and lips and in the Eurovision logo the ‘v’ was replaced with a Star of David. “Next year in Jerusalem,” the figure is saying.

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Germany: Cartoon showing Israeli PM as puppet master in classical antisemitic theme

Via Watch Antisemitism in Europe:

The local newspaper Thüringische Landeszeitung - TLZ published a cartoon showing the Israeli prime minister as the "string master" behind the anticipated termination of the Nuclear deal with Iran by Donald Trump. Benjamin Netanjahu is seen saying "The president decides" while reaching a sign from the back of Trump's  head through his open mouth saying "Iran is lying!". For those new to the topic of antisemitism: the image of Jews as puppet masters is an classical antisemitic theme. See for yourself:

read more in German @ Sergey Lagodinsky

Netherlands: newspaper slammed for ‘anti-Semitic’ cartoon on Gaza protests

Via Times of Israel:

A newspaper in the Netherlands has come under fire for publishing a cartoon depicting an Israeli soldier shooting masses of Palestinians on the Gaza border in celebration of the Jewish state’s 70th Independence Day, which was marked on Thursday.

The cartoon, published in Volkskrant, a major Dutch paper, depicts an IDF soldier wearing sunglasses and adorned with a Star of David on his back. Having put a frightened-looking unarmed Palestinian against a wall, he fires a barrage of bullets to spell out “Happy birthday to me” — passing across the Palestinian’s chest along the way.

Bodies of what seems to be other protesters lie nearby, next to what could be seen as a pile of bodies of slaughtered demonstrators who participated in the weekly “March of Return” mass rallies organized by Hamas, the terror group which runs the Gaza Strip.

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Germany: Paper claims Jews took Arab land to create Israel

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

An Israeli diplomat in Berlin reprimanded leading weekly Die Zeit for the cover story of its current issue, which argues that Jews from across the globe “settled Arab lands” to build the State of Israel. “ 

@zeitonline friendly,reminder: Jews have been living in this land since the time of King David, King Solomon and Jesus,” embassy spokeswoman Adi Farjon tweeted on Thursday.

The article’s headline, “Israel at 70: Why is There No Quiet in This Country?” triggered outrage over the omission of historical facts. The paper asserted that “Jews from across the world settled Arab lands and simply created facts out of which the State of Israel grew.”

Responding to the omissions in the article, the Anne Frank Educational Center wrote on its Twitter feed that the “historical background of the founding of Israel is not mentioned [nor] centuries-old antisemitism & the Shoah.”

The Frankfurt-based organization added: “Why did Die Zeit not write that since Israel’s creation in 1948 its existence has been threatened?” 

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Poland: Debate over Holocaust law prompts an anti-Semitic media backlash

Via JTA:

Debate over a Polish law that proposes to outlaw rhetoric blaming Poland for Nazi crimes has prompted a wave of anti-Semitic comments in the Polish media.

RMF, one of the largest Polish commercial radio stations, suspended a journalist who wrote about the “war with the Jews.” Poland’s state-owned television station apologized to the Israeli ambassador for a tweet alleging that the Jewish opposition to the law was part of an attempt to seize Polish property.

Also, a former priest began selling T-shirts denying Polish responsibility for a pogrom against Jews by their non-Jewish neighbors during the Nazi occupation.

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Polish journalist: Jews also took part in the Holocaust

Via Ynet News:

A Polish TV host has suggested that World War II death camps in Poland be referred to as “Jewish death camps” instead of Polish or German, while a journalist intimated on his program that Jews played a part in the Nazi Final Solution.

The comments have fanned the flames that have already mildly burned relations between Warsaw and Jerusalem after the Polish parliament recently moved to pass legislation that Israel has argued is an attempt to downplay Poland’s role in Nazi atrocities.

The guest of the program aired by TVP2 also slammed Israel for its vociferous opposition to the bill, which prescribes prison time for defaming the Polish nation by using phrases such as "Polish death camps" to refer to the killing sites Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland during World War II.

“This narrative is built out of contempt for the facts,” argued Marcin Jerzy Wolski who hosts the Polish public mainstream TV channel operated by TVP.

Discussing an experiment carried out in Germany in which exhaust fumes were pumped into rooms containing monkeys and humans, Wloski and the conservative commentator and author Rafal Aleksander Ziemkiewicz digressed into a conversation about Jews in the Holocaust, gas chambers and how the Nazis improvised as they searched for more efficient methods to murder European Jewry.

The two then segued into an attack of Israeli criticism against the new bill and the “claims” that Poles participated in the Holocaust. Ziemkiewicz also slammed the notion of blaming nations for the actions of individuals.

“Don’t be surprised if someone teaches that the Jewish people crucified Jesus or participated in the Holocaust,” he said. “If we look at the percentage of involvement of countries that took part, Jews also were part of their own destruction.”

Wolski responded by saying: “Using this terminology, linguistically, we could say these were not German or Polish camps, but were Jewish camps. After all, who dealt with the crematoria?”

Taking the theory further, Ziemkiewicz asked: “And who died in them? Jews. History has been forgotten. Instead of history there is a narrative that serves political and other interests. This narrative is built out of contempt for facts.”

A few hours before the program, Ziemkiewicz published on Twitter an anti-Semitic post before deleting it shortly after.

“For many years I have convinced my people that we must support Israel. Today, because of a few scabby or greedy people, I feel like an idiot,” he wrote in his tweet, evoking a term often used in anti-Semitic slurs in Poland. 

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France: Broadcaster blasted for prime-time Holocaust joke by Belgian comedian

Yet another Belgian woman being so clever (after scientist Sigrid Vertommen, now Laura Laune) ... Jews denied entry to eugenics libel event by Belgian academic at the University of Warwick

Via JTA:

A public broadcaster in France is being criticized for airing a Belgian comedienne’s joke about the Holocaust.

France 2 aired the joke by Laura Laune, 31, on Friday in its 8 p.m. news journal. A winner of the 2017 season of the French version of “America’s Got Talent,” she was seen saying on stage: “What do sneakers and Jews have in common? They’re more common in 39 than in 45.”

World War II, during which six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in Europe, began in 1939 and ended in 1945. The European shoe sizes of 39 and 45 translate to 8.5 and 11 in U.S. sizes, respectively. The flattering profile reportage on Laune noted her “boldness” and her popularity in the stand-up comedy scene in France.

Gilles-William Goldnadel, a well-known lawyer in France and a former member of the executive board of the CRIF umbrella of French Jewish communities, called the joke “horrific” on Twitter and accused France 2 and French media in general of pursuing a double standard on black humor that permits its application to Jews but not women.

“Public broadcaster: They sell the boldness of a joke by a woman on the Holocaust while they kick out Tex for a joke about women.”

The comedian Tex, whose name is Jean-Christophe Le Texier, last month was fired from France 2 for telling a joke about domestic violence against women during an appearance in November in a show on the private channel C8.

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Europe: Fecal insults to countries are objectionable—unless the country Is Israel

Via Mosaic Magazine:

President Trump’s alleged vulgar remark last week about the homelands of certain immigrants to America has garnered much attention and generated much outrage. Very different, notes Tom Gross, were responses to the comment of the French ambassador to Britain in 2001 when he called Israel a “sh—y little country”:

When Ambassador Daniel Bernard told guests at a dinner hosted by the writer Barbara Amiel . . . that Israel was a “sh—y little country,” some journalists rushed to his defense or even praised him. For example, an article in the Independent by one of the paper’s most prominent columnists, Deborah Orr, described Israel as “sh—y” and “little” no fewer than four times. (At the time, the Independent was winning newspaper-of-the-year awards).

The French ambassador to London is not the American president, of course. But he is nonetheless the official representative of one of the world’s most important countries: a nuclear power, one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, a G8 member, the land of égalité and fraternité and of a supposedly sophisticated ruling elite. And Bernard was not just any ambassador. He was one of then-French President Jacques Chirac’s closest confidantes, and had previously served as France’s UN ambassador. . . .

Yet when Bernard made his “sh—y” remark, the British and French press seemed to spend more time criticizing the messenger, Barbara Amiel, in whose home the remark was made, than the ambassador. Le Monde ran a front-page attack on Amiel for having had the temerity to reveal the ambassador’s comment. In the Guardian, Matt Wells denounced Amiel as “an arch-Zionist,” but had nothing but sympathy for Bernard who, he claimed “was struggling against a tide of anger from Israel.” In fact the Israeli government hadn’t made a single official comment on the matter at the time Wells’ article was published.

Read the full article @ Mideast Dispatch

UK: UKMW prompts correction to Indy claim that ‘Israel killed’ Mohammed al-Durah

Via UK Media Watch:

The Al-Durah Affair is an incident, in Sept. 2000, involving a 12-year-old Palestinian boy named Mohammed Al-Durah who, Palestinians alleged, was killed by IDF fire (during a firefight between Israeli and Palestinian forces) while crouched in front of a wall with his father at the Netzarim Junction in Gaza.

Despite the fact that claims the boy was killed by IDF fire that day – based on an entirely inconclusive 59 second video clip – have been discredited, Israel’s guilt was accepted blindly by the media, and al-Durah became an icon of Palestinian “martyrdom” in the Arab and Muslim world.

The framing of the incident also reinforced, some have persuasively argued, the lethal media narrative that Israel murders Palestinian kids.

However, despite the dearth of actual evidence, some in the media to this day persist in accepting, without question, these completely unsubstantiated Palestinian claims that Israeli soldiers killed the boy.

The latest example involves a Dec. 16th article in The Independent on the recent death of a disabled Palestinian man, Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, on the Gaza border during clashes with Israeli soldiers. The article included a passage suggesting that the death of Abu Thuraya (in highly disputed circumstances) on the Gaza border, during violent protests last month, evokes the death of Mohammed Al Durah.

As you can see from our tweet to the journalist, Rachel Roberts, the article suggested that Israel’s responsibility for the young boy’s death was an indisputable fact.

Though the journalist didn’t respond to our tweet, we contacted Indy editors who eventually upheld our complaint and placed the word “allegedly” before the word “killed” in the sentence we highlighted:

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UK: BBC's new drama McMafia under fire for anti-Israel tropes

Via The Jewish Chronicle:

The BBC has been accused of resorting to “gratuitous slurs” in its new drama series, McMafia, over the portrayal of an Israeli character.

The influential UK Lawyers for Israel group issued a statement following the broadcast of the first episode on BBC1 on Monday evening, attacked the depiction of Semiyon Kleiman, a shady businessman and politician, played by actor David Strathairn.

The group also claimed that the much-hyped programme also made references to Israel which were not mentioned in the book by author Mischa Glenny, on which the drama was based.

In a further criticism, UKLFI also claimed that programme-makers had distorted the meaning of the motto of Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.

In the statement, posted on UKLFI's Facebook page, the group wrote: "BBC 1 mini-series, McMafia, uses gratuitous slurs against Israeli businessmen and makes references to Israel which aren't mentioned in the original book, McMafia, by Mischa Glenny.

“Furthermore, the mini-series distorts the motto of Mossad which was quoted in the drama, as 'By deception we will do war'.

“The actual motto comes from Proverbs, 24.6 and says 'For by wise guidance you can wage your war'.  

“The use of the word 'deception' in substitute for the words 'wise guidance' attacks the integrity of Mossad and insinuates that Israel officially sanctions deception in its intelligence activities. (...)

Award-winning scriptwriters James Watkins and Hossein Amini are behind the series which and is co-produced by the BBC, AMC and Cuba Pictures, in association with Twickenham Studios.

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France: Catholic-owned kid's magazine claims Israel not a real country

Some background: Youpi magazine is owned by the influential media group Bayard. "Bayard is a French press group created in 1873, just after the 1870 war, by Father Emmanuel d'Alzon (1810/1880), founder of the Catholic religious congregation Augustinians of the Assumption. This congregation is still the exclusive owner of the group." "It edits educational and Catholic publications such as La Croix and Catholic Digest." "Assumptionists , profoundly anti-semitic religious order, whose newspaper La Croix ( The Cross) became a daily in 1883. In 1890 it boasted that it was ‘ the most anti-Jew journal of France’"  The author of the article is Bertrand Fichou, editor in chief of Youpi and a prolific writer of children's books.

Via I 24 News:

A French children's education magazine that provoked a firestorm of criticism on Sunday after deeming Israel a state with disputed legitimacy along with the likes of North Korea said it will remove the edition from sale. The publisher Editions Bayard Jeunesse apologized, "to all those who may have been hurt" by this publication.

The controversial fact sheet featured in the latest edition of 'Youpi' magazine read, "we call these 197 countries 'states', like France, Germany, or Algeria. There a few more, but not all other countries in the world agree that these are real states (for example Israel or North Korea)."

The magazine's calling into question of Israel's legitimacy sparked major backlash on social media, with Israel's Ambassador to France Aliza Bin Noun saying she was "shocked" at the publication which she said encouraged anti-Zionism, and in turn, anti-Semitism.

"Shocked by this lie taught to children. Such a rhetoric can only encourage anti-Zionism, inseparable from anti-Semitism," she wrote on Twitter, tagging French President Emmanuel Macron in her statement. President of France's umbrella Jewish group CRIF, Francis Kalifat, told i24NEWS that Bayer's statement reflected "political revisionism."

"Unintentional or intentional, I do not know," Kalifat said. "I prefer to think it is unintentional. The Bayard publication conveys political revisionism."

"Israel has been recognized as a sovereign state since 1948 and by the United Nations since 1949," he said, adding that such intentional revisionism would represent an attempt by the company to "de-legitimize" Israel "this time by targeting its youngest readers." 

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Greece: Newspaper uses antisemitic tropes against the President of the Jewish Community of Athens

Via Against Antisemitism:

The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece condemns unequivocally the malicious and vulgar insults, containing fierce racist and anti-Semitic references, launched against the President of the Athens Jewish Community Mr. Minos Moissis by the web edition of the newspaper MAKELEIO.

The headline of the article reads: “Cruel Jew at the head of a company of “crows” that has been assigned to liquidate the “red loans” (past due debt) of poor Greeks. President of the Jewish Community, he pretends friendly and takes (our money) from the back door”.

The article targets and treats with contempt Mr. Moissis - a renowned and experienced professional and a top executive manager in the banking and insurance industry for 30 years - because only of his Jewish identity and his position as the President of the Jewish Community of Athens. Apart from the insulting references, the racist and malicious intent against Mr. Moissis, is indicated by the fact that he is referred to as the “cruel Jew” who has allegedly undertaken the task of “clearing out the loans of the poor Greeks”. Thus, in an unacceptable manner, the hideous and racist stereotype of the evil hard Jewish is reproduced.

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UK: Rapper Lowkey 'uses Jewish slur' in performance on BBC

Via The Jewish Chronicle:

The BBC are facing a fresh Jew-hatred controversy after a rap artist performed a track on a popular Radio 1 show which appeared to contain the lyric: "Power to victims of this globalised kosher nostra". 

Lowkey - who is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign - also ranted against "zombies and Zionists" during his live appearance on the station's Charlie Sloth show on Saturday night. 

After performing his "freestyle" 15-minute rap on the show, Mr Sloth hailed the content of the song, saying: "I feel like I've just been to university for five years". 

"Kosher nostra" has typically been used as an antisemitic term to describe an alleged Jewish ruling elite.

However a Radio 1 spokesperson told the JC that Lowkey insisted he had used the term ‘cosa nostra’ which he said "is commonly meant as a general reference to ‘the Mafia’." 

Lowkey's reference to "zombies and Zionists" also came during his appearance on Saturday's show in lyrics which attacked an alleged powerful elite of "neo-cons". 

The rapper declined to comment on his use of the word 'Zionists' in the rap.  

Footage of the performance has been shared on YouTube with the lyrics being praised by pro-Jeremy Corbyn website The Skwawkbox.

Lowkey, whose real name is Kareem Dennis, has previously made his anti-Zionist stance public on tracks such as Long Live Palestine, in which he sings: "You say you know about the Zionist lobby. But you put money in their pocket when you're buying their coffee. Talking about revolution, sitting in Starbucks." 

In 2009 Lowkey, whose mother is Iraqi and father English. was questioned at Tel Aviv airport as he entered Israel.  He said at the time he had received a "miniscule fraction of the degradation Palestinian people are subjected to on a daily basis”.

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Update here.

Europe: Historically, labelling Jews as such has significant, overwhelming and unambiguously anti-semitic cultural meaning

This comment (screen shot) was left @ Politico following an article about "the decision to label settlement goods" which "causes friction within the bloc and strains ties with a staunch ally".  

Clockmed: "We should exterminate all Jews everywhere"

Reader Sebastian makes some interesting points on the comments section.  They are worth noting:

After all, Israel’s arguments that it is being singled out for labelling solely because it is Jewish. This is exacerbated by the fact that historically, labelling Jews as such has significant, overwhelming and unambiguously anti-semitic cultural meaning from the perspective of virtually all Jews.

Personally, I would be happy if all occupied territories around the world were labelled as such, but the fact that the EU is “technically” now in a situation of apartheid by treating the Israeli people as second class citizens under the law, it is impossible for me to ever see this anger by Israel going away.

The EU seems to be calculating that they will take a bit of flack from Israel and things will get back to normal. I think they have massively massively underestimated the cultural significance and outright seriousness of their actions. I can’t see Israelis or any government they elect ever letting this one go.

Posted on 1/4/16 | 4:03 PM CET

The only difference is that neither Morroco nor Turkey are Jewish states and the Turks and Moroccans affected are not Jewish. That and that alone (directly or indirectly) is why Morroco and Turkey have never been threatened with labelling. You want more examples world wide. I believe there are about 200 of them.

Posted on 1/5/16 | 3:41 PM CET

Israel signed an FTA with the EU that makes a clear distinction between Israel and Israeli-occupied territories. Nobody forced it to. That is why Cyprus and the Sahara are totally irrelevant in this context. Turkey and Morocco are not violating the obligations they voluntarily undertook viz. the EU. Israel is.”

Livni did it because she was forced too. The EU has never attempted to force such terms on Morrocco or Turkey or China or anybody else exploiting disputed or occupied territories. [...] 

The difference now is that this discrimination has entered into EU law as it is actually implemented in practice, which now means the EU is technically in a state of apartheid.

Posted on 1/6/16 | 11:05 AM CET

Sadly someone left this comment: