World Council of Churches trainees use antisemitic rhetoric, advocate BDS

Via Jerusalem Post:

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is training volunteers to promote boycotts of Israel and engage in antisemitic rhetoric, with funding from several Western governments and the EU, as well as support from the United Nations, a new report by research institute NGO Monitor has found.

The WCC flagship project – Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) – has sent 1,800 “ecumenical accompaniers” from around the world to serve as observers in the West Bank and Jerusalem over the past 15 years, and aim to have 25 to 30 of these unofficial observers on the ground at all times. This is the only program of this kind run by the WCC.

(...)

The WCC calls itself the broadest organized group of churches, and says it seeks to represent 350 member churches in 110 countries and 500 million Christians throughout the world. Its website says that the group’s goal is Christian unity.

Yet one of the ways it seems to achieve that is through anti-Israel advocacy, which at times has explicit antisemitic overtones, as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. This definition has been accepted by the EU, which along with some of its member countries, provides funding for the EAPPI.

WCC leadership and EAPPI volunteers have repeatedly made comparisons of Israeli actions to those of Nazi Germany in their advocacy sessions. For example, WCC general secretary Dr. Olav Fyske Tveit said: “I heard about the occupation of my country during the five years of World War II as the story of my parents. Now I see and hear the stories of 50 years of occupation.”

(...)

The WCC supports boycotts and divestment from settlements, but EAPPI activists have called for a boycott of all of Israel.

The EAPPI publication “Faith Under Occupation” called in 2012 for “sanctions and suspension of US aid to Israel,” to “challenge Israel in local and international courts” and “economic boycotts.”

EAPPI National Coordinator in South Africa Dudu Mahlangu-Masango signed a letter to then-president Jacob Zuma calling “on our government and civil society to instigate broad-based boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel” in 2012. She repeated this call in a 2018 television interview, calling for “total sanctions” on Israel.

The organization also seeks to combat Christian Zionism. In a 2015 WCC event, Zionism was called “heresy” under Christian theology, modern Israelis were said to have no connection to ancient Israelites, and Israeli society was noted to be “full with racism and light skin privilege.” Their leadership also compared Israel to apartheid South Africa.

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UK: Life imitates art as play about antisemitism faces wave of abuse

Via Guardian:

A new play about rising antisemitism that opens in a London theatre this week has become the target of antisemitic abuse. One Jewish Boy by Stephen Laughton focuses on the relationship between a Jewish man and a mixed-race, non-Jewish woman, their experiences of hatred and abuse, and the impact on their marriage. “It’s about big themes on a domestic level,” Laughton said.

Since publicity for the play was launched in September, Laughton has been targeted with abuse on social media, and posters for the production have been defaced and torn down. Palestinian flags were posted online in response to mentions of the play.

Among the comments were: “Who cares about Jews? This looks shit”; “I must say I do not give a fuck. Perhaps you could write a play about Palestinian kids getting blown to pieces by Jews”; and “You’re a fucking enabler. You Jews disgust me”.

Laughton said he was saddened by the responses. “I expected something, but I didn’t anticipate they’d come for me. I’m worried there’ll be more antisemitism when the play opens, and I’m worried it could become physical.” The Community Security Trust, which protects and defends British Jews, had been consulted.

Laughton said he had wanted to write about antisemitism for some time as he had watched friends – mostly liberal Jews who are critical of the Israeli government’s policies – become more fearful about rising tensions and overt abuse.

“The play has been written from a place of tangible fear. Things that were on the fringes of the far right and the far left started creeping in to the mainstream.

“In the last few years it seems like people feel they have permission to be antisemitic,” he said. “You see it in our politics, on our social media, with our kids getting beaten up on the streets. I wanted to chart that.”

(...)

Laughton said his Jewish identity was of central importance to him. He belongs to Liberal Judaism, a small, radical denomination, and is “historically a Labour party supporter”. He described himself as a “romantic Zionist” with an attachment to the Jewish homeland but is highly critical of blockades and settlements. At the end of each performance during the play’s four-week run, collections will be taken for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity that delivers healthcare for those affected by the conflict, and Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli organisation that focuses on settlements and human rights violations.

The closing night of the show will be followed by a vigil for peace, incorporating a Havdalah service marking the end of Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath, and a recitation of Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

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Germany: Jewish Professor Calls Police After Alleged Anti-Semitic Attack, Cops Beat Him Instead

Via Newsweek:

A visiting professor from an American university was allegedly thrown to the ground and beaten by police in Germany after being attacked by a civilian who asked him if he was Jewish.

Johns Hopkins Philosophy Professor Yitzhak Melamed gave a keynote lecture on Wednesday at the prestigious Bonn University after reportedly being punched by German police. The police were originally contacted to address a man in a park who Melamed said attempted to hurt him after the man asked if Melamed was Jewish.

Melamed was with Bonn University professor Dr. Lina Steiner at Bonn Hofgarten park when he says he was approached by a man who asked if he was Jewish and then identified himself as a Palestinian. In a Facebook post on Friday, Melamed said the man threw his kippah, a small head cover worn by Jewish men, to the ground multiple times before the man began to push him.

Melamed said he heard the civilian shout “no Jews in Germany” before the man walked circles in the park and attempted to hurt him. Melamed said police arrived 20 minutes after the initial call was placed. The attacker began to run away, at which point 50-year-old Melamed ran after him, to show officers the direction in which his attacker was headed.

Melamed said the attack that followed—police holding him down and hitting him “with a few dozen" punches—only stopped after he repeatedly attempted to shout in English that he was the wrong man, according to a report by the General Anzeiger.

Melamed said he was bleeding when he initially tried to file a complaint against the German police. The police, who said in a statement that the professor resisted arrest, also said Melamed initiated the incident by touching an officer’s hand.

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France: Court sentences 'ignorant' anti-Semitic attackers

Via DW:

The sentencing in France of three men for an anti-Semitic rape-robbery in Paris in 2014 has revived concerns within the Jewish community. The men's defense lawyer claimed they were not anti-Semitic but ignorant.

The court gave the three men sentences of eight, 13 and 16 years for the crime they carried out in the Creteil suburb of Paris in 2014.

A 22-year-old who made comments including "for my brothers in Palestine," and suggesting they should "gas" their victims during the attack, before destroying all the Jewish images in the apartment, is still on the run. He was sentenced in absentia.

The 26-year-old and 23-year-old co-accused were in court for the sentencing. They have already been detained for four years.

Defense lawyer Marie Dose told the court in Val-de-Marne, southeast of the French capital on Friday: "They are not anti-Semitic, they are ignorant. They are swimming in gross stupidity."

Prosecutors said there was no doubt the victims had been chosen because the attackers believed them to be Jewish.

...

Prosecuting counsel commented during the hearing: "To say that 'Jews have money' is a prejudice, but it is not criminal. You have to fight it by going to schools. But racial prejudice, this human imbecility, becomes a prejudiced act when it is used to target its victims."

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Austria: Holocaust memorial in Vienna defaced

Via reader:

There is a small memorial exhibit at the subway station Herminengasse in Vienna, for the Jews rounded up and sent to death and concentration camps during the Holocaust. Although this exhibit only opened in October 2017, it already has been defaced twice, this time with "gaza" spray-painted in blue. Workers tried to wash it off but it is still quite visible.

Photos of the recent defacement (the squiggly black lines are part of the original exhibit):

Italians trained to fight Israel in Palestinian refugee camps, former Arafat adviser says

Things don't really change in Europe, do they? In 2018, 25% of Italians do not want Jews as family members

Via La Stampa:

During the Seventies, thousands of Italians went to Palestinian refugee camps to give their help, according to a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Bassam Abu Sharif, a historic member of PFLP who later became advisor of Yasser Arafat, has been heard by the parliamentary inquiry committee into the death of Aldo Moro, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, who was kidnapped and killed by the Red Brigades in 1978. Bassam Abu Sharif said to the committee also that there was a non-aggression pact between the Italian secret services and the Palestinian fedayeen.

«The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine had special relations with some of the revolutionary groups emerging in Europe after 1968. These forces did not know how to oppose capitalism, and we taught them how to do it. It was part of the fight against the imperialism that supported Israel. Thousands of Italian young women and men came to Palestinian refugee camps in order to help in different ways, in the schools, in the clinics, or in combat», Bassam Abu Sharif said to the committee. This is the first time explicit mention is made of the presence of Italians in the Palestinian refugee camps forty years ago.

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UK: Israel doesn't get hurt by BDS, the Jews of the Diaspora do

Via David Collier:

"Israel doesn't get hurt by BDS, the Jewish student on campus does. The Jewish man running a business in Aberdeen does. Those attending the Israeli film festival in London do. These are the people #BDS affect. BDS radicalises its followers and hurts only the Jews of the Diaspora." 

"Students are scared to wear Jewish symbols, the guy in Aberdeen is forced out of business with his workers harassed and Jewish theatre goers face hostile crowds or a denial of the right to choose what they see. Anti Jewish Fascists operate in the UK under the BDS banner." 

"A guy is hounded in Aberdeen, his workers have been harassed, anyone attending Israeli related film festivals / the shalom festival or orchestras face hostile crowds upon entry & I saw lines of fascists yell 'shame' at students at a campus event."

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Germany: Only three showed up for antisemitism demonstration in Berlin’s hip Neukölln neighborhood

Via Matthew Karnitschnig (POLITICO Chief Europe Correspondent):

Only three people showed up for this #antisemitism demonstration in Berlin’s hip Neukölln neighborhood. It ended after 15 minutes when someone snatched the protestors’ Israeli flag and threw it in the gutter.

read more @ BZ-Berlin (in German)

UK: Israel to blame for rise in antisemitism, left wing veteran Tariq Ali declares

Via Jewish Chronicle:

The veteran left-wing activist Tariq Ali has insisted the Israeli government was to blame for the recent rise in antisemitism.

In a speech at a pro-Palestinian rally outside Downing Street in response to the violence on the border of Gaza, he attacked what he claimed was a “vile and grotesque” campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Describing Mr Corbyn as his “old friend and comrade”, Mr Ali – who founded the Stop The War movement – said that he wanted to begin his remarks by speaking about “antisemitism that we are told has swept the Labour Party, that we are told is a big problem for the left.”

He accepted there was prejudice against Muslim, Jew and gay people, but added: “If you were to ask me what is a bigger problem in Europe and north America – is it antisemitism, or is it Islamophobia?

“The answer is very clear, it is Islamophobia.”

Mr Ali said the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn were “disgusting” but were targeted at him because he broke the mould on attitudes to Britain’s foreign policy and was an anti-war politician.

“I predict this vile, grotesque campaign charging him of being soft on antisemitism will collapse. It’s already on the retreat. People don’t believe it.”

On Israel, Mr Ali said: “Many people deep down in their hearts may be scared to say it in public given the strange atmosphere that exists, but it needs to be said.

“The purveyors of antisemitism today, those who have encouraged antisemitism are the Israeli government.

“Killing Palestinians the way that they do it, targeting children as they have done; this is what produces a crude form of antisemitism.

“And the support given to this by right-wing Zionist organisations in Europe and America doesn’t help challenging antisemitism either.”

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France: Jewish Student Group Hit With Vandalism: 'Death to Israel', 'Vive La Palestine'

Via Haaretz:

Vandals have scrawled anti-Israel graffiti and ransacked the offices of a Jewish student group at a Paris university, on the same day that marches are being held around France to protest anti-Semitism.

Sacha Ghozlan, president of the French Jewish Students Union, told Le Monde that that the damage was inflicted Wednesday at the group's facilities at the University of Paris' Pantheon-Sorbonne campus.

“A cabinet was thrown on the ground and there were inscriptions such as ‘Death to Israel,’ ‘Viva Arafat’ on the wall,” Gozlan told the French paper. A tweet from the scene also showed "Zionist local racist anti-goy" and "Palestine will win" were written as well.

He said it came as far-left student protesters were blocking parts of the campus in a protest movement, but said it is unclear who was behind the incident. 

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Europe: Jews, get the hell out of Europe – taste freedom!

Via The Jerusalem Post (Brenda Katten):

(...) Is this freedom enjoyed by Jews living in Europe? Do they feel comfortable openly criticizing their government? Do they write articles in their national press pointing out all that they feel is wrong with their leaders? Is Arfa so content with the German government that she has no need to criticize them publicly? As a resident of Netanya, I wander through its main Independence Square and the language I most hear is French. [Note: approximately 200,000 Franco-Israelis reside in Israel and several thousand make alyah every year - others leave France tp go to the United States Canada...]

Why have French Jews chosen to come here? It is not because they expect to have a more affluent life or to live without the fear of the possibility of war.

They are here because they have the freedom to be Jewish. 

Is a higher standard of living compensation for experiencing antisemitism in all its forms? Sadly, history has proven that a well-filled purse in the Diaspora is more attractive than starting life anew in a country with a strange language that requires its 18-year-olds to enlist in defense forces so that others may live. It is considerably easier for an 18-year-old overseas to ponder which university to attend.

Have we not witnessed time and again how Jews have chosen to stay in the economic comfort of their country of birth? Too many who initially had the chance to leave Europe prior to World War II chose, instead, to remain, ending their lives in the gas chambers.

Perhaps the paragraph of Arfa’s article that disturbed me the most was, “Unlike the 1930s and 1940s, Jews have a place to go that will always welcome them, and maybe because of Israel’s existence Europe will not repeat the Holocaust.

Now Jews have a state of their own that will have their back, ideally, and that should inspire them to bravely, confidently walk the streets with a kippa… fight court decisions that undermine Jews and Israel… and even bear arms.”

Confidently walk the streets with a kippa? I wonder what Europe Arfa is talking about. When the rabbinate there is advising Jews not to walk the streets with kippot and when it is quite possible that the next prime minister of the UK will be blatantly antisemitic, does she really expect Jews to bear arms in Europe? Most disturbing is the notion that it is okay to let the Jews in Israel ensure that the Jews in the Diaspora have somewhere to escape to without recognizing that a key reason that some young people are leaving Israel could be because they do not want to be the ones to sacrifice their lives for those who choose to live in greater financial comfort elsewhere.

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The writer is public relations chair of ESRA, which promotes integration into Israeli society

Netherlands: Palestinian ex-terrorist deported from US invited to speak in Amsterdam

Via The Times of Israel:

Right-wing Dutch lawmakers have protested a far-left group’s invitation of a Palestinian ex-terrorist who was deported from the United States to speak in the Dutch capital.

Machiel de Graaf and Gidi Markuszower of the Party for Freedom expressed opposition to Rasmea Odeh’s planned visit in a query they submitted Thursday to Justice and Security Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus.

“Do you agree that a convicted terrorist and immigration fraudster has nothing to look for in the Netherlands? If not, why not?” the lawmakers wrote, adding: “Are you prepared to deny her entrance? If not, why?”

In the Netherlands, lawmakers use parliamentary queries to draw the media’s attention to issues and direct scrutiny of the actions of the ministers queried, who have up to three weeks to reply.

Odeh was invited to the Netherlands by Anakbayan-Europe, a Filipino communist group, and another fringe left organization called Revolutionary Unity.

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Greece: Anarchist group distributes pro-Palestinian flyers during two raids

Via Ekathimerini (watch the video):

Members of the anarchist group Rouvikonas (Greek for Rubicon) on Thursday stormed the offices of the Hellenic-American Union in Kolonaki in central Athens, scattering fliers with the message “Freedom to Palestine.”

The increasingly-active group carried out a similar raid at the premises of the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce on Mesogeion Avenue.

No arrests were reported.

France’s Jewish population has good reason to feel afraid

Via The Spectator (Gavin Mortimer):

(..) But it’s France that remains the most dangerous European country for Jews. This week saw another violent attack, when an eight-year-old boy wearing a Jewish skullcap was beaten by two teenagers in a northern suburb of Paris, the same suburb that was ransacked during a pro-Palestine rally in 2014. In response to this latest outrage, president Emmanuel Macron tweeted that ‘every time a citizen is attacked because of their age, appearance or religion, the whole republic is attacked’. It was a facile tweet, one that will do nothing to assuage the growing fear among France’s diminishing Jewish population.

As I wrote after the Marseille attack, around 7,000 French Jews emigrated to Israel in 2014, while an estimated 8,000 took the same route in 2015, (more than four times the number who emigrated in 2011). That number had dropped to 5,000 in 2016, largely because of the reassuring security presence outside Jewish schools and synagogues following the Islamist terror attacks that included the killing of four people in a Kosher supermarket, but that still adds up to more than 20,000 Jews who fled France in three years. It is a statistic that has drawn little honest analysis from politicians. (...) 

In the last couple of years the number of attacks may have diminished slightly, but the level of violence is on the increase. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe admitted as much to parliament on Wednesday, although he couldn’t bring himself to name those responsible, merely pointing to a ‘new brutal form of anti-Semitism’.

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Belgium counters US cuts with $23 million for UN Palestinian fund

Via The Times of Israel:

Extra cash from Brussels comes as UNRWA launches fundraising campaign after the Trump administration withholds $65 million Belgium has stepped in to help out the UN  

Agency assisting Palestinian refugees with an immediate disbursement of $23 million after the Trump administration suspended $65 million in aid for the international organization.

De Croo said he was responding to a global fundraising appeal from UNRWA in hopes of making up for funding cuts announced by the United States. The money is Belgium’s allocation for three years but because of the group’s immediate need, De Croo’s office said it will be “disbursed immediately.”

The US provides roughly one-third of UNRWA’s budget, and the agency has warned that it now faces the “most dramatic financial crisis” in its nearly 70-year history. The agency provides health care, education and social services to 5 million Palestinians across the Middle East. 

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Greece: Holocaust memorial in Thessaloniki desecrated with "Free Palestine" graffiti

Via Avi Mayer@Twitter

Germany: 70 years after WWII every single Jewish institution still needs police protection

Via Watch Antisemitism in Europe: 

Over 70 years after the Second World War every single Jewish institution in Germany still needs police protection since there is a constant potential threat of anti-Semitic attacks.

In Berlin alone, nearly 60 Jewish facilities are guarded around the clock by an estimated 350 police officers. On top of that Berlin's Jewish community has its own security service, which works closely with the police.

4th night of Hanukkah during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Berlin

JFDA - Jüdisches Forum für Demokratie und gegen Antisemitismus

Netherlands: Man holding Palestinian flag smashes windows of Amsterdam kosher restaurant

Watch video here.

Via Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

Police are investigating the smashing of a window of a kosher restaurant in a heavily-Jewish part of the Dutch capital by a man wearing a Palestinian flag. 

The incident at HaCarmel restaurant occurred Thursday morning, hours after President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The AT5 television station showed a video of the incident, in which a man holding a large stick while holding a Palestinian flag and wearing a Palestinian keffiyah, or shal, on his head proceeds to smash the windows and kick down the restaurant’s doors as passersby and two police officers look on. The officers wait until he breaks into the restaurant. They pause as he returns out to the street from the restaurant’s interior holding an Israeli flag that he took from there. He throws it at their feet. Then they overpower the man and arrest him. 

Contacted by JTA, an employee at HaCarmel declined to comment on the circumstances of the incident, which the Federative Jewish Netherlands group reported online with a pictures of a Dutch police officer kneeling in front of a shattered glass window, with a Star of David hanging on the restaurant’s wall in the background. 

“Jerusalem is recognized as the capital by the United States of America, so the windows of an Israeli restaurant in Amsterdam are smashed.  Only logical. The Palestinian shall complete the story,” Federative Jewish Netherlands wrote on Twitter.

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UK: Pensioner sentenced over anti-Semitic slogans

Via Jewish News:

A 68-year-old pensioner from Altrincham has been sentenced for carrying out a spray-paint graffiti campaign which saw him scrawl slogans which included “BDS”, “Gaza Bleeds” and “ZioNazis”.

Timothy Rustige pleaded guilty to eight counts of criminal damage, which were carried out between September 2016 and August 2017, and saw the messages written on the River Bollin Aqueduct in Dunham Massey. 

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Italy: Good news from Italy - presented by Israel-haters

Via Elder of Ziyon:

Reading about Israeli political victories through the eyes of Israel-haters who are not used to having the tide turned against them is a lot of fun.

From Scoop.nz: 

Anti-BDS Laws and Pro-Israeli Parliament: Zionist Hasbara is Winning in Italy

By Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud
A proposed law at the Italian Parliament is set to punish the boycott of Israel. In the past, such an initiative would have been unthinkable. Alas, Italy, a country that had historic sympathies with the Palestinian cause has shifted its politics in a dramatic way in recent years. Most surprisingly, though, the Left is as implicated as the Right in the rush to please Israel, at the expense of Palestinian rights.

The sad reality is this: Italy is moving to the Israeli camp. This is not only pertinent to political alignment, but in the reconfiguration of discourse as well. Israeli priorities, as articulated in Zionist hasbara (official propaganda) have now become part of our everyday lexicon of Italian media and politics. As a result, the Zionist agenda is now part and parcel of Italian political agenda as well.

Italy’s anti-Fascist, anti-military occupation and revolutionary past is being overlooked by self-serving politicians, growingly beholden to the pressures of a burgeoning pro-Israel lobby.

The pro-Israel trend has been in motion for years. In a famous interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot in 2008, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga declared: “Dear Italian Jews, we sold you out”.

Cossiga was referring to the so-called “Lodo Moro”, an unofficial agreement, which was allegedly signed in the 1970’s by Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro and the leaders of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP). Its understanding supposedly allowed the Palestinian group to coordinate its actions throughout the Italian territory, in exchange for the PLFP keeping Italy out of its field of operation.

The “Lodo Moro” is often used in Israeli hasbara to highlight Italy’s supposed failures in the past, and to continue associating Palestinians with terrorism.

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