Europe: Why does the Pope trot out antisemitic tropes?

Giles Fraser @ Unherd:

Pope Francis loves to reference the Pharisees and hypocrites in his sermons. Whether it is corruption in the priesthood or the European attitude towards refugees, it has become one of his things. Last Sunday, the Pope again used his address at the Angelus to return to this well worn theme. Admittedly, the gospel reading from Mark was all about Jesus’s reaction to the “scribes and Pharisees” who challenge Jesus’s followers for not following the Jewish law. But it was classic Francis: “The hypocrite is a liar, he’s not authentic,” he told his audience. “A man or woman who lives in vanity, in greed, in arrogance and at the same time believes and pretends to be religious and goes as far as condemning others, is a hypocrite.” Many took this to be a reference to the abuse scandals that have rocked the Church in places such as Ireland, from where he has recently returned.

There are multiple examples of Francis using ‘Pharisee’ as a term of abuse. Let one more example stand for many. Last October, at Mass in Casa Santa Marta (St Martha’s guesthouse) where he lives, he said: “Three months ago, in a country, in a city, a mother wanted to baptise her newly born son, but she was married civilly to a divorced man. The priest said, ‘Yes, yes. Baptise the baby. But your husband is divorced, so he cannot be present at the ceremony.’ This is happening today. The Pharisees, or Doctors of the Law, are not people of the past, even today there are many of them.”

Now, I don’t dissent from the general sentiment of these pronouncements. Francis is a good man, wanting to shift the Roman Church in the right direction. And nor do I think Francis is unique in laying so much emphasis on his condemnation of Pharisees and their hypocrisy – Christians have been attacking the Pharisees since the earliest days of the Christian proclamation. Hence ‘Pharisee’ long ago became a code work for religious hypocrisy in general.

But there has always been something basically racist about this association: Pharisees are Jews, and Jews are shifty, untrustworthy, hypocrites. Given the long and violent Christian persecution of Jews, today’s Christians should be far more circumspect in referencing the Pharisees as Francis regularly does.

So who were the Pharisees, and what did they stand for? 

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Hungary: PM accused of ‘anti-Semitic’ undertones in election rally speech

Via Jewish News:

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban used language which some critics have said has anti-Semitic undertones.

Speaking at a rally, three weeks before he seeks re-election for a third term, in Budapest, Orban harshly criticised proponents of immigration. He also called out George Soros, the Hungary-born Jewish financier and philanthropist, and those who support his “open society” ideals.

“We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world,” Orban said, according to the Guardian’s Shaun Walker.

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Switzerland: More Swiss Jews now live in Israel than in Switzerland

Via BZ Basel (Annika Bangerter):

When the plane from Basel flies over the rolling fields heading to the Ben Gurion airport, emigrants from Basel will not be looking at the Tel Aviv skyline for the first time. They know the city and Israel from previous visits to relatives and from the long summer holidays.  The blazing heat, the bustling sea, the narrow streets: all this is familiar to them when they move from Basel to the Promised Land. 

It is becoming increasingly common. In 2010, around 15,000 Swiss men and women were living in Israel.  Last year there were 19,000 Swiss living in Israel. Today, Israel counts more inhabitants with a red Swiss passport than Jews living in Switzerland. 

Nearly 18,000 Jews live in Switzerland. What makes the Swiss of the Jewish faith go to the Promised Land? What do they expect from their lives? And the fulfillment of their aspirations? That is what «Schweiz am Wochenende» wanted to find out, exactly 120 years after the Basel Zionist Congress - one of the most important milestones in the history of the Jewish state.

read the article in German

UK Reuters: European Jews are "immigrant population" difficult to integrate

Via Reuters UK:

The Muslim and Jewish communities in Flanders have criticised a proposal by the Belgian region to ban the unstunned slaughter of small animals, which they say would contravene their rules for ritual killing.  

Under the draft law, animals like Sheep and poultry will have to be stunned electrically before being killed, which most animal rights campaigners say is more humane than the Islamic halal and Jewish kosher rituals. Both require that butchers swiftly slaughter the animal by slitting its throat and draining the blood.  

"Unstunned slaughter is outdated," Ben Weyts, regional minister of animal welfare, said in a statement. "In a civilised society, it is our damn duty to avoid animal suffering where possible."  

The bill has broad support in the predominantly Catholic region, and the opposition from Flanders' religious minorities illustrates the difficulties facing some European countries as they struggle to integrate immigrant populations.

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Immigrant population?  See for yourself.  

Judaism has a long history in Belgium, from the 1st century CE until today. The Jewish community numbered 66,000 on the eve of the Second World War but, after the war and the Holocaust, is now less than half that number." (Wikipedia)

UK: Palestinian flag falsely used to represent WW2 pilot

From Honest Reporting:

The Independent’s Indy100 commemorates the 76th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Britain by including an infographic of the different nationalities of those pilots who fought for the Royal Air Force against the Nazis.

It includes one pilot from “Palestine” represented by the flag of what most readers would associate with the modern Palestinian Authority or Palestinian national movement.

Except that in 1941, “Palestine” was actually British Mandate Palestine and the flag in the infographic represented not the British administration but the Arab nationalists fighting against the British (and the Jewish community).

Moreover, the pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain alluded to in the infographic as a Palestinian was one George Goodman, whose background is explained on the Battle of Britain Memorial website:

At the end of the classic film The Battle of Britain there is a list of the nationalities of the participating Allied airmen. Included is the suggestion that one Israeli took part. Given that the State of Israel was not founded until 1948 this cannot be true. Other lists show not an Israeli but a Palestinian. This is also false.

In each case, it would appear that the man being referred to is Pilot Officer George Ernest Goodman, who flew Hurricanes in the Battle with No 1 Squadron. Some sources specifically show him as Palestinian.

In fact Goodman held British nationality and could have shown any doubter a British passport and birth certificate. He was killed in action in 1941 and the suggestion that he did not die fighting for his own country has distressed members of his family ever since.

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Italian journalist suspended for ties to Hezbollah

Background: Did an Italian journalist collude with Hezbollah for a propaganda broadcast?


From Honest Reporting:

Following up on Michela Moni — the Italian journalist who duped Israeli political leaders and soldiers into interviews which subsequently appeared on a Hezbollah TV station — YNet columnist Smadar Perry reports that Moni was suspended from his job at Italy’s ANSA News Agency.

I assume that expressions of contrition will not help Moni in his disciplinary hearing. He acted dishonestly. When he requested the interviews (with the aid of an Israeli official with ties to the media), he made two promises: The first was that the interviews would be shown on the BBC and Al-Jazeera. The second was that it would be broadcast on “international media” outlets. It just so happened that politicians, experts, and one IDF major general casually fell into the trap. Who would give up an opportunity to speak to the “international media,” after all?

This embarrassing episode is an important lesson in media. I assume the politicians’ spokespeople fell for this trick because Moni used the respected ANSA name. Had they made even a single phone call to the Rome-based news agency’s Jerusalem offices, this fiasco could have been prevented. Nothing would happen to a spokesperson if they insist on finding out whether this interview really was on the up and up (again, it could be done in as little as one phone call). And to be honest, professional spokespeople should have been suspicious when they heard about an alleged cooperation between Al-Jazeera and the BBC.

Palestinian TV producer Ahmad Barghouti – who solicited Moni’s services to get the interviews, paid , and started this whole mess – cannot be found. He’s not responding to cell phone calls and has disappeared.

Portugal journalists: Slain Palestinian terrorists are not ‘murdered’

A bit of common sense and good journalistic practice from Portugal.

The Times of Israel reports:

Henrique Cymerman

The union of Portuguese journalists has rejected a complaint by the Palestinian Authority about a reporter’s use of the word “murder” to describe only victims of terrorist attacks and not their perpetrators.

Portugal’s Syndicate of Journalists published its decision last week on a complaint that Hikmat Ajjuri, the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to Portugal, filed in December against Henrique Cymerman, the Israel reporter for Portugal’s Independent Communication Company, or SIC. 

The December 13 report by Cymerman focused on incitement in the Palestinian Authority “to kill Jews,” as Cymerman, who is Jewish, described it. In the report, Cymerman said that many of the perpetrators of attacks against Israelis regard their actions as part of a holy war. He also interviewed people who said it was in reaction to the Israeli occupation.

The item had an on-screen caption that read “22 Israelis were murdered and roughly 100 Palestinian assailants were killed.”

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UK: Why Is the Anne Frank Trust providing window dressing for Islamist Anti-Semites?

Mosaic reports:

A representative of the Anne Frank Trust, a British-Jewish charity, has agreed to participate on a panel alongside Abdurraheem Green [a Catholic convert to Islam], a prominent anti-Semitic Islamist preacher. To make matters worse, the event is part of Green’s campaign to present the organization he runs as respectable. Samuel Westrop writes:

Green has spoken of a “Yehudi . . . stench” and urged Muslims to “push [the Jews] to the side.” In addition, he encourages men to hit their wives to “bring them to goodness,” and has called for the killing of homosexuals and adulterers.

The event on May 21 is part of a broader “anti-racism” campaign launched by . . . [Green’s] Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA), . . . [which] describes itself as “a global [proselytizing] organization” that works “to empower Muslims as individuals and local communities to invite and inform people about Islam.” In truth, the iERA is one of Britain’s most extreme Islamist groups. . . . In 2013, five members of an iERA youth group . . . left for Syria to join the Islamic State terrorist group. . . .

Well-intentioned activists often treat the notion of “dialogue” as an unassailable good. More often than not, however, Islamist groups merely regard these activists as useful dupes on whom to advance extremist agendas. Unfortunately, as history shows, providing extremists with a platform only serves to legitimize “anti-racism” and interfaith initiatives that openly promote illiberal and anti-democratic agendas.

Read more at Gatestone

Slovenia: Philosopher Slavoj Zizek tells an obscene Jewish joke in an interview with Spiegel

German newspaper Spiegel interviewed Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. The newspaper believes that the man is a genius and claims that he "is one of Europe's boldest intellectuals", "one of the most famous contemporary thinkers and cultural theorists in the world" and "a globally influential intellectual" who in a new work "argues Europe shouldn't be overly tolerant towards Islamism".  So we should reverentially heed what this intellectual super hero has to say.

In fact he doesn't say much about islamism or Islam.  Unsurprisingly Zizek had more to say about Jews than Islamism.  And the genius tells an allegdly supposedly Jewish joke - aren't Jews marvellously adept at self-derision?  But, unsurprisingly again, no joke about Muslims.  He admits that the joke is obscene, but it's always such a pleasure in Europe to poke fun at the Jews - and their Jew-obsession carries absolutely no risk:

Or take the Jewish joke -- they can be wonderful in their self-derision. Do you know this one? A Jewish woman of Polish origin -- they're considered to be particularly serious in nature -- stoops as she cleans a tile floor. When her husband gets home and sees her stretched backside, he pulls up her skirt in excitement and takes her from behind. When he is finished, he asks his wife if she has also been brought to climax. No, she says, I still have three more tiles to go. Without obscene exchanges like that, we don't have any real contact with each other -- just a cold respect.

Has the  humanist, bold philosopher anything to say about the massacre of Christians in Africa, in the Middle East? About the way the Roma are treated in Europe?  Nothing at all. The journalist doesn't bother either.  But he obviously had to bring up the Palestinians as a great universal cause. How so?

Spiegel: So how can we develop an emancipatory solidarity between groups that are culturally different?

Žižek: [..]  Everything is dependent on this: the battle for the Palestinians and against anti-Semitism, WikiLeaks and Pussy Riot -- all are part of the same struggle. If not, then we can all just kill ourselves.

UK columnist: ‘Israel now more wicked and dangerous than Hamas’

Honest Reporting has the story:

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a columnist for The Independent, has much a long history when it comes to poisonous diatribes against Israel and Jews who support the state. She regularly describes Israel as a “racist” and “apartheid” state yet claims that some of her best friends are Jewish.  Her latest screed continues in this vein with some particularly disturbing comments even by her low standards. Chief among these is this statement:

Hamas is a wicked and dangerous force in the Middle East. But Israel is now more wicked and dangerous.

A look at the evil and anti-Semitic Hamas Charter, not to mention Hamas’s deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians as recently as last summer, is enough to demonstrate that the real wickedness on display here is Alibhai-Brown’s despicable claim that Israel is more virulent than a vicious terror organization.
But that is only one of many issues with Alibhai-Brown’s piece. She begins by praising Time magazine columnist Joe Klein for criticizing Israel even though he is, according to her, a “loyal Zionist all his life.” She writes:

It took courage to write with such honesty. It took a perceptive and reflective Jew to articulate what millions felt around the world. He will, by now, have felt the slings and arrows of outraged zealots.

Furthermore:

It isn’t easy to be a principled and mindful Diasporic Jew. Accused of treachery by insiders and mistrusted by outsiders, they can’t win.

Some still do censure the racist Israeli state, but carefully. Many don’t speak out because criticism of Israel provokes defensive Zionist fury and bolsters diehard anti-Semites.

On the contrary, it does not take a great deal of courage to criticize Israeli policies. Plenty of Diaspora Jews do that and it is their right to do so. If they do so “carefully” it is because they are not indulging in the demonization and delegitimization that characterizes so much of the hateful invective aimed at Israel these days. Aside from the Diaspora, even more Israelis are critical of their own government as befits a healthy democracy which has just held an intensely fought election. Of course, Alibhai-Brown can’t help but add the “racist” adjective into the mix as well treating Zionism as a dirty ideology.
Alibhai-Brown continues:

Many of us Muslims are caught in the same bind: if we condemn Islamicist ideologues, defensive Muslims get furious and anti-Muslim hatred is boosted.

More.

Portugal: Jew-hating photographer suspected of criminal activities

Nuno Lobito is a Portuguese photographer and self-styled "traveller of the world". He works for the RTP, the official state TV channel, in spite of saying atrocious things about the Jews. Asked what country he most disliked, Lobito has no hesitation: 

"I don't like Israel. It's a big house with few windows.  Israelis are extremely arrogant and are not at all my type of people,  I don't identify in the least with any of them."

His disgust for the Jewish people of Israel, who "treated him like a dog" is overwhelming - he liked all the 189 countries he visited, except one:

"But there is a country to which I shall never return which is Israel. There I encountered very arrogant people."  

Amigo de Israel  highlights that Lobito also boasted that when he travelled through Lebanon he wore a pro-Hezbollah T-shirt.

This is what features on his Facebook. He reacted to this comment: "I wonder if the Nazis were right after all.  These people are really bad or are they taking revenge for the past?  They are guilty from the moment they target children and babies..." Lobito replied: "All points to the fact they they are doing what was done to them in the past.  How nasty.  What a really nasty people, but for me it's not a surprise.  Jews were always like that.  Worse than all peoples.  All they want is to create colonies that's why this war makes sense to them.  Disgust is what I feel for the Jewish people.  I can't even kill a fly but they can kill 300 children."

But it now turns out that the  Nuno Lobito, a self-styled disciple of the Dalai Lama, is not quite the humanist he pretends to be.  Portugal News on Line has the story:  Nuno Lobito is one of the three suspected of being involved in serious crimes mentioned in the article- the third one being rapper Juve Leo Nuno Vieira Mendes, aka Mustafá Malabá:

Former Polícia Judiciária (PJ) detective and ex-Sporting Vice President Paulo Pereira Cristovão was this week arrested on a number of criminal charges, which include kidnapping and robbery. He gained widespread prominence after authoring a book, Estrela da Madeleine (Madeleine’s Star) in which he analyses the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from her holiday apartment almost eight years ago.

Paulo Pereira Cristovão was arrested this week as his former colleagues drew nearer to concluding an investigation initiated in July 2014 related to a series of criminal charges. Up until this week, investigations had resulted in the arrest of 12 people, including three PSP police officers.

Cristovão, also a former president of the Portuguese Association for Missing Children, has been linked to these 12 suspects and is said to have worked on “identifying potential victims who would then be robbed inside their homes. These robberies would be undertaken by police officers simulating house searches, armed with forged legal warrants. On occasion, these searches would be conducted by officers dressed in their respective uniforms”, culminating in robberies, PJ sources said, following the announcement of Cristovão’s arrest.

Police further explained that these crimes took place in the Greater Lisbon Area and Setúbal to the south, with the assailants often resorting to violence in order to establish where their victims had hidden cash or items of considerable value.

A statement issued by PJ police reveals that three men, aged between 37 and 49, among them Cristovão, 45, were detained by the National Anti-Terrorism Unit on charges which included the use of illegal firearms in a series armed robberies, with victims often being taken against their will.  The trio arrested on Tuesday are alleged to have been responsible for identifying targets for the subsequent and usually violent robberies perpetrated by their 12 accomplices.  [...]

Europeans loved scorning Israel's efforts to address terror but now war has irrevocably arrived in their cities

It's the first time I have read such a remarkable editorial in a European media.  It has to be said that, because there is so much fear of terrorists 'in our midst"  and of terrorism becoming irrevocably "part of everyday life" that lately criticism of Israel has been rather muted.  Things are indeed changing.

Terrorism in our midst

Jan Fleischhauer writes on Spiegel Online: The Terror in Our Cities 

Israel is the first democracy to have extensive experience with Islamist terrorism. Before recent attacks on our own soil, Europeans loved nothing better than scorning the Jewish state's efforts to address terror. In the future, we may need to turn to the Israelis for advice. 

The new Greek finance minister once called the West Bank security fence, built by Israel to protect its people from terrorist attacks, a "concrete monster." The barrier is always a key issue when critics of the Jewish state launch into their tirades. But the jump from outrage over the wall to sympathy for terrorism is a small one. In comments made on radio in 2005, left-wing superstar Giannis Varoufakis said we shouldn't be surprised when Palestinians strap on explosives belts. It's the kind of thing people say whose only experience with terror are occasional blowups with the spouse at home.

But perhaps we will soon be viewing things differently in Europe. Thus far, we have told ourselves that jihad is only a problem for countries that are less thoughtful or accommodating in their treatment of their Muslim minorities. Now, though, the war has irrevocably arrived in our cities.

The shots fired in Copenhagen provide sad confirmation that the attacks in Paris were only the beginning. We will soon come to recognize that there is a major difference between reading about a religious attack in the news or having to assume that you are at risk of becoming a victim yourself just because you attend the wrong event or visit the wrong café.

The Enemy Is Now in Our Midst
 
It has always been an open question how European democracies would defend themselves if the kind of Islamist terror Israeli society faces becomes part of everyday life.

In the two years prior to the erection of the controversial border installations, Israeli authorities counted 89 attacks, with 305 deaths and 4,942 injuries -- a significant number for a country with a population of just over 8 million. The number of casualties only began to fall after the construction of the wall. It's a success story that has never been viewed as such outside of the embattled country itself.

In Germany, we won't be able to build walls through our major cities in order to protect ourselves. The enemy we are dealing with doesn't live on the other side of the desert, it lives in our midst. We are left to rely on the acumen of people who have been trained to detect evil before it is too late.  Unfortunately, we are poorly equipped for the task. More.

Portugal: Newspaper promotes bonkers Jewish conspiracy book by Spanish author

Público, a Portuguese centrist-leaning "reference daily newspaper, carries an interview with Cristina Martín Jiménez, a Spanish "investigative journalist", author of a book entitled "The Club of the Powerful - the occult plans of Bilderberg" ("O Clube Secreto dos Poderosos — Os planos ocultos de Bilderberg"), recently translated into Portuguese, which promotes the bonkers conspiracy theory of Jewish domination and control of the world economy.

Question: You argue in your book that Bilderberg is an alliance between the Catholic aristocracy, the Jews and the Free masons? Where do the Jews and the Free masons come in?

Answer: "The Jews are into banking and occupy a privileged position to control the world finance. David Rockfeller, Henry Kissinger and the others are Jewish or Jewish-minded. Politicians, like Valérie [sic] Giscard d’Estaing, who promoted the European constitution, and Barak Obama are free masons."

Full interview: Público and RTVE.

Wikipedia gives some information about the daily.  Its editor is Bárbara Reis.  It was awarded the European Newspaper of the Year in the category of nationwide newspapers by European Newspapers Congress in 2014.  It is owned Sonae group - in 2007 Paulo Azevedo became Sonae's CEO, taking the group leadership and succeeding his father, Belmiro de Azevedo.

A Google search reveals that the book is receiving a lot of attention in Portugal HERE.

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: Jewish MP Gerald Kaufman: “You cannot appeal to the Israelis’ better nature because they do not have one”

MP Gerald Kaufman


More: Israelly Cool (with transcript of the speech)

UK: Slaughter in the synagogue is just politics as usual. That is the characteristic deficiency and true failure of the international community.

There is a perception, if not a widespread understanding, that anything to do with Jews and everything to do with Israel is acutely political. Throughout its recorded history and deeply divided textual historicity, questions of critical substance, reliability, ideology and theology abound. They may be reviewed, redacted, reformed or reaffirmed, but whichever way the Chosen People and the Promised Land are configured, theology becomes politics and politics is theological. You put a bunch of Jews in a synagogue in Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel, and the business of shul becomes a political process because Israel’s existence and Jerusalem’s status are problems awaiting international resolution. Their slaughter is tragic, but it may be construed as a justifiable political act by the oppressed people of Palestine because Israel cannot be conceived apart from its self-belief: there is no Israeli politics apart from its defining theological self-presentation.

Hence the tweets from Liberal Democrat MP David Ward and, for the Conservatives, Baroness Warsi. “Attack by #Palestinians in Jerusalem sickening madness – driven to madness by failure of international community to deal with Israel,” says Ward. “Israeli extremists storm Al Aqsa & intimidate worshippers Palestinian extremists storm synagogue & kill 4 worshippers #Tragic #peacenotwar,” says Warsi, then taking a swipe at Tory Chairman Grant Shapps for his hypocrisy.

It is quite astonishing moral turpitude to equate a blatant act of terrorism against worshipping Jews with Israeli national self-preservation. It is sickening indeed that the Palestinian “madness” is excused on the grounds of international indifference and the “failure..to deal with Israel”. Deal how? Do what? On what legal basis? With what equitable moral justification? [...]

To slaughter praying Jews in their shul for no other reason than that they are Jews praying in their shul is not a madness which can be blamed on the indolence of the international community. Nor is it equivalent to any protest made on Temple Mount. It is an insufferable act of evil of the subversive sort to which Israel has long been accustomed, and Jews have chronically endured. Slaughter in the synagogue is just politics as usual. That is the characteristic deficiency and true failure of the international community.

More: Archbishop Cranmer blog

France: Prominent Jewish lefty says "Israel is the end of the Jews" (Daniel Cohn-Bendit)

French-German Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a revolutionary who first came to proeminence as a student agitator at the Paris barricades in 1968 and former Member of the European Parliament for the Greens, is very popular in France (more so than in Germany) and is a commentator on the Europe 1 radio station.

He never misses an opportunity to bash Israel and did so yet again when interviewed last week by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

Cohn-Bendit confided that for a long time he had considered himself to be a Jew as defined by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, i.e. that his Jewish identity was imposed on him by "the other".  

He then boasted: "But that's wrong...  I am a disapora Jew.  My citizenship is universal and knows no borders.  This explains my position as a European.  Israel changes the nature of the Jews.  For me, Israel is the end of the Jews.  A Jew, as I understand it, is a diaspora Jew".

His inspiration?

"Marek Edelman, the last survivor of the Warsaw ghetto uprising - he remained in Poland, and he did not become an Israeli".

UK: Virulent anti-Zionistst historian Ilan Pappé up for Jewish Wingate prize

One of Israel's most virulent anti-Zionists has been nominated for this year's prestigious Jewish Quarterly-Wingate literary prize.

The inclusion on the longlist of The Idea of Israel by Ilan Pappé, who also wrote The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and has called Israel a "racist apartheid state", was condemned by the Zionist Federation. ZF chairman Paul Charney said: "The judges do a disservice to the other candidates by including Ilan Pappé. It is offensive that the blinkered hatred of the Jewish state that he promotes should be legitimised in this way."

More: Jewish Chronicle

Germany: Model aircraft manufacturer Herpa apologizes for negative reference to ‘Zionism’ in magazine article

The trouble is that many Europeans will see Herpa's apology as evidence of the controlling powers of the "lobby" in silencing all criticism of Israel and consider that Herpa's remarks are totally justified...  It is a no win situation, or rather a lose/lose situation.

"WingsWorld," Herpa's monthly magazine,
carries a feature about El Al that refers to
"US patronage of Zionism" and "a violent,
illegal occupation and eviction."
 Photo: The Algemeiner.

The Algemeiner reports:

The German company Herpa, the world’s leading manufacturer of quality model airplanes, has apologized for an article in its monthly magazine, WingsWorld, which included hostile references to Zionism.

As The Algemeiner reported on Tuesday, the article, which focused on Israel’s national airline El Al, contained a section which discussed the hijacking of El Al planes by Palestinian terrorists during the 1960s, and which was introduced with the following sentence: “The conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians, who have been experiencing the Jewish settlement of Palestine backed by US patronage of Zionism to this day as a violent, illegal occupation and eviction, increased significantly.”

The piece then went on to examine the hijackings carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, including the following observation: “The terror of the PFLP and many other organizations didn’t remain restricted to El Al, and has its bitter climax with the events of ’9-11′.”

WingsWorld is marketed to model airplane collectors and includes large numbers of children among its readers. Following a complaint to Herpa by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Dr. Shimon Samuels, Director of International Relations for the Jewish advocacy organization, spoke directly with Walter Wehr, Herpa’s General Manager for Sales and Production. Samuels told The Algemeiner that Wehr had assured him that a full apology would be published on the company’s website, that the offending sentences would be removed from the online version of the article, and that the company would now start visibly listing the El Al replica models it sells from its online shop. Samuels had expressed concern that the absence of El Al from a menu listing the different airline models available from Herpa gave the impression of a boycott of Israel.

More: Algemeiner

Turkey: Turkish Airlines urged not to distribute daily over anti-Semitic bias

The Human Rights Association (IHD) has called on Turkish Airlines (THY) to exclude the pro-government daily Yeni Akit, which is highly favored by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from the range of free newspapers offered on the company's passenger flights, because of the daily's anti-Semitic comments, Turkish media reported on Wednesday.

More: Today's Zaman