UK/Spain: Penguin rebuts charge of antisemitism against author Pedro Baños

Via Guardian:

Penguin has undertaken a “thorough” review of one of its books, Spanish colonel Pedro Baños’s How They Rule the World, after allegations of antisemitism were made against its author. The publisher concluded that while Baños’s views are “robust”, they are not antisemitic.

How They Rule the World, which promises to reveal “the 22 secret strategies of global power”, was published by Penguin Random House imprint Ebury Press in April. Author Jeremy Duns began drawing attention to the book after he spotted links between the title and the cover, which bears an image of octopus tentacles. The octopus has long been associated with antisemitism; Hitler refers in Mein Kampf to the octopus of the supposed Jewish conspiracy for world conquest, and it was a frequently used symbol in Nazi-era propaganda.

Comparing the Spanish language edition of How They Rule the World with the English text, Duns found a section about the Rothschild family, a banking dynasty subject to many antisemitic conspiracy theories, which does not appear in the English translation. The Spanish edition contains three references to the Rothschilds, none of which appear in the English, including a section that compares their wealth with other rich families, and concludes: “It is clear that [the Rothschilds’] economic power is gigantic. As is their ability to influence in all senses, an aspect that, when considering their traditional distance from the media spotlight, has led to multiple speculations about their capacity to intervene in key global decisions.”

Baños is described by Ebury Press as “one of Europe’s top specialists in geopolitics, terrorism and intelligence”. A colonel in the Spanish army, he was previously the chief of counter-intelligence and security for the European Army Corps. In interviews with Spanish media, Baños has called the Rothschilds dominant and likened them to the Illuminati. On Spanish TV, he also once accused Israel of being behind the assassination of John F Kennedy.

Duns accused Penguin of having knowingly published “a Spanish antisemitic conspiracy theorist … because to cover it up they’ve removed passages about the Rothschilds. I think you’ll agree this is a pretty serious problem we’re facing. As usual, it’s about fact-checking, research, due diligence, and not doing them.”

Penguin said it was aware of the “serious concerns” raised about How They Rule the World, telling the Guardian that they had prompted it to take a close look at both the book and the author.

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Portugal: Cartoonist blames ‘Jewish propaganda machine’ for condemnation of his drawing

Via Times of Israel:

Antonio Antunes denies his NY Times caricature of Netanyahu as a dog leading blind Trump is anti-Semitic, says it critiques Israel’s ‘criminal conduct in Palestine’

The Portuguese cartoonist behind the New York Times cartoon that depicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog has rejected charges of anti-Semitism, calling critics part of the “Jewish propaganda machine.”

Antonio Moreira Antunes, who draws for the Expresso newspaper published in Lisbon, told CNN Wednesday that Jews were not “above criticism.”

The calls of anti-Semitism were “made through the Jewish propaganda machine, which is, anytime there’s criticism it’s because there’s someone anti-Semitic on the other side, and that’s not the case,” Antunes told CNN.

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On Monday, Antunes said the cartoon was “a critique of Israeli policy, which has a criminal conduct in Palestine at the expense of the UN, and not the Jews,” Expresso reported.

“The Star of David is an aid to identify a figure [Netanyahu] that is not very well known in Portugal,” the cartoonist explained to Expresso.

He blamed right-wing figures saying: “The Jewish right doesn’t want to be criticized, and therefore, when criticized they say ‘We are a persecuted people, we suffered a lot… this is anti-Semitism.'”

Antunes claimed he was personally hurt by the Times’ statements of apology since publishing the caricature, saying the paper should have seen his work as “a political issue and not religious.”

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UK: Labour suspends Mohammed Yasin, who blamed ‘all wars in the world’ on Jewish people

The man shared antisemitic posts for more than two years, and the Labour party had no idea. What does that say about their rank-and-file?

Via Times:

A senior Labour Party official shared anti-semitic material blaming Jews for “all the wars in the world”.

Labour’s West Midlands regional organiser, Mohammed Yasin, was suspended last night after The Sunday Times approached the party with a dossier of his activity on social media. Labour has launched an investigation.

For more than two years Yasin, not to be confused with the Labour MP with a similar name, shared anti-semitic posts and 9/11 conspiracy theories, praised a homophobic preacher and described his former leader Tony Blair as a “child-killer”.

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France: Tax protests often feature anti-Semitic rhetoric

Via JTA:

Protests in France over taxes are giving rise to anti-Semitic rhetoric, a prominent watchdog group said.

The head of the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism, or BNVCA, Sammy Ghozlan, said Wednesday that “the ‘Yellow Jackets’ movement has an anti-Semitic base that repeats conspiracy theories about Jews and power.”

Launched last month as a protest against a proposed rise in diesel and fuel taxes, the movement has expanded into an anti-government drive featuring violent riots that have shut down the French capital several times. Some protesters have been filmed carrying signs and chanting slogans describing French President Emmanuel Macron as a “whore of the Jews” and their “puppet.”

Such language “was present from the very beginning of the protests and persists,” Ghozlan said, although he added that it exists “on the margins” of the protests. France has seen a 69 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2018 over the past year.

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Germany: Less than half of Germans think Jews don't have too much influence in the world

Percentage who didn't answer the question added in brackets.

Via Marcel Dirsus @ Twitter

Anti-semitism in Germany: 

Percentage of people who believe that Jews have too much influence in the world
AfD supporters: 55%     [22%]
Linke supporters: 20%   [30%]     
Green supporters: 17%   [47%]
FDP supporters: 19%     [35%]
SPD supporters: 16%     [37%]
CDU/CSU supporters: 19%   [41%]

(Source: Allensbach/FAZ)

Greece: Argos mayor expelled over anti-Semitic rant

Via ekathimerini (h/t glykosymoritis)

The mayor of the small town of Argos in southern Greece, Dimitris Kambosou, was expelled from the New Democracy party on Friday over anti-Semitic references regarding his counterpart in Thessaloniki, Yiannis Boutaris.

The decision was taken by the conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

In an anti-Semitic rant, Kambosou expressed his dislike of Boutaris over his stance on various national and social issues, adding that “he only gets away with it because he is liked by the Jews.”

“He can say what he wants because he wears the [kippah],” he said.

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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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Greece: Thessaloniki mayor injured after far-right attack

Tsakalidis was called "slave of the Jews"

Via al-Jazeera (h/t glykosymoritis)

The mayor of Greece's second-largest city was admitted to hospital with injuries after he was set upon by a group of ultra-nationalist demonstrators.

The attack took place in the northern coastal city of Thessaloniki on Saturday during a commemoration marking the killing of Greeks in the Ottoman Empire during the tail end of the World War I.

(...)

Kostas Tsakalidis, a Thessaloniki-based photographer, witnessed the attack while covering the flag-lowering ceremony during Saturday's commemoration.

"A group of people started to shout at him for his opinion on the Macedonian dispute, the LBGTQI community, Turkey, and [nationalist] football clubs," he told Al Jazeera, adding that he had seen many of the assailants at "extreme right protests" in recent months.

"Some people were shouting about Jews because he has had [a] close relationship with the Jewish community over the years."

Tsakalidis explained that Boutaris fell to the ground after being hit, while attackers threw bottles "and other objects" at him. One assailant proceeded to kick the mayor as he lay on the pavement.

Although a group of police officers were located nearby, Tsakalidis said "none of them intervened" to stop the attack. 

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Turkey: Uber a Jewish conspiracy - Istanbul taxi drivers’ head

Via Ahval News:

The president of the Chamber of Istanbul Taxi Businesses has accused Uber of being a targeted attack on his industry carried out by what he called “the Jewish lobby”, Turkish Jewish newspaper Şalom said .

“The global thieving Jewish lobby is carrying out commercial taxi piracy in Turkey,” Eyüp Aksu told a crowd of anti-Uber protesters outside an Istanbul courthouse.

He said the Turkish media were joining in, attacking taxi drivers with biased articles.

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UK: Former UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom makes "Jewish bank" comment

Via Jewish Chronicle:

A former Ukip Member of the European Parliament has been accused of making an antisemitic comment after referring to an “international Jewish bank” recommending a second vote on Brexit.

Mr Bloom tweeted this morning in response to Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Mr Blankfein had tweeted yesterday, saying that the “#Brexit decision belongs to UK citizens, and I'm not one. But GS [Goldman Sachs] built its Euro biz in the UK on certain assumptions, pays taxes and employs thousands of UK citizens concerned about the economy and their futures. On their behalf, at least, I have to be interested in the outcome.”

In response, Mr Bloom quoted the tweet this morning, saying that “International Jewish bank recommends second vote & we should vote Remain. mmmmmmmmmmmm.”

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France: Socialist in hot water over antisemitic Twitter post

Via JTA:

France’s Socialist Party said it has initiated a procedure for ousting a lawmaker whose Twitter account featured an image of President Emmanuel Macron deemed anti-Semitic.

Gérard Filoche’s account last week showed Macron wearing a Nazi-like armband with a dollar sign and three well-known European Jews – the French economist Jacques Attali, entrepreneur Patrick Drahi and the British banking magnate Jacob Rothschild — in the background towering over the earth while flanked by an Israeli and American flag.

Filoche, who removed the image and apologized for its posting, said he “did not do” it himself but assumes responsibility. He told the Liberation daily it “should not have posted because it and its source are bad.”

The Liberation traced the image to the website of Alain Soral, a far-right Holocaust denier and member of the Anti-Zionist Party that he founded with Dieudonne M’Bala M’bala. Both have multiple convictions for inciting hatred against Jews.

But Filoche, defending himself against accusations of anti-Semitism, tweeted that he does not apologize for calling out the “cabal” depicted by the image.

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UK: Baroness Tonge shares “Jewish lobby” rant complete with antisemitic caricature of hook-nosed Jew

Via CAA:

Disgraced Baroness Tonge, who was twice suspended from the Liberal Democrats over allegations of antisemitism and eventually resigned as pressure mounted, has shared an antisemitic caricature on Facebook.

The caricature was part of an image which claimed to expose the “AIPAC Jewish lobby” through a quote supposedly from Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters. In the bottom-right corner of the image, an antisemitic caricature of a big-nosed Jew clasping his hands together can be seen. The caricature is commonly used by neo-Nazis and far-left extremists in antisemitic social media memes.

The original post, which Baroness Tonge shared, was posted by Saeed Sarwar, who commented on the image: “I’ve checked with 4 specialist friends in case anyone tries to suggest this is antisemitism. It’s actually bang on.”

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UK: Chairman of British University in Egypt, asserts that “Rabbis” gathered to decide “how can we control the world?”

Via CAA:

Mohamed Farid Fouad Khamis, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the British University in Egypt (BUE) and one of its principal donors, has promoted the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Mr Khamis’ conspiracy-laden speech at a Cairo conference is particularly disturbing because there is close cooperation between the BUE, the British Government and universities in the UK.

The comments were made in a speech at the second annual conference on “Sustainable Media and Development for Arab Societies, Real Challenges and Future Prospects” which was organised by the El Shorouk Media Academy under the patronage of Dr Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, the Minister for Higher Education and Scientific Research in the Egyptian Government and the Head of the Egyptian National Committee to UNESCO.

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Ukraine: Firebomb hurled at synagogue in Lviv

Via Haaretz:

Unidentified individuals hurled a firebomb at a synagogue in Lviv and, in a separate incident, wrote anti-Semitic slogans on another Jewish community building in the western Ukrainian city.

The incident involving a firebomb occurred on June 30 but was discovered only Monday, according to the Strana news site. The perpetrators may have aimed the firebomb at a window of the synagogue on Mikhovsky Street but missed it, hitting the building facade, the director of the Chesed-Arieh Jewish group, Ada Dianova, told Strana.

The contents of the firebomb fell to the foot of the building and burned there, resulting in no damage to the interior, she added. No one was hurt in the incident.

The anti-Semitic slogans painted on a former building of the community on Sholem Aleichem Street included the words” “Down with Jewish power” and: “Jews, remember July 1,” an apparent reference to a pogrom that took place in Lviv on that date in 1941.

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Austria: Half of Muslim youth hold antisemitic views

Via Jerusalem Post:

A study published by the University of Teacher Education in Vienna released on Saturday showed that almost 50% of young Austrian Muslims maintain an antisemitic attitude. The systematic delegitimization of Israel in Muslim-majority countries helps explain “imported antisemitism” into Europe, wrote the Austrian daily Der Standard in their report on the poll.

The poll asked Austrian Muslim students if they felt that “Jews have too much influence in Austria,” and 48% agreed with the statement.

The students aged between 16 through 19 have migrant backgrounds from a diverse set of Muslim-majority countries and some non-Muslim nations, including Bosnia, Turkey, Albania and Bulgaria. The students study at apprentice schools while working in the restaurant and hotel industry.

The authors of the study, Georg Lauss and Stefan Schmid-Heher, told Der Standard, in which the study was first reported, that “educational and prevention efforts against antisemitism need to be strengthened.”

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German study: over 50% of Muslim refugees hold anti-semitic views

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

More than half the asylum seekers in Bavaria subscribe to classic antisemitic views about Jewish power, according to a poll released last week. 

The study, conducted by the Hanns Seidel foundation – a think tank affiliated with the Christian Social Union party in the southern state of Bavaria, polled nearly 800 refugees during 2016 from the Bavarian cities of Nuremberg, Poing und Pliening. Their countries of origin are Syria, Eritrea, Iraq and Afghanistan.  

“More than half of Muslim asylum seekers showed clear tendencies of an antisemitic attitude pattern,” wrote the authors of the 201-page study examined by The Jerusalem Post. 

When asked by the investigators if “Jews have too much influence in the world,” 52% of Syrians said yes, while 53% of Iraqis agreed with the statement. Nearly 60% of Afghans said Jews wield too much influence, while a mere 5.4% of those from Eritrea – a Christian-majority country – held antisemitic views. Some Eritreans said they were familiar with Jews from the Bible. 

The number of Germans who affirmed the antisemitic statement about Jewish influence was 20%. In April, however, a new German government report revealed 40% of the German public hold a modern antisemitic view: the hatred of Israel. 

The Seidel study said “the decisive factor that explains antisemitic opinions is one’s religious group. Antisemitism in all age groups and educational background of Muslim asylum seekers,” is anchored in the educational system of the refugees’ countries of origin. A Syrian refugee named Mustafa said that “In Syria we were taught to hate a Jews a little bit. The government presented Jews as bad [people] who kill...” 

According to the study, there are “emotional prejudices against Israeli families from the side of the refugees.”

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France: Macron’s party boots politician over tweets deemed anti-Semitic

Via Times of Israel:

The party of France’s president-elect Emmanuel Macron withdrew from its parliamentary elections ticket a politician who made statements deemed anti-Semitic.

Christian Gerin, a journalist, was taken off the En Marche ticket Friday, a day after he was nominated to represent the party in next month’s elections for the French parliament, in connection with messages he wrote in 2013, throughout last year and this year on Twitter.

In one tweet, flagged as “anti-Semitic” by the LICRA watchdog against anti-Semitism and racism, he wrote: “When will there be a separation between CRIF and state?”

CRIF is the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, whose critics say wields too much influence over French politicians.

He also wrote that Manuel Valls, a former prime minister under outgoing President Francois Hollande, is “virulently Zionist, racist and an Islamophobe.” Gerin also wrote on Twitter: “The only solution: BDS.” Laurence Haim, a spokesperson for en Marche, confirmed to the France Bleu that the suspension was over the tweets.

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France: Mélenchon a presidential candidate with a record of statements deemed anti-Semitic

Via The Times of Israel (Cnaan Liphshiz):

Even before the communist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon emerged as a serious contender for the presidency in France, the elections were shaping up to be a fateful moment for the country’s 500,000 Jews. 

Many of them are deeply worried about the rise in the polls of Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front party, with its xenophobic policies and anti-Semitic roots. Some French Jews vowed to leave France should Le Pen win — she was leading the polls for weeks ahead of the first round of the elections on April 23 and the final one on May 7. 

With the meteoric rise of Melenchon, an anti-Israel lawmaker with a record of statements deemed anti-Semitic, French Jews now feel caught in a vice between two extremes. Melenchon climbed to third place in the polls, with approximately 20 percent of the vote this month, from fifth with 9 percent in February. 

“I don’t see any significant difference between Melenchon and the National Front on many issues,” Joann Sfar, a well-known French-Jewish novelist and filmmaker who used to support communist causes, wrote last week on Facebook. Both are “surrounded by Germanophobes, nationalists and France firsters.” 

Sfar’s post triggered a torrent of anti-Semitic statements about him on social networks. (...) 

CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, has also equated Melenchon with Le Pen. 

“They both traffic in hatred, and they are both a danger to democracy,” CRIF President Francis Kalifat told JTA last month, adding that his group shuns all contact with both politicians. 

Melenchon, 65, a former Socialist deputy minister, was born to Spanish parents in what today is Morocco. He supports a blanket boycott of Israel. True to his populist oratory style, has said that allowing Israel to keep even some West Bank settlements “is like letting bank robbers keep the money.” (...) 

These policies and his remarks have alienated many Jews, as did Melenchon’s assertion in 2013 that a Jewish Socialist politician, Pierre Moscovici, “thinks in international finances, not in French” – a statement critics said was anti-Semitic. (Melenchon denied the charge.) But it was only after a speech that Melenchon delivered in August 2014 that leaders of French Jewry flagged him as a public enemy. 

Speaking in Grenoble less than a month after nine synagogues were attacked amid a wave of violent and unauthorized protests against Israel over its war with Hamas in Gaza that summer, Melenchon praised the protesters. He also condemned French Jews for expressing solidarity with Israel in a support rally in front of its embassy.“I want to congratulate the youth of my country who mobilized in defense of the miserable victims of war crimes in Gaza,” Melenchon said in the speech at a general assembly of his Left Party. “They did so with model discipline when they were pushed to extremes on all sides. They knew how to remain dignified and embodied better than anyone the founding values of the French republic.” 

Melenchon did not mention the synagogue attacks and the wave of anti-Semitic assaults that followed the protests. But he did go on to criticize thousands of French Jews over their support for Israel. 

“If we have anything to condemn, then it is the actions of citizens who decided to rally in front of the embassy of a foreign country or serve its flag, weapon in hand,” he said. 

Melenchon also said: “We do not believe that any people is superior to another” — a statement some of his critics took as an allusion to the Torah’s designation of Jews as the “chosen people.” 

He also accused CRIF of attempting to label him an anti-Semite in order to discredit his criticism of Israel. 

“We’ve had enough of CRIF,” Melenchon said, shouting. “France is the opposite of aggressive communities that lecture to the rest of country.”

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Ukraine: War hero and lawmaker speaks against "Jewish takeover"

 
Via JTA:

A Ukrainian lawmaker and war hero used a word usually translated as “kikes” in complaining that Jews wield excessive power in her country.

Nadiya Savchenko, a fighter jet pilot who was elected to parliament in 2014 while she was still being held as a prisoner of Russia, made the statements on Saturday during a televised interview for the 112 station and insisted they were not indicative of anti-Semitic bias.

Savchenko was asked to address criticism that in a television interview earlier this month, she failed to condemn the anti-Semitic statements of a caller with whom she seemed to agree.

During the 112 interview on Saturday, which was conducted in Ukrainian, Savchenko said, “I have nothing against Jews. I do not like ‘kikes.’” She later said Jews possess “80 percent of the power when they only account for 2 percent of the population.”

In expressing neutrality to Jews, she used the word “evreiv,” which speakers both of Ukrainian and Russian is a neutral designation. But later she used the term “zhidiv,” which in Russian is a pejorative for Jews, akin to “kike” in English.

Some Ukrainians claim the word “zhid” is the standard designation for a Jew in their language, though leaders of the Ukrainian Jewish community insist it is offensive to Jews in both languages.

In the same interview, Savchenko cited the fact that Ukraine’s prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, is Jewish and claimed that the country’s president, Petro Poroshenko, also has Jewish roots along with Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and a leader of the nation’s Orange Revolution.

The ancestries of both Proshenko and Timoshenko have been the subject of speculation in Ukraine and beyond.

During the earlier interview on March 21 for OneNews, Savchenko agreed in principle with a caller who inveighed against a “Jewish takeover of Ukraine.”

She replied: “Indeed, part of the ruling establishment in Ukraine does not possess distinctly Ukrainian blood and we need to talk about it and act.”

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UK: Undercover investigation finds Palestine Solidarity Campaign 'driven by antisemitic motivation'

An undercover investigation by David Collier found hard-core antisemitism in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

According to Collier, the research "suggests that over 40% of all public PSC protest activity is driven by antisemitic motivation."

"When I refer to antisemitism within this study, I avoided *all references to the conflict*. We all know the trick is to deflect accusations of antisemitism with a false cry about criticism of Israeli policy. I set out to avoid this. I was only interested in those pushing conspiracy theory, holocaust denial or classic antisemitic tropes. The argument that antisemitism is about legitimate criticism of Israel simply has no weight against this research. The bar for antisemitism that was used is unnaturally high.  As an example, if the worst I found was an activist suggesting Israel should be destroyed, is committing genocide and Zionists are all Nazis, that activist *would not* have made the grade for this research. Let that fact sink in."

"The ‘antisemitism’ referred to here is *ONLY* ‘hard core’ antisemitism. Examples include: USA controlled by Zionists; Jews responsible for 9/11; the Paris Bataclan massacre was a ‘false flag’ to increase support for Israel; Ashkenazi Jews are fake; Zionist Jews support ISIS; Jewish Zionists stir up fake antisemitism; many varieties of Holocaust Denial; Israel harvests organs from the dead; Israel harvests organs from the living; Mossad wanted to assassinate Obama; the BBC is ‘the Zionist Broadcasting Corporation’,  ‘Zionist tentacles’ controlling Parliament; Mossad did 7/7/2005 in London; Kristallnacht instigated by Communist and Freemason Jews to promote War against Germany; Babylonian Talmud advocates sex with child age three; Goyim bloodshed ritual by the Talmudic worshipers [sic] of Moloch, the children holocaust bloodthirsty monster…."

"The people found during this research sit on the top table of the PSC. They are the Chairs of PSC
branches, they stand next to the branch chair at the demo, they man the PSC stalls in
the High St, they sit in the front row of the PSC events and these are the only ones who answer when the PSC drumbeat calls to war. If these people are not the PSC, then who are?"


Full report here.