Europe: Pro-Palestinian lobbies are very active in the European Parliament

Via European Jewish Press - interview of Belgian pro-Israel Member of the European Parliament Frédérique Ries:

Frédérique Ries (R)

EJP: Do you think that today Europe and in particular the European Parliament understands better Israel’s security constraints in light of terror attacks in France, UK and Germany? Today, the conference you hosted highlighted Israel’s innovation, can this help?

F.R. :  I certainly hope it does, that’s why I am doing it… The room was full, it was a great satisfaction for me. I wish it would have been a greater room with even more people attending. Do I think that the world’s look on Israel has changed because unfortunately the whole world is sharing what has been the fate of Israel for 60 years, terrorism and terror attacks?  Of course ministers, foreign affairs ministers and experts from across the world have been flying to Israel to know  about their know-how, their expertise because as I said they know how to tackle terrorism… So certainly the experts from member states they must know better than they used to. I am not sure that here in the European Parliament, parliamentarians really realize that… All of them care about their districts, they have to be elected, some of them are populist, so I think that luckily the eyes of some of them have opened, others don’t really want to open their eyes… They don’t want to see the reality…. So they might be aware of it but they don’t want to see… while others don’t really care about it… Would it be a positive collateral effect of the terror attacks on the EU-Israel relations?    I am not sure I can say that… Israel is a partner more than ever but up to here I didn’t see any reaction from some of my colleagues. 

EJP: An MEP from Hungary told us that the pro-Palestinian lobby in the European parliament is stronger than the pro-Israel lobby. Do you agree with this assessment? 

F.R : Yes it is. But I don’t think ‘stronger’ is the most appropriate word… It is more present. There are many pro-Palestinian organisations. I mean it’s legitimate. I am not going to say it is not legitimate… Everybody has the right to be heard as long as it is in the democratic field. They never approached me so I can’t tell you exactly what they do inside the European Parliament. They never approached me, I never received any request for a meeting or whatsoever… But I know that they are very active… For the resolution on anti-Semitism that was voted two weeks ago in the plenary in Brussels they were present… They had circulated hundreds of emails questioning the internationally-accepted definition of anti-Semitism. The speeches of some of my colleagues MEPs in the hemicycle echoed precisely the emails coming from the pro-Palestinian lobbies which didn’t want the definition of anti-Semitism because it included a reference to Israel, the hatred of Israel. (...) People have the right to criticize the Israeli government policies, there is no mistake to be  made between the criticism of some policies and anti-Semitism.. but for them it was completely outraged to include Israel and the hatred of Israel in the definition of anti-Semitism. That came exactly from the emails of the pro-Palestinian lobby… Regarding the Israeli counterpart, what is called  a ‘lobby’, I know only the embassy, unless you consider for example that the European Jewish Congress to be a lobby for Israel, which it is not, it is an organization that fighting racism and anti-Semitism... I mean one cannot make confusion.. So there is the Israeli embassy and all the NGOs and different organisations that work for the Palestinians… It’s a bit uneven if you ask me… 

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Netherlands: The Anne Frank myth: authorities manipulate her diary to boost the country’s image

This is how the Holocaust is being trivialized in Europe - in this instance by the very self-proclaimed experts on antisemitism and nazism!

Via The Times of Israel (written by Asaf Simon):

In an effort to combat forays into the international public conscience suggesting that Dutch businessmen, civil servants and the public at large were ‘not nice at all’ – to put it mildly – during and after the Holocaust, this month the international media was presented with ‘new findings’ suggesting that Anne Frank was ‘not betrayed’ by an anonymous Dutch citizen, but that she and her fellow Jews-in-hiding had been stumbled upon by the SS.

 The ‘new findings’ were presented by none other than the Anne Frank Foundation. The Foundation says it had stumbled upon this new perspective after rereading Anne Frank’s diary. On March 10, 1944 Anne wrote “we are out of food stamps” after two men in the same building were detained for illegally trading in food stamps. On March 22nd Anne wrote that the two men had been released. After rereading these entries the Anne Frank Foundation decided to “research documents from police and the justice ministry” in order to uncover how the SS had found the secret annex. Following lengthy research the Foundation came to the conclusion that: “Our research does not deny the possibility of betrayal, but it does demonstrate that other scenarios should also be considered.”

In October, the municipality of Amsterdam accidentally destroyed files relating to concentration camp survivors who had been fined for not paying property taxes while in Auschwitz. Recently, the autobiography of the Israeli-Dutch Holocaust survivor Carry Mass was published in the Netherlands. The revival of interest in the Dutch wartime past is of importance in the Netherlands because – with the exception of the country’s tiny Jewish community – only an extremely small percentage of the Netherlands’ law-abiding and conformist population has even an inkling of the extent of collaboration by Dutch authorities and the population at large during the Holocaust. Of course Dutch bureaucrats are even more concerned about the Netherlands’ image abroad, which is basically formed by respectable gobbledygook, such as the above gibberish from the Anne Frank Foundation. 

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Please read:
- Exploiting Anne Frank
- Netherlands: The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam is merely a simulacrum of a Jewish institution

- Netherlands: BDS group uses 'Palestinian' Anne Frank avatar

- Netherlands: Poster for Anne Frank musical vandalized

- Holland: Publisher’s contract with Hezbollah fan About Jahjah causes authors walkout

Hitler in bed with Anne Frank: "Write this one in your diary Anne!"

France: Jewish leader says comparing burkini ban to Holocaust is indecent

The trivialisation and the use for political gain of the extermination of European Jews has become common in Europe.
 
From the Times of Israel:

The head of France’s Jewish communities condemned a politician’s likening of a ban on modest swimwear for Muslim women to the persecution of French Jews during the Holocaust.

CRIF president Francis Kalifat made his first public statement on the debate over the burkini in a statement published on the group’s website Friday, two weeks after the first of some 30 French municipalities passed bans on wearing the full-body swimsuit. [...]

In his statement, Kalifat condemned tweets by Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the Left Party, who has said that in France, “Jews were persecuted, then Protestants, and today Muslims.”

Kalifat said Melonchon’s allusion to the Holocaust, in which a quarter of French Jewry was wiped out by the Nazis and their local collaborators, was “a pinnacle of absurdity and indecency.” The comments, Kalifat said, were designed to “pander to Melenchon’s voters.”

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Germany: National radio claims 'Arabs cannot be antisemitic' because they're Semites

Redefining antisemitism as anything other than Jew-hatred is antisemitism.

Via Everyday Antisemitism:

Deutschlandfunk, part of Deutschlandradio, Germany’s national, public broadcasting institution, published an article yesterday stating that Hamas (which has a decisive majority in the Palestinian Authority legislature) was “almost” antisemtic.

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Following a public outcry, Deutschlandfunk published a ‘clarification’ on their Facebook page, where they stated that the use of the term “antisemitism” to describe Jew-hatred is not representative of its original use. They go on to remark, “Arabs themselves are Semites and therefore can hardly be antisemitic themselves. This includes Hamas. But many Arabs, including Hamas supporters, do not refer to ‘the Israelis’ but rather ‘the Jews’ (Al Yehud), as it was Jews who came to Palestine as Zionists [sic]…Thus Arab delegitimisation and contempt towards Israelis is linguistically ‘almost’ identical to the Nazis’ antisemitism. But only ‘almost’. We apologise that this has lead to misunderstandings.”

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