Belgium: Antisemitic and jihad textbooks at the heart of imams training in Brussels

This has been known for many years, but somehow the numerous human rights NGOs operating in Belgium are not aware of this type of antisemitic activities going on quite openly - or maybe they are just not interested.

Via The European Jewish Press:

BRUSSELS - Antisemitic manuals advocating armed jihad are included in the curriculum of the training of future imams and teachers at the Grand Mosque in Brussels located a few hundred meters from the European Union headquarters, reveals a confidential report from OCAM, the governmental coordinating unit for threat analysis in Belgium.  

According to the report, revealed by Belgian daily La Libre and RTL TV channel, many of these manuals are freely available in Brussels and elsewhere.  

The OCAM document mentions the fact that "the teaching of the Muslim religion of the Arab section of the Islamic and Cultural Center of Belgium, the name of the Brussels Grand Mosque, "is in no way adapted to the Belgian or European reference framework. They contain Salafist ideas and doctrines that encourage the rejection of any different ideas and fundamental constitutional rights and freedoms".  

Moreover, the OCAM insists on the fact that "many mosques and Islamic centers in Belgium still have in their libraries and as part of their training activities textbooks and other documents presenting a problematic content in terms of radicalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism."

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Germany: Few Israelis are aware of how popular it is in Germany to compare Israel to the Nazis

Via Fathom (Gadi Taub):

Most Israelis assume – or at least they did until very recently – that Germany is a steadfast friend of Israel. They therefore find it hard to imagine that it would actively support organisations which contribute to the campaign to delegitimise Israel’s right to exist. But all that may have changed after the debacle in April between German Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Gabriel, on the occasion of an official visit for Holocaust Memorial Day, announced that he would meet the representatives of two radical left-wing civil society organisations – Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem. When Netanyahu said that if those meetings went ahead he would boycott the visit and refuse to meet Gabriel, many thought he was overreacting. Few, however, expected Gabriel to choose those two organisations over Israel’s prime minster (and acting foreign minister). And when he did, things began to appear in a new light. It no longer seemed that the German foreign minister made an honest mistake, not knowing how controversial these organisations were among Israelis. It appeared, instead, that he knew exactly what he was doing and that it was us, the Israeli public, who had made a mistake in our assumptions about German-Israeli relations. (...) 

Before the Gabriel affair few Israelis were aware of how popular it is in Germany to compare Israel to the Nazis. But one has to admit that it does have its own perverted psychological logic. If the Jews are now victimisers, not victims, does that not partially alleviate the terrible burden of German guilt? Does that not create a counterweight to the ever-present sense that the very existence of Jews is a permanent reminder of German sins? Does not the psychological need, if not exactly the argument, press towards some path of relief in blaming the victims? 

By refusing Netanyahu’s request and lending his support to organisations bent on demonising Israel, Gabriel made many wonder whether he was not in fact engaged in exactly this kind of politico-psychological game, which may appeal to his own constituency at home. But surely a German foreign minister on an official visit on the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day, cannot be trying to manipulate symbols and emotions so as to switch victims and victimisers! Or could he? We were all ears now. 

So it was not overlooked here in Israel when, upon his return to Germany, Gabriel said to the Frankfurter Rundschau that the Social Democrats, his own party, were, along with the Jews, among ‘the first victims of the holocaust’ (this was later changed on the paper’s website from victims of ‘the holocaust’ to victims of ‘the Nazis’). So after using his state visit to look at Israel through the lens of organisations emphasising our sins, and thus classifying us as victimisers, was he now making himself the victim (by proxy), and not just any victim, but a victim of Nazism? Where was all this heading? It brought to mind the bitterly sarcastic quip attributed to Israeli psychiatrist Zvi Rex: ‘The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.’ Will we soon need to apologise for it to Gabriel? 

All this, we should note, was carried on in the guise of high handed – and decidedly condescending – rhetoric. Gabriel, on his own account, was helping to instruct us about the dangers of nationalism – ours – and the virtues of ‘European values,’ and democracy. But despite the immaculately humanitarian vocabulary, it was not hard to sense that something very sinister was afoot, since the minister’s interest in malignant nationalism and human rights seemed to be selective. He was apparently more interested in cases where Israel could be blamed. He had no plans to meet any civil society organisations which document Palestinian abuses of human rights, and his high-minded exhortations against Jewish nationalism were not matched by any criticism of the murderous sort of xenophobic nationalism which the Palestinians habitually – and institutionally – encourage in their people, especially their young. (Gabriel has since also hosted an Iranian religious leader who has called for the elimination of Israel, as part of an official Foreign Ministry event intended to harness religion for the cause of peace, the Jerusalem Post reported.) Of course Palestinian anti-Semitism is less useful as a ‘lesson of the holocaust’ if such a lesson is only intended to insinuate – to be sure, in a roundabout, never-explicit way – that the former victims have now become the culprits, thus helping to lighten Germany’s moral burden. 

Netanyahu was absolutely right to forcefully refuse to take part in any such shady game of insinuations. So perhaps we should thank Gabriel, after all, for providing the opportunity to bring all this home to Israelis. We can appreciate that the German past is indeed a difficult burden to carry, and we can even sympathise with the pains of sons who have to live with their fathers’ sins, but it is by no means the task of Jews to help relieve, much less shoulder, Germany’s historical guilt. So it is easy to see why Israelis found the whole affair rather nauseating. 

But even this was not yet all. Many Israelis dismiss the shrill rhetoric of Netanyahu’s right-wing government, in which complaints about how European money is funnelled through the Palestinian Authority (PA) to support terrorism can get lost in the general air of paranoid-seeming rhetoric. But this complaint too now received more attention when, as fate would have it, the US recently became quite firm about the PA’s support of the families of terrorists. The PA under Mahmoud Abbas habitually calls Palestinian terrorists ‘martyrs’ and offers generous financial aid to their families. Gabriel, who was so particular about Israel’s moral conduct, had nothing to say about how German money is used in that way. But we do. And we should hold all donors accountable if they allow their money to be used to provide incentives for terrorism. Germany is a good place to start, and Netanyahu was right to highlight all this. 

According to press reports in Israel which followed Gabriel’s visit, Germany denied entry to Turkish officials of Recap Erdogan’s government when they wanted to meet with German citizens of Turkish origin. Germany feared representatives of the Turkish state would radicalise members of its own citizenry. So when all was said and done it seemed like Netanyahu’s treatment of Gabriel was actually mild in comparison. Perhaps it should be less mild in the future.

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Europe: The drumbeat against Jewish ritual sounds once more

Via The Algemeiner (Ben Cohen):

This past week, Jewish ritual observance came under attack in both Belgium and Norway. (...) both speak to an ingrained tendency in Europe that dismisses these core requirements for Jews as no more and no less than cruelty of a particularly Jewish sort.  

On May 8, the environment committee of the parliament in Wallonia — a French-speaking region accounting for more than half of Belgium’s territory and a third of its population — voted unanimously to ban shechita on the grounds that the practice involves cruelty to animals; the decision will take effect in September 2019.
On the same day, the annual convention of Norway’s Progress Party — a libertarian, anti-immigration party that is a partner in the country’s ruling coalition — passed a resolution urging a government ban on ritual circumcision for boys under age 16, on the grounds that it is a violation of human rights. Jews, as is well-known, circumcise their sons eight days after birth, in accordance with the biblical covenant between God and the patriarch, Abraham. You may say that these developments are about many things. You might even make the case that antisemitism is a minor factor here. There are many more Muslims than there are Jews in Belgium, Norway and pretty much every other country in Western Europe — and they, too, circumcise their sons for religious reasons and consume ritually slaughtered halal meat. That certainly explains why right-wing populists like the National Front in France and the United Kingdom Independence Party have made halal slaughter a primary focus of their broader campaign against what they see as social acceptance of Islamic sharia law-based rites. (...) 

(...)  for more than a century, antisemites have demonized Jewish rites with the same enthusiasm as their Church forebears. One of the first acts of the Nazis after they came to power in Germany in 1933 was to ban shechita. The famous Nazi propaganda film Der Ewige Jude (“The Eternal Jew”) portrayed shechita as a gruesome Jewish celebration of animal suffering. 

(...) contemporary advocates of the shechita and brit milah bans angrily deny that they are motivated by antisemitism — in much the same way, and for the same reasons, that anti-Zionists present the cause of eliminating Israel as a legitimate human rights campaign. It is, of course, tiresome for them to have to deal with the charge of antisemitism every time they take aim at Jews as a collective, so they flip the equation by depicting themselves as victims of a malicious reputational smear.
The sad thing is, this approach often works. It feeds into the sentiments of those segments of the European public who regard antisemitism as a censorship tool — preventing them from protecting animals, babies and national reputations unfairly soiled during World War II — and the right to condemn Israel for alleged human rights abuses. (...)

For 2,000 years in the Diaspora, Jewish identity was preserved by adherence to these religious commands. This, in turn, bred the resentment of supersessionist Church theologians and, later on, universalist Enlightenment philosophers. Both despised Jewish separateness even as their rulers enforced it through ghettoization and other discriminatory measures. From Martin Luther to Karl Marx, the imperative of ending the conditions for a separate Jewish existence — through means varying from outright persecution or conditional emancipation — has been a binding thread in European thought.

It follows logically that even in a modern democracy, a ban on the core rituals making Jews Jewish — and Muslims Muslim — effectively ends the conditions for a separate existence as a Jewish community. It’s true that many Jews don’t keep kosher, but virtually all Jewish males are circumcised, regardless of their family’s degree of religious observance. Ending the right to engage in those practices poses a choice: stay if you are willing to obey the law, or leave if you are not. 

Norway and Belgium are not the only countries where political battles over Jewish rites have erupted. Shechita is outlawed in Poland, New Zealand and Switzerland, among others, while nasty public campaigns against circumcision have been seen in San Francisco on one half of the globe, and Oslo on the other. The campaign advances in fits and starts, but it is always there, and is present among liberals and nationalists alike. 

American Jews are fortunate to live with a constitution clearly demarcating religion and state. European Jews don’t have such clear guidelines, and therefore become hostages to the fortunes of political clashes in which their freedom of worship is just one consideration among many.

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Europe:How does Europe fight the BDS movement?

Obviously, the fact that in the United States states have been passing anti-BDS laws divesting from companies that are boycotting Israel has an effect on European banks, companies, etc.

Via the European Jewish Press:

Association Belgo-Palestinienne
Wallonie-Bruxelles BDS campaign

Is Europe fighting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement? Although the atmosphere seems to  point out that BDS is stronger, many European countries are fighting this phenomena. 

(...) Also this week, Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis came out firmly against the BDS movement during a meeting with a delegation of Knesset members, who visited the country to mark 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Spain and Israel. 

In the United States, at least 12 states have already passed anti-BDS laws, divesting from companies that are boycotting Israel, including Arizona, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, and South Carolina. 

Spain is already regulating laws against BDS. 

The Partido Popular (People’s Party), the ruling party in Spain, has approved amendments that explicitly reject the BDS campaign, according to the pro-Israel Spanish group ACOM. 

Switzerland’s national Council – the lower chamber of the legislature – passed a bill to stop government funding of organizations that promote boycotts of Israel and spread antisemitism and racism. 

The measure will be submitted in May to the Swiss Council of States, the upper chamber of the legislature, which will decide whether it becomes law. 

Last October the Bank of Ireland closed the accounts of the pro-BDS organization’s Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). The group’s accounts were terminated in Ireland and Northern Ireland, according to media reports. 

In many other countries there is more and more awareness about the negative consequences of BDS. It appears to be a large trend within the European banking system to sever ties with pro-BDS groups.

Similar decisions like in Ireland, Spain and Switzerland, have been taken also  in other European countries including Austria, Germany, France and the UK where banks have closed down accounts of Palestinian campaign groups. The  first  bank accounts that has been closed as anti-BDS policy were  in France, Germany and Austria in 2016. Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest bank, shut a BDS account last June. The Austrian bank Bawag shut down the account of the Austria-Arab Culture Center. The Austrian financial company Erste Group terminated BDS Austria’s account in April.French banking giant BNP Paribas shut down its subsidiary DAB bank  account with BDS-Campaign in February in Munich. Belgium-based BDS group that holds a Paribas bank account is called Association Belgo-Palestinienne (Belgian-Palestinian Association). It has an office in New York State where Gov. Andrew Coumo signed an anti-BDS executive order in June. He said at the time: “If you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you.” 

In Italy, a  BDS gathering due to take place in the Municipality of Rome was prohibited. (...)

In response to a question from a member of the European Parliament about banning BDS in Europe, EU’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini stated last September:’’ The EU stands firm in protecting freedom of expression and freedom of association in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is applicable on EU Member States' territory, including with regard to BDS actions carried out on this territory. Freedom of expression, as underlined by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, is also applicable to information or ideas ‘‘that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population’’. She added however that ‘’the EU rejects the BDS campaign's attempts to isolate Israel and is opposed to any boycott of Israel.’’

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UK: BBC anti-Israel bias - when Jon meets Sophie

@ Daphne Anson:

Both the ABC's Jerusalem correspondent Sophie McNeill and the BBC's Australia (ex-Gaza) correspondent Jon Donnison are notorious for their anti-Israel bias.

They get away with their breaches of their employers' respective charters time and time and 
time again.

Lefty McNeill is an avowed activist and Lefty Donnison (with his numerous snide tweets about Aussie asylum policy as well as about Israel) behaves like one.

Here's the latest example of Jon and Sophie together. One, if you'll pardon the expression, on top of the other.

Israel.  "Financial deals".  "Who would have thought it".

There wouldn't be a hint of leftist "rich man antisemitism" there, would there Jon?