Belgium: 'Killing Christ was not enough for them'

Two months ago, Belgian broadcaster RTBF posted an opinion editorial by Victor Ginsburgh.  In the editorial, Ginsburgh argued that Israel was a racist country.  He's not the only who says so, he writes.  Haaretz says it too.

In response, a commentator on Facebook wrote as follows (in translation): You know, killing Christ was not enough for them... There are racists everywhere, but only their State is active in this arena and it's not only a small group of isolated people who are worked up... yes, there are racist Jews also in France!

Despite numerous complaints, the comment had not been removed.

The Center for equal opportunities and Opposition to Racism, the anti-racism government institution, had responded to queries by saying that this comment falls within freedom of speech.

More: Philosémitisme Blog

UK: Minister wants to end Shabbat discrimination against Jewish job seekers

Britain’s employment minister said she would introduce new regulations to make Jews who refuse to work on Shabbat eligible for welfare benefits. 

Employment Minister Esther McVey and Jobcentre National Director Neil Couling have told the Jewish employment charity JCom that rules would be “tweaked” to end the practice of denying job seekers’ allowance to observant Jews, The Jewish Chronicle of London reported Friday.

More: JTA

France: Fine for antisemitic comedian Dieudonne

In a separate ruling, a French court of appeals on Thursday slapped a $36,000 fine on the comedian Dieudonne for “inciting racial hate” in films in which he ridiculed the Holocaust and expressed anti-Semitic views. It was Dieudonne’s seventh conviction related to anti-Semitism. 

Some of the films contain the word “shoananas,” a combination of the Hebrew name for the Holocaust with the French word for pineapple. It is used as a code word for denying the Holocaust yet seen to be too vague to violate France’s law forbidding Holocaust denial.

More: Times of Israel

Hungary: Menorahs vandalized

Budapest - 4 giant menorah which were erected in public squares (Városháza Park, Blaha Lujza square, Örs Vezér square, and Nyugati square) were damaged in the night of Nov. 29.

More: CFCA

Netherlands: Students planned party with yellow Jewish stars

Police in Groningen took quick action when they were alarmed that students were planning a party with what seemed like a NAZI theme, complete with the characteristic yellow star that would be pinned on partygoers as they walked in. On the star, there were to be three letters, NSB. 

(...) 

The story was appeared today in the New Israelite Weekly. The paper reports that the students thought the pin-up stars would be a nice gimmick. NSB, they explained was not a reference to the fascist political party “Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging” (National Socialist Movement), but an abbreviation for “Nog Sneller Bezopen” (drunk even faster).

More: NL Times

Apparently, the party did take place in the end.

Switzerland: Lawmaker excluded from party after Israel comment

Carbonization = 'reduced to ashes'

Swiss lawmaker Denis Menoud was excluded from the populist Geneva Citizens' Movement (MCG) on Friday after commenting that Israel was "on the path of carbonization" following the signing of the interim nuclear deal with Iran, AFP reported. 

His comments, written on his Facebook page on Tuesday, caused an uproar in the party, leading party president Roger Colay to condemn his words and demanding him to resign.

More: Jerusalem Post

Op-Ed: Hungary is anti-semitic and vile to the Roma

Today, Hungarian Jews suffer a level of anti-Semitism that is among the worst in Europe. Last year a Jobbik MP, Marton Gyongyosi, called for a list to be published of all people of Jewish origin, claiming they were a national security risk because they supported Israel in its disputes with the Palestinians. 

Pointedly, the World Jewish Congress decided to hold its annual meeting in Budapest this year. When it did, Jobbik members protested that the Jews were planning to ‘buy’ Hungary. 

The party also indulges in Holocaust denial, notwithstanding the mass murder of Hungary’s own Jews, with one Jobbik MP claiming that the museum at Auschwitz ‘may not reflect the real facts of history’.  

More: The Daily Mail

UK: Britain must be “perpetually” on guard against a resurgence of anti-Semitism

Britain must be “perpetually” on guard against a resurgence of anti-Semitism, the Home Secretary said last night.

Theresa May said this was the case even in a country such as Britain with an historic record of tolerance and acceptance of Jewish practices and culture

More: The Times

‘Working Definition’ of anti-Semitism abandoned by Europe

Jewish groups have criticized the recent removal of the ‘’Working Definition of Anti-Semitism’’ from the website of the Vienna-based Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), the European Union agency tasked with providing advice to the member states on fundamental rights of people living in the EU. 

More: EJP

UK: 'According to popular opinion' Israel lobbies have the US in their pockets

It’s less than clear how Telegraph Middle East correspondent Richard Spencer views the nuclear deal recently signed in Geneva, but in his latest report he certainly seems to take pleasure in the Israeli prime minister’s profound disappointment over the terms and implications of the agreement between Iran and the P5+1. 

(...) 

Then, after citing statements by UK Foreign Minister William Hague and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry he interprets as dismissive of Israeli concerns, he writes the following: 

If ones takes Israel’s public position at face value, however, it is hard not to ask how it got itself into a position where its wishes could be ignored by its closest ally, the United States (an ally that according to popular opinion its Washington lobbies have in their pockets).

More: CIF Watch

UK: Football fan arrested over anti-semitic tweets

Pictures: Hotspur

A football fan has been arrested for a series of anti-semitic tweets referring to the Holocaust and Hitler. 

The man, 55, posted the comments before Tottenham Hotspur's Premier League with West Ham on 6 October, and was arrested at his home in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, on Thursday.

The man, who used the Twitter handle @pienmashgeezer, accepted a caution. 

More: BBC

France: National Front politician says party candidates sport swastikas

A French politician who left Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party for the far-right Front National (FN) has backtracked claiming he was shocked to see candidates sporting swastika tattoos at party meetings.

Marine Le Pen's FN said it was to sue Arnaud Cléré, a 34-year-old council candidate for the northern village of Gamaches, over his remarks which the right-wing party described as a political manoeuvre to discredit it.

"That shocked me," Cléré said. "Listening to Marine Le Pen I thought that these kind of people no longer had a place in FN but unfortunately I saw them with my own eyes."

More: International Business Times

Italy: Comedian uses Jewish stereotype

The Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UECI) and 'Equality Italy' criticized comedian Alessandro Bianchi for making antisemitic and homophobic jokes in a skit on the Colorado Cafè show.  In the skit, Bianchi turned to the crowd to ask for money, saying "Don't be rabbis, empty your pockets".

More: CFCA

Op-Ed: Antisemitism moves to the internet

Liam Hoare writes in the Forward:

The reason for this disparity between perception and experience, however, is not groundless panic or hysteria; it comes because of new manifestations of anti-Semitism, principally dissemination via the Internet and new media. 

When asked where anti-Semitism against Jewish communities occurs, 75% of European Jews pointed toward anti-Semitism on the Internet above all else, followed by 59% for anti-Semitism in the media. Internet anti-Semitism today is considered a greater problem than the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, the vandalism of Jewish buildings or institutions, and expressions of hostility toward Jews on the street and in other public places.

UK: MP tweets Jews have money and power

"What a shame there isn't a powerful, well funded Board of Deputies for #Roma”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews is the representative body of British Jews. It does its job as best it can, and has done so since 1760. It is, in mundane reality, neither awash with money, nor all-powerful. Ward is an MP for Bradford. There are very few Jews in Bradford, but very many Muslims. Taken at face value, the Board would basically be an irrelevancy for both David Ward and his constituents.

Nevertheless, this kind of thinking, the well-worn drawing together of Jews, money and power, betrays Jews, Muslims and Ward’s own Liberal Democrat Party. It also betrays Ward, but only in the sense of revealing how he thinks, or what he may think appeals to his Muslim constituents.

More: CIF Watch