Belgium: 'We the Jews', Arab deception, and Belgian ‘anti-Zionists’

Edouard Brainis writes @ Times of Israel - a well researched and interesting article:

Gwenaëlle Grovonius

[...]  In Belgium we have quite a large Muslim population (7 %), mostly from Morocco and Turkey, with large Muslim population centres in Brussels (31 %), Antwerpen (18.8 %), Liège (17.7 %), and Charleroi (16.3 %). In some municipalities of Brussels, Muslim population peaks at very high values: Molenbeek (41.2 %), Saint-Josse (45 %). In recent years, this Muslim population has become increasingly religious and radical under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood (which put down strong roots in Belgium) and Saudi-style Salafism. Of course many Muslims are very nice people, but still the proportions are becoming alarming. As studies in Europe have shown, anti-Semitic attitudes are particularly strong among believing and practising Muslims and correlate well with authoritarian, fundamentalist interpretations of Islam. In particular within Muslims of Moroccan and Turkish decent, it was found that Islamic fundamentalism is widespread: ‘Two-thirds of the Muslims interviewed said that religious rules are more important to them than the laws of the country in which they live. Three quarters said that there is only one legitimate interpretation of the Koran. Almost 60 percent of the Muslim respondents reject homosexuals as friends; 45 percent think that Jews cannot be trusted; and an equally large group believes that the West is out to destroy Islam’.  The same pattern was also found in a study on Belgian youth, corroborating the fact that many young Muslims have strongly negative views on Jews and homosexuals.

No need to elaborate much further to understand that hatred of Israel is even more widespread than global anti-Semitism and Islamic radicalism. In this context, any politician who relies on Muslim votes – be it for his own career or the success of his party – better displays offensively anti-Israel feelings. That is the playbook. Morals and politics are two very different things; you do not need to explain that to the most evil people on Earth, we the Jews get the message. We understand it very well and are not offended. Are we?

When the ‘burst pipe’ slur came out, I have been very much impressed by the tactical cleverness of one young and promising socialist MP named Gwenaëlle Grovonius. She is only 38 years old and so high-spirited. Only one day after the ‘burst pipe’ story appeared for the first time on the Al Jazeera website, she was already standing in the Belgian parliament, accusing Israel of ‘water apartheid’ in front of all the Belgian MPs. ‘Water,’ she said, ‘is monopolised by the Israeli authorities’ and called Belgium for action. Her question to the Foreign Minister has been widely advertised on social media by herself and by the Socialist Party of Belgium (PS), see the screenshots here.  [...]

In the mean time, the notoriety of the young Belgian MP grew fast. Her video in the Belgian parliament was shared more than 400,000 times on Youtube! Success! What a slap in the face of Israel, really! Well done! The Jew-hating community was absolutely delighted. And we the Jews as well because we are always pleased when people talk about us, are we not? The next picture shows some examples of cheerful messages left by Ms Grovonius’ followers on her Facebook page.

Here are some transcripts:

• ‘She should made a plenary quenelle.’ (In reference to the inverted Nazi salute called ‘quenelle’, popularised by the French anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonné and previously executed by the far-right MP Laurent Louis in the Belgian parliament.)
• ‘How brave! One of the few to oppose the barbaric Zionist government.’
• ‘Do you seriously think that the Zionists will listen??? It’s like this since 60 years . . . They threaten, assassinate . . . The cancer of the world!!!’
• ‘Bravo, it is good to denounce, but when a global coalition to fight the Zionists? Large Arab monarchies, where are you?’
• ‘Unfortunately Madam, our dear Prime Minister does not give a damn about the plight of Palestinians. He already does not care about the fate of the inhabitants of “his” own country. They all dance with the devil and are the stars of a world-scale puppet show. This masquerade lasts for years, Israhell the untouchable, Israhell the spoiled child. What Israhell wants, Israhell takes it. After that, our leaders are surprised that people have hatred towards them. They are accomplices of an executioner suffering from the Stockholm syndrome. Hitler has some concurrency.’
• ‘Israel is the most racist state in the world.’
• ‘Only the Israhellian Zionists dare turning off the water to Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan. Can you imagine that the Masonic West presents this wicked entity as a humanist democracy that enlightens the world with its blessings and its light . . . How do they dare to say such nonsense without reddening and be overcome by shame.’
• ‘She is not afraid of the devil.’
• ‘ — It’s easy, they [Edit: the politicians] are afraid of the devil. — They rather fear the Jewish government that seems to have a great influence in the world . . . ’
• ‘The Palestinian people has the right to live in its land as a citizen but the Israeli government is doing everything to destroy their lives by bombardments, kidnapping of children, blockade, waters cut. It is not fair in 2016. Kudos to you for your courage. You will be Prime Minister soon.’
• ‘This stance can be dangerous as we all know, respect your courage.’
• ‘How brave! We must stop the exploitation of diamonds by Zionists Outre-Quievrain.’ (In this context, Outre-Quievrain means ‘in Belgium’. The city of Antwerpen is know for its diamond industry of which the Jewish community of Antwerpen historically controlled a large part, even though it is now mostly controlled by Indians.)
• ‘Congratulations and thank you for having denounced that many men are not able to do. The goal of Israel is clear. This country, supposedly the best ‘democracy’ in the world, wants to exterminate Palestinians by all means. Garbage settlers!!!’
• ‘I am sad for my Palestinian brothers and angry. Not only are they deprived of their land . . . and now this. Hitler has not served as a showcase, far from it.’

These very amiable comments – and many others – decorated Ms Grovonius’ Facebook page for more than four days until a complaint was produced by the Coordinating Committee of the Jewish Organisations of Belgium (CCOJB) and it took another two days (June 21) to the Socialist Party to remove MP Grovonius’ lies in the parliament from all its official communication media, including the MP’s Facebook page. The Socialist Party then published the following statement:

Following the outpouring of hateful, racist and anti-Semitic speech, we decided to remove all references on our site to the current issue of water cuts the West Bank. This does not affect our condemnation of colonisation and policies in the occupied territories by the Israeli Government, which does not respect international law. The PS Group advocates the solution to two mutually recognised states and strongly condemns all acts of violence. The issue of access to water in the West Bank is a critical issue, which, to reiterate, is at the centre of international concerns. In order to calmly examine it, away from hatred, racism and anti-Semitism, and on the basis of cross-referenced information, we have decided to remove all references to the topical issue of water cuts in the West Bank.

If the aim of this statement was to appease Belgian Jews, I am afraid the Socialist Party missed the point. One cannot deplore ‘hateful, racist and anti-Semitic speech’ in one sentence and use deleterious language such as ‘colonisation’, ‘occupied territories’, and  ‘does not respect international law’ in the next one. It looks like an oxymoron. But this is not that important and we the Jews cannot care less about purposely misleading words, can we? No, the most remarkable thing in this statement is that it does not condemn the obsessive anti-Israel attitude of MP Grovonius . . . and actually ostensibly backs it by pretending that water cuts in Judea-Samaria is a ‘topical issue’ for them and even an issue ‘at the centre of international concerns’. We the Jews are delighted to hear that minor water management problems in Samaria (as painful they can be to Arab and Jewish inhabitants alike) are as central and topical to Socialist Party as the endless war in Syria, the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, the war in Ukraine, the Russian menace, the political purges in Turkey, nuclear Iran, or even the rise of the far-right in Europe and the more and more likely collapse of the EU project. And what about the permanent violation of basic human rights in Eritrea? We are their favourites and we cherish that.

We do understand why Israel is so topical and central: the popularity of MP Gwenaëlle Grovonius’ Facebook page grew by 56.2 % in a single week . . . thanks to us the Jews.

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France: Murdered Jewish children missing from Minister of Education speech

French author and commentator Benoît Raisky reported @ Atlantico that the satirical newspaper, Le Canard Enchaîné, revealed that the Moroccan-born French Minister of Education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem made a statement which drew a lot of commentary during a governmental safety seminar held on July 23.

During her address, the Minister evoked the Nice Islamic terrorist attack and stressed: "The attack is the first attack in France in which children were killed".

Benoît Raisky asks "For you, Ms Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Jewish children are not children?" 

He reminds us that not so long ago (on March 19, 2012 to be precise) Mohamed Merah stood before the Ozar HaTorah school in Toulouse and killed three Jewish children with a shot in the head. A despicable crime that horrified France. All of France and therefore it probably also somewhat horrified Ms. Vallaud-Belkacem who was not a Minister at the time. The Minister of Education is a human being. And like all human beings, her memory operates selectively. No need to call the most eminent psychoanalysts to know that.  Unconsciously, our brain often filters what it wants to retain and what it consigns to oblivion. Her brain was therefore performing in a normal way.

There are some people in France for whom the Jewish children in Toulouse are just collateral victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and as such of little importance.

For Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, here are the names of children murdered in Toulouse: Myriam, 8, Gabriel, 6, Arieh, 5 years old.

read the article at Atlantico (in French)

Related: France: Jewish victims missing from Muslims’ anti-Jihad letter
 

Switzerland: Israel deports Rita Faye notorious BDS activist

Israel National News reports:

For the first time, a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activist was on Tuesday deported from Israel, Channel 2 News reports.

Soon after she landed at the Ben Gurion International Airport, the activist from Switzerland, who is a member of a Christian organization which works in cooperation with the BDS movement, was taken in for questioning and then deported, after Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas) issued a deportation order against her.

According to Channel 2 News the activist, Rita Faye, visited Israel several times in the past and is known to the IDF mainly from her activities at checkpoints in the Jericho area. In the past, Faye would harass the soldiers stationed in the area and record their activities. She would then send the information she collected abroad.  The deportation order was issued by Deri after the IDF received information that she intends to return to Israel, the report said.

This marks the first time that a deportation order has been issued against BDS activists who hail from Europe. Officials in the Interior Ministry officials said there is a possibility that deportation orders against BDS activists will be adopted as a method to fight organizations calling for a boycott of Israel.

Germany: Court acquits Holocaust-denying mayor

Via DW:

 Historians and a prominent Jewish council are protesting the "scandalous" acquittal announced by an appeals court, which threw out an already lenient financial judgment against a former mayor who wrote blogs questioning Nazi Germany's attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews.

Hans Püschel was forced to resign in 2013 as mayor of Krauschwitz, a town of around 600 people, for statements he published on the internet that minimized or denied Nazi crimes. In his writings he belittled historical accounts of the death toll at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in occupied Poland as "lies" and claimed that it resembled a sports ground equipped with a modern hospital and "60 doctors" for inmates.

The German constitution forbids questioning the existence of the Holocaust or praising the Third Reich.

(...)

Referring to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in central Berlin, Püschel also suggested: "If we put a thousand hunks of concrete in the middle of Berlin for murdered Jews, then at least 3,000 belong there alongside them for murdered Germans." On the current role of Jews in German society, he wrote of "the dubious to virulent and devastating influence of Jews and Zionism on Germany."

(...)

In 2014, a higher regional court upheld the lower court's 2013 decision. The final decision by the state's highest court overturned the regional court's findings and nullified the penalties.

The Saxony-Anhalt court wrote in its judgment that while Püschel had broken the law, it found no evidence that he had "trivialized" the Holocaust in general.

In 2011, the lead judge of the court, Gerhard Henss, also overturned the convictions of two other NPD party officials who had made slanderous and defamatory statements. The court refused to answer any questions about the decision, citing judicial independence.

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Op-Ed: Germany’s Hot New Party Thinks America Is ‘Run by Zionists’

Clemens Heni @ Tablet:

The reluctance of many German, French, or American anti-Islamist activists to frame parties like the AfD as right-wing-extremist, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, anti-feminist, and anti-Islamic is also striking—and increasingly disturbing. Some anti-Islamist authors in the U.K. or America, even praise and promote the founder and leader of PEGIDA (“Patriots against the Islamization of the Occident”), Lutz Bachmann, who once posed with a Hitler haircut on social media. In an interview with Bachmann by Raheem Kassam, Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum and editor-in-chief of Breitbart London, Bachmann agitates against circumcision. According to media reports, Bachmann called refugees and immigrants “animals” (“Viehzeug”). Currently, Bachmann faces a court trial in Dresden for racist agitation.

The links between these various “New Right” movements are not hard to spot. Agitators like Renaud Camus, the main thinker of the French National Front, is published in Germany by the Antaios publishing house, which is run by the New Right activist Götz Kubitschek, who has good connections to the neo-Nazi scene. Renaud is infamous for his take on immigration and Islam: He calls for “revolt against the big replacement.”

(...)

The lessons of the past should be particularly clear in Germany: Fighting Islamic fascism by collaborating with brown fascism will lead to the murder of leftists, Muslims, immigrants, antifascists, and Jews. In Europe, more “national identity” leads to more anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and racism. When will we learn that lesson?

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France's embattled and worried Jewish community has new leader

Interestingly, like most European Jewish leaders, Francis Kalifat mentions immigration to Israel (Aliya), but will not speak of those Jews who are leaving to other countries like America, Canada, the UK, Australia etc.


The Jerusalem Post reports:

[...] On June 1, Kalifat, now an energetic 64 years old, became the first president of the powerful Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF) to hail from that part of the community which arrived, often destitute, from North Africa a half-century ago. He shares his outlook for the community and organization, in an interview with The Report.

Today, Sephardi Jews of North African origin make up three-quarters of French Jewry and the overwhelming majority of community activists, as older, established Ashkenazi Jews increasingly melt into France’s largely secular society.  [...]

“The French Jewish community is currently going through one of the most difficult periods it has encountered since the end of World War II,” says Kalifa. He cities as an example the several murderous attacks against French Jews in the past few years, including the January 2015 killing of four shoppers in a kosher supermarket by an Islamist gunman in Paris, on the same day staff at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were slaughtered.

Young hotheads in France’s six million- strong Muslim community, Europe’s largest, are blamed for hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents a year, including an average of two physical attacks on Jews each week. The violence began in 2001 with the start of the second Palestinian Intifada in the West Bank with whose residents the French Arabs identify.

Police and Jewish community statistics show there were more than 800 anti-Semitic incidents in France last year, accounting for more than half of all racially motivated occurrences, even though Jews make up less than one percent of France’s total population.

As a result, all Jewish schools and synagogues are now guarded under tight security by the French army, which has detailed about 7,000 soldiers – close to 10% of its combat troops – to guard Jewish premises.

Aliya, or immigration to Israel, has shot up, with about 8,000 French Jews moving there in 2015, making France the single- largest source of immigration to the Jewish state. Figures available so far for this year, however, indicate the number of departures has dropped by about a third compared with 2015.

Kalifat says the reason is the November 13 terrorist attacks, when Islamist gunmen simultaneously attacked a Paris concert hall and several outdoor cafés in the city center killing 129 people and wounding 350.  Ironically, that bloodbath has made more Jews inclined to stay, he says.

“Until November 13, the Islamists had targeted the French state through its police and soldiers, or by murdering journalists who symbolized a free society," he says. "Jews had been attacked for being Jews, and our community felt isolated and in danger, especially in neighborhoods where there were large populations of North African Arab origin.”

“The reflex for some Jews was to seek safety in Israel. But since last November, Jews realize that it is all of French society that is under attack, so Jews no longer feel so isolated even though they do still feel endangered, but like all the French.”

Kalifat says there will be no change to CRIF’s stand-offish attitude toward the right-wing National Front (NF) party, which has put out feelers to “the Jewish street.” The NF’s leader Marine Le Pen presents herself as “the best shield” for Jews in the face of local Arabs. Le Pen is the daughter of the party’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who repeatedly offended Jews and was thrown out of the party.

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Poland: Dad teaches his son an antisemitic song

Via CFCA:

Rumia - Polish father from Rumia (near Gdansk) made a video of his toddler-son singing antisemitic song of Wroclaw's music group OBLED ("Madness").

The music band is listed as an antisemitic group by ADL, known formerly as "Konkwista 88". That video, primarily posted on YouTube went through almost all Nationalists' web sites making waves and getting big approval of listeners.

The song's creation and posting it had been an answer for announced contest for a children song by local Nationalists' section for toddlers called "Jas" (means: "Little John").

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Netherlands: Media impressed with nuanced antisemite

Apparently, saying you want to murder all Jews in Israel and actually joining a terror organization to achieve that goal is not serious enough for some people.

Dutch media thinks Abou Jahjah 'wants to look dangerous, but isn't"

Via DutchNews:

A controversial Belgian Lebanese activist, the first guest on the traditional Dutch summer chat show series Zomergasten, failed to live up to the hype, Dutch media said on Monday.

Dyab Abou Jahjah who founded the Arab-European League and sparked an threatened exodus of writers from publishing house De Bezige Bij when it agreed to publish a pamphlet by him, was the first guest of the new season which typically sees guest choosing television or film footage to illustrate their views.

(...)

The programme which has a different presenter each year and has a reputation for being hard-hitting and controversial, did not see sparks fly. Jahjah presented himself as ‘largely moderate’, the paper writes. ‘The film fragments he chose – about religion, colonisation, segregation, migration and racism – were often more outspoken than the man himself. (..) Abou Jahjah wants to look dangerous but isn’t’, the paper concludes.

The NRC’ s tv critic says Jahjah – who tweeted ‘Zionists and racists are going crazy because I’m on Zomergasten. After the broadcast they’ll be crazier still. Zionism is racism’ in the run up to the programme – ‘refused to be provoked and fielded the criticism convincingly and in a nuanced way.’ 

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France: The 20,000 Jews of Nice have been for years the target of anti-Semitic attacks and harassment

Related: Woman in Nice warns Israeli reporter it is dangerous for him to be there

Cnaan Liphshiz writes at the JTA:

To the millions of tourists who visit Nice annually, the city in southeast France is an ultimate holiday destination that offers inviting beaches and luxury casinos, stunning architecture and world-class museums. Sandwiched between the Maritime Alps and the Mediterranean Sea, Nice is France’s largest tourist destination after Paris, with 5 million arrivals each year and the country’s second largest domestic airport. Nice sees $1.6 billion in annual tourism revenue — 40 percent from its region known locally as Côte d’Azur and abroad as the French Riviera.

But Nice has a dark side, as demonstrated in the terrorist attack of July 14, when a Muslim extremist killed 84 people on the Promenade des Anglais by plowing his truck through the crowds gathered for a fireworks show on France’s national holiday, Bastille Day. After the attack, thousands of tourists checked out hurriedly from hotels that had not had occupancy issues in years.

The attack came as no surprise to many locals, including many of the city’s 20,000 Jews, who for years have been the targets of anti-Semitic attacks and harassment by members of a growing minority of fundamentalists from within the city’s large Muslim population.

“The only Jews you see walking around with a kippah are the foreign tourists,” said Chalom Yaich, a caretaker at the Michelet Jewish community center and synagogue. One of Nice’s dozen-odd shuls, Michelet is located next to a car repair shop at the northern downtown area about a mile and a half from the glitzier beachfront area.

“We locals have stopped wearing it years ago or covered it with a hat for safety,” said Yaich, 53.  He was considering immigrating to Israel before the attack, he said, and is even more inclined to do so now.

“Many have left already because Nice is especially affected by France’s problem with Islam,” Yaich said, noting that its young Jews are especially prone to leave, either for Paris or Israel.

“We have an aging local population with an average age of 50 or 60,” he said.

Nice has at least 60,000 Muslims, or 17 percent of the city’s population, according to estimates published in Le Monde, compared to a national average of about 8 percent of the population. Indeed, more than a third of those killed in the attack were Muslim, the head of a regional Islamic association told The New York Times. Other estimates say 30 to 40 percent of the city’s population is Muslim.

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France: Jewish victims missing from Muslims’ anti-Jihad letter

Via JTA:

A leader of French Jews criticized Muslim intellectuals whose petition against local jihadists omits any mention of anti-Semitic violence.

The petition, signed by dozens of academics and celebrities, appeared Sunday in the Journal de Dimanche under the title “We, French-Muslims, are ready to assume our responsibilities.” In it, the cosignatories lamented the perceived weakness of the institutions of their faith communities in stopping extremists from acting violently in Islam’s name.

The text begins by listing five recent terrorist attacks: The Charlie Hebdo killings in January 2015; the bombing and shooting attacks in November; the murder of two police officers in June; the Nice promenade attacks last month and last week’s slaying of a priest.

It  makes reference neither to the murder of four Jews in a kosher supermarket after the Charlie Hebdo massacre nor to the execution of three children and a rabbi in Toulouse in 2012 – both perpetrated by radical Islamists.

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Germany: Woman harassed on Berlin metro for wearing necklace with Hebrew lettering

Via RIAS, CFCA:
:
A woman wearing a necklace with Hebrew letters was harassed on the Berlin metro.

One passenger told her that German women shouldn't get involved with Arab refugees.  Another passenger intervened, explained it was a Hebrew necklace and called her a 'Jewish bitch'.

Czech Republic: Antisemitism graffiti by football fans

Via CFCA:

Prague - Antisemitic sign found in the lift at Prague subway station in the center (Muzeum station). Sign displays Star of David and text JUDE ACS.(AC Slavia - Prague football team). JUDE SLAVIE is traditional hate hue used by hard core supporters of another Prague football team AC Sparta.

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France: Netanyahu accuses France of funding anti-Israel groups

The irony is that calling for the boycott of Israel is against the law in France, but it seems it doesn't apply to the government....  In May 2012, "the Cour de Cassation, the Supreme Court of France, ruled that calls for a boycott of Israeli products constitute discrimination and as such are illegal under French law."

The Times of Israel reports:

As Paris weighs ban on foreign financing of mosques, PM orders probe into French-sponsored organizations that ‘incite’ against Jewish state, encourage boycotts. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said he ordered an investigation into French-funded organizations that he labeled anti-Israel, as Paris moved to limit the foreign financing of mosques.

After a spate of deadly jihadist attacks, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Saturday announced Paris was considering banning foreign funding of mosques. 

“This sounds familiar to us. We are also disturbed by such donations to organizations that deny the State of Israel’s right to exist,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.

A preliminary inquiry has revealed that several European countries, including France, directly support organizations that engage in anti-Israel incitement, call to boycott the country and do not recognize Israel’s right to exist, Netanyahu said.

“We will discuss this with them because terror is terror everywhere and incitement is incitement which, apparently, encompasses the world, [and] governments must be as united as possible in dealing with them,” the prime minister said.

Netanyahu said the findings of the completed investigation would be submitted to the French government.

On Saturday, Valls said he would weigh a temporary ban on foreign financing of local mosques, urging a “new model” for relations with Islam after the deadly Islamist attacks.

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UK: Man called 'Jewish p**** and told he would 'turn to ashes' in anti-Semitic attack

Via IBTimes (h/t Honestly Concerned):

A Jewish man was told "no one likes your people" and that he would be "turned into ashes" in a shocking anti-Semitic attack in north London. The victim was walking down Ferndale Road in Tottenham on Thursday (28 July) afternoon at 1.30pm when he was subjected to the vile tirade by a man and a woman.

He was told "You c**t, you Jewish pri*k" and "no one likes your people" and "turn you in to ashes" by the suspects in an outburst that left the victim too scared to contact police. The incident was reported to the Met Police by Jewish community watch group Shomrim.

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UK: Anti-Semitic hatred is part of daily life for Jews online - and no-one does anything to stop it

Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, @ The Telegraph: 

[...] I imagine that you are shocked to read about such behaviour. No decent person could fail to be. But Ms Berger won’t have been. I certainly wasn’t. Nor will any prominent Jew. Not because the behaviour is in any way acceptable. Rather, because it is so run-of-the-mill.

Ms Berger receives anti-Semitic abuse every day. In spades. Indeed, you will not find a single prominent Jew with a Twitter or Facebook account who does not regularly receive anti-Semitic abuse.  

 When I wake up and check my Twitter feed it rarely contains fewer than ten anti-Semitic messages. More often than not it’s far more.

Another 20 or so come during an average day. And that’s after I have blocked over 300 different tweeters – a number that increases every day.

Some even amuse me, such as the recent claim that I “lead British Zionists with their propaganda to enable them to control UK.” Another tweet informed the world: “Pollard is the chief protagonist of Zionist supremacism in UK. He controls MSM.”

MSM is an acronym for mainstream media – which means I apparently control all British media. Which would be really useful, if it were true. Sadly, I can’t even control my own kids.

Some are threatening. One notorious anti-Semite that I had previously blocked started informing her followers that I was in the habit of ringing her voicemail and had left abusive messages threatening to rape her. She also posted a tweet suggesting that someone “pop” me off.

In my experience, the police have been entirely useless. Last year I had to explain what Twitter was to two PCs from the Met who had been sent to talk to me about a threat I had reported. Though they had heard of it, they had no real idea what it was.

This is an epidemic of hate. And with the odd exception, such as the clear death threat to Ms Berger, nothing is done about it. Certainly not by Twitter. I have given up reporting the culprits, since not once has Twitter taken any action against them. Free speech, innit?

But one thing puzzles me. Have the likes of Nimmo always been with us, and has social media simply given them a tool and a voice they didn’t have before?  Or has social media itself raised the temperature and itself caused much of the epidemic?

For most of my 51 years, anti-Semitism was something I encountered only fitfully; the odd unthinking throwaway remark or “joke”. Certainly nothing that would give me pause for thought.  But the past few years have been different. I have not gone a day without encountering it. 

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