The New Antisemite

Friday, February 17, 2017

France: Antisemitism is “part of the air that we breathe” and its promoters are coalescing to form a toxic threat to the Jews

Antisemitism has become “part of the air that we breathe” in France and its various promoters — on the right and left — are coalescing to form a toxic threat to the country’s Jews.

So says Professor Andrew Hussey, director of the Centre for Post-Colonial Studies act London University’s School of Advanced Studies and the author of a groundbreaking study, The French Intifada, published in 2014.

He revealed that his French publisher would not accept the title, instead re-naming it Insurrections En France (“Uprisings In France”), because, Mr Hussey said, “He thought people would talk too much about the Jews.”

Prof Hussey said that currently “there is what is called the ‘new antisemitism’ in France,” which is mainly manifested in the banlieues, the poverty-stricken immigrant neighbourhoods in and around big cities. “There has always been the ‘antisemitism du salon’, or the old antisemitism [as expressed in Vichy] — that will never go away. But then there is the more populist antisemitism as expressed in the banlieues.”

He came across this when he began researching the murder of Ilan Halimi, the young French Jew who was killed in Paris in 2006 after weeks of torture. “I began talking to people in the banlieues in 2008, and it was very contentious politically, because the only person who described it as an antisemitic crime was [former president Nicholas] Sarkozy. The government wanted to put it down to social delinquency and were in complete denial about the antisemitism. I wanted to find out if it was true or not.”

He discovered, after talking to young people and gang members, “antisemitism as a form of youth revolt, despite the fact that they admitted they had never met anyone Jewish”. In the banlieues, he said, “you have a kind of civil war between Jews and Arabs which was exported from Algeria, where they all came from”.

Though there is denial in some echelons of Jewish society, Prof Hussey said “Jews on the ground know it’s real”. (...)

The “casual antisemitism of youth revolt” found a darker expression in the 2012 killings in Toulouse by Mohammed Merah, who murdered seven people, including three children, at a Jewish school. During a 30-hour siege after which he was shot dead by police, Merah said he had attacked the school because, “the Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine”. (...)

In every country, Prof Hussey said, the Israel-Palestine situation had an effect on the local debate. “But when it is downloaded into France, where the stew of antisemitism is so particular, it takes on this poisoned energy. It’s to do with atmosphere. And now, I’m starting to feel that this stuff has long since left the library [and academic research] and become part of the air that we breathe.”

Austria: Student groups reject BDS movement targeting Israel

It is important that Austrian students publicly stated that there is a problem with the BDS movement and that it's a new form of antisemitism. We will see if student groups in other European countries will do the same.

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Student associations at the University of Vienna issued a statement on Wednesday, declaring their opposition to every form of anti-Semitism, including the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement targeting Israel.

“As student representatives it is important for us to criticize the academic boycott against Israel, which entirely excludes Israeli academics,” the student council of the University of Vienna said. (...)

Camila Garfias, a member of the association of socialist students (VSStÖ), said “Anti-Semitic violence is part of daily life in Europe.” The association of socialist students is affiliated with the Social Democratic Party in Austria. (SPÖ). Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann is from the SPÖ.

The student group noted that Jews in France no longer feel safe and are immigrating to Israel. An anti-Semitic riot took place against the Israeli soccer Maccabi Haifa in Salzburg; businesses in Paris were vandalized with anti-Semitic slogans, as well as Synagogues in Germany. The students said their examples of the manifestations of anti-Semitism are just a few and anti-Semitism remains part and parcel of everyday life in Europe.

The Green Party students (GRAS), the Socialist students, and Communist students-Left List, which are part of the Austrian Students Union, blasted BDS in their joint statement.
The groups form the governing coalition in the Austrian student parliament at the University of Vienna.

"As a student organization on the University of Vienna, we condemn every form of anti-Semitism, as well as from German nationalist fraternities, and anti-Semitism in the new form of BDS," Karin Stanger from the Green Party student group said.

The Left List student Jana Reischl slammed the extremist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) for spreading "anti-Semitic cartoons and minimizing the crimes of National Socialism.“

Europe: "Jews are outsiders, not equals", says rabbi David Meyer

Via Haaretz (by rabbi David Meyer - this article was published on March 4, 2013):

Testifying at the U.S. House subcommittee hearing I described how, even after 2000 years, Europe has never really accepted the place either of individual Jews or of Judaism as a religion in its midst, leading to a deeply rooted tolerance for acts of violence against the Jewish community.

Last week I testified at the House Foreign Affairs and Human Rights subcommittee, which was holding a hearing on European anti-Semitism. I arrived in Washington with mixed feelings. If I was certainly honoured to bring my contribution to a congressional hearing, I quickly felt the burden of responsibility on my shoulders.

Anti-Semitism is certainly not a minor issue in Europe today. But I was also slightly worried, as I knew I did not want to be the voice that would simply run the various cliches about the unspeakable dangers of living as a Jew in Europe, or even about the uncompromising hate of Jews of some of Europe's Muslims citizens. As a rabbi based in Brussels, at the heart of Europe, having served Jewish communities in both the United Kingdom and Belgium, and currently a professor of Rabbinic Literature in Rome as well as in Belgium, I felt I had the necessary background and experience to bring a more nuanced view on this issue. But would my subtle remarks be heard?

Over the years, my encounters with anti-Semitism have been many and varied. From witnessing first hand, at the age of thirteen, a deadly terrorist attack against my synagogue in Paris, in which four people perished, to subtler and more recent forms of Jewish hatred, often dressed in a cloak of respectability. My dual citizenship and my patriotism for both France and Israel has been questioned and denounced. I have been told to “return to my country” during one particularly heated lecture during a military session in the French Senate. In a similar vein, a high official in England also kindly reminded me several years ago during, ironically, a meeting on interfaith dialogue, that I should not forget that my place was as a “tolerated minority.” In both of these instances, I was clearly the outsider and not an equal.

Yet, my experiences of anti-Semitism pale in comparison to the renewed forms of violence against the Jewish community in Europe. How not to think of the sheer horror and panic that was inflicted on a small Jewish school in Toulouse in March 2012? There, a radical young French Muslim killed, in cold blood, three children aged 3, 6 and 8 as well as a rabbi, who was both a father and teacher at the school. As a father, how can I not look at my two daughters without a mix of fear and apprehension about what Jewish life in Europe will be for them?

I am of course well aware that many leaders in Europe are committed to fighting this renewal of anti-Semitic violence. Their words, in this respect, have been right; their speeches moving. But anti-Semitism remains on the rise. So why are the political words and the policies put in place not enough? The uncomfortable answer is that there is a level of tolerance to acts of violence against the Jewish community that is deeply rooted in the European mentality and which is, in my view, more worrisome in the long run than even the radical Islamist brand of “Jew-hatred.” Europe has never really accepted the place of not only Jews as individuals, but also of Judaism as a religion in its midst.

Norway: Amid growing concerns about antisemitism, learning about Judaism is taken off school curriculum and replaced with Islam

Via Norway, Israel and the Jews:

The Norwegian Government prides itself on being one of the first nations to have an action plan against antisemitism in Norway. A central strategy to rid us of this scourge is to have more education about Judaism and antisemitism in school, as well as dedicating more funds towards research on the subjects. It is therefore highly ironic that the national syllabus on Religious Education in secondary school does not mention Judaism even in an parenthesis.

lifted from utrop.no (google translate)

Judaism made invisible in school textbooks

Judaism’s space in textbooks has become as small as the period before the 1970s. With growing anti-Semitism in society, this is unfortunate, according to a researcher.

Ouarda Jannaouni (06.02.2017)

Christianity and Islam have very large place in the textbooks, which makes Judaism a little dot in relation to the other religions, says Suzanne Thobro.
Thobro (36) is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at the University of Tromsø (UiT). She has researched books on religion course for high school and have seen the development right from 1935 and until today.

She says it’s striking that Judaism’s space in textbooks has become increasingly smaller, and she considers it a setback for Judaism’s place in the study of religion.

France: Problematic candidates for France's presidency

Via The Jerusalem Post (by Manfred Gerstenfeld):

The four main candidates in the upcoming presidential elections in France have all taken problematic positions concerning Israel, the country’s Jews, or both. (...)

The Socialist candidate, Benoit Hamon, who defeated Valls in primaries, is in fourth place in the polls. He was, for a short time, education minister and belongs to the extreme Left of the party.

Hamon is the most negative candidate as far as Israel is concerned. He has a substantial record of anti-Israel remarks. After the Gaza flotilla, he accused Israel of having caused a bloodbath. He was one of the main instigators of the recognition of the Palestinian state in the French parliament in 2014. Most recently, he expressed his happiness about the anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution 2334. There have been several additional anti-Israel statements over the years.

Hamon’s position can be summarized as: being anti-Israel is a very good way to recover French Muslim voters lost during the Hollande presidency.

The current Socialist government frequently takes pro-Palestinian positions. It initiated the useless Paris Middle East Peace conference and aggressively condemns building in the territories, including east Jerusalem.

From an Israeli viewpoint, a hypothetical president Hamon is far worse than a president Le Pen. Yet the Israeli government avoids contact with the FN party. It does not want to legitimize a far-right movement with fascist origins.

From the above, it can also be seen that the candidates’ attitudes toward Israel and toward local Jews are not necessarily parallel. In the long term, this may create a rift between Israel and a portion of France’s Jews.

Overall, as said, all candidates are problematic, which reflects the general situation for Jews in France and the attitude of its governments toward Israel.

read more

Jean Corcos wrote in The Times of Israel (French) that the satirical newspaper "Le Canard Enchaîné" reported in November 2014 that Benoit Hamon had said that the draft resolution recognizing a Palestinian state in the French parliament in 2014 was the best way to recover the electorate from the suburbs and neighborhoods (banlieues et quartiers), i.e. the Muslim electorate, which does not like President Hollande's pro-Israel position.

France: 'Since Ilan was murdered, anti-Semitic crimes have continued in France. The situation of Jews has worsened'

Via European Jewish Press:

"Since my brother was murdered in 2006, unfortunately anti-Semitic crimes have continued. Ilan was the first but unfortunately not the last. The situation of Jews in France has worsened, their life has deteriorated," says Anne-Laure, sister of Ilan Halimi, a young Parisian Jewish man who was brutally murdered eleven years ago by a group called the "gang of barbarians."

"I am scared for myself and for my children because anti-Semitic acts are more and more frequent. France has not learned from the murder of my brother," she told French Jewish magazine Actualité Juive.

The gang of at least 16 people led by Franco-Ivoirian Youssouf Fofana abducted Halimi, then tortured and starved him for 24 days while they negotiated with his family to obtain a ransom. Fofana assured his gang that they would be paid "because Halimi was Jewish and thus rich."

The 23-year-old man was found on a railway track in a Paris suburb, on February 13, 2006, naked, gagged, handcuffed and with burns and other signs of torture on his body. He died in the ambulance that was taking him to hospital.

Fofana who was convicted in 2009 in the torture and killing of Ilan had his life sentence extended last month by a Paris Court for previous extortions. Twenty other accomplices, who were involved to varying degrees, were also convicted and sentenced.

However, several of them are already free. ''Once I crossed in the metro a girl that was involved in the murder of my brother. It was very painful to know that she was there, like me, and she lived her life while my life was no more the same,'' she recounted.

Ilan Halimi was re-buried in Jerusalem

German news agency ‘regrets’ reporting anti-Semitic conspiracy against Trump

How many among the editorial staff read the article and believed it reflected the truth? The eternal antisemitic views about the Jews held by so many in Germany and in Europe.

Via The Jerusalem Post (by Benjamin Weinthal):

The German press agency DPA apologized Tuesday after writing in an article ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Donald Trump that important Jewish donors catapulted Trump into the presidency.

Daniel Killy, a spokesman for the Hamburg Jewish community, told the Post “It's not a statement of the neo-fascist NPD party. It's the German Press Agency spreading ‘Jewish lobby-‘ and other antisemitic clichés - truly unbelievable!." Killy is a member of the German-Israel friendship society in Hamburg.

The Hamburg-based DPA wrote, “Trump was elevated onto the throne by influential Jewish party sponsors.”

Chris Melzer, a spokesman for DPA told the Post, that “the article should not have been published and we regret that.” He added that DPA is working on a new article that “within minutes will be published.”

Volker Beck, a Green Party MP who heads the German-Israel parliamentary group in the Bundestag, told the Post that the article shows "the fantasies about Jewish money that controls the world...One sees antisemitic ideas belong to part of the culture.That shows how important education remains about antisemitic cliches and prejudices."

Ulrich Sahm, a veteran German journalist based in Jerusalem, told the Post: “This article should be added to 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'” The document “The Protocols of the Elder of Zion” asserted an international Jewish conspiracy in Europe and has been widely condemned as an antisemitic publication. (...)

The DPA article’s dateline was Tel Aviv and Washington and the report was a joint-byline dispatch by Stefanie Järkel und Michael Donhauser. The DPA has news bureaus in roughly 100 countries and 50 offices in Germany.

Järkel sent the Post a link to a DPA tweet stating: "Some of the formulations do not conform to DPA-standards." Järkel declined to answer specific Post questions about her role in the article. Donhauser did not immediately responds to a Post query.

Melzer told the Post that the reporters were not disciplined, but they did have a "critical conversation" about the article.

France: CEO says EU regulations singling out Israeli settlement products ‘detrimentally affect’ European businesses

Via Algemeiner:

EU regulations singling out Israeli products made in the West Bank “detrimentally affect” European businesses, the head of a French food company said this week.

Addressing lawmakers at a European Parliament hearing on Thursday, Sydney Knafou — the CEO of Casimex — stated, “I am here before you today, as a European businessman and a supporter of European integration, to alert you to the fact that these regulations may have serious consequences with regard to my ability to compete globally, my existing contracts in the European Union, and, ultimately, the jobs I created for my European employees.”

“For several years now, but, crucially, in the last few months, my business has been disrupted by unhelpful statements made at the EU level which are politically motivated and unrelated to any legitimate European business concern,” Knafou went on to say. “With the adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 in December 2016, this trend is increasing.”

Sweden: Disney severs ties with YouTube's most-watched star PewDiePie after he posted anti-Semitic videos where men called for 'death to all Jews'

Via The Daily Mail:

The world's most watched video blogger has been dropped by Disney after two videos emerged of him making anti-Semitic comments.

The video uploaded January 11 on PewDiePie's channel shows two men laughing as they hold a sign that reads 'Death to all Jews.'

PewDiePie, a 27-year-old Swede named Felix Kjellberg who has amassed over 53million viewers, making him the channel's biggest star.

PewDiePie apparently paid two young Indian men to hold up the offensive sign

The video shows two young men unfurling a sign as PewDiePie says, 'I paid for this?' The sign reads 'Death to all Jews.' PewDiePie covers his mouth and widens his eyes in surprise.

'I'm sorry, I didn't think they would actually do it,' he tells the audience. 'I feel partially responsible. It might just be my crude sense of humor, but I think there's something funny about that.'

He is said to have paid the two Indian men from a freelance company called on Fiverr to hold up the sign.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the blogger has posted nine videos since August that include anti-Semitic jokes or Nazi imagery.

The blogger has received multimillion-dollar deals from YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Walt Disney, which owns Maker Studios, which runs Kjellberg’s business, according to MarketWatch.

Via CAA:

John Clarke, a Labour Councillor and Chairman of Black Notley Parish Council in Essex, who was a parliamentary candidate for Labour in 2015, has been found to have posted a comment on Facebook berating Holocaust victims for ‘not fighting back’. Despite being an unarmed civilian population facing the might of Nazi Germany’s genocidal forces, Jews famously did mount fierce rebellions and missions to sabotage or resist the Nazis.

We exposed Councillor Clarke on Tuesday after he tweeted an image from a neo-Nazi website claiming that the Rothschild family, a Jewish family of bankers and philanthropists, has “used usury alongside modern Israel as an imperial instrument to take over the world and all of its resources, including you and I”.

Now, Campaign Against Antisemitism has been contacted by a former pupil of Clarke’s over a Facebook rant in 2012 in which Clarke wrote: “As for WW2, I am unaware of any significant military action taken by Jews against Nazi Germany; ask older Jews why they didn’t actually FIGHT the nazis. In addition, insulting the memory of the allied forces, which included many of my relatives, who actually freed Jews from concentration camps you are the ‘deniers’ here. You may also like to know that many British ex-soldiers now in their eighties remember what the Jews did to members of the British forces sent to keep the peace in Israel, before it was declared a sovereign state in the late 1940s. I’ll bet you have an excuse for THAT disgusting bit of Jewish history”.

However as we learned when we first exposed him, Clarke believes that those who call him an antisemite are simply part of a conspiracy, tweeting: “Antisemite smear in constant overuse as those who use it expand their power base”. It is not hard to imagine who he is referring to.

Councillor Clarke is listed as a “Senior Lecturer” at the University of East London* and serves as a governor of school. We have made disciplinary complaints to the District Council, the university and the school.

Russian lawmaker: Ancestors of Jewish politicians ‘boiled us in cauldrons’

Via JTA:

A Russian lawmaker in President Vladimir Putin’s party said the ancestors of two Jewish opposition politicians had killed Christians.

“Christians survived despite the fact that the ancestors of Boris Vishnevsky and Maksim Reznik boiled us in cauldrons and fed us to animals,” Vitaly Milonov said Sunday, according to Agence France-Presse.

Jewish groups and leaders condemned Milonov’s statement.

“For a State Duma deputy, it is unacceptable to make such irresponsible statements,” said Rabbi Boruch Gorin, the spokesman for the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, AFP reported.

The president of the Russian Jewish Congress told AFP that it was “clear to any normal person that these lawmakers are of Jewish descent and that he means Jews.”

Belgium: Israel scolds Belgian envoy over his PM’s meeting with left-wing groups

One can imagine the furore if P.M. Netanyahu met, on a visit to Belgium, with far left wing groups or if the Israeli government financed NGOs engaged in anti-Belgian propaganda...

The Times of Israel:

Belgium’s Ambassador to Israel Olivier Belle was summoned for a dressing down in the Foreign Ministry on Thursday over a visit by his country’s prime minister, Charles Michel, with representatives of two prominent left-wing Israeli rights organizations.

On Wednesday, during his three-day visit to Israel, Michel met with the heads of Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem, despite a direct appeal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Belgium to end its support to groups he considers damaging to the country.

“The government of Belgium needs to decide if it wants to change direction or continue with its anti-Israel path,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office warned in response to the meetings.

The statement said Jerusalem viewed Michel’s meetings “with utmost gravity,” and noted Belgium’s “unfriendly” initiatives to prosecute Israeli officials for alleged war crimes during the 2008 Gaza war.

France: 230,000 French Jews live in Israel

Via i24news:

An estimated 230,000 French Jews live in Israel, while around 200,00 more, (phrase uncomplete)

In 2012, the total French Jewish population in Israel was estimated at 200,000.

Connected:
- Europe: Jewish population figures are a shadow of what they used to be prior to the Holocaust
- Europe: Sharp decline of Jewish population in Europe
- Europe: 600,000 Jews have left Europe in last 25 years

Germany signs sports agreement with terror promoting PA official Rajoub

Via PMW (by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik):

- Rajoub on murderers of Israelis: “heroes... a crown on our heads”

- The Palestinian Football Association supervises yearly sporting event named after terrorist Abu Jihad

- Rajoub prohibits joint sports activities between Palestinians and Israelis and called a joint match between Israeli and Palestinian boys “a crime against humanity” - Germany will pay “all expenses and fees” for expert to join the Palestinian Football Association to help it “advance the football sector”

- German representative in Ramallah is “proud” of agreement

Last week, the head of the German representation in Ramallah, Peter Beerwerth, signed “the first bilateral cooperation agreement” in sports between the PA and Germany with Jibril Rajoub, the president of the Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs in the Palestinian Authority.

In its recent report The Rajoub File, Palestinian Media Watch documented that Jibril Rajoub is an outspoken supporter of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis and prohibits peace building sports activities between Palestinians and Israelis. During the latest wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis, Rajoub congratulated terrorist murderers, telling them that: “You are ‎heroes and we bless you... you are a ‎crown on our heads.” When a friendly football match took place between 11-year-old Israeli and Palestinian boys after the Gaza War in 2014, Rajoub called it a “crime against humanity.”

In addition, the Palestinian Football Association, which will be the beneficiary of a German football expert paid for by Germany, supervises an annual sporting event named after arch-terrorist Abu Jihad. According to the Palestinian Authority’s own documentation, terrorist Abu Jihad was responsible for the murder of 125 people.

The official PA daily reported that the new agreement between Germany and the PA is the result of “meetings between Rajoub and senior officials of the sports sector in Germany,” and that the German Olympic Committee and the German Football Association at these meetings had “demonstrated a willingness to contribute to the development of many sports branches in Palestine.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 1, 2017]

Germany’s association and signing of an agreement with terror promoting Rajoub is in stark contrast to German Parliament Members' condemnation of Germany’s possible funding of terror-supporting activities by the PA, specifically the PA’s honoring of terrorists by paying them salaries in prison as PMW has documented.

German MP Volker Beck asked German Foreign Minister in September 2016 how Germany ensures its funding to the PA is not paying for salaries to terrorists, and after seeing a presentation by PMW in 2015, German MP Albert Weiler stated that "it should not be possible for anti-democratic terror organizations to murder Jews or Christians in the name of their religion. We must fight this strongly. And the whole world should be doing it together."

France: Media assumes Jews have dual loyalty problem

According to the ADL Global 100 Survey, a third of the French think Jews are more loyal to Israel than to France.

Via Walla:

This past Thursday, Le Pen told France 2 TV that she will not allow French citizens to hold double citizenship.The interviewer then asked specifically about Jews and Israeli citizenship.

Avi Zana, director of AMI, an organization that assists French immigrants to Israel, says the question expressed how French media see French Jews. The journalist thought it was obvious that all French Jews hold Israeli citizenship, while the reality is that 99% of them don't.

"Le Pen's answer is important, but the journalist's question is more significant, because it shows the stigma that exists about Jews in France."

Avraham Azoulay, CEO of the Israeli French-language paper "Le Petit Hebdo" says that Jews in France are afraid. "There's fear in the streets, and there's fear to talk at work".

According to Azoulay, Le Pen is attacking Jews as part of her attack on Muslims, but that's not worse than the Left, which does not oppose Muslims and opens the door to immigration and terrorism. He sees no future for Jews in France, but says that it's already better to have Le Pen in charge, as it's better for the French.

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