The New Antisemite

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Belgium: Abou Jahjah accuses journalist who criticized him of being “paid by Israel"

Dyab Abou Jahjah

(...) the Belgian anti-Israel activist Dyab Abou Jahjah accused a Jewish journalist from Antwerp who criticized him of being “paid by Israel.”

Abou Jahjah, a Lebanon-born supporter of Hezbollah who was fired as a columnist for the daily De Standard this year for praising the slaying of Israelis by a terrorist in Jerusalem, told Gazet van Antwerpen that the Jewish journalist, Michael Freilich, was an Israeli agent.

“This is propaganda disseminated by some who is paid by Israel,” Abou Jahjah said of criticism leveled at him by Freilich, editor-in-chief of the Joods Actueel Jewish monthly.

Freilich said he is neither paid by Israel nor a citizen of the country.

UK: Anger over 'Star of David' symbol on Labour poster allowed by Bristol city council

The usual European conspiracy theories concerning Jewish control over the world.

Via The Jewish Chronicle:

A giant left-wing political banner in one of Britain’s biggest cities has been condemned as antisemitic for portraying Theresa May wearing Star of David earrings.

The banner, which was hung at the Bearpit roundabout in Bristol, depicted Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May facing each other, with positive slogans endorsing Jeremy Corbyn and negative statements about Theresa May’s policies.

As well as the earrings, the word “Balfour” was also written on the poster next to Theresa May. This November will mark the centenary of the signing of the Balfour Declaration, which called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”, as well as saying that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”.

In April the UK government rejected calls by the Palestinian Authority to apologise for the declaration, with the Board of Deputies welcoming “the government’s strong, principled stance”.

A Jewish resident of the city told the JC he was “incredibly sad and angry that the place both me and my partner, who is also Jewish, live is rife with such disgusting views.

“It's even more worrying that the Bristol city council have given these views credence by allowing them to be shown in such public space such as The Bearpit, which is driven past by thousands of motorists a day”.

He condemned the banner as antisemitic, saying “the Magen David [Star of David] earrings are clearly implying that the Jews/Israel have hegemony over our government, which is a century old antisemitic trope.”

Nima Masterson, one of the organisers who put up the banner, told the Bristol Post that it was not meant to be antisemitic, saying that the earrings were “a tiny element of the whole banner.

“What we are doing with that symbol – it’s an earring – is a reference to Theresa May’s Government’s relationship with Israel.

“It is a critique of her foreign policy, rather than against religion.

UK: Jewish chaplain’s daughter ‘punched and kicked’ in anti-Semitic attack

Via Jewish News:

A Jewish chaplain has praised his 16-year old daughter’s response after being punched and kicked in a racist attack in an Edgware park – and slammed the police for “failing to respond”.

Alex Goldberg, a barrister who is Jewish Chaplain at the University of Surrey and Chaplain to Surry Police, said the attack took place on Shabbat almost two weeks ago, and that one of the attackers said: “Hitler should have killed all you Jews.”

Writing on Facebook, Goldberg said his daughter Hannah – who was in Stoneyfields Park with two friends – had a basketball thrown at her head before being kicked in the chest and punched in the face by two boys, who then ran off.

He said the girls, who are Orthodox and easily recognisable for wearing long skirts on Shabbat, were then helped by a mother of two children who called the police, but that officers had not arrived two hours later, when the girls went home.

Taking to social media, Goldberg said he was posting the story “in the hope that the Met Police sort themselves out here and that we as community leaders start to realise that it is important to work on community cohesion”.

Austria: Rapid Vienna investigates fans’ anti-Semitic chants

Via Times of Israel:

Austrian soccer giant Rapid Vienna has launched an internal probe into club supporters chanting anti-Semitic slogans during a reserve team game this week.

A small group among the several hundred spectators were filmed shouting “Jewish pigs” after Rapid II lost 2-1 against arch rival Austria Vienna in Tuesday evening’s clash.

A video of the incident was posted on social media networks including Facebook.

Rapid described the behavior as “unforgivable,” saying it “trampled on the club’s values and principles.”

“Anyone who is found to have joined in these insults will be immediately banned from SK Rapid events,” the club said in a statement sent to AFP.

Portuguese UN Chief denounces '50 years of Israeli occupation' on Six Day War anniversary

Mr Guterres is a Portuguese Socialist politician and diplomat. Portugal has a long history of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. In 1975, Portugal was the only Western European country to vote in favour of the infamous United Nations Resolution 3379 (revoked in 1991) which equated Zionism – the self-determination of the Jewish people - with racism. It is ironic that such malevolence came after the Holocaust and in the aftermath of the revolution which enabled the Portuguese people to shed four decades of the harsh dictatorial regime led by Salazar. Having regained freedom and dignity, the progressive regime in place riding on the anti-Zionist tide turned against Jews and their democratic State. Portugal is one of the poorest countries in Western Europe. "Portugal has the highest emigration rate as a proportion of population in the European Union. More than two million Portuguese people (20% of the population) now live outside the country. Historically Portugal would rank as the nation with the highest unemployment rate in both Europe and EU given their large emigration rates as labor outflows contribute to the weight of unemployment." Nonetheless it believes it is its duty to condemn Israel.

Via The Jerusalem Post:

Antonio Guterres

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres did not mince words in his critique of Israel as it marks fifty years since it reunified Jerusalem in the Six Day War.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the five-decades-long Israeli occupation has imposed a "heavy humanitarian and development burden on the Palestinian people" and "fueled recurring cycles of violence and retribution."

The UN chief expressed his concerns regarding the prospects for regional peace in the Middle East in a statement released Monday, as Israel marks 50 years since it won the Six Day War in which it reunited Jerusalem. According to Guterres, the perpetuation of the occupation is also sending “an unmistakable message to generations of Palestinians that their dream of statehood is destined to remain just that, a dream; and to Israelis that their desire for peace, security and regional recognition remains unattainable.” (...)

The secretary-general also said he believes that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will “remove a driver of violent extremism and terrorism in the Middle East and open the doors to cooperation, security, prosperity and human rights for all.”

In response to the secretary-general's comments, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said, “The attacks on Israel by our neighbors did not begin in 1967 and any attempt at a moral equivalency between killing innocent people and the building of homes is absurd. Instead of spreading Palestinian misinformation, it would be best if the UN stuck with the facts.

"It is preposterous to blame terror and violence in the Middle East on the one true democracy in the region.

"The moment the Palestinian leadership abandons terror, ceases to incite against our people and finally returns to direct negotiations, then real progress can be made towards peace."

Switzerland considers war crimes complaint against Tzipi Livni

One wonders how many war crimes complaints have been filed in Belgium and in Switzerland and in other European countries against Arab countries?

Via The Times of Israel:

Switzerland’s attorney general’s office on Wednesday said the country is weighing whether to pursue a war crimes complaint filed against former minister Tzipi Livni over her role in the 2008-2009 Gaza war.

“[The legal] request is presently being studied,” the attorney general’s office told Swiss news site Swissinfo.

Quoting the French-language Swiss daily Le Temps, Swissinfo said that the suit was filed Monday by the pro-Palestinian Swiss organization Urgence against Livni, who served as foreign minister during the three-week long conflict between Israel and the Hamas terror group, a war known in Israel as Operation Cast Lead.

The complaint against Livni was submitted after she visited the Swiss city of Lugano on Sunday to speak at an event arranged by the Swiss-Israel Association.

Swiss NGO Trial International hailed Urgence’s decision to file the complaint, saying it would enable Swiss authorities to take legal action against Livni if she returns to the country.

“Switzerland has an obligation to work on cases of alleged war crimes if the suspect steps on Swiss territory. If Switzerland opens an investigation, it is in line with Swiss law, especially given the alleged crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead,” a representative for the group told Swissinfo.

Livni has been the target of groups attempting to bring war crimes charges against Israeli leaders over Operation Cast Lead in a number of European countries.

In January, Livni canceled a trip to Brussels when Belgian prosecutors planned to question her over allegations of war crimes.

“We wanted to take advantage of her visit to try to advance the investigation,” a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor Thierry Werts said.

German study: over 50% of Muslim refugees hold anti-semitic views

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

More than half the asylum seekers in Bavaria subscribe to classic antisemitic views about Jewish power, according to a poll released last week.

The study, conducted by the Hanns Seidel foundation – a think tank affiliated with the Christian Social Union party in the southern state of Bavaria, polled nearly 800 refugees during 2016 from the Bavarian cities of Nuremberg, Poing und Pliening. Their countries of origin are Syria, Eritrea, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“More than half of Muslim asylum seekers showed clear tendencies of an antisemitic attitude pattern,” wrote the authors of the 201-page study examined by The Jerusalem Post.

When asked by the investigators if “Jews have too much influence in the world,” 52% of Syrians said yes, while 53% of Iraqis agreed with the statement. Nearly 60% of Afghans said Jews wield too much influence, while a mere 5.4% of those from Eritrea – a Christian-majority country – held antisemitic views. Some Eritreans said they were familiar with Jews from the Bible.

The number of Germans who affirmed the antisemitic statement about Jewish influence was 20%. In April, however, a new German government report revealed 40% of the German public hold a modern antisemitic view: the hatred of Israel.

The Seidel study said “the decisive factor that explains antisemitic opinions is one’s religious group. Antisemitism in all age groups and educational background of Muslim asylum seekers,” is anchored in the educational system of the refugees’ countries of origin. A Syrian refugee named Mustafa said that “In Syria we were taught to hate a Jews a little bit. The government presented Jews as bad [people] who kill...”

According to the study, there are “emotional prejudices against Israeli families from the side of the refugees.”

UK: Police probe ‘anti-Semitic’ heckling of Naz Shah for defending Israel’s existence

Via Jewish News:

An anti-Semitic “hate incident” at an election hustings in Bradford West has been reported to police by event organisers after a man allegedly shouted “Jew, Jew, Jew” at candidates.

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The shouts were audible on a live video of the hustings filmed by community group JUST Yorkshire, and came after Labour candidate Naseem Shah re-iterated her support for “Israel’s right to exist” at the event on Wednesday May 31.

She had been asked by a hustings attendee to clarify her position “on Zionism”.

“I didn’t hear it at the time because the heckling was so bad,” Ms Shah told the Press Association. “But I have seen the video now, I’ve heard it with my own ears and I’m glad it has been reported as a hate incident.”

“There was a lot of misogyny in that room,” she added. “It wasn’t a nice experience.”

Sweden launches program to fight Holocaust denial and antisemitism

The problem with European Holocaust education today is that no effort is made to teach kids that calling Jews Nazis is a type of Holocaust denial, or why Israel is not Nazi Germany and is not committing genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Via Jerusalem Post:

With surveys showing “lots of Swedish Jews are afraid of showing their Jewishness,” Stockholm has stepped up efforts to teach about the Holocaust as a means of fighting against antisemitism, the director of a government-run program targeting the issue said.

“The Swedish government is investing a lot of money to combat the phenomenon of antisemitism and Islamophobia,” Ingrid Lomfors, director of the Living History Forum in Sweden added, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post this past week.

The Forum is a public authority established by Sweden some 15 years ago with the aim of “promoting democracy, tolerance and human rights using the Holocaust as a starting point.”

In November the government announced an additional 156 million Krona (NIS 65 million) stipend to develop a new national program for Holocaust remembrance, with the aim of combating antisemitism and racism.

“Our task is to teach Holocaust education but also to learn from history – to learn about the Holocaust and to learn from the Holocaust – what lessons can be drawn in terms of how we look at democracy, the risk of populism and racism, how do we find early warnings,” Lomfors said.

UK: Family reportedly pelted by stones by youths yelling ‘Jews’

Via Jerusalem Post:

A Jewish family was reportedly pelted with stones by a group of youths shouting “Jews” at the Kent seaside in England over the bank holiday weekend, according to Jewish neighborhood watch group Shomrim.

The parents and their five children, aged between eight and 15, were playing at Minster Beach on the Isle of Sheppey on Sunday afternoon when the incident occurred.

The family from London’s Stamford Hill area – home to Europe’s largest haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community – cut their vacation short out of fear for their safety, Shomrim said in a series of Twitter posts.

The volunteer group said it was providing support to the family and accused Kent Police of failing to dispatch officers to the scene at the time of the incident. Kent Police responded that during the victims’ phone call to the police, the informant and suspects left the scene and officers determined that there was no further risk.

Ireland: Muslim man jailed over threat to 'cut heads off Jews'

Shmael Heirouche

A man who warned his French housemates that recent Isil terror attacks in France were "excellent" and that Jews should be beheaded was jailed for five years.

Dutch national Shmael Heirouche (40) appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court after pleading guilty to a charge of threatening to kill or cause serious harm. Heirouche, who is of Moroccan ancestry, also told gardaí after his arrest that if he had a sword he would cut the heads off Jews.

He told one French man that those who carried out terrorist attacks in France would "get a first class ticket" to paradise.

Judge Sean O'Donnabhain warned that it was a very serious matter.

The judge said society had a right to be protected but that this right must be balanced by a duty of care to Heirouche, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic in Holland.

Estonia: Far-right politician vows to legalize Holocaust denial

Via JTA:

Georg Kirsberg

An Estonian nationalist politician vowed in his election campaign to decriminalize Holocaust denial and instead penalize those who would downplay the Soviet domination of the country.

Georg Kirsberg, who is running for a lawmaker’s seat for the Conservative People’s Party in Estonia’s elections in October, was quoted Wednesday by the Estonian National Broadcasting Company.

“We will decriminalize Holocaust denial and enter a correct teaching of the history of the Third Reich,” Kirsberg said.

His far-right party supports revoking the citizenship and deporting what it defines as “Russians hostile to Estonia” – a reference to ethnic Russians or speakers of that language living in Estonia, including most of the country’s Jews. Last month, the party, which was founded in 2012 and currently has seven out of 101 seats in the Estonian parliament, submitted a bill proposing such deportations. It is likely to be defeated. The party also supports a ban on the construction of new mosques and Eastern Orthodox churches.

Doing away with Estonia’s laws against denying the Holocaust is however not an official party position, Martin Helme, the party’s leader, told the broadcasting authority.

“He does not claim that it is the party’s position, it is only the thought of one person,” Helme said. Asked whether the party plans to sanction Kirsberg over his comment, Helme said he “sees no reason to do this.”

UK: Radiohead singer: pressure by BDS supporters to cancel Israel concert Is ‘Extremely upsetting, disrespectful and offensive’

Via The Algemeiner:

Thom Yorke

The amount of harassment Radiohead has received from BDS supporters about its upcoming concert in Israel is “extremely upsetting,” the rock band’s lead singer said on Friday.

“It’s deeply distressing that they choose to, rather than engage with us personally, throw s**t at us in public,” Thom Yorke told Rolling Stone magazine. “It’s deeply disrespectful to assume that we’re either being misinformed or that we’re so retarded we can’t make these decisions ourselves. I thought it was patronizing in the extreme. It’s offensive and I just can’t understand why going to play a rock show or going to lecture at a university [is a problem to them].”

Radiohead is scheduled to play in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park on July 19 as it wraps up its 2017 A Moon Shaped Pool tour. When the band first announced the concert in April, BDS supporters — including Desmond Tutu and Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters — signed an open letter urging the rockers to cancel their show to “help pressure Israel to end its violation of basic rights and international law [against Palestinians].”

The band refused to call off its concert and has continued to face pressure from BDS supporters. (...)

“It’s really upsetting that artists I respect think we are not capable of making a moral decision ourselves after all these years,” Yorke added. “They talk down to us and I just find it mind-boggling that they think they have the right to do that. It’s extraordinary.”

The British rocker added that Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood was married to an Arab Jew and had both Palestinian and Jewish friends, so to think he was ignorant of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was appalling.

European Parliament resolution on anti-Semitism omits to include Israel as an excuse for modern anti-Semitism

Israel is the excuse for being anti-semitic in Europe... and the MEPs know it. Obviously nothing will change.

Via The European Jewish Press:

While praising the adoption Thursday by the European Parliament of a resolution calling for a more vigorous action against rising anti-Semitism in Europe as "an excellent text and a very welcome development," Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Director General of the European Jewish Association (EJA) deplored what he called ‚"a glaring omission", the fact that it doesn’t include at all Israel as an excuse for modern anti-Semitism.

"We now have have something concrete and tangible with which to fight the scourge of anti-Semitism", Margolin said.

He however added that for many diaspora Jews‚ "anti-Semitism is attempted to be masked under and behind anti-Israel activities."

European lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the resolution. It endorses the working definition of anti-Semitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted in May 2016 in Bucharest.

French Jewish experts cannot come up with a plan for a viable long-term Jewish community

Via The Jerusalem Post (Manfred Gerstenfeld):

Many Jews in France feel ongoing unease about French attitudes toward them. This is due to an array of problems that go far beyond antisemitic statements. When one speaks to French Jewish experts they cannot come up with a plan for a viable long-term Jewish community.

The relative importance of the various issues which worry Jews in France change with the political party in power. Yet one threat is always there: that of violence, sometimes lethal, emanating mainly from parts of the Muslim community.

All lethal attacks on Jews in Western Europe in the 21st century have been carried out by Muslims. Most have taken place in France. Jews represent less than one percent of the country’s population, but amount to a substantially higher percentage of those killed.

Sebastien Selam, a Jewish disc jockey, was murdered by his neighbor, Adel Amastaibou, in 2003. In 2006, a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, was kidnapped and tortured for 24 days before being murdered by a group of Muslims.

The 2012 murders of four Jews, three of them children, in Toulouse was carried out by Mohammed Merah. In 2015, Ahmed Coulibaly murdered four Jews in the Paris Hyper Cacher supermarket. In April 2017, Sarah Lucy Halimi was murdered in Paris. The suspect is her Muslim neighbor. The summer 2014 attacks on synagogues in Paris and Sarcelles by bands of Muslim hooligans are unprecedented in post-war Western Europe.

France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, wants the existing EU open border policy to remain. This facilitates additional terrorist attacks. The attacks and threats have led to greatly increased security in synagogues, schools and other Jewish institutions. Such protection also has a tendency to enhance fear. Some may even stay away from Jewish gathering places.

Furthermore, many Jews are reluctant to show their identity in the public domain, especially in areas where there are many Muslims.

One major reason why France has taken anti-Israeli positions is to please Muslims originating in countries with majority percentages of antisemites, or their descendants. This is another important reason France is a country with major social and economic problems.

The British Daily Telegraph has called France “the sick man of Europe.”

In such a reality the leaders of the country need not only to please Muslims but also to find a scapegoat to convince themselves that France counts more than it really does in the world. The initiative which led to the failed Paris Middle East Peace Conference at the beginning of 2017 should be seen in this context.

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