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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

France: On this day: Al-Dura and the advent of Pallywood

Charles Enderlin, who is Jewish, has become a hero in France and was awarded the Legion of Honour in 2009, the highest decoration in France, by Nicolas Sarkozy.

Honest Reporting remembers:

It’s hard to believe that it is 15 years to the day since the image of 12-year-old Gazan Mohammed al-Dura crouching next to his father behind a barrel, caught in the crossfire, became the defining image of the Second Intifada.

Israel was accused of killing al-Dura based on the heavily edited footage of a Palestinian cameraman working for France 2 TV and its reporter Charles Enderlin.

But what really happened? Our video below is as relevant today as it was when we first posted it in 2008. It chronicles the beginning of “Pallywood” – Palestinian efforts to stage false footage for broadcast in the mainstream news.


It’s hard to miss the similarities between false footage that’s shown being filmed in 2000 as the Second Intifada was getting started and what has since occurred on numerous occasions including Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

In the years following this video, more investigation has been carried out at the initiation of the Israeli government which published a detailed report in May 2013, which can be read or downloaded in full below.
The France 2 Al-Durrah Report Its Consequences and Implications by HonestReporting.

UK: London being "ripped apart" by "Israeli scumbag property developers"

The Times reports:

Anti-gentrification activists attacked a café specialising in breakfast cereal, which is seen as the epitome of “hipster” culture.

A mob of class warriors carrying flame torches vandalised the Cereal Killer Café during a violent protest in the fashionable area of Shoreditch, in east London, on Saturday night.

Protesters, many wearing pig masks in the largely Muslim area, also burnt an effigy of a bearded “hipster” police officer. [...]

The Facebook paged used to organise the protest [...] also complained that communities were being "ripped apart" by various groups including "Israeli scumbag property developers". The organiser swiftly deleted repeated complaints that the criticims was antisemitic.

Ukraine: Jews demand protection for Holocaust sites


Via Jerusalem Post:
Ukrainian Jewish leaders on Tuesday demanded that their government protect Holocaust sites throughout the country, during a pre-Yom Kippur ceremony memorializing the more than 33,000 Jews killed at Kiev’s Babi Yar ravine.

Babi Yar has been vandalized six times since the beginning of the year, most recently on September 16, when unidentified persons piled tires around a memorial menorah and lit them on fire.

While the number of violent anti-Semitic incidents was low in Ukraine in 2013 compared to Western Europe, anti-Semitic vandalism spiked in the Eastern European nation last year, according to the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.

Popular targets for vandals were Holocaust memorials such as Babi Yar. Synagogues in Zaporizhya, Simferopol, Mykolaiv, Kiev and Hust were targeted in attempted arson attacks.  more

Israel: Arab arsonists who torched Jerusalem synagogue jailed for 2 to 5 years



Via Israel Hayom:
A Jerusalem District Court Judge on Monday issued prison sentences ranging between two years and five and a half years to members of a terrorist cell from the village of Issawiya, who were found guilty of setting a synagogue in Jerusalem's French Hill neighborhood ablaze, among other crimes.

The court also ordered the defendants to reimburse the victims of their various crimes upwards of thousands of shekels.

In April 2014, prosecuting attorney Yifat Pinhasi issued an indictment against Mohammad Abid, Ibrahim Darbas, Mohammad Alian and Walid Alian, all 18 years of age, for arson, premeditated and aggravated destruction of property, weapons manufacturing, carrying illegal firearms, attempted aggravated assault of a police officer and other offenses.  more


Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Ukraine: Rebels warn Israel that media reports against them could stir "xenophobia and anti-Semitism""


Via Jerusalem Post:
An Israeli media report on a Ukrainian woman who recently immigrated has caused consternation among pro-Russian separatists in the east of the former Soviet republic, with representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic calling on Jerusalem to censor her story.

Last week, Israel’s Russian-language Channel 9 reported on the arrival of a pregnant woman detained by rebels for more than a month on a flight organized by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

The woman, whose family requested that she not be identified by name, was taken from her home in Donetsk in mid-June by three armed men and accused of harboring government sympathies.

Speaking with The Jerusalem Post, her mother accused the rebels of planting a sniper rifle in the garage of their house during a subsequent search. Released in a prisoner trade, the woman was forced to confess to having acted as an armed combatant on behalf of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist Pravy Sektor organization.

“We would like to stress that in the course of investigation held by the DPR state security and inner affairs agencies there is no evidence that can prove such kind of information,” the separatist foreign ministry said in a statement about reports of the woman’s immigration.

Calling the Channel 9 report “proofless [sic] materials of obviously agitational and provocative character,” the separatists called on Israel’s Foreign Ministry to pay “special attention” and not “let such cases happen in the future, as despite primitive level of these provocations, they necessitate the risk of stirring xenophobia and anti-Semitism.”

Jerusalem is “aware of the issue” but will not comment, a ministry spokesman said. more

Ireland: Outrage as developer Johnny Ronan uses Nazi slogan in attack on Nama


Via Independent:
A German phrase which is widely associated with Nazi concentration camps will not be redacted from Celtic Tiger developer Johnny Ronan's statement to the Banking Inquiry.

The businessman has caused outrage in the Jewish community by signing off his submission with 'Arbeit Macht Frei', which translates as 'work sets you free'.

Former justice minister Alan Shatter has led calls for the phrase - in German and as Gaeilge - to be removed from the statement which was published on the Oireachtas website yesterday.

Mr Ronan stresses throughout his 21-page written submission that he felt his companies had worked hard but ultimately Nama had destroyed them.

Mr Shatter said it was beyond his comprehension that the "notorious and diabolically misleading" phrase which hung at the entrance to concentration camps, including Auschwitz, was published on the Oireachtas website.

He called on Mr Ronan, who played major roles in the development of the Google Headquarters, National Convention Centre and Spencer Dock, to withdraw the remarks, and on the Banking Inquiry to remove the phrase from his submission.  more

France: Cancer organisation wipes Israel off a map for school children and puts in Palestine

A French philosemite and pro-Israel blog, Ces Goys qui Défendent Israël, has reported that primary school children in Paris and Montreuil have been handed out diaries featuring a map from which  Israel has been wiped out and replaced by "Palestine".  The diaries were produced by the French League Against Cancer and distributed by the City of Paris.

Ces Goys qui Défendent Israël wrote to the cancer organisation and the city of Paris.  Both were shocked their attitude had caused shock and great concern - and pleaded their good faith. No wonder French Jews are leaving France in what seems to be an exodus: "David Horovitz, the founding editor of Times of Israel, was reflecting on the exodus of French Jews to Israel".

Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris, has a huge admiration and tenderness for Abbas.  As was written in this blog:


Above, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo hugs Abbas after awarding him the Grand Medaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris.

See also Paris mayor honors Jew-murderers by day, fights antisemitism by night

Can anybody imagine Netanyahu getting this treatment?  Of course not.
Below is the invitation card from Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, to His Excellency Mr Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine, to attend a ceremony at the Townhall on the Internation Day of Peace.  Obviously Netanyahu was not invited.  For the Pope His Excellency Mr Mahmoud Abbas is an "Angel of Peace".





Europe: It is tragic that Jewish leaders in Europe are not raising the alarm

 Charles Bybelezer writes @ Jerusalem Post:

Brussels Jewish leaders calling
for Belgium to "welcome" refugees
and referring to the Holocaust,
but the same complain of risk to Jews...
In the prevailing climate of political correctness, policies are too often driven by emotional arguments rather than sober analysis, a reality currently playing out in the debate over the mass influx into Europe of migrants from the Middle East and North African (MENA).

While the issue strikes a deep humanitarian chord, over the past two decades Europe has failed miserably at integrating these populations. Nevertheless, the EU is now doubling down on a failed strategy, promising to take in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people over the next few years, many of whom are, in actuality, asylum- seekers – with no intention of returning to their home countries – or economic migrants. Yet nobody seems to be asking the question: Is this good for the Jews? The answer is a resounding “no.”

European Jewry is currently enduring the most intense wave of anti-Semitism to sweep the continent since World War II, and the cold, hard truth is that Muslim immigrants and their poorly-assimilated offspring are fueling it.  [...]

It is tragic, then, that Jewish leaders in Europe are not raising the alarm. To the contrary, many are advocating on behalf of those who are liable to hurt their communities.

Take the greatly respected former chief rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, who last week penned a moving albeit short-sighted article in support of the EU’s decision to absorb hundreds of thousands of additional people.

“Now is a unique opportunity to show that the ideals for which the European Union and other international bodies such as the United Nations were formed are still compelling, compassionate and humane,” Sacks contended.[...]

Another common rationalization employed by Sacks invokes the lead-up to the Holocaust. “One of the dark moments in [world] history occurred in July 1938,” he writes, “when representatives of 32 countries gathered in the French spa town of Evian to discuss the disaster that everyone knew was about to overtake the Jews of Europe wherever Hitler’s Germany held sway.... Yet country after country shut its doors.”

The flaw in this argument is glaring; namely, that there is no concerted genocide taking place in Syria, Iraq or Libya, but rather Sunni-Shi’ite proxy wars. Some minority populations are, in fact, being systematically targeted – such as the Yazidis, for example – but they are not primary among the young, single and mainly Muslim migrants currently being absorbed into Europe (according to the UN’s refugee agency [UNHCR], 70% of the nearly 450,000 immigrants that arrived by sea to Europe this year are men, compared to just 13% who are women and 18% children). 

This is why comparisons to the Holocaust are invariably blanketed by emotional fluff – “wars that cannot be won by weapons can sometimes be won by the sheer power of acts of humanitarian generosity,” according to Sacks. But taking in millions of migrants will not end the war in Syria or anywhere else; by contrast, it will simply import the root causes – Islamic fundamentalism and tribalism – to the West. (A representative example is the Greek island of Kos, where thousands of migrants have caused utter chaos for local residents, with violent riots erupting between competing ethnic groups).  [...]

Just days before Sacks published his article encouraging more immigration to the UK, four Jewish males were attacked at a train station in Manchester, England, one teen sustaining a fractured skull. This is but one example of the many violent anti-Semitic attacks already occurring with alarming frequency throughout Europe, and taking in more people from MENA countries will only add to the crisis.

The remaining question is whether Jewish leaders will take ownership now, or feign surprise and outrage the next time a European Jew is severely beaten – or worse – by someone they advocated on behalf of.

The writer s a correspondent for i24news, an international network broadcasting out of Israel.

Norway: Comic strip likens Israel to Nazis, North Korea


Via Times of Israel:
The Israeli embassy in Norway condemned the Scandinavian country’s third-largest paper for publishing a cartoon that calls Israel a nation of “murderers” comparable to Nazi Germany and North Korea.

Dagbladet on Thursday ran the comic strip, which shows a woman at an organic supermarket unsuccessfully searching for ethically made food products.

“Organic food, huh?” the text in the first panel reads, according to a translation on Hebrew news site Ynet. “But what’s the point if the food is produced unethically?”

The next panel shows the woman holding up an orange saying: “These oranges are from Israel. You are supporting murderers.”

Next, she picks up a box of pasta to examine its label. “This macaroni was manufactured in North Korea? How did you even get this?” she asks.

In the last panel, the woman holds a box of frozen pizza marked with a swastika bearing a “Made in Nazi Germany” label and incorporating the logo of the Nazi SS organization. She says: “And this pizza is from N… What is this store, anyway?”  more


Sunday, September 27, 2015

UK: Top journalist David Horovitz warns of repeat in climate of unease for UK Jews


The Jewish Press reports:
A top Israeli journalist has warned of a repeat in the climate of unease felt by UK Jews last summer and urged the community to do everything it can to raise awareness of the threats faced by the country.

David Horovitz, the founding editor of Times of Israel, was reflecting on the exodus of French Jews to Israel during a wide-ranging address to UJIA’s annual dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel. He said: “The climate here will not get easier. Partly because Israel will be dragged into more wars we don’t want.  Hamas is rearming, Hezbollah has 10 times more missiles than Hamas ever had. When Iran deems the moment right we will be dragged into another conflict.”

Addressing more than 800 guests UJIA chairman Bill Benjamin warned: “We are worried about the political and cultural atmosphere where we are uncomfortable expressing pride at being Jewish and unflagging support for Israel.”

Friday, September 25, 2015

France: Police attacked, threatened as "dirty Jews"


Via Paris-Normandie:

Last July, Gilles H. (25) attacked policemen who were called in to deal with a violent family argument.  He shouted at them "Dirty Jews, infidels, bastards... I and all the Muslims will exterminate you."   Gilles H. himself is not Muslim, and according to his parents is very prone to violence.

He was now sentenced to prison and treatment.

Sweden: TV4 supports antisemitic rapper


I've posted about Dani M in the past (see Popular rapper says antisemitic Denmark attack is 'false-flag' operation and City picks antisemitic rapper for youth festival).

In Europe, being antisemitic (of the “right” type) does not carry any social sanction.   Dani M claims he's just being "critical of Israel" and that he's being hounded by those Zionists who control the world and media for no good reason.  For the normal Swede in the street, that doesn't sound suspicious at all.  He's not anti-JEWS, he's just anti-ZIONISTS, and there's nothing wrong with that, is there?


 Post by J from Sweden: 
So there is a rapper,in Sweden, called “Dani M” (Daniel monserrat) who is well known for his antisemitic conspiracy lyrics and comments/ posts on social media. The largest commercial TV station, TV4, has just shot an episode with him for a popular tv-show where different artists interpret each others songs.. Some journalists and people have picked up on this, and an ex-CEO for the channel has spoken out and criticized them for working with Dani M. 

This rapper has a long history of anti-semitism (which he denies of course). One example is on the day after Dan Uzan was murdered in Copenhagen, Dani M wrote on Facebook that the horrible attack was made by “some sort of elite” that would benefit from it. Jews or “Zionists” perhaps?

This is just one of MANY anti-semitic claims he has made over the last years.

He has also been supporting, and told his nearly 24 thousand fans on Facebook, to vote for a right wing-extremist party Partiet De Fria (PDF), where the leaders are holocaust-deniers and participate in neo-Nazi podcasts. 

One of the biggest tv stations in Sweden are making a show with a rapper who supported that. 

People really aren’t taking this seriously. They have a really hard time to understand that he is in fact an anti-semite. He is invited to do shows in schools/ youth events (financed by tax-money), on charity tv, public service music radio and social justice events because people seem to think he is just a criticizer of Israel.  However, many are sowing their disappointment online (I’m one of them) and are calling them (TV4) out on this. They refuse to answer our critique or questions.

In the case of Dani M every representative or supporter of Dani and his participation, are claiming he has apologized for his earlier statements and that he regrets his antisemitic conspiracy thinking.  He has not! He stands by this still, but made this really ridiculous “apology” by saying “he’s sorry if he hurt anyone but…”. Another “apology” was that he’s not a racist, and everyone is just attacking him. He once said “if you’ve been called an anti-Semite once your career is over”.  His feature on TV4 really proves the opposite. Tragic. 

They really aren’t taking responsibility. I called the channel to inform them that Dani is still standing by his statements, and I have been trying to get more answers on their forum and online service. They just delete my and other peoples questions and detailed information.  I should also tell You that Dani M’s popularity (especially among the youth) really frightens me. That’s probably why this episode will be aired after all. Something that bothers me also is the “anti-racists” silence on this. Peoples outrage against anti-black racism has gotten a comedian fired from TV4 just months ago, and it seems people just don’t care when it comes to anti-Semitism. 

France: Politician accuses Jews of abolishing capital punishment, legalizing massacre of French children and conniving with Arab migrants

Pierre Claude Pailhoux, a city councillor at Rosny-sous-Bois, tweeted that Jewish migrants are helping Arab migrants to flood into France.  He added: "La classe mondiale" - a reference to Jews as a human category apart being everywhere but belonging nowhere.  Not really human... For many Europeans, Jews are and will always be foreigners.



In a separate tweet he wrote:

Mr Paillhoux was affiliated with the far right National party but was expelled.  His Twitter account has been deleted.

Poland: The Town That Refuses to Face Its anti-Semitic Past


Via Haaretz:
For some contemporary Poles, the fact that Poland was conquered and victimized by the Germans establishes a black-and-white perspective, according to which the Holocaust is something that the Nazis did to the Jews and in which Poles had no hand. The reality, however, was very different.

“The Crime and the Silence” reminds us, first of all, that the slaughter in Jedwabne did not come out of the blue but was preceded by many decades of deeply rooted, and largely church-driven, anti-Semitism. The anti-Jewish rhetoric that Bikont finds in the local literature, especially church publications, in the 1920s and 1930s is pervasive, profoundly ugly and often provides a rationalization – even an inspiration – for violence.

A regional newspaper called The Catholic Cause happily reported, in 1937, “the mood of excitement” sweeping the region as “farmers refuse to sell to Jews” and signs proclaiming “No Jews” spring up all over. In a follow-up story, the newspaper fairly chortled with glee as it announced that in one town, “Jewish stalls [in the marketplace] are watched so carefully that no peasant can go near them, and 250 Jewish families are doomed to hunger.”

Radoslaw J. Ignatiew, a prosecutor who headed a Polish government commission that investigated the Jedwabne massacre, at one point told Bikont he had encountered so much anti-Semitism in the course of his work that he wondered “if Poles hadn’t imbibed it all with their mother’s milk.” Then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir ruffled feathers in 1989 for using that same undiplomatic expression. But what some elderly Jedwabne residents told Bikont was not that different: when they were growing up, a child who resisted bedtime would be warned by his parents, “The Jews will turn you into matzo.” Parents who wanted to deter a nagging child from tagging along to the market would warn him that he would have to “kiss the Jewish lady’s beard” at the entrance.

The prevalence of grass-roots anti-Semitism in rural Poland not only helps explain the foundation of hatred that facilitated the Jedwabne slaughter; it also sheds light on the roots of similar pogroms that took place nearby during the previous week in July 1941. In Wasosz and Radzilow, too, Polish mobs raped, robbed, tortured and murdered. In each town many hundreds of Jews – exact numbers are elusive – were herded into a barn, which was then set afire. In Jedwabne, the destruction was almost complete: Only seven of the town’s 1,600 Jewish residents survived.

Germans played little or no direct role in these massacres, yet the Poles perpetrated many of the same kinds of outrages commonly associated with the Nazis. Jews were tied to the backs of wagons or horses and dragged through the streets. Infants were torn from their mothers’ arms and butchered before their eyes. In the Jedwabne synagogue, Jews were “forced to sing and destroy their holy books,” Bikont notes. 

(...)

In all three of the towns that Bikont studied, those who were not involved in the violence played a supplementary role as looters. She presents accounts of peasant women in Radzilow tearing the dresses off Jewish women as they were being herded off at gunpoint. One Polish housewife admitted stealing and ripping apart Torah scrolls because of a popular belief that “there were dollars hidden in them.”

Yet at every turn, Bikont found herself confronted by the almost unanimous refusal of Jedwabne residents to face up to their town’s past. Younger residents resented what they saw as the besmirching of its good name. Old-timers conjured up tall tales to explain what had happened. Some insisted, despite mountains of evidence, that it was the Germans who did it. Some even claimed that a secretly Jewish Nazi officer who was trying to hide his identity led the massacre. Others accused their Jewish neighbors of having collaborated with the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, during the brief Russian occupation of the town. There were “60 Jewish units” of the NKVD, one older resident absurdly insisted. Sometimes Bikont directly refutes such allegations; sometimes she lets their inanity speak for itself.  more

UK: Police called in as protesters target Israeli-owned London store

The Jewish Chronicle reports:


An Israeli-owned cosmetics store in London was targeted by pro-Palestinian activists in a protest timed to coincide with Yom Kippur.

Around 20 supporters of the London Palestine Action group entered the Sabon UK shop, in Covent Garden, on Tuesday evening, just as the fast began.  The manager of the store, which stocks luxury skincare products and fragrances which contain minerals from the Dead Sea, said the protestors arrived at around 6pm, put up anti-Israel leaflets and attempted to steal stock.
 
She said: “They came in and put signs up on the inside of our windows – inside the store. They brought out cardboard boxes and tried to put our stuff in the boxes and walk out with our products.

“They had around five cardboard boxes. Everything happened in a minute – I looked inside one of the boxes and could not believe that they had put 14 body scrubs in one box so quickly.”

She continued: “It was stressful. But with the police there, they were never going to physically push us or anything. But my concern is, what would have happened if the police were not there?” 

She said that the police knew the anti-Israel protest was due to take place in advance.  [...]

In a tweet, a representative of the anti-Israel LPA group claimed: “Sabon profits from apartheid, so we shut it down.” However, the store manager confirmed that the shop stayed open until 8pm.[...]

Simon Cobbs, who co-founded grassroots group Sussex Friends of Israel, regularly counters anti-Israel demonstrations. He claimed that the timing of Tuesday’s protest, which coincided with the start of Yom Kippur, was deliberate so British Jews could not counter-demonstrate against the LPA group. Read more.

Europe: As Arab-Muslims stream in, the tiny Jewish population is trickling out

Mike Lumish writes about the Impending Transformation of Europe @ Israel Thrives blog: 
As Arab-Muslims stream into Europe, the tiny Jewish population is trickling out.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout the continent and a large part of the reason for this is the introduction of a growing anti-Jewish demographic throughout the region.

Polls show that the Middle East, outside of Israel, harbor anti-Semitic sentiments in the 80th percentile.  That is to say, the great majority of Arab and Muslim migrants from the Middle East are likely to despise Jews and they are quite likely to show it in no uncertain terms on European soil.

Another consequence of the mass migration into Europe will be the further decline of Europe's Jewish population which will slowly, over time, migrate to places like Israel, North America, and Australia.  Read more.
It is not only Jews who have cause to be concerned.  Lifted from The Times cover page: Migrants could destroy us, warns EU chief.

Russia: Israeli delegation booted from ceremony in Russia’s Derbent

The Times of Israel reports (via Elder of Ziyon):


An Israeli delegation headed by Hadera Mayor Tzvika Gendelman was kicked out of a hotel in Derbent, Russia because the president of the Muslim-majority Russian federal republic reportedly didn’t want Jews or Israelis near him.

The delegation was invited to celebrate the 2,000th anniversary of Derbent, Hadera’s sister city. Ninety percent of Derbent’s Jews, some 15,000 people, immigrated to Israel and live in Hadera.

The delegation included six Israelis, among them Hadera Deputy Mayor Roman Gisher, former Or Akiva mayor Simha Yossifov and head of the Caucasian community in Hadera Nathan Leviev.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, during the first few days of the visit members of the delegation were warmly received, but on Monday, when the main event marking 2,000 years to Derbent’s establishment was set to take place, Gendelman was told that entry permits for all members of the delegation but him were canceled and that he should attend the ceremony on his own.

At the same time, members of the delegation found that their belongings were taken out of their rooms in a local hotel and they were not allowed to return to the rooms. Read more.



Thursday, September 24, 2015

Italy: ‘Bloodied’ Israeli Flag in Milan Angers Visitors to Expo


Via Algemeiner (h/t Honestly Concerned):
An Israeli visitor to the World Expo 2015, held this year in Milan, was horrified to discover that an Israeli flag displayed in the city, along with those of the other countries participating in the event, had been splattered with red paint to signify blood, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Sunday.

Yair Geva, a communications consultant in the Italian city on his honeymoon, said he was equally shocked that the “blood-stained” flag had not been removed.

“Nobody is cleaning it up; nobody thinks it’s not right [for it to be flying like that],” Geva told Channel 2. “There are dozens of flags, and only one of them had an entire can of red paint sprayed on it – [looking like] blood [is] covering the star of David, [and] in the heart of Europe.”

Geva said that this was particularly shameful, since “the Iranian flag is flying [nearby] as pure as snow.”


Netherlands: Antisemitic rapper changes lyrics to refer to "Zionists", not "Jews"


Via AD:

Muslim rapper Ismo made headlines last year with a song that said that ""I hate those fucking Jews more than the Nazis".  At the time he explained that he wasn't talking about ALL Jews, just those fucking Zionist ones.

Now he put out a new version of the song where he specifies he's talking about 'Zionists' and not 'Jews'.

So, nothing to worry about.  He's now officially a non-antisemitic anti-Zionist.

All is well in the Netherlands.

Poland: Government rebukes historian for saying Poles killed more Jews than Germans


Via The News:
The Polish Foreign Ministry has expressed concern over an article by Polish-born American sociologist and historian Jan Tomasz Gross, published in the German Die Welt.

In the article, Gross wrote that during World War Two "Poles killed more Jews than Germans." Referring to the current migrant crisis, he wrote that "the hideous face of Poles is rooted in Nazi times."

Ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski described it as "historically untrue, harmful and insulting to Poland."

The spokesman said that the Polish Ambassador in Germany will address a letter of protest to the editors of Die Welt.  more

Greece: Anti-Semitic 9/11 truther resigns from goverment


Via Times of Israel:
A junior minister in the new Greek government stepped down less than 24 hours after being appointed as outrage erupted Wednesday over anti-Semitic and homophobic remarks attributed to him in the past.

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Dimitris Kammenos, a lawmaker from the nationalist Independent Greeks party who had been named junior infrastructure minister, sparked uproar earlier this year by comparing the EU to Auschwitz.

He is also accused of peddling an anti-Semitic conspiracy theories claiming that 2,500 Jews employed in New York’s World Trade Center “skipped work” on the day of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Kammenos had been one of five members of the right-wing party named to the government by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, which was also the junior party in his last administration.  more

Greece: Antisemitic conspiracy theorist appointed as deputy minister


Via Ekathimerini (h/t glykosymoritis)
The appointment late Tuesday of Dimitris Kammenos, an Independent Greeks MP who is accused of circulating antisemitic conspiracy theories, as deputy minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Networks ignited controversy that rippled through Greece’s social media.

In one of his tweets, Kammenos, better known in the Greek twittersphere by the handle @PortaPorta, suggests that the state of Israel was behind the terrorist attacks in the US in 2001, alleging that Jewish employees were forewarned to skip work at World Trade Center on September 11.

Kammenos was criticized in June by the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS), which called a Facebook post of his showing a doctored photograph of the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp “shameful” as it “trivializes in the most hideous way the sign over the gate of Auschwitz.”

The photograph showed the sign over the entrance reading “We’re staying in Europe” rather than “Arbeit macht frei.” “We’re staying in Europe” was the slogan used for pro-euro rallies in central Athens during the summer.  more

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Abbas: Kill the Jews! Paris: HUG!!


Last week Abbas incited to violence in Jerusalem.
"The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours... and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet... We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah."

This was not a one-off event.  Abbas supports terrorists.  He names streets and schools after them. He encourages young Palestinians to kill Jews.  He incites to violence.  He denigrates Jews.  He denies the Jewish connection to their homeland.



And for all these efforts, this week he was made an honorary citizen of Paris.


Photo by David Silpa/UPI





Above, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo hugs Abbas after awarding him the Grand Medaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris.

See also Paris mayor honors Jew-murderers by day, fights antisemitism by night


Can anybody imagine Netanyahu getting this treatment?  

Of course not.

Wonder why?

Germany: Volunteer for refugees afraid to reveal Jewish identity to left-wing volunteers



Via Jewish Journal:
Monika Chmielewska-Pape, a Jewish lawyer originally from Poland, is among the volunteers helping the refugees. She collects clothing for them from friends and neighbors, drives the migrants to administrative appointments and tries to help them navigate Berlin.

“There are so many people here and the state is not able to help them,” Chmielewska-Pape told JTA last week. “The situation is very hard for refugees here. If we don’t help them, the people stay on the street.”

But Chmielewska-Pape said she is not typical of Germany’s Jews. Most, she said, are anxious about the migrants, fearful of the consequences of a massive influx of Arabs into Germany. Chmielewska-Pape said her own decision to help the migrants did not come easily, and she keeps her Jewish identity to herself — including from the left-wing Germans who volunteer alongside her and whom Chmielewska-Pape said are not sympathetic toward Israel or the Jews.  more

UK: "Why was I born a Jew?" - Mother's agony as son is bullied because of his religion


Via Daily Record:
WHEN he was 16, Debby Taylor’s son asked: “Mum, why was I born a Jew?”

The dismay in his words left her numb and, sitting in her Aberdeenshire home, she was reminded that Scotland is not immune to the evils of anti-semitism.

The question had been prompted by an incident a few days before when her son was punched in the face by a classmate.

When Debby picked him up from a party, his nose had been bleeding but he didn’t want to discuss what happened.

Later that night, his attacker told him on Facebook that if he went to police, he was going to kick Debby “in the ovaries, so she doesn’t produce any more f****** Jews”.

He was hit again by the same boy a few days later.

Debby said: “It was heart-rending for my child to say, ‘Why was I born a Jew?’ What do you say to a young man when he asks that? You think you are safe, yet he was hit simply because of religion.”

On another occasion a boy shouted at him from a window and called him a “f****** Jew”.

Debby approved when the teacher insisted that the boy write him a letter of apology and she believes that the offender learned from it.

That was in 2008 but Debby says her son has considered leaving Scotland many times since.  more

UK: War Museum removes item calling WWII Jewish Brigade ‘terrorists’

The Algemeiner reports:

The Imperial War Museum (IWM) in the U.K. removed an item from its website this week, following complaints from a Jewish human rights group about its offensive nature.

The description of a photo featuring men from the Jewish Brigade’s 1st Battalion from WWII opened with the words “terrorist activities.” The Jewish Brigade was defined as having been formed in September 1944 and fought in Italy under the British Eighth Army — with this additional assertion: “Many of its members went on to join the Haganah and other illegal formations.”

The poster, part of the museum’s collection on World War II, is currently inaccessible on the website. The IWM did not respond to The Algemeiner‘s emails about its removal.

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But it was removed after Simon Wiesenthal Center Director for International Relations Shimon Sameuls wrote a letter to IWM Director-General Diane Lees  on Monday urging her to “to withdraw this offensive poster, take disciplinary measures against the apparent antisemite responsible and make a public apology to the Jewish community.”

“The Jewish Brigade under British command were heroes who combated Fascist terrorists in Italy,” he argued. “They were eye witnesses to the annihilation of their people as they joined the liberators of the camps…”  Samuels said calling the Jewish Brigade soldiers “terrorists” is “the greatest Holocaust revisionism imagination.” He added that the offensive description tarnished the museum and “betrays the cause of British integrity.”

Jewish blogger Elder of Ziyon called the description “inexcusable” and “outrageous.” The blogger berated the IWM for “calling [the soldiers] future terrorists” while failing to give any details about “how the Brigade was formed, how the soldiers trained and how they fought.”  Elder of Ziyon also criticized the IWM for referring to the Haganah — an underground military organization in Israel from 1920 to 1948 — as an “illegal” organization. “It wasn’t,” he asserted. “At times it cooperated with the British.”

Germany: Famous comedian complains about Jews and Israel

Via Watch: Antisemitism in Europe:

German comedian Dieter Hallervorden just turned 80. His style represents a lot of Germany, including antisemitic, anti-American and conspiracy thinking.

In a song called "Ihr macht mir Mut (in dieser Zeit)" ("You bolster me up (at a time like this)"), he indirectly compares Israel with the former GDR/East Germany and suggests that no one is allowed to critize Israel without being jugded an antisemite.

Read more (in German).

Austria: Turk sentenced for antisemitic posts on Facebook

 Via Watch: Antisemitism in Europe:

A 30 year old Turkish barber has been sentenced with two years on probation for publishing antisemitic postings on Facebook. He signified the Holocaust and in context of last years Gaza war he wrote "I could kill al Jews. But I left some alive to show you why I killed them" and said that Hitler "was the king of all real men and nobody acknowleged him".

Thanks to the several people whose protest let to the trial. Read more (in German)

Monday, September 21, 2015

Portugal: Hiding Jewish identity for safety reasons

A Portuguese Jew writes on Facebook: 
"I no longer where my Magen-David because I'm afraid for anyone to know my identity." 


The first phrase " It's a real shame that not even in our homeland we can be openly Jewish."  refers to the attack in Israel of a young Jewish boy by Muslims.

Iceland: Fake boycott: “I have yet to see even one Israeli product” in Iceland

Reykjavik revisiting Magritte's painting
"This is not a pipe."
"This is/was not a boycott."
This takes us to a new level of sophistication - boycotting Israeli products that never existed in Iceland.. And now the Reykjavik city council backtracks on its decision to boycott products that never existed in the first place.  Surrealistic situation.

Background: Iceland: Reykjavik passes law boycotting all Israeli products


Honest Reporting reports:

The Reykjavik city council backtracked somewhat on its decision to boycott Israeli products. City hall announced that its boycott only applies to West Bank products. But Israelis living in Iceland tell YNet there are no blue and white goods sold in Iceland.
“Don’t get wound up about Reykjavik’s decision to boycott Israel products, because it is meaningless,” said Nimrod Ron, an Israeli musician living in Iceland, regarding the capital’s recent decision to boycott Israeli goods. “I have lived in Iceland for three years, and have yet to see even one Israeli product.”

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Germany: Vandals Smear Anti-Semitic Graffiti on Munich's Haus der Kunst



Via artnet (h/t Honestly Concerned):
The curatorial program of Munich's Haus der Kunst has confronted the institution's historical Nazi associations extensively. Now, the museum was attacked by unknown perpetrators who smeared the building with anti-Semitic graffiti on Thursday night, the museum said in an announcement.

Bayerische Rundfunk reports that four swastikas were scrawled over the main entrance while an exhibition opening was underway inside. The symbols were drawn near an installation called Résistance by the French Jewish artist Christian Boltanski.

The vandals also drew a star of David over a floor installation titled Travertin/Judenpech by the German-born Polish Jewish artist Gustav Metzger outside the building. According to Munich police, the vandals used white chalk to draw the hateful graffiti.  more

UK: Shock over anti-Semitic caricature in BBC Proms programme (update)

20/09/2015
The Algemeiner reports:  BBC Apologizes for Antisemitic Caricature of Famous Jewish Violinist in Concert Program

18/09/2015
A quick Google search confirms the antisemitic intent and reveals the identity of the author of the caricature: "Antitsemitic caricature by Nicolai /Nicolas Legat (1869-1937), ballet dancer and teacher and artist."

The Jewish Chronicle reports:

Classical music lovers were left stunned when they spotted an "antisemitic" illustration in a BBC Proms programme.

Gillian Stern, from Finchley, said she was shocked that a "hideously and very obviously antisemitic cartoon" of the violinist Leopold Auer appeared in the programme for a Proms performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto.

Auer was a violinist and teacher of significance, and a number of composers, including Tchaikovsky, dedicated pieces to him.

Ms Stern said: "This image of Leopold had been printed large in the programme, with no full context or explanation of its questionable nature.

"Leopold was one of the most important violin teachers of his time. If you look him up you will see this fine man, and there are plenty of pictures of him available - but they have used what was at the time clearly a caricature.  "It is the most extraordinary thing. I can't get my head around why they would have picked that."
She added: "I was so shocked I tweeted it to them to complain, but no one got back to me."

Surprised by the image was violin teacher Nigel Goldberg, who said: "It is an antisemitic cartoon and it is completely out of context. There is no explanation of the image at all. Anyone I've shown it to, Jewish or not, has been stunned."

A spokesperson for the BBC Proms was unavailable for comment.

UK: "No Jews on the moor" vandalism


Via North Devon Journal (h/t CFCA):
RESIDENTS in a small village on the outskirts of Lynton have been left shocked after a baby-changing unit was covered in anti-Semitic graffiti.

Carolynn Gold made the "abhorrent" discovery while carrying out routine checks on the public toilets in Barbrook earlier this month.

Written on the inside of the baby-changing unit in black permanent market she discovered the words "No Jews on the moor No Jews" as well as a number of swastika-like symbols.

In a post on Facebook, Carolynn said: "There is something so hideous about this - an abhorrent message lurking hidden on equipment that's only occasionally used for babies, the most innocent and vulnerable among us.

"I was shocked – it felt quite visceral, almost an assault – and I imagine many people would feel the same."

The toilets were save in 2013 after residents form a charitable trust to run the building, which also includes a community and information room.

Since then, the building has been targeted with anti-Semitic graffiti on three separate occasions.  more

Poland: "We'll do to you what Hitler did to the Jews"

photo

Among the slogans at an anti-immigrant protest in Gdansk: "We'll do to you what Hitler did to the Jews".

Note the use of the image of Palestinians and Israelis in the photo above, used to represent "Poles" and "Muslims".

Austria: Jews in bind over donation to anti-Israel NGO


Via Jerusalem Post:
Austria’s Jewish community is engulfed in turmoil because it donated €14,000 to Caritas – a Catholic humanitarian aid organization accused of stoking hostility to Israel – for aid to Syrian refugees, triggering a firestorm of criticism.

“If Simon Wiesenthal were alive he would jump into his grave if he knew what was happening,” Dr. Shimon Samuels, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter and survivor of extermination camps, was based in Vienna. “The act shows the absence of Simon Wiesenthal, the great conscience of the Shoah, is no long there,” said Samuels.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the head of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, said Thursday that either the leaders of the Jewish community of Vienna provided this money without checking details of the Caritas agenda, or they knowingly supported this radical and anti-Israel NGO.

“In contrast to official Vatican policy, Caritas is very active in promoting Palestinian narratives and attacking Israel,” he said.

“On Gaza, their propaganda statements ignore the reality of thousands of rocket attacks, Hamas terrorist tunnels and the human rights of Israeli victims, while claiming that the Israeli goal is to force Palestinians to ‘give up their rights to the land,’” he said.

(...)

Oskar Deutsch, the head of Austria’s Jewish community (IKG), said Thursday that the community in Vienna “is indeed very conscious that a strengthening of migration from Syria to Europe will pose political and security challenges for Jewish communities.

At the same time the IKG views it as a duty to support humanitarian help for people that flee the terror of [Islamic State] or Syria’s regime.”

Deutsch said, “The Caritas Austria [organization] is non-political” and “there are also not any known anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli statements toward Israel from the past. The Austria organization should not in this connection be put on the same level as Caritas International or Pax Christi.”


(...)

Samuels warned that “if the Austrian- Jewish community, a Shoah survivor community, turns to an organization that associates with the demonization of Israel, it could have a domino effect.”

He urged Deutsch to call on Caritas to state its opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Samuels rejected Deutsch’s contention that Caritas Austria is not anti-Israel.   more

Germany: Mayor blames Israel for Syrian refugee crisis


Via Jerusalem Post:
The Social Democratic mayor of Jena, Albrecht Schröter, on Friday accused Israel of partial responsibility for the Syrian refugee crisis and called on Germany’s foreign minister to “show less restraint” toward the Jewish state.

“The Social Democratic Party must reject Schröter’s absurd statement!” Green Party deputy Volker Beck said.

“Drawing a connection between Israel and the refugees and the civil war in Syria and Iraq is absurd. That only gives meaning to people who believe that Israel is to blame for all the world’s evil,” Beck, who is head of the German-Israel parliamentary group in the Bundestag, said.  more

Friday, September 18, 2015

Russia: Politicians Building an International Extreme Right Alliance



Via The Interpreter (h/t glykosymoritis)
Russia seems to be getting serious about building an international alliance of extreme right parties that would aim at undermining the liberal democratic consensus in the West. In addition to providing financial support for parties such as France's Front National and using extreme right activists and politicians as tools of propaganda, Russia is now building what it calls the "World National-Conservative Movement" (WNCM).

(...)

The manifesto of the movement claims that the world is governed by the ideology of "liberalism, multiculturalism and tolerance". This, in the view of the activists, results in "the erosion of nations, massive migration from countries with foreign civilizational bases, falling away from religion, replacement of spirituality by materialism, impoverishment of cultures, destruction of the family and healthy moral values" through "abortion, propaganda of debauchery and acceptance of sexual perversions." Furthermore, the manifesto refers to the "super-national institutions" such as the EU and NATO, and argues that these forces represent "the global cabal" which, in the Russian cultural discourse, is essentially a euphemistic reference to the global Jewish conspiracy.  more

France: For film director Jews are responsible for Muslim crisis

Via Monde Juif and several Jewish blogs (comments and translation are ours):
French film director Philippe Lioret, echoing what a growing number of Europeans are being led to believe, floated the idea that Israeli Jews are responsible for Muslim fundamentalism and the current immigration crisis.

Interviewed by public radio channel France Inter he explained that for a while something has been preying on his mind - something that the media completely ignore.  "Where does the responsibility for the present-day crisis lies if you go back in time?", he asked.  "The Six-Day war for example. In 1967, the Israelis entered the West Bank and Gaza and the robbed the Palestinians."

This dispossession was the beginning of the terrible trauma on the Arab identity which is now bringing us this kind of Islamic fundamentalism, he added.

He also accused the West of always being responsible, that it is people who have got money who make decisions and that Nicholas Sarkozy had inflicted terrible harm. 

Typically when talking about the great Muslim identity trauma supposedly inflicted by the Jews, it never occurs to people like Philippe Lioret that after Europeans had exterminated six million Jews, including one and a half million children, not a single Jew, after the war, exacted revenge on a single European.  No bombs, no shootings, no beheading, no punch-ups, no brawls.  Jews didn't use the excuse of the terrible trauma they had suffered to inflict misery on Europeans - either innocent or not so innocent.  

But what's more.  Wikipedia reveals that Philippe Lioret had been harshly criticised by historians for comparing, in his film Welcome, the plight of illegal immigrants to the persecution and extermination of the Jews during the Holocaust.  Historian Henri Rousso spoke of ignorance and provocation. 

Spain: Clowns take off their clothes in support of Palestine




Via Ynet:
Pro-Palestinian Spanish activists posted photos online Wednesday, naked except for red clown noses in front of the West Bank separation barrier in Jerusalem, meant to show opposition to the wall dividing Israelis from Palestinians.

The group witnessed a somewhat unexpected reaction online however, as members of the conservative-leaning Palestinian community slammed them for lack of respect and "disgusting solidarity.   more

UK: Imperial War Museum calls Jewish Brigade WWII soldiers "terrorists" This is outrageous.






Via Elder of Ziyon:
The Imperial War Museum describes the Jewish Brigades of World War II this way:
Terrorist activities: Men of the 1st Battalion, Jewish Brigade during a march past. The Jewish Brigade was formed in September 1944 and fought in Italy under the British Eighth Army. Many of its members went on to join the Haganah and other illegal formations.

That is how they describe the Jewish Brigades???   more

Austria declines ADL’s plea for Jewish historian’s freedom

JTA reports:

"Our Vienna: Aryanisation
the Austrian Way"
Austria’s president denied a request by the Anti-Defamation League to pardon a Jewish historian facing jail time over a Holocaust restitution issue.

The denial came in a Sept. 8 letter sent by President Heinz Fischer’s office to Andrew Srulevitch, ADL’s assistant director for international affairs, in reply to the plea by Srulevitch to nullify the  sentence of Stephan Templ before he is to report to prison later this month. Noting that Templ had exhausted all avenues of appeal, the letter stated, “The judgment is therefore final.”  In May, the Austrian Supreme Court rejected Templ’s appeal over his April 2014 fraud conviction for failing in his 2006 restitution application to mention his aunt, his mother’s estranged sister. He was sentenced to three years in jail, but the sentence was reduced to one year.

Templ is the author of a 2001 book on restitution in which he criticized the Austrian state and society’s theft of Jewish property and failures to offer restitution.  

Many Austrian Jews, including the anti-fascist campaigner and journalist Karl Pfeifer, said they considered the conviction to be a result of a vendetta against Templ. Austrian officials have denied the claim, saying the conviction is consistent with the law and penal code.  But critics of the original ruling noted that Austria never legally owned the property and therefore cannot be regarded as a victim of Templ’s actions. Others have pointed out that Austria’s laws do not require restitution claimants to list other heirs.

“The extraordinary use of criminal law by the state in the case of Stephan Templ raises some uncomfortable questions,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s national director, wrote to Fischer in July.

Earlier this month, Templ obtained proof that an Austrian official who was tasked, in his capacity as a public notary, with finding all the heirs to the property relevant to Templ’s claim also omitted Templ’s aunt and another heir from his list.  “The latest twist in this absurd story of injustice is that the Austrian state committed the same act for which its justice system convicted me,” Templ told JTA.

More about this case here: http://stephantempl.com/
and here: Jewish author Stephan Templ who shamed Austria over its Nazi past accused of fraud over restitution case

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Iceland: Reykjavik passes law boycotting all Israeli products.

Jewish Press reports:

Reykjavik, Iceland passed a law boycotting all Israeli products. Both Israel and Iceland are parties to an international trade treaty which bans such boycotts.


The 15-member City Council passed a motion banning the city of Reykjavik from purchasing any goods made in Israel. Reykjavik went whole hog – all Israeli goods were banned under its new law, not just goods made or grown beyond the “Green Line.” The measure was passed by a majority of the City Council on Tuesday, Sept. 15.

The motion was sponsored by retiring Councillor Björk Vilhelmsdóttir, of the center-left Social Democrats. The motion was introduced in 2014, as a response to that summer’s conflict between Hamas and Israel. Vilhelmsdóttir also encouraged individuals to boycott all Israeli goods.  The preamble to the new law states that the City of Reykjavik will not purchase any goods from Israel so long as that country “occupies Palestinian territories.”

In the opinion of the Reykjavik City Council, Israel deserves to be slapped – at least symbolically – for “violating international agreements” and for treating Palestinian Arabs with a form of Apartheid, akin to South Africa.

Vilhelmsdóttir claims neither she nor her legislative action have anything to do with anti-Semitism, and neither are opposed to Israel, merely to the current government of Israel.

The councillor’s husband, Sveinn Runar Hauksson, is the head of the Iceland-Palestine Association.

On the Councillor’s Facebook page, she features a picture of two young girls holding a huge poster of a man with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanuyahu’s head on the body of a Nazi officer.
Although most photographs of Hauksson show him wearing a kefiyah expressing allegiance to Fatah, his Facebook page boasts a picture of him in 2010 handing an award to the then-Prime Minister of Gaza and head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh.

 Read more.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

France: Neighbors oppose planned synagogue due to terrorism risk


Via L'Indépendant:

The new synagogue in Perpignan is facing a legal battle.  Several of the neighbors say the synagogue does not conform to all building regulations and might pose a terrorism risk.

The Jewish community rejects the accusations and says that the new synagogue would allow the local Jews to pray at a more secure location.


Europe: A French philosopher on growing up anti-Semitic and the future of Europe

Via Mosaic Magazine - David Mikics writes @ The Tablet:

French writer Pascal Bruckner
Pascal Bruckner, the French writer and New Philosopher, on his new book, his family’s Nazi sympathies, the rise of hatred in Europe, and the crisis of radical Islam

“Your father is the only one who ever succeeded in taking advantage of the Jews. I don’t know how he did it.” So Pascal Bruckner’s father René said one day to his grandson. The father remained a fanatical follower of Hitler even 60 years after the Nazi downfall. The son went in the opposite direction, toward friendship with French Jewish intellectuals [...]. Bruckner’s first marriage was to a Jewish woman, his second to a Belgian of mixed Jewish and Tutsi ancestry. And so Bruckner’s father, his head still in the Fascist clouds, was treated to Jewish and mixed-race grandchildren.

These days Bruckner, the celebrated French intellectual, has been thinking about his father, the anti-Semite. The elder Bruckner died in 2012, and now Bruckner has published a book in France, Un bon fils (A Good Son) about their relationship.

“Anti-Semitism was his fuel; it’s what made him live and get up every morning. From the beginning of his adult life to the end, hatred of Jews was his reason for being,” Bruckner told me when I interviewed him this spring in Houston, Texas. “When I was a kid, the word ‘Jew’ was pronounced every day, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Bruckner added. “As he was very violent and mean to my mother, I eventually started to identify with the people he hated.”  [...] The Third Reich was his dream, his utopia. Near the end of his life, in the hospital, he reported to his son that he had had the most marvelous dream: singing children lining the streets, flags whipping in the breeze, a procession of motorcars headed by a Mercedes convertible, and in it a man with a moustache waving to the jubilant crowd. It was the day that Hitler was named chancellor, when “everything was possible.”[...]

Bruckner now finds himself on the front lines of France’s battle with what can only be called Islamofascism. “I like to jog in the Place des Vosges,” Bruckner told me. “There you have a whole army of guards with machine guns. How long can we maintain this? The army will have to go back to its barracks, they are exhausted.” Two Muslim associations, Les Indigènes de la Republique and Les Indivisibles, are now suing Bruckner because he wrote that they had given psychological support to the Charlie Hebdo killers. (In an email to me, he described both groups as “pathologically anti-Semitic and fascist.”)  [...]
France, Bruckner said in our interview, has reached a crisis point because of radical Islam. “Teaching the Shoah is impossible in many schools; teaching about Voltaire or Madame Bovary is impossible,” he remarked. Muslim anti-Semitism is different from his father’s old-fashioned kind, Bruckner explains, though his father late in his life was happy to see that radical Islam had become a vehicle for Jew-hatred. Now, he remarks, Muslims protest when the Jews claim the position of victim, a position they themselves want. [...]
 What Bruckner for all his clear-eyed brilliance may not have reckoned on is that, with the hordes of desperate immigrants, Europe’s greatest challenge since World War II has arrived: will it be a closed or an open society? A continent so unsure of its identity, fearing its own decline, feeling threatened by masses of Muslim refugees and faced with Islamist terror, may be tragically ripe for a repetition in a minor key of the tribal faith that seduced Bruckner’s father. Now people like Bruckner (who is writing a book about Islam in Europe) have to rely on their clear-eyed intelligence to draw a line between national feeling and nationalism, to decide whether and how Europe can meet its Muslim other halfway. Bruckner knows that the continent’s great test is under way and that his father’s beliefs still cast a long and ominous shadow. Read more.

Ukraine: Babi Yar Holocaust memorial set on fire







Via KHPG, EAJC:
Anti-Semitic vandals have desecrated the Menorah at Babi Yar [Ukrainian: Babyn Yar ], the site where at the end of September 1941 the Nazis murdered over 33 thousand Jews.  This latest of six vandal attacks on the Menorah was carried out between 2 and 3 a.m. on Sunday night, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

The assailants put tyres around the Menorah, poured an inflammatory liquid over them and set them alight.  Thankfully the flames were noticed and put out by the guard watching over the Ukrainian Orthodox Church nearby.

The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress points out that the same method was used to desecrate the Memorial to the Victims of the Holocaust in Melitopol (Zaporizhya oblast) during the early hours of Aug 27.  That, in turn, was the second of two acts of vandalism during the summer, much more serious than the first.

On Sept 6, as well as twice in January and in June a swastika was daubed on one of the memorial stones next to the Menorah.  more

Germany: Bank closes account of pro-Iran, pro-Hezbollah supporters


Via Jerusalem Post (h/t Honestly Concerned):
Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest bank, has closed the account of the al-Quds day demonstration - which organizes annual marches in German cities calling for the destruction of Israel.

The bank “closed the account in September because of business conditions,” a spokesman told The Jerusalem Post by telephone on Tuesday.

The bank can drop an account “without providing reasons,” he said.

After the mass-circulation Berlin daily BZ published a piece by popular columnist Gunnar Schupelius in July titled, “Israel haters collect money through Commerzbank,” Israel’s embassy sent a letter of complaint to the bank.

The spokesman said the bank started the process to shut the account after the Schupelius column “drew attention” to the collection of funds for the al-Quds Day campaign.  more