UK: "Time to stand by Ireland's Jews", declares Belfast columnist

From the Algemeiner:

Following the desecration of 13 Jewish graves at a cemetery in Belfast on Friday, “It’s time to stand by Ireland’s Jews,” an Irish columnist wrote on Monday.

Henry McDonald of the Belfast Telegraph said that the act of vandalism “appears to have been something more organized, more targeted, more pointed” than “mindless drink and drug-fueled behavior.” According to McDonald, “The vandals used hammers and blocks to break up the headstones, while a larger mob looked on encouraging their actions. There is clear evidence here of forward-planning.”

McDonald said that some have pointed to the recent fining of the Celtic soccer team by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) over fans’ display of Palestinian flags during a recent game against Israel’s Hapoel Be’er Sheva as the catalyst for the vandalism. However, McDonald declared, “[W]hatever the motivation, or even the rights and wrongs of the Israel-Palestine question, it is undoubtedly the case that the desecration was motivated by anti-Jew hatred.”

Further elaborating, McDonald detailed the “dualistic, simplistic and narcissistic” views of many of his countrymen:

There is a depressing binary attitude in Northern Ireland in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict. If unionists happen to be pro-Israeli and fly the Star of David flags on lampposts in loyalist working-class districts, then naturally nationalists must wrap themselves up in the green, red, white and black colours of the Palestinian cause. In this simplistic black and white vision of a conflict infinitely more complex than our own, there is no room for any grey nuances. You cannot, say for example, be a supporter of a free and independent Palestine while at the same time backing Israel’s own right to exist free from the exterminationist tendencies of so many in the Arab world.

According to McDonald, only around 80 Jews live in Northern Ireland. “It is only recently that the community has been building up enough numbers again to have its own rabbi despite the long benign legacy the Jews who settled in this society from the 19th century bequeathed to us all,” he wrote.

McDonald said both unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland “owe a great deal to the Jewish influence on politics, culture and business.”

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France: Jewish leader says comparing burkini ban to Holocaust is indecent

The trivialisation and the use for political gain of the extermination of European Jews has become common in Europe.
 
From the Times of Israel:

The head of France’s Jewish communities condemned a politician’s likening of a ban on modest swimwear for Muslim women to the persecution of French Jews during the Holocaust.

CRIF president Francis Kalifat made his first public statement on the debate over the burkini in a statement published on the group’s website Friday, two weeks after the first of some 30 French municipalities passed bans on wearing the full-body swimsuit. [...]

In his statement, Kalifat condemned tweets by Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the Left Party, who has said that in France, “Jews were persecuted, then Protestants, and today Muslims.”

Kalifat said Melonchon’s allusion to the Holocaust, in which a quarter of French Jewry was wiped out by the Nazis and their local collaborators, was “a pinnacle of absurdity and indecency.” The comments, Kalifat said, were designed to “pander to Melenchon’s voters.”

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French soccer team to be investigated for anti-Israel discrimination

From the Algemeiner:

The decision by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to investigate a French team for anti-Israel discrimination is a welcome step, an official from the international Jewish human rights organization that had urged the governing soccer body to take action told The Algemeiner on Monday. 

“Politics is a factor in sports, but politicizing it impugns its values of fair-play and the pleasure of the game,” said Dr. Shimon Samuels, director for international relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center-Europe, who called on UEFA to hold the team St. Etienne accountable for banning Israeli flags during a match last week against Beitar Jerusalem at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard stadium, while allowing French and Palestinian flags to fly. 

In a letter to UEFA’s president on Monday, obtained by The Algemeiner, Samuels demanded that the organization uphold its self-described neutrality on politics and religion, which is “now gravely endangered by Palestinian political agitation among local clubs.”  

“St. Etienne fans were permitted to wave French and Palestinian flags, while the visiting Israeli and Jewish fans were prevented from bringing the Israeli flag into the stadium,” he wrote. “We urge UEFA to protest discrimination and delegitimization of Israel in the banning of its flag. Harsh disciplinary measures must be imposed on St. Etienne by UEFA to show that attacks on fair-play and the values of the beautiful game can not be condoned.” 

In response, the legal affairs division of UEFA’s Disciplinary and Integrity Unit notified Samuels in an email — seen by The Algemeiner — that “disciplinary proceedings have been instigated against AS St. Etienne.” 

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Norway: Government joins BDS-funding framework

From NGO Monitor:

Norway has joined Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands in funding the Human Rights & International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, allocating to the framework NOK 5 million (over $600,000) in the second half of 2016. The HR/IHL Secretariat is an intermediary that distributes funds to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaigns and other forms of demonization against Israel. It is managed by the Institute of Law at Birzeit University (IoL-BZU) in Ramallah and the NIRAS consulting firm, based in Sweden.

According to an internal report, 80% of the HR/IHL Secretariat’s distributions are allocated to core NGO funding. NGO Monitor research shows that out of 24 core recipients, 13 support BDS, receiving $5.78 million (more than half) out of an operating budget of $10.38 million over the course of four years. Some grantees have also promoted antisemitic rhetoric and have apparent links to the PFLP terrorist organization. Core group members receiving funding include BADIL, Al-Haq, Addameer, and MIFTAH, all vehemently anti-Israel NGOs at the forefront of BDS campaigns.

Norway’s decision to join the HR/IHL Secretariat on June 1, 2016 contrasts sharply with the criticism and debates in the Swiss and Dutch Parliaments regarding the donor framework. In June, the Dutch government passed a resolution calling for a review of its funding to the Secretariat due to its support of BDS. The Swiss Parliament is due to vote in its Fall session following a motion signed by 41 Members of Parliament questioning its funding to the Secretariat.

According to Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, “The objectives stipulated in the Norwegian agreement — promoting gender equality, good governance and democratization — are entirely disconnected to the realities of the HR/IHL framework. None of these terms applies to the activities of BDS grantees, leaving major questions regarding the Norwegian government’s decision making process and the requirement for due diligence.”

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Europe: BDS initiatives and their counter-efforts play out across Europe

From the Jerusalem Post (by Benjamin Weinthal):

Belgian-government funded NGO
runs numerous vicious BDS campaigns
(Association Belgo-Palestinienne
Wallonie-Bruxelles) founded 41 years ago...

Europe’s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement has long percolated down through many layers of society. However, this month saw a range of countervailing forces designed to blunt the movement.

Making sense of the efficacy of new anti-BDS initiatives is a challenge, though, because BDS adapts, as does a virus.

While BDS is depicted as a home-grown Palestinian societal movement, its academic component was the 2002 brainchild of European academics, British sociologist David Hirsh wrote on the website, Engage, on Sunday. Hirsh dissected a new video showing Palestinian academic and activist, Ruba Salih, with the Israeli-born professor and BDS advocate, Ilan Pappé.

In response to Salih saying, “Well the Palestinians launched BDS in 2005,” Pappé responds, “Not really, but yes, OK, for historical records, yes.”

Hirsh writes “Ilan Pappé knows that it is a lie that the boycott campaign was launched by a ‘call’ from ‘Palestinian civil society.’ He knows it is a lie, but he’s content nevertheless for it to be solidified into what he calls ‘historical records.’” BDS says it seeks to impose pressure on Israel to secure concessions for Palestinians, but it has rapidly metastasized into a full-blown call for an economic boycott of Israel with highly dangerous parallels to German fascism.

As my colleague Clifford May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in his Washington Times column, “At a meeting of National Socialist leaders a few days later, Hermann Goering declared that ‘the Jewish question’ needed to be solved once and for all.

‘Since the problem is mainly an economic one, it is from the economic angle it shall have to be tackled,’ he said, adding, ‘I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy.’” All of this helps to explain a potent Leipzig University student council anti-BDS resolution from August which states,“The Nazi slogan ‘don’t buy from Jews’ here again finds its realization. Hence, the BDS movement often campaigns against individual Jews by placing in the foreground their function, for example as head of a firm. In so doing, it expresses the anti-Semitic motif of the wealthy and powerful Jew who must be fought.

Prof. Jeffrey Herf, a prominent historian at the University of Maryland, wrote on his blog that the resolution is important because “support for the resolution came first of all from a department of the Humanities, which is significant as BDS has generally had more support in the humanities and social sciences than in the natural sciences, engineering or law faculties...

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By the way, Ilan Pappé will be at Charleroi, Belgium,  to promote his book "La Propagande d'Israël" in September.  The Province of Hainaut supports the event.

Greece: 5-Star Hotel in Rhodes distinguishes Israelis from other tourists with blue wrist bands

From the Algemeiner:

Israeli visitors are tagged differently from other guests at a five-star resort in Rhodes, Greece Israel’s Channel 10 reported on Sunday.

According to the report, the plastic wrist bands given to guests at the Imperial Hotel – to enable them unlimited entrance to the spa and other facilities – are color-coded (in blue) only for customers from the Jewish state.

When asked about this procedure, a representative of the hotel told the network’s Orly Vilnai and Guy Meroz that the colors simply identify the country of the guest’s origin. However, an investigation into the matter by the TV duo revealed that this was not the case – and that only Israelis were given a specific color to wear, while tourists from various European countries were given bracelets of all colors.

An Israeli airline adviser said he was unaware of this practice.

“When it happens and everyone keeps quiet, nothing changes,” said Yehuda Zafrani. “This story has to be told.”

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Germany: Anti-Israel broadcast did not include Israeli response because of "Jewish holiday"

Via Jerusalem Post (h/t Watch: Antisemitism in Europe):

A German public television broadcast that accused Israel of failing to provide adequate water to Palestinians in the West Bank is now embroiled in a row over allegations it demonized the Jewish state.

Since the show from ARD’s studio in Tel Aviv aired on August 14, the program and its journalists have faced sharp criticism from politicians, viewers and media experts.

“Why did Tagesschau broadcast a badly researched – or even not researched report – quote a questionable ‘expert’ and convey falsehoods?” asked Social Democratic Bundestag deputy Michaela Engelmeier on her Facebook page, saying she expects the supervisory board of the public station will address the report and issue a correction.


The water expert Engelmeier referenced is Clemens Messerschmid, a German national who lives in the West Bank and has contributed articles to pro-boycott Israel and anti-Semitic websites, including the German-language Muslim-Markt website, which supports Iran’s regime. Germany’s intelligence agency has monitored Muslim-Markt and said it propagates “anti-Zionist and anti-Israel propaganda.”

Avraham Nir-Feldklein, the deputy chief of Israel’s embassy in Berlin, told the Bild newspaper the ARD report contained “one-sided and false accusations against Israel and did not ask for Israel’s position.”

ARD reporters Susanne Glass and Markus Rosch wrote on the station’s website that they could not find Israeli experts because of the “Jewish holiday.” They did not specify to what “holiday” they were referring. In any case, critics said there was no time-sensitive requirement for the report and that the journalists should have waited to secure comments from Israeli hydrology experts.

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Sweden: Lapid accuses Swedish FM of anti-Semitism at Stockholm rally

Via Jerusalem Post:

Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid took on Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom’s criticism of Israel, accusing her of anti-Semitism in a speech to a pro-Israel rally in Stockholm on Sunday.

“If the Swedish foreign minister is concerned about human rights in the Middle East, she needs to talk about the Palestinians’ use of children as terrorists and human shields,” Lapid said. “She needs to talk about the discrimination against the gay community [by the Palestinians], about the Der Strumer- like incitement spread by the Palestinian Authority, about the abuse of women in Gaza.”

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“Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East,” he said. “Israel is committed to human rights, to gay rights, to international law. Israeli Arab citizens have representatives in parliament, sit in the supreme court, serve in the military and hold key roles in our economy and wider society.”


“If your attack on Jews is detached from facts and based only on bias, there is a name for it: anti-Semitism,” Lapid said.

(...)

Saskia Pantell, executive director of the Swedish Zionist Federation, opened the event by highlighting its theme, “Take Back Zionism.”

“Too long have we seen anti-Zionism be an excuse for going after Jews,” she said. “One should be able to freely, openly be able to be Jewish and Zionist in a democratic country like Sweden today. If you cannot, there is a huge problem.”

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UK: Antisemitism watchdog accused of being Israeli pawn

Via Campaign Against Antisemitism:

Campaign Against Antisemitism has responded to a claim in The Guardian for the second time claiming that we are a pawn of the Israeli government.

The claim was first made in 2015, when The Guardian printed a letter alleging that antisemitism in Britain was being exaggerated and that “the CAA was set up last summer, not to fight antisemitism but to counter rising criticism of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza.” At the time, CAA Chairman Gideon Falter responded with a letter setting out the facts of rising antisemitism, and asking: “Why can some of your readers not accept the facts for what they are and address the very real problem of antisemitism, rather than supposing in spite of the evidence that it is a fiction, or that it does exist but would cease to if Jews supported Israel less? Jewish concerns must not be silenced by conspiracy theorists railing about Israel.”

On Tuesday, we were accused of being “pro-Israel lobbyists” in The Guardian again, this time because we have dared to condemn Jeremy Corbyn’s peerage for Shami Chakrabarti in return for her whitewash report clearing him and the party of rampant antisemitism.

Both claims were made in letters to The Guardian signed by a fringe assortment of British Jews.

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France: Anger as French ban Israeli flags but let Palestinian flags fly

From the Jewish Chronicle:

Israeli fans were banned from bringing their flags into a French stadium while opposing fans flew the Palestinian flag, it has been claimed.

On Thursday night, Beitar Jerusalem played St Etienne in the second leg of their Europa League play-off.

One, an Israeli sports news site, reported that Beitar supporters were prevented from taking Israeli flags inside the football ground. Fans of St Etienne waved both French and Palestinian flags during the game. A pro-Palestinian rally had been held in the city on Thursday afternoon before the match.

Israel supporters reacted with anger on social media. One user wrote: “I look forward to French fans when they face a Russian team hoisting dozens of Ukranian flags in provocation while the Russians are banned from bringing in their own flags.

“Or how about when they ban Turks from hoisting Turkish fans when Fenerbahçe or Galatasaray come to visit and the French hoist Kurdish flags aloft.”

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Germany: Israelis help to launch anti-BDS group

From the Jerusalem Post:

Israelis along with Germans launched the Action Forum group, which included a protest against BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) activists targeting Jewish state products in front of a Berlin department store on Thursday.

The group’s goals are to counter “one-sided and wrong information” about Israel in the German media, as well as to combat BDS, Gaby Spronz, an Israeli engineer working in Germany and one of the founders of Action Forum, told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday The group has 1,500 members, most of whom are in Germany, Spronz said.

Action Forum jump-started its activity with 20 activists distributing flyers against BDS at Alexander Square in front of the Galeria Kaufhof department store on Thursday.

“BDS is against Israel’s right to exist and for a Jew-free Palestine from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea,” the Action Forum flyer read.

“They are anti-Semites who are calling for a ban of Jewish products,” activist Jan Zimmermann told the Post at the demonstration.

Zimmermann was referencing a group of roughly 20 BDS supporters who circulated flyers in front of Galeria Kaufhof calling for people to boycott the Israeli carbonated drink maker SodaStream.  [...]

The Action Forum equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. BDS is widely considered to be anti-Semitic in Germany among experts on modern anti-Semitism. The prominent German political scientist Samuel Salzborn said BDS is “an influential anti-Semitic campaign against Israel.”
The student council at Leipzig University approved an anti-BDS resolution in early August. The resolution states: BDS “connects seamlessly to the anti-Semitic boycott campaigns of decades past and explicitly to the National Socialism” and to “the Nazi slogan ‘Don’t buy from Jews.”’ The student council document noted: “In light of the Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian regime’s open and relentlessly expressed threats to destroy not only Israel, but Jews worldwide, the BDS campaign presents an existential threat to the Jews.”

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UK: Jewish cemetery vandalized in Belfast

Via Belfast Telegraph:

Thirteen Jewish graves have been damaged at Belfast City Cemetery in an attack branded "anti-community, anti-Belfast, anti social and anti Semitic".

It's thought a large crowd had gathered in the area at around 3pm on Friday with eight youths carrying out the attacks with hammers and blocks.

Headstones were knocked over and smashed in the attack. The concrete covers of some of the graves were also damaged.

Belfast Sinn Fein councillor Steven Corr described the attacks as "anti-community, anti-Belfast, anti-social and anti-Semitic".

He was one of the first on the scene and saw those responsible "stagger off".

"It was sickening," he said.

"They had actually tried -  and on several occasions had - smashed the slabs which covered the remains.

"Most of the graves were very old. One from 1897 and the most recent about the 1950s.

"What happened was just disgusting."

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Poland: Soccer Fans Set Fire to ‘Jewish’ Effigies, Unfurl Antisemitic Banner Calling for Burning of Jews

photo: Gazeta Wyborcza

Via Algemeiner:

A group of Polish soccer hooligans put on a horrifying display of antisemitism last Friday, setting fire to “Jewish” effigies and parading a banner calling for the burning of Jews, Polish news website Gazeta Wyborcza reported.

According to the report, some 50 supporters of the Widzew Łódź soccer team had gathered outside a local train station to rally against rival team ŁKS Łódź.

The ruffians unfurled an antisemitic banner, which stated, “19.08, today the Jews were named. Let them burn, motherf***ers.” The message was intended as a direct insult to the     team, which was founded in 1908 and is often derided as Jewish by fans of other soccer clubs.

Photos from the demonstration show effigies appearing to be dressed as Orthodox Jews being strung from rope and set on fire.

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Belgium: How my JTA reporting about an anti-Semitic cartoon changed my views of Belgium — for the worse

Cnaan Liphshiz @ JTA:

I used to think I had a pretty good understanding of what it means to be Jewish in Belgium.  A longtime observer of that polarized binational country, whose dysfunctions and successes often reflect those of the European Union headquartered in its capital, Brussels, I have family ties there and am fluent in the local languages.

But I had to readjust my understanding of Belgian Jewry’s circumstances this month while reporting on a local Catholic school’s stated pride in and support for a teacher who had published anti-Semitic caricatures, and who recently won a cash prize at Iran’s Holocaust mockery cartoon competition.

Shielded by education officials’ wall of silence and celebrated in mainstream Belgian media as a champion of free speech, Luc Descheemaeker was able to pass off anti-Semitic imagery as legitimate criticism of Israel in a way that I had thought impossible in an established Western democracy in the heart of Europe.

As Descheemaeker’s advocates circled the wagons around him — his school praised him as working to preserve, not distort, the memory of the Holocaust — I saw firsthand how anti-Israel vitriol has mainstreamed classic anti-Semitism in a country where Jews are leaving partly because they feel their children can no longer comfortably attend the public schools.

My Belgian eye opener began with a post on The New Antisemite blog, which tracks anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe. It said the vice director of the Sint Jozef Institute high school near Antwerp had told a Belgian Jewish publication that she was “very proud” of Descheemaeker after he won $1,000 and a special mention at the Second International Holocaust Cartoon Contest in Tehran.

An Orthodox Jew waits to bludgeon
a peaceful Arab baby and his mother
with a giant Star of David

The winning entry by Descheemaeker, a plastic arts teacher who retired this year, was a drawing of the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” over Israel’s security barrier along the West Bank. The German sentence, which means “work sets you free,” was featured on a gate of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland.
Previously, I found, Descheemaeker had published at least two cartoons that used classically anti-Semitic imagery. In one,  an Orthodox Jew waits to bludgeon a peaceful Arab baby and his mother with a giant Star of David. In another, the Jew is waiting to startle a jihadist who is holding a shopping bag while wearing an explosives vest — presumably so she blows herself up. [...]

As Belgian Jews continue to grapple with the anti-Semitism problem in their country — in 2014, a suspected jihadist was arrested for the shooting deaths of four people at the Jewish museum in Brussels — a growing number are deciding to look for a new home.

Last year, 287 Jews immigrated to Israel from Belgium, which has a Jewish population of about 40,000. It was the highest figure recorded in a decade. From 2010 to 2015, an average of 234 Belgian Jews made aliyah annually — a 56 percent increase over the annual average of 133 new arrivals from Belgium in 2005-2009, according to Israeli government data.

“In Belgium, the choice for Jews is often between abuse or ghettoization,” Rubinfeld said. “It’s not surprising that a growing number of Belgian Jews are finding alternatives to both.”

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Netherlands: PSV Eindhoven sing about winning against the 'Jews'

Via SoccerNews:

New song by PSV Eindhoven fans during the team's game against PEC Zwolle: "It was May 8th, 2016, the Jews didn't make it, we were the champions by two points..."


On May 8th PSV Eindhoven won the championship in a game against PEC Zwolle (ie, the 'Jews').

Netherlands: Town vandalized with antisemitic pro-ISIS graffiti

Via AD:

Dozens of homes and cars in Voorburg were vandalized with "IS" and "ISIS" graffit.  An elementary school was vandliazed with such slogans as "fuck Wilders", "Jews will die", "7 September 2016 attack"

The town was vandalized with similar graffiti two years ago.

Germany: War Photographer Gerda Taro’s Installation Vandalized in “Politically Motivated” Attack

Via artforum (h/t CFCA):

According to Monopol, war photographer Gerda Taro’s outdoor exhibition of images depicting scenes of conflict, including the Spanish Civil War, were vandalized on August 3 in what organizers believe was a “politically motivated” act. Someone had covered the photographs with black paint during the night. A police investigation is underway.

The works were installed for the f/stop festival, which was held in Leipzig from June 25 to July 3. 

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Norway: Nazis preaching antisemitism at Norway's largest political gathering

Via MIFF h/t SAW:

Kristoffer Vikan is an official in MIFF, the Norwegian pro-Israel organization.  Last Saturday, he was in Arendal for the large political festival there, the Arendalsuka, and there he met Nazis on the street.

The Nazis claimed that Jews have taken over world power.  That Jews control the banks, own CNN and Fox New and all other media.

Vikan responded that those are just conspiracy theories and that there's only one country in the world where Jews don't suffer from antisemitism, but the Nazis refused to accept that and repeated that Jews control everything.

Belgium: Brussels Airlines caves into BDS, set to stop serving Israeli halva

The BDS movement is very strong in Belgium and is seldom, if ever, challenged.   L'Association Belgo-Palestinienne Wallonie-Bruxelles, which promotes the boycott of Israel and the accusation that Israel is an apartheid state, get funds from the Government. It was created in 1975 - 41 one years ago.  It's very likely the oldest anti-Israel NGO in Europe.  The University of Brussels has a BDS committee fully dedicated to the vilification of Israel and is also probably the only such outfit sponsored by a university in Europe...

From Ynet News:

Belgian carrier Brussels Airlines has stopped handing out Ahva brand halva snacks on flights following a request by the Palestine Solidarity Movement.

The snack is produced in the Barkan industrial park in the West Bank on land the organization claims is "illegally occupied."

The halva snack was discovered by a Palestine Solidarity Movement activist who was travelling from Ben Gurion Interantional Airport to Brussels and saw the product as a dessert option, realized it was produced in Israel, and told fellow activists to take action. The activists complained to the airline which quickly acquiesced to the request.

The official reason given by the airline regarding the decision not to serve the product is because the product is produced on illegally occupied land in the West Bank.

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UK: Man shouts “Jews, gas them all” and “Sieg Heil” as he is sentenced

Via Everyday Antisemitism:

A judge was caught up in a colourful verbal exchange with a defendant during sentencing.

John Hennigan, 50, told Judge Patricia Lynch QC that she was a “bit of a c*nt”. Judge Lynch, angered by the comments from the man who has repeatedly been involved in racist offences, told him: “You are a bit of a c*** yourself. Being offensive to me doesn’t help”.

Mr Hennigan was jailed for 18 months for insulting a black mother.

However, as he was sentenced he repeatedly banged on the glass, performed Nazi salutes and shouted “Sieg Heil”.

He also sang “Jews, gas them all” several times before being removed.

Mr Hennigan has previously been involved in many racist incidents. He was sentenced for having told a black woman that doesn’t “agree with inter-racial relationships”. This marked the ninth time he breached an ASBO designed to warn him away from racist actions.

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Polan: Kozienice cemetery targeted for vandalism

Via CFCA:

The ancient Jewish cemetery in Kozienice has recently been targeted for vandalism by local youth.

Recently three Polish youth were arrested after they tried climbing the high fence surrounding the cemetery.  The youths had paint spray with them.

Israeli scholar: 'If I were a British Jew, I'd be worried'

Via World Jewish Congress:

The renowned Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer, 90, has warned of growing anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party and called the former Labour mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, a "violent antisemite."

The academic adviser to Yad Vashem was referring to Livingstone’s long history of anti-Semitic rhetoric, such as his controversial comment this May that Hitler “was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.”

Earlier this month, the Community Security Trust, the anti-Semitism watchdog of the UK Jewish community, reported an increase in anti-Semitic incidents, with 557 cases of malicious acts from January to June 2016, an 11 per cent rise compared with the same period last year.

Asked whether UK Jews had a right to feel concerned, Bauer replied: "Yes. If I were a British Jew, I certainly would be worried by it. I mean, after all, they are being attacked one way or the other." He said that research in Israel had found that threats made verbally or on social media worldwide had fallen, but violent incidents had increased. "There are more violent incidents, therefore if I were a British Jew, the concern would certainly be there, because of that increasing violence," he said.

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UK: Jewish family on trip in East London told "F*cking Jews, go back to Israhell"

Via Campaign Against Antisemitism:

A Jewish family have suffered what Shomrim has described as “a tirade of antisemitic abuse” in East London.

The family were on a trip in East London when a man, who had two children with him, subjected them to the abuse.

Among other things, the man shouted “F*cking Jews, go back to Israhell, don’t come around here, go to Stamford Hill, you’re not welcome”.

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Hungary: Uproar After Antisemitic Journalist Receives Country’s Second Highest Honor

Via Algemeiner:

Controversy has erupted in Hungary over the government’s decision to give a prestigious award to a journalist known for making antisemitic and racist comments, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Journalist Zsolt Bayer, whom the Bloomberg report called a “close ally” of right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, received the Order of Merit of the Knight’s Cross – Hungary’s second highest honor — last week.

In protest, more than 50 past recipients of the honor have returned their awards.

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France: "In the Paris region, there are virtually no more Jewish pupils attending public schools"

Cnaan Liphshiz @ JTA:

“Enrolling a Jewish kid into a public school was normal when I was growing up,” Tayar [a 43-year-old communications and computers specialist] said in a recent interview as he waited with two helmets in hand to pick up his youngest from her Jewish elementary school in eastern Paris. “Nowadays forget it; no longer realistically possible. Anti-Semitic bullying means it would be too damaging for any Jewish kid you put there.”

This common impression and growing religiosity among Jews in France are responsible for the departure from public schools of tens of thousands of young French and Belgian Jews, who at a time of unprecedented sectarian tensions in their countries are being brought up in a far more insular fashion than previous generations.

Whereas 30 years ago the majority of French Jews enrolled their children in public schools, now only a third of them do so. The remaining two-thirds are divided equally between Jewish schools and private schools that are not Jewish, including Catholic and Protestant institutions, according to Francis Kalifat, the newly elected president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities.

The change has been especially dramatic in the Paris area, which is home to some 350,000 Jews, or an estimated 65 percent of French Jewry.

“In the Paris region, there are virtually no more Jewish pupils attending public schools,” said Kalifat, attributing their absence to “a bad atmosphere of harassment, insults and assaults” against Jews because of their ethnicity, and to the simultaneous growth of the Jewish education system.

Whereas most anti-Semitic incidents feature taunts and insults that often are not even reported to authorities, some cases involve death threats and armed assaults. [...]

In neighboring Belgium, the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism has documented multiple incidents that it said were rapidly making Belgian public schools “Jew-free.” Some blamed Belgian schools for being more reluctant than their French counterparts to punish pupils for anti-Semitic behavior.

The latest incident there involved a 12-year-old boy at a public school outside Brussels. Classmates allegedly sprayed him with deodorant cans in the shower to simulate a gas chamber. The boy’s mother said it was an elaborate prank that also caused him burns from the deodorant nozzles.

In April, another Jewish mother said a public school in the affluent Brussels district of Uccle was deliberately ignoring systematic anti-Semitic abuse of her son, Samuel, in order to hide it. She enrolled him specifically at a non-Jewish school because she did not want him to be raised parochially, the mother said, but she had to transfer him to a Jewish school due to the abuse.

In addition to charting anti-Semitism among students, watchdogs in France and Belgium are seeing for the first time in decades a growing number of incidents involving teachers – as victims and perpetrators.

Last month, the Education Ministry in France began probing a high school teacher who shared with her students anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on Facebook — including ones about the clout of the Jewish lobby in the United States and another about French President Francois Hollande’s Jewish roots (he has none).

In 2012, a teacher from a suburb of Lyon said she was forced to resign after her bosses learned that she had suffered anti-Semitic abuse by students. Days later, two teenagers were arrested near Marseilles on suspicion of setting off an explosion near a teacher who had reported receiving anti-Semitic threats at school.

The atmosphere is pushing many French Jewish parents to leave for Israel, which is seeing record levels of immigration from France. Since 2012, 20,000 Jews have made the move. Their absence is already being felt in Jewish schools and beyond, said Kalifat, because “the people who are leaving are exactly the people who are involved in the Jewish community.”

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Belgium: Teacher uses Charlie Hebdo shooting to hit at Jews
Belgium: Teacher posts Jew depicted as pig cartoon on Facebook
Belgium: Catholic school supports teacher who won prize at Iran Holocaust-mocking cartoon contest

Portugal: Government cancels police force training in Israel over human rights concerns

This is how Israel a trusted partner is ditched by the Portuguese government, at a time when Europe is facing all sorts of security threats, terrorism, transnational organised crime etc.  About 50,000 Muslims live in Portugal and the numbers keep growing whereas approximately 600 Jews (the lowest number in Europe).  Israel is constantly criticised in Portugal but Arab countries are viewed favourably.

From the Daily Mail on Line Wires:

Government cedes to pressure from Communists, cancels police force training in Israel over human rights concerns (Diario de Noticias)

From Diário de Notícias (Google translation):

The Ministry of Justice (MJ) ordered the Judicial Police (PJ) to suspend participation in the European project to train inspectors in interrogation techniques of transnational organized crime suspects. This decision came following several protests by leftist parties and organizations, mainly the Portuguese Communist Party, because the technical coordination was from Israel, whose security forces "violate human rights."

The Ministry of Justice refutes any "political motivation" in the decision. Both in the PJ, as in other forces and security services, the news, published by Jornal de Negócios, caused high concern, due to the fact that Israel has been for many years a training partner at different levels of the Portuguese police and even the secret police, as well as a supplier of almost all the telephone surveillance and interceptions technology used by the PJ.

read more (in Portuguese) 

More on the century-old antagonism against Jews and now against Israel: Portugal, the Jews and Israel - a difficult relationship.

UK: London Mayor opposes Corbyn, is attacked for being a 'Zionist stooge'

Via Yair Rosenberg, Adam Bienkov:

London's Muslim mayor came out against Labour party head Corbyn. So anti-Semites came out for him:

France: Shop targeted with anti-semitic tag

Hand-written inscription : "commerde Sale JUIF".  The first word should be Commerce (shop), instead it's written "Commerde" (merde meaning shit).  In other words this could be interpreted as: "This shit shop belongs to a dirty Jew".  Here.

Hungary: Zsolt Bayer, purveyor of hate, honoured by the Government

From Eva Balogh @ Hungarian Spectrum (via Harry's Place):

Zsolt Bayer, leading the Peace March
in Hungarian Guard uniform

Decent, democratic Hungarians are stunned. The hate-filled, racist, anti-Semitic journalistic hack, Zsolt Bayer, on the recommendation of Zoltán Balog, received the third highest decoration the government can bestow on people of great achievement. János Lázár presented Bayer with the “Hungarian Middle Cross.”

The independent media could scarcely find words to display its disgust with the government, but some headline writers rose to the occasion. One headline read “By mistake Zsolt Bayer received the cross of the knight [lovagkereszt] instead of the Swastika.” Swastika in Hungarian is “horogkereszt.” A blog writer at Népszabadság titled his piece “The knight of the Godfather” since Viktor Orbán and Bayer are old friends and fellow founders of Fidesz.

Instead of trying to describe Bayer’s “literary output,” I think it’s best to let Bayer speak for himself. I will be only his English voice. In the past, every time I wrote about Bayer I always said how difficult it is to translate his prose. For starters, Hungarian obscenity beats American obscenity by a mile. Moreover, I hate to repeat this smut. 

The first time I discussed Bayer at some length was in January 2011 shortly after András Schiff, the world-renowned pianist, wrote a letter to the editor of The Washington Post. Bayer retorted with an article titled “The same stench.” Here are a few lines from that piece.

A stinking excrement called something like Cohen from somewhere in England writes that ‘foul stench wafts’ from Hungary. Cohen, and Cohn-Bendit, and Schiff. Népszava appears with the red figure of the man with the hammer and demands freedom of the press. Most people think that this is something new and that war like that didn’t take place before. Nonsense. There is nothing new under the sun. Unfortunately, they were not all buried up to their necks in the forest of Orgovány.

A brief explanation. Orgovány, a small village on the Great Plains, was the site of massacres committed by the leaders of the Hungarian White Terror in 1919-1920. Most of the victims were Jewish. In plain language, Bayer is expressing his sorrow that not all the Jews were killed in those days. [...]

In 2013 Bayer wrote another hateful piece in which, although he didn’t use the word “Jew” or “Jewish,” anyone who is familiar with Bayer’s style and way of thinking knows whom he has in mind when he talks about those who have been doing their best to ruin the white Christian race ever since the 1919 Soviet Republic, which in far-right circles is considered to be a “Jewish affair.” Those who are antagonistic toward Hungary organize themselves “in packs and attack their victims like loathsome drooling hyenas.” And he continues: “For you only death is the proper punishment. Because you believe in death, in public executions while your victims are left alone, go bankrupt, their friends deny them, they lose their jobs, and come to a sorry end. This is your goal.” Their sins are immeasurable and they will be punished. Because these mysterious people don’t realize “what monster [they] are trying to resuscitate. In fact, [they] woke him up already.” All that sounds pretty threatening, but then comes the twist:

You don’t foresee yet that it will be only we who raise our voices in your defense. We, the marked victims. We are the only ones to whom you can turn for help. It will be only we who will hide you. Because we are good to the point of ruining ourselves. And take this all very seriously. You miserable ones.

As for the charge of anti-Semitism, analysts pussyfoot around when it comes to the Orbán government’s attitude toward the country’s Jewish citizens and their role in Hungary’s history. I don’t think that, with the decision to award Bayer this high honor, there can be any question where Viktor Orbán stands on this issue. Bayer’s decoration must have been cleared with Orbán himself, and he must have known that this move will be interpreted as the government’s approval of Bayer’s racism and anti-Semitism. It seems that Orbán doesn’t care what the world thinks of him and his regime. Bayer’s decoration strikes me as a purposeful provocation not only of the Jewish community at home and abroad but of democratic communities in Europe and the Americas.

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Czech Republic: Social Democratic MP posts Holocaust-denial video

Via romea (h/t CFCA):

The weekly Euro in the Czech Republic reports that Stanislav Huml, an MP for the Czech Social Democratic Party, has published a video denying the Holocaust to his Facebook profile. The video, which Huml called "brutal and [politically] incorrect" but "inspiring", is a sort of criticism of the "ethnomasochism" of Western civilization, defined as a feeling of guilt for the historical injustices of colonialism, slavery, etc., including what the video terms the "alleged" Holocaust.

The producers of the video say they refuse to accept the blame for this history. They call on Europe to "stop apologizing" for its previous actions.

What's more, the video says the Jews are "to blame" for the Holocaust, not that they were its victims. Huml said that it is not essential to him that the Iron Dawn YouTube channel, from which he shared the video, has also posted video footage of NSDAP conventions, footage of the occupation of Ukraine by the Nazis, or videos promoting the "healthy lifestyle" of the Nazi Third Reich.

"I don't concern myself with those details," Huml said in response to an query from a reporter with Euro. "The video has an actual basis in history extending back to the 15th century."

The MP then added this note to his Facebook post:  "P.S. for journalists - I actually do not approve of the Holocaust and I do not see it being approved of in the context of this video either." The video, published online on 9 August, was ultimately removed from the MP's public profile.

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Ukraine’s honoring of war criminals leaves its Jews uneasy — and divided

Via Times of Israel:

However, even Zissels is confessing his discomfort at the post-revolution government’s controversial veneration of local pro-Nazi collaborators — amid an explosion of nationalist and anti-Russian sentiment — who were responsible for the murder of countless Jews and Poles during World War II.

In Ukraine, that means the rehabilitation of “heroes” like Stepan Bandera, who last month had a street named after him in Kiev; Symon Petliura, a 1920s anti-Semitic statesman who in May was commemorated on public television, and Roman Shukhevych, a militia leader who will also be honored with a street name in Kiev.

Such veneration has deepened divisions among Ukrainian Jews and heightened their concern over the government’s commitment to democratic values.

“These are not my heroes,” Zissels, the head of the Vaad organization of Ukrainian Jews, told JTA during a recent interview. “They’re being honored not for anti-Semitic crimes, but for their fighting for Ukrainian independence against Russia. And still I don’t like the naming of streets after them, which has divided Ukrainians and Ukrainian Jews.”

“Unfortunately,” he added, “most Ukrainians do like it and the Jewish minority, or any other ethnic minority, should not interfere with the choice of the Ukrainian people as they name their national heroes.”

Speaking out against this trend, Zissels said, “can and will serve Russian propaganda.”

    ‘Unfortunately most Ukrainians do like it and the Jewish minority should not interfere with the choice of the Ukrainian people’

Nearly all of Ukraine’s mainstream political Jewish groups share Zissels’ unease over the veneration of Bandera and Shukhevych. During the war, the two served as leaders, respectively, of OUN and UPA, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Their men butchered thousands of Jews and Poles, including women and children, while fighting alongside Nazi Germany against the Red Army and communists.

Unlike Zissels, however, other leaders are willing to publicly denounce this trend as Jews.

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France: Many Jews fleeing recall an Islamic phrase "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people"

Guy Millière @ Gatestone Institute:

The slaughter of French priest Father Jacques Hamel on July 26 in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray was significant. The church where Father Jacques Hamel was saying mass was nearly empty. Five people were present; three nuns and two faithful. Most of the time, French churches are empty.

Christianity in France is dying out. Jacques Hamel was almost 86 years old; despite his age, he did not want to retire. He knew it would be difficult to find someone to replace him. Priests of European descent are now rare in France, as in many European countries. The priest officially in charge of the parish of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Auguste Moanda-Phuati, is Congolese.  [...]

The assassins of Father Jacques Hamel are what is coming. One of them, Adel Kermiche, was born in France to immigrant parents from Algeria. His path looks like the path followed by many young French Muslims: school failure, delinquency, shift towards a growing hatred of France and the West, return to Islam, transition to radical Islam. The other, Abdel Malik Petitjean, was born in France too. His mother is Muslim. His father comes from a Christian family. Abdel Malik Petitjean nevertheless followed the same path as Adel Kermiche. A growing number of young French-born Muslims radicalize. A growing number of young French people who have not been educated in Islam nevertheless turn to Islam, then to radical Islam.  [...]

French mainstream media do their best to hide the truth. Abdel Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche are described as troubled and depressed young people who slipped "inexplicably" towards barbarity. Their actions are widely presented as having nothing to do with Islam. The same words were used to depict Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the jihadist who murdered 86 people in Nice on July 14th. These words were used to depict all the jihadists who killed in France during the last few years. Each time, Muslim intellectuals are invited to speak, and invariably explain that Islam is peaceful and that Muslims are guilty of nothing.

The anger expressed by political leaders after the attack in Nice has already faded. Some political leaders in France call for tougher measures, but speak of "Islamic terrorism " very rarely. They know that speaking too much of "Islamic terrorism" could be extremely bad for their future careers.

All political parties, including the National Front, talk about the need to establish an "Islam of France." They never explain how, in the internet age, the "Islam of France could be different from Islam as it is everywhere else.  [...]

For several days after the attack in Nice, it seemed that the country was on the verge of explosion. This is no longer so. The French population seems resigned.  [...]

What is happening today is a continuation of what has been happening here so far this century. In 2001-2003, France experienced a huge wave of anti-Semitic attacks by Muslims supporting the "Palestinian cause." The French government denied that the attacks were anti-Semitic. It also denied that they were perpetrated by Muslims. It chose appeasement, expressed loudly its own support for the "Palestinian cause," and added that the revolt of a "part of the population" was "understandable." It asked Jewish organizations to remain silent. French Jews began to leave France. Many of them recalled an Islamic phrase in Arabic: "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people." In other words, first Muslims attack Jews; then when the Jews are gone, they attack Christians. It is what we have been seeing throughout the Middle East.

Attacks against non-Jews began in 2005: riots broke out all over France. The French government again chose appeasement, and said that the revolt of a "part of the population" would be "heard."

French Jews understand why his
mother had him reburied in Israel

A Jew, Ilan Halimi, was tortured for three weeks and then murdered in Paris in 2006. Then, more Jews were murdered in Toulouse in 2012 and in a Paris suburb in 2015.  Now more and more often, non-Jews are attacked. The French government has repeatedly talked of war, but each time returns to a policy of appeasement. 

Today, appeasement reigns, virtually unchallenged. All French political parties are choosing appeasement over confrontation, and hardly dare to call the danger by its name: radical Islam. The French choose submission: they have no real alternative.

Jews continue to flee. Synagogues and Jewish schools throughout the country are guarded around the clock by armed soldiers. Jews who are still in France know that wearing a skullcap or a Star of David is extremely dangerous. They seem to see that appeasement is a dead end. They often emigrate to the country that appeasers treat as a scapegoat and that Islamists want to destroy: Israel. They know that when in Israel, they might have to confront jihadists like those who kill in France, but they also know that Israelis are more ready to fight to defend themselves.  French non-Jews now see that appeasement will not allow them to be spared.   [...]

There will be no civil war in France. The jihadists have won. They will kill again. They love to kill. They love death. They say, "we love death more than you love life."   One of the nuns present in the empty church said that after slaughtering Father Jacques Hamel, Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean smiled. They were happy.

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UK: Palestinian Grim Reaper banner raised in anti-Israel protest by Celtic Football Club supporters

Via Legal Insurrection (h/t glykosymoritis)

Yesterday, a football (soccer) match in Glasgow, Scotland, took place between Glasgow-based Celtic and the Israeli team Hapoal Beersheva in the Champions League qualifying round. Celtic won 5-2.

(...)

At the match, fans waved Palestinian flags and chanted. A huge banner of a skull wrapped in a Palestinian Keffiyeh — the dress code for Palestinian terrorists like Yassar Arafat — came to symbolize the tone:

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Germany: Leipzig University students declare BDS anti-Semitic

Via Jerusalem Post:

Students at one of the world’s oldest universities – Leipzig University in the German state of Saxony – passed a resolution this month opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement because it is anti-Semitic.

According to the resolution, the student council voted “to condemn the anti-Semitic BDS campaign,” and is “against anti-Semitic measures such as disinviting Israeli academics.”

The Leipzig University student council sees BDS as a danger to academic freedom and that the BDS measures resemble the Nazi-era slogan “Don’t Buy from Jews!” BDS’s goal is the “abolition of the State of Israel,” the resolution said.


The student council initiated the resolution after a University of London professor appeared at a June event at Leipzig University. Anthropologist Lori Allen held an event regarding her book titled, The Rise and Fall of Human Rights: Cynicism and Politics in Occupied Palestine, and used the talk to promote BDS and to minimize terrorism, according to the resolution.

The pro-boycott event was sponsored by the European Network in Universal and Global History, and the university’s Center for Area Studies and Center for Global and European Studies. The event was also supported by Stanford University and the German federal Ministry for Education and Research.

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Germany: Graffiti artists are turning swastikas into adorable animals

Via The Verge:

Ibo Omari’s war against swastikas began earlier this year, when a man walked into his Berlin graffiti store and asked for a few cans of spray paint. The man had been playing with his son at a nearby playground and noticed a huge Nazi flag painted on an adjacent wall. The father wanted to paint over the flag himself, but Omari wouldn't let him.

"We said we are going to take care of it — don’t spend any money, don’t get your hands dirty," Omari recalls. "So we went there and made something beautiful out of it."

Within a few minutes, Omari and another artist transformed the giant swastika into a cartoonish mosquito, effectively neutering a symbol that continues to haunt Germany. Not long afterward, another friend told Omari of another swastika they had seen painted in a Berlin park, and suggested that he perform the same kind of street art alchemy.

Thus began Paintback, a campaign to change neo-Nazi graffiti into playful images. Over the last few months, Omari and 11 other members of his graffiti collective have transformed around 50 swastikas into a variety of whimsical designs: rabbits, owls, even Rubik’s cubes. The campaign began in Berlin and has since spread to other cities across Germany, thanks in large part to social media.

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Turkey: Media blames Jews, Israel for coup attempt

Jack Gozcu @ Times of Israel (h/t Honestly Concerned):

Between the dates of 17th of July–15th of August; the number of mainstream newspapers who directly linked the “Coup Attempt” to Jews and/or Israel is 76. Numbers are stated below.

(...)

Demonisation of Jews and Israel is a constant concept used in the Turkish written media. And on social media… I don’t even want to go there…

Latest news is suggesting that Fetullah Gülen’s mother’s name is Jewish and the “Üst Akıl” – so called “Supreme mentality” which consists of Jewish and Zionist and Masonic teachings are behind everything.

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France: Strasbourg attacker has history of attacking Jews

Via i24News:

The assailant who moderately wounded a Jewish man in the French city of Strasbourg has been charged with attempted murder, a judicial source said on Saturday.

The prosecution said it had filed charges "for the attempted murder of a victim because of his real or inferred race or religion."

"The man, aged 45 was indicted by the investigating judge and was remanded in a criminal filing tonight," said the prosecutor.

The suspect, said to be in his 40s, has been described as mentally unstable.  Witnesses said that he shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) during the attack on the 62-year-old Jewish man.

The victim was wearing a kippa skullcap, when he was stabbed in the abdomen in the city's Jewish quarter by a man with a record of anti-Semitic violence, Strasbourg's chief rabbi, Rene Gutman, told AFP.

The victim was admitted to hospital but Gutman said his injuries were not life-threatening.

In 2010, the assailant attacked another kippa-wearing Jewish man in Strasbourg, beating him with an iron bar in a public square.

Put on trial for attempted murder, he was considered to be not mentally responsible for his acts under criminal law and detained in a psychiatric hospital.

Prosecutors at the time said the aggressor believed himself to be "the victim of a Jewish conspiracy" which he blamed for "all his misfortunes".

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Italy: Islamic University official calls for 'final solution for Zionists'

Via Ynet News:

Rafelo Vilni, a high ranking official at the Islamic University in Lucca, Italy recently wrote on his Facebook page that "there needs to be a final solution for Zionists."

The post went on to say that "the real Jews are the victims are Zionism." 

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