Ukraine: Party amused by jokes about hanged Jews

Via CFCA:

Kiev - a new antisemitic scandal in Ukraine: Viktor Varganov, a member of the Academy of Science, entertained the conference of the Party of Batkivshina led by Yulia Tymoshenko, with jokes about Jews, which were met by long applauses.

"Jews of the wrong kind stand above us! Honorable colleagues, by saying this I mean that in every village, in every area, they have to be raised as they did in some of our counties. As they say, if sport could have been put to good use, then five Jews would be hanged on each pole. Don’t forget, please forgive me in the name of God, but hurray Ukraine" announced Vergonov, a member of the Ukrainian Union of journalists and director of the National Library of Agriculture.

As noted on his Facebook page, Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, the jokes were not only greatly appreciated by head of the Batkievshina party, Yulia Tymoshenko, but also by the leader of the nationalist party Svoboda, Oleg Tejnybuk, who was present in the audience. Dolinsky posted the videotape recording of the academy member as he told his joke to the applauding audience, drawing a wave of vehement criticism.

read more

Slovakia: Police charge 2 lawmakers from far-right party with extremism

Via Jerusalem Post:

Slovakia's police said on Saturday they have charged two members of parliament from a far-right People's Party-Our Slovakia with extremism for hate speech against the Roma, the Jews and Islam.

If found guilty, they are facing up to six years in prison, according to the penal code.

(...)

The party openly admires Jozef Tiso, leader of the 1939-1945 Nazi puppet state who allowed tens of thousands of Slovak Jews to be deported to Nazi death camps and was tried for treason after the war. It is also hostile to Slovakia's Roma minority.

Its lawmaker Stanislav Mizik is facing charges for publishing on a social network a list of "people of Jewish origin and admirers of Roma" among people who were given state honors by President Andrej Kiska earlier this year.

(...)

Another of the party's lawmakers, Milan Mazurek, has said on social media that the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust had been "distorted."

read more

Ukraine: Jews outraged over ‘Holocaust Cabaret’ in Kiev

Via Times of Israel:

A theater in Kiev provoked protest Tuesday from the local Jewish community after displaying a sign above its entrance proclaiming the title of an upcoming play, “The Trials of John Demjanjuk: A Holocaust Cabaret.”

The sign was put up a day earlier, while Israel was marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, and drew criticism from the chief rabbi of Ukraine, Moshe Azman, who posted pictures of the theater on his Facebook page.

“This horror (I cannot find another way to describe it) was hung in the center of Kiev yesterday, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, in the city where Babi Yar is located, opposite the central synagogue!” he wrote, referring to the Nazi execution by firing squads of nearly 34,000 Jews in a Kiev ravine, on September 29-30, 1941.

The play, written by Jewish Canadian playwright Jonathan Garfinkel in 2005 and later updated, is a satirical look at the trials of John Demjanjuk, a former guard at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland during World War II. Demjanjuk, who moved to the US after the war, was tried in both Israel and Germany for his alleged activities.

“And tickets for the Friday performance are sold,” Azman continued. “I do not know who needs this provocation, but I declare that we, the Jewish community, will do everything to remove this provocation immediately!”

Azman urged people to protest against the sign, and three hours later posted further pictures showing it being taken down.

“Thanks to all non-indifferent people and state structures for an instant reaction,” he wrote, “the sign was dismantled.”

read more

Austria: Jewish officials hail ecision to adopt antisemitism definition

Via Jerusalem Post:

 Officials and Jewish representatives have welcomed a move made this week by Austria to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, a week after an NGO reported that 2016 saw record levels of antisemitism in the country.

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz tweeted on Tuesday that the Austrian Council of Ministers had decided to take on the definition, adding that the move sent an important signal and was crucial “in order to identify and combat antisemitism more easily with a universally valid definition.”

read more

Germany: Foreign Minister equates Social Democrat victims of Nazism and Jewish victims of the Holocaust

Via EJP:

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has been criticized for his comments equating Social Democrats victims of Nazism to Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

In a op-ed published in daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau, the minister  wrote that the Social Democrats and the Jews were the first victims of the Holocaust, the first in the name of politics and the second in the name of race.

A spokesman for the German foreign ministry said that Gabriel is a close friend of Israel and has always accepted Germany's responsibility for the Holocaust and for Israel's security. "There can be no doubt about this, and the foreign minister made this statement again during his (recent) visit to Yad Vashem," he said.

The director of the Israeli branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, said that anyone with knowledge of the Final Solution is aware that the fate of European Jews under the Nazis was different than any other victim.

"Gabriel's claim is a negative exploitation of the memory of the Holocaust," he said.

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum and Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem condemned Gabriel's statement: "It is very unfortunate that an unnecessary and historically incorrect statement found its way into the the political storm surrounding Gabriel's cancelled meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.’’

read more

Europe: EU’s policy becoming the thin end of the wedge that BDS activists use to access EU institutions

Via Ynet News (Teodora Coptil):

(...) the EU’s policy is becoming the thin end of the wedge that BDS activists use to access EU institutions, employing Trojan horse tactics that seek nothing less than a complete severance of economic, cultural, scientific ties with Israel.  

High Representative Federica Mogherini has repeatedly reassured Prime Minister Netanyahu of “the EU’s opposition of boycotts against Israel”. And in all other bilateral forums, committees and subcommittees with Israel, EU officials are all singing from the same sheet: The policy of differentiation does not constitute a boycott of the State of Israel, but merely an implementation of existing EU legislation.  

I could question the good will and intention of the EU diplomats, who selectively isolate one of the core issues of the conflict, as if it exists in a vacuum, or the zealous use of “existing EU legislation” for a still in progress European foreign policy. It is not the purpose of this piece, however.  

I would like to draw attention to the fact that the line between diplomatic pressure put on the government of Israel on the issue of settlements and a fully-fledged boycott of the Israel is getting more and more blurred as BDS activists are offered shelter under the EU’s freedom of speech. Europe cannot afford itself to go down that path, regardless of the stalemate in the peace process. (...) 

BDS leader Omar Barghouti is frequently invited to address members of the European Parliament, the Delegation for relations for Palestine (DPAL), and other forums, and offered the public space to openly call for the boycott of Israeli products, academic exchanges and other types of sanctions. His crude tactic of trying to “make the occupation unbearable” comes at the cost of demonizing and entire population and infringing on their civil liberties by seeking their isolation in trade, cultural exchanges, academic cooperation and security.  

Mirroring the institutions’ impulse for “a continued, full and effective implementation of EU legislation,” one cannot but wonder why does EU shy away from substantiating its rejection of BDS. This position has been articulated on multiple occasions, including in MEP Martina Anderson’s answer on the question of the legitimacy of the BDS movement: “The EU rejects the BDS campaign attempts to isolate Israel and is opposed to any boycott of Israel.”  

Similarly, European Council President Donald Tusk, in his first visit to Israel in August 2015, ahead of the publication of EU guidelines on labelling, reassured Prime Minister Netanyahu that “we have to avoid words like boycott because for sure this is not the intention of Europe. No country in Europe wants to boycott Israel.” Concrete action needs to be taken by Brussels.  

The EU’s guidelines on the eligibility of Israeli entities participation to Horizon 2020 from July 2013 did not dissuade BDS activists who are lobbying members of the European Parliament from continuing to question, three years later, the participation and allocation of funds to the Israel Ministry of Public Security through LAW-TRAIN, an EU-funded project on drug trafficking. Similarly, another European legislator addressing the European Commission on its Patronage of WATEC Italy 2016, questions the participation in the fair of Mekorot, Israel’s national water company.  

Furthermore, an entire political group finds it “balanced” to call for an end to all cooperation between Israel and the European Defence Agency, and to allow no funding to Israeli entities through Horizon 2020.  

Unmistakably, Europe is going through a period of social disorder marked by disenchantment with mainstream politics, and one does not need further proof following Sunday’s results in the French presidential elections. As such, for the sake of preventing further scapegoating tendencies and radicalization, I would like to make the following recommendations: 

read more

Belgium: Lawmaker says Israel is the country of Belgian Jewish community leader

It is common in Europe to view Jews as Israelis and as "eternal" foreigners and immigrants.  At the same time, many also believe that Jews have no rights to Israel.  

The late Ulrich Beck, professor of sociology at the University of Munich, wrote in 2003 an article about antisemitism arguing that the majority of the Germans and of the Europeans do not accept the distinction between Jews and Israelis, although such a distinction is essential for German-Jewish reconciliation.   He relates that in the course of an informal chat after a talk by the President of Israel, Ignaz Bubis, the chairman of the German Council of Jewish Association, was told as a compliment that the address by "his" President had been excellent.  Ignaz Bubis replied that talks by Roman Herzog, the then President of Germany, were always excellent.  His interlocutor replied: "No, no, I'm referring to Mr. Weizman, your President".

Christian Laporte of La Libre Belgique reports that during a debate on the limitations of ritual slaughter of animals, Véronique Waroux a lawmaker of the Walloon regional Parliament told Philippe Markiewicz, president of the Consistoire organization of Belgian Jewry, that she had just returned from "his" country, i.e. Israel.  Thus implying that Jews are not Belgian citizens and that they are citizens of the State of Israel.  Unsurprisingly Waroux is a Israel-basher.

Again unsurprisingly, there were no protests.   

Challenged by a reader of this blog, she adamantly refused to apologize or express regrets, instead she was furious at his daring to make such a request. 

Mr Philippe Markiewicz is a Brussels-based lawyer and his family has lived in Belgium for six generations.  

Another prominent Belgian Pierre Galand, a notorious Israel-basher, explained in 2002 that Joël Rubinfeld, a Jewish leader, had not been invited to attend a conference because "it was either me or him.  That man is not like me he is an Israeli propaganda agent.  I am a Belgian, yes I am".

France: Marine Le Pen’s replacement as National Front leader questions use of Holocaust poison

Jean-François Jalkh has now been replaced by Steeve Bribois, the FN mayor of Hénin-Beaumont.

Via JTA:

The interim successor to Marine Le Pen at the helm of France’s far-right National Front party reportedly claimed in 2000 that the poison used by Nazis to kill Jews in the Holocaust could not have been applied in reality.

Jean-François Jalkh (pictured), who took Le Pen’s place this week as president on an interim basis while she campaigns for president ahead of the runoff vote May 7, made the remark about Zyklon B in an interview in which he advocated a distinction between “serious” Holocaust deniers and ones who deny the Holocaust or aspects of it as a provocation.

“Personally, I think that it is impossible from a technical point of view to use for mass extermination,” he said of the use of Zyklon B in gas chambers. “Why? Because it takes several days for a place where Zyklon B was used to be decontaminated.”

Laurent de Boissieu, a journalist for the La Croix Christian daily, found the interview while researching Jalkh, a relatively unknown figure within the National Front. They were republished in the Le Monde newspaper.

Jalkh told Le Monde that he did not recall the interview.

read more

Germany's Social Democrats pivot towards PLO and Iran

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

German Foreign and Vice Chancellor Minister Sigmar Gabriel’s move to pick a fight with Benjamin Netanyahu come as no surprise to longterm observers of Gabriel and his Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) explicit pivot toward Fatah and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Netanyahu told Gabriel he was not prepared to meet with him if he went ahead with meetings with organizations (i.e. Breaking the Silence) that seek to delegitimize the Jewish state and the IDF. 

Gabriel refused to pull the plug on his meetings and the row mushroomed into a full-blown diplomatic crisis. 

“Gabriel’s deliberate uproar” was the title of Alex Feuerherdt’s article on the website of the Mena Watch think tank. Feuerherdt, a journalist and expert in German-Israel relations, hammered away at the SPD’s growing anti-Israel tendencies and the largely monolithic media and political criticism in Germany of Netanyahu’s cancellation. 

He noted the double standard in Germany: There was not a bleep of protest over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to punish Israel for construction of buildings in the disputed territories by canceling her May trip to Israel, noted Feuerherdt. 

Gabriel is, of course, no stranger to slashing language that assaults Israel’s raison d’être, namely, political Zionism. 

He termed Israel’s presence in Hebron an “apartheid regime.” His partisan views are clearly written on the wall. For Gabriel, Mahmoud Abbas is a “friend’ and his SPD party declared itself to be in a “strategic partnership” with Abbas’s Fatah party. 

Moreover, the SPD hosted a Breaking the Silence exhibit in 2012 at the party’s Willy Brandt headquarters in Berlin. 

The current president of Germany, the Social Democrat’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier, waxed lyrical about the Breaking the Silence, a group that uses anonymous testimonies to claim Israel’s army commits war crimes. 

All of this helps to explain why Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, rejected just days ago a German mediation role (i.e, Gabriel) in the Israel-PLO conflict. 

The chairman and candidate for chancellor of the Social Democratic Party, Martin Schulz, described Abbas’s speech to the European Parliament last year as “stimulating.” 

During the June 2016 speech, Abbas accused Israeli rabbis of urging the government to poison Palestinian water. The New York Times wrote at the time that Abbas’s claim about lethally contaminating water used by the Palestinians echoed “antisemitic claims that led to the mass killings of European Jews in medieval times.” 

Gabriel has scarce experience in the Middle East. The vice chancellor – his party sits in a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party – is a hardcore economic nationalist who prioritizes his country’s business interests over historical responsibility toward the Jewish people. 

He rushed to Iran with a large business delegation just days after the nuclear accord was reached in July 2015. Gabriel appears to not have met with any organizations critical of the Islamic Republic while in Tehran. He dashed off to Iran again in 2016 with another business group. 

Gabriel’s predecessor, Steinmeier, tagged Netanyahu as “very coarse” for his piercing criticism of the Iran nuclear deal. As a result of the atomic pact, German companies are expected to secure a multi-billion dollar windfall from trade deals with the mullah regime. 

And key leaders within the Social Democrats have been frothing at the mouth over Israel’s opposition to the Iran nuclear weapons deal and over Netanyahu’s opposition to concessions to the Palestinians.

 read more

Romania: Ten Jewish tombstones smashed in capital

Via Times of Israel:

An anti-Semitism organization said Tuesday that vandals smashed 10 tombstones at a cemetery in the Romanian capital in “a premeditated act.”

The Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism in Romania said the tombstones were broken into pieces at the Jewish cemetery in southern Bucharest overnight Monday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, when the millions of Jews killed by the Nazis are commemorated in Israel.

The center called for an investigation and for the perpetrators to face justice.

read more

Marine Le Pen: Ban halal and all ritual slaughter

Via JTA:

Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate in the French presidential elections, said she would ban halal slaughter of animals if she is elected, along with any other method of ritual slaughter without stunning.

Le Pen, who finished second with 21.5 percent of the vote in the first round of the elections Sunday, made the statement Tuesday on halal slaughter during a campaign visit at a meat market near Paris. She did not mention shechitah, the kosher slaughter of animals, but did say she wanted to outlaw any slaughter of animals without stunning.

“Slaughter without stunning, I’m sorry, it should have special labels,” Le Pen said. “Furthermore, I think that slaughter without stunning should be prohibited.”

Her National Front party’s showing on Sunday was the best electoral result in its history and the second time it made it to the second and final round, which will be held May 7.

read more

UK: Anti-Zionist Malia Bouattia voted out of office at the NUS (Students Union) conference

Via Spiked (by Ieuan Joy, a writer and student):

Malia Bouattia has been voted out of office at the NUS conference. She’s no longer our president. Goodbye and good riddance. Over the past year she has given students nothing but a bad name. With her past comments on Zionism, viewed by many as crossing the line into anti-Semitism, and her constant running away from taking responsibility for her words and actions, she will not be missed. 

However, the NUS is still broken, and still crap. We should give credit to the new NUS president Shakira Martin for vowing to fight anti-Semitism — but she is still a standard student politician. She believes a BBC comedy skit called ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ was racist. She’s also fairly hysterical about Tory politicians, telling students they are ‘out to get every single one of us’. This kind of rhetoric, common in student politics, achieves very little. 

And post-Malia, the NUS will still involve itself in issues that have nothing to do with it. Does it really think Israel gives a crap what NUS officials think of it? 

read more

European Governments funding NGOs linked to bloodthirsty terror group PFLP

European governments also fund European Israel-bashing organisations in spite of the fact that many terrorists operate in Europe.  That's one of the reasons why so many European citizens do not trust their politicians.

Via The Algemeiner:

European governments are funding Palestinian civic organizations with clear ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization, a leading Israeli research organization said on Monday. 

A new report from the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor lists nearly a dozen organizations with PFLP affiliations that have nonetheless received funding from both the EU and European national governments. The PFLP has been designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU, Canada and Israel. All of the NGOs in the PFLP network are enthusiastic advocates of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel. 

The organizations include the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC), whose co-founder, Dr. Rabah Muhanna, is a member of the political bureau of the PFLP and the leader of its Gaza branch. The UHWC received over 350,000 Euros from the European Commission between 2014 and 2016, in addition to undisclosed amounts from European regional governments and humanitarian foundations. 

The European Union is also a major funder of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR,) whose founder, Raji Sourani, was convicted in 1979 of membership in the PFLP. In 2012, Sourani was denied an entry visa into the United States. Despite these connections, the EU donated over 400,000 Euros to the PCHR in the two years prior to 2016, while the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) provided the group with a further $577,000. 

As well as European governments and the United Nations, the NGO Monitor report identifies a number of well-known funds, including the Open Society Foundations of liberal billionaire George Soros, that have provided support to PFLP-linked NGOs in the Palestinian territories.

read more

UK: Lib Dems suspend election candidate over antisemitic social media posts

Via The Jewish Chronicle:

The Liberal Democrats have suspended a general election candidate who made a series of antisemitic posts on social media.

Ashuk Ahmed – who was given an award at the House of Lords for “inspirational role models for British Muslims” –  is no longer contesting the Luton South seat, a party spokesman confirmed.

Mr Ahmed, 51,  who was awarded an MBE for community work, was revealed to have posted a series of highly offensive messages including suggestions Zionists controlled “half the world” and another claim that Labour and the Conservatives were controlled by “Zionist paymasters”.

Among other posts he shared on social media were images of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, with blood pouring out of his mouth onto the bodies of Palestinian children, and another calling him a “blood sucking leech”.

Mr Ahmed also shared a video made by an extreme antisemitic group AshkeNazi, which claims to “expose… the current takeover of the United States by the Jewish Ashkenazi tribe”.

When contacted by MailOnline about Mr Ahmed’s postings, a Lib Dem spokesman said: “You sent us the email with the screenshots at 11:55 and we suspended Mr Ahmed at 11:56.

“Mr Ahmed's utterances have no place in the party. We believe in a politics that is open, tolerant and united.”

Mr Ahmed declined to comment when asked by the MailOnline about his antisemitic posts.

The former parliamentary candidate confirmed he was interviewed under caution by Bedfordshire police in 2014 following a complaint about the posts, which were made before that date.

read more

Germany is a hotbed of Iranian spy activity that targets Israel

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

The German Interior Ministry notified a Left Party deputy last week that agents from Iran have been some of the most active spies in the Federal Republic between 2007 and 2017, including assassination attempts on Israel advocates.

German authorities conducted criminal investigations into Iran for 22 cases of espionage, while Russia’s illicit spy activity led with 27 cases. China and Turkey both registered 15 spy cases. Syrian agents were involved in 8 espionage operations. According to the Interior Ministry letter sent to Left Party deputy Jan Korte, the federal government declared four Syrian agents persona non grata. (...) 

Last month, a Berlin court sentenced 31-year-old Pakistani citizen Mustufa Haidar Syed-Naqfi to four years and three months in prison for working for Iran’s intelligence service to spy “against Germany and another NATO member.”

According to German prosecutors, Haidar Syed-Naqfi was assigned to identify Israeli and Jewish institutions and Israel advocates in Germany, France and other unnamed Western European countries for possible attacks. He monitored a German-Jewish newspaper’s headquarters in Berlin and Reinhold Robbe, the former head of the German-Israel Friendship Society. 

Haidar Syed-Naqfi spied on French-Israeli business Prof. David Rouach, who teaches at the elite Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and served as head of the French-Israeli Chamber of Commerce, and, according to German authorities, his actions were “a clear indication of an assassination attempt.” 

read more

UK: National Union of Students in new anti-Semitism row after series of offensive tweets

Via Independent:

The National Union of Students (NUS) is embroiled in a fresh anti-Semitism row after three candidates holding or running for positions on its executive committee were revealed to have made offensive comments.

In online posts seen by The Independent, one current member of the union’s National Executive Council shared a video mocking Jews as having big noses and being tight with money, while another publicly suggested Jewish people are tight-fisted and said he wanted to destroy Israel.

A third, who is seeking a position on the union’s executive in elections being held this week, wrote an offensive Twitter message referring to Jews and using the phrase “Heil Hitler”.

The Independent can also reveal that, during her time as a student at York University, Malia Bouattia, the current NUS president, was involved in hosting a play called “Seven Jewish Children” that has been widely criticised as anti-Semitic.

read more

UK: Jeremy Corbyn just doesn't get it over antisemitism, says former aide

Via TheJC:

A former close aide to Jeremy Corbyn has claimed that the Labour leader has a crippling blind spot over antisemitism in the party.

Harry Fletcher, who was Mr Corbyn’s media and strategy adviser from 2015-16, said the Labour leadership had an “inability to understand why they’re perceived as antisemitic”.

In a piece written for the Sunday Times, he said: “Jeremy believes he is completely non-discriminatory. He would never be hostile to someone in the street. But he is, if you like, antisemitic along the institutionalised lines of the Metropolitan police in the 1990s, when they messed up the Stephen Lawrence investigation”.

He added that he had told Mr Corbyn “to say again and again” that he supported the Jewish community.

But “he just couldn’t see it at all", and became angry when attacked for his failure to deal with the issue.

Mr Fletcher, a Westminster insider with 25 years' experience, said some party activists believed the criticism of Mr Corbyn over antisemitism was sparked by his views on Israel.

“But it wasn’t,” the former aide said. “It was about discrimination. Jeremy did have an antipathy towards Israel. But the criticism he received was because of a pattern of behaviour that was perceived by the Jewish community as antisemitic.”

read more

Belgium: Abou Jahjah to create a political party

Readers of this blog are familiar with Dyab Abou Jahjah:

"I have only one phrase to all the Zionists invaders in Palestine: La valise ou le cercueil (either the suitcase or the coffin)."

Via The Algemeiner: Europe’s Rising Islam-Based Political Parties by Abigail R. Esman  

Abou Jahjah

(...) But it was Denk’s success, above all, that inspired Lebanese-Belgian activist Dyab Abou Jahjah to establish his newest political effort: a party (to date, unnamed) aimed at “Making Brussels Great Again, a la Bernie Sanders,” according to an interview in the Belgian newspaper de Morgen. 

This would be a third attempt at political relevance for Jahjah, who first came into the public eye in 2002 as the founder of the Brussels-based Arab-European League, a pan-European political group that aimed to create what he called a Europe-wide “sharocracy” — a sharia-based democracy.  

In 2003, the AEL organized a political party, RESIST, to run in the Brussels elections; it received a mere 10,000 votes. Now, Jahjah, who also runs an activist group called Movement X, hopes to run in Brussels’ 2018 elections. While his party has yet to declare a platform, his anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian and anti-European rants on Facebook and elsewhere give an indication of his plans. So, too, did a recent blog post in which he wrote: “we must defeat the forces of supremacy, the forces of sustained privileges, and the forces of the status-quo. We must defeat them in every possible arena.”  

And he is not alone. Days after Denk’s win, fellow Belgian Ahmet Koç announced his own initiative, the details of which are also yet to be determined. But some things are easy enough to predict on the basis of his past: the Turkish-Belgian politician was thrown out of Belgium’s socialist party in 2016 for supporting Erdogan’s efforts to censor Europeans who insulted him publicly. He also called for Belgian Turks to rise up against the “traitors” of the 2016 coup.  

Both Koç and Jahjah will have to reckon with the ISLAM party, which has already established itself in the Brussels area. Founded in 2012, ISLAM–  which is as an acronym for “Integrité, Solidarité, Liberté, Authenticité, Moralité” — is unapologetically religious. Its leaders pride themselves on following the koran, not party politics. With branches already in place in the Brussels districts of Anderlecht, Molenbeek (the center of Belgian radicalism) and Luik, the party now plans to expand throughout the Brussels region. 

read more

France: Jews have faced steady intimidation in northern Paris at least since 2002

Via City Journal (Christopher Caldwell):

The French, Coming Apart.  A social thinker illuminates his country’s populist divide.

(...) Christophe Guilluy calls himself a geographer. But he has spent decades as a housing consultant in various rapidly changing neighborhoods north of Paris, studying gentrification, among other things. And he has crafted a convincing narrative tying together France’s various social problems—immigration tensions, inequality, deindustrialization, economic decline, ethnic conflict, and the rise of populist parties. Such an analysis had previously eluded the Parisian caste of philosophers, political scientists, literary journalists, government-funded researchers, and party ideologues. (...)

Most places where migrant and native French cultures mix, Guilluy expects, will evolve as did the northern Paris suburbs where he works. Twenty years ago, these neighborhoods remained a hub of Parisian Jewish life; nowadays, they’re heavily Arab. The young men living in them feel a burning solidarity with their Muslim brethren in the Middle East and often a loathing for Israel. Jews have faced steady intimidation in northern Paris at least since 2002, when the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks overlapped with the Palestinian “second intifada.” Violence is rising. July 2014 saw a wave of attacks on Jewish businesses and synagogues in the suburb of Sarcelles. Jews have evacuated some municipalities north of Paris, where, until recently, they were an integral part: Saint-Denis, La Courneuve, Aubervilliers, Stains, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Trappes, Aulnay-sous-Bois, and Le Blanc-Mesnil. Many Jews still live safely and well in France, of course, but they cluster together in a smaller number of secure neighborhoods, several of them on Paris’s western edge. Departures of French Jews to Israel run to about 7,000 a year, according to the Jewish Agency of France. Others go to the U.S. and Canada. The leavers are disproportionately young.

read more

UK: Terrorist accused of killing a British student will be paid £800 a month by the Palestinian government which receives £25m-a-year UK foreign aid

Also, on today's Mail, Ian Birrell writes: Why a UK woman's murder in Israel should boil your blood and make you rethink foreign aid, Mrs May

Via The Daily Mail:

- Palestinian Jamil Tamimi murdered British theology student Hannah Bladon

- He told police that he attacked Hannah in the hope a soldier would kill him 

- His family qualify for a 'salary' from the Palestinian Authority of £800 a month

- Palestine receives more than £25 million a year from the UK in foreign aid 

Hannah Bladon

A terrorist accused of murdering a British student in Jerusalem will be paid a salary of more than £800 a month by the Palestinian government – which receives more than £25 million a year from the UK in foreign aid.

Jamil Tamimi, who has a history of mental health issues, killed theology student Hannah Bladon in a frenzied knife attack on Good Friday after the 21-year-old gave up her seat on a tram to a woman with a baby. 

The 57-year-old Palestinian told police that he attacked Hannah, a Birmingham University exchange student attached to Jerusalem's Hebrew University, in the hope that a soldier in the carriage would kill him.

Instead Tamimi was arrested and is almost certain to be lauded as a resistance 'hero' by the Palestinian Authority (PA), like hundreds of others before him. 

An Israeli court has already ruled, following a psychiatric evaluation, that he is fit to stand trial and should be treated as a terrorist by the justice system. 

It means Tamimi or his family qualify for a 'salary' from the PA, according to Itamar Marcus, spokesman for the Israeli monitoring group Palestinian Media Watch.

 'According to PA law, everyone who is imprisoned for 'resisting the occupation' receives a PA salary,' he said. 'In PA practice, 100 per cent of the suicide bombers, stabbers, shooters and car rammers have been included in this category and do receive PA salaries.'

Terrorists who have 'resisted the occupation' are paid a monthly amount by the PA and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on a sliding scale related to their sentence.

read more

UK: Video shows vile Chelsea fans singing anti-Semitic song before their FA Cup clash against Tottenham

Via Daily Mail:

Chelsea fans have been filmed singing an anti-Semitic song just hours before their FA Cup semi-final clash with rivals Tottenham at Wembley.

The group of supporters had gathered at the Green Man pub near the 90,000-seated stadium in London and some started singing the sick chant. 

Many were stood on benches and shouted 'I've got a foreskin, haven't you?' in an apparent attempt to taunt the North London club because of their Jewish connections.

At least 20 fans sang: 'We'll be running around Tottenham with our willies hanging out, singing I've got a foreskin, haven't you? Have you f***.'

read more

Antisemitic Hate Crimes Thrive in Ukraine

Via Algemeiner:

Just before the last day of Passover, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Deitsch died in Israel. The well-known Chabad rabbi was injured in a brutal attack in October 2016 in Zhitomir, Ukraine, where he was savagely beaten by bunch of thugs. Rabbi Deitsch was only 64 years old. His death has become a tragic symbol of antisemitism in Ukraine — a phenomenon that the world prefers to ignore.

Antisemitism is thriving in Ukraine, as is ultra-nationalism and hatred against all minority groups. One needs only to watch Ukrainian television coverage praising neo-Nazi rallies to discover what the country has become. But the resurgence of antisemitism here has only been made possible by the world’s indifference and inaction.

During the last six months, there have been scores of hate crimes in Ukraine. When it comes to the Jewish community, these crimes include the desecration of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s grave in Uman, which was ‘crowned’ by a pig’s head with a swastika carved on it. This and other antisemitic attacks were documented with photos and detailed descriptions. All of them were reported to the Ukrainian police. The result? Nothing. And the world’s reaction? Nada.

The desecration of Jewish buildings and memorials has become quite common in Ukraine and, in some cases, the vandalism is repeated many times per year.

Simultaneously, there has been a disgusting attempt to rewrite history throughout the country. In a macabre-like episode, Ukrainian nationalists are trying to whitewash the Babi Yar massacre that took place during the Holocaust, and the country’s officials — including Kiev’s mayor — are allowing it. Ukraine is also erecting memorials and setting up exhibitions to honor the perpetrators of the most vicious antisemitic attacks that took place during the Holocaust.

One such exhibition honored the ‘exploits’ of Ivan Rohach, who was the editor of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalistic OUN newspaper; he also repeatedly called for the extermination of the Jews. A memorial was also established to honor Yelena Teliga, a fierce antisemite who demonized Jews and helped instigate the Babi Yar massacre.

Daily life in Ukraine is dangerous for Jews, and rabbis and community leaders are afraid to speak out about it — for fear of making the situation worse.

Amid all of this, the world has been silent.

read more

France: Fake Bernard-Henri Levy quote triggers anti-Semitic avalanche online

Via JTA:

A satirical article suggesting that the French-Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy plans to emigrate if a far-left politician is elected president triggered a slew of anti-Semitic comments on Twitter.

In the fake interview published last week on the satirical website NordPresse, Levy, one of the country’s best-known celebrities, is quoted as saying, “If Melenchon is elected, I’m leaving France.”

Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is the presidential candidate of the French Communist Party and several other far-left groups, has made considerable gains in polls ahead of the first round of the presidential elections on April 23.

Using the hashtag #BHL — the Jewish philosopher’s initials — hundreds of Melenchon supporters circulated the fake interview on Twitter, adding anti-Semitic comments about it.

“Shove off to Israel or the States, you son of a bitch,” one Twitter user wrote in an apparent reference to the fact that Levy, who is a citizen neither of Israel nor of the United States, is Jewish. Another wrote, “If Melenchon wins BHL knows where he can return.” The latter added a banner advertising Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to tourists.

The L’Expresse daily accused the satirical website of encouraging anti-Semitic discourse by inventing a quote by Levy.

“I cannot agree to a 90-percent taxation of my revenues” in explaining his opposition to Melenchon. “The Jews, as we all know, are rich,” L’Expresse wrote sarcastically.

Levy has criticized Melenchon, whose policies he has called “dangerous.” This week, Levy wrote on Twitter: “A reminder on the deplorable remarks by Melenchon following 2014 rallies featuring chanting about death to Jews.”

The post included a link to an article about Melenchon that was published on the Levy-owned opinion website Le Regle du Jeu recalling Melenchon’s statement on Aug. 24 that protesters against Israel in Paris “remained dignified and embodied better than anyone the founding values of the French republic.”More than nine synagogues were attacked in July that year in the French capital by pro-Palestinian protesters, some using firebombs. In a July 2014 incident at one synagogue, a gang of 150 assailants besieged dozens of worshipers.

read more

Austria: Anti-Semitic incidents reach new record in 2016

Via Israel Hayom:

A record number of anti-Semitic incidents, ranging from verbal and online threats to physical assaults, was recorded in Austria last year, a non-governmental organization said in a report published on Thursday.

The number of cases rose to 477 in 2016 from 465 in 2015, when it jumped by about 200 from 2014, the Forum Against Anti-Semitism said.

The report follows a finding by Austria's BVT domestic intelligence service indicating that in 2016 incidents of xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism were on the rise in Austria. The small country has been swept up in Europe's migration crisis and the refugee influx has become a hot-button issue.

"It is of course alarming. We now have two consecutive years at a record level," said Oskar Deutsch, president of the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG).

Deutsch said Austria's Jewish community numbers 13,000 to 15,000 people in an overall population of 8.8 million.

Growing concerns about jobs and security, often in connection with immigration, have fueled growing support for the far-right Freedom party, which was founded by former Nazis. It is now running first in opinion polls.

The Freedom party is strongly critical of Islam and denounces anti-Semitism, but its efforts to court Jewish voters have shown few signs of success. The IKG, the main body representing Austrian Jews, says the party is still xenophobic.

read more

France: Silence in Paris. What does it mean when no one talks about a brutal murder?

Via City Journal (Theodore Dalrymple):

As every married person knows, silences can be pregnant with meaning, even if the meaning is not immediately clear. The silence in the French press about a recent startling event in Paris is surely pregnant with meaning. On Monday, April 3, an Orthodox Jewish woman, Sarah Halimi, a doctor aged 66, was thrown out of a window to her death by an African man aged 27. He was her neighbor in the flats where she lived. According to witnesses, whose testimony has yet to be confirmed, the man, who had been harassing her with insults for several days, shouted “Allahu akbar!” as he threw her.

Also, according to unconfirmed reports, neighbors had called the police because of the young man’s behavior. Three policemen came but did nothing, deciding that it was up to other authorities, presumably psychiatric, to act. At any rate, the young man was transferred to a psychiatric clinic almost immediately after his arrest. (...)

But it has been known for a long time that the delusions of madness take on the coloring of the culture of those who suffer them. (De Quincey says, in The Confessions of an English Opium Eater, that if a man thinks of oxen, his opium dreams will be of oxen.) It would be stretching credulity to suggest that the young man’s victim was chosen at random, that he might just as well have chosen someone else. If this is so, it reveals something unpleasant about the man’s cultural milieu.

But why the silence in the press? The case was certainly dramatic enough to be worthy of a mention under the rubric of faits divers. I happened to learn of it only through a Parisian neighbor, a Jewish shopowner. The story had appeared in La Tribune juive, and probably caused a shudder among French Jews, all the greater because of the silence of the press about it.

Was this silence commanded or coordinated from above? Perhaps no one wanted to raise the temperature in the runup to one of the most contested elections in recent French history, in which there is the possibility—an outside possibility, but still greater than ever before—of a victory for the far Right.

The afternoon that I learned about the case, I went to an exhibition marking the 30th anniversary of the trial for crimes against humanity of Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, who ran the Gestapo there during the Occupation. It was held at the Mémorial de la Shoah, a Parisian museum and study center devoted to the history of the Holocaust. If there is any small museum in the world more defended against car bombs and with tighter security, I do not know it. 

 read more

France: Mélenchon a presidential candidate with a record of statements deemed anti-Semitic

Via The Times of Israel (Cnaan Liphshiz):

Even before the communist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon emerged as a serious contender for the presidency in France, the elections were shaping up to be a fateful moment for the country’s 500,000 Jews. 

Many of them are deeply worried about the rise in the polls of Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front party, with its xenophobic policies and anti-Semitic roots. Some French Jews vowed to leave France should Le Pen win — she was leading the polls for weeks ahead of the first round of the elections on April 23 and the final one on May 7. 

With the meteoric rise of Melenchon, an anti-Israel lawmaker with a record of statements deemed anti-Semitic, French Jews now feel caught in a vice between two extremes. Melenchon climbed to third place in the polls, with approximately 20 percent of the vote this month, from fifth with 9 percent in February. 

“I don’t see any significant difference between Melenchon and the National Front on many issues,” Joann Sfar, a well-known French-Jewish novelist and filmmaker who used to support communist causes, wrote last week on Facebook. Both are “surrounded by Germanophobes, nationalists and France firsters.” 

Sfar’s post triggered a torrent of anti-Semitic statements about him on social networks. (...) 

CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, has also equated Melenchon with Le Pen. 

“They both traffic in hatred, and they are both a danger to democracy,” CRIF President Francis Kalifat told JTA last month, adding that his group shuns all contact with both politicians. 

Melenchon, 65, a former Socialist deputy minister, was born to Spanish parents in what today is Morocco. He supports a blanket boycott of Israel. True to his populist oratory style, has said that allowing Israel to keep even some West Bank settlements “is like letting bank robbers keep the money.” (...) 

These policies and his remarks have alienated many Jews, as did Melenchon’s assertion in 2013 that a Jewish Socialist politician, Pierre Moscovici, “thinks in international finances, not in French” – a statement critics said was anti-Semitic. (Melenchon denied the charge.) But it was only after a speech that Melenchon delivered in August 2014 that leaders of French Jewry flagged him as a public enemy. 

Speaking in Grenoble less than a month after nine synagogues were attacked amid a wave of violent and unauthorized protests against Israel over its war with Hamas in Gaza that summer, Melenchon praised the protesters. He also condemned French Jews for expressing solidarity with Israel in a support rally in front of its embassy.“I want to congratulate the youth of my country who mobilized in defense of the miserable victims of war crimes in Gaza,” Melenchon said in the speech at a general assembly of his Left Party. “They did so with model discipline when they were pushed to extremes on all sides. They knew how to remain dignified and embodied better than anyone the founding values of the French republic.” 

Melenchon did not mention the synagogue attacks and the wave of anti-Semitic assaults that followed the protests. But he did go on to criticize thousands of French Jews over their support for Israel. 

“If we have anything to condemn, then it is the actions of citizens who decided to rally in front of the embassy of a foreign country or serve its flag, weapon in hand,” he said. 

Melenchon also said: “We do not believe that any people is superior to another” — a statement some of his critics took as an allusion to the Torah’s designation of Jews as the “chosen people.” 

He also accused CRIF of attempting to label him an anti-Semite in order to discredit his criticism of Israel. 

“We’ve had enough of CRIF,” Melenchon said, shouting. “France is the opposite of aggressive communities that lecture to the rest of country.”

read more

Switzerland: Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter is widely considered as unfriendly toward Israel

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Switzerland’s Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter’s meetings with the Jihadist organization Hamas have catapulted his policies into a critical spotlight in the central European country. 

According to the Swiss daily Blick on Sunday: “The foreign ministry calls for Western dialogue with Hamas. For this reason, Bern helps make the terrorist organization [Hamas] respectable, say critics.” 

The conservative Swiss People’s Party deputy and foreign policy expert, Alfred Heer, told the daily it is “unbelievable that the Federal Council’s Burkhalter does not finally end support of Hamas from the EDA [Federal Department of Foreign Affairs].” 

Heer said the foreign minister should, on the holiday of Passover, give consideration as to why Switzerland supports an organization whose goal is the destruction of Israel.
Jacob Keidar, Israel’s ambassador to Switzerland, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday: “We have been conveying our views concerning Hamas to the Swiss government on a constant basis and we have been trying to persuade them to adopt our views.” 

Israel’s government, the European Union and the US classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Switzerland is not a member of the EU and has vehemently opposed adopting terrorist designations for Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. (...) 

Burkhalter, who is from The Liberals party, is widely considered as unfriendly toward Israel. 

In December, the Swiss government and a Finnish NGO spent almost $85,000 to host a workshop in Geneva to unify Hamas with the Ramallah- based Palestinian Fatah party.

In 2012, the National Palace (Bundeshaus), which houses the Swiss parliament, hosted Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri. Speaking from Bern with the Post at the time, Ambassador ad interim (chargé d’affaires) Shalom Cohen said: “We were not happy with this development. We shared our view with the local authorities. (...) 

Burkhalter’s ministry has been embroiled in a separate anti-Israel scandal involving funds for NGOs that allegedly call for boycotts against Israel and express antisemitic aims. 

“Switzerland finances in different ways organizations in Israel and the Palestinian territories that call for the annihilation of Israel and for the death of Jews,” Basler Zeitung senior editor Dominik Feusi wrote in February. 

Since, 2013, the Swiss government has allegedly funneled nearly $700,000 to a human rights office in Ramallah that seeks to cover up the antisemitic work of its partner NGOs.

read more

UK: Imam sees a 'direct parallel' between Islamic State and Zionism

Via Harry's Place:

Many Salafi Muslims like to claim that their way is one of the best bulwarks against violent extremism. Usually the pitch is bakwas, to be multicultural about it. 

They may well oppose Islamic State, but the way they go about it only makes things worse. 

Alyas Karmani provides a lesson from this field in the clip below. The Bradford imam and old mate of George Galloway is addressing Muslims at the Green Lane Mosque, the Salafi centre in Birmingham of “Undercover Mosque” infamy.

He is speaking against Islamic State. To make his case, what does he turn to? Zionism, that’s what. There is a “direct parallel” between Islamic State and Zionism, you see, from militarism to ethnic cleansing.

Learn from the Jews of Neturei Karta, he advises, if you want to know the truth. Ah yes, the tiny, bizarre and deplorable cult which has long served as a fig leaf for the worst Israel haters in the land. They’re fond of the Holocaust deniers of Tehran and the loathsome far right nutters of Hungary’s Jobbik party. For starters. What great teachers. 

Elsewhere in this session and another at the Green Lane Mosque Karmani suggests Israel is funding Islamic State by buying its oil.

read more and watch the video

Spain: Madrid deputy mayor hosts event in solidarity with Palestinian terrorists

As this event proves (yet again), there is a significant number of Europeans who support terrorists who call for the destruction of Israel.  It is not surprising that so many Jews keep leaving Europe (600,000 Jews have left Europe in the last 25 years).

Via JTA:

A deputy mayor of Madrid hosted an event in the Spanish capital honoring Palestinian terrorists from Hamas and other groups who are imprisoned in Israel. 

The International Day of Palestinian Prisoners was held Monday at the main municipal space of the Retiro district, in the southeastern part of the city, and drew harsh condemnations from representatives of the city’s Jewish community, the Libertad daily reported Tuesday. 

A poster advertising the event listed Deputy Mayor Mauricio Valiente of the Izquerda Unida far-left party first among four speakers, introducing him by his municipal title and as an expert on human rights. 

Another speaker, introduced as a “television journalist and Palestinian former political prisoner,” was Musab Muhammad Nimr Bashir, a 36-year-old Gaza native who had admitted to using his position in 2007 with Doctors Without Borders for planning to assassinate an Israeli official together with other terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

Another speaker, Ana Sanchez De Mera, was introduced as an activist for “the boycott on Israel.” 

In a statement, the Jewish Community of Madrid wrote that it “views with alarm and consternation” the use of public resources in support of “prisoners, many of whom are imprisoned and convicted in a viable and consolidated democracy of bloody acts of terrorism.” 

The statement also addressed the involvement of promoters of the boycott against Israel in the event, noting that several Spanish courts, including supreme ones, recently declared it discriminatory. 

“The support of the municipality of all the people of Madrid and the use of its space in support of people and organizations who promote the boycott,” the community wrote in its statement, is tantamount to “supporting hatred and the destruction of the only Jewish country in the world and its inhabitants.”

Berlin: Antisemitic attack in railway station

Via FOCUS:

A 38-year old woman threw a glass bottle at a group in the Berlin Ostbahnhof train station.  When one of the group approached her, she called him a 'dirty Jew'.  The police are investigating the woman for incitement to hatred and causing bodily harm.

Lithuania: Vilnius University to honor Jewish Holocaust victims — unless they fought Nazis

Via JTA:

Vilnius University in Lithuania said it would award academic degrees posthumously to Jewish students who were murdered in the Holocaust — unless they were partisans.

In a statement published Wednesday on its website announcing the initiative titled Recovering Memory, the university encouraged relatives of Holocaust victims to apply for recognition through a special procedure set up this year.

But in a twist connected to the Lithuanian state’s complicated attitude to its wartime history, the procedure excludes any Jewish student who fought with communist or pro-Soviet partisans against the Nazis. Diplomas will not be issued “if evidence of collaboration with political and police structures of totalitarian regimes is determined,” the procedure states.

Virtually all resistance movements in Lithuania during World War II were supported or otherwise linked to the Soviet Union.

read more

UK: Jews pelted with eggs outside synagogue in Golders Green

Via CAA:

Jewish worshippers performing the Kiddush Levanah ceremony outside a synagogue in Golders Green were pelted with eggs by the occupants of a passing Toyota Prius on Tuesday at approximately 23:40.

read more

Holland: Peaceful march for Israel prohibited in Rotterdam while Hamas-led conference authorized by Dutch authorities

Via European Jewish Press:

Belgian-Lebanese activist Dyab Abu Jahjah, who has publicly called for the radicalization of immigrants in Europe and for terror actions against Israel, participated

A peaceful silent march for Israel organized by a group of Dutch Christians in Rotterdam has not been authorized by the city’s mayor. The march was to protest against a Hamas conference of Palestinians in Europe on Saturday in the port city.

The city gave as reason for not authorizing the march the fact that police could not guarantee the security of the participants. The party for freedom led by Geert Wilders called on  Thursday in the parliament for the army to be mobilized to guarantee security. 

Roger van Oort, Director of Christenen voor Israël (Christians for Israel), rejected the reason given by the city. ''It's absurd. The march would only gather 150 people who wanted to deliver a petition to the city hall,'' he said. According to him, the request for a silent march was made in order to allow Jews to join. On Sabbath religious Jews are not allowed to demonstrate but they can just walk,'' he added.

Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and the Ministers of Interior and Justice have rejected calls from Jewish groups for the  conference, organized by the London-based Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), a group that is the regarded by western intelligence sources as a support group of Hamas, to be prohibited because such an event could encourage anti-Semitism and embolden terrorist groups among young people. Hamas is on the EU list of terrorist groups.

Aboutaleb, a politician from the anti-Israel Labor party who was born in Morocco to a Muslim family, explained his refusal to ban the public gathering by the fact that it was not absolutely proved that Hamas is involved in the organization of the conference. But he promised to the Jewish community that justice officials will be present at the April 15 event to "make sure nothing anti-Semitic will happen or will be said."

The Netherlands’s Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs has expressed his concern that the  conference "will incite anti-Semitism or pro-terrorist sentiment" in the country, particularly among the country’s rapidly growing community of ethnic Turks.

Dutch journalist Carel Brendel, who has written about the PRC’s activities, has said  that the evidence of the PRC’s connections to Hamas is “overwhelming.” Brendel noted that two of the organizers of the upcoming conference, Adel Abdallah and Amin Abou Rashed, have received awards from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

According to German intelligence sources, the PRC was founded by Hamas in 1996 and is managed by  Zaher al-Birawi, Majed al-Zeer and Dr. Arafat Shoukri, well known Hamas activists who have ties to Hamas-Gaza and abroad and who are operating to promote the group's economical, organizational, conceptual and operational interests in Europe.  (...)

According to Manfred Gerstenfeld, a former chairman of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, the choice of Rotterdam as site of the conference "is far from arbitrary." "The town as a record of many years of anti-Israel initiatives," he said, recalling that las month also in Rotterdam Dutch Turkish hooligans shouted "cancer Jews" at the police in a confrontation that had nothing to do with the Jews.

Among the participants and speakers at the conference will be controversial Belgian-Lebanese activist Dyab Abu Jahjah, who has publicly called for the radicalization of immigrants in Europe and for terror actions against Israel. A former columnist, he was dismissed by Belgian Flemish daily De Standaard after having called for the "liberation of Palestine by all necessary means."

read more