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Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Portuguese MEP says EJC is lying and smearing her

Background: Portuguese MP invites Omar Barghouti, founder of anti-Israel BDS, to EU parliament, Jewish groups protest and Portugal/EU: Another Israel-bashing pro-BDS event at the European Parliament

European Jewish Congress:
Please ask Mr. Barghouti tomorrow what he understands under #RightOfReturn Which Palestinian state is he advocating for, what role does Israel play in that scenario, does he accept borders of 48 & what are his stands on #Hamas? Answers are online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYvpsGd8K4Y
MEP Ana Gomes (member of ruling Socialist Party, Portugal):
He doesn’t, you’re selectively quoting him out of context. But lots of young Palestinians are calling for it, pushed into that desperate corner by the destructive illegal Israeli occupation which makes unviable a democratic State in Palestine, in their view. 
European Jewish Congress:
Why do you want to discuss this with #Barghouti who explicitly calls for one-state solution?
MEP Ana Gomes (member of ruling Socialist Party, Portugal):
Yr smear campaign won’t work: I’m against #antisemitism & any form of #racism. I’m against those who want to destroy #Israel. That is why we need to discuss @EP impact of Israeli settlements/illegal occupation in #Palestine: that’s what is discrediting & threatening #Israel.

Transatlantic Inst.:
A "perverse lobby" is allegedly spreading lies, to supposedly silence her, says @AnaGomes MEP. We assume this outrageous insult, under @TheProgressives banner, is directed at us & other Jewish organizations protesting her invitation to extremist BDS founder Barghouti.


European Union praises Jordan's "special role" in protecting Jerusalem's holy places. (Who cares that they deny Jewish rights?)

Via Elder of Ziyon:

EU High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini released a joint press statement with Ayman Al Safadi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jordan.

Some of her statements are problematic, to say the least.


Today we will focus on how to bring the Middle East Peace Process forward. We will have the opportunity to listen to your views that coincides largely with our views. The European Union has been very clear in its position and very much united.
It sounds like she is saying that the EU and Arabs all largely agree on what is needed for peace. It is only those pesky Israelis who are against peace.

Let me say, today in particular, one word on the closure yesterday of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in protest to certain Israeli steps planned or announced. We hope that a solution can be found quickly. Jerusalem is a holy city to the three monotheistic religions. This special status and character of the city must be preserved and respected by all. And I am saying this, in particular, standing next to you, as His Majesty [Abdullah II] King of Jordan has a very special role - a very appreciated role - when it comes to the Holy Places in Jerusalem. He knows that he can always count on our full support. And I think that the developments yesterday showed that there is a special attention we need to pay to this aspect.
This is truly outrageous.

Remind me again of what Jordan's history with preserving access to the holy places in Jerusalem is? Oh, yeah - Jordan didn't allow any Jews - not Israelis, but Jews - to visit the Jewish holy places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and elsewhere for 19 years. Jordan destroyed 50 synagogues. Jordan desecrated the oldest and largest Jewish cemetery in the world.

Even today, Jordan denies all Jewish rights in Jerusalem. 

Jordan's record in Jerusalem and the West Bank in preserving religious rights is not just flawed, but abysmal. Yet Mogherini is praising Jordan's monarch for - what, exactly?  Denying that Jews have any rights to the Old City of Jerusalem?

And under Israeli rule, there are more Muslims living in Jerusalem than ever before. There are far more Muslims visiting the Al Aqsa Mosque than ever visited under Jordanian or Ottoman rule.There are far more Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem than ever before.  Israel has uncovered and preserved  Muslim archaeological treasures while the Jordanian Waqf has continuously destroyed priceless Jewish artifacts. 
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Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Portuguese MP invites Omar Barghouti, founder of anti-Israel BDS, to EU parliament, Jewish groups protest

Related:
Portugal/EU: Another Israel-bashing pro-BDS event at the European Parliament

Via European Jewish Press (Yossi Lempkowicz):
Jewish groups protested against the invitation made to Omar Barghouti, leader and co-founded of the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott-Disinvestment-Sanctions) to address a conference next week in the European Parliament in Brussels.

The conference, titled “The Israeli Settlement in Palestine and the European Union” is to be held on February 28. It is organized by Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes, a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

Omar Barghouti repeatedly compares the state of Israel to the Nazi regime. His BDS movement calls for a total economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel and doesn’t work towards peace.

The President of B’nai B’rith Europe Serge Dahan sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani to express his "deepest concern" regarding the invitation made to Barghouti. In the letter, he asked him to defend European Union’s fundamental values and the security of civil society by not leaving any space to hate speech in the European Parliament.

In the letter Dahan stresses that BDS campaigns against Israel "are obstacles to the Middle East peace process, dismantling existing links between Israeli and Palestinian universities, artists and professionals; it harms cultural bonds and working relations that occur every day between Israelis and Palestinian society."

The Jewish communities of Portugal and Belgium also protested the invitation to Barghouti. Yohan Benizri, president of CCOJB, the umbrella group of French-speaking Jewish communities in Belgium, and Gabriel Steinhardt, president of the Jewish Community of Lisbon, wrote of their disapproval in a letter to President Tajani.

Barghouti’s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement addresses "not only the disputed territories but opposes the very existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state in its entirety and in any kind of borders," the communal leaders wrote.

By offering a podium to Barghouti, "the house directly undermines its own policy stance on anti-Semitism," they added, citing how some BDS activists "consistently engage in practices which are considered anti-Semitic according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition on anti-Semitism." The Jewish leaders’ call was co-signed by representatives of the European Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith International, the American Jewish Committee’s Transatlantic Institute, ELNET and the European Union of Jewish Students.
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More about Ana Gomes' anti-Israel militancy:
Europe: Cancellation of a meeting with Israeli general in the European parliament
Europe: 63 MEPs call for suspension of EU-Israel treaty

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Europe: Amnesty’s 2017 report is rife with distortions and maintains its longstanding anti-Israel biais


Via The Jerusalem Post:
"Amnesty’s 2017 report is rife with distortions and maintains the group’s longstanding anti-Israel biais," NGO Monitor said.
The recent Amnesty International Report on the state of human rights in 159 countries and territories during 2017 claims Israel is “killing” and “torturing” Palestinian children with impunity.

Its critique of Israel is more extensive and critical than those of known bastions of human rights violations, including Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. (...)

Daniel Laufer, head of foreign media relations for NGO Monitor, said the annual report has long harbored egregious anti-Israel bias.

“Amnesty’s 2017 report is rife with distortions and maintains the group’s longstanding anti-Israel bias,” he said on Thursday. “That the Israel section is longer than those on Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, laughably suggests that there are greater human rights issues in Israel than in those countries.”

Among the questionable sections, Laufer notes that the report states that Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and board member of the Ramallah-based NGO Addameer Prisioner Support and Human Rights Association, and Addameer staff member Salah Hammouri, remained in administrative detention at the end of the year.

“[However], it fails to mention that these are both members of the PFLP terror organization, Jarrar being a senior official, and Hamouri having been jailed for attempting to assassinate Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,” said Laufer.

In response to the section claiming: “Many protesters threw rocks or other projectiles but were posing no threat to the lives of well-protected Israeli soldiers when they were shot,” Laufer said: “This thinking both excuses violence, while creating a baseless standard that prevents Israeli forces from protecting themselves and others.”
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Netherlands: Palestinian ex-terrorist deported from US invited to speak in Amsterdam


Via The Times of Israel:
Right-wing Dutch lawmakers have protested a far-left group’s invitation of a Palestinian ex-terrorist who was deported from the United States to speak in the Dutch capital.

Machiel de Graaf and Gidi Markuszower of the Party for Freedom expressed opposition to Rasmea Odeh’s planned visit in a query they submitted Thursday to Justice and Security Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus.

“Do you agree that a convicted terrorist and immigration fraudster has nothing to look for in the Netherlands? If not, why not?” the lawmakers wrote, adding: “Are you prepared to deny her entrance? If not, why?”

In the Netherlands, lawmakers use parliamentary queries to draw the media’s attention to issues and direct scrutiny of the actions of the ministers queried, who have up to three weeks to reply.

Odeh was invited to the Netherlands by Anakbayan-Europe, a Filipino communist group, and another fringe left organization called Revolutionary Unity.
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Austria: Far-Right party dragged into fresh anti-semitic songbook row


Via Telegraph:
The Austrian government has been rocked by a new scandal after the far-Right Freedom Party (FPÖ) was linked to an anti-Semitic songbook for the second time this year.

Herwig Götschober, a senior FPÖ official, heads a student fraternity that uses a songbook containing the lyric: “Once upon a time, two Jews went to bathe in a river... One drowned, as for the other one we can hope”.

It also comes a week after the party issued a statement rejecting Nazism and anti-Semitism and pledged to hold an inquiry to root out Nazi sympathisers among its ranks.

Mr Götschober works in the office of Norbert Hofer, the current transport minister who narrowly failed to be elected president for the FPÖ in 2016.

The fresh controversy comes less than a month after another FPÖ politician was forced to resign over a separate songbook which contained lyrics glorifying the Holocaust.

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Netherlands: Major poet was a Nazi supporter and antisemite


Via Bad News From the Netherlands blog, AD and Trouw (in Dutch)
Lucebert (1987)
Recently the literature expert Wim Hazeu has discovered that one of the most famous post-war Dutch poets Lucebert was a volunteer worker in the German weapons industry. He also wrote letters with an antisemitic content, such as: “Only when all Germanic tribes are united, the Jew will no longer have the opportunity to incite blood against similar blood.” He signed letters with “Sieg Heil” and “Heil Hitler”.  
He has always denied his Nazi past and received major Dutch literary awards. 

Spain: Lawfare Project threatens suit against Yahoo, Google and Twitter for proliferation of antisemitism

Via JNS:
The Lawfare Project threatened legal action against Google, Yahoo and Twitter in Spain for failing to address the proliferation of Holocaust-denial websites and anti-Semitic materials on their platforms, announced Brooke Goldstein, director of the legal think tank and litigation fund. “Unless Google, Yahoo and Twitter take down the anti-Semitic content on their platforms, they will be taken to court in Spain and elsewhere,” she said.

Goldstein spent the past week visiting the Spanish Parliament to learn more about legislative initiatives against discrimination based on national origin. She also met with members of the Jewish community in Spain who have been subject to boycotts that restrict relations with companies that import Israeli products or have connections to Israeli citizens.

In the last week, the Lawfare Project has sent cease and desist letters to a number of search engines, including Google and Yahoo, with possible action planned against Twitter.

“Google, Yahoo and Twitter are all hosting anti-Semitic websites and content on their platforms, which is a clear violation of Spanish law,” said the Lawfare Project’s Spanish counsel, Ignacio Wenley Palacios. “This cannot be allowed to continue. If they do not respond positively to the cease and desist letters sent last week, we will file lawsuits against them.”

The Lawfare Project NGO, based in New York, funds legal action around the world to protect civil rights and free speech while challenging discrimination and anti-Semitism.
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Friday, February 23, 2018

Belgium/Iceland physicians back outlawing circumcision


Via JTA:
Hundreds of physicians in Iceland and some of Belgium’s top doctors came out in support of a bill proposing to criminalize nonmedical circumcision of boys in the Scandinavian island nation.

The approximately 500 Icelandic physicians who backed the bill that was submitted last month to the parliament cited the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki on ethical principles.

“Potential complications should offset the benefits” of male circumcision, “which are few,” the Icelandic physicians wrote in a joint statement published Wednesday.

Advocates of male circumcision include many physicians who believe it reduces the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and genital infections.

In Belgium, several prominent physicians, including Guy T’Sjoen of Ghent University Hospital, told the De Morgen daily they also support a ban.
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Poland: Senator suspended for klezmer-themed video of Nazi violence to Jews


Via JTA:
Poland’s ruling party suspended a senator who posted online footage from a Nazi propaganda movie depicting violence against Jews to the sounds of klezmer music.

On Thursday, the Law and Justice party suspended Waldemar Bonkowski for posting the video on Facebook earlier in the week amid an acrimonious argument between many Poles and Jews over the Polish government’s passing this month of a law criminalizing blaming Poland for Nazi crimes.
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Thursday, February 22, 2018

Germany: Pro-BDS pastor and Green Party figure speaks at Nazi event


Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):
Friedrich Bode, a Protestant pastor and co-founder of the Green Party branch in Bremen, delivered a talk at a neo-Nazi party event in Karlshöfe, Lower Saxony, on Saturday.

Bode supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign targeting the Jewish state.

The church in the city-state of Bremen where Bode worked as a pastor for 18 years, subsequently barred him from appearing at future events organized by Germany’s main neo-Nazi organization – the National Democratic Party (NPD), the Christian website Domradio reported on Tuesday. The church has not imposed any other disciplinary measures.

Pastor Renke Brahms, the executive cleric of the church, told Radio Bremen that Bode’s activity is “open antisemitism.”

Brahms said a “racist, antisemitic and neo-Nazi view of people and the world is not compatible with the preaching of Jesus Christ.”

The 77-year-old Bode can be seen on the YouTube channel of the right-wing extremist group Nordland TV, terming Adolf Hitler a “brilliant, self-taught person.”
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France: Acid placed in stroller burns rabbi’s baby


Via JTA:
The baby daughter of a French rabbi was burned after being exposed to acid placed in her carriage.

The 14-month-old girl suffered burns on her back and thighs Monday in the city of Bron, near Lyon, Le Parisien daily reported Wednesday. The baby is not in danger, according to the report.

The acid had been placed inside a carriage that the baby’s grandmother had parked in a communal space inside her apartment building overnight from Sunday to Monday. The grandmother rushed the baby to the hospital after noticing a severe irritation on the baby’s skin after taking her for a walk in the stroller and then bringing her inside.
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Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Poland: "The Polish underground state and the London exile government never collaborated with the Nazis"


Via Der Spiegel - Interview with new Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki:
DER SPIEGEL: Your government introduced a law that makes it a crime to use the term "Polish concentration camp" or statements that attribute any complicity by the Polish nation or government in the Nazi crimes. Is the penal code really the right way to fight historical misrepresentation and cluelessness?

Morawiecki: Yes. Germany and Israel also do this. You can be punished there for denying the Holocaust or incitement. Last year alone, Polish embassies intervened 250 times around the world because someone used the formulation "Polish death camp." Our Supreme Court is currently giving the law another review to determine if it contains any misleading wording.

DER SPIEGEL: But the plan has been strongly criticized by the Israeli side.

Morawiecki: We are explaining our position and I believe that the Israeli side is growing more understanding toward us. We are noticing that in diplomatic discussions and we are seeing increasingly friendly editorials in the press. Yes, we did have thousands of "Szmalcownicy," Poles who murdered Jews or betrayed them to the Nazis. At the same time, however, even in occupied Warsaw, hell on earth, 90,000 Catholic Poles helped their Jewish neighbors. The Polish underground state and the London exile government never collaborated with the Nazis. We support precise research into our history.
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UK: Labour expels controversial Jewish anti-Zionist Tony Greenstein


Via Jewish News:
One of the most notorious Jewish anti-Zionists, Tony Greenstein, has finally been expelled from the Labour Party for three breaches of the party’s regulations. These were “offensive comments online; offensive posts and comments on his blog; and an email in which he mocked the phrase ‘final solution’”.  
The ruling from Labour’s National Constitutional Committee (NCC) came after an all-day hearing in Greenstein’s home city of Brighton. The news was welcomed by the lobby group Labour Against Antisemitism, which issued a statement saying that he had “over many years made his abhorrent views widely known via public speeches, social media and on his personal blog. Anyone who has witnessed them will know that these views have often been antisemitic, highly offensive and entirely incompatible with Labour’s anti-racist ethos. Mr Greenstein has also personally targeted some Labour Party members for bullying. None of this is acceptable within a party that prides itself on diversity and whose catchphrase is “a kinder, gentler politics”. (...)  
Nevertheless, Greenstein was charged with “repeated use of the antisemitic and abusive term “Zio”, including in relation to Louise Ellman MP, Jeremy Newmark, and the Jewish Labour Movement”. Comments such as “Gay Zionists make me want to puke” or his description of Owen Jones as a “Janus-faced whore” were also cited in evidence against him.
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More about Tony Greenstein @ Harry's Place.  Israelly Cool looks at Greenstein's predictable reaction following his expulsion from the Labour Party: How NOT To Argue You Aren’t An Antisemite by Tony Greenstein

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Europe: Oxfam’s sex abuse scandal — and its anti-Israel bigotry


Via The Algemeiner (Manfred Gerstenfeld):
The misbehavior of employees of the major British charity, Oxfam — part of Oxfam International — has recently made international headlines. The initial information concerned the cover-up of the use of prostitutes by members of Oxfam’s humanitarian mission to Haiti, after the 2010 earthquake there. Oxfam carried out an internal investigation in 2011, which led to the resignation of three staff members — and the dismissal of four employees.

As NGO Monitor has detailed, Oxfam International and its branches in the UK, Netherlands and Belgium have frequently incited against Israel. The way that they politicize their aid activities makes them part-time enemies, not just political opponents.

As such, the misbehavior of part-time enemies should be publicized like that of full-time perpetrators. The flood of misconduct by Oxfam includes withholding from the public the detailed report on the Haiti scandal for seven years. This was a widespread conspiracy. The head of the Dutch sister charity, Oxfam Novib, has admitted to having had access to the report in 2012, and has stated that she shared it with the Dutch Foreign Ministry and the country’s National Accounting Office.

Because it is unlikely that the Oxfam group of charities — even after this scandal — will refrain from maligning Israel, it is important to publicize the essence of what is known so far. A Haitian woman has come forward and said that the Oxfam mission director had sex with her twice a week for money, when she was only 16-years-old. There are also accusations of sexual abuse by members of Oxfam missions in Chad and Southern Sudan. And one of the executives dismissed in 2011 for sex abuse in Haiti was rehired for another mission in Ethiopia by Oxfam. (...)

When Oxfam has sorted out this disgraceful situation, one should hope that other governments make future funds available only if Oxfam reforms itself — and stops publicly inciting against Israel. In past years, several European governments and the EU have — indirectly, through Oxfam — funded hatemongering against Israel.
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France: The French won’t see antisemitism for what it is

Via The Algemeiner (Ben Cohen):
Flush from his victory over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the French elections last July, President Emmanuel Macron decided to address head-on the horrific murder of a Jewish pensioner in Paris three months earlier.

“Despite the denials of the murderer, our judiciary must bring total clarity around the death of Sarah Halimi,” Macron declared at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Jews of Paris by the Nazis. “We were silent because we did not want to see.” This remark can be taken on one level as an observation concerning recent French history, and on another, concerning the appalling silence on the part of the French media and political class, who feared that public discussion of Halimi’s ordeal at the hands of a rabidly antisemitic, Muslim immigrant drug-fiend would boost Le Pen’s election campaign.

With that speech, Macron left little doubt that he regarded Halimi’s murder as a hate crime — a determination that was emphatically not shared by the local police or by the judicial authorities examining the murder. Sure enough, by September, the Paris public prosecutor’s office announced that it was now treating the murder as a hate crime, a decision based on interviews that a court-appointed psychiatrist conducted with the accused murderer, 27-year-old Kobili Traore.

Pitifully, that is no longer the case. The examining magistrate in the trial of Traore, Anne Ihuellou, whose job is to prepare the indictments, announced at the end of January that based on the same interviews, the assailant would no longer face a hate crime charge. Her decision is now, in turn, being appealed by the public prosecutor’s office. The entire French judiciary is aware that a final decision that leaves the hate-crime element out of Traore’s trial will have profoundly negative implications for the declared intention of the French government to combat antisemitism.
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Monday, February 19, 2018

French-Jewish group that accused Israel of causing anti-Semitism loses state funding

Via JTA:
French officials asked a Jewish group that supports a blanket boycott of Israel to pay back state subsidies that it received to combat racism but had used to accuse the Jewish state of causing anti-Semitism.

The Jewish French Union for Peace, UJFP, received in 2016 more than $22,000 from the General Commissariat for Equality in France, an inter-ministerial body set up by the government in 2014 to combat racism, the conservative news website Causeur reported Wednesday, based on data collected by the NGO Monitor watchdog group in Israel.

UJFP used the money to make a series of 10 videos comprising interviews with activists affiliated with the group. The introduction to each video contains a picture of a banner advertising the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, a separate banner accusing Israel of stealing Palestinian land, and images of Palestinian flags. The videos had text slides stating they are sponsored by the commissariat.

Calling for a boycott of Israel is illegal in France, where doing so is a form of incitement to discrimination or hate. Corinne Gonthier, director of communications for the commissariat, said UJFP neither showed the videos to the commissariat nor ask permission to use its name.

“Alerted in December as to the contents of the clips, the commissariat concluded they neither correspond whatsoever with the agreed-upon subjects nor are they admissible because they deal with an alleged ‘state racism’,” she told Causeur.
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France: Israel festival at University of Lille canceled because of anti-Israel protests

Via Elder of Ziyon:


AFP (French) reports that a festival called "Stopover in Israel", in Lille, was canceled by the students who organized it as part of a university project.
It was meant to be a four day festival of Israeli culture, but anti-Israel activists came to demonstrate at the first cultural workshop on Wednesday evening, which was a photography exhibition and Hebrew lessons.

A few dozen people disrupted the first workshop.

Organized by an association composed of fifteen students from the Institute of Business Administration (IAE) of Lille, attached to the University of Lille 1, the festival was to offer, for four days, workshops to discover the Israeli culture, including cooking and music.

"The protesters told us that they were coming to demonstrate at all our activities. So we decided to stop. We do not want to create more controversy on this, " Gaëlle Robin, student in charge of press relations within the association, told AFP. "We were neutral, we said that there was nothing political or religious [...] Our project has been approved" by the institution, she added.

On Wednesday, a letter signed by two professors was sent to the president of the university asking for the cancellation of the festival. "Mr. President, to authorize a demonstration which, under cover of cultural openness, is an apology for this State [ Israel ] shocked us deeply," write Moussa Nait Abdelaziz and Abdellatif Imad. "Would we have agreed to hold a watered-down demonstration on South Africa during the days of Apartheid and Mandela in prison? "
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Sunday, February 18, 2018

UK: Jewish student says she does not feel safe at City University

Via The Jewish Chronicle:
Jewish students said they felt threatened and intimidated by a “hostile mob” as students at a London university passed a motion supporting the Israel boycott movement, BDS.

The vote at City, University of London, resolving to ban any links between the institution and companies linked with “Israeli war crimes”, was passed by a large majority on Thursday evening during a student union meeting.

Jewish students were jeered and sworn at by BDS supporters who took photographs of opposing speakers and those voting against the motion.

Gabriella Soffer, a student at City, described the BDS supporters as “a hostile mob”.

She wrote in a Facebook post: “Having experienced what I did tonight – people taking pictures of me and various other Jews individually, having someone behind me whispering obscenities in my ear to intimidate me and telling me to ‘shut the f**k up’ every time I spoke - I can safely say that no longer do I feel safe as a Jew at City.”

Student Union officials said they refused to eject the students taking photos because they were “afraid of the reaction of the opposing side”.

The Jewish students were a minority among the 150 people in attendance and seven said they chose to abstain from voting, for fear of being targeted afterwards.

One non-Jewish student described how “there was an extremely hostile environment in the room that even I felt highly uncomfortable in, despite not being on any particular side.”
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Iceland: Circumcision ban will prevent Jewish life, leaders warn

Via Times of Israel:
The leaders of the Jewish communities of four Nordic countries said that a bill proposing to ban nonmedical circumcision in Iceland “will guarantee” that no Jewish community is established there.

The presidents of the umbrella groups of Jewish communities in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland issued the unusual warning Tuesday in an open letter to all Icelandic lawmakers in reaction to the submission last month of a bill proposing to ban all nonmedical circumcision of boys younger than 18 in Iceland, a Scandinavian island nation of some 300,000 people with a few hundred Jews and Muslims.

Lawmakers from four parties with 46 percent of the seats in parliament, including the ruling party, co-authored the bill.

If passed, “Iceland would be the only country to ban one of the most central, if not the most central rite in the Jewish tradition in modern times,” wrote Aron Verständig, Dan Rosenberg-Asmussen, Ervin Kohn and Yaron Nadbornik in the letter.

Referencing the Nazi prohibition on brit milah, Jewish ritual circumcision, they noted: “It would not be the first time in the long tradition of the Jewish people. Throughout history, more than one oppressive regime has tried to suppress our people and eradicate Judaism by prohibiting our religious practices.”

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Polish Jews stunned, scared by eruption of anti-Semitism

Via ABC News:
Matylda Jonas-Kowalik has spent most of her 22 years secure in the belief that she would never know the discrimination, persecution or violence that killed or traumatized generations of Polish Jews before her. She once thought the biggest problem that young Jewish Poles like herself faced was finding a Jewish boyfriend or girlfriend in a country dominated by Catholics.
But an eruption of anti-Semitic comments in public debates amid a diplomatic dispute with Israel over a new Holocaust speech law has caused to her to rethink that certainty. Now she and others fear the hostile rhetoric could eventually trigger anti-Semitic violence, and she finds herself thinking constantly about whether she should leave Poland.

"This is my home. I have never lived anywhere else and wanted this to keep being my home," said Jonas-Kowalik, a Jewish studies major at Warsaw University. "But this makes me very anxious. I don't know what to expect."

(...)
Anna Chipczynska, the head of Warsaw's Jewish community, said members feel psychologically shaken or even depressed, and that the hostile rhetoric has triggered hateful phone calls and emails and other harassment.

In recent events, two men tried to urinate in front of Warsaw's historic Nozyk Synagogue, and then shouted obscenities when security guards intervened. One Jewish community member found a Star of David hanging from gallows spray-painted outside a window of his apartment. A woman found the word "Zyd" — Polish for "Jew" — written in the snow outside her home.

Agnieszka Ziatek of the Jewish Agency for Israel said she has seen a spike in the number of Polish Jews inquiring about immigrating to Israel.

(...)
Mikolaj Grynberg, a writer and photographer, said while young Polish Jews feel shocked and "lost," he, at 52, has long been aware of Poland's anti-Semitic undercurrent. While on book tours, Grynberg said people would sometimes ask him "why did you choose to write in our language?" as if he weren't as Polish as they.
As the descendant of Warsaw Ghetto survivors, he has faced years of hateful emails and online messages and says he has been prepared psychologically for a return of bad times.

"Each time you have an anti-Semitic wave, there are Jewish people who leave," Grynberg said. "It's not just a whim: It's about their fear. Jewish people know what can come after."
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German gets jail time for running neo-Nazi website 'Altermedia'


Via DW:
A court in Stuttgart has sentenced the 29-year-old creator of a banned neo-Nazi website to two and a half years in prison. The site published content that denied the Holocaust and targeted Jews, refugees and foreigners.

A 29-year-old IT specialist and driving force behind the neo-Nazi "Altermedia Deutschland" website was given a prison sentence by a court in Stuttgart on Thursday, two years after authorities shut the site down.

The man, identified as Ralph Thomas K. in accordance with German privacy laws, was found guilty of inciting racial hatred and being the ringleader of a criminal organization. He was sentenced to two years and six months behind bars.

Three women were also on trial for their roles in maintaining the right-wing extremist internet platform. One of them, a 48-year-old woman who worked in a call center, was identified as a key player in the website and she was given a two year suspended sentence.
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Poland's Premier: There Were Polish Perpetrators in the Holocaust Just as There Were Jewish Ones


Via Haaretz:
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday that the Holocaust had Polish perpetrators, just as it had Jewish ones.

Moraweicki made the statement at the Munich Security Conference in response to a question by Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman regarding the controversial law that criminalizes mentioning the Polish nation's complicity in the Holocaust. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharply rebuked the 'outrageous' remarks.

Bergman told of his mother's past as a Holocaust survivor and concluded by asking, "If I told her story in Poland, I would be considered a criminal. What are you trying to do? You're drawing more fire to the matter." The crowd applauded following the question.

The Polish prime minister said that according to the amended law, those who claim that there were Polish perpetrators in the Holocaust would not be punished, since there were Polish perpetrators, "just as there were Jewish and Russian perpetrators, as well." 

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Friday, February 16, 2018

France: Islamic anti-Semitism towards ethnic cleansing


Via Gatestone Institute (Guy Millière):
(...) The French Jewish community may still be the largest in Europe, but it is shrinking rapidly. In 2000, it was estimated at 500,000, but the number now is less than 400,000, and sinking. Jewish districts that once were thriving are now on the verge of extinction. "What is happening is an ethnic cleansing that dare not speak its name. In few decades, there will be no Jews in France," according to Richard Abitbol, ​​president of the Confederation of French Jews and Friends of Israel.

Without the Jews of France, France would no longer be France, said Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls in 2016 . But he did not do anything.

Recently he said that he had done his best, that he could not have done more. "The problem," he said, "is that anti-Semitism today in France comes less from the far right than from individuals of the Muslim faith or culture".

He added that in France, for at least two decades, all attacks against Jews in which the perpetrator has been identified have come from Muslims, and that the most recent attacks were no exception.

Valls, however, quickly suffered the consequences of his candor. He was elbowed to the margins of political life. Muslim websites called him an " agent of the Jewish lobby" and a "racist." Former leaders of his own party, such as former Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, said that Valls' wife is a Jew and hinted that he was "under the influence".

In France, telling the truth about Islamic anti-Semitism is dangerous. For a politician, it is suicidal.  (...)

In French Muslim neighborhoods, Islamist imams denounce the "bad influence" of Jews and spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. French politicians stay silent.

Islamic bookstores in France sell books banned elsewhere, such as the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and CDs and DVDs of violent anti-Semitic speeches by radical preachers. For instance, Yussuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who is prohibited from entering France and the US, says he regrets that Hitler did not "finish the job". French politicians stay silent.

Although synagogues in France have not been attacked since 2014, they all are guarded around the clock by armed soldiers in bulletproof vests who are protected behind sandbags, as are Jewish schools and cultural centers. (...)

A growing percentage of the French say that the Jews in France are "too numerous" and "too visible."

Reports for the Ministry of National Education reveal that expressions such as "Don't act like a Jew", intended to criticize a student who hides what he thinks, are widely used in public schools. Jewish students are more and more often the object of mockery -- and not just by students who are Muslim.

A few days ago, the comedian Laura Laune was the winner on the reality television series "France's Got Talent". Some of her jokes make fun of the fact that there were fewer Jews in the world in 1945 than in 1939. Jewish organizations protested, but in vain. Now, she appears to packed halls. The anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonné also fills the stadiums where he performs.
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Thursday, February 15, 2018

Slovakia: Synagogue turned into trendy café

On the same topic:
Swimming Pool, Furniture Shop and Police Station: The Sorry Fate of Europe's Old Synagogues

Via YNet:
Eighty-two percent of the Jews residing in Trnava, Slovakia, were murdered in the Holocaust, destroyed along with an ancient Jewish heritage dating back to the 12th century. The city's synagogues were similarly demolished—or were converted for other uses. Israeli traveler Meir Davidson found one such synagogue, converted to a café.

During his travels in Trnava—nicknamed "Slovakia's Rome" due to its proliferation of churches—Davidson found a crowded coffee shop attempting to blend into the architectural space which it occupied without totally eradicating it.

"The main street had a model of the city containing two synagogues near the local basilica," Davidson told Ynet. "We looked for them and were shocked to find an active café, filled with local yuppies."

The coffee shop's management, he added, made no effort to disguise the structure's previous designation as a house of worship and even stated it explicitly—as the café was named Synagóga Café and the "synagogue's history was printed on the menu." 
read more

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Lithuania, Poland, and Eastern Europe’s confrontation with the Holocaust

Via Mosaic Magazine:
In the late 1990s, and again a decade later, attempts to prosecute a few Lithuanian citizens for their involvement in the slaughter of Jews during World War II were countered by efforts to prosecute a Nazi hunter and then two Holocaust survivors for committing “crimes” against Lithuanians. At the time, the historian Antony Polonsky wrote an essay on these and related controversies in Lithuania, comparing them with similar controversies in Poland and Germany; the essay was published in Poland in 2010 but has now been made available online for the first time in the wake of the recent Polish law forbidding false statements about the Polish role in the Holocaust:
Lithuanian and Jewish collective memories [are still] very far apart. The Lithuanians, who lost their independence after World War II, felt that the Jews had shown little appreciation for the favorable way they had been treated in interwar Lithuania [which, on the whole, was marginally better than what Jews experienced in neighboring countries, or had experienced under the Tsars] and held the Jews collectively responsible for aiding the first [1940-41] and second [1944-1991] Soviet occupations of their country. Only a small number of Lithuanians had participated in the mass murder of the Jews, comparable to the minority of alleged Jewish collaborators with the Soviets.
Jews for their part highlighted the growth of anti-Semitism [in Lithuania] in the 1930s. They were particularly affronted by what they saw as the massive involvement of Lithuanians in the mass murder of the Jews, both just before the establishment of Nazi rule and particularly in cooperation with the Nazi occupiers, and were shocked by the brutal behavior of Lithuanians in such incidents as the massacre at the Lietukis garage in Kaunas on June 27, 1941.
Given the large-scale complicity of Lithuanians in the mass murder of Jews in 1941, the traumatic effect of the two Soviet occupations of Lithuania, the second lasting nearly a half-century, and the unstable nature of the Lithuanian political scene, with the temptation this offers to demagogic politicians to engage in populist rhetoric, it is not surprising that the discussion of wartime issues has proved a difficult and painful topic and has led to bitter exchanges between Jews and Lithuanians. . . .
From the first days of independence, a series of public statements by Lithuanian leaders expressed regret at the participation of Lithuanians in the Holocaust and condemned the genocide. The culminating point was the visit of then-President Brazauskas to Israel during which, in his address to the Knesset in March 1995, he publicly asked forgiveness “for [the actions of] those Lithuanians who mercilessly murdered, shot, deported, and robbed Jews.” This was not universally well-received in Lithuania and led to calls for the Jews in response to apologize for their “crimes” against the Lithuanian nation during the Soviet occupation.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Polish public figures have begun making similar appeals for Jewish apologies in recent days.
Read more at Tablet

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Greece: Anarchist group distributes pro-Palestinian flyers during two raids

Via Ekathimerini (watch the video):


Members of the anarchist group Rouvikonas (Greek for Rubicon) on Thursday stormed the offices of the Hellenic-American Union in Kolonaki in central Athens, scattering fliers with the message “Freedom to Palestine.”

The increasingly-active group carried out a similar raid at the premises of the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce on Mesogeion Avenue.

No arrests were reported.

Norway: Lawmaker says nomination of BDS for Nobel Peace Prize is against Israel, not Jews

Via JTA:
The Norwegian lawmaker that nominated the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel for a Nobel Prize said his nomination is against Israel and not the Jewish people.

Norway Parliament Member Bjornar Moxnes said Friday in an interview with the Middle East Eye that “The BDS movement is a legitimate, peaceful, non-violent movement trying to push the Israeli government to abide by international law, and trying to struggle for a peaceful solution in Palestine and in the Middle East.”

Moxnes, who heads Norway’s far-left Red Party which he says works to achieve social justice in Norway and internationally, told the news outlet that said the nomination has received overwhelming support from inside Norway and “people all over the world who struggle for peaceful and just solution between Israelis and Palestinians,” and acknowledged negative reactions from advocates for “the right-wing extremist government of Israel.”

He said his that his position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “is completely free of anti-Semitism.”

“It’s not against the people of Israel. It’s not against the Jewish people; it’s against the policies of a state, which (are) without doubt against international law,” he said.

read more

Swimming Pool, Furniture Shop and Police Station: The Sorry Fate of Europe's Old Synagogues


Via Haaretz:
Europe’s Jewish population has declined from about 10 million on the eve of World War II to about 2 million today. The main reason of course is the Holocaust, followed by emigration and assimilation afterward.

As the Jews disappeared, many of their synagogues were transformed for other uses. Hungarian-Israeli photographer Bernadett Alpern has traveled around 15 European countries documenting these relics. Her work features grand buildings in famous cities as well as countryside shuls.

In some countries the old synagogues now play a cultural role, while in others they’re used for trivial purposes. They remain a silent reminder of a civilization that was part of the European fabric for many generations.
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Poland set to pass controversial new law criminalizing Kosher slaughter


Via JNS:
Just one week after passing a controversial law criminalizing phrases indicating Polish responsibility for heinous crimes against Jews during the Holocaust, Poland’s ruling party has sponsored a new bill including a clause that would criminalize kosher meat slaughter.  If the law is passed, anyone found guilty of slaughtering animals in accordance with traditional Jewish practice would face a prison sentence of up to 4 years.

The restrictions against kosher slaughter are included within a general bill on animal welfare, and includes a ban on exporting kosher meat from Poland.  Israel currently imports a portion of its kosher meat from Poland.

...

The Polish parliament initially outlawed kosher slaughter in 2013, but Poland’s courts reversed the decision.
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Germany averaged four anti-Semitic crimes per day in 2017, report says

Via DW:
The rising trend of anti-Semitic crimes in Germany shows no signs of abating, according to a newspaper report on last year's crime statistics that was published on Sunday.

In 2017, German police registered a total of 1,453 crimes that targeted Jews or Jewish institutions, reported German newspaper Tagesspiegel, citing figures from the German government. The data was compiled in response to an inquiry from Bundestag vice president and Left party lawmaker Petra Pau.

Last year's crimes included 32 acts of violence, 160 instances of property damage, and 898 cases of incitement.

The German government expects the figures to rise even further since the data provided by the states is not yet final, the paper said.

read more

Monday, February 12, 2018

Spain: Anti-Semitic graffiti spray painted on Barcelona synagogue

Via JTA:
"Get out of our country"
Anti-Semitic graffiti was spray painted on the walls of a synagogue in Barcelona. The word “pigs” was written in English followed by a sentence in the Spanish-Latin hybrid language Catalan reading “Get out of the country,” according to local reports.

The graffiti discovered on Wednesday was ordered erased by Barcelona Deputy Mayor Gerardo Pisarello, who called for an investigation into the incident. (...)

The synagogue is no longer in daily use, according to reports. It serves as a cultural center and a museum and as a site to host community events. 
"Pigs"
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Poland’s ‘enemies’ trying to fan anti-Semitism, says ruling party boss


Via Times of Israel:
The influential leader of Poland’s ruling conservative party on Saturday accused “enemies” of the country of trying to fan anti-Semitism, as Warsaw is under fire over a controversial Holocaust law.

The new law sets fines or a maximum three-year jail term for anyone ascribing “responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich — or other crimes against humanity and war crimes” and set off criticism from Israel, the United States and France.

“Today, the enemies of Poland, one can even say the Devil, are trying a very bad recipe… This sickness is anti-Semitism. We must reject it resolutely,” said Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the Law and Justice (PiS) party.

“But this doesn’t mean that we provide fodder” for those who insult Poland, he said.

read more

Belgium: Antwerp man filmed destroying 20 mezuzahs, harassing Jews

Via JTA:
A 24-year-old refugee, believed to be Muslim, was briefly detained by Belgian police for anti-Semitic hate crimes, including the destruction of at least 20 mezuzahs in Antwerp, local Jews said.

In recent weeks, the same man was filmed in Antwerp destroying at least 20 mezuzahs, religious objects containing a parchment with biblical text inked on it that Jews affix to their door frames, and vandalizing the entrance doors of several Jewish institution, Joods Actueel, the Jewish monthly reported Sunday. He was detained for 12 hours Friday based on footage from security cameras of him destroying the mezuzahs.

He had also placed a Koran near a synagogue, and was filmed knocking off the hat of an Orthodox Jew on the street. He shouted at Jewish passersby: “This is our land, Palestine!” and: “We will show you!”

read more

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Lithuania: Official offers cash reward for thesis pinning war crimes on Jews

Via JTA:
A Lithuanian official responsible for ethics in academia offered a cash reward for students or scholars willing to write a thesis about Jews’ involvement in war crimes or murder.

Vigilijus Sadauskas, ombudsman for academic ethics and procedures, made the offer for subsidy on his blog. The speaker of the Lithuanian parliament, Viktoras Pranckietis, called on Sadauskas to resign.

In the blog entry, Sadauskas offered 1,000 euros, or $1,221, to “a school student, a university student, a postgraduate student, a teacher, or a scientist who will collect information, documents, materials and write a thesis (at least 10 printed pages) or a publication about individuals of the Jewish nationality who killed people, contributed to deportations or tortures,” the LETA news agency reported Thursday.
read more

Friday, February 9, 2018

UK: Chelsea soccer fans chant antisemitic songs a week after team started anti-hate campaign


Via Jerusalem Post:
Supporters of the Chelsea soccer team were caught singing antisemitic songs during a game held five days after the British club launched a campaign to stamp out antisemitism among its fans.

After the match against fellow Premier League squad Watford on Monday night, an unnamed Chelsea fan told England’s Jewish News that he was hit with a “torrent” of antisemitic abuse and moved out of his seat for his safety.

Jonathan Metliss, who heads the group Action Against Discrimination, which is aimed at combating racism among European soccer fans, also was at the game and told the Jewish News that he took photos of the alleged perpetrators for investigators. Metliss said he was “disgusted” by the fans’ behavior.
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Poland: Debate over Holocaust law prompts an anti-Semitic media backlash


Via JTA:
Debate over a Polish law that proposes to outlaw rhetoric blaming Poland for Nazi crimes has prompted a wave of anti-Semitic comments in the Polish media.

RMF, one of the largest Polish commercial radio stations, suspended a journalist who wrote about the “war with the Jews.” Poland’s state-owned television station apologized to the Israeli ambassador for a tweet alleging that the Jewish opposition to the law was part of an attempt to seize Polish property.

Also, a former priest began selling T-shirts denying Polish responsibility for a pogrom against Jews by their non-Jewish neighbors during the Nazi occupation.

read more


Thursday, February 8, 2018

UK: How Some Wikipedia Editors Tried—and Failed—To Erase The Labour Party’s Anti-Semitism Problem


Via Tablet Magazine (h/t glykosymoritis)
Lansman was likely referring to leftist activists on the ground who have attacked the party’s nascent efforts to expunge anti-Semites as a “witch hunt.” But he might as well have been referring to activists on the internet, who have been quietly attempting to erase traces of the party’s Jewish problem from Wikipedia.

Last month, these enterprising editors attempted to delete the entire “Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party” page from the online encyclopedia. The ensuing debate over the prospect can be read here. The initial advocate for deletion called the entry “an attack page” that “lacks notability,” as though an outpouring of prejudice that caused nearly half of the Labour party’s own sitting politicians to denounce it was simply a slander served up by shadowy (presumably Jewish) smear artists. Other similarly inclined editors asserted that there should be no “Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party” page given that there was no parallel “Anti-Semitism in the Conservative Party” page, as though the solution to incomplete documentation of hate is to suppress that which has already been documented.

To be sure, like many Wikipedia pages, this one could surely have used more citations, research, and polish. But that was clearly not what its critics had in mind. They did not want to remedy the page’s deficiencies, but to eliminate it entirely. Ultimately, the facts of the case won out, and no consensus was reached to delete the page. It remained published but in limbo.

read more

UK: A century after the Balfour Declaration, is the UK on Israel’s side?

Via Mosaic Magazine:
Britain’s Conservative prime minister Theresa May led her country in celebrating the centennial of the Balfour Declaration at a commemorative dinner in November, but Jeremy Corbyn, the notoriously hard-left and anti-Israel leader of the Labor party, declined to attend. Although Labor’s shadow foreign secretary did attend, she publicly asserted her disapproval of the occasion and said that the “most important way” for Britain to mark the anniversary would have been “to recognize Palestine.” Indeed, Simon Gordon writes, anti-Zionism has become an increasingly powerful force in British politics—especially, but not exclusively, on the left:
Less than a week after the Balfour centenary, a diplomatic scandal involving senior Israeli officials precipitated the resignation of Secretary of State for International Development Priti Patel. One of the most outspoken supporters of Israel in the cabinet, Patel had [allegedly] been meeting Israeli ministers, including Benjamin Netanyahu, behind the foreign secretary’s back, while formally on vacation. ... But the official version of events was soon called into question. The Jewish Chronicle, citing sources in Downing Street, reported that Patel’s unofficial diplomacy in Israel took place with the consent of the prime minister, who had asked her not to disclose the meetings. The truth of the matter remains unclear. But would a breach of diplomatic protocol involving another country have provoked the same response?
If this was the stance of a relatively Israel-friendly Tory government, what of Labor?
A win for Corbyn, the most left-wing Labor leader in more than 30 years, would radically reverse Britain’s approach to the Middle East. Nor has Labor changed its spots overnight. Since Tony Blair’s resignation in 2007—in part precipitated by his defense of Israel’s 2006 campaign in Lebanon—the party has continually moved to the left in both domestic and foreign policy. ...

In contrast to [the Conservative former prime minister David] Cameron, [the former Labor leader Edward] Miliband condemned the IDF during Operation Protective Edge [in Gaza]. Two months later, he whipped Labor MPs to back a nonbinding parliamentary motion on the unilateral recognition of Palestine. Whether or not Corbyn makes it to 10 Downing Street, its next Labor occupant is likely to be far less friendly toward Israel than any prime minister since ... the early 1970s.
read more at Jewish Review of Books