Malcolm Hoenlein: 'I don’t want any more memorials to dead Jews'

Malcolm Hoenlein, head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations:

I don’t want any more memorials to dead Jews. I want the world to stand up for living Jews and the vibrant, living Jewish state. We can’t be bought off by just having another monument. I don’t want any more monuments. I want them to stand up now and say, “We’re not going to tolerate it.” What’s happening in Europe today has to be declared for what it is. And they can hide behind any political guise or anything else; it’s not going to work. We have to expose it… and those behind it… and those who fail to act against it. And that’s true for the United States, Europe, or any other place. It is really serious and the lesson of history. The reason why we look back [is], as Winston Churchill once said: “The further back you look, the further ahead you will see.”

More: Times of Israel

Denmark: Gov't announces kosher slaughter ban

The president of Denmark’s Jewish community disputed a government minister’s claims that new regulations would outlaw all kosher slaughter in the country. 

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Danish Jews took issue with the minister’s statements this week, however, because he cited the need to observe animals’ welfare, thus suggesting shechitah is cruel. He also cited the rareness of kosher slaughter, or shechitah, in Denmark as justification for a ban.
“The ministry has not banned other rarely practiced customs, so is there a focus on minorities?” Schwarz asked.

More: JTA

Italy: 'Jews Raus' graffiti

More antisemitic graffiti in Fondi, in central Italy, this time all over the Jewish Quarter.  Pretty much self explanatory.

See here for previous story.

More: CFCA, h24 notizie

France: Enrico Macias says anti-Semitism drove him to Aliyah decision

The 75-year-old explained that the increased threat of European anti-Semitism spurred his decision to relocate to Israel. 

“Since a long time I want to do it, but I think now is the moment,” Macias said. “I think the anti-Semitism in France will grow, and I teach to my family, to my grandchildren. I will give the example to go, to live in Israel.”

More: Times of Israel

Bulgaria: How successive governments and the media are feeding conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism

It’s alarming that the reactions by authorities and the media to xenophobic outbursts on TV and radio stations are spineless at best, and that this kind of behaviour is not limited to Ataka and its supporters[vii]. When Misho Shamara (Misho-the-Smack), a rap singer who became the face of pro-government demonstrations, made a blatantly anti-Semitic comment on the nationwide TV7 calling former finance minister Simeon Dyankov “a worthless Jewish vermin”, the ruling Socialists not only did not react, but few days later they readily accepted a petition in support of their government brought to them by the same person.[viii]

More: BICSA

Poland: 'No public interest' in 2,500 antisemitic comments against Foreign Minister

Polish Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet said this week the country would drop its lenient policy toward anyone making hateful statements against foreigners and Jews.

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The Warsaw prosecutor has reportedly not investigated around 2,500 libel cases on the Internet against Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski. Sikorski is married to Washington, D.C.-born Anne Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize winner for her 2004 book “Gulag: A History.”

The Warsaw prosecutor’s office had said it “did not find any public interest in the matter.”

Anti-Semitic statements include “I’m angry at Adolf Hitler for not finishing his work in the gas chambers; if he did, Sikorski’s wife wouldn’t be alive today,” and “Sikorski isn’t Polish, he has a Jewish wife, and he does anything the [Jews] tell him.” According to another Internet comment, “Sikorski is a two-faced Jewish dog who wants to destroy Poland.”

More: Haaretz

Netherlands: 40% of Dutch believe Israel committing genocide

The specific issue the letter addresses is a statistic from the University of Bielefeld showing that 39% of Dutch citizens believe Israel is conducting a "war of extermination" against the Palestinian Arabs.  

Asscher reportedly addressed the issue in the Dutch Parliament, saying the statistic was "worrisome" and "unacceptable." However, the Simon Wiesenthal Center calls out the Dutch official on not acting to prevent the phenomenon from spreading further. 

More: INN

France: "Mohamed Merah? He's a Zionist, because he committed violent acts"

Guess who said the following:  "Mohamed Merah?  He's a Zionist, because he committed violent acts"

Answer: Dieudonné.  The man the BBC thinks is not an anti-semite.

Remember, he's a comedian, and a very popular one at that.  I'm sure it's only in good fun.

Interviewed in Causeur, Dieudonné denies that he's an antisemite.  "I don't feel I'm an antisemite.  I don't hate the Jewish nation, but I don't love them, either."

Then he turns to the real problem in this world.  Zionism.

"The only problem in France is the lie, and Zionism is it's most flamboyant expressions.  Zionism is based on the logic and spirit of Apartheid, which is the misfortune of this world."

"Mohamed Merah?  He's a Zionist, because he committed violent acts."

More: CFCA, Le Monde Juif

EU: Parliament President repeats Palestinian libel in Knesset

Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, spoke in the Knesset yesterday.  In his speech he repeated Palestinians claims, without verifying them.  Because they moved him.  The only other incident that Schulz mentioned in his speech 'moved him', was his visit to Yad Vashem.  No comparison, of course.

Sadly, he didn't bother meeting with Jewish terror victims, the still-living Jews who suffer from antisemitism today.  So we don't know how much that would have moved him.

Schulz's prepared remarks as appear on the EU Parliament site:

One of the questions these young people asked me which I found most moving – although I could not check the exact figures – was this: how can it be that an Israeli is allowed to use 70 litres of water per day, but a Palestinian only 17? 

According to Deutsche Welle, in his actual speech he turned to the Knesset members and asked them: "I haven't checked the data. I'm asking you if this is correct."

Because, really, your speech to a foreign parliament is the best time to start fact-checking.   And doesn't it sound reasonable to you that Jews would prevent Arabs from drinking water?  It did to Schulz.

But Schulz wasn't finished:

(...) 

The blockade of the Gaza Strip is your response to attacks on Israeli civilians and I can understand that. But it is stifling all economic development and driving people to despair - despair which in turn is being exploited by extremists. The blockade may in fact undermine, rather than strengthen, Israel's security.

Now, can you imagine a speech where Schulz would have said: "The Palestinian wish for a state, I can understand that.  But it poses a direct threat to Israel's existence."

Neither can I.

For those who care about facts, Elder of Ziyon explains the water issue.

Israel: Professor Likens the Occupation to Slavery

It’s time to get riled up again: writing in Haaretz, a prominent Israeli academic has compared the Israeli occupation of the West Bank to slavery. 

Or rather, she sort-of did. “I do not claim that slavery and the occupation are equivalent,” Eva Illouz wrote in her lengthy essay. “They differ significantly. But there are some analogies, in that the Jewish world has become splintered around two intractable moral claims about the treatment of Palestinians…. The debate about the occupation is not equivalent to the debate about slavery, but it bears, here and there, some resemblance to it. And it is for this reason that I use it as a strategy for thinking.” 

A prominent sociologist and a professor at the Hebrew University, Illouz was less equivocal on which conclusions, if applied, her strategy for thinking might help one reach. “Slavery,” she writes, “is not only the fact of being turned into a tradable property. It is a set of social conditions that make someone’s existence closely determined by someone else’s decision, will and power.” And such a set of conditions, she argued in great detail, exists in the case of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

More: Tablet Magazine

Italy: Antisemitic graffiti - pro-Palestinian, anti-Holocaust

Antisemitic graffiti in Fondi (central Italy), on the former San Domenico church, which is today a municipal auditorium.

The graffiti says: "Free Palestine", "Holocaust = Fraud", "Star of David = $", February 10 Foibe: I do not forget".  February 10th is the Italian National Memorial Day for the Foibe Massacre.

More: CFCA, Canal7

Belgium: Islamophobia, the new antisemitism

The "Muslim Rights Belgium" organization posted this photo on their Facebook page.

The photo says: "Islamophobia: The new Antisemitism.   In the past, there was antisemitism, roiling just below the surface. Now, there is Islamophobia."

This is a quote from Mya Guarnieri, a Tel-Aviv based journalist, who said so in in the Guardian.

It's interesting to compare how she's described by Muslim Rights and how she's described in the Guardian.  While the Guardian portrays her as an international journalist, Muslim Rights focuses only on her Israeli work.  Because if a Jew and an Israeli says that antisemitism is no more, they must know what they're talking about.

The Guardian:

Mya Guarnieri is a Tel Aviv-based journalist and writer. A regular contributor to al-Jazeera English, her work has also appeared in the National (Abu Dubai), the Jerusalem Post, the Huffington Post and numerous other international publications. 

Muslim Rights:

Mya Guarnieri is an independent journalist based in Tel Aviv.  She writes regularly for the Jerusalem Post.  Her articles are published in English, notably on Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward.

France: A Jew explains why he's fleeing France

Similarly to his Belgian coreligionist, it's not just the antisemitism that bother him, but the lack of response from the public, the media and the government.

But rising anti-Semitism may be the strongest driver, manifest not only through rhetoric but also action. In 2012, a radical Islamist gunned down four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

More recently, two of Tibi’s children were taunted on a tram. Tibi filled out immigration papers three weeks ago, making good on a project he had contemplated for years.

“My son is always asking me why there are police in front of his Jewish school, why we need to be searched each time we go to the synagogue,” he said. “We are raising our children to live with this fear.”

What troubles Tibi most is the lack of response on the part of the French.

“Once we had one million French on the streets against anti-Semitism. Now we have three million on Facebook and Twitter who are supporting Dieudonne,” he said, referring to a controversial French comic who is known for his anti-Jewish discourse.

More: Huffington Post

Hungary: Jewish org, Dohány synagogue to stay away from Holocaust Memorial Year

A Jewish cultural organisation and two Budapest synagogues will not participate in the government-organised Holocaust Memorial Year 2014 and refused state funding from the Civil Fund, the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (Mazsihisz) told MTI on Wednesday.

The Jewish Tourism and Culture Centre, which organised the Summer Jewish Festival, said in a statement sent to Mazsihisz that “under the current, outrageous situation, the organisation will refuse the entire amount won through NGO grants — 24 million forints [EUR 78,000]– and will not take part in the Holocaust Memorial Year’s programmes organised by the government.”

“We will not have any of the Nazi memorials, faked histories or disrespect for our dead,” the statement said.

More: Politics.hu

Finland: "My workmates .. asked me why I wanted to go and kill Palestinian children"

An article in Helsinki Times on Finnish Jews who serve in the IDF, manages to distort history, and bring the Finnish view of Israel - soldiers who kill Palestinian children for no reason.

I don't know which history books this journalist used to write her history of Israel and Palestine, but it has nothing to do with reality.  The UN approved a partition of Palestine into two states: Jewish and Arab.  Israel 'declared independence' in the Jewish state.  Every Arab country in the region then set to wipe this UN-approved country off the map.

The Second World War changed the Middle East. The genocide of six million Jews by Nazi Germany was an event that brought sympathy for the Jewish people all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of Jews sought refuge in the Holy Land. When Israel declared itself independent in 1948, there was little resistance, though it was known that this would mean that the Palestinians would be left without a country.   

(...)

“My workmates in Finland asked me why I wanted to go and kill Palestinian children. I told them it wasn’t like that. That you had to do your research and learn more about it.”

More: Helsinki Times