The New Antisemite

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Germany: Muslim woman called “Jewish whore“, receives death threats after calling out antisemitism on Facebook

RIAS reports that a Berlin-based, Muslim woman received death threats via Facebook earlier this month after criticising an antisemitic remark that appeared in the group “Ich liebe Ausländer Lounge” (“I Love Foreigners Lounge”).

One threat read, “Listen you little Jewish whore, what are you thinking attacking […] you Zionist slut you should be gassed like Hitler did you worthless piece of trash. Your whole Jewish generation should be gassed you have no honour you stinking stinking Jew.” [Punctuation as per original]

Sweden: Taking hard line on Israeli settlements while pushing for acceptance of Morocco annexation of Western Sahara

This has been EU's double-standards policy towards Israel for many years.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The Swedish government's foreign policy made headlines again on Monday, after Foreign Minister Margot Wallström took a stance against an EU court's annulment of a trade agreement with Morocco, over the latter's occupation and annexation of mineral-rich Western Sahara.
It appears that within the EU, Sweden stands alone against the annulment, which would seek to prevent exports from the territory being sold in the EU, as has been occurring under the agreement since it was signed in 2012.

Swedish domestic opposition parties have heavily criticized the government for its stance, reminiscent to the growing unease inside the country at the government's strong support for the labeling of Israeli settlement products, which has been likened to tacit encouragement of a boycott.

The government's position on the Morocco trade agreement appears to radically depart from its line on West Bank labeling. In the case of Israel, Wallström has regularly been seen as a major driving force inside the EU for harsher measures against the Jewish state.

When the EU guidelines were passed in November, Israeli politicians from much of the political spectrum spoke out against the move, many specifically referencing the double standards applied to Israel compared with Morocco.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked pointed out that the European Commission did not require labeling for products from Western Sahara among other disputed territories.

In a statement last month, Shaked had quoted the European Commission as stating that it does not “foresee any specific rules regarding requirements as to the labeling of products” regarding EU agreements with Morocco. Israel’s association agreement with the EU also does not mention specific origin labeling.

After Wallström's statement, it appears that Sweden now pursues different trade policy positions for Israel and Morocco.

Germany: 'ISIS-inspired terror plot sought to target Israel's embassy in Berlin'

Via Jerusalem Post:

The public prosecutor in Berlin charged two men, both of whom are believed to have been animated by Islamic State, with planning an attack on Israel’s embassy or another Israeli institution between December 2014 and July 2015, Tobiah Kaehni a spokesman for Berlin's Criminal Court told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

Both men are Berlin-born but of Palestinian background.

The prosecution in Berlin opened its case on Tuesday against Mohamed El-N and Ali El-I., both of whom are 21-years-old. The men are charged with “planning a massive act of violence.”

France: Women suffer burns after attack on synagogue

Via Maariv:

A synagogue intercom panel in Bonneuil-sur-Marne (Paris suburb) was covered with a poisonous powder. Fourteen Jewish women were affected, suffering from burns to their skin and eyes.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Spain: Street sign honoring local Jew vandalized

Photo: Diario el Sur

Via JTA:

A street name sign honoring a Spanish Jew was damaged in the southern Spanish city of Torremolinos amid a debate over the municipality’s decision to celebrate Hanukkah.

The sign named for David Haim Melul, the founder of the local Jewish community, was knocked down last week, two months after it was put up, the online edition of the local newspaper Diario el Sur reported.

The vandalism occurred as local politicians were debating the placing this month of a neon sign reading “Happy Hanukkah,” which critics said was in violation of the separation between religion and government.

The criticism comes from delegates of the center-right Popular Party to the municipal government of Torremolinos, where one of the ruling parties is the left-leaning Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, the newspaper reported. The local politicians are unhappy over the absence of a municipal nativity scene to celebrate Christmas. Torremolinos has about 800 Jews.

France: Watch Arab man spewing out his hatred of Jews (video)

JSS New reports:

The incident took place on the Paris-Melun commuter train on December 7.at 9:30 p.m.. Eight young Jews identifiable by their clothes were verbally abused by a 51-year-old man of Algerian descent (in his own words). This type of incident is far from unusual in France but is seldom reported.

People in the carriage were very upset. The man aggressively addressed a lady outraged by the sheer viciousness of his antisemitism.

The man got out of the train at Villeneuve Saint-Georges, where he claimed he resides. It's up to the police to find him before he puts his words into practice, i.e. to kill as many Jews as possible.

He went on and on about the Jews (not Zionists) calling them:

Bunch of motherfucker bastard Jews
Bunch of sons of a bitch
Bunch of bastard Jews
Filthy race
If only I had a fragmentation grenade I would throw it at them
We will get you etc

He also got into a frenzy about Israel, claiming that Israel had recently killed 5000 Palestinian babies.

In short, an ordinary scene in Paris.

Germany: Far-right party posts anti-Israel stickers

Via CFCA, RIAS:

The far-right party "Der III. Weg" is posting anti-Israel stickers around Berlin. The stickers show a bloodied Israeli flag and say "Israel, terror state"

Greece: "Those committing these violent acts are what we consider ‘normal’ people"

Via Get the Trolls Out (h/t Watch: Antisemitism in Europe):

In his spare time, Iosif Vaena, a young Greek Jewish pharmacist in Thessaloniki, dives into the Thermaikos bay to collect headstones of the Jewish cemetery destroyed by the Nazis and the Greeks. Vaena is hoping to find out, one day, who threw them there.

Greece has stood out for having one of the highest levels of antisemitic attitudes among monitored countries, research has been showing since the 1980s. “We could object on many things about these research studies – that the sample was small, that the questions were not right – but we cannot say that all the research in the last 30 years was wrong” said Vaena at the microphone of Symbiosis.

The Jewish Elementary School in Fleming Street is surrounded by strong fences and anti-terrorist barriers – a response to terror attacks in neighbouring countries and folied attacks in Greece by domestic and foreign organisations. Yet, episodes of vandalism are still happening. In preparation for a feast, a few Jewish religious symbols that were left in the courtyard became the target of unknown individuals who threw eggs at them. Furthermore, Molotov cocktail bombs have been thrown against the Jewish graveyard; the Shoah memorial has ben vandalised; and during demonstrations some members of the Communist Party have attacked the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki offices and the Jewish Youth Club.

Why are these incidents not known although they have been reported by the media? “Because those committing these violent acts are what we consider ‘normal’ people,” explained Vaena. “Our neighbours, our friends, people with whom we go out to drink Ouzo. It is difficult to report them also because antisemitism and conspiracy theories are embedded in Greek society and are not considered outrageous", he concluded.

Germany: News weekly owner compares Israel to National Front, fascists

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Jakob Augstein, a partial owner of and columnist for German newsweekly Der Spiegel, drew parallels last week between the Netanyahu government and historical European fascism, France’s National Front party and the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD).

Volker Beck, the Green Party spokesman for interior affairs and religion, in what appears to be the first public criticism of Augstein on the issue by a Bundestag deputy, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that in the publisher’s eyes, “Israel is to blame for everything – somehow also still for the right-wing populists of the AfD. Mr. Augstein is once again on the wrong track with his Israel obsession.”

In a column subtitled “Fascism is not a phenomenon of the past,” Augstein wrote, “so right-wing like the German right-wing populists is the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.” Augstein discussed Israel’s government within the context of the National Front.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post on Sunday, “Sadly, Augstein’s anti-Semitism is not a phenomenon of the past. Unfortunately, his latest article dumping the democratically elected Israeli government in the same basket with far-right and xenophobic parties confirms an anti-Israel bias so extreme that he merited criticism from a leading member of Germany’s Green Party.”

Pascal Beucker, a domestic politics editor for the left-leaning die taz daily, responding to Augstein’s column, wrote on Thursday: “With enthusiasm Augstein is always occupied with proving anew that he was correctly included in the ‘Top Ten Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs’ list of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.”

Ulf Poschardt, a journalist for the conservative- leaning Die Welt newspaper, praised Beucker’s column in a tweet on Friday: “danke [Thanks], @taz.”

Beucker wrote that “Augstein owes his wealth to the work of old Nazis with which his father, Rudolf Augstein, established Der Spiegel.”

Augstein and three family members together own 24 percent of Der Spiegel.

German critics of Augstein say he has actively promoted modern anti-Semitism and hatred of Orthodox Jewry, creating the intellectual space in which violence can breed.

Monday, December 14, 2015

Op-Ed: Why I Changed My Mind about Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelism

Joshua Muravchik @ Mosaic Magazine:

And yet: if, in 2013-14, I still thought it possible to deal with anti-Israelism without tackling the issue of anti-Semitism, I no longer think so. The naked anti-Jewish vitriol laced through reactions to the war in Gaza, and only intensifying since then, makes it clear that whether or not anti-Semitism is the unspoken source of hostility to Israel, the converse is certainly true: hatred of Israel has grown so febrile as to have unleashed an unvarnished hatred of Jews. Ultimately, whichever comes first, the boundary between anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism grows fainter by the day.

UK: Unregistered schools teaching antisemitism

Via the Telegraph:

Sir Michael Wilshaw revealed three unregistered schools are operating in Birmingham as he announced a crackdown against such schools.

Last month, Sir Michael revealed inspectors had found 15 unregistered schools in the country - many of them faith schools.

He wrote to Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary to renew his concern about the safety of children in schools that have been found in “squalid” conditions and where “homophobic and anti-Semitic” books were found.

“Since 2010 we have taken robust steps to tackle unregistered schools and improve safeguarding and this includes being completely clear it is a criminal offence to operate an unregistered independent school."

In his letter, he said of the three schools in Birmingham: “Inspectors found clear evidence that all settings were operating as unregistered schools.”

He said a total of 94 children were being educated in these schools, where inspectors found “a narrow Islamic-focused curriculum [and] inappropriate books and other texts including misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic material”.

Lithuania: Jewish Museum Opens Anti-Semitism Center

From Forward:

Lithuania’s largest Jewish museum opened a center dedicated to combating anti-Semitism and preserving Litvak Jewish identity domestically and abroad.

The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum opened its Centre of Litvak Culture and Art last week, the Baltic News Service reported.

Funded by the Lithuanian state and set up based on the experience of Polish experts on the study of that country’s Jewish history, the new center, which has a dozen workers, will place a special emphasis on the “dissemination of information and education in order to overcome negative stereotypes, stubborn myths and anti-Semitic views,” and on “promoting tolerance and mutual understanding in society,” according to the museum’s website.

The center’s opening comes amid controversy over the government’s plan to renovate and open a deserted conference center that was built on what used to be a large Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. The Jewish Community of Lithuania, which the government regards as the official representative of Litvak Jewry, endorses the project but prominent Litvak rabbis from around the world oppose it.

France: Army teaches kids that Israel is slaughtering Palestinians

JDC at the Metz BA 128(copyright BA 128)

The Goys Defending Israel blog were contacted by a Jewish mother whose daughter attended "a day of national defense instruction" (JDC), concerning the remarks made by a speaker from the National Service Center of Vincennes. The JDC "is designed to be a step on the path to citizenship". It is a substitute for the draft, designed to assume numerous roles with which it was vested: citizenship, duty of remembrance, youth awareness regarding defence issues, statistics on "draftees”, strengthening the bond between the army and its nation. In 2010 the content was "modified through an increased awareness of citizenship and the rights and duties associated with it".

One of the speakers indicated that he had been giving presentations on French military operations for 12 years. He explained that the French Army could not intervene everywhere. To illustrate the point he mentioned that when Palestinians are killed by Israel, the French army cannot intervene. In the discussion that followed the remark, several young people said that it was not normal that France cannot intervene when Israel slaughters Palestinians.

Speakers at the JDC are usually reservists in uniform - they are commissioned and paid by the Ministry of Defence - and as such, they do not express their personal views but those of the institution they represent. It could therefore be inferred that the Ministry of Defence and the French Army are openly and publicly anti-Zionist. Obviously, this is not the case and the pronouncements of the speaker do not reflect an official position.

This is precisely why such statements are so dangerous. By flouting the general disciplinary regulations which require him to to exercise restraint while in uniform, the speaker gave the impression to the youngsters he was addressing, that Israel stands accused by France of committing crimes against the Palestinians on a large scale. This is the message the youngsters understood.

Not only are such accusations entirely baseless but they are also contradicted by statistical data.- Palestinian life expectancy stands at 73 years and the growth rate of the population also disproves the claim of genocide or mass murders.

Goys Defending Israel blog are working out with the girl's mother a way to deal with this regrettable affair which reveals that even civic education aimed at the young is infiltrated by anti-Zionist propaganda which tries to validate the idea that the whole of France supports such ideas.

Note: a reader of the Goys Defending Israel blog wrote that her daughter went through the same experience a few months ago at the same place (Vincennes) that left her very shocked. She was the only Jew in the assembly and was surrounded by pro-Palestinian young people, especially young women, who were very aggressive and outspoken... The military staff in charge didn't say a word!

Europe: Israeli Vice PM blasts EU for giving funds that reach Palestinian terrorists while calling to fight terror