The New Antisemite

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Belgium: Amnesty official says returning refugees to Turkey is like sending Jews to pre-Nazi Austria

Via RTBF:

Philippe Hensmans, director of the Belgian-Francophone section of Amnesty International, said in an interview that Turkey was not a safe country for asylum.

"It's as if we had said to the Jews in '37: Go to Austria, it's a safe country."

So, either Hensmans is comparing Erdogan to Hitler and is hinting that Erdogan will kill all the refugees, or he simply has no idea what he's talking about and is using the 'antisemitism card' in order to push his own agenda.

Turkey: Istanbul bomber said to have tailed Israelis from hotel

According to Israel, the Israelis were not specifically targeted.

Via Times of Israel:

The suspected Islamic State bomber who killed three Israelis in Saturday’s bombing in Istanbul followed the tour group from their hotel to the restaurant, and waited outside for them before detonating his explosives, reports said Monday.

The reports, published in the Turkish media, appeared to contradict earlier assessments that the bombing didn’t deliberately target the Israeli tour group. The later reports, however, were unsourced and couldn’t be independently verified.

Portugal journalists: Slain Palestinian terrorists are not ‘murdered’

A bit of common sense and good journalistic practice from Portugal.

The Times of Israel reports:

Henrique Cymerman

The union of Portuguese journalists has rejected a complaint by the Palestinian Authority about a reporter’s use of the word “murder” to describe only victims of terrorist attacks and not their perpetrators.

Portugal’s Syndicate of Journalists published its decision last week on a complaint that Hikmat Ajjuri, the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to Portugal, filed in December against Henrique Cymerman, the Israel reporter for Portugal’s Independent Communication Company, or SIC.

The December 13 report by Cymerman focused on incitement in the Palestinian Authority “to kill Jews,” as Cymerman, who is Jewish, described it. In the report, Cymerman said that many of the perpetrators of attacks against Israelis regard their actions as part of a holy war. He also interviewed people who said it was in reaction to the Israeli occupation.

The item had an on-screen caption that read “22 Israelis were murdered and roughly 100 Palestinian assailants were killed.”

Greece: Defense Minister stated that he is going to speak "to the Jewish Center of the USA"

Via Against Antisemitism:

Greece’s Defense Minister Panos Kammenos (Independent Greeks party) stated yesterday that he is going to speak «to the largest decision center, the Jewish Center of the USA», amna.gr has reported.

read more

Kammenos sparked an outrage in the past when he claimed that Greek Jews don't pay taxes.

Norway: Church of Norway fears Israel will become a 'Jewish state'

Via MIFF:

Berit Hagen Agøy, Secretary General of the Ecumenical Council of the Church of Norway, recently wrote the following in an op-ed in Vårt Land:

"The Occupation deprives the Palestinans of basic human rights. We are also concerned about developments in Israel. If the country become a 'Jewish state', we fear it will increase discrimination and segregation and undermine Israeli democracy".

UK: Second Oxford University Labour Club officer resigns over antisemitism allegations

Via Jewish Chronicle:

The Oxford University Labour Club has been dealt another blow after a second officer quit, accusing the club of being discriminatory.

OULC disabilities officer Brahma Mohanty has resigned, claiming the club forced members to “subscribe to a radical ideology of division and isolation”.

This move follows the resignation of vice-chair Alex Chalmer last month, who said the club had a “problem with Jews”.

The club passed a motion earlier this month which limited voting privileges to members who solely support the Labour Party or its aims.

According to a report in The Telegraph, in his resignation letter Mr Mohanty, who was part of the club’s executive committee, wrote: “I took on the roles of BME Officer and indeed the Disabilities Officer role as I am passionate about advocating issues concerning access and diversity and as a lifelong Labour supporter, wanted to ensure OULC was at the forefront of that.

“However I have personally experienced in recent weeks and meetings that this does not appear to be an ethos shared amongst the OULC body in light of the passing of the Israeli Apartheid Week motion and the more recent motion which essentially 'purges' the OULC membership and forces members to subscribe to a radical ideology of division and isolation.

“Simply put, I cannot in good faith carry out my duties in promoting access and engagement with a club that I feel is projecting itself in the complete opposite manner.”

Sweden: Foreign Minister promises to oppose BDS, at some point, maybe

Last week Jewish and Israeli news-sites came out with surprising headlines: The Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallstrom, had declared opposition to the BDS movement and supported Israel's right to defend itself.

Looking beyond the headlines, the story seemed less certain. Israeli MP Tzipi Livni met with Wallstrom and according to Livni, Wallstrom agreed to publicly do the above.

When?

She did not specify.

A week later, we're still waiting.

After the meeting Wallstrom tweeted about it as follows:

"Constructive meeting with Israeli politician Tzipi Livni on Israel and Palestine and our support for a two state solution. Violence must stop."

That seems a very bland statement. Who's responsible for the violence? Who's inciting to kill Jews?

We have no idea.

Current Swedish government policy opposes even a basic investigation to ensure that Swedish aid is not used to further such incitement. Let alone condemn it.

What about the promise to publicly oppose BDS?

Israeli journalist Elad Simhayoff asked the minister: "Madam Secretary, any comments on the BDS movement?"

The minister, of course, had no comments to make.

How can she publicly oppose BDS when Sweden, together with other European countries, is funding the BDS movement?

Austria: Turkish nationalist desecrates Holocaust memorial

Via RT (h/t CFCA):

A scandalous photograph has been circulating of an Austrian member of a nationalist Turkish Muslim group standing on a monument in the Mauthausen concentration camp and making a salute associated with Turkish Islamists.

The salute is used by members of the Nationalist Movement Party of Turkey (MHP). In it the little finger stands for Turkey and the index finger for Islam. Together they symbolize Turkish Islamists one day taking over the world.

The man standing on top of the granite plaque at the former Nazi concentration camp was Abdurrahman Alpaslan, according to Austria’s Kurier. He is a member of Avrasya – a Linz-based division of what many say is the extreme right-wing Turkey-based organization, Grey Wolves. Local anti-fascist organizations say Avrasya openly supports Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). Others maintain it’s simply an organization of immigrants who look out for each other.

In Turkey, Grey Wolves are also known for frequent propaganda and inciting violence against Jews, Armenians and Kurds.

Alpaslan’s stunt shows the man standing on the plaque and below the picture a message: “Abdurrahman A., My brother, in Hitler's concentration camp. Forget America and Russia and China. Everything for Turkey.”

Denmark: Kosher butcher shop vandalized for second time

Via Jerusalem Post (h/t CFCA):

A kosher butcher shop in Copenhagen was vandalized for the second time in a year.

The attack on the shop in the Danish capital occurred Wednesday night and was discovered early Thursday, the news website BT reported, based on a statement by the local police force.

At around 3:40 a.m., a patrol car reported that a brick had been thrown through the shop display window.

The previous attack, in April 2015, involved the scrawling of the words: “Jew pig” on the window.

But a police spokesperson told BT, “There’s nothing that points in a direction” of a hate crime in the investigation of the more recent attack.

UK: "Polite racism turns the Jews, once again, into demons with the supernatural power to manipulate and destroy nations"

Nick Cohen @ The Guardian:

As one of the finest liberal ambitions is to find the sympathy to imagine the lives of others, you should become a Jew too. Declare that you have converted to Judaism or rediscovered your Jewish “heritage” and see the reaction. It’s not just that, if you are middle class and fortunate, you might experience racism for the first time, which in itself would be a “learning experience” worth having. You might also learn the essential lesson that antisemitism is not about Jews. Like rape, it’s about power.

Whether the antisemitic conspiracy theory is deployed by German Nazis or Arab dictators, French anti-Dreyfusards or Saudi clerics, the argument is always the same. Democracy, an independent judiciary, equal human rights, freedom of speech and publication – all these “supposed” freedoms – are nothing but swindles that hide the machinations of the secret Jewish rulers of the world.

Describe the fantasy the Tsarist and Nazi empires developed that bluntly and it is impossible to understand how the Labour party is in danger of becoming as tainted as Ukip by the racists it attracts.

But consider how many leftwing activists, institutions or academics would agree with a politer version.

Western governments are the main source of the ills of the world. The “Israel lobby” controls western foreign policy. Israel itself is the “root cause” of all the terrors of the Middle East, from the Iraq war to Islamic State. Polite racism turns the Jews, once again, into demons with the supernatural power to manipulate and destroy nations. Or as the Swedish foreign minister, Margot Wallström, who sees herself as a feminist rather than a racial conspiracist, explained recently, Islamist attacks in Paris were the fault of Israeli occupiers in the West Bank.

France: Molenbeek dwellers say Zionists behind Paris terrorist attacks

Le Monde reports that Molenbeek Muslim inhabitants, following the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, the terror suspect who helped perpetrate the November jihadi massacre in Parirs that claimed the lives of 130, unsurprisingly, say that Zionists and the secret services masterminded the attacks.

All sorts of conspiracy theories fly around - many will, while deploring the violence, ask who is behind it all?

It is worth reminding our readers that Philippe Moureaux, the former mayor of Molenbeek declared that (the lobby) foments hate of Arabs in the West to justify Israel politics:

Philippe Moreaux, a former Belgian francophone socialist minister, told Maghreb TV, based in Brussels, that there is a sort of contagion of the Israeli-Palestinian problem and that some [the Jewish lobby ?] have an interest in exacerbating animosities here to mirror what happens there.

He argued that it is obvious that in the West it [the Jewish lobby ?] works to spread hatred of Arabs in order to justify the politics of Israel.

Greece: Interior minister compares refugee camp to Dachau

Via Against Antisemitism (h/t glykosymoritis):

During a visit to the Idomeni border camp (Northern Greece), Greek Minister of the Interior Panagiotis Kouroumplis (Syriza) compared conditions at Idomeni to the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau blaming the EU of closing the borders.

Panagiotis Kouroumplis told reporters he «doesn’t hesitate to say» that the Idomeni camp is a modern version of the Dachau camp operated by the Nazis in Germany, ekathimerini.com reported.

He also blamed all other European countries indistinguishably of being reluctant “to assimilate one or one and a half million persecuted people.” (video in Greek)

Comparing European policies to Nazism is a common phenomenon in Greece: Back in June 2015, To Pontiki newspaper printed a cartoon implying that Greece is tantamount to a victim of the Holocaust.

UK: Jewish leaders says most people in the Jewish community can’t trust Labour

Via Evening Standard:

Jeremy Corbyn suffered a major blow today as one of Britain’s most senior Jewish figures warned that the country’s Jews “can’t trust Labour”.

President of the Board of Deputies Jonathan Arkush said the party’s growing anti-Semitism scandal is poisoning relations and now damaging Sadiq Khan’s hopes of winning support from London’s 180,000 Jews in his fight to be Mayor.

(...)

Mr Arkush said: “It confirms the belief we have had for a long time that there is a real problem of anti-semitism on the far left, which now eclipses the anti-semitism that we have always seen coming from the far-right.”

He pointed out that the relationship between the Jewish community and Labour was once very strong, and that “Jews overwhelmingly voted Labour for many, many years.”

But he said since Mr Corbyn’s leadership it had been under “deep strain”, in part because of the “excess” of the leadership.

He told the Standard: “Frankly most people in the Jewish community can’t trust Labour.

“I think it is inevitable that that will have an impact on the mayoral election despite the fact that Saidq Khan, I say straight away, is a good candidate, who has done everything he could to distance himself from the far Left, which includes distancing himself from the Leader of the Labour Party.

“Even if you really like a candidate and you believe that he rejects some of the excess of the leadership, in the end, no candidate can entirely free himself or herself from what the party is saying at the top level.

“That must hamper Sadiq Khan’s votes among sections of the Jewish community. Even though I repeat, he is clearly a decent candidate, but he’s stuck with his leader [and] stuck with the stories of anti-Semitism in Labour circles.

“However much he tries to disavow them and criticise them, he is stuck with them.”

UK: Jewish union officers at University College London now required to boycott Israel

A sabbatical officer is a full-time paid member of the union's executive.

Via Jewish News:

The University College London Union has voted to boycott Israel, just hours after a series of terror attacks left one dead and many injured across the country, writes Justin Cohen.

Officers voted 14-4 for the motion which mandates the union to join the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign.

(...)

Arieh Kovler of the Fair Play Campaign, said: ‘It’s astonishing that the UCL Union would pass a motion so full of hate”, adding that it turned the union “into a boycott-Israel organisation”.

He added the motion ‘troubling’ because it includes a “clause that all Sabbatical officers must ‘respect and uphold’ the boycott”, ‘effectively barring’ Jewish students from running for those roles.

Via Jerusalem Post:

An official from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party was reportedly fired Saturday after saying she hoped Israeli tourists injured in Saturday’s deadly suicide bombing in downtown Istanbul had died.

Irem Atkas sent her ill-wishes over Twitter shortly after a bomb was detonated in central Istanbul, killing three Israelis and wounding 11 others, according to Turkish officials.

“I wish that the wounded Israeli tourists were dead,” Irem Aktas, a board member in the women’s branch of the party in the Istanbul neighborhood of Eyup tweeted shortly after the attack. Her account was removed from social media site not long thereafter.

Aktas was reportedly dismissed from her duties immediately afterwards.

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )