Thursday, March 31, 2016

Belgium: Unwavering Israel-bashing at Molenbeek

H/T Yasmine

This beggars belief. On 17 March 2016- five days before the islamic terrorist attacks in Brussels - the Socialist Party fat cats organised and attended a training course in Molenbeek on the "occupation" of Palestine by Israel.  The event was praised by Socialist top man Jamal Ikazban.

Ikazban said that terror expert Claude Moniquet, who is Jewish, was "Zionist scum".

Greece: Mufti curses Israel and the Jews, says Hitler was right


Ahmet Mete, mufti of Xanthi, in northeastern Greece.


During the Gaza war, European Muslims shared various quoted attributed to Hitler (see for example here, here, here and here)


Via The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (h/t Against Antisemitism):
We were informed by a recent press article of the newspaper “Parapolitica” (March 19, 2016) that Ahmet Mete, a religious figure in Xanthi, during his speech delivered in August 2014, at the village of Glafki, stated inter alia: “Curse against Israel! For these are the ones turned into soap by the Germans. But Hitler was right when he said: now you will be angry with me but one day I will be proved right about the Jews. Now our curse goes upon them, and our prayers upon our brothers”.  
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Belgium: European Jewish MP compares haredim to Muslim extremists



Via Artuz 7:
In a recent interview Belgian Member of Parliament Simone Susskind, herself a Jew, spoke out against the Jewish people and the Israeli government in the wake of the Brussels attacks.

Susskind harshly criticized the haredi community, claiming that they set the agenda in Israel as exemplified in issues such as the division of public transportation. "Look what they do in Israel. The women must sit in the back of the bus," she claimed.

"If there were 200 million extremist Jews that were in control, it would not look much different - their ideal world view is very similar,” Susskind said, comparing the haredim to Muslim Arabs.
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Austria: Jewish community demands bank drop BDS group



Via Jerusalem Post:
The Vienna-based Erste Group bank – a financial giant in Central and Eastern Europe – has become embroiled in an anti-Semitism row because its provides an account to a BDS group in Austria.

“The bank should tell BDS Austria to take its business elsewhere, ” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

He said the account could give Erste Group “a black eye because of anti-Semitism.”


The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign targets the Jewish state with economic pressure to advance Palestinian interests.

The secretary-general of Vienna’s Jewish community, Raimund Fastenbauer, told the Post last week that Erste Group should close the account of BDS Austria. “Our president [Oskar Deutsch] said at a rally that the BDS campaign is anti-Semitic,” added Fastenbauer.

Cooper praised the leadership of the more than 7,000 Jews in Vienna for “standing up to an anti-peace movement [BDS] that has elements of anti-Semitism.”

“If BDS becomes embedded in mainstream society, the economy, academia, culture, it will have a long-term toxic effect,” said Cooper.
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Belgium: Crisis center tells Israeli terror victims that Israel does not exist (Update: employee fired)


Update: The contractor running the crisis center is IPG Belgium, and following this incident, they fired the employee in question.

Via Joods Actueel (with much thanks to R. for translation):


At least two Israelis were injured in the terror attacks in Brussels.  Israel would like to fly them home and so in order to release them from the hospital, a Jewish volunteer called up the Crisis Center set up by the Ministry for Internal Affairs to ask about the procedure.

He was told that the Israeli victims could not be sent back to Israel, they can only be sent back to Palestine.  The family of the victim is shocked and says that "It's just like Iran here".

This is not the first time an emergency responder decides a Jewish medical emergency is a good reason to preach for Palestine.  During the Gaza war, a doctor refused to treat a 90 year old Jewish woman, and suggested to "send her to Gaza for a few hours"





Contact with the Crisis Centre of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Wednesday March 30th around 17:00

XXX: Good afternoon, my name is XXX, I am a volunteer in the Jewish coordination committee of Antwerp. We are contacted by persons… we have 2 persons of the Jewish community that were hurt in the attacks in the airport

Crisis Centre: Yes sir

XXX: They are prepared to be transported back to Israel. Our volunteers are busy with it and take care of everything but we received information from the hospital that we need special papers from the police that they can be released. Is this correct and to who should we ask that? Can you tell me more about that?

CC: That is effectively.. I will take a look. So … they go back to Palestine.

XXX: Not Palestine, Israel.

CC: Yes, but that was before Palestine, of course. OK

XXX: Could you repeat that again, please? What is the name?

CC: That … Palestine.

XXX: Can I get your name, please?

Cc: Of course, Zakaria.

XXX: And you know only Palestine?

CC: Sorry?

XXX: You don’t know Israel, only Palestine?

CC: I know the Jews went to there, that Palestine received (opvangen) them and that there is a war between Israel and Palestine, of course. And the occupation… that’s what's on the news of course.

XXX: Can you help me with the question I have, or not?

CC: Naturally, of course. Thus they go back to Palestine and ask that they could get an attestation. Voila, it is noted.

XXX: Can I have you name again, I didn’t understand it well.

CC: Zakaria

XXX: Zakaria?

CC: That is correct.

XXX: Zakaria what? What is your last name?

CC: I am not obliged to give it.

XXX: OK

XXX; Thank you very much.

CC: You're welcome. Bye

UK :Labour activist claims ISIS attacks are Israeli response to Palestine recognition

Photo: The Indepdent


Via Jerusalem Post:
The UK's Labour party was again facing criticism this week over reported remarks made by a party activist who allegedly insinuated that Israel is behind the terrorist group known as Islamic State, British media reported.

According to the British Independent, Labour activist Bob Campbell accused Israel of operating ISIS in a post on Facebook a day after a pair of suicide bombings in Brussels last week.

The report published an alleged screen-shot of Campbell's Facebook post, in which he said "ISIS is run by Israel," suggesting that there was a correlation between pro-Palestinian moves in France, Japan, Indonesia and Belgium and ISIS attack.

"How many more attacks have to take place before the world fully understand that ISIS is run by Israel?" he was quoted as saying on Facebook.

read more

Portugal: Visiting professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem calls for economic sanctions against Israel

via Romeu Monteiro Facebook
Dear friends in Israel,

Miguel Vale de Almeida is a Portuguese academic who has been a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and was also a member of the Portuguese Parliament. He just posted publicly expressing his support for international economic sanctions against Israel.

*sarcasm on* So please, make sure to keep inviting him to visit universities you pay with your own taxes. *sarcasm off *



Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Belgium: Jews aren’t safe in Belgium - nor is anyone else


Two victimes of the massacre at the
Jewish museum in Brussels perpetrated
by Mehdi Nemmouche (2014)
Following the terrorist attacks in Brussels, it has been revealed just how incredibly lax and ill-prepared Belgium’s security authorities were. Belgian authorities had accurate advance warnings that terrorists planned to launch attacks at Brussels airport and in the subway system, yet failed to act.  [...]

Nevertheless, the embarrassing details of the show that passes for security around Jewish institutions is shocking in its extreme amateurishness. After the Brussels attacks, Brussels Rabbi Menachem Hadad told Israel’s Army Radio that soldiers, who were posted outside a synagogue and the city’s Chabad House following the terrorist attack in Brussels’ Jewish Museum in 2014, told him that for months, they used to guard the area with no bullets in their rifles. The English language does not contain a fitting combination of words to comment on such a spectacle. [...]

Whether common or not, Belgians at any rate clearly appear to treat hatred of Jews and Israel as perfectly normal and acceptable. In a video captured by French RTL television of a vigil for the terror victims in Brussels at the Place de La Bourse, a hijab-wearing woman can be seen uninterruptedly replacing an Israeli flag with a Palestinian one and then proceeding to tear up the Israeli flag. Throngs of people surround her, yet no one intervenes. Another video of a Brussels vigil shows a man stepping on the Israeli flag and covering it with a Palestinian one, again unhindered by any bystanders.
Source: Joods Actueel

Perhaps this is because their own state authorities teach Belgians that hating Israel is indeed perfectly normal and acceptable. In 2013, the Belgian Education Ministry website featured a virulently anti-Semitic cartoon, which first appeared at one of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad’s infamous Holocaust denial conferences in Tehran in 2009, unbelievably, as part of an exercise for trainee teachers. The cartoon showed a Jewish man impaled on the fence of a concentration camp next to a man wearing a keffiyeh — an Arab headress — their limbs arranged in the form of a Nazi swastika. The caption “never again” appeared above the image of the Jew and the words “over again!” were written at the Arab’s right foot. In the exercise, the teachers were asked to analyze the cartoon with one of three statements: “This is a Palestinian fleeing Jews”; “Jews want the entire area of Palestine back”; or “Jews call Palestine Israel.” This is what Belgium tells its teachers to teach Belgian children and then they feign “shock” when the results play out in the streets.


Abou Jahjah
Similarly, ancient antisemitic tropes and blood libels are featured in the daily Belgian press.  

A leading Belgian daily, De Standaard, claimed in 2013 that Jews “sometimes poisoned Palestinian water wells.” [Abou Jahjah is a political commentaor @ De Standaard

Cartoon by Zeon
In Molenbeek itself, also in 2013, a poster for a conference about Zionism titled “Let’s talk calmly about Zionism,” organized by a local chapter of the Socialist Party, featured a caricature of a Jew so vile that it could have been taken straight out of Der Sturmer  [Molenbeek fighting anti-Semitism with viciously anti-Semitic cartoon and Molenbeek 'youths' threatened Jews and drove Jewish shops out of business]

The Belgians are mourning their dead, now that it is too late, but they contributed energetically themselves toward creating an enabling atmosphere of hatred, even right in the “jihadi base” of Molenbeek.

On Friday, antisemitic graffiti was found in a schoolyard in Braine-le-Comte near Brussels. It featured a swastika, a Star of David and the text: “Juden, Arbeit Macht Frei.”

Even if the Belgian police outside the Jewish institutions would have bullets for their rifles, it would make no difference by now. Belgium has already failed on too many levels for it to recover.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Poland: Tel Aviv Cafe hit with anti-Zionist vandalism


Via CFCA:
Warsaw - During the night between Catholic first day of Easter and observed in Poland second day of Easter, between 2am and 10 am on March 28th, 2016, unknown perpetrators destroyed the facade of the Tel-Aviv Café.

Pink, big, antisemitic slogans read: "Free Palestine", "Zionism is a racism", "The wall is your shame".

read more

Sweden: Taxi drivers refuse to take rabbi

Rav Eliyahu Birenboim writes of his experience in Sweden (translation mine):

"About a year ago I came out of the airport in Malmo, Sweden, a city known for its large Muslim population.  A lot of taxis were waiting in the station. Every time I asked to board a taxi to get to the rabbi's house, the taxi driver looked at my kippah and told me angrily "it's occupied".  I quickly understood that the Muslim drivers don't want to drive a Jewish man. I gave up on going in a taxi and boarded the metro.

Germany: Martin Luther's book against Jews republished in modern German



 Via HPD (h/t Honestly Concerned):

In honor of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, German publishers published Martin Luther's screed against Jews "On the Jews and Their Lies" in modern German.

The editors added a short preface, but left the text as-is.
 

Turkey: ISIS planned attacks on Jewish children


Via Jerusalem Post:
Islamic State terrorists had reportedly "advanced plans" to murder Jewish children in attacks aimed at educational and youth institutions in Turkey, according to Britain's Sky News on Monday.

The report cited information allegedly obtained by intelligence officials from arrested ISIS operatives regarding "an imminent" attack.

According to the Sky News report, six ISIS members arrested over the last week in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep revealed the alleged plans by the extremist group to target Jewish children at kindergartens, schools and youth centers.
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Belgium: More pro-Palestinian craze at victims memorial in Brussels


Man stood in middle of Brussels memorial today and started yelling Palestine!


The Brussels Philharmonic played 'Ode to Joy' at Place de la Bourse. But you can't escape Palestinian propaganda.   You will see a Palestinian flag on the right.   Featured are also the Moroccon, Tunisian, Algerian, Bosnia flags...


More on this topic: Belgium: Memorial Place in Brussels has been hotbed of Israel-hatred for years.

Monday, March 28, 2016

Germany: Journalist compares Palestinian government to Nazi collaborators



Via Watch: Antisemitism in Europe:
Cologne‬’s top daily newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger published recently an interview with German journalist and humanitarian Rupert Neudeck. In it, Neudeck compares the Palestinian Government to the Quisling regime, the collaborationist government led by Vidkun Quisling in occupied Norway during the Second World War, implying that the Israelis today are like the Nazis. The journalist who questioned Neudeck didn't criticize this parallelism.
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France: Jewish family targeted with continuous vandalism


Via CFCA:

A Jewish family's home in Versailles was vandalized with Jewish stars. 

Michèle says this is the 9th time they've suffered such vandalism in the past three years.  The first incident was in February 2013 when both their apartment and her parents' apartment were vandalized with swastikas.  They once found an anonymous letter that said "dirty Jews".

Michèle says she's sure it's the same person, and that she does not know why they're targeted as they're not visibly Jewish and their children went to Catholic school.

France: Antisemitic posters


Via CFCA:
Colmar – this morning, around 9:30, a Colmar resident found two antisemitic posters at the bus stop right in front of the post office.

She photographed them before tearing them.

The posters were two A4 photographs with an explicit message that bus users could read and that half-covered the advertisement of a gold dealer on the same street. The text hurts the memory of Ilan Halimi, victim of the "gang of barbarians" in January 2006, and included references to National Socialism and Islam.
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UK: Student concern over spate of antisemitic graffiti at London university



Via Jewish Chronicle (h/t CFCA):
A student union has reported “recurring incidents” of antisemitic graffiti after a new daubing was spotted by a Jewish student.

Aaron Isaac noticed the graffiti in a building at Goldsmiths University in south-east London.

It read: “Goldsmiths it’s the symbol of world Jewry!”

(...)
In a statement, the students union said that similar anti-Semitic daubings had been reported earlier in the year.

It said: “Goldsmith Student Union has been made aware of recurring incidents of antisemitic graffiti. We did not make a public statement so as to not give spotlight to the perpetrators. However we cannot allow instances such as these to continue and to become a stain on the student culture of this campus.
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Belgium: Stones thrown at rabbi


Via JTA:
A young rabbi from the Netherlands said unidentified individuals threw stones at him at a park in Brussels in a suspected anti-Semitic incident.

The rabbi told JTA about the incident Saturday on condition of anonymity, citing a desire to have his name “associated with positive issues and not anti-Semitism.”

(...)

In the rock-throwing incident, the rabbi said he was walking through the park in Brussels’ southern district of Forest with a friend when “stones were thrown at us. For one reason only: being visibly Jewish.” No one was hurt in the incident, he said. The rabbi said he did not see the people who threw the stones at him and his conversation partner.

“I sometimes see groups of young Arabs in parks,” the rabbi said. “I smile at them and usually nothing happens, but this time I was in conversation when the stones started getting thrown.”

The rabbi, who is in Brussels to visit family, said he has had anti-Semitic insults hurled at him sometimes in the Netherlands, but never stones.
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UK: "Jews run the UK" graffiti




Via Everyday Antisemitism:
Londoner David Patrikarakos was surprised to see antisemitic graffiti in the toilet at a local pub in Victoria. He tweeted photos, commenting: “I’ve lived in London all my life and you never used to see this stuff around. Sad.” The graffiti claims that “Jews run [the] UK” and “Jews start all war[s] for [money]”.

Belgium: "The climate we are experiencing today has been going on for 15 years"


Via Jewish Week:
“On the one side, it is awful and shameful; on the other side, it was not surprising to me,” he said by phone Thursday, one day before conducting a special briefing for Jewish leaders at UJA-Federation of New York.

Such an attack, he said, “is what we expected in Brussels. Life there has changed in the last 15 years. At the end of September in 2000, the second intifada began and the very next day Jews in Belgium were attacked. My rabbi became a victim of insults, with young people spitting on him and throwing stones all because he a rabbi with a synagogue in a Muslim neighborhood.”

Rubinfeld noted that fully one-third of the city’s population of 1 million is Muslim and that Jews number just 20,000.

At the time of the second intifada, “From Friday night to Saturday night [the rabbi] walked three times back and forth to the synagogue, and he was an easy target,” he said. “This continued for one to two years and then things calmed down for a little bit. Then Molotov cocktails were thrown at synagogues and the attacks culminated in 2014 when a French Algerian terrorist killed four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.”

Each time Israel is forced to go to war with Hamas or Hezbollah terrorists, Rubinfeld pointed out, “you saw hundreds and thousands in the street with anti-Israel demonstrations, hold anti-Semitic banners, waving the Hezbollah flag and shouting, ‘Death to Jews’ in Arabic. This is why what is happening today is very logical. The climate we are experiencing today has been going on for 15 years.”

Asked if the authorities were aware of it, Rubinfeld said he had personally warned about it for years.

“I said if you do not tackle this anti-Semitism, it will spread and tomorrow everybody will be a target. I said, ‘If you don’t do it for my kids, what we are experiencing will happen to your kids. … There are some people who don’t see red when Jewish blood is spilled.

“They have to understand that Jews are the canary in the coalmine, and when the canary is dying it means bigger problems are coming. So it starts with killing and harassing Jews, and if not stopped, this movement becomes uncontrollable.”

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Sunday, March 27, 2016

Poland: Holocaust memorial stolen in property dispute


Via Times of Israel:
Polish police said they located a Holocaust monument that had been reported missing in Plonsk, the birthplace of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.
Police found the monument in the possession of individuals who claim they own the area, the Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported last week. Police would not name them.

The monument, which had been unveiled in 1983, will be returned to its original site, the city said. It was built near a Jewish cemetery that, according to the website sztetl.org.pl, had been destroyed during World War II and built on after it.

Featuring a large stone tablet with the inscription, “In memory of Polish Jews murdered in 1939-1945. The community of Plonsk,” it rested on pillars built on three slabs of stone symbolizing the headstones that had been destroyed there.

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UK: Jewish leaders challenge BBC over 'misleading headlines' in Israel coverage


Via Jewish Chronicle:
The Board of Deputies has raised concerns with the BBC over “misleading headlines” in the its coverage of attacks in Israel.

A delegation from the Board met BBC’s Head of News James Harding this week to discuss the Jewish community’s concerns about the reporting of the recent upsurge of violence in Israel.

In a statement following the meeting, Board president Jonathan Arkush said: “We raised strong concerns about misleading headlines in reports about attacks in Israel, the lack of reports about a large number of attacks and an almost total lack of reporting about incitement and corruption in the Palestinian Authority.

“We conveyed to Mr Harding fully and clearly the feeling within the Jewish community about these matters. The BBC said they were open to dialogue and we intend to pursue the conversation with the BBC on a regular basis.”

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Belgium: Jewish community concerned about security


Jewish children in Belgium, dressed as soldiers on Purim (Cnaan Liphshiz)

Via JTA:
Belgian Jewish leaders have praised the patrols and the government allocation of $4.5 million for the community’s protection. But amid reports of repeated failures in Belgian authorities’ counterterrorist efforts, Michaeli’s dismissive attitude is shared by other Belgian Jews. Many feel that their government is less competent in defending civilians, Jews and otherwise, than its neighbors, including France.

On Thursday, Menachem Hadad, a Brussels rabbi, told Israel’s Army Radio, “Belgian authorities have no understanding of security issues — zero.” He said soldiers posted outside a synagogue and the city’s Chabad House told him that for months, they used to guard the area with no bullets in their rifles. “It was just a show. It’s not normal,” he said.

Responding to Hadad’s claim, a Belgian Defense Ministry spokesperson wrote in an email to JTA that the soldiers posted in Brussels “are adequately armed and trained,” adding the ministry is nonetheless looking into the claims about the synagogue and Chabad House.
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UK/EU: Thousands of Palestinian terrorists/suicide bombers given aid money (Daily Mail)

The Daily Mail reports:

Revealed how UK aid funds TERRORISTS: After yet more budget cuts, another £12bn of your taxes are being splurged on foreign hand-outs for militants, killers, Palestinian palaces and jobs that don't exist
  • Mail On Sunday investigation shows that UK money has funded terrorists
  • £72million was given to Palestine, which spent £8million on a new palace

The shocking revelation that thousands of Palestinian terrorists, including men who have masterminded suicide bombings and murdered children, are given cash handouts from aid money will cause anger and disbelief, particularly in the wake of the Brussels massacres.
The scandal of how Britain fritters away billions in foreign aid - including paying salaries to convicted terrorists who have murdered hundreds of innocent people - is exposed today by a major MoS investigation. Among the shocking things uncovered are the salaries propped up by western aid that lead civil servants in Gaza to queue at cashpoints every month on payday - even though they haven't had jobs since 2007 (pictured, left); the £8million presidential palace on the westbank (bottom right) built by Palestine, which has received £72million from Britain; the £5.9million give to US think-tank the Center For Global Development, which has a £12million HQ, the £106,000 given to Abdallah Barghouti, (top centre) and the £605 paid to Amjad Awad (top right), the Palestinian terrorist, which is funded by British and European taxpayers.
Pet project: The £8million palace built by Palestine, which has received £72million of foreign aid
[...]  We dug beneath the headline figures on DFID’s websites to reveal waste and misguided largesse which seemed to extend to virtually every corner of the globe and which will shock readers. In the West Bank and Gaza, despite promises by the ruling Palestinian Authority (PA) to end the practice of paying aid money to convicted terrorists, our investigation revealed that they had simply duped the West by allowing the Palestine Liberation Organisation to hand out the cash instead.

Britain gives £72 million a year to Palestine, more than one-third of which goes straight to the PA. It openly admits supporting terrorists whom it hails as heroes for fighting illegal occupation, awarding lifetime payments that rise depending on time spent in jail and the seriousness of crimes.

One Hamas master bomber has reportedly been given more than £100,000. Other ‘salaries’ go to the families of suicide bombers and even teenagers involved in the latest upsurge of deadly attacks on Israel.

DFID and the European Union are still effectively supporting these payments to thousands of terrorists – despite claims to have ended such links two years ago. This was confirmed to the MoS by former prisoners and families receiving the cash, and in official statements by the PA.
We also visited a lavish £8 million palace that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is having built on the West Bank. [...]


Amjad Awad (pictured) and his cousin Hakim Awad killed Ehud and Ruth Fogel and their three children in their West Bank home in 2011. They have been getting foreign aid since they were convicted for life

In Gaza – a place where there is rampant poverty – I witnessed bizarre scenes: long queues of people at bank cashpoints. It was pay day for thousands of civil servants whose salaries are supported by Western aid, even though they have had no jobs since 2007.
Mahmoud, an accountant, said he was given more than £1,000 a month. ‘I just sit at home, spending time with my family. Sometimes I travel abroad to visit relatives,’ he said.
Others admitted to second jobs as shopkeepers and taxi drivers. One ex-teacher, who still draws his £6,000-a-year salary, confessed to running a dairy, completing a master’s degree in Britain and working as a journalist.

UK: Former Lord Mayor of Bradford suspended by Labour Party over anti-Semitism


Another antisemite who thinks it's alright if you hate 'Zionists' and not 'Jews'.

Via The Independent:
Former Lord Mayor of Bradford suspended by Labour Party over anti-Semitism
Labour has suspended a former Lord Mayor of Bradford in the latest row over anti-Semitism to hit Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Khadim Hussain, a Labour councillor, is under investigation for sharing a Facebook post that complained that the deaths of millions of Africans are not taught in schools but “your school education system only tells you about Anne Frank and the six million Zionists that were killed by Hitler”.

The news came as the Guido Fawkes website alleged that Labour had reinstated Beinazir Lasharie, a Kensington councillor and former Big Brother contestant whose membership was suspended in October after she had posted a Facebook message saying: “Many people know about who was behind 9/11 and also who is behind Isis. I’ve nothing against Jews ... just sharing it!”

She is listed on the Kensington council website as a Labour councillor, but a Labour spokesman denied that she had been reinstated.
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Belgium: Memorial Place in Brussels has been hotbed of Israel-hatred for years


The Daily Mail picked up this story.  The fear is such that not a single Belgian news outlet reported the incidents.

This is the shocking moment a woman removes an Israeli flag from a Brussels memorial and rips it up, before hiding the pieces away underneath another flag. 

A French-language station captured the footage at the shrine set up at Brussels' Place de la Bourse. During the clip, which is just over one minute long, a woman wearing a hijab, a brown coat and a scarf picks up a Palestinian flag from the candle-lit vigil and takes it over to an Israeli flag.


The Daily Mail journalist is flabbergasted:
The woman then walks off out of shot, with not one of the many onlookers approaching her to question her over her shocking actions.
And this:
Another video shows a man, wearing beige trousers, a black hooded jacket and gloves, walking into the middle of the candle-lit memorial.  He picks up a Palestinian flag and places it over the Israeli flag so it can no longer be seen.


Here they are the proud Belgians:

For many years, every Friday, on the same square Place de la Bourse, Israel-bashers gathered to show their hatred for Israel.  This one took place in 2012:





Romania: Pro-fascism journalist appointed to TV board


Via AP (h/t CFCA):
Romania's Holocaust institute on Wednesday protested the appointment of a well-known journalist to the board of the country's public television station, saying the move is disrespectful to the victims of the Holocaust.

The Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the Holocaust said that Oana Stanciulescu is unsuitable for the position due to her criticism of a recent law that punishes Holocaust denial or the promotion of the fascist Legionnaires' Movement with prison sentences of up to three years.

Her place on the 13-member board, approved by Parliament Tuesday, has generated strong reactions in a reflection of the difficulty Romanians have had in coming to terms with their history in the quarter-century since communism ended.

In a reflection of that turmoil, the party that represents the interests of ethnic Hungarians walked out of Parliament ahead of Tuesday's vote, and the head of the Jewish community, Aurel Vainer, also protested.
read more
 
Stanciulescu does not just speak out against criminalizing Holocaust denial, she supports the fascist Romanian Legionnaire Movement.  Via Bucharest Life:
Romania’s Holocaust Institute on Wednesday protested the appointment of a well-known journalist to the board of the country’s public television station, saying the move is disrespectful to the victims of the Holocaust. According to the institute, the journalist in question – Oana Stanciulescu – has in the past written articles praising Legionaries killed in Spain fighting for Franco, as well as Nae Ionescu – one of the Legion’s leading theorists – and Romania’s wartime dictator Ion Antonescu.

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Ukraine: Wreath in memory of Babi Yar victims torched


Via JTA:
On Tuesday, Dolinsky wrote that the wreath placed earlier this month by Israel Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked at the Babi Yar Jewish Holocaust monument had been torched hours after she left it there. The attack was the seventh case of vandalism against the monument since 2015. During the Holocaust, Nazis and local collaborators killed some 50,000 Jews there.
read more

Friday, March 25, 2016

Ukraine: 'Kill the Jews', 'Jews annexed Ukraine' painted on synagogue



Via JTA (h/t CFCA):
"Kill the Jews" was scrawled on a synagogue in the central Ukrainian city of Cherkasy.
(...)

The graffiti was discovered Wednesday in Cherkasy, Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, wrote on Facebook. In addition to spray-painting the message of incitement to violence against Jews on an external wall, the perpetrators wrote: “Jews annexed Ukraine.”

The vandals used the word “zhyd” for Jews, which many Ukrainian Jews consider derogatory.

Dolinsky sarcastically described the inscription as “traditional congratulations for Purim.”
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Op-Ed: "The basic idea behind most modern anti-Semitism is that Jews must be up to something"



Via UK Media Watch:
A lot has been written in the British media about antisemitism in the UK Labour Party, but an op-ed written by Dave Rich of the CST masterfully cuts down the core of what the debate is about – the belief by a worrying number of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters and “friends” that “Jews must be up to something”.
The basic idea behind most modern anti-Semitism is that Jews must be up to something. Whatever Jews say and do can’t be taken at face value: they must have some ulterior motive or hidden agenda that needs to be uncovered.
So when Jewish donors give money to political parties, it can’t simply mean that they support that party’s policies, as any non-Jewish donor would; they must be trying to buy support for Israel. Or when Israel sends rescue teams to countries that have suffered from natural disasters, it can’t simply be to offer humanitarian aid; it must be to steal human organs from the victims of those disasters.

Later in the op-ed, Rich addresses those who reflexively dismiss antisemitic rhetoric as “merely” anti-Israel.
Nowhere is this more apparent than when Jews complain about anti-Semitism in left-wing or pro-Palestinian circles. It has become a reflexive response for any such complaints to be dismissed as fake, a manufactured outrage designed to cynically deflect criticism of Israel’s policies.

 due to years of treating Jewish concerns about anti-Semitism as a cynical Zionist smokescreen…Anti-Semitism is simply not recognized as such if it comes in an anti-Israel context
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France: Popular extreme-right band 'Les Brigandes' is the new star of the fascist scene





Via Get the Trolls Out, LICRA (h/t glykosymoritis):
Les Brigandes, which we mentioned before in our January highlights, is an ultra-conservative band made up of seven young women of, shall we say, "unbridled creativity". The group is growing in popularity among all those involved in some way with the world of the fachosphère – the name given in France to all groups or movements perceived as fascist. Under their wolf masks, the group – whose name pays tribute to the Vendean royalist insurgents – spread a fundamentalist, conspiracy message that is fiercely hostile to any kind of difference. A message in which a white, ultra-catholic, Putin-loving France is idealised. The group is led by Marianne, their spokesperson for "alternative" media, supported by Maxime, who posts the young women's numerous musical creations on the Le Comité de Salut Public (Committee of Public Safety) website.

The problem with this latest expression of hate on the internet is the surprising popularity of their videos: 50,000-100,000 views for most of their songs. This sort of makes them stars in the making for the extreme right.

(...)

Inspired by conspiracy delusions, Les Brigandes imagine themselves to be living in a world controlled by lobby groups. The names of these groups certainly cannot be mentioned... yet through their songs, they are revealed to be the famous jewish-zionist-freemasonic coalition. Nothing original here: this are the same clichés that the movement led by Alain Soral refer to in one of their interviews. They accuse the Jewish elite of promoting Muslim immigration with the aim of destroying the European Christian civilisation, thus subscribing to the popular extreme-right theory of "great replacement", the title of their album. 

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Norway: Socialist MP says Israel is root cause of Islamist terrorism


Akhtar Chaudhry is an MP for the Socialist Left Party.

Following the Brussels attack he wrote on his blog that the reasons behind the terror must be understood and dealt with (h/t morsmal)

"We must remember that not all propaganda by extremists is nonsense.  Much of what they say for their opposition and propaganda is valid.  The war in Afghanistan, the occupation of Iraq, the proxy war in Syria, the dismantling of Libya as a state and society, the drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen, the continued occupation of Palestine, with the subsequent pain and humiliation of the Palestinians are some things which the extremists rely on for their propaganda."

Chaudhry lists Israel along with Western attacks on Muslim countries.  The only people he mentions by name and whose suffering is explained at length, are the Palestinians. 

Chaudhry continues to say that the ways in which the extremists fight for the cause is abhorrent, but in order to fight recruitment to such groups, the root causes must be dealt with.

"The last thing we need is leaders like Donald Trump who will start a new political war against Iran, undermine common institutions like the UN and conduct an election campaign to allow Israel to continue repression on occupied land.  All this is an already known recipe for how extremism can continue and increase".



Croatia: Football fans shout fascist slogans during Croatia-Israel game

photo: nezavisne

Via NRG:

Croatian fans shouted fascist slogans during a Croatia-Israeli football game at Osijek.

The fans shouted "Za dom spremni!", the Ustaše movement equivalent of the Nazi "Sieg Heil".

During the cries, Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković was spotted in the stands smiling.



Belgium: Following Brussels attacks, anti-racism activist compares Israel to Islamic State


Dyab Abou Jahjah is an 'opinion maker'.  He fights for the rights of Muslim immigrants in Belgium.  He's a coveted speaker for events organized by Amnesty International and the Belgian Human Rights League

He's also an antisemite, but why should that bother anybody?  He only incites to kill Jews.

His most recent sentiments following the terror attack in Brussels:
Just in case you are wondering, I do not attend a solidarity meeting or gathering where the "Israeli" flag is hanging. That flag represents the same kind of evil that Daesh represents.




About Jahjah a decade ago, when he joined Hezbollah to kill Jews:



Belgian Jews cancel Purim

Via Honest Reporting:
Belgium’s Jewish community cancelled Purim festivities “at the request of the police due to the police’s fear of additional terrorists in the area,” YNet reports. Smaller, low-key gatherings will be held instead.
The police said that they are unable to protect the event while the city is in a state of war,” he said.
Belgian security forces are still searching for suspects. The casualty count now stands at 31 dead and 270 injured. See today’s Daily Telegraph and CNN liveblogging.

Meanwhile tweet of the day goes Israeli journalist Amichai Stein.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Belgium: Brussels attacks won't translate into more support for Israel


Herb Keinon writes @ Jerusalem Post:

Belgium: Woman with hijab at Brussels memorial site rips apart, hides Israeli flag

A proud Belgian woman...


Belgium: Antisemitic graffiti on school wall near Brussels

CCOJB posted two pictures of an antisemitc graffiti scrawled over a school wall at Braine-le-Comte (near Brussels).  It is thought that the wall was vandalised on Friday night.




Wednesday, March 23, 2016

UK: Corbyn acusses Jewish Labour Peer of lying about Labour antisemitism


A Jewish Labour Peer demanded Corbyn make it clear that antisemitism will not be tolerated int the Labour Party. 

Corbyn's response?  "The idea that somehow or other there's a tolerance of any form of racism is wholly and totally fallacious."

What Corbyn is doing here is what Jeremy Newmark, Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, calls "antisemitism denial".   Corbyn does not tolerate antisemitism.  He just think that the guy who called a man who spread blood-libels against Jews a 'voice that must be heard'. 





Via Engage Online:
Jeremy Corbyn was interviewed on Sky News today. In response to the challenge from Lord Levy to ‘deliver a specific and categoric condemnation of antisemitism’, Corbyn proceeded to deliver a general and partial condemnation.  Labour is against antisemitism he repeated, again and again.  But he did not address the problem, as described clearly by all those who have thought seriously about it.  He refused.  He did the opposite.  He denounced antisemitism in the most general terms possible, as he denounces Islamophobia and all other racisms too.

He shows he does not understand the point by promising to stand by Jews if they are attacked on the street.  But within the Labour Party? He has nothing to say.

And then he accuses Lord Levy of bad faith.  He repeats the phrase Lord Levy ‘knows full well…’ three times .. (1) that I oppose antisemitism, (2) that the Labour Party opposes antisemitism and (3) that we all oppose antisemitism.  If he knows ‘full well’, then why is Lord Levy making all this trouble?  Jews must be up to something.  Corbyn is accusing Levy of mobilizing a bad-faith allegation in order to damage the Labour Party.
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Latvia: Jewish cemetery vandalized by drunk youth


Via CFCA:

Three teenagers were arrested for vandalizing the Jewish cemetery in Valdemārpils.  They say tehy were drunk and did not realize the severity of their actions.

UK: "I hear my fair share of jaw-dropping comments about ‘my kind’"


Emma Barnett @ The Telegraph:
Like Orwell, I can only provide personal examples as there still hasn’t been any decent research done into this area (something he was calling for in 1945). But as a blonde snub-nosed Jew, I hear my fair share of jaw-dropping comments about ‘my kind’ because I enjoy the benefits of being incognito – aka bearing no resemblance to Goebbels’ cartoons. From those educated well-spoken types who confidently assert that Jews “think differently” to the ones who believe we “run America”, dinner party anti-Semitism is alive and well.

And then there was the time my good friend, who knows my faith, cracked ‘a joke’ about Jews being tight with money. This is the same pal I lent cash to when he was between pay cheques. Amazingly he failed to make the ironic connection before I gently spelt it out.

It’s true the latest fashionable form of anti-Semitism is to hold Jews collectively responsible for the actions of Israel and then compare those acts to the Holocaust. And it’s true this particular strain has been nurtured in certain Labour circles.

However, anti-Semitism is not a virus limited to the Left. The Justice Secretary Michael Gove addressed this very point in Berlin this week when he said: "Modern anti-Semitism finds a home in far too many hearts.”

Quite.
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Germany: Bucket of feces placed on wall of Jewish cemetery


Via CFCA:
Köthen - Vandals had placed a bucket of feces on the wall of the Jewish cemetery in Köthen (Anhalt-Bitterfeld district). Spokesman for East Sachsen-Anhalt Police said on Wednesday that the United Jewish Communities notified on the event on Tuesday. At the moment, police checks which offence had been committed.

A picture of the bucket shows that a picture of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel was pasted on the bucket.
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Hungary: Menorah stolen from Holocaust memorial


Via Times of Israel:
On Sunday, an unrelated incident was discovered in Hungary, in the city of Zalaegerszeg, 135 miles west of Budapest. Unidentified vandals stole materials from a monument that was unveiled in 2005, consisting of a marble column fitted with a copper menorah.

Pictures via Szombat


before
after
 

UK: Jewish man forced to move carriages after anti-Semitic abuse from Chelsea fans on train



Via Evening Standard:
An Orthodox Jewish rail passenger was abused by a group of Chelsea fans after he was subjected to anti-Semitic chants following an FA Cup clash.

British Transport Police said the man was forced to move carriages after he was singled out by football supporters on a train from Milton Keynes to Euston on Sunday, January 31.

Detectives today released an image of a man they believe may have knowledge of the incident as part of a wider appeal for information.

(...)
“The carriage was crowded and they began using foul language. One of them singled out an Orthodox Jewish man and all of the men began chanting anti-Semitic abuse at him.”
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Belgium: 1979 - Terrorist attack at Brussels Airport against El Al

Today Islamic horror struck in Brussels.  At least 34 killed as terror attacks rock Brussels airport, metro.

On April 16, 1979, Jews had been the target of Palestinian terrorists at the Brussels airport.  JTA reported:
EI AI flight 334 is due to land at Ben Gurion Airport at midnight with passengers from Brussels who narrowly escaped a terrorist attack at Zavantem International Airport this afternoon. EI AI security guards helped foil the assault in a shoot-out in which two of the terrorists, identified as Arabs, were captured, and one of them wounded. No EI AI passengers or personnel were hurt. There was no immediate identification of the terrorists as being members of the Palestine Liberation Organization. (Belgian Red Crass officials said two people were hospitalized and 10 others treated on the spot for slight injuries.)

EI AI managing director Mordechai Hod said tonight that the terrorists threw two hand grenades in the duty-free shop area of the Belgian air terminal just after the EI AI flight from Tel Aviv had landed. EI AI security guards rushed to the scene of the explosions and joined Belgian gendarmerie who were battling the attackers. The latter tried to hide but quickly surrendered.

According to an Israel Radio report from Brussels, the terrorists had opened fire on passengers waiting to board the EI AI flight and others nearby. Hod indicated, however, that the scene of the attack was some distance from the EI AI embarkation and disembarkation gates. This raised questions as to whether EI AI passengers were the target. But an official at the Pan American Airways gate said there was no doubt that the attack was aimed at EI AI. He said the terrorists simply made a mistake. They were handed over to Belgian authorities.  [...]

(In New York, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations denounced the attack as “a savage and obscene act” that “confirms once again that Yasir Arafat and his band of murderers must be quarantined by civilized society. Those who find ‘moderation’ in the PLO deceive themselves and imperil the safety of innocent people everywhere.”
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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

France: AFP claims Iran, Morocco, Tunisia have 'significant' Jewish communities

This is AFP's headline for a story about Israel rescuing Jews from Yemen:


Israel 'rescues' 19 Jews from war-torn Yemen in covert operation

Note the scare quotes on the word 'rescue'.  Doe they have a problem saying simply that Israel rescues Jews?

The first sentence of the article does its best to put as much distance between Israel and the simple fact that it rescued Jews.
Israel has spirited 19 Jews out of war-torn Yemen in a "covert operation" to rescue some of the last remnants of one of the world's most ancient Jewish communities, officials said Monday.


But what I found most interesting in this article is the little tidbit at the end.  Because AFP could not write anything good about Israel without 'balancing' it with some made up claims about how well Jews are doing in some Muslim countries.
Elsewhere in the Muslim world, Iran, Morocco and Tunisia still boast significant Jewish communities.

What are 'significant' Jewish communities, you might ask?

Iran boasts less than 9,000 Jews (0.01% of the total population)
Morocco boasts less than 2,500 Jews (0.007% of the total population)
Tunisia boasts 1,700 Jews (0.015% of the total population)

These communities are just a small percentage of the communities that existed in these countries before they were expelled from their homes.

Iran boasts 6-9% of its former Jewish population.
Morocco boasts less than 1% of its former Jewish population
Tunisia boasts less than 2% of its former Jewish population

Watch: Does the Labour Party have an antisemitism problem?

Via Campaign Against Antisemitism:


UK: Labour peer threatens to quit over anti-Semitism


Via Politics Home:
A senior Labour peer has threatened to quit the party unless Jeremy Corbyn makes “absolutely clear” that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated.

Lord Levy called on Mr Corbyn to issue an “categoric and specific” condemnation throughout the party.

(...)
Lord Levy, who was formerly Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser, told Sky News yesterday: “Anti-Semitism in any political party cannot be tolerated. And it is for the [Labour] leadership to make that absolutely clear. If they don’t make that clear, then I will start to question myself and actually question my being a Labour peer and a proud member of the Labour party.

“Let us not narrow this down to a political party. Let us talk about anti-Semitism in the wider sense and [say] that there must be zero tolerance. Any form of anti-Semitism, no matter where it rears its ugly head, must be stopped.”

Lord Levy added: “Any person who joins the Labour party, or who is a member of the Labour party, who comes up with such vile comments as have been made by these two people who have now been expelled, and the problems there have been in Oxford, [should be] dealt with with immediacy.”


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