EclectEcon

Victor Davis Hanson on Munich and Iran

I'm not always keen on things published in Townhall, but this piece by Victor Davis Hanson merits consideration. He warns that the intense desire by Obama and Kerry to get a nuclear agreement with Iran, any agreement at all, is dangerously similar to the agreement struck in Munich with Hitler by Neville Chamberlain and the West.

Most Westerners accept that the Iranian government funds terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. It has all but taken over Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Yet the idea of stronger sanctions, blockades or even force to stop Iranian efforts to get a bomb are considered scarier than Iran getting a bomb that it just possibly might not threaten to use.

The U.S. and its NATO partners are far stronger than Iran in every imaginable measure of military and economic strength. The Iranian economy is struggling, its government is corrupt, and its conventional military is obsolete. Iran's only chance of gaining strength is to show both its own population and the world at large that stronger Western powers backed down in fear of its threats and recklessness. ...

By reaching an agreement with Iran, John Kerry and Barack Obama hope to salvage some sort of legacy -- in the vain fashion of Chamberlain -- out of a heretofore failed foreign policy.

There are more Munich parallels. The Iranian agreement will force rich Sunni nations to get their own bombs to ensure a nuclear Middle East standoff. A deal with Iran shows callous disagreed for our close ally Israel, which is serially threatened by Iran's mullahs. The United States is distant from Iran. But our allies in the Middle East and Europe are within its missile range. ...

Finally, the Iranians, like Hitler, have only contempt for the administration that has treated them so fawningly. During the negotiations in Switzerland, the Iranians blew up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier. Their supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, did his usual "death to America" shtick before adoring crowds.

I hope Hanson is wrong; I fear he is not.

The American Library Association Partners with Anti-Semitic Book Fair

From the Elder of Ziyon. The American Library Association recently partnered with the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates. Some of the books promoted at this book fair are examples of extreme anti-semitism.

The anti-Semitic books for sale at the fair were listed along­side main­stream books in var­i­ous cat­e­gories. For exam­ple, The Pro­to­cols of the Learned Elders of Zion was listed in the “Polit­i­cal Sci­ence” cat­e­gory. Among the other anti-Semitic books fea­tured at the fair were:

• Blood for The Pie of Zion (The Jew­ish Dis­trict) by Najib Al Gailany. This novel tells a story of a Chris­t­ian priest from Dam­as­cus who was abducted by the Jews in order to use his blood for Jew­ish rit­u­als. The story details how Jews danced and celebrated while Rab­bis drain the blood of the elderly catholic priest. The book was listed in the “Nov­els” cat­e­gory and sold for 15 AED, or approx­i­mately $4.
• The Jews and the Secret Move­ments in the Cru­sades by Baha Al-Amir. The book, which sug­gests that the Jews played a role in the Cru­sades, includes an intro­duc­tion in which the author claims that “God the almighty declares in his state­ment to the peo­ple that all wars were started by Jews.” The book was listed in the “Inter­na­tional Affairs” cat­e­gory and sold for 50 AED (approx­i­mately $14).
• Human Sac­ri­fices and Tal­mu­dic Slaugh­ter­ing by Jews and Pagans by Fathi Muham­mad Zughbi. The book was listed in the “Faith” cat­e­gory and sold for 83 AED (approx­i­mately $23).
• Mein Kampf by Adolf Hilter. This book was listed in the “Gen­eral knowl­edge” cat­e­gory and sold for 20 AED (approx­i­mately $5).

The fair pro­vided sev­eral grants and awards in var­i­ous fields of lit­er­a­ture. In the past, it report­edly gave a grant to Gilad Atz­mon to trans­late his anti-Semitic book “The Wan­der­ing Who,” into Ara­bic. The other problem is that if you try to register for the fair, in the list of countries you can be from there is one that is missing. Take a wild guess....

The EoZ adds,

So the ALA is now explicitly partnering with an event that activley promotes anti-semitism and discriminates against Israelis,

In the past, when principled organizations and prominent personalities told the UAE that they would not participate in activities that excluded Israelis or Jews, the UAE was anxious to drop the ban and do whatever they needed to do in order to not be embarrassed.

Clearly the American Library Association has no such principles.

And the UAE is purportedly one of the more moderate, modern Arab-Muslim countries in the middle east.

Peace between Israel and Palestine? Not Likely in our Time but Don't Blame Netanyahu

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent column in the Washington Post explaining the situation in the Middle East. It is brief, and hence misses many nuances I am sure, but it summarizes a lot of my own views about Israel.

If you grant that Israel has a right to exist (I do, but I am quite certain some of my friends do not), and if you grant Israel has a right and even an obligation to defend itself, then it is hard to blame just Israel for everything that happens there.

From Krauthammer,

I have news for the lowing herds: There would be no peace and no Palestinian state if Isaac Herzog were prime minister either. Or Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert for that matter. The latter two were (non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine uprooted — only to be rudely rejected.

This is not ancient history. This is 2000, 2001 and 2008 — three astonishingly concessionary peace offers within the past 15 years. Every one rejected.

The fundamental reality remains: This generation of Palestinian leadership — from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas — has never and will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a Jewish state.

But please, PLEASE read the entire column. It explains a lot of what lies behind my fairly strong pro-Israel views.

For my previous blog posts on Israel, click here.

The Education of Islamic Extremists

A writer who opposes Israel's policies toward Palestine writes about his experiences at The University of Westminster, the alma mater of Jihadi John in today's Washington Post. Excerpts:

As a vociferous critic of the Israeli government, I have participated in demonstrations and activities supporting Palestine for many years. Yet in a discussion about the conflict, I was horrified to hear a fellow student, supposedly a scholar of international relations and politics, complaining about “the f---ing Jews.” What bothered me even more than such bigoted rhetoric was that the individuals who voiced these extreme positions appeared to do so with impunity. ...

From my experiences, I believe that the university is unwittingly complicit in perpetuating such radicalization, as it has often allowed Islamist extremism to go unchallenged. I don’t think the university itself is advocating extremism, but by failing to prevent the advocacy of such ideas, the institution is attracting students who are sympathetic to them. Students who do not identify with extreme Islamist ideology are being put at risk of discrimination, intimidation and potentially radicalization by the university’s failure to properly handle the situation. ...

I hope that the humiliation of having Jihadi John among its alumni leads Westminster to implement big changes to quell extremism. If it does not, I fear for how many new recruits the Islamic State might garner from the graduating class of 2015.

 

 

Crusades and the Jews

Most of us knew that the Crusades were undertaken to capture Jerusalem and Israel from the Muslims and that many, many Muslims were killed during those wars. What is less well-known is that the first major victims of the first Crusade were Europe's Jews.

This history is told eloquently here in the New York Times Sunday Review.

THE first victims of the First Crusade, inspired in 1096 by the supposedly sacred mission of retaking Jerusalem from Muslims, were European Jews. Anyone who considers it religiously and politically transgressive to compare the behavior of medieval Christian soldiers to modern Islamic terrorism might find it enlightening to read this bloody story, as told in both Hebrew and Christian chronicles. ...

Just as the Crusades were integrally linked to Roman Catholicism in the Middle Ages, terrorist movements today are immersed in a particular anti-modern interpretation of Islam. This does not imply that a majority of Muslims agree with violent religious ideology. It does mean that the terrorists’ brand of belief plays a critical role in their savage assault on human rights.

Cultural ignoramuses portrayed President Obama’s references to the Crusades and the Inquisition at the recent National Prayer Breakfast as an excuse for Islamic terrorism, but the president’s allusions could and should have been used as an opportunity to reflect on the special damage inflicted in many historical contexts by warriors seeking conquest in the name of their god.

The details set out there are appalling: Jews were forced to pay protection money, forcibly converted to Christianity, or exiled. Thousands were killed even after having paid extortionate protection money.

A similar account appears here.

The Crusades turned into campaigns of slaughter, rape, and pillage, and woe to the poor Jews in the way. Indeed, the Crusades mark the first large-scale European mob violence directed against Jews which is going to become, unfortunately, the pattern for the next hundreds of years. The later pogroms are just going to be a repeat of this idea.

The Jews were not the only ― and in fact, not the primary ― victims of the Crusaders. Muslims were.  ...

[A]bout 30%-50% of the Jewish community of Europe met its end. Some 10,000 Jews of an estimated population of about 20,000-30,000 were slaughtered by Crusaders mobs.

And the conclusion from the Sunday Review article:

What we actually see today is a standard of medieval behavior upheld by modern fanatics who, like the crusaders, seek both religious and political power through violent means. They offer a ghastly and ghostly reminder of what the Western world might look like had there never been religious reformations, the Enlightenment and, above all, the separation of church and state.

Understanding ISIS

Several friends have highly recommended this piece on ISIS in The Atlantic. I haven't finished it yet. It is about 10K words, a very  lengthy essay.

For those who don't even want to start it, let me recommend this summary blog post by the Elder of Ziyon. It is lengthy for a blog post, but it's really the equivalent of only a page or two. Some highlights:

[A]s you read it, you see that outside of military annihilation, there is no way to defeat it anyway (although Wood thinks that containment can work over time, causing new recruits to become disillusioned at the failure of the caliphate to continuously expand.)

One major point is that their leaders are not crazy. Their beliefs are consistent and if you are willing to listen to them, they will tell you their strategy and tactics. ...

IS cannot be stopped by religious arguments - because their entire point is to bring Islam back to the 7th century, back to Mohammed's own practices. And any Muslim who argues that Mohammed's methods don't apply nowadays cannot win an argument against IS... [emphasis in the original]...

The author underplays the appeal of a non-hypocritical Islam, when Islam itself has no theological alternative to believing that Mohammed was the perfect prophet and example to mankind. Young people who embrace Islam will be far more likely to choose the strain that is the most internally consistent, and as it stands, that is IS.

In other words, neither arguments nor diplomacy nor military strength will defeat ISIS. It is difficult to pray for world peace under these circumstances, other than as a wonderful dream and hope. To follow this thought, read the Elder's post even if you don't read the more lengthy piece in The Atlantic.

Has the New York Times Been Intimidated by Islamists?

In today's story about the Danish shootings, the New York Times headline reads,

Terror Attacks by a Native Son Rock Denmark

One might reasonably be led to believe that the most important characteristic of the shooter was that it was a Dane who shot up the free-speech meeting and the synagogue.

It is not until the 6th and 7th paragraphs that we read,

Though the gunman’s name and basic biographical details were still unclear late Sunday, he appears to have shared some traits with at least two of the militants responsible for the Paris violence, notably a criminal record and an abrupt transition from street crime to Islamic militancy.

The Danish news media identified him as Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, but the Copenhagen police did not confirm his name. [emphasis added]

A native son, maybe, but also an Islamic militant.

Despicable. Growing Indications of the Anti-Semitism in Europe

Shootings in Denmark and now this:

France’s interior minister said Sunday several hundred tombs had been defaced at a Jewish cemetery in the east of the country, in what he called “a despicable act.”

Scandalous and Unacceptable

From Reuters:

The head of a U.N. inquiry into last summer's conflict between Israel and Gaza said on Monday he would resign after Israeli allegations of bias due to consultancy work he did for the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Canadian academic William Schabas was appointed last August by the head of the United Nations Human Rights Council to lead a three-member group looking into alleged war crimes during Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

In a letter to the commission, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Schabas said he would step down immediately to prevent the issue from overshadowing the preparation of the report and its findings, which are due to be published in March.

Everyone knew of this person's biases long before he was appointed head the group. He had done paid work for the Palestine Liberation Organization and had gone on record as referring to Israel as his enemy.

And what timing!

The commission had largely finished gathering evidence and had begun writing the report...

So this person who is known to have extreme biases against Israel was left at the head of a commission until its work was nearly completed? How unbiased do you really think the report will be?

As the Elder of Ziyon says,

Everyone knew Schabas was biased. He referred to Zionists as "enemies." He participated in a kangaroo court against Israel. Even he admitted he was biased, but he claimed that he - unlike every judge on the planet - would be objective despite his having already formed his anti-Israel opinions.

This attitude was widely criticized by prominent lawyers, as are listed at UN Watch.

However, the sheer nerve that he shows here takes the cake. He finally decided to step down after Israel was ready to show evidence that he was paid by one of the sides that he was supposedly investigating. Instead of apologizing for hiding this very salient fact about his history when he was appointed to the commission, Schabas instead lashes out at those who exposed his utter contempt for the concept of impartiality.

Who just happen to be his "enemies."

The late-date move is a farce anyway. The commission has already written the majority of not the entire report by now. All of the evidence and testimony has already been slanted by Schabas' anti-Israel bias. If anything, his taking his name off of the commission might end up giving the slanted report a little more credibility after he has already poisoned it.

Here's one final question: If Schabas had planned from the beginning to be a new Richard Falk, and to use this UN commission to do everything possible to demonize Israel while paying lip service to the idea of fairness, would he have acted any differently than we have seen him act?

Scandalous and unacceptable. But not surprising, given the biases rampant throughout the UN.

Update: Check out the NYTimes bias in how they report it:

Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including more than 500 children, were killed, according to the United Nations, with 100,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. On the Israeli side, six civilians and 67 soldiers were killed. 

No mention of all the tunnels from Gaza into Israel and scant mention of the rockets fired from Gaza. What a way to conclude the article. Don't tell me the NYTimes is unbiased and a legitimate news source.

 

Never Forget

“Oh God, oh God,” he said, unable to control a rush of tears. “This is where they died. This is where they took them from us. I can see it. I can see it! Why? Because we were Jewish? I still don’t get it. I still don’t get the hate.”

From the Washington Post's article about Auschwitz.

Melanie Phillips to Visit London.... London, Ontario

Renowned pro-Israel writer, Melanie Phillips, will be visiting London, Ontario, on October 28th. I am delighted, and I will make sure I go to see her.

I have been following Melanie Phillips' writings for nearly a decade, including her early blogging, and while I was teaching in England we corresponded about the growing influence of Islam in London, England. Her book, Londonistan, was published about that time and I think it was one of the last books I ever bought in hardback.

 Here are the details about her upcoming visit to this London:

Melanie Phillips

Columnist for the Times of London, Jerusalem Post and Jewish Chronicle, and author of Londonistan, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power, and Guardian Angel.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 7:30 pm

London Jewish Community Centre

536 Huron Street, London Tel: 519-673-3310
Free Event 

With thanks to Eva, Mary Lou, Susan, and many others for helping to make this happen.

Obama Enraged at Israel

From Bret Stephens at WSJournal Online [via MK]:

Now think about what, specifically, has enraged the president about Israel's behavior. "Its actions and its treatment of his chief diplomat."

Actions? Hamas began firing rockets at Israel in June, thereby breaking the cease-fire it had agreed to at the end of the last war, in November 2012. The latest war began in earnest on July 7 when Hamas fired some 80 rockets at Israel. "No country can accept rocket fire aimed at civilians," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the next day, "and we support Israel's right to defend itself against these vicious attacks."

On July 15 Israel accepted the terms of a cease-fire crafted by Egypt. Hamas violated it by firing 50 rockets at Israel. On July 17 Israel accepted a five-hour humanitarian cease-fire. Hamas violated it again. On July 20 Israel allowed a two-hour medical window in the neighborhood of Shujaiyeh. Hamas violated it. OnJuly 26 Hamas announced a daylong cease-fire. It then broke its own cease-fire. On July 28 Israel agreed to a cease-fire for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. The rocket attacks continued. On Aug. 1 Israel accepted a 72-hour cease-fire proposed by the U.S. Hamasviolated it within 90 minutes. On Aug. 5 Israel agreed to Egypt's terms for another three-day cease-fire. Hamas violated it several hours before it was set to expire, after Israel announced it would agree to an extension.

If Hamas had honored any of these cease-fires it could have saved Palestinian lives. It didn't. Mr. Obama is enraged—but not with Hamas.

As for Israel's supposed ill-treatment of Mr. Kerry, the president should read Ben Birnbaum's and Amir Tibon's account of his secretary's Mideast misadventures in the July 20 issue of the New Republic. It's a portrait of a diplomat with the skills and style, but not the success, of Inspector Clouseau. Mr. Obama might also read Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit's assessment of Mr. Kerry's diplomacy: "The Obama administration," he wrote in July, "proved once again that it is the best friend of its enemies, and the biggest enemy of its friends."

Both Haaretz and the New Republic are left-wing publications, sympathetic to Mr. Obama's intentions, if not his methods.

Still, the president is enraged. At Israel. What a guy.

Related articles

Israel and Gaza what about all the rockets?

Did George Orwell write the script for Hamas?

Bret Stephens: Obama's Curious Rage

Romney: Israel Has A 'Duty' To Defend Itself From Hamas Rockets

The Rise of Anti-Semitism

When someone in Sweden feels they must take down an Israeli flag to reduce the risk of harm to their family and yet a neighbour there has no qualms about showing a Palestinian flag, it might not be anti-Semitism.

But it probably is.

Read this, about what happened when a Swedish journalist traveled with an Israeli flag sewn on her suitcase. After describing the vandalism of her suitcase and its contents, she adds,

I get the call a few days later. That tension I always have from looking over my shoulder has started to release, I’m on the beach sipping coffee and reading some book I was sure to forget the minute I put it down. The voice on the other end is damp with resignation. My friend tells me that Sweden ever so quickly has gone from so-called anti-Zionism to open anti-Semitism, and that no one seems to care. Every day it gets worse, every minute the tone shifts and the shadows grow more ominous. ...

I just can’t live like this any longer. I can’t accept that life consists of long periods of fear and despair, interrupted by the short bursts of happiness I get when I come back to Israel. I can’t raise my kids to hide who they are, I can’t usher them into a society that teaches them they are the other and that being less of who they are is the key to survival....

I got back to Sweden yesterday and something has changed, the shift is so tangible. Within me, yes, but also in the world around me. I take down my Israeli flag that I so proudly hung from my balcony. I’m told it is no longer safe, and I have to make a choice between being open and keeping my children safe. The Palestinian flag hanging from my neighbor’s window is still visible across the courtyard. I notice the injustice, but the outrage is replaced with sadness and fatigue.

My backpack:

Related articles

It Isn't "Just Bullying", It's Anti-Semitism

"Sweden ever so quickly has gone from so-called anti-Zionism to open anti-Semitism"

Is The Economist Asserting that a Jewish Conspiracy Controls the US?

Mainstream Educators and Anti-Semitism

If Being Anti-Israel Isn't Anti-Semitic, It's Mighty Close

Anti-Semitism Rises in Europe Amid Israel-Gaza Conflict

Anti-Semitism in Europe

It isn't all just anti-Israel. It isn't all  pro-Hamas. It isn't all Islamofascism. There has been a re-emergence of anti-Semitism in Europe [and elsewhere?] that is undeniable and undeniably wrong. From Slate,

A recent Anti-Defamation League survey found that 24 percent of the French population and 21 percent of the German population harbor some anti-Semitic attitudes. A recent study of anti-Semitic letters received by Germany’s main Jewish organization found that 60 percent of the hate mail came from well-educated Germans. So this isn’t just a problem with young, disaffected Muslim men.

After all, the two worst recent incidents of violence against Jews in Europe—the killing of three children and a teacher in a 2012 attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse and the shooting of three people at a Jewish museum in Brussels in May—took place during times when there wasn’t much news coming out of Israel. Continentwide statistics on anti-Semitic incidents leading up to the most recent uptick don’t show much of an overall trend—in Britain, anti-Semitic violence is becoming less common while online abuse is becoming more frequent—or a correlation with events in Israel and Palestine. ...

Europe’s anti-Semitism problem may be more open and obvious when Middle Easter violence in the news, then, but it’s not simply a reaction to whatever’s going on in Israel. Rather, it’s always just below the surface, threatening to bubble over.

Related articles

A Clear Statement on the Anti-Semitism of Academic Boycotts of Israel

If It Isn't Anti-Semitism, What IS It?

The anti-Semitic shame of Malmö, Sweden continues with attack on Rabbi

Anti-Semitic attacks soar across Europe amid Israel's operation in Gaza

Questions for Journalists in the Middle East

MA sent me this link (also here) of 40 questions to ask journalists reporting on Gaza/Hamas. Here are a few:

18.   Russia Today journalist Harry Fear mentioned rocket-launching sites near his hotel. Have you noticed any terrorists or terror bases near your hotel?

19.   How do you feel about Fear’s expulsion from Gaza, for tweeting about the rocket launches from civilian areas? Are you worried that you might also be expelled from Gaza?

20.   Did you see any Hamas terror personnel inside Al-Shifa hospital?

21.   Have you interviewed a Hamas spokesperson inside Al-Shifa?

24.   Hamas’ command and control bunker is underneath Al Shifa hospital. Is this worth reporting? Have you asked to gain access to it, so you can interview Hamas commanders?

25.  French newspaper Liberation reported that Hamas’ Al Qassam offices are next to the emergency room at Shifa hospital, before deleting the article. Was the reporter right to delete the article, and will the information appear in the media at some point still?

26.   When the missile hit Al-Shati hospital where children were killed, did you see Hamas operatives collecting the debris of the fallen Palestinian rocket, as Gabriel Barbati reported? Did Barbati pick up on something you missed?

27.   Barbati prefaced his tweet by writing “Out of Gaza, far from Hamas retaliation.” Will you also report differently about Gaza when you are out of Gaza, far from Hamas retaliation?

28.   Can live journalism by reporters who are scared of retaliation from the authorities they are reporting about really count as pure journalism, or is journalism in that context fundamentally compromised?

37.   When Hamas breaks a ceasefire with Israel – as it has done 6 times – how easy is it to report on this from Gaza?

38.   Is there any anti-Hamas sentiment in Gaza, and how is it expressed?

39.   Were you aware that Hamas chose to execute dozens of anti-war protesters in Gaza, and did you not consider this to be worth reporting?

40.   Is international media reporting from Gaza free from pressure and intimidation, or is there a real problem – and if so, how will you address it?

Let me add to this list: now ask the same questions of journalists reporting from Israel about the Israel-Hamas war.

My bet about the results: there is one heck of a lot more freedom of the press and one heck of a lot less intimidation in Israel than there is in Gaza.

And, if that is the case, it should raise questions about the news reports about the war, especially those filed from Gaza.

 

Some Additional Considerations about Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank

Eric, my friend from BISC, sent me this link. It explores six possible reasons Israel is losing a war it is winning.

I find #5 particularly worth considering:

5. Israel’s political leadership has done little in recent years to make their cause seem appealing. It is impossible to convince a Judeophobe that Israel can do anything good or useful, short of collective suicide. But there are millions of people of good will across the world who look at the decision-making of Israel’s government and ask themselves if this is a country doing all it can do to bring about peace and tranquility in its region. Hamas is a theocratic fascist cult committed to the obliteration of Israel. But it doesn’t represent all Palestinians. Polls suggest that it may very well not represent all of the Palestinians in Gaza. There is a spectrum of Palestinian opinion, just as there is a spectrum of Jewish opinion.

I don’t know if the majority of Palestinians would ultimately agree to a two-state solution. But I do know that Israel, while combating the extremists, could do a great deal more to buttress the moderates. This would mean, in practical terms, working as hard as possible to build wealth and hope on the West Bank. A moderate-minded Palestinian who watches Israel expand its settlements on lands that most of the world believes should fall within the borders of a future Palestinian state might legitimately come to doubt Israel’s intentions. Reversing the settlement project, and moving the West Bank toward eventual independence, would not only give Palestinians hope, but it would convince Israel’s sometimes-ambivalent friends that it truly seeks peace, and that it treats extremists differently than it treats moderates. And yes, I know that in the chaos of the Middle East, which is currently a vast swamp of extremism, the thought of a West Bank susceptible to the predations of Islamist extremists is a frightening one. But independence—in particular security independence—can be negotiated in stages. The Palestinians must go free, because there is no other way.

Related articles

Further Thoughts on Israel

Mainstream Educators and Anti-Semitism

FLASHBACK - ISIS linked organization takes responsibility for alleged kidnapping of three teenagers including one American in Israel

No Matter What Your Take on Israel-Gaza, This Is Pure Anti-Semitism

During an anti-Israel demonstration in Paris, mobs attacked synogogues chanting in French "Slaughter the Jews."

[L]ast Sunday in the French capital during a demonstration against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge [s]ome of the marchers broke off and made a beeline for two centrally located synagogues.

The worst incident occurred at the Don Isaac Abravanel Synagogue on Rue de la Roquette (in the heavily Jewish 11th arrondissement). A mob donning keffiyehs, waving jihadist flags and wielding clubs and chairs grabbed from nearby sidewalk cafés tried to storm the synagogue and harm the worshipers trapped inside. Police and Jewish security volunteers fought them. Some Jewish defenders and officers were wounded in the melee.

The attackers chanted “Death to the Jews” in French, along with the Arabic Itbach el-Yahud (“Slaughter the Jews”). The siege on the synagogue lasted for well over an hour.

That sure sounds like anti-Semitism to me.

Related articles

What Happened to "Never Again"?

"Shoot the Jews"? Peace-Lovers in South Africa

WATCH: Jews clash with pro-Palestinians at Paris Gaza rally

Anti-Israel protesters besiege Paris synagogue

I'm Going to Start Carrying this Backpack Again

Albania, Muslims, and Jews

Multiculturalism as it ought to work.

Albania was the only European country whose Jewish population after the Holocaust was far larger than that before the Holocaust.

Although a predominantly Muslim country, Albania practices a tradition known as Besa, or faith, in which hospitality and taking care of the needs of others and ensuring their safety and security is paramount.

The first Jews came to Albania in the second century CE and, according to Ditmir, there has never been any history of anti-Semitism in the country.

“Nations that have suffered themselves understand the pain and suffering of others,” said Bushati, adding that Albania demonstrates the goodwill of one nation to another and serves as a model of tolerance and compassion.

Albania’s accession to the European Union will be reviewed this week, and if all goes well, the country will not only be a beneficiary but will also be able to influence European policy against the spread of anti-Semitism, Bushati said in response to a question.

What Happened to "Never Again"?

From The Tablet [via Rebekah]:

Yesterday we reported on the disturbing incident in the Paris suburb of Romainville in which two Jewish teenagers and their grandfather were chased by a man with an ax on their way to synagogue last week for Shavuot. Over the weekend, in an equally bizarre attack, two Jewish teens were sprayed with tear gas on Saturday night in Sarcelles, a Paris suburb about 16 km from Romainville, JTA reports. As in the previous incident, the boys were wearing yarmulkes. ...

Last month, a Jewish woman with a baby was attacked at a Paris bus station by a man who shouted “Dirty Jewess” at her. In March, a Jewish teacher leaving a kosher restaurant in Paris had his nose broken by a group of assailants who also drew a swastika on his chest. One week earlier, an Israeli man was attacked with a stun gunoutside a Paris synagogue, and a week before that a 28-year-old Jewish man wasbeaten on the Paris metro to chants of “Jew, we are going to lay into you, you have no country.” In a chilling video from January, anti-government demonstrators shout “Jew, France is Not Yours” as they march through the streets of Paris.

It Isn't "Just Bullying", It's Anti-Semitism

When grade 8 students play games and taunt Jewish students with "get in the oven", that's anti-Semitism, not just bullying.

Apparently, calling their team "Jew Incinerator" wasn't enough for this group of high achieving CPS [Chicago Public Schools] students.  According to Clemente, these little geniuses wrote on the site, “Heil! Throw Jews into ovens for a cause.” They also wrote, “We are a friendly group of racists with one goal — put all Jews into an army camp until disposed of” and then concluded with that famous Nazi greeting,  “Sieg! Heil!"

At least they're friendly racists.

What is worse, the response by CPS or the actions of the students?  Pretty close, I'd say.  They're just kids still so they can't entirely be held responsible for their actions.  Albeit, they had to learn these concepts somewhere.  Would that be from their "bullying" parents?  Similarly, CPS officials don't seem to want to call the students' actions what they really are and have resorted to the safer, more socially acceptable excuse that the victim here was "bullied."

Apologies. I omitted a link to the article. I'm not sure if this is the one, but there were several.

Czech President Speaks Out on Islam, Israel, and Anti-Semitism

Recently, Milos Zeman, President of the Czech Republic, made a very strong statement about Islam, Israel, and Anti-Semitism [via MA]. Here are some excerpts:

“The only holiday of independence which I can never leave out is the celebration of the independence of the Jewish State of Israel,” Zeman said.

“There are other nations with whom we share the same values, whether it’s free elections or a free market economy, but no one is threatening to delete those states from the map. No one shoots at their border towns and no one wants to see the citizens of those nations driven out of their country.”

“There is a term called political correctness and I consider it to be a euphemism for political cowardice. So I refuse to be cowardly.”

“It is necessary to name the enemy of human civilization and this enemy is international terrorism associated with religious fundamentalism and religious intolerance. ...

“I am not reassured by the claims that this is the work of only a small fringe group. Quite the contrary. I believe that xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism stems from the essential ideology that these fanatical groups are based on.”

“And let me provide a proof of this assertion in a quote from one of its sacred texts. ‘The Jews will hide behind stones and trees. Then the tree will call out, ‘A Jew hides behind me, come and kill him.’ The stone will call out, ‘A Jew hides behind me, come and kill him.’

“I criticized those who call for the killing of the Arabs, but I don’t know of about any mass movement that calls for the mass murder of Arabs. I do however know of an anti-civilizational movement which calls for the mass murder of the Jews.”

“One of the articles in the Hamas Charter calls for killing Jews.”

“Do we really want to pretend that this is only a small group of extremists? Can we really be politically correct and insist that they are all good and that only a tiny number of the extremists and fundamentalists are committing these crimes?” [emphasis added]

A UK/Czech-Based Schindler? Sir Nicholas Winton

Sir Nicholas Winton recently turned 105. He is credited with having saved the lives of over 600 children in 1938-39, most of them Jewish, by arranging trains to carry them out of Czechslovakia and arranging foster homes for them in England. From the Guardian [via MA]:

There are around 6,000 people around the world today who owe Winton their lives. It was late in December 1938 when the stockbroker from Hampstead cancelled a holiday to go to Prague to see what was happening to refugees there. Winton spent only three weeks in the city - the most leave he could get from his job at home - but it was enough time for him to recognise the impending threat facing the refugees who had arrived following the Nazi invasion of the Czech Sudentenland in October 1938.

He immediately set about organising eight evacuations of the children on the Kindertransport train. He advertised in newspapers for foster homes, got the necessary permits from the immigration office in the UK, and persuaded the Germans to let the children leave the country. When Winton returned to his job in London on 21 January 1939 he continued the rescue mission, working in the evenings until the last train was cancelled when war broke out in September 1939. ...

What an amazingly modest, humble man:

But Hálová [one of those rescued] would never have met Winton had his wife Grete not discovered a scrapbook in the loft some 50 years later. He kept his rescue mission quiet for half a century, not telling even his wife or family. When the story emerged in 1988, it did so in spectacular fashion on the BBC's That's Life programme. Sitting in the audience, Winton was astonished when Esther Rantzen announced live on air that the woman sitting next to him, and much of the rest of the audience, were people that he had saved.

Apartheid in the Middle East? Look at how the other arab countries discriminate against the Palestinians

Whenever people accuse Israel of practicing apartheid, I am flabbergasted. What about all the serious discrimination that goes on in all the other countries of the middle east?

From this column [via MA]:

The dirty little secret is out. It is the Arab countries, not Israel, that have to be considered apartheid states. ...

It is easy to illustrate the general behavior of denial of rights by Arabs by specific reference to racial, ethnic, religious, and gender discrimination against black Africans, the Kurds, Christians and Jews, and women. It is more potent to illustrate it by actions or non-actions regarding the Palestinians, the very people regarded as being “oppressed” by Israel.

One telling feature is the frequent refusal, usually for financial reasons, of Arab hospitals to provide medical treatment for Palestinians, compared with the hospitality of Israeli hospitals that have treated thousands of Palestinians every year, even wounded would-be suicide bombers, from the West Bank and Gaza.

The policy of Arab apartheid was made clear by the Arab League's Resolution 1457 of 1959. Though there is supposed to be an “Arab nation,” the Arab countries would not grant citizenship to applicants of Palestinian origin deliberately in order to prevent their assimilation into the host countries.

A statement by Mahmoud Abbas, published in the official PLO journal in March 1976, complains of this policy. The Arab armies that invaded Israel “forced [the Palestinians] to leave their homeland, imposed on them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe.” [emphasis added]

In Syria, Palestinian refugees in 1954 were granted partial rights, though not political rights. For many years they were not allowed to hold property, and they have never been allowed to become citizens. The Assad regime, controlled by the Alawites, 14 percent of the population, are in charge not only of the government, but of a considerable part of business.

The Kurds have traditionally been excluded from the political, economic, and cultural life of the country and have been subjected to denial of basic human rights, to persecution, to mass murder, and to arbitrary police behavior. ...

Jordan has been the only Arab country to grant citizenship to Palestinians, but since 1988 it has arbitrarily withdrawn that nationality without notice from thousands. In 1983, Jordan introduced different color-coded travel cards for Palestinians to and from the West Bank.

This has created different levels of citizenship rights, in access to education at all levels, and in fees for drivers’ licenses. Above all, Palestinian non-nationals require a residency permit, thus suffering in the job market. They still are generally not allowed to practice some of the organized professions.

The claim that Israel is an apartheid state has always been a malicious falsehood.

 

Related articles

A Quiz on Apartheid

For Everyone Who Supports the Boycott of Israeli Scholars and Their Institutions

No apartheid in Israel, lots of it in the Arab world

Kerry was wrong: In Israel, there may never be apartheid. In the West Bank, it's already here

Israeli Apartheid? To Arabs, It's a Model Democracy

Fulford on Johansson and BDS

From the National Post [via Jack]:

My own belief is that the BDS people and their fellow travellers, whatever their background, are anti-Semites. They do all they can to stigmatize the Jewish state and reduce its ability to defend itself. They know that Israel is surrounded by neighbours who will never recognize its existence, much less sign a treaty developed in a “peace process” quarterbacked by Washington. The Palestinians and the Arab states who claim to support them are not hoping for a more generous Israel or a BDS-approved Israel or an Israel willing to hand over the West Bank. They are working for a day when Israel will be gone forever.

In order to satisfy this generation’s anti-Semites, Israel must meet standards that no other country in the world has ever met or ever will. At the United Nations Israel is condemned more often than all other countries combined.

It is, of course, an imperfect democracy, like Canada and all other free countries, and its human rights record could certainly be improved. But its treatment of Palestinians has never been even remotely comparable to China’s oppression of Tibetans or Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women, two among many outrageous practices that apparently never trouble the students who direct their anger at Israel.

In devising their purposes the BDS campaigners have never shown even the beginning of a sense of proportion. It’s remarkable that the world needs a 29-year-old movie star to point this out.

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Another Example. Why I Am Concerned about Jew-Hatred.

Every once in awhile someone asks me why I am such a strong Israelphile and why I frequently raise the issue of anti-Semitism here on the blog. Things like this are one reason. From the article quoted there,

In another stage of the Passover celebrations, [the Jews] combined the preparation of matzas and the offering up of sacrifices with their enmity towards non-Jews, especially Christians, and mixed the blood of one of their victims into the matza [dough. This was done] especially on Passover, Purim and circumcision rituals. They also used blood in acts of sorcery and witchcraft...

...The draining of the victims' blood is done in [several ways. One method is] by means of a barrel lined with needles. This is a barrel the size of the victim's body, with sharp needles that stick into all his limbs when he is placed in it, so that his blood slowly trickles down from every part of his body. This entails excruciating torment, which gives pleasure to the Jews who become drunk with joy at the sight of the blood dripping from the victim's [body] to the bottom of the barrel and into a container placed there to collect it. [Another method] is to slaughter the victim like a sheep and collecting his blood in a vessel, or else slashing the victim's veins in numerous places so that the blood flows from the wounds into the vessels. Then the blood is handed to a rabbi who prepares a matza laced with human blood in order to please the Jewish god, Jehovah, who thirsts for blood. The Jews can rejoice in their holidays only if they eat matza laced with the blood of non-Jews. [emphasis added]

I once had a friend tell me all about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if that fabrication was factual. So I did some internet searches, discovered it was a fraud, printed off the results, and took them to him. His wife looked at him critically then as if to say, "See, I told you so."

Overland, Kansas, Jew-Hatred, and Islamophobia

The Elder of Ziyon makes some telling points about the recent attack on people (not all Jews, it turned out) at Jewish centres in Overland, Kansas.

In general, the US is a great place for Jews to live. Jews have little to fear in most of their communities. It is not at all like many places in Europe or in the Arab world.

But antisemitism exists, both from the right and the left, and it regularly manifests itself with extreme violence. 

Yet when was the last time antisemitism merited a front page story in a major newspaper or magazine?

Time Magazine in 2010 had a cover story on Islamophobia. As I noted then, the number of antisemitic incidents in the US in 2010 dwarfed the number of anti-Muslim incidents. 

Unless I am mistaken, there has not been a single Muslim fatality due to an anti-Muslim hate crime in the US since 9/11. (One Sikh was killed in an anti-Muslim attack and two other Sikhs were killed since 9/11 under unclear circumstances, plus a horrific murder of six Sikhs who were killed by a white supremacist.) .)

There is real hate out there in the US, and real people willing to kill people in service of that hate. And the objects of that deadly hate are not Muslims.

Outside of occasional stories like these, you wouldn't know that.

Of Course All the BDS anti-Israel Folks Will Give This Product a Miss

Details here.

A new battery than can recharge a cellphone in 30 seconds has just been shown off at a Microsoft conference in Tel Aviv.

The founder of StoreDot—the start-up that has a working prototype—told the BBC that he expects the company to have a viable product to market in 3 years.

Legal filing says Apple's exploring a new TV box

The bio materials that make up the new battery were discovered in the process of developing a cure for Alzheimer's disease, the BBC said.

Boycotts. Again.

As most readers know, I am a gentile who strongly supports the continuing existence of Israel. And as many readers know, it can be difficult to distinguish anti-Israel arguments from anti-semitic statements. Robert Fine does a superb job of helping to distinguish the two here [via MA]. One of his key arguments, for me, is this:

The academic boycott fails to make a distinction crucial to all radical political thought: that between civil society and the state. The academic boycott punishes a segment of civil society, in this case Israeli universities and their members, for the deeds and misdeeds of the state. The occupation of Palestine [EE: the Palestine of the pre-1967 borders, I presume] and the human rights abuses that flow from the occupation are to my mind simply wrong, but there is something very troubling in holding Israeli universities and academics responsible for this wrong. Israeli academics doubtless hold many different political views, just as we academics do in the UK, but the principle of collective responsibility applied to Israeli academe as a whole sends us down a slippery path. ...

 A selective academic boycott aimed only at Israeli academic institutions and not at universities and research institutes belonging to other countries with equally bad or far worse records of human rights abuse, is also discriminatory. I admit that the wrongs done by ‘my own people’, in this case fellow Jews, grieve me more than the wrongs done by other peoples, but this is a confession, not a principle of political action. An academic boycott directed exclusively at Israeli academic institutions generates a quite realistic sense that Israel is being picked on – not because it is different from other countries but because it is the same. Given the slaughter currently occurring in Syria, including that of Palestinian refugees, given the repression currently imposed by the military government in Egypt, given the slave-like conditions currently endured by migrant workers in Qatar, it is increasingly eccentric to select Israel alone for boycott.[EE: emphasis added]

Eccentric? Try anti-semitic.

Mainstream Educators and Anti-Semitism

This is both shocking and not-so-surprising. Shocking that smart, educated people can write things like this; not-so-surprising because I have seen so much on university campuses that is consistent with these results [via MA].

Prof. Monika Schwarz-Friesel of the Technical University of Berlin ... [studied] 10 years’ worth of hate mail–14,000 letters, emails, and faxes in all–sent to the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Israeli embassy in Berlin. In an interview published in Haaretz yesterday, she said she fully expected to discover that most of it came from right-wing extremists. But in fact, right-wing extremists accounted for a mere 3 percent, while over 60 percent came from educated members of “the social mainstream – professors, Ph.Ds, lawyers, priests, university and high-school students,” she said. Nor were there any significant differences between right-wing extremists’ letters and those of the educated mainstream, Schwarz-Friesel said: “The difference is only in the style and the rhetoric, but the ideas are the same.”

To be clear, these letters weren’t just criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians; we’re talking about classic anti-Semitism–as evident from the samples Haaretz cited:

“It is possible that the murder of innocent children suits your long tradition?” one letter said.

“For the last 2,000 years, you’ve been stealing land and committing genocide,” said another.

“You Israelis … shoot cluster bombs over populated areas and accuse people who criticize such actions of anti-Semitism. That’s typical of the Jews!”

I don't always agree with Israeli policy, and I definitely have questions about the advisability of continued expansion of west-bank settlements. But to write things like those quoted above, or to blame Israel for "apartheid" when it is a far more open and democratic society than its Arab neighbours is incomprehensible.

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A Clear Statement on the Anti-Semitism of Academic Boycotts of Israel

Ring the Bells Loud and Clear: Anti-semitism Is Gone sarcasm from Howard Jacobson