‘Kick a Jew day’ ends in suspensions for 10 Florida students
By Haaretz Service

Ten middle school students in Naples, Florida have been suspended after taking part in what they termed “Kick a Jew Day” at their school, school district officials reported.

The one day in-school suspensions were served earlier this week.

The incident occurred a day before red-haired students were targeted at a California middle school in what was a Facebook group called “Kick a Ginger Day,” which some say was inspired by the popular American animation series South Park.

The Naples Daily News quoted local school district officials as saying that they will concentrate on cultural sensitivity training, including 20 minutes of homeroom meetings each day at North Naples Middle School, on building character traits such as respect and kindness and on the prevention of bullying.

In the “Kick a Ginger Day” attacks, nobody was seriously hurt and no arrests were made.

The newspaper quoted a local Jewish leader as saying the incidents should result in more than suspensions.

“You are talking about an incident that has anti-Jewish bias if not anti-Semitism. You have Jewish students being singled out, harassed and assaulted,” David Barkey of the Florida Anti-Defamation League told the Naples Daily News.

“If the allegations are true, it is possible these students violated Florida’s new anti-bullying law. And, if students were physically assaulted, it could rise to the level of criminal conduct,” he added.

Rabbi James Perman, of Temple Shalom in North Naples, called the situation “alarming.”

“I can tell you this: I haven’t seen anything like it in my 17 years in Naples. No child deserves this kind of treatment,” he wrote in an e-mail Monday, the paper reported.

“Their parents are understandably outraged. So far it seems that the school system has taken appropriate measures and we applaud their efforts. At this point, teaching sensitive awareness is more important than punishing anyone.”

En undersökning kallad “Danmark och de främmande: Om mötet med den arabmuslimska världen” utförd vid Aarhus Universitet ger en tydlig bild av den utveckling vi ser i Norden i föraktet mot judar. 1 500 personer deltog i undersökningen och resultatet blev att 75% av invandrarna hyser “judemisstro”:

“Sammanlagt visar undersökningen att 65,8 procent av de intervjuade invandrarna anser att man “inte kan vara försiktig nog i förhållande till judar i Danmark”. Bland etniska danskar är motsvarande siffra 18,2 procent. Muslimska invandrare var mer negativt inställda till judar och andra grupper än kristna invandrare. Mest förtroende hade man för danskar.

Detta är hållningar som är långt mer utbredda bland invandrare än vi normalt föreställer oss, säger statsvetaren Peter Nannestad vid Aarhus universitet som står bakom undersökningen till tidningen.

Klicka och läs hela den obehagliga artikeln i SvD:

Judemisstro utbredd bland invandrare

Läs också på kulturvänster vs pophöger:

Vad är rasism idag egentligen?

Paradigmskifte i mångkuturens Sverige?

Al Qudsdagen går av stapeln på söndag

Mvh/:)Smileth

Obama’s plan for Peace on the West Bank is not new.

The Nazis invented two words for it.
“Judenfrei” refers to “freeing” an area of all of its Jewish citizens. “Judenrein” (literally “clean of Jews”) was also used. This had the stronger connotation that the area had been cleansed of Jewish blood. -more

Read More Dry Bones by Yaakov Kirschen

The latest Benny Morris thread provided a veritable collection of comments that underscore just why “Comment is Free” is a cesspit of antisemitic discourse.

One of the last comments in the thread provides a perfect example of the type of commenter that is attracted to “Comment is Free”:

GregoryFegel

25 Nov 2009, 7:47PM

These forums are moderated and censored because you do not have true freedom of speech in the UK.

Questioning the Holocaust is a crime in the UK. What happened during the 1940s that the Zionist-dominated UK government is trying so hard to hide?

Orwell’s England exists today and you are living in it.

And when we take a look at a comment posted on Stormfront, ask yourself if Gregory Fegel’s comment above is so different in substance.

Italo-Anglo-Pole

10-01-2008, 11:54 AM

Pretty long winded, but you bring up some good points.
One question I’ve always had with the Holocaust and the death camps is; Is it outside the realm of possibility to believe that a Zionist dominated government (the USSR) could have manipulated the facts, camps, etc. to make it appear as though there was a genocide to suit their political ambitions in the future? I’ve never heard any information as to what happened to the “extermination camps” after the Soviets controlled them for over four decades. Surely the Soviets could have toyed with the camps, if they wanted to. Also, Auschwitz was liberated in January ‘45, a month before the Yalta Conference. Surely Zionists, like Morgenthau, would have cited the discovered gas chambers, crematoria, etc. as grounds to implement his extreme policy. As far as I know he never did, I’ve been trying to find the minutes of the Yalta Conference to confirm this. Anyone have any thoughts or other information?

Anyway, let’s delve into the Morris thread and see how the comments there compare to other comments posted on Stormfront.

Well for starters, from the school of Holocaust denial, we have denial of a slightly different form – denial that Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Here’s a comment on the Benny Morris thread that engages in such discourse:

UnderminingOrthodoxy

24 Nov 2009, 1:54PM

From the article

Iran’s nuclear weapons programme

As far as i know, there is no credible evidence that they have one.

isotope

Ahmadinejad called for Israel’s annihilation

Did he really? Citation? Translated from the original Parsi by whom?

Now take a look at a similar comment from Stormfront:

dogsplayingcards //

Forum Member

Join Date: May 2009

Location: Uncle Bob’s Self Storage, GA

Posts: 2,392

Re: No peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions

---

What Dr. Ahmadinejad said was not to wipe Israel off the map, but to erase the current Likud party and it’s insane policies.
The mistranslation has become the money shot for all the Jew mouthpieces.

Then we have this very telling comment from lovemymod that makes a bit of a freudian slip with a reference to Hitler’s plan to deport the Jews to Madagascar:

lovemymod

24 Nov 2009, 7:21AM

wouldn’t it be absolutely wonderful if after the war Jews had set up their homeland in Madagascar.

not only would Madagascar not have been reduced to an ecological wasterland but we wouldn’t be having a mano-a-mano with Armagedon. choosing to settle in Israel might end up being the worst decision in history.

Now compare this with a comment from Stormfront about the Madagascar plan.

Legacy1992// Account Disabled Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Zealand Posts: 13

Hitler wanting to deport jews to madagascar As we all know Adolf Hitler was a man of peace and he deeply felt for his fellow officer for all of you who have been reading their TRUE history books and not that crap at high school, I was wanting to get some feedback of how Hitler was wanting to deport the jews to madagascar and not murder them. I have read meny books on WW2 and I am starting to think that most of the murders and so forth was the allies faults not the germans because Hitler did want peace the king of England wanted peace (the king also supported lord hallifax) So in a nut shell if England didnt interfere and the soviets were not backstabbers would of this whole mess happen??

And here’s an example of a comment from the Morris thread straight out of the Protocols:

WhatRecession

24 Nov 2009, 11:21AM

voiceofisrael
After we contain the nuclear problem (by ensuring that it doesn?t grow) we can get down to discussing how to reduce or even eliminate nuclear weapons in Britain, Russia, the US, France, China, India, and Pakistan, and possibly in Israel

“We”?

“We” arent on the same side. The Israelis are just war mongerers hell bent on making sure that the West is at war with every middle east country.

Here’s an equivalent comment on Stormfront:

BuffScotsman // “Friend of Stormfront“ Sustaining Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 2,070

Re: Iran And Israel Exchange Threats Of Destruction If it wasn’t for Israel and Jews constantly provoking other peoples and taking aggressive actions.. there would be hardly any conflict in the world.Most groups in the world want to be left alone, and dont’ want to rule over other people. Countries like China, Iran, Russia, Korea etc.. seem to all be able to get along with each other. And this is despite being radically different cultures, races and religions.

The next comment from the Morris thread reflects the knee jerk manner in which the guardianistas whitewash Iran’s atrocious record when it comes to “attacking other countries” painting Israel at the same time as some fanatical regime.

controv1

24 Nov 2009, 9:30AM

I see the prozionist trolls are out in force this morning.

Fact, Iran has never attacked another country except in self defence against Iraq, the latter being supported by the West with money and arms.

Nuclear weapons are already in the hands of racist zealots i.e. those who run Israel. We should fear those nutters far far more than any Iranian Mullah. This article is scaremongering rubbish and Morris should be ashamed of spreading the propaganda. There are no nuclear weapons in Iran and the IAEA have only queries on historical Iranian research activities [based on Western allegations] that they want answers for. If you have additional evidence, other than the Zionist bull you read, please send it to the IAEA. To attack Iran would be folly.

Israel should be subject to the same oversight as Iran when it comes to nuclear weapons. Why should they be exempted?

And it seems that on Stormfront there is similar sympathy for the Iranian regime.

Pure Noble BloodLine //

“Friend of Stormfront“
Sustaining Member

Join Date: Jan 2009

Location: Moving to Valhalla

Posts: 2,716

Re: No peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions

---

Quote:

Originally Posted by richyrichard What “nuclear ambitions”? Iran is a peace-loving country.

Well they are developing nuclear technologies for civilian power plants. There is no evidence they are attempting to build nuclear bombs even though our government, the media, and Israel likes to try and paint that picture.

But as the poster said above, as the muslim in the video said, it is ridiculous to allow Israel, the war monger, an arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons and to claim no other nation is allowed them for defensive purposes in case of an Israeli attack.

Then we have this next comment from the Morris thread that provides another useful insight into how the guardianistas whitewash the truth about the Iranian regime.

twitty

24 Nov 2009, 3:49PM

Iran is among the world’s great nations, anciently Persia & long civilized. Muslim by religion they are not Arabs.

Israel, remember, is a newcomer among the nations, a tiny country & supposedly a refuge for the persecuted Jews..

True enough that Ahmadinejad talks a war-mongering bluster about destroying Israel entirely — fool that he is. Equally true that Israel treats Palestinians as Nazi Germany treated Jews.

Collectives as such never learn & Netanyahu, a scholar’s son, is not the man to lead Israel into a promised land of peace & prosperity.

Now compare twitty’s comment with this:

Zundelful// Account Disabled Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 427

Re: No peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions I hope that this doesn’t sound “fruity” but we need to stand arm-in-arm with our brother Ahmadinejad in this crisis, right now! ZOG and ZOG’s flunky nations want to nuke his nation, just because it is standing up to ZOG. Every sane White on the planet would want Ahmadinejad to have nuclear weapons. Iran is literally the only thing keeping ZOG from taking over the whole world right now.

Then we have this comment from Sumwon who wants to “de-zionise” Israel.

SUMWON

24 Nov 2009, 8:41AM

Mr. Morris, you’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope. The threat to the region is zionist Israel, not Iran. Iran has not invaded any of its neighbours. Israel is the potential aggressor as it has proved by having attacked its neighbours and having stolen Palestinian land through the aggression of the zionist terrorist groups of Irgun and the Haganah. It is is now stealing more land by ethnic cleansing through the illegal settlements and home destruction. If Israel has nuclear weapons (what are they for?) then Iran has every right to take steps to defend itself from Israel, the USA and its Nato army. Ironically, it is Israel, run by a zionist regime, which is the real threat to the region by its aggressive actions and which is endangering innocent jewish lives in Israel. For peace to emerge, Israel has to be de-zionised so that jews and arabs can live peaceably together as the children of Abraham.

And in case you were wondering where Sumwon got the idea of “de-zionisation” from, check this out:

Messiah // “Friend of Stormfront“ Sustaining Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: In the land where Zion has begun to flee Posts: 14,833

British Television Airs: Zionist Control of British Government 1940 – 2009 20Nov2009 Zionist Control of Britain’s Government: 1940-2009 by William A. Cook DateFriday, November 20, 2009 at 8:01AM AuthorGilad Atzmon “After so many years of setting the tone, bribing UK politicians and controlling the BBC they (Zionists) are used to being untouchable.” (Gilad Atzmon, “Britain Must de-Zionist Itself Immediately,” Nov. 17, 2009, MWC News). This week the British people listened to the Daily Mall’s Peter Oborne present, on Channel 4, his devastating account of the Jewish lobby’s control of their government. Now we know that virtually all the principal politicians in the UK of both parties, like their brothers across the lake in our House and Senate, take “contributions” from the Israeli lobby machine ensuring that the Anglo-American mid-east policies follow the dictates of the Israeli government. Gilad Atzmon responded to this report in his article “Britain must de-Zionise itself immediately,” noting that this control has been in place for so many years the lobby feels “untouchable.”

As an aside, notice how Stormfront has picked up the Oborne documentary with glee. I wonder why that is…

And how about this one.

yekdoseh

24 Nov 2009, 4:14PM

If you try that Mr Morris the Eastern Europeans masquerading as Jewish people currently occupying Palestine will not be doing so for very much longer.

Not so very different in substance from this:

The Mountain King//

Account Disabled

Join Date: Apr 2008

Posts: 254

Re: Hourglass for Iran running out in Israel:Iran approaching it’s fate

---

The Jews are suicidal. Please let it be the end of Israel.

Then we have this viciously antisemitic comment on the Morris thread that sparked a whole series of comments about whether Jews of Eastern European origin are actually Khazars.

Hornstein

24 Nov 2009, 1:50PM

SUMWON wrote:

For peace to emerge, Israel has to be de-zionised so that jews and arabs can live peaceably together as the children of Abraham.

I agree with your post but with the sentence above which is factually incorrect. The Ashkenazem are Khazars from Eastern Europe who converted to Judaism in the 8th century. Genetically they have more in common with the Huns, Uigurs and Magyars than they have with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

This is the same Benny Morris when accepting Zionists ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians in 1948, which many Israeli so called historians do not, brushes it aside as a necessity for the creation of Israel. He has no qualms about the death of millions of people, as long as they are not Zionist Jews,

No surprise that this is a popular topic of discussion on Stormfront.

ravencall //

Forum Member

Join Date: Aug 2008

Posts: 654

Re: IMPORTANT. Ashkenazis are not Jews but Khazars.

---

Quote:

Originally Posted by american SS Say what you will, but jews are jews.

Ashkenazis are not infact semitic, semitic Jews are dark skinned and have Arab racial features, they’re called Shepardic and Mizharahi Jews. Ashkenazis are Khazaric-European admixture thus they share more genes with Mygars, Huns, Turks, Armenians and Europeans rather than with Arabs.

If you can’t grasp that concept, good luck shooting those shadows.

That is a mistake Hitler made, he confused a tiny number of religious orthodox jews going about their business with a homeless, religionless rabble race of halfbreeds from the Christian/Muslim borderland in SE Europe, who go around the world causing disruption under the judaism flag. The word should be Khazar, not Jew.

And lest you think that the selection of comments from the Morris thread above were mere aberrations, here are a few more to sink your teeth into:

TonyPancake

24 Nov 2009, 6:56AM

I should imagine Iran is as perfectly entitled to nuclear self-defence as is Israel, Pakistan, Britain, France etc..

I should imagine Iran is as perfectly unentitled to nuclear self-defence as is Israel, Pakistan, Britain, France etc…

Iran wants its nukes partly as a diversion from internal conflicts, and Israel wants its nukes because Israel is Israel is Israel.

All nations get away with mass murder – Iran, Israel, the UK, the US – people are always defending this nation against that nation – but all they’re defending is the ruling class of those nations. I’m against Israel’s right to exist, along with Iran’s, etc. Identification with your ‘own’ nation is just as colonising of individual consciousness as the Israeli fascist settlers are of the land of their Arab neighbours. “The working class has no country…” Unfortunately, if the commodity economy continues to destroy the environment and if nuclear weapons continue to be in the hands of the various rulers (‘democratic’ or dictatorial) who most clearly identify with this economy, then it might well be that the working class will also have no world. All analysis that doesn’t recognise this basic banality is a Manichean “either/or” mentality which takes sides with mass murderers.

hideandseeker

24 Nov 2009, 9:24AM

If Iran presents such an existential threat to Israel, maybe someone can explain how it is that Iran’s Jewish minority appear to prefer to remain in Iran rather than accept Israel’s offer to migrate there for sanctuary…

Janissary

24 Nov 2009, 9:39AM

dangor

“UK, one of the most aggressive, self-centered and genocidal political entity in human history”

That’s just stupid. Read a histroy book for christ sake.

I must assume you are Israeli since many Israelis like to fantasise that they are anti-colonial heroes who liberated their “country” from the British imperial yoke rather than being racist colonists.

maceasy

24 Nov 2009, 10:01AM

What a crock of warmongering, misleading, threatening, belligerent, stupid self-destructive rubbish. If anyone doubted Israel’s paranoic messianism, here it is. Another desperate attempt to up the ante and prepare the ground for more Israeli extreme violence and destruction. Dr Strangelove is alive and well and lives in Israel.

JJ139

24 Nov 2009, 12:51PM

I fear history will just the imposition of a zionist state in Palestine to be the greatest mistake of the 2nd half of the 20th century and beyond

Author unknown [recreated from 1830's 24 Nov. 2009 1.10pm comment]

An apartheid, land grabbing, terrorist sponsoring bunch of nutjobs who follow just as vicious and violent Abrahamic faith as Islam, Israel is just as bad as the Arab dictatorships is posits itself as an alternative too and were it not for international observation would have committed it’s own holocaust on the Palestinians a long time ago.

GregoryFegel

25 Nov 2009, 7:26PM

Israel, the USA, the UK are the great enemies of peace, freedom, and justice in the world today.

Israel, the USA, the UK are using radioactive DU munitions to poison the entire planet. Israel, the USA, the UK are a grave threat to all of humanity and to the global environment, and to all species on the entire planet.

The elimination of Israeli, USA, and UK as political and economic entities will bring a great improvement for the entire world.

Global Warming is a hoax, but Israel, the USA, the UK are a very real threat to all life on earth.

Amazing how commenters on “Comment is Free” find such fertile ground to spread their racist filth. Then again this is the Guardian and we already know the rot goes all the way to the top.

here

This is the third in a series of articles by David Solway. David Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist. He is the author of The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and Identity, and is currently working on a sequel, Living in the Valley of Shmoon. His new book on Jewish and Israeli themes, Hear, O Israel!, has just been released by Mantua Books. This article was originally published in Frontpage Magazine on January 23, 2009.

When Islamic terrorists incinerated 3000 people in the Twin Towers, we learned it was really a Mossad operation carrying out the orders of the Israeli government and that Jews were warned not to show up at the World Trade Center that morning. The fact that Jews were among the victims did not register.

When Bernard Madoff was recently indicted for perpetrating a $50 billion scam, antisemitic ravings flooded the Internet. The fact that individual Jewish investors and Jewish philanthropic organizations suffered crippling finanical losses in the scandal did not signify. Moreover, an exemplary post in the prestigious Forbes.com website fingered Israel as the beneficiary of the Madoff bonanza, as if Madoff were only an agent of Israeli depravity.

And when Israel belatedly responded to years of Hamas shelling of its civilian communities by sending its army into Gaza, it was immediately denounced by Western governments, media and NGOs, and Nazi comparisons flew about as indiscriminately as Hamas rockets. The fact that Israel is the world’s prime terrorist objective did not matter in the slightest. Very few protested when thousands of Israelis were killed and maimed by Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the rest of the terrorist consortium.

These are more than merely episodes. They are, of course, to be expected, the kind of old hat that is constantly being reblocked. The Jew has long been the repository of the world’s accusatory furor. But in today’s antisemitic climate a new dimension has clearly been added to the ancient canard: Israel. For Israel has now become the convenient and representative target of an ancestral hostility, allowing for the delegation of a shameful loathing under the serviceable code word of “anti-Zionism.”

The term has become a veritable gratuity for those who often profess to “love Jews” as the innocent victims of Israeli delinquency or to support an “authentic” Judaism which Zionism has supposedly profaned. They assert no brief against the Jewish people, disingenuously claiming to object to Israeli policies on neutral political grounds. But anti-Zionist posturing is not politically motivated, as it pretends to be; it is only the drapery which cloaks a far more insidious agenda. And despite our seemingly principled disclaimers, we know what it is.

The truth is that what goes by the name of “anti-Zionism” today is, by and large, nothing other than crypto-antisemitism, the contemporary mutation of the world’s oldest hatred deploying a new vocabulary. For Israel is the collective incarnation of the Jew qua Jew, enabling the deft and sinuous Jew-hater to escape moral censure under the sign of “impartial” criticism of a national state. The “anti-Zionist” argument is a far more sophisticated ploy than ostensible moral indignation or the apparent possession of secret incriminating knowledge.

The reasons for antisemitism are no doubt multifarious, but the major cause of antisemitism is that Jews happen to draw breath. In a speech given to the Domestic Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag in June 2008, journalist Henryk Broder distinguished between a prejudice and a resentment: “a prejudice concerns a person’s behavior; a resentment concerns that person’s very existence. Anti-semitism is a resentment. The anti-Semite does not begrudge the Jew how he is or what he does, but that he is at all. The anti-Semite takes offense as much at the Jew’s attempts to assimilate as at his self-marginalization. Rich Jews are exploiters; poor Jews are freeloaders….The anti-Semite blames Jews for everything and its opposite.”

No doubt, if the early Zionists with British agreement in principle had settled in a part of Uganda as a substitute homeland, or had improbably found a pied à terre in Angola or Cyrenaica (Libya), or had followed through on the Galveston scheme of 1907-1914, or if the 1928 Soviet proposal to create a Jewish socialist republic in Birobidzhan in eastern Siberia where Jews would function under their own institutions had not turned out to be a fraud, or if Israelis could be teleported to Alaska as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fantasized and novelist Michael Chabon imagined in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, antisemites would still have found something to resent and execrate and antisemitism would have continued unabated.

Is it not revealing that antisemitism appears even in countries that are virtually empty of Jews? Soeren Kern, a senior analyst for the Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos in Madrid, considers Spain the most antisemitic country in Europe, nearly half of its people harboring negative opinions of Jews. Yet the Jewish community in Spain is infinitesmal, with only 12,000 Jews out of a population of 42 million, less than .05% (PajamasMedia, December 30, 2008). Similarly, there are only 1,300 Jews in Norway, approximately .0003% out of a population of 4,645,000, yet Norway is the major Scandinavian purveyor of anti-Zionist and antisemitic attitudes and beliefs, and indeed challenges Spain for the European honor (Behind the Humanitarian Mask, Manfred Gerstenfeld, ed.)

Then there is Japan, a world-leader in the propagation of antisemitic material though one would have to search far and wide to find a Jew in that country. According to the Stephen Roth Institute, many writers, publishers and organizations in Japan are preoccupied with Yudakaya, “the Jewish peril.” Books like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, The International Jew and Mein Kampf are regularly reprinted in new editions.

The Spanish, Norwegian and Japanese examples, bizarre as they may seem, are only illustrations of a universal reality. Antisemitism will undergo its recessions and its flarings in different parts of the world at different times, but all that really changes is the frequency of its rhythms and the locations of its emergence.

The Jewish community is now under prolonged attack from many different quarters and in many different ways, from suicide attacks and missile camisades in Israel to murderous strikes in other parts of the world to the mounting of conspiracy theories in the blogosphere to the numberless tractarian screeds flooding the marketplace to hostile newspaper editorials and op-eds to “learned” volumes condemning the malefic “Jewish lobby” to crusades of boycott and divestment emanating from important Western institutions to United Nations resolutions and NGO reports to Durban-type conferences to howls of “crime against humanity” whenever Israel moves to protect itself against its enemies.

Add to this the spate of Islamic sermons promising the eradication of the Jewish people from the face of the earth and the imminent nuclear threat of the Iranian mullocracy—and then let us try to convince ourselves that what we are witnessing under the euphemism “anti-Zionism” is really a virtuous campaign of nonpartisan solicitude.

But if we do not court a comfortable state of oblivion, we can sense the rising swell of predatory anticipation in a world preparing to cast out its chosen scapegoat from the body of nations. What we may be observing across the entire gamut of significance—from unknown New Zealand priest Gerard Burns smearing red paint mixed with his own blood on the Rabin monument in Wellington to an all-too-well known Iranian tyrant promising the nuclear destruction of Israel—are the preliminary stages of a world readying itself to launch the next Holocaust, or as close to it as it can get. Ever again.

One of Israel’s scarce Muslim friends, who has the interests of Jews and Israelis at heart, has stated this plainly. Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community, despairs of Israel’s and the Jewish future. “The nations of the world,” he predicts, are “once again preparing bad days for the Jewish people” (IsraelNationalNews.com, December 21, 2007).

He may well be right.

UNITED NATIONS “INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY DAY” WITH THE PALESTINIANS

Yes, the United Nations has designated November 28, 2009, this coming Saturday, as “International Solidarity Day” with the Palestinians! Their anti-Israel tactices have included the “boycotting” of ALL Israeli products and urging people around the world to do so!

Imagine – the UN has decided to support the terrorists of Fatah and Hamas instead of the only true democratic State in the Middle East – ISRAEL!

We have a suggestion for all of our readers – Why not plan to buy Israeli products on this coming day of November 28 (Saturday) and call it “INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY AND SUPPORT WITH THE NATION OF ISRAEL” [...]

More here:

http://hftm.org/blog/?p=843

The third article in the series covering the Oborne documentary on “Comment is Free” was an article by Jonathan Boyd that generated an astounding 509 comments before the “clean up crew” reduced the comment count to 472.

Because of the sheer volume of antisemitic commentary, we are splitting this post into two threads by “day 1″ and “day 2″.

Let me start off with an observation from anunbiasedobserver:

anunbiasedobserver

18 Nov 2009, 5:57PM

Reading through the comments in this article make me want to throw up. These people just don’t realize that they have such a primordial hatred to jews, call it what you want.

If I was a Jew and I lived in the UK, I’d get the hell out.
With opinions like I see in this forum, I totally understand why they need their own state.

Wow. What a startling comment. Lets take a closer look to see what prompted anunbiasedobserver to say such a thing.

Well, first off we have this comment by stevehill that set the tone for the entire thread. This comment garnered a whopping 385 recommendations.

stevehill

18 Nov 2009, 4:05PM

So in essence you can’t actually contradict a single word of the Dispatches programme, so you resort to the default position (since you don’t like it) that it is therefore by definition anti-semitic?

If all else fails, libel your critics. It’s easier than acknowledging that maybe they have a point.

The underlying message here is particularly pernicious because it completely discounts the antisemitism that pervaded the Oborne documentary and employs the Livingstone Formulation to drive the point home.

Stevehill’s comment then fuels this from martinusher that has undertones of Jewish conspiracy theory. This one received 286 recommendations.

martinusher

18 Nov 2009, 4:10PM

Its all true. How does pointing it out make one anti-semitic?

The Israel lobby in the US is well known. Its far too powerful for our own good. Even mentioning it exists can get you into trouble.

And this same sentiment resonates throughout the thread, for example, with these two.

Berchmans

18 Nov 2009, 6:49PM

1830

## Who are these people who see antisemitism everywhere?##

Have you read one of Monnie posts ?..or have a peek at CIFwatch..its frightening but a real experience.

B

Indigenous1

18 Nov 2009, 7:05PM

Then we have a good example of the Livingstone Formulation in action with this.

corrocamino

18 Nov 2009, 4:10PM

“Anti-semitism” is a gag, not a statement.

And it sparked this “joke” later on:

Ha ha. Very funny.

Then corracamino makes a comment that echoes the Protocols.

corrocamino

18 Nov 2009, 4:23PM

@Litah

a joke, considering how much influence the tobacco, alcohol and food lobbies exert in    this country.

Not to mention all the invasions, wars, war crimes, apartheit, racism, and state terrorism we’re drawn in to by that lot.

Then we have papalagi rescsusitating the big lie that there was a massacre in Jenin which incidentally the Guardian was at the forefront in spreading at the time.

Papalagi

18 Nov 2009, 4:29PM

Concerning what happened in Jenin, it was Peres who said that it was a massacre. Haaretz reported it. And after the Israeli attack Israel closed the city and didn’t allow any independent observer to see what had been done. It’s a bit rich to speak approvingly of a UN report about Jenin when a lot of people who do this at the same time reject the UN and the Goldstone report

And while we’re on the subject of the Jenin lie, Daddy Rusbridger, your apology for what you characterized as a ”misjudgment” six years later at the Jewish Book Week in 2008 doesn’t wash with us, not when your newspaper and its online forum continue to obsessively demonize and deligitimize  the Jewish state.

Anyway turning back to the thread. Here we have the old time honored Zionism is racism trope:

thetrashheap

18 Nov 2009, 4:13PM

“Perhaps most important, it failed to mention in any detail why some Jewish leaders may feel compelled to support Israel. Leaving aside the politics of the region, the notion that Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, or that Israel is the only nation state in the world in which Judaism is mainstream, Jewish culture is the norm and the Hebrew language is widely spoken and celebrated, were all ignored.”

Em becuase the idea that you have a right to a racially pure nation isn’t seen as a respectable argument in Europe for some reason.

Constituent

18 Nov 2009, 4:41PM

Anti-semitism : opposition to people because of jewish ancestry or religion.
This is a form of racialism and completely unjustifiable.

Anti-zionism : opposition to the belief that people of jewish ancestry or religion are better than everyone else. This is a form of opposition to racialism and acceptable to all those who believe that all men are created equal.

sayonara2

18 Nov 2009, 4:31PM

Jonathan Boyd

Following the events of WWII, the world had sympathy for the Israelis. However they have behaved so abominably there is no sympathy left. Shouting anti Semitism is like South Africa claiming anti-white racism.

And here’s an interesting one from a commenter that writes from the Muslim perspective that again echoes the Protocols:

MuslimLancs

18 Nov 2009, 4:48PM

I know I’m Muslim but I do think a lot of people are hesitant to criticise Israel for fear of being labelled anti-Semitic. And I also think a lot of people are afraid of getting on a ‘watch-list’ somewhere.

Reading this, I thought you might have had a point in your first couple of paragraphs – then you tried to defend the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. I understand your instinct to defend your faith but you can’t deny the Jewish lobby is unusually powerful and Israel’s actions in Gaza were brutal and despicable.

Then we move to some more demonization of Israel, this time by someone that claims to speak as-a-Jew as if to add greater moral weight to his argument.

CDale

18 Nov 2009, 5:16PM

It is also the only nation state in the world that deliberately targets women and children on the pretext that the killings – 320 children and over 100 women – were in self-defence.

One of the best-equipped armies in the world defending itself from unarmed women and children!

I am an ex professional soldier and can tell you Mr Boyd that no other regular army targets women and children deliberately. It is a war crime.

No, Mr Boyd, the Israeli state is nothing to shout about, but rather to be deeply ashamed of, if you are, as I am, Jewish.

If you are not Jewish, them what on earth on you thinking about to ally yourself with an army that kills innocent civilians?

And here’s another one along the same lines:

DavidTheLiberal

18 Nov 2009, 5:39PM

I cannot remember a Comment is Free contribution that has so annoyed me.

Let me state my starting position. I am Jewish, and like quite a lot of Jews both in UK and in Israel, I find much of what various Israeli governments have done recently quite distasteful. I did not like Ariel Sharon’s Kadiema party and certainly do not like Nettanyahoo and his foreign secretary Liebermann. One of those interveiewed on the Dispatches programme was a Rabbi, and he liked what is going on in Israel no more than I do. Doubless, as the rabbi actually said, the pro-Jewish lobby will attack him as a self hater.

Now to the programme.

What it showed was that the Tory leadership are not even allowed to offer mild criticism of Israel without falling foul of organisations on which they depend for money. Or that was the inference we were invited to draw, and which I certainly did draw, from the fact that as a matter of policy Cameron and Haig avoid talking about the number of neighbours that have been killed by the Israel military adventures.

The programme showed, of all absurdities, the BBC being forced to investigate the output of its correspondent in the region, Jeremy Bowen. Now a more coherent and balanced reporter it would be hard to find. Only an extremist could possibly take issue with his reports, while the vast majority of us, whatever our individual opinions, appreciate just how lucky we are to have such an excellent reporter.

Of course programmes such as Dispatches do not cause anti-Semitism. As would any decent person be, I am appalled that the writer got attacked on his way to pray in Finchley. There are bigots even in Finchley. There are bigots in most places. Did the attacker tell him that he was attacking him because he had just learned how awful Jews are because of the way they distort reporting and comment on Israel? Of course not. Does the writer even think that some newly acquired knowledge such as this might have been the cause? Again, of course not.

I have news for the writer. There was anti-Semitism before the Dispatches programme. Indeed, even before the advent of television. And, I am sorry to say, there will be ant-Semitism so long as there are Jews.

What causes anti-Semitism? Largely it is an irrational attitude, caused more in the mental attitude and home background of the anti-Semite than in anything else. But the mass killings by the Israeli army in various places, Gaza, Lebanon, … surely cannot help. And these killings are undisputed fact, reported in pro-Israel news outlets as much as in the Guardian and the BBC. And these allegedly anti-Israel outlets have always been scrupulously careful to give the pro-Israel writers a chance to comment. Which is why the present miserable article has been published. It certainly does not measure up to the high standards that I have come to expect in most Gardian articles.

Of course anti-Semitism is also encouraged by really poorly argued articles in defence of Israeli killings. If that is the best they can do …. During the recent Gaza adventure there was an Israeli spokesman called Regev whose comments were so ridiculous that it is impossible for anyone who heard them to have believed a word that he said. That does not help prevent the spread of anti-Semitism. But reporting what can clearly be backed up by fact is not a contributor; today’s article was yet another case of blaming the messanger.

Now take a look at this one. The commenter believes that there is an “International Jewish Conspiracy” and so convinced is he of the fact of its existence that believes that he is not antisemitic!

MarchOnRome

18 Nov 2009, 5:17PM

I’m sorry, I probably have a lot more time for Israel than many people at CIF but I simply won’t be told it’s anti-semitic to point out that Israel (like many other countries) attempts to influence British lawmakers or that their efforts seem to enjoy more success than, say, any Palestinian lobbyists who are currently working. This is nothing peculiar to Israel, I’m sure the Israel lobby would give their hind teeth to have the influence which the pro-EU lobby commands within British politics, but that doesn’t change the fact that such a lobby does exist.

That’s not paranoia about an International Jewish Conspiracy, it is a matter of recorded fact and people who are sympathetic to Israel would do well not to mischievously conflate the two because it seems to confer a brief tactical advantage. The term “anti-semite” by itself is an increasingly debased coinage as this article demonstrates.

In response, Leofwine made a very astute comment in the thread which has equal applicability to a number of the comments above.

“The big difference between today’s anti-Semites, mostly leftists, and those of Nazi Germany is that most of today’s anti-Semites deny being anti-Semitic. Today’s anti-Semites make a great show of moral outrage with regard to the Holocaust, while they go right on perpetuating the same anti-Semitic myths that motivated the Nazis. At least the Nazis were forthright about their anti-Semitism. One can defy overt anti-Semitism. Nowadys one hears the most outrageous pronouncements about Jews and the Jewish State coming from people who would be shocked, SHOCKED, to be labeled anti-Semitic. How does one defy ant-Semism from those in denial?”

In fact, I would go as far as to say that this is the differentiating feature between the antisemitic posters on “Comment is Free” and the posters on forums like Stormfront.

And speaking of Stormfront, here are a couple of comments that employ Nazi analogies:

GoldenTriangle

18 Nov 2009, 5:48PM

Moving on, next we have a comment from the school of Brian Whitaker claiming that pro-Israel commenters are paid agents of the Israeli government.

CDale

18 Nov 2009, 5:54PM

LENSKI

I think you will find, if you stop to consider, that the outcry against the IDF for killing children was not ‘vituperative antisemitism’, but was, and is, an expected response against war crime, against the killing of unarmed civilians.

Ignoring the hasbara-paid comment on this site, these were real children, and real mothers. They were killed by the IDF, in order to terrorise the population of Gaza. They succeeded.

These are substantiated facts. Read the report – that Israel refused to co-operate in compiling.

It is clear from the report that it was the IDF that used civilians as human shields, there is video footage to evidence this. The evidence was taken by a respected team of independent investigators headed by an eminent South African judge with huge experience in this type of investigation.

Of course, Israel has stood on its head to try to discredit this independent report. But that does not fool many people outside of the US.

Then we have some more conspiracy theory:

idiocr4cy

18 Nov 2009, 6:32PM

Ranong

18 Nov 2009, 6:51PM

Jubilation

Quite successful in ensuring that the Minister for Israel (sorry, Middle East) is always a member of Labour Friends of Israel. Come to think of it, high-ranking LFI-ers.

And what would a thread like this be without pro-Israel deletions. Here are a selection:

DougallTheDog

18 Nov 2009, 4:22PM

No one is suggestiing the Dispatches team are nazis, that is ridiculous!

No, the Dispatches team are lazy sensationalists. Blissfully unaware of the impact of their evidence free programme on the general public. Which is the “confirmation” that:

the Jews are are stinking rich,
the Jews are disloyal,
the Jews are secretive,
the Jews are powerful…………….

greytiles

18 Nov 2009, 5:27PM

November 22, 2009

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Original article:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116842

Biggest war game begins day after Tehran cleric threatened Tel Aviv

JERUSALEM – Iran began today what it said was its largest-ever military drill meant to protect the country’s scattered nuclear sites, state-run Iranian media reported.

The drill comes one day after a senior Iranian cleric warned the Islamic Republic will strike Tel Aviv with missiles if attacked.

“If the enemy should want to test its bad luck in Iran, before the dust from its missiles settles in this country, Iran’s ballistic missiles would land in the heart of Tel Aviv,” said cleric Mojtaba Zolnour, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Brigadier-General Ahmad Mighani told Iran’s Fars news agency military drills will begin today and will last five days. He said the drills will cover 600,000 square kilometers (230,000 square miles) in parts of central, western and southern Iran.

Mighani said the drills involve Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and other military units and that the exercises will simulate a real attack on Iran’s nuclear installations.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency said yesterday the war drills would be “huge.”

Mighani was quoted calling the drills “the biggest war game.”

“The aim of the drill is to display Iran’s combat readiness and military potentials,” Mighani said.

“Defense policies, psychological operations and innovations during the war game are among the objectives of the drills,” he added.

Have a look at this piece from The Times:

For the perfect Nazi Christmas you had to hang glittering swastikas and toy grenades from the pine tree in the living room and, in your freshly pressed uniform, belt out carols urging German women to make babies for the Führer rather than worship the Jewish Baby Jesus. Then came the moment to light the pagan candle-holders — hand-made by labourers at Dachau.

Hitler’s dream of a 1,000-year Reich came to an end long before the world was subjected to 1,000 of his Christmases but an exhibition in Cologne is highlighting how the Nazis, in particular Heinrich Himmler, tried to take Christ out of Christmas.

Read on.

(Hat tip: TabletMag)

This is a guest post by AKUS

Lerman has been using the Guardian as his (only?) way of furthering the dispute which caused him to leave the Institute of Jewish Policy Research or IJPR. His support for the Oborne documentary, and the litany of one sided accusations and “discoveries” about “the Jewish lobby” could be hurled at a long list of pro-Palestinian organizations. But, leaving aside his obsessive hatred of Israel, which of course makes him a welcome guest on CiF, that does not really interest him as much as having an avenue, in his fevered anger, with which to attack his former employer in a newspaper that has nothing to do with his departure from IJPR:

Thus, buried in his angry article, we see:

Sadly, acting director of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research Jonathan Boyd’s recounting of the contemptible attack he experienced falls into the category of irresponsible scaremongering. He uses a distorted version of Alan Rusbridger’s comments in the programme on press coverage of Israel as a stick to beat the media for rising levels of anti-Semitism – a classic case of blaming the messenger.

It doesn’t end with the attack on Jonathan Boyd. In an earlier column, he used the Kaminski affair as the basis for his attack on the IJPR. At the time, in a previous article, I wrote:

Lerman’s appointment in early 2006 as Director (for the second time) of a Jewish community think-tank, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (IJPR) precipitated the resignation of four IJPR directors and of one of its honorary patrons, the Conservative peer Lord Kalms. This was because Lerman had questioned the viability of Israel as a Jewish State. In 2008 Lerman “left” the Directorship of the IJPR and he is now futilely trying to strike back at mainstream Jewish leadership, using the Kaminski affair as a crutch to justify himself:

Having played the Kaminski card against Lord Kalms once, Lerman uses the Guardian to further his attack on this person. Lord Kalms is apparently a personal nemesis of Lerman’s who resigned from the IJPR, presumably taking his (considerable?) financial support with him, in protest against Lerman’s virulent bias against Israel. Lerman uses this latest article, ostensibly in support of the Oborne documentary, to take aim at Lord Kalms

These same businessmen and entrepreneurs who support and drive the Israel lobby organisations are sought after to chair major Jewish charitable institutions. They’re not kept hidden in boxes. They’re lionised. We should have the guts and the confidence to allow the robust but fair discussion of their involvement in politics. Peter Oborne investigated Lord Ashcroft. Why shouldn’t he do the same with Lord Kalms?

Not only is Lerman disguising his campaign via these articles in the Guardian against his former employer and a person whose resignation likely precipitated Lerman leaving the organization (since his views and direction were opposed to the aims of the organization and its supporters), he is, it seems being deliberately provided with a platform to do so. I cannot help wonder why the Guardian insists in inserting itself into a spat that should be taking place, if at all, within the Jewish community.

Perhaps Lerman, this broken reed, is the best stick they can find to beat the IJPR for the “crime” of employing people who support Israel.

In the light of the recent Channel 4 documentary on Britain’s “Israel Lobby”, Professor Geoffrey Alderman writes on CIF Watch about British anti-Semitism and Britain’s only Jewish Prime Minister, who believed in Jesus, in order to illustrate a point.

Alderman writes:

In 1876 Bulgarian Christians rebelled against their Ottoman oppressors. Tsar Alexander II determined to exploit this crisis to further Russian influence in south-east Europe. Benjamin Disraeli, the British prime minister, determined to stop him. At a peacemaking congress held in Berlin in 1878 Disraeli sided with Muslim Turkey against Christian Russia, and made it clear that he would only agree to recognise the independence of Bulgaria, along with Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, if the Christian (and pro-Russian) leaders of these countries agreed to recognise and respect the rights of minorities – in particular Jewish minorities.

The anger of Disraeli’s arch-rival, William Ewart Gladstone, knew no bounds. “I deeply deplore [he proclaimed] the manner in which what I may call Judaic sympathies … are now acting on the question of the East.”  Because, of course, Disraeli, though then a Christian, had been born a Jew and had never ceased to advertise and be proud of his Jewish origins. Gladstone decided to make political mischief out of this fact. He – and a group of leading intellectuals and socialists – jumped eagerly upon an anti-Semitic bandwagon: Jewish interests, they alleged, were undermining British politics and subordinating British interests to international Jewry’s Jewish preoccupations.

Alderman is right to mention the Jewish identity of those Jews who believe in Jesus, and right to mention that discrimination against them is often anti-Semitism.

Posted by Yeze.

La Alianza del Atlántico Norte, que incluye a los países más ricos y mejor armados del mundo, ha decidido invitar a la marina israelí  a participar en unas maniobras conjuntas, es decir, al igual que Ucrania o Rusia, pasar al estatuto semi-oficial de potencia aliada que aun no es miembro de pleno derecho de la Alianza. Sólo Turquía ha puesto pegas a esta invitación, lo cual puede a la larga acarrear no solamente que se retrase para siempre su entrada en la Unión Europea, sino que en un momento dado también su expulsión de la OTAN. Esta invitación es una declaración no-oficial de guerra a Palestina, al no-Estado de Palestina en el territorio ocupado donde colonizan, explotan y asesinan a la población palestina no reconocida y desprotegida legalmente ante los ataques cotidianos de soldados y colonos israelíes.

La OTAN está por lo tanto en guerra simultáneamente contra Afganistán y Palestina, mientras mantiene contingentes de ocupación en numerosos países africanos y en Irak. Desde este punto de vista, es decir, desde el punto de vista de los agredidos por la OTAN, parece evidente que la OTAN ataca a los países más débiles de manera sistemática. Ahora bien, como la explicación oficial de las maniobras conjuntas con Israel es que forman parte de una estrategia global contra el terror, cabe hacer una síntesis y deducir de ambas perspectivas que la OTAN es una organización terrorista de una enorme magnitud que condena a los pobres a la miseria y a la violencia sin límite que merecen los terroristas. Es evidentemente una antisituación sádica en la que los ricos machacan a los pobres y los llaman, entre otras cosas, terroristas. El sadismo del capitalismo se encauza por lo tanto en la OTAN a la que pertenecemos. Nuestro Estado es por lo tanto cómplice de una agresión sádica y colectiva cuya ideología no asume en absoluto su sadismo. Si no lo asume es porque no puede hacerlo, por lo tanto hay una mala conciencia. Es la razón por la cual debemos seguir aireándola, porque así el Estado llegará a un punto crítico: cambiar o aplastar la libertad de expresión.

b”h

A nice advice by Khaled Abu-Toameh:

What Does “Pro-Palestinian” Really Mean?

In recent years there has been a significant rise in the number of non-Palestinians who describe themselves as “pro-Palestinian” activists. These people can be found mostly on university campuses in North America and Europe.

What is striking is that many of these “pro-Palestinian” activists have never been to the Middle East, let alone the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. In most cases, they are not even Arabs or Muslims.

What makes them “pro-Palestinian”? …more

Isralike

This is a guest post by Professor Geoffrey Alderman. Professor Alderman is the Michael Gross Professor of Politics & Contemporary History at the University of Buckingham

In 1876 Bulgarian Christians rebelled against their Ottoman oppressors. Tsar Alexander II determined to exploit this crisis to further Russian influence in south-east Europe. Benjamin Disraeli, the British prime minister, determined to stop him. At a peacemaking congress held in Berlin in 1878 Disraeli sided with Muslim Turkey against Christian Russia, and made it clear that he would only agree to recognise the independence of Bulgaria, along with Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, if the Christian (and pro-Russian) leaders of these countries agreed to recognise and respect the rights of minorities – in particular Jewish minorities.

The anger of Disraeli’s arch-rival, William Ewart Gladstone, knew no bounds. “I deeply deplore [he proclaimed] the manner in which what I may call Judaic sympathies … are now acting on the question of the East.”  Because, of course, Disraeli, though then a Christian, had been born a Jew and had never ceased to advertise and be proud of his Jewish origins. Gladstone decided to make political mischief out of this fact. He – and a group of leading intellectuals and socialists – jumped eagerly upon an anti-Semitic bandwagon: Jewish interests, they alleged, were undermining British politics and subordinating British interests to international Jewry’s Jewish preoccupations.

I recalled these events as I watched Peter Oborne’s rather boring documentary Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby. And I recalled them again as I read Tony Lerman’s equally boring – and very lame – defence of it on the Guardian website.  The documentary told us nothing that we did not already know.  So there’s the Conservative Friends of Israel and the Labour Friends of Israel. So there’s the Conservative Friends of India and the Labour Friends of Iraq. So there’s the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre (BICOM) and the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding.  So there’s the Lord’s Day Observance Society and the British Humanist Association. So what?

Many years ago (1984) I wrote a book examining Pressure Groups and Government in Great Britain.  Two points that I made in that volume are worth repeating here.  The first was that in a liberal democracy pressure groups – lobbies if you like – are the lubricants that oil the machinery of government. They are as necessary to democracy as is freedom of expression.  The second was that more transparency was needed in respect of the manner in which such groups went about their work. Well, we have come a long way since I published that book, and we certainly have more transparency now than we did then.

I agree that there is still room for improvement. But the Dispatches documentary produced not a single skeleton in the cupboard. Instead we had a succession of moaners – including, I regret to say, academics (such as professor David Newman of Ben Gurion University) who should know better – bemoaning the fact that their opinions did not carry much weight within Britain’s Jewish communities. Newman’s assertion that groups such as BICOM “tend to close down” debate on Israeli policies vis-à-vis Judea and Samaria is – frankly – fatuous to the point of absurdity. As for Oborne, he himself was forced to admit, near the end of the programme, that although there were indeed “conspiracy theories” surrounding the influence of pro-Israel lobbies, such theories “have no basis in fact.” And in his dissection of political donations made by CFI board members Oborne was at pains to point out that such donations were “entirely legal.”  Indeed, Oborne even documented cases where donations had been made to politicians who, nonetheless, had continued (would you believe?) to publicly voice sentiments critical of Israel.  And Oborne certainly missed a trick when he failed to follow up instances of failure on the part of pro-Israeli lobbies – the UK’s recent refusal to condemn the Goldstone report being a case in point.

It’s in this light that I reject Tony Lerman’s defence of the programme. Just because anti-Semites might exploit the programme, says Lerman, that’s no reason not to make it, and not to air it. “Does that mean [he asks in his Guardian CiF blog] you can never shine an objective, critical light on any Jewish activity for fear of giving succour to antisemites?”

Tony, boychick, of course it doesn’t. Jewish lobbies are as fair game for the investigative journalist as are non-Jewish lobbies.  But – by his own admission – Peter Oborne had no story to tell, did he? Nothing illegal.  Nothing illicit.  Nothing conspiratorial. Mind you, some of his logic was questionable: X funds Y; X funds Z; therefore Y controls Z. This type of reasoning defies common sense. But we’ll let that pass, for now. The point is – Tony – that Oborne had no story to tell.

Or did he? According to Mr. Lerman, Oborne produced “strong evidence that the Israel lobby maintains and pursues a view of Israel’s interests that is neither conducive to furthering the cause of a genuine Israel-Palestine peace nor helpful for British Jewry, in whose interests the lobby claims to operate.”  Well, of course, that all depends on the opinions you hold on the wider issues.

So let’s return to William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli.  Gladstone accused Disraeli of operating British foreign policy in the interests of international Jewry rather than in the interests of the United Kingdom. Disraeli demolished this mischievous thinking. It was – he and his supporters argued – in Britain’s interest to support the rights of oppressed minorities in the disintegrating Ottoman Empire and resist Russian designs both on broad humanitarian grounds and because of Britain’s long-term strategic interests in what we would now call the Middle East.

Disraeli was right. And so are those contemporary politicians who, whilst they may be critical of individual actions of individual Israeli governments, support Israel’s right to a peaceful existence within defensible borders. Of course, when Lerman asserts that the activities of Britain’s Israel lobby are not “helpful for British Jewry” what he really means is that they’re not helpful for British Jews who think like him. Or – to put it another way – when push comes to shove all that Mr. Lerman can offer us in defence of Mr. Oborne is a large bunch of sour grapes.

In case Rupert Read remains unconvinced by the previous post and the comments on it, here’s a piece at Contested Terrain – read it, and the antisemitic post to which it links, as a case of the active conflation of Zionists with Jews. This is common practice in contemporary antisemitism.

Note what a good cover anti-Zionism makes for antisemitism, and think about why it might be that many Jews may feel it necessary to oppose anti-Zionism.

Read also Steve Cohen, left anti-Zionist campaigner against left antisemitism, on former attempts to “de-Zionise” Britain and their effects on Jews, in his book (republished free online by Engage in 2005) ‘That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Antisemitic‘. If you read nothing else from it, see particularly Chapter 3, ‘The Left Returns to Zion‘. After a review of the relationship between antisemitism and what currently passes for anti-Zionism, it ends:

“For zionists to believe that such a state is no longer necessary, it is vital to attack that which necessitated it—namely anti-semitism. When confronted by the spectacle of an arsonist firing a person’s home, it is not morally justifiable for a passive observer to blame that person for jumping—even if s/he lands on a complete stranger. Certainly the stranger may be justifiably aggrieved—and with equal certainty cannot be expected to take responsibility for a fire they did not create. However, if no other homes are to be burned then the arsonist must be stopped. Moreover, isolated householders cannot be expected to do this unaided. As long as passers-by remain observers then the sorry saga will continue. The analogy with the triangle of the anti-semite, the Jew and the Palestinian is obvious. The onus for resisting anti-semitism cannot be on Jews alone. Wherever there is anti-semitism the socialist and labour movements have to oppose it. Unfortunately these movements have, all too often, been either passive or complicit.”

I think most people would agree that things are going the wrong way at the moment.

Update: I go to my inbox and receive this news from Karl Pfeifer, libelled as party to a massacre of Palestinians in the ’40s. There is no evidence, but “He is a Zionist”. This is the grim essence of prejudice and discrimination. Are we looking at a prelude?

Take a look at what Matt Seaton, editor of “Comment is Free”, wrote in the Boyd thread earlier this week.

mattseaton

18 Nov 2009, 6:52PM

Staff

@ Ranong:

Why is the writer of this piece given the opportunity to traduce the programme -makers in The Guardian so soon after another anti (but polite) article by another writer?

I don’t accept that the programme-makers are traduced by Boyd. That would imply a wilful misrepresentation, whereas I don’t doubt that Boyd sincerely believes they made a bad and borderline antisemitic programme. No one is obliged to accept his POV on that.

The fact is that Oborne and James were given the first word in the Comment pages (reproduced online here, of course). Further, there will be a response to Cesarani and Boyd here before the end of the week. We are naturally wary of publishing too much on the topic, but we do aim to give a fair balance of views overall. So please look at our comment coverage in the round.

Let me first take issue with this: “Oborne and James were given the first word in the Comment pages (reproduced online here, of course).”

Yes where else! Don’t you feel just proud of yourself to have republished the writings of Oborne and James that reeked of Jewish conspiracy theory. Moreover, you published the Oborne and James piece prior to the airing of the Channel 4 documentary that no doubt gave it a huge boost in terms of viewership and you primed the prejudices of those susceptible who watched the program. Good job Matt.

You then go on to say that you are “[n]aturally wary of publishing too much”.

What utter BS. You published four articles during the week that generated over 1,500 comments in the aggregate (and the comments are still coming in at the time of writing). The amount of antisemitic discourse in each of these threads was simply astonishing. And you’re wary. You’re not wary of anything. You’ll publish anything that will get guardianistas riled up against the Jews and boost the Guardian’s much needed click thru rate.

And you then claim that you  “aim to give a fair balance of views overall”. More BS. What utter audacity.

Lets take a look at your comment coverage on Israel in CiF Middle East during the month prior to the Oborne report (Nov 16, 2009 – Oct 16, 2009):

13 Nov 2009 – Antony Lerman “The Community Leadership We Deserve” (anti-Israel)

13 Nov 2009 – Charles Grant “Israel’s Dark View of the World” (anti-Israel)

12 Nov 2009 – Ben White “Fragmenting Palestinian Land” (anti-Israel)

11 Nov 2009 – Seth Freedman “Erdogan’s blind faith in Muslims” (anti-Israel)

9 Nov 2009 – Hussein Ibish “Abbas’ Mixed Messages” (pro-Palestinian)

2 Nov 2009 – Hussein Ibish “Palestinians Must Prepare for Statehood” (pro-Palestinian)

1 Nov 2009 – Richard Silverstein “Obama Must Try Harder” (anti-Israel)

1 Nov 2009 – Jeremy Sharon “Writing Jews Out of Jerusalem’s History” (pro-Israel)

30 Oct 2009 – Seth Freedman “The Far Right That Killed Rabin” (anti-Israel)

29 Oct 2009 – Seth Freedman “Israeli Military Gives Settlers Free Rein” (anti-Israel)

28 Oct 2009 – Michelle Goldberg “Driving Up J-Street” (anti-Israel)

28 Oct 2009 – Ahmed Khalidi “The Palestinian Authority’s State’s First Mistake” (anti-Israel)

26 Oct 2009 – Editorial “Roadmap or Roadblock?” (anti-Israel)

26 Oct 2009 – Isi Leibler “J Street’s ‘Pro-Israel’ Stance is Phoney” (pro-Israel)

22 Oct 2009 – Simon Tisdall “Israel is in Denial Over Turkish Rage” (anti-Israel)

22 Oct 2009 – Antony Lerman “The Liberal Jewish Challenge” (anti-Israel)

21 Oct 2009 – Seth Freedman “Palestinians Send Blair a Wake Up Call” (anti-Israel)

21 Oct 2009 – Richard Goldstone “Israel’s Missed Opportunity” (anti-Israel)

21 Oct 2009 – Michael Lerner “A War Crime Whitewash” (anti-Israel)

20 Oct 2009 – Seth Freedman “Filling Up Israel’s Jails to No Avail” (anti-Israel)

20 Oct 2009 – Harold Evans “A Moral Atrocity” (pro-Israel)

18 Oct 2009 – Olivia Hampton “Reviving Hope for Middle East Peace (neutral)

Out of 22 articles there are a mere 3 pro-Israel articles and about half of the 22 articles were penned by the Guardian’s coterie of Theobald Jews.

Very fair. Very balanced.

Bara rubriken är absurd men det är svårt att rubrikssätta detta inlägg utan att driva med det här.

Den militanta gruppen Hizbollah arbetar för att utesluta och censurera Anne Franks dagbok som lärobok i Libanon efter en kampanj där de hävdar att boken främjar sionismen. Boken är en lärobok som används av en privat engelskspråkig skola i västra Beirut.

Hizbollahs tv-kanal Al-Manar (förbjuden i Frankrike) sände ett inslag som körde över boken eftersom att den belyste förföljelsen av judar under andra världskriget. Al-Manar är en antisemitisk kanal som återkommande hetsar mot judar.

(Bild: Hassan)

I en intervju med Al-Manar  om denna fråga yttrar sig Hussein Al-Haj Hassan, Hizbollah politiker i Libanon, där han sagt att:
-Ingen lär ut en bok i libanesiska skolor utan att känna till dess innehåll. Dessa prestigefyllda och respektabelt skolor, istället för denna undervisning om vad de kallar “tragedi” i denna unga flickas fall, så bör de undervisa tragedin för det palestinska folket och det libanesiska folket tragedi och Libanons historiska motstånd och lidande för befolkningen i södra Libanon under sionistiska ockupationen”, Hizbollah har även uttryckt oron över att Libanon på grund av detta blir föremål för ett “sionistisk kulturell angrepp.”

(Film: En av Al-Manars sändningar, i detta så talar Hizbollahs ledare Hassan Nasrallah som nyligen blivit omvald som gruppens ledare för sjätte gången.)

Förutom att jämförelsen är hemsk och allt som sägs är motbjudande så glömmer dessa islamister att Anne Frank på något sätt inte är en israelisk representant, utan en flicka som förde dagbok under andra världskriget. Man kan fråga sig var de här finner någon som helst agenda eller att Frank ens sionismen. Kopplingar mellan förintelsen och sionismen eller koppling mellan förintelsen och Palestina är obehagliga men tyvärr något återkommande.

Impresii la cald… Am ascultat-o la radio, în maşină… Am fost văduvit deci de contactul vizual cu fizionomia candidaţilor, care ar fi fost foarte instructiv şi lămuritor.

Impresia mea este că s-a detaşat Mircea Geoană, prin maturitate, calm şi discurs echilibrat. Băsescu era vizibil obosit, încremenit în proiectul câştigător din 2004 şi în amintiri senile din Vechea Constanţă – “la Revoluţie şi mineriadă mă uitam la televizor în Constanţa… am botezat copilul secundului meu Ionescu, copil crescut în religia musulmană…” Penibil! După ce i-a pus la punct pe armeni, acum vrea să-i radicalizeze şi pe musulmani!

De fapt şi Crin este dobrogean de-al nostru, Băsescul şi-a găsit naşul în persoana lui Crin. Spontan, fermecător, lipsit de inhibiţii diplomatice precum Geoană Gură-de-Aur, Crin m-a cucerit! Cu toate astea nu pot vota cu Antonescu din trei motive:

1. Mă supun Voinţei lui Ion Iliescu. Sunt un soldat disciplinat al PSD-ului şi respect Voinţa Preşedintelui de Onoare al Partidului.

2. Sunt de stânga, sufleteşte. Nu voi putea vota nicicând un candidat de dreapta, care face caz de clişeele fumate anti-comuniste ale anilor ‘90, anii de dezastru economic pentru Ţară.

3. Crin nu este suficient de matur ca şi gândire pentru a putea fi Preşedinte. Este un bun vorbitor, dar cam atât. Nu are substanţă a gândirii, precum Mircea Geoană care este Jurist. Şi Diplomat. Deşi sunt de-o seamă, Mircea Geoană este mult mai matur şi versat decât Crin.

Voi vota Mircea Geoană fără entuziasm, am mai spus-o. Fără entuziasm juvenil – mai degrabă din Datorie Matură.

Are dreptate Mircea Geoană şi în ce priveşte Biserica. Serios, mi-a plăcut că a citat din Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur. Avem noi Sfântul Ioan la PSD… dar a fost simpatic oricum! E adevărat că slujitorii Bisericii trebuie plătiţi de Stat, să fie asimilaţi serviciului public, nu să stea la mâna prostului ca acum!

Traian Băsescu şi-a pierdut şarmul, a devenit osificat, rigid… Era mai simpatic când hăhăia şi era degajat, marinăreşte… a devenit prea “Prezident”, prea stiff, nu mai are acea convivialitate, acel savoir vivre care l-a consacrat…

Pe de altă parte, Mircea a devenit mistic, am mai spus-o… Patriarhul Daniel rules, de acord, doar este ecumenic şi tolerant, but John Chrysostom is even better. Though he was a wild Anti-Semite…

Chestia cu atacul la Cumnatul Costea a fost chiar josnică, Crin, ai pierdut mult cu asta. Felicitări, Mircea Geoană pentru eleganţă!

Crin practică o hermeneutică a Constituţiei apropiată de o hermeneutică a Bibliei, ceea ce mi se pare… întemeietor!

Dacă aş fi fost neutru, aş fi oscilat între Geoană şi Crin, dar aşa, votez M. G., adică mă votez pe mine! O seară bună şi un weekend eclairissant!

This is the second in a series of articles by David Solway. David Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist. He is the author of The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and Identity, and is currently working on a sequel, Living in the Valley of Shmoon. His new book on Jewish and Israeli themes, Hear, O Israel!, has just been released by Mantua Books. This article was originally published in Frontpage Magazine on March 26, 2009.

Antisemite: The Jews are responsible for the world’s suffering.
Jew: And also the bicyclists.
Antisemite: Why the bicyclists?
Jew: Why the Jews?

Jewish joke

One of the strangest and, at first blush, inexplicable aspects of the current social and political scene, remarked upon by many writers, is the “unholy alliance” that has been forged between the proponents of Western secularism and the armies of Islam ranged against it. Various reasons have been suggested for this bizarre collaboration between ostensible foes: the inability of many public intellectuals to temper what Paul Hollander in Political Pilgrims has described as a species of “moral indignation and compassion set and guided by their ideologies and partisan commitments”; the liberal delusion of multicultural equivalencies; the shared contempt for the doctrines, practices and symbols of the Christian faith and its supposedly crusading instinct; and, as Jamie Glazov argues in his new book, United in Hate, the Left’s misprision of Western civilization and its consequent “romance with tyranny and terror.”

Making sense of the liberal-left communion with an implacable theological adversary seems nevertheless a puzzling proposition. To quote Nick Cohen’s What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way, we seem to have forgotten about the belief of majority Muslims “in the literal truth of an early medieval book, the elevation of their god over free men and women, their hatred of intellectual freedom, their homophobia, their antisemitism, their supernatural conspiracy theories, their misogyny, their use of state oppression.”

Worse, we do not seem to be overly concerned that we may one day find ourselves living in a Press-1-for-English world. Although it is moot whether the liberal-left has been punk’d by Muslim window-dressing or is, in fact, fully aware of the Islamic commitment against the weal of the democratic West, there is little question that it has come to behave like the cadet branch of Islam, assuming the proper qibla line (direction of prayer).

A glaring and most disturbing feature of this growing entente is the rising swell of antisemitism in the West, particularly in Europe but increasingly on this side of the Atlantic as well. This phenomenon is especially baffling when one considers that almost everything that Islam stands for, certainly in its present embodiment, is inimical to the welfare of the liberal West, while Judaism with its emphasis on the concept of a universal moral law, the exercise of skeptical inquiry into the claims of arbitrary authority, and the importance of individual choice and judgment in taking responsibility for personal salvation would appear to be our natural confederate.

But, upon reflection, perhaps the Western tendency to come to the defence of Islam, under the sign of combatting a non-existent “Islamophobia,” while simultaneously countenancing Jew- and Israel hatred, accusing Jews in the West but not Muslims of “double loyalty,” targeting a presumably nefarious “Israel lobby” for condemnation, regarding Zionism as a form of racism and falsely castigating Israel as an “apartheid state” is not all that difficult to account for.

To begin with, there’s the census. Muslims weigh in at one and half billion people, Jews at a paltry 12 million, many of them lapsed and many of them frankly self-hating. What we are observing is a conflict between an ever bigger Goliath and an ever smaller David. But, of course, like the caricature of the proverbial dumb blonde, the world goes where the muscle is.

Then there is the fear factor. Jews do not issue fatwas, attend violent protests, scream obscenities and threats, outfit suicide bombers, hijack airliners, kidnap foreigners, launch terrorist raids and blow up buildings. This obviously puts them at a distinct disadvantage with the Western media, political classes and large segments of the general public who cringe before the menace of Muslim reprisals for perceived offences.

Allied to this faintheartedness is a corresponding element which is nothing less than admiration for and envy of a world-historical force convinced of its own righteousness and unafraid to stampede the public square. The other face of our timidity is the capacity to be impressed by the genuine passion and sincere conviction we are unable to muster in ourselves. Paralyzed in the deepest recesses of the self, we piggyback along for the ride, experiencing vigor by proxy. In a debased and timorous age, Jews cannot compete with Muslims as carriers for our repressions and undisclosed lusts.

I am reminded in this connection of Eugène Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros in which we observe the metamorphosis of an entire population, with the exception of a single refusenik, into primitive pachyderms. Having grown tired of their common humanity, people begin to feel that the calloused, dark-green armour of the rhinoceros is preferable to the pale flabbiness of their own skins and welcome the transformation, rejoicing in the group feeling of the trampling herd. What has afflicted the West today is merely a variant of galloping rhinoceritis. The refusenik Jew, like the Bérenger character in the play, has little luck persuading the multitudes to re-think their fellow-traveling mutation of sensibility.

Then we have the petroleum factor, which is so obvious as to scarcely require comment. An Arab/Muslim embargo would have a disastrous effect on Western economies. At the same time, we fail or refuse to understand that should Israel, the national incarnation of the Jew, ever decide to boycott the world rather than vice versa, our cellphones would stop ringing, our computers would shut down, and many people with serious illnesses would be deprived of their medications. (The Israeli pharmaceutical company, Teva, is the world’s foremost supplier of antibiotic drugs.) But Arabs are conspicuous in the power of their oil cartels. Israelis, like the Intel microchips, Pentium microprocessors and Google search algorithms developed in the country, are hidden inside their technology.

Yet another issue involves the spectacle of Western venality. Universities and their Middle East Studies departments, practising academics, “peace” centers, former diplomats, ex-Presidents and many other individuals and institutions are the grateful recipients of Arab largesse—mainly Saudi-Arabian, but the Emirates have ponied up as well. Even if it were the intention of some putative Jewish cabal, there simply isn’t enough Jewish money to go around to accomplish the same result, despite the universal canard of shadowy Jewish financiers secretly controlling the dispensation of the world’s fortunes. So the Muslims have the field. Ask Jimmy Carter. Ask Charles Freeman. Ask Ramsey Clark. Ask George Galloway. Ask Rashid Khalidi. Ask John Esposito. But don’t hold your breath if you’re waiting for an honest answer.

Glazov adduces still another factor to account for the “war against Jews.” Jews are guilty “because as a people, they are synonymous with liberty and the veneration of life on earth.” Thus, for “Islamists—as for leftist believers,” who personify “the impulse to destroy and perish…such a disposition is tantamount to a declaration of war.” We have, in essence, betrayed our own civilizing imperative of which Judaism, along with classical Greece, is the fount and origin.

Add these factors to the motherlode of ancient and doggedly irrational Jew-hatred that has always subtended the world’s transactions with its scattered Jewish communities, and that continues to sustain its animus against the state of Israel, and we should have no trouble making sense of what might otherwise seem an insoluble paradox. Together, they serve to explain why we collude with our antagonists and favor those who would destroy us rather than embrace and defend the very people with whom we share a common civilizational patrimony.

It is as if the existential core of our collective being has become so viscous that we no longer have identities, only itineraries. Like Paul Hollander’s “political pilgrims,” we migrate not where reason, integrity and survival might dispose, which should in all propriety be our stable and collective address, but where fear and avarice dictate. And in so doing, we bow the knee to our enemies while kneecapping our friends and allies.