There's an excellent 5 minute Newsnight interview with David Baddiel at this BBC url, where he discusses Anelka's 'quenelle' gesture with his typical mix of astute commentary and gentle humour. As he says, Anelka's defence amounts to "oh no, it's not an anti-semitic gesture, it's a demonstration of support for my great friend (who is a tremendous anti-semite)", and as such is not a particularly coherent position.
Baddiel goes on to describe a Frenchman's response to his own Tweet on the subject, where Baddiel is told "you don't understand, [the quenelle is not anti-semitic, it is] just anti-French government. And anti the Zionist cabal".
He makes a number of other excellent points, definitely worth the time.
-----
Nicolas Anelka: West Brom striker defends "quenelle" gesture
BBC Sport
21 January 2014
Showing posts with label anti-semitism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-semitism. Show all posts
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Top 10 warning signs you may be a ‘Guardian Left’ anti-Semite
Top 10 warning signs you may be a ‘Guardian Left’ anti-Semite
CiFWatch
22/05/13
The Guardian’s associate editor Seumas Milne – who, in case it needs reminding, worked for the pro-Stalinist communist publication ‘Straight Left’ earlier in his career – was kind enough to Tweet a link to a piece in Foreign Policy Magazine by Stephen Walt.
The piece is titled ‘Top 10 warning signs you are a liberal imperialist‘.
The essay itself, written by the co-author of a book widely condemned for its shoddy scholarship and for arguing that Jews wield too much power in Washington, D.C., is unintentionally quite comical – a kind of ‘Western Guilt-Driven Guide to the Universe for Dummies’ – and includes, as #1, the following:
So, in the spirit of Walt’s mockery of those who ‘unknowingly’ are compromised by a deep-seeded imperialism lurking in their subconscious, here is CiF Watch’s own ‘Top 10 warning signs you may be a Guardian Left anti-Semite‘ – a list, per the links below, inspired by real life Guardianistas!)
1. You claim the mantle of human rights yet find yourself running interference for anti-Semitic world leaders and helping to spread the propaganda of Islamist extremists - and even terrorist leaders who openly call for the murder of Jews.
2. You claim to condemn racism at every opportunity yet are strangely silent or seriously downplay even the most egregious examples of antisemitic violence.
3. You claim to be a champion of progressive politics yet often use terms and advance tropes indistinguishable from classic right wing Judeophobia - such as the argument that Jews are too powerful, use their money to control politics, and are not loyal citizens.
4. You support nationalism, and don’t have a problem with the existence of more than 50 Muslim states, yet you oppose the existence of the only Jewish state in the world.
5. Even when putatively condemning antisemitism you can’t help but blame the Jews for causing antisemitism.
6. You condemn the Holocaust yet also obsessively condemn living Jews for their alleged ‘inhumanity’ and even argue that Jews haven’t learned the proper lessons from the attempt to annihilate their co-religionists from the planet.
7. You not only support Palestinian rights, but support their “right” to launch deadly terrorist attacks on Israeli Jews, under the mantle of anti-imperialist ”resistance”.
8. You characterize extremist reactionary Islamist movements as “progressive“.
9. You accuse Jews of cynically misusing the charge of antisemitism to “stifle” debate about the Jewish state.
10. You champion diversity and multiculturalism of all kinds, yet suggest that Jewish particularism represents an inherently tribal, ethnocentric and racist identity.
CiFWatch
22/05/13
The Guardian’s associate editor Seumas Milne – who, in case it needs reminding, worked for the pro-Stalinist communist publication ‘Straight Left’ earlier in his career – was kind enough to Tweet a link to a piece in Foreign Policy Magazine by Stephen Walt.
The piece is titled ‘Top 10 warning signs you are a liberal imperialist‘.
The essay itself, written by the co-author of a book widely condemned for its shoddy scholarship and for arguing that Jews wield too much power in Washington, D.C., is unintentionally quite comical – a kind of ‘Western Guilt-Driven Guide to the Universe for Dummies’ – and includes, as #1, the following:
You frequently find yourself advocating that the United States send troops, drones, weapons, Special Forces, or combat air patrols to some country that you have never visited, whose language(s) you don’t speak, and that you never paid much attention to until bad things started happening there.Whilst I don’t speak fluent academic-ese like the esteemed Harvard professor, I have become adept at deciphering an even more obscure dialect – the language of the Guardian Left.
So, in the spirit of Walt’s mockery of those who ‘unknowingly’ are compromised by a deep-seeded imperialism lurking in their subconscious, here is CiF Watch’s own ‘Top 10 warning signs you may be a Guardian Left anti-Semite‘ – a list, per the links below, inspired by real life Guardianistas!)
1. You claim the mantle of human rights yet find yourself running interference for anti-Semitic world leaders and helping to spread the propaganda of Islamist extremists - and even terrorist leaders who openly call for the murder of Jews.
2. You claim to condemn racism at every opportunity yet are strangely silent or seriously downplay even the most egregious examples of antisemitic violence.
3. You claim to be a champion of progressive politics yet often use terms and advance tropes indistinguishable from classic right wing Judeophobia - such as the argument that Jews are too powerful, use their money to control politics, and are not loyal citizens.
4. You support nationalism, and don’t have a problem with the existence of more than 50 Muslim states, yet you oppose the existence of the only Jewish state in the world.
5. Even when putatively condemning antisemitism you can’t help but blame the Jews for causing antisemitism.
6. You condemn the Holocaust yet also obsessively condemn living Jews for their alleged ‘inhumanity’ and even argue that Jews haven’t learned the proper lessons from the attempt to annihilate their co-religionists from the planet.
7. You not only support Palestinian rights, but support their “right” to launch deadly terrorist attacks on Israeli Jews, under the mantle of anti-imperialist ”resistance”.
8. You characterize extremist reactionary Islamist movements as “progressive“.
9. You accuse Jews of cynically misusing the charge of antisemitism to “stifle” debate about the Jewish state.
10. You champion diversity and multiculturalism of all kinds, yet suggest that Jewish particularism represents an inherently tribal, ethnocentric and racist identity.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The Media Imperialists - Morsi's anti-semitic comments finally reported
Wow. Powerful and important story. Best read at the original site, there are lots of links to follow in the text.
-----------
The Media Imperialists
Gatestone Institute
by Samuel Westrop
March 20, 2013
When the New York Times finally decided in January to report the anti-Semitic comments made by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President, Mohammed Morsi, almost two weeks after the Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI] broke the story, the report prompted further coverage in newspapers across the world, and even forced a statement from the White House in condemnation of the remarks.
But why did it take so long? While hundreds of articles have labeled, say, the Israeli politician Naftali Bennett an "extremist", why does the media try to avoid criticizing actual despots and extremists in other countries?
In a number of interviews, uncovered by MEMRI in January, President Morsi condemned Zionists -- and Jews -- by describing them as "bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs." Morsi called for "military resistance in Palestine against these Zionist criminals assaulting the land of Palestine and Palestinians". Another video, also unearthed by MEMRI, showed Morsi addressing a crowd in the Nile Delta, urging Egyptians to "nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews."
In June 2012, major media outlets completely ignored a video posted online, which showed Morsi chanting: "Jihad is our path. And death for the sake of Allah is our most lofty aspiration."
Why did most newspapers hesitate to criticize Morsi in the first place? One would at least expect some kind of coverage from the Western media of unfolding events, especially in solidarity with their Egyptian counterparts. More Egyptian journalists have been prosecuted for insulting Morsi during his six months in office than during Mubarak's thirty years in power.
The media eventually broke its silence over Morsi's comments after criticism from a number of commentators, including a piece by Forbes' writer, Richard Behar, who wrote:
"Needless to say, this was HUGE NEWS for American mass media! Only it wasn't. (Knock, knock, New York Times? Anybody home?) In fact, to be fair to the paper of record, not a single major outlet has covered it. Not AP or Reuters. Not CBS News or CNN. Not Time magazine or U.S. News & World Report. Not the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, or USA Today … Most would agree that, even in the internet age, the Times is still the leading agenda-setter for major media … But it does seem to avoid covering Islamist incitement against Jews (and Christians) like the plagues."
Once the New York Times finally reported the Morsi story, other newspapers across the world followed suit. Well, not all of them did. The British Independent has not carried a single mention of the story. It has, however, run dozens of condemnatory articles on, for example, Naftali Bennett.
Provocative stories -- mostly untrue and usually concerning Jews -- appear, by newspaper editors, to be considered more important. A few weeks ago, the Independent ran a story: "Did Israeli troops deliberately provoke boy, only to shoot him in the back?" Needless to say, the article did not even begin to corroborate the accusatory headline.
Even those papers that did report Morsi's comments managed to devote far more column inches to the ostensible immorality in Israel of Bennett's position. Yet Bennett has never uttered anything remotely so violent as Morsi's call for Arabs to nurture their children to hate the Jews.
Further, even though New York Times eventually did cover the Morsi story, his comments were presented as an aberration. There was no reference to the institutionalized anti-Jewish and pro-terror sentiment rooted deep within Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood's own website features articles denying the Holocaust and warning Muslims against the exploitative nature of the "Jewish character." Other articles advocate jihad and martyrdom, condemn Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and denounce all forms of negotiation or compromise. All of this goes unreported.
Back in May 2012, New York Times journalist David Kirkpatrick responded to readers' questions about Egypt's elections. Answering an inquiry about anti-Semitism in Egypt, Kirkpatrick dismissed the claim and downplayed the idea that the Brotherhood was hostile to Israel:
"I have not seen or heard any slurs against Jews on the campaign trail, and I do not think that has figured in the campaign in any way. … It may be interesting to note which candidates are most hostile to Israel. Not the Islamists. Mohamed Morsi and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh are relatively positive about the importance of the peace."
Sky News has been one of the few media outlets to offer some accurate journalism. Foreign editor Tim Marshall wrote:
"Describing Jews as sons of pigs and monkeys is commonplace throughout the Middle East, it is routinely repeated on the street, in mosques, in TV debates, in cartoons, and in newspaper articles.
…
In Europe, when Europeans say things such as expressed above, we recognise them as 'Fascistic'. When expressed by people in some other parts of the globe we appear frightened to call things what they are."
Morsi faced the (somewhat forced) opprobrium of the West only after a number of commentators condemned the media's silence. Other equally outspoken extremists escape criticism completely. Palestinian President Mohammed Abbas, regularly praised as a "moderate" by Western media, has said of suicide bombers that, "Allah loves the martyr." He has described wanted terrorists as "heroes fighting for freedom," and recently said that, "We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation. It is forbidden to use these guns against Palestinians. … Our rifles, all our rifles are aimed at the occupation."
Palestinian Media Watch has uncovered further evidence of such aggressive rhetoric by Abbas's government. Recently, on Fatah's 48th anniversary, a television broadcast by the Palestinian Authority's television station, showed a new film, "Revolution until Victory," about the history of the Fatah movement. The program declared that Europe had "suffered a tragedy by providing refuge for the Jews," and that, "faced with the Jews' schemes, Europe could not bear their character traits, monopolies, corruption, and their control and climbing up positions in government."
Similarly, amid the tumult of the protests and marches in Pakistan last month the only clear inference from the media's reporting was that Tahir ul Qadri, the leading figure behind the demonstrations, was harmless – even a welcome influence. The Guardian explained:
"Qadri has no interest in introducing Taliban-style sharia law. He was best known for his unexceptional career as an elected member of parliament and the 600-page fatwa, or religious ruling, that he issued against terrorism and suicide bombing."
The Guardian and others completely ignored Qadri's efforts to ensure that those who blaspheme should be executed:
"For three days from November 14 to 17, 1985 Dr Qadri presented his arguments continuously before the Federal Sharia Court of Pakistan to determine the quantum of punishment to be awarded to a person guilty of contempt of the finality of the Holy Prophet … He established, on evidence from the Quran and Sunna, that a person guilty of contempt of the finality of the Holy Prophet … deserved death sentence and the punishment will be imposed as Hadd. … The crime is so sanguine that even his repentance cannot exempt him from the penalty of death."
This move was particularly aimed at Pakistan's much-persecuted Ahmadiyya minority, whom Qadri describes as "heretics."
While Egypt's Morsi describes Jews as "apes and pigs," arrests his critics and violently suppresses all protest, Turkey's Islamist government jails journalists and political dissidents, murders Kurds and supports terrorist financing groups such as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation. Despite this, the London Times's leading article recently opined:
"Political Islam is perfectly compatible with democracy. Turkey has been governed since 2012 by the Justice and Development Party, an Islamist organisation. There is no necessary reason that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt should, having won an election, exercise power autocratically."
In November 1998, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research quoted the then-mayor of Istanbul who, in June 1997, during a meeting organized by the municipality to celebrate the city's conquest by the Ottoman Turks, said, "The Jews started to oppress the Muslims of Palestine in the name of political Judaism which is called Zionism. Today the image of the Jew is no different from that of the Nazis." That mayor's name was Recep Tayyip Erdogan; he later became, and still is, the Prime Minister of Turkey -- a man whom President Obama describes as a personal friend. Turkey is a member of NATO, and has a government which, as illustrated by The Times, is regarded as "moderate."
It is easy to forget that before the uprising in Syria, the media described Bashar al-Assad as a "moderate" and a "reformer," and Vogue magazine published a glowing profile of his wife. Even then, however, all dissent in Syria was harshly suppressed, political prisoners were executed and Syrian Palestinians were denied equal rights – all either laundered or overlooked by the Western media.
Assad's father was described in the same terms. In 1977, the Washington Post, welcoming a meeting between President Carter and Hafez al-Assad, wrote that Assad was "considered a moderate" and commended his "flexibility" in dealing with Israel [Washington Post, May 8, 1977, "Carter-Assad Meeting in Geneva Underlines Syria's Key Role", Stuart Auerbach]. The same Hafez Assad -- establishing a tradition continued today by his son, Bashar -- would later slaughter tens of thousands of his own people and violently suppress all political dissent.
Why does the mainstream media require Assad to murder 60,000 people before newspapers can consider him a brutal dictator? Why do, say, Naftali Bennett's statements receive front-page coverage while Erdogan's and Abbas's bigotries escape media mention completely?
Is it possible that many in the West are so desperate to support "moderates," whether or not they exist, that they embrace any figure who, on the face of it, seems slightly less extreme or corrupt than the existing despot?
The naivety of this desperation is far outweighed by the other possibility: a number of Western commentators regard ideological figureheads such as Morsi to be bulwarks against Western interference in the East (whether military, cultural or ideological) – most often described by Islamists and their Western apologists as a modern-day "imperialism".
The BBC, for example, upon finally reporting Morsi's anti-Semitic comments, decided to sanitize his words, claiming: "In the clip from Palestinian broadcaster Al-Quds TV, Mr Morsi referred to Jewish settlers as 'occupiers of Palestine' and 'warmongers.'" As monitoring group BBC Watch notes, Al Quds TV is not merely a "Palestinian broadcaster;" it is a television station owned and run by the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Moreover, Morsi never mentioned "Jewish settlers;" his anti-Semitic, pro-terror remarks condemned all of Israel's Jewish population.Meanwhile, the Guardian has painted a sympathetic picture of Islamist terrorists complicit in murderous attacks upon civilians, published pieces praising Morsi's recent power grab as a move to "protect against judicial repression" and has produced editorials claiming criticism of Morsi is an attack on the Egyptians' democratic aspirations. Guardian columnist and associate editor Seamus Milne has condemned purported Western attempts to crush the "anti-imperialist" Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power:
"The fact that they [the Arab uprisings] kicked off against western-backed dictatorships meant they posed an immediate threat to the strategic order … Since the day Hosni Mubarak fell in Egypt, there has been a relentless counter-drive by the western powers and their Gulf allies to buy off, crush or hijack the Arab revolutions. … The original crucial link between western imperial power and the Zionist project became a permanent strategic alliance after the establishment of Israel – throughout the expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinians, multiple wars, 44 years of military occupation and the continuing illegal colonisation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The unconditional nature of that alliance, which remains the pivot of US policy in the Middle East, is one reason why democratically elected Arab governments are likely to find it harder to play patsy to US power than the dictatorial Mubaraks and Gulf monarchs."
"Anti-imperialists" enjoy a powerful legitimacy, provided by Western commentators, predicated on the idea that the most violent of extremists is still better than the decadence and supremacy of Western influence. As a consequence, the media can safely ignore the iniquities of many violent demagogues. Israeli politicians can be condemned as Western oppressors while the murderous or bigoted actions of collectivist ideologies and their cheerleaders are, in the eyes of much of the media, a compassionate product of their environment -- former colonies indefinitely corrupted by the past misdeeds of the West.
As the academic and author Barry Rubin has asked, what of the lonely authentic reformers in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere, who receive no support at all from Western media? Their message of freedom and democracy is lost in the media's rush to extoll the virtues of the "moderate" Abbas, the "moderate" Erdogan, the "moderate" Qadri and the "moderate" Assad. If there is Western "imperialism" at all, it can be found in the Guardian and New York Times, as their journalists impose their brand of "moderation" onto the people of the East.
-----------
The Media Imperialists
Gatestone Institute
by Samuel Westrop
March 20, 2013
When the New York Times finally decided in January to report the anti-Semitic comments made by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President, Mohammed Morsi, almost two weeks after the Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI] broke the story, the report prompted further coverage in newspapers across the world, and even forced a statement from the White House in condemnation of the remarks.
But why did it take so long? While hundreds of articles have labeled, say, the Israeli politician Naftali Bennett an "extremist", why does the media try to avoid criticizing actual despots and extremists in other countries?
In a number of interviews, uncovered by MEMRI in January, President Morsi condemned Zionists -- and Jews -- by describing them as "bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs." Morsi called for "military resistance in Palestine against these Zionist criminals assaulting the land of Palestine and Palestinians". Another video, also unearthed by MEMRI, showed Morsi addressing a crowd in the Nile Delta, urging Egyptians to "nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews."
In June 2012, major media outlets completely ignored a video posted online, which showed Morsi chanting: "Jihad is our path. And death for the sake of Allah is our most lofty aspiration."
Why did most newspapers hesitate to criticize Morsi in the first place? One would at least expect some kind of coverage from the Western media of unfolding events, especially in solidarity with their Egyptian counterparts. More Egyptian journalists have been prosecuted for insulting Morsi during his six months in office than during Mubarak's thirty years in power.
The media eventually broke its silence over Morsi's comments after criticism from a number of commentators, including a piece by Forbes' writer, Richard Behar, who wrote:
"Needless to say, this was HUGE NEWS for American mass media! Only it wasn't. (Knock, knock, New York Times? Anybody home?) In fact, to be fair to the paper of record, not a single major outlet has covered it. Not AP or Reuters. Not CBS News or CNN. Not Time magazine or U.S. News & World Report. Not the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, or USA Today … Most would agree that, even in the internet age, the Times is still the leading agenda-setter for major media … But it does seem to avoid covering Islamist incitement against Jews (and Christians) like the plagues."
Once the New York Times finally reported the Morsi story, other newspapers across the world followed suit. Well, not all of them did. The British Independent has not carried a single mention of the story. It has, however, run dozens of condemnatory articles on, for example, Naftali Bennett.
Provocative stories -- mostly untrue and usually concerning Jews -- appear, by newspaper editors, to be considered more important. A few weeks ago, the Independent ran a story: "Did Israeli troops deliberately provoke boy, only to shoot him in the back?" Needless to say, the article did not even begin to corroborate the accusatory headline.
Even those papers that did report Morsi's comments managed to devote far more column inches to the ostensible immorality in Israel of Bennett's position. Yet Bennett has never uttered anything remotely so violent as Morsi's call for Arabs to nurture their children to hate the Jews.
Further, even though New York Times eventually did cover the Morsi story, his comments were presented as an aberration. There was no reference to the institutionalized anti-Jewish and pro-terror sentiment rooted deep within Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood's own website features articles denying the Holocaust and warning Muslims against the exploitative nature of the "Jewish character." Other articles advocate jihad and martyrdom, condemn Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and denounce all forms of negotiation or compromise. All of this goes unreported.
Back in May 2012, New York Times journalist David Kirkpatrick responded to readers' questions about Egypt's elections. Answering an inquiry about anti-Semitism in Egypt, Kirkpatrick dismissed the claim and downplayed the idea that the Brotherhood was hostile to Israel:
"I have not seen or heard any slurs against Jews on the campaign trail, and I do not think that has figured in the campaign in any way. … It may be interesting to note which candidates are most hostile to Israel. Not the Islamists. Mohamed Morsi and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh are relatively positive about the importance of the peace."
Sky News has been one of the few media outlets to offer some accurate journalism. Foreign editor Tim Marshall wrote:
"Describing Jews as sons of pigs and monkeys is commonplace throughout the Middle East, it is routinely repeated on the street, in mosques, in TV debates, in cartoons, and in newspaper articles.
…
In Europe, when Europeans say things such as expressed above, we recognise them as 'Fascistic'. When expressed by people in some other parts of the globe we appear frightened to call things what they are."
Morsi faced the (somewhat forced) opprobrium of the West only after a number of commentators condemned the media's silence. Other equally outspoken extremists escape criticism completely. Palestinian President Mohammed Abbas, regularly praised as a "moderate" by Western media, has said of suicide bombers that, "Allah loves the martyr." He has described wanted terrorists as "heroes fighting for freedom," and recently said that, "We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation. It is forbidden to use these guns against Palestinians. … Our rifles, all our rifles are aimed at the occupation."
Palestinian Media Watch has uncovered further evidence of such aggressive rhetoric by Abbas's government. Recently, on Fatah's 48th anniversary, a television broadcast by the Palestinian Authority's television station, showed a new film, "Revolution until Victory," about the history of the Fatah movement. The program declared that Europe had "suffered a tragedy by providing refuge for the Jews," and that, "faced with the Jews' schemes, Europe could not bear their character traits, monopolies, corruption, and their control and climbing up positions in government."
Similarly, amid the tumult of the protests and marches in Pakistan last month the only clear inference from the media's reporting was that Tahir ul Qadri, the leading figure behind the demonstrations, was harmless – even a welcome influence. The Guardian explained:
"Qadri has no interest in introducing Taliban-style sharia law. He was best known for his unexceptional career as an elected member of parliament and the 600-page fatwa, or religious ruling, that he issued against terrorism and suicide bombing."
The Guardian and others completely ignored Qadri's efforts to ensure that those who blaspheme should be executed:
"For three days from November 14 to 17, 1985 Dr Qadri presented his arguments continuously before the Federal Sharia Court of Pakistan to determine the quantum of punishment to be awarded to a person guilty of contempt of the finality of the Holy Prophet … He established, on evidence from the Quran and Sunna, that a person guilty of contempt of the finality of the Holy Prophet … deserved death sentence and the punishment will be imposed as Hadd. … The crime is so sanguine that even his repentance cannot exempt him from the penalty of death."
This move was particularly aimed at Pakistan's much-persecuted Ahmadiyya minority, whom Qadri describes as "heretics."
While Egypt's Morsi describes Jews as "apes and pigs," arrests his critics and violently suppresses all protest, Turkey's Islamist government jails journalists and political dissidents, murders Kurds and supports terrorist financing groups such as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation. Despite this, the London Times's leading article recently opined:
"Political Islam is perfectly compatible with democracy. Turkey has been governed since 2012 by the Justice and Development Party, an Islamist organisation. There is no necessary reason that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt should, having won an election, exercise power autocratically."
In November 1998, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research quoted the then-mayor of Istanbul who, in June 1997, during a meeting organized by the municipality to celebrate the city's conquest by the Ottoman Turks, said, "The Jews started to oppress the Muslims of Palestine in the name of political Judaism which is called Zionism. Today the image of the Jew is no different from that of the Nazis." That mayor's name was Recep Tayyip Erdogan; he later became, and still is, the Prime Minister of Turkey -- a man whom President Obama describes as a personal friend. Turkey is a member of NATO, and has a government which, as illustrated by The Times, is regarded as "moderate."
It is easy to forget that before the uprising in Syria, the media described Bashar al-Assad as a "moderate" and a "reformer," and Vogue magazine published a glowing profile of his wife. Even then, however, all dissent in Syria was harshly suppressed, political prisoners were executed and Syrian Palestinians were denied equal rights – all either laundered or overlooked by the Western media.
Assad's father was described in the same terms. In 1977, the Washington Post, welcoming a meeting between President Carter and Hafez al-Assad, wrote that Assad was "considered a moderate" and commended his "flexibility" in dealing with Israel [Washington Post, May 8, 1977, "Carter-Assad Meeting in Geneva Underlines Syria's Key Role", Stuart Auerbach]. The same Hafez Assad -- establishing a tradition continued today by his son, Bashar -- would later slaughter tens of thousands of his own people and violently suppress all political dissent.
Why does the mainstream media require Assad to murder 60,000 people before newspapers can consider him a brutal dictator? Why do, say, Naftali Bennett's statements receive front-page coverage while Erdogan's and Abbas's bigotries escape media mention completely?
Is it possible that many in the West are so desperate to support "moderates," whether or not they exist, that they embrace any figure who, on the face of it, seems slightly less extreme or corrupt than the existing despot?
The naivety of this desperation is far outweighed by the other possibility: a number of Western commentators regard ideological figureheads such as Morsi to be bulwarks against Western interference in the East (whether military, cultural or ideological) – most often described by Islamists and their Western apologists as a modern-day "imperialism".
The BBC, for example, upon finally reporting Morsi's anti-Semitic comments, decided to sanitize his words, claiming: "In the clip from Palestinian broadcaster Al-Quds TV, Mr Morsi referred to Jewish settlers as 'occupiers of Palestine' and 'warmongers.'" As monitoring group BBC Watch notes, Al Quds TV is not merely a "Palestinian broadcaster;" it is a television station owned and run by the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Moreover, Morsi never mentioned "Jewish settlers;" his anti-Semitic, pro-terror remarks condemned all of Israel's Jewish population.Meanwhile, the Guardian has painted a sympathetic picture of Islamist terrorists complicit in murderous attacks upon civilians, published pieces praising Morsi's recent power grab as a move to "protect against judicial repression" and has produced editorials claiming criticism of Morsi is an attack on the Egyptians' democratic aspirations. Guardian columnist and associate editor Seamus Milne has condemned purported Western attempts to crush the "anti-imperialist" Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power:
"The fact that they [the Arab uprisings] kicked off against western-backed dictatorships meant they posed an immediate threat to the strategic order … Since the day Hosni Mubarak fell in Egypt, there has been a relentless counter-drive by the western powers and their Gulf allies to buy off, crush or hijack the Arab revolutions. … The original crucial link between western imperial power and the Zionist project became a permanent strategic alliance after the establishment of Israel – throughout the expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinians, multiple wars, 44 years of military occupation and the continuing illegal colonisation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The unconditional nature of that alliance, which remains the pivot of US policy in the Middle East, is one reason why democratically elected Arab governments are likely to find it harder to play patsy to US power than the dictatorial Mubaraks and Gulf monarchs."
"Anti-imperialists" enjoy a powerful legitimacy, provided by Western commentators, predicated on the idea that the most violent of extremists is still better than the decadence and supremacy of Western influence. As a consequence, the media can safely ignore the iniquities of many violent demagogues. Israeli politicians can be condemned as Western oppressors while the murderous or bigoted actions of collectivist ideologies and their cheerleaders are, in the eyes of much of the media, a compassionate product of their environment -- former colonies indefinitely corrupted by the past misdeeds of the West.
As the academic and author Barry Rubin has asked, what of the lonely authentic reformers in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere, who receive no support at all from Western media? Their message of freedom and democracy is lost in the media's rush to extoll the virtues of the "moderate" Abbas, the "moderate" Erdogan, the "moderate" Qadri and the "moderate" Assad. If there is Western "imperialism" at all, it can be found in the Guardian and New York Times, as their journalists impose their brand of "moderation" onto the people of the East.
Monday, December 24, 2012
The British Left & The Jews
An excellent discussion I attended on the topic of "The British Left & The Jews".
The Socialism of Fools
Discussion with Anthony Julius and Nick Cohen - hosted by Daniel Johnson
Standpoint Mag January/February 2013
Daniel Johnson: Our subject is the Left and the Jews. A famous phrase from the 19th century—I think it came from the German social democrat August Bebel—was that "anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools". If that was true then, there are still plenty of these fools around today. Just as in the 19th century, when leading figures of the Left such as Karl Marx set a bad example in their writings about the Jewish people, so today we have a problem on the Left. Where does this come from? Why does it exist? For so many years, the Left, if we define it as beginning with the French Revolution, was seen as the friend of the Jewish people, of emancipation, toleration and equality. But the problem, I think, stems from something which Isaac Deutscher, a great icon of the Left, called the "non-Jewish Jew". The price to be exacted in return for emancipation and full equality was that Jews should give up everything that was distinctive and specifically Jewish. For years, most on the Left did not believe this, but some did. Karl Marx, above all, began the trend towards anti-Semitism on the Left. These leftist thinkers saw thousands of years of Jewish tradition, religion and ritual as in some sense a burden to be sloughed off.
In today's world that attitude still exists, but it has been hugely exacerbated by the unholy alliance that we have found among elements of the Left-not, by any means, among everyone-and the forces of Islamism. A whole new dimension has been created. We began to see this most visibly in the 1960s after the Six-Day War, when anti-Zionism morphed into the "new anti-Semitism", as it has often been called. In this country today, and indeed across the West, anti-Semitism is no longer the preserve of the extreme Right. It has become embedded even in the respectable salons and newspaper offices of the Left.
Nick Cohen: This discussion is like wading into a minefield. Because what do you mean by Left? As Daniel suggested, there are all kinds of shades of opinions on the Left, on this as any other issue. It is like saying, "The Right and the Jews". You can't debate without generalisations—you can't write without generalisations—so it is certainly true that there are anti-Semites on the Left. But it is equally true that left-wing thought can lead to conspiracy theorising. The late 20th century saw the collapse of socialism. From the 1880s through to the 1980s, you would have none of my problems of definition about talking to the Left. If you were left-wing, you were a socialist of some sort. Socialism died before the Berlin Wall came down. All over the world, people were giving up on socialism, not least Communists, especially in China and Russia.
You then have a problem with people who are raging, often with very good reason, against injustice in their society, who call themselves left-wing. What do you do next? How do you explain defeat? One way to explain defeat is a kind of conspiracy theorising. You see this in Britain a lot: people opine on the reasons elections are lost, because of Rupert Murdoch and the Tory press brainwashing the electorate. Lots of people on the Right, for instance, keep saying that the reasons the Tories keep losing elections (and they still haven't won one, incidentally, not even against Gordon Brown. I would have thought that if you missed that goal you might as well give up football completely) is because of the BBC and the liberal media.
It is quite easy to get into conspiratorial ways of thinking. As soon as you start thinking like this, Jews come along, particularly when confronted by an injustice like that suffered by the Palestinians. It is very easy to go from explaining defeat and injustice to saying that there is a Jewish conspiracy which controls British and American foreign policy and runs secret levers of power.
There is one point I would pick out—as I am from the Left—and that I want to emphasise, and I want to do this strongly: you cannot say that it is anti-Semitic to be utterly opposed to the building of settlements on the West Bank, for instance, or to otherwise criticise Israel.
My book You Can't Read This Book deals with censorship, but the greatest fear in Europe for writers and artists ever since Salman Rushdie has been radical Islam. I'm not saying radical Islam has been the only violent force in Europe, but it is the only one which targets writers and artists. I have to take on the notion of Islamophobia, but I can't say it doesn't exist, as there are people who hate Muslims because they are Muslims. There are good reasons for people opposing Islamophobia, but you simply cannot say that publishing a book or writing, or making a work of art, or engaging in legitimate criticism about things like the theocratic regime in Iran is a kind of racism. It's not: it is normal political criticism, and not racist.
Equally with anti-Semitism. You just can't say that people who are appalled by what the Likud government has done are simply racists. You must do a bit better than that. In a funny way, you let real racists off the hook because you let them hide themselves among the crowd.
DJ: Anthony, is there a problem of the Left and the Jews? How does that fit into the history you tell in your book on anti-Semitism in England?
Anthony Julius: Let me return to something that Nick said. He said, since there isn't a Left, there is only a historical memory of the Left. What form does that historical memory take? There's no doubt that until the 1980s socialism spoke principally for a positive project. It was a reconstruction of society, with a certain optimism, and values we associate mainly with the Enlightenment, anti-clerical hostility towards institutions that were thought to be oppressive and benighted.
NC: Absolutely.
AJ: It was a positive project to be a socialist. It was to be committed to something that was about construction, building, substituting something delinquent and infirm with something more elevated, and improving morally and materially the conditions of most people. It would allow most of them to realise themselves, in ways that could only previously have been dreamt of. And that collapsed, in an awfully oppressive sense that there was no alternative to existing arrangements. There was no fundamental alternative to the market economy or mixed economy, no alternative to representative democracy—even though democracy leads to large sections of society being alienated from the political process. We live in an imperfect world. That really cannot be overstated.
There was a disaster in the thinking of the Left, and progressive people in general. The question was, what to do with that disaster? A number of different positions were taken, with a number of different solutions to that problem. First, simple withdrawal into private life—depart from the political field and commit oneself to novel writing or gardening. Plenty of people did that. One comes across people of a certain age—like some us sitting here today—who were firebrands in their twenties. Now they are lawyers or journalists or columnists of one kind or another. Essentially they lead a private life. It is one perfectly honourable solution, albeit a rather depressing one.
There is another option, which is to commit oneself to a form of liberal politics: a new emphasis on human rights, an advocacy of political reform through law reform, championing principles like free speech or free assembly. In other words, they take liberalism and rights seriously, as a very well-known liberal American jurist once said: giving substance to liberalism's promise.
So that's another option. For me, that is the best of the options. There is a third option, which is to associate oneself with local campaigns or objectives, to give up trying to reconstruct society and instead to commit oneself to causes. Green politics, feminism, prisoners' rights, for instance. Not as part of the second project (which is taking liberalism seriously) but rather as a sort of subversive challenge to existing arrangements, leading to who-knows-where. The most important theorist of that kind of post-leftist politics was a Frenchman, Michel Foucault.
And then there's a fourth position, the one which is most problematical for those of us who are Jews or who make common cause with Jews in the fight against anti-Semitism. It is a kind of impure nihilism, a kind of destructive fury or a perpetuation of the antagonisms of the pre-1989 Left, but without any balancing constructive project, so one continues in one's war against America as if the Cold War still existed and the Soviet system still existed. But because there is no real alternative, one is led into more and more extreme gestures of anger and hatred and violence.
I think of the four responses I have identified, the fourth is most difficult for Jews: the searching for enemies-the pursuit of the enemy for its own sake. Jews have comprised the major enemy—certainly the major internal enemy—in the imagination of the West for perhaps 1,500 years. Of course, when that then becomes part of a larger political project, anti-Semitism is not terribly far away.
So in my general overview, of the four options following the collapse of the Left, the fourth is the one I would most identify as problematical. I would say, perhaps, in response to Nick, and building on what he said rather than dissenting from it, a more precise title for the problem we are addressing now is not so much the Jews and the Left but the Jews and the post-Left.
more...
The Socialism of Fools
Discussion with Anthony Julius and Nick Cohen - hosted by Daniel Johnson
Standpoint Mag January/February 2013
Daniel Johnson: Our subject is the Left and the Jews. A famous phrase from the 19th century—I think it came from the German social democrat August Bebel—was that "anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools". If that was true then, there are still plenty of these fools around today. Just as in the 19th century, when leading figures of the Left such as Karl Marx set a bad example in their writings about the Jewish people, so today we have a problem on the Left. Where does this come from? Why does it exist? For so many years, the Left, if we define it as beginning with the French Revolution, was seen as the friend of the Jewish people, of emancipation, toleration and equality. But the problem, I think, stems from something which Isaac Deutscher, a great icon of the Left, called the "non-Jewish Jew". The price to be exacted in return for emancipation and full equality was that Jews should give up everything that was distinctive and specifically Jewish. For years, most on the Left did not believe this, but some did. Karl Marx, above all, began the trend towards anti-Semitism on the Left. These leftist thinkers saw thousands of years of Jewish tradition, religion and ritual as in some sense a burden to be sloughed off.
In today's world that attitude still exists, but it has been hugely exacerbated by the unholy alliance that we have found among elements of the Left-not, by any means, among everyone-and the forces of Islamism. A whole new dimension has been created. We began to see this most visibly in the 1960s after the Six-Day War, when anti-Zionism morphed into the "new anti-Semitism", as it has often been called. In this country today, and indeed across the West, anti-Semitism is no longer the preserve of the extreme Right. It has become embedded even in the respectable salons and newspaper offices of the Left.
Nick Cohen: This discussion is like wading into a minefield. Because what do you mean by Left? As Daniel suggested, there are all kinds of shades of opinions on the Left, on this as any other issue. It is like saying, "The Right and the Jews". You can't debate without generalisations—you can't write without generalisations—so it is certainly true that there are anti-Semites on the Left. But it is equally true that left-wing thought can lead to conspiracy theorising. The late 20th century saw the collapse of socialism. From the 1880s through to the 1980s, you would have none of my problems of definition about talking to the Left. If you were left-wing, you were a socialist of some sort. Socialism died before the Berlin Wall came down. All over the world, people were giving up on socialism, not least Communists, especially in China and Russia.
You then have a problem with people who are raging, often with very good reason, against injustice in their society, who call themselves left-wing. What do you do next? How do you explain defeat? One way to explain defeat is a kind of conspiracy theorising. You see this in Britain a lot: people opine on the reasons elections are lost, because of Rupert Murdoch and the Tory press brainwashing the electorate. Lots of people on the Right, for instance, keep saying that the reasons the Tories keep losing elections (and they still haven't won one, incidentally, not even against Gordon Brown. I would have thought that if you missed that goal you might as well give up football completely) is because of the BBC and the liberal media.
It is quite easy to get into conspiratorial ways of thinking. As soon as you start thinking like this, Jews come along, particularly when confronted by an injustice like that suffered by the Palestinians. It is very easy to go from explaining defeat and injustice to saying that there is a Jewish conspiracy which controls British and American foreign policy and runs secret levers of power.
There is one point I would pick out—as I am from the Left—and that I want to emphasise, and I want to do this strongly: you cannot say that it is anti-Semitic to be utterly opposed to the building of settlements on the West Bank, for instance, or to otherwise criticise Israel.
My book You Can't Read This Book deals with censorship, but the greatest fear in Europe for writers and artists ever since Salman Rushdie has been radical Islam. I'm not saying radical Islam has been the only violent force in Europe, but it is the only one which targets writers and artists. I have to take on the notion of Islamophobia, but I can't say it doesn't exist, as there are people who hate Muslims because they are Muslims. There are good reasons for people opposing Islamophobia, but you simply cannot say that publishing a book or writing, or making a work of art, or engaging in legitimate criticism about things like the theocratic regime in Iran is a kind of racism. It's not: it is normal political criticism, and not racist.
Equally with anti-Semitism. You just can't say that people who are appalled by what the Likud government has done are simply racists. You must do a bit better than that. In a funny way, you let real racists off the hook because you let them hide themselves among the crowd.
DJ: Anthony, is there a problem of the Left and the Jews? How does that fit into the history you tell in your book on anti-Semitism in England?
Anthony Julius: Let me return to something that Nick said. He said, since there isn't a Left, there is only a historical memory of the Left. What form does that historical memory take? There's no doubt that until the 1980s socialism spoke principally for a positive project. It was a reconstruction of society, with a certain optimism, and values we associate mainly with the Enlightenment, anti-clerical hostility towards institutions that were thought to be oppressive and benighted.
NC: Absolutely.
AJ: It was a positive project to be a socialist. It was to be committed to something that was about construction, building, substituting something delinquent and infirm with something more elevated, and improving morally and materially the conditions of most people. It would allow most of them to realise themselves, in ways that could only previously have been dreamt of. And that collapsed, in an awfully oppressive sense that there was no alternative to existing arrangements. There was no fundamental alternative to the market economy or mixed economy, no alternative to representative democracy—even though democracy leads to large sections of society being alienated from the political process. We live in an imperfect world. That really cannot be overstated.
There was a disaster in the thinking of the Left, and progressive people in general. The question was, what to do with that disaster? A number of different positions were taken, with a number of different solutions to that problem. First, simple withdrawal into private life—depart from the political field and commit oneself to novel writing or gardening. Plenty of people did that. One comes across people of a certain age—like some us sitting here today—who were firebrands in their twenties. Now they are lawyers or journalists or columnists of one kind or another. Essentially they lead a private life. It is one perfectly honourable solution, albeit a rather depressing one.
There is another option, which is to commit oneself to a form of liberal politics: a new emphasis on human rights, an advocacy of political reform through law reform, championing principles like free speech or free assembly. In other words, they take liberalism and rights seriously, as a very well-known liberal American jurist once said: giving substance to liberalism's promise.
So that's another option. For me, that is the best of the options. There is a third option, which is to associate oneself with local campaigns or objectives, to give up trying to reconstruct society and instead to commit oneself to causes. Green politics, feminism, prisoners' rights, for instance. Not as part of the second project (which is taking liberalism seriously) but rather as a sort of subversive challenge to existing arrangements, leading to who-knows-where. The most important theorist of that kind of post-leftist politics was a Frenchman, Michel Foucault.
And then there's a fourth position, the one which is most problematical for those of us who are Jews or who make common cause with Jews in the fight against anti-Semitism. It is a kind of impure nihilism, a kind of destructive fury or a perpetuation of the antagonisms of the pre-1989 Left, but without any balancing constructive project, so one continues in one's war against America as if the Cold War still existed and the Soviet system still existed. But because there is no real alternative, one is led into more and more extreme gestures of anger and hatred and violence.
I think of the four responses I have identified, the fourth is most difficult for Jews: the searching for enemies-the pursuit of the enemy for its own sake. Jews have comprised the major enemy—certainly the major internal enemy—in the imagination of the West for perhaps 1,500 years. Of course, when that then becomes part of a larger political project, anti-Semitism is not terribly far away.
So in my general overview, of the four options following the collapse of the Left, the fourth is the one I would most identify as problematical. I would say, perhaps, in response to Nick, and building on what he said rather than dissenting from it, a more precise title for the problem we are addressing now is not so much the Jews and the Left but the Jews and the post-Left.
more...
Saturday, June 02, 2012
Panorama's "Stadiums Of Hate" - exposing racism and anti-semitism in Poland and Ukraine
Panorama's "Stadiums Of Hate" - exposing racism and anti-semitism in Poland and Ukraine
Football365
John Nicholson and Alan Tyers
31/05/12
If you haven't seen this week's Panorama, we urge you to check it out. Euro 2012: Stadiums Of Hate (Mon, 8.30pm, BBC1) can be viewed on the iPlayer here.
...
Presenter Chris Rogers had spent a month going to games in Poland and the Ukraine to see what the matchday experience might be like. The first conclusion is that there are some truly horrible people in Poland and the Ukraine, and that some of them like going to the football and behaving like utter dicks.
Rogers' experiences in Poland seemed to centre on anti-Semitic chanting, graffiti and general objectionable behaviour. Derby games in both Lodz and Krakow showed both sets of fans chanting anti-Jewish slogans at each other.
As well as being vile and totally unacceptable, there was also a pathetic quality about the Polish stuff. It was clear that certain sections of support in lots of clubs hated Jews, and had apparently taken the word Jew to be a sort of all-purpose put-down or taunt, a bit like when a playground cottons on to the word 'gaylord' or 'retard'. "You're a Jew...no, you're a Jew...you're a Jewy Jew" etc. Which is not to say, of course, that these abusive words are not backed up by physical violence and intimidation on a daily basis, and nor should anyone with even one brain cell need reminding of their particular historical power in that part of Europe. All that said, this particular documentary had captured only verbal bad behaviour towards ethnic monitories in Poland. Either way, Britain's many Polish migrants must have been cringing.
Brainboxes of various allegiances apparently go around altering graffiti so 'Newcastle United' becomes 'Jewcastle' or 'Toon Army' becomes 'Jew-n Army' (Polish equivalents obviously; we're not saying the programme was exposing the hidden horror of Anti-Geordie persecution). The programme didn't take particular pains to elucidate if 'such-and-such a club are the worst offenders', and it seemed at times that pretty much each team was as bad as the next for having what we all like to tell ourselves is 'a minority of idiots'.
As is often the case when racists and hate crime-types are put on TV the overall effect is to show just of how utterly backward and sad these people are. There was a slight unintentional comedy with two different sets of arseholes all calling each 'Jew club' etc.
Two black players, Ugo Ukah - who was very briefly at QPR and was late of Widzew Lodz - and Prince Okachi, who still plays for Widzew, had predictably depressing accounts of racist abuse from the stands, from fellow players, and no support or intervention whatsoever from the authorities. Sol Campbell, a dignified and impressive talking head here, expressed dismay and real pain at the situation.
However, it has to be said that Kharkiv in the Ukraine made Lodz look like Greenwich Village. Rogers got some brilliant footage of a Metalist game with, he says, 2,000 fans giving it the always charming Nazi Salute. This was backed up with a grimly hilarious interview with a Colonel in the local police force claiming:
"Nazi salute? Oh, no no no no. These people were merely pointing at the opposing fans." If nothing else, you had to admire the truly world-class brass neck on display.
The footage of Metalist fans beating up on some visiting Indian students who were supporting the same team as them was disgusting; and when the programme got into meeting the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Ultras who practice knife-fighting and military combat techniques, Rogers was in full Donal MacIntrye territory. It looked like pretty scary stuff, as potentially serious as their pathetic little clubhouse with flags of fellow nasties around the world (SS Lazio...The Confederate Flag...The, erm, St George Cross with ENGLAND on it) was sad and laughable.
[more]
Football365
John Nicholson and Alan Tyers
31/05/12
If you haven't seen this week's Panorama, we urge you to check it out. Euro 2012: Stadiums Of Hate (Mon, 8.30pm, BBC1) can be viewed on the iPlayer here.
...
Presenter Chris Rogers had spent a month going to games in Poland and the Ukraine to see what the matchday experience might be like. The first conclusion is that there are some truly horrible people in Poland and the Ukraine, and that some of them like going to the football and behaving like utter dicks.
Rogers' experiences in Poland seemed to centre on anti-Semitic chanting, graffiti and general objectionable behaviour. Derby games in both Lodz and Krakow showed both sets of fans chanting anti-Jewish slogans at each other.
As well as being vile and totally unacceptable, there was also a pathetic quality about the Polish stuff. It was clear that certain sections of support in lots of clubs hated Jews, and had apparently taken the word Jew to be a sort of all-purpose put-down or taunt, a bit like when a playground cottons on to the word 'gaylord' or 'retard'. "You're a Jew...no, you're a Jew...you're a Jewy Jew" etc. Which is not to say, of course, that these abusive words are not backed up by physical violence and intimidation on a daily basis, and nor should anyone with even one brain cell need reminding of their particular historical power in that part of Europe. All that said, this particular documentary had captured only verbal bad behaviour towards ethnic monitories in Poland. Either way, Britain's many Polish migrants must have been cringing.
Brainboxes of various allegiances apparently go around altering graffiti so 'Newcastle United' becomes 'Jewcastle' or 'Toon Army' becomes 'Jew-n Army' (Polish equivalents obviously; we're not saying the programme was exposing the hidden horror of Anti-Geordie persecution). The programme didn't take particular pains to elucidate if 'such-and-such a club are the worst offenders', and it seemed at times that pretty much each team was as bad as the next for having what we all like to tell ourselves is 'a minority of idiots'.
As is often the case when racists and hate crime-types are put on TV the overall effect is to show just of how utterly backward and sad these people are. There was a slight unintentional comedy with two different sets of arseholes all calling each 'Jew club' etc.
Two black players, Ugo Ukah - who was very briefly at QPR and was late of Widzew Lodz - and Prince Okachi, who still plays for Widzew, had predictably depressing accounts of racist abuse from the stands, from fellow players, and no support or intervention whatsoever from the authorities. Sol Campbell, a dignified and impressive talking head here, expressed dismay and real pain at the situation.
However, it has to be said that Kharkiv in the Ukraine made Lodz look like Greenwich Village. Rogers got some brilliant footage of a Metalist game with, he says, 2,000 fans giving it the always charming Nazi Salute. This was backed up with a grimly hilarious interview with a Colonel in the local police force claiming:
"Nazi salute? Oh, no no no no. These people were merely pointing at the opposing fans." If nothing else, you had to admire the truly world-class brass neck on display.
The footage of Metalist fans beating up on some visiting Indian students who were supporting the same team as them was disgusting; and when the programme got into meeting the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Ultras who practice knife-fighting and military combat techniques, Rogers was in full Donal MacIntrye territory. It looked like pretty scary stuff, as potentially serious as their pathetic little clubhouse with flags of fellow nasties around the world (SS Lazio...The Confederate Flag...The, erm, St George Cross with ENGLAND on it) was sad and laughable.
[more]
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Dershowitz - Radicals can be defeated
Radicals can be defeated
YNet
By Alan M. Dershowitz
12 May 2012
Op-ed: Alan Dershowitz shares his insights on best approach to use against anti-Israel extremists
[...] The hatred for Israel in parts of Europe and on many university campuses has become so irrational that no evidence, regardless of how indisputable and powerful it may be, seems to be able to change closed minds hardened by years of unremitting falsehoods. These falsehoods take on an aura of undeserved credibility, particularly when espoused by people who identify themselves as Jewish or Israeli (or even formerly Jewish or formally Israeli.)
But whenever I get discouraged, I recall an incident several years ago at the University of California at Irvine, which is a hotbed of anti-Israel hate speech. This is the very same campus where radical Islamic students tried to prevent Israel’s moderate ambassador, Professor Michael Oren, from speaking.
About a year before that incident, I spoke to a full audience of students that included some of the same radicals that tried to shut Oren down. About 100 of them sat to my right. Another 100 or so students, wearing pro-Israel shirts and kipot, sat to my left. Several hundred additional students were in the middle - both literally and ideologically. I know that because I asked for a show of hands before I began my remarks.
I first asked for students to raise their hands if they generally support Israel. All the students to my left and several in the middle raised their hands. I then asked how many students supported the Palestinian side. All the students to my right and several in the middle raised their hands. I then posed the following question to the pro-Israel group: “How many of you would support a Palestinian state living in peace and without terrorism next to Israel?” Every single pro-Israel hand immediately went up. I then asked how many on the pro-Palestine side would accept a Jewish state within the 1967 borders, with no settlements on territory claimed by the Palestinians. There was some mumbling and brief conversation among the people to my right, but not a single hand was raised.
The debate was essentially over, as everyone in the middle now recognized that this was not a conflict between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups, but rather, a conflict between those who would accept a two-state solution and those who would reject any Jewish state anywhere in the Middle East. The pro-Israel view had prevailed because I was able to use the extremism of the anti-Israel group to demonstrate the ugly truth about Israel’s enemies to the large group of students in the middle with open minds.
I have now used this heuristic repeatedly on college campuses, and with considerable success. The lesson, I believe, is not to try to persuade irrational anti-Israel extremists, but rather, to use their extremism - which often includes anti-American and anti-Western extremism - against them and in favor of a reasonable and centrist pro-Israel position.
[More]
YNet
By Alan M. Dershowitz
12 May 2012
Op-ed: Alan Dershowitz shares his insights on best approach to use against anti-Israel extremists
[...] The hatred for Israel in parts of Europe and on many university campuses has become so irrational that no evidence, regardless of how indisputable and powerful it may be, seems to be able to change closed minds hardened by years of unremitting falsehoods. These falsehoods take on an aura of undeserved credibility, particularly when espoused by people who identify themselves as Jewish or Israeli (or even formerly Jewish or formally Israeli.)
But whenever I get discouraged, I recall an incident several years ago at the University of California at Irvine, which is a hotbed of anti-Israel hate speech. This is the very same campus where radical Islamic students tried to prevent Israel’s moderate ambassador, Professor Michael Oren, from speaking.
About a year before that incident, I spoke to a full audience of students that included some of the same radicals that tried to shut Oren down. About 100 of them sat to my right. Another 100 or so students, wearing pro-Israel shirts and kipot, sat to my left. Several hundred additional students were in the middle - both literally and ideologically. I know that because I asked for a show of hands before I began my remarks.
I first asked for students to raise their hands if they generally support Israel. All the students to my left and several in the middle raised their hands. I then asked how many students supported the Palestinian side. All the students to my right and several in the middle raised their hands. I then posed the following question to the pro-Israel group: “How many of you would support a Palestinian state living in peace and without terrorism next to Israel?” Every single pro-Israel hand immediately went up. I then asked how many on the pro-Palestine side would accept a Jewish state within the 1967 borders, with no settlements on territory claimed by the Palestinians. There was some mumbling and brief conversation among the people to my right, but not a single hand was raised.
The debate was essentially over, as everyone in the middle now recognized that this was not a conflict between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups, but rather, a conflict between those who would accept a two-state solution and those who would reject any Jewish state anywhere in the Middle East. The pro-Israel view had prevailed because I was able to use the extremism of the anti-Israel group to demonstrate the ugly truth about Israel’s enemies to the large group of students in the middle with open minds.
I have now used this heuristic repeatedly on college campuses, and with considerable success. The lesson, I believe, is not to try to persuade irrational anti-Israel extremists, but rather, to use their extremism - which often includes anti-American and anti-Western extremism - against them and in favor of a reasonable and centrist pro-Israel position.
[More]
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Return of Anti-Semitism in Europe
To the question: "Do you think that Jews abuse their status as victims of Nazism ?", positive responses reached proportions hardly imaginable: 72.2% in Poland, 48% in Germany, 40.2% in Italy, 32.3% in France.
Another question, "Do you understand why people do not like Jews", generated results that must be faced. Number of positive responses: 55.2% in Poland, 48.9% in Germany, 40.2% in Italy.
The question, "Do you think that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians", was asked. Positive responses : 63% in Poland, 47.7% in Germany.
--------
The Full-Blown Return of Anti-Semitism in Europe
Hudson NY
by Guy Millière
May 16, 2011
On April 19, the Corfu synagogue, in Greece, was burned. How many Jews live in Corfu today? One hundred and fifty. How many Jews live in Greece? Eight thousand, or about 0.8% of the population. For some, it seems these figures are still far too high. Two other synagogues were burned in Greece during the past year. Anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls are spreading all over the country.
What happened in Greece is happening everywhere across the European continent.
During the last decade, synagogues were vandalized or set on fire in Poland, Sweden, Hungary, France. Anti-Semitic inscriptions are being drawn on building walls in Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, London, Berlin and Rome. Jewish cemeteries are being ransacked. Jews are being attacked on the streets of most major cities on the continent. In the Netherlands, the police use "decoy Jews" in order to try arrest the perpetrators red-handed.
Jewish schools are being placed under police protection everywhere, and are usually equipped with security gates. Jewish children in public high schools are bullied; when parents complain, they are encouraged to choose another place of learning for their children.
In some cities such as Malmö, Sweden, or Roubaix, France, the persecution suffered by the Jewish community has reached such a degree that people are selling their homes at any price and leaving. Those who stay have the constant feeling that they are risking their lives: they must be extremely streetwise and carry no sign showing who they are. In 1990, approximately 2000 Jewish people lived in Malmö; now there are fewer than 700, and the number is decreasing every year.
Jews now, in fact, have to be streetwise in all European countries: men wearing a skullcap usually hide it under a hat or a cap. Owners of kosher restaurants located on avenues where protests are organized close their facilities before the arrival of the participants -- even if the protest is about wages or retirement age. They know too well that among the demonstrators, there will always be some who will express their rage at the sight of a Jewish name or a star of David on a store front. In Paris, on Labor Day, May 1st, in front of a Jewish café on Avenue of the Republic, several hundred demonstrators stopped and began to boo "Jews" and "Zionists". A man coming out of the café was assaulted until police officers arrived on the scene.
A few weeks ago in Norway, when Alan Dershowitz was banned from giving lectures on the conflict in the Middle East, the professors who supported the ban used anti-Semitic stereotypes in their remarks. What happened to him is now commonplace. In many universities in Europe, giving lectures on Jewish culture has become risky, and giving lectures on Israel anywhere -- without being clearly "pro-Palestinian" - is even more risky, or impossible: Once the event is announced, the organizers and the lecturers immediately receive explicit death threats by mail or by the internet. The day the lecture takes place, "anti-Zionists" organize violent protests, try to prevent people from entering the hall, and physically attack the lecturers. The only way to avoid this type of situation is to organize the lecture by invitation only, without ads.
After World War II, anti-Semitism seemed to disappear in Europe. It is back, to a very disquieting degree.
Although it is not exactly the same anti-Semitism that in the 1930's, it is not fully different.
It is an anti-Semitism that is widespread in the Muslim population that settled in Europe, and it would be easy to think that it is strictly an Islamic phenomenon, but the anti-Semitism as it exists today in the Muslim world was heavily influenced by the old European anti-Semitism. And what the Muslim immigrants bring with them can easily find resonances in European non-Muslim populations. Copies of fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Arabic are sold in Islamic bookstores from one end of the continent to the other,and they also circulate abundantly again in many European languages, under the mantle or via internet.
It is also an anti-Semitism that allows the far right to restate its rejection of "cosmopolitanism" -- an adjective on the European continent that has always been used to point out the Jews -- in a context where, because of the European economic decline, nationalist tensions and isolationism sound more and more seductive. It is an anti-Semitism that the left does not want to fight, because for it, the Muslims are oppressed, and the left is always on the side of those it defines as oppressed, whether or not the oppression is caused by the terrible governance inside those countries, or scapegoated onto someone else. European anti-racist movements say they are very concerned about "Islamophobic racism", but they are totally reluctant to discuss the anti-Semitism in the Muslim populations.
The new, current anti-Semitism now adds on to the old kind, the demonization of the State of Israel. The Islamic view of Israel is now the dominant view of Israel in Europe. The idea that Israel is a "colonial power" that has "robbed" people of their land, and is an "artificial State", even though the Jews have been on that land for three thousand years -- and even though many states in the area, such as Jordan and Libya, and Iraq are even more illegitimate, their borders having been drawn on papre by the British in the 1920s -- is a commonplace among journalists.
Hatred towards Israel is now the most widely shared sentiment among Europeans, whatever their place on the political spectrum. It is now through hatred of Israel, that hatred of Jews as annoying "troublemakers" can again express itself.
European Muslim populations hate Israel and seek its destruction. European non-Muslim people seem think that if Israel did not exist, tensions with Muslims would be less, and they attribute to Israel all the responsibility of the tensions, even though , since most of the Jews have fled from countries in the Middle East, it is now the Christian Copts in Egypt and the Christian Assyrians in Iraq who are being attacked by Islamic mobs. As the Arabic saying goes, "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people."
As Israel is a Jewish state, European Jews are asked to be "good Europeans", and to disavow Israel. If they refuse, or worse, if they say they still support Israel, they are considered untrustworthy.
In the 1930s, Jews were accused of not being full members of the country where they lived. Today, the same criticism rises in a slightly different form: Jews are accused of the existence of a Jewish state, and are suspected of being too tied to that state to be full members of the country where they live.
More deeply, the Jews of Europe might feel that if they can paint the Jews as evil, then perhaps what their parents and grandparents did to them during World War II was not really so bad after all; you could even say they deserved what they got. As some Scandinavians put it, The Jews killed Christ; at least the Muslims did not do that.
The anti-Semitism of the 1930s led to the Holocaust, which led the Jews to flee to Israel, the only country that would take them in and not let shiploads of fleeing Jews sink at sea. Now, European anti-Semitism accuses the Jews of Israel's existence, and of reminding them of the Holocaust by remembering it themselves. Meanwhile, an increasing number of Europeans seem quite ready for another Holocaust: one that would be the annihilation of Israel.
If sacrificing Israel allowed non-Muslim Europeans to see Muslim anger disappear, they would be willing to make the sacrifice immediately. If, in order to accept the sacrifice with a clear conscience, non-Muslim Europeans have to caricature Israel ignobly, they will -- and do. Anti-Israel cartoons fill European newspapers from London to Spain, and even receive awards. The Israeli army is often compared in European media to the Nazi army. The comparison is fully playing its role: if the Jews are Nazis today, it means that the Europeans did the world a favor in killing six million of them, and that the Europeans are not really guilty.
If Israel can be portrayed as a Nazi state, its destruction is acceptable, maybe even legitimate, maybe even desirable. The fact that Mein Kampf is a bestseller in the Palestinian territories and in most countries of the Muslim world is totally left out, just like the fact that many Jews living in Israel are survivors of the Holocaust committed in Europe sixty five years ago.
A survey conducted last year for the Friederich Ebert Foundation, a German think tank linked to Germany's Social Democratic Party, was eloquent. To the question: "Do you think that Jews abuse their status as victims of Nazism ?" , positive responses reached proportions hardly imaginable: 72.2% in Poland, 48% in Germany, 40.2% in Italy, 32.3% in France. Another question, "Do you understand why people do not like Jews", generated results that must be faced. Number of positive responses: 55.2% in Poland, 48.9% in Germany, 40.2% in Italy. The question was not asked in France. In several polls conducted in Europe over the last decade, Israel was identified as the most dangerous country for world peace, tied with Iran.
The question: "Are you anti-Semitic" was not asked anywhere. I have no doubt that, if asked the question, those who understand that "People do not like Jews," and who probably do not like them either, would have said that they were not anti-Semitic.
The question, "Do you think that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians", was asked. Positive responses : 63% in Poland, 47.7% in Germany.
Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, called the poll "very disturbing. The governments of Europe, and the European Union," he said, "would do well to wake up to this problem before it is too late."
Another question, "Do you understand why people do not like Jews", generated results that must be faced. Number of positive responses: 55.2% in Poland, 48.9% in Germany, 40.2% in Italy.
The question, "Do you think that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians", was asked. Positive responses : 63% in Poland, 47.7% in Germany.
--------
The Full-Blown Return of Anti-Semitism in Europe
Hudson NY
by Guy Millière
May 16, 2011
On April 19, the Corfu synagogue, in Greece, was burned. How many Jews live in Corfu today? One hundred and fifty. How many Jews live in Greece? Eight thousand, or about 0.8% of the population. For some, it seems these figures are still far too high. Two other synagogues were burned in Greece during the past year. Anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls are spreading all over the country.
What happened in Greece is happening everywhere across the European continent.
During the last decade, synagogues were vandalized or set on fire in Poland, Sweden, Hungary, France. Anti-Semitic inscriptions are being drawn on building walls in Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, London, Berlin and Rome. Jewish cemeteries are being ransacked. Jews are being attacked on the streets of most major cities on the continent. In the Netherlands, the police use "decoy Jews" in order to try arrest the perpetrators red-handed.
Jewish schools are being placed under police protection everywhere, and are usually equipped with security gates. Jewish children in public high schools are bullied; when parents complain, they are encouraged to choose another place of learning for their children.
In some cities such as Malmö, Sweden, or Roubaix, France, the persecution suffered by the Jewish community has reached such a degree that people are selling their homes at any price and leaving. Those who stay have the constant feeling that they are risking their lives: they must be extremely streetwise and carry no sign showing who they are. In 1990, approximately 2000 Jewish people lived in Malmö; now there are fewer than 700, and the number is decreasing every year.
Jews now, in fact, have to be streetwise in all European countries: men wearing a skullcap usually hide it under a hat or a cap. Owners of kosher restaurants located on avenues where protests are organized close their facilities before the arrival of the participants -- even if the protest is about wages or retirement age. They know too well that among the demonstrators, there will always be some who will express their rage at the sight of a Jewish name or a star of David on a store front. In Paris, on Labor Day, May 1st, in front of a Jewish café on Avenue of the Republic, several hundred demonstrators stopped and began to boo "Jews" and "Zionists". A man coming out of the café was assaulted until police officers arrived on the scene.
A few weeks ago in Norway, when Alan Dershowitz was banned from giving lectures on the conflict in the Middle East, the professors who supported the ban used anti-Semitic stereotypes in their remarks. What happened to him is now commonplace. In many universities in Europe, giving lectures on Jewish culture has become risky, and giving lectures on Israel anywhere -- without being clearly "pro-Palestinian" - is even more risky, or impossible: Once the event is announced, the organizers and the lecturers immediately receive explicit death threats by mail or by the internet. The day the lecture takes place, "anti-Zionists" organize violent protests, try to prevent people from entering the hall, and physically attack the lecturers. The only way to avoid this type of situation is to organize the lecture by invitation only, without ads.
After World War II, anti-Semitism seemed to disappear in Europe. It is back, to a very disquieting degree.
Although it is not exactly the same anti-Semitism that in the 1930's, it is not fully different.
It is an anti-Semitism that is widespread in the Muslim population that settled in Europe, and it would be easy to think that it is strictly an Islamic phenomenon, but the anti-Semitism as it exists today in the Muslim world was heavily influenced by the old European anti-Semitism. And what the Muslim immigrants bring with them can easily find resonances in European non-Muslim populations. Copies of fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Arabic are sold in Islamic bookstores from one end of the continent to the other,and they also circulate abundantly again in many European languages, under the mantle or via internet.
It is also an anti-Semitism that allows the far right to restate its rejection of "cosmopolitanism" -- an adjective on the European continent that has always been used to point out the Jews -- in a context where, because of the European economic decline, nationalist tensions and isolationism sound more and more seductive. It is an anti-Semitism that the left does not want to fight, because for it, the Muslims are oppressed, and the left is always on the side of those it defines as oppressed, whether or not the oppression is caused by the terrible governance inside those countries, or scapegoated onto someone else. European anti-racist movements say they are very concerned about "Islamophobic racism", but they are totally reluctant to discuss the anti-Semitism in the Muslim populations.
The new, current anti-Semitism now adds on to the old kind, the demonization of the State of Israel. The Islamic view of Israel is now the dominant view of Israel in Europe. The idea that Israel is a "colonial power" that has "robbed" people of their land, and is an "artificial State", even though the Jews have been on that land for three thousand years -- and even though many states in the area, such as Jordan and Libya, and Iraq are even more illegitimate, their borders having been drawn on papre by the British in the 1920s -- is a commonplace among journalists.
Hatred towards Israel is now the most widely shared sentiment among Europeans, whatever their place on the political spectrum. It is now through hatred of Israel, that hatred of Jews as annoying "troublemakers" can again express itself.
European Muslim populations hate Israel and seek its destruction. European non-Muslim people seem think that if Israel did not exist, tensions with Muslims would be less, and they attribute to Israel all the responsibility of the tensions, even though , since most of the Jews have fled from countries in the Middle East, it is now the Christian Copts in Egypt and the Christian Assyrians in Iraq who are being attacked by Islamic mobs. As the Arabic saying goes, "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people."
As Israel is a Jewish state, European Jews are asked to be "good Europeans", and to disavow Israel. If they refuse, or worse, if they say they still support Israel, they are considered untrustworthy.
In the 1930s, Jews were accused of not being full members of the country where they lived. Today, the same criticism rises in a slightly different form: Jews are accused of the existence of a Jewish state, and are suspected of being too tied to that state to be full members of the country where they live.
More deeply, the Jews of Europe might feel that if they can paint the Jews as evil, then perhaps what their parents and grandparents did to them during World War II was not really so bad after all; you could even say they deserved what they got. As some Scandinavians put it, The Jews killed Christ; at least the Muslims did not do that.
The anti-Semitism of the 1930s led to the Holocaust, which led the Jews to flee to Israel, the only country that would take them in and not let shiploads of fleeing Jews sink at sea. Now, European anti-Semitism accuses the Jews of Israel's existence, and of reminding them of the Holocaust by remembering it themselves. Meanwhile, an increasing number of Europeans seem quite ready for another Holocaust: one that would be the annihilation of Israel.
If sacrificing Israel allowed non-Muslim Europeans to see Muslim anger disappear, they would be willing to make the sacrifice immediately. If, in order to accept the sacrifice with a clear conscience, non-Muslim Europeans have to caricature Israel ignobly, they will -- and do. Anti-Israel cartoons fill European newspapers from London to Spain, and even receive awards. The Israeli army is often compared in European media to the Nazi army. The comparison is fully playing its role: if the Jews are Nazis today, it means that the Europeans did the world a favor in killing six million of them, and that the Europeans are not really guilty.
If Israel can be portrayed as a Nazi state, its destruction is acceptable, maybe even legitimate, maybe even desirable. The fact that Mein Kampf is a bestseller in the Palestinian territories and in most countries of the Muslim world is totally left out, just like the fact that many Jews living in Israel are survivors of the Holocaust committed in Europe sixty five years ago.
A survey conducted last year for the Friederich Ebert Foundation, a German think tank linked to Germany's Social Democratic Party, was eloquent. To the question: "Do you think that Jews abuse their status as victims of Nazism ?" , positive responses reached proportions hardly imaginable: 72.2% in Poland, 48% in Germany, 40.2% in Italy, 32.3% in France. Another question, "Do you understand why people do not like Jews", generated results that must be faced. Number of positive responses: 55.2% in Poland, 48.9% in Germany, 40.2% in Italy. The question was not asked in France. In several polls conducted in Europe over the last decade, Israel was identified as the most dangerous country for world peace, tied with Iran.
The question: "Are you anti-Semitic" was not asked anywhere. I have no doubt that, if asked the question, those who understand that "People do not like Jews," and who probably do not like them either, would have said that they were not anti-Semitic.
The question, "Do you think that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians", was asked. Positive responses : 63% in Poland, 47.7% in Germany.
Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, called the poll "very disturbing. The governments of Europe, and the European Union," he said, "would do well to wake up to this problem before it is too late."
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Norway
I have to say I'm deeply shocked and surprised at this. My mental picture of Norway has just taken a severe hit.
----------
Norway's "Boycott" of Pro-Israel Speakers
by Alan M. Dershowitz
Hudson NY
March 31, 2011
I recently completed a "speaking tour" of Norwegian Universities on the topic of "international law as applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." The sponsors of the tour—a Norwegian pro-Israel group—offered to have me lecture without any charge to the three major universities in Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim. Norwegian universities, especially those outside of Oslo, tend to feel somewhat isolated from the more mainstream academic world, and they generally jump at any opportunity to invite lecturers from leading universities. Thus, when Professor Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby—a much maligned critique of American support for Israel—came to Norway, he was immediately invited to present a lecture. Likewise, with Ilan Pappe—a strident demonizer of Israel—from Oxford. Many professors from less well-known universities have also been invited to present their anti-Israel perspectives.
My hosts expected, therefore, that their offer to have me present a somewhat different academic perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be eagerly accepted, since I have written half a dozen books on the subject presenting a centrist view in support of the two-state solution and against civilian settlements on the West Bank. Indeed, one of my books is entitled The Case For Peace, and former President Bill Clinton praised my blueprint for peace as "among the best in recent years." But each of the three universities categorically refused to invite me to give a lecture on that subject. The dean of the law faculty at Bergen University said he would be "honored" to have me present a lecture "on the O.J. Simpson case," as long as I was willing to promise not to mention Israel. The head of the Trondheim school was more direct:
Apparently, a pro-Israel perspective is more controversial, inflamed and political than an anti-Israel perspective—at least at Trondheim. The University of Oslo simply said no without offering an excuse, leading one journalist to wonder whether the Norwegian universities believed that I am "not entirely house-trained."
Only once before have I been prevented from lecturing at universities in a country. The other country was Apartheid South Africa where the government insisted on "approving" the text of my proposed talks on human rights. I declined.
But despite the refusal of the faculties of Norway's three major universities to invite me to deliver lectures on Israel and international law, I delivered three lectures to packed auditoriums at each university. It turns out that the students wanted to hear me, despite their professors' efforts to keep my views from them. Student groups invited me. I came. And I received sustained applause both before and after my talks. Faculty members boycotted my talks and declined even to meet with me. I was recently told that free copies of the Norwegian translation of my book, The Case For Israel, were offered to several university libraries in Norway and that they declined to accept them.
It was then that I realized why all this was happening. At all of the Norwegian universities, there have been efforts to enact an academic and cultural boycott of Jewish Israeli academics. This boycott is directed against Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian land, but the occupation that the hundreds of signers referred to is not of the West Bank but rather of every single inch of Israel. Here is the first line of the petition: "Since 1948 the state of Israel has occupied Palestinian land…" Not surprisingly, the administrations of the universities have refused to go along with this form of academic collective punishment of all Jewish Israeli academics. So the formal demand for an academic and cultural boycott has failed. But in practice, it exists. Jewish pro-Israel speakers are subjected to a de facto boycott. Moreover, all Jews are presumed to be pro-Israel unless they have a long track record of anti-Israel rhetoric.
Read the words of the first signer of the academic boycott petition—an assistant professor of Trondheim named Trond Andresen as he writes about the "Jews"—not the Israelis!
All Jews are apparently the same in this country that has done everything in its power to make life in Norway nearly impossible for Jews. Norway was apparently the first modern nation to prohibit the production of Kosher meat, while at the same time permitting Halal meat and encouraging the slaughter of seals, whales and other animals that are protected by international treaties. No wonder less than 1000 Jews live in Norway. No wonder the leader of the tiny and frightened Jewish community didn't get around to meet me during my visit to his country. (The Chabad rabbi did reach out to me and I had a wonderful visit with a group of Norwegian Jews at the Chabad house.) It reminded me of my visits to the Soviet Union in the bad old days.
The current foreign minister of Norway recently wrote an article in the New York Review of Books, justifying his contacts with Hamas, a terrorist group that demands the destruction of Israel. He said that the essential philosophy of Norway has always been to encourage "dialogue." But I'm afraid that that dialogue in Norway these days is entirely one-sided. Hamas and its supporters are invited into the dialogue, but supporters of Israel are excluded by an implicit, yet very real, boycott against pro-Israel views.
----------
Norway's "Boycott" of Pro-Israel Speakers
by Alan M. Dershowitz
Hudson NY
March 31, 2011
I recently completed a "speaking tour" of Norwegian Universities on the topic of "international law as applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." The sponsors of the tour—a Norwegian pro-Israel group—offered to have me lecture without any charge to the three major universities in Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim. Norwegian universities, especially those outside of Oslo, tend to feel somewhat isolated from the more mainstream academic world, and they generally jump at any opportunity to invite lecturers from leading universities. Thus, when Professor Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby—a much maligned critique of American support for Israel—came to Norway, he was immediately invited to present a lecture. Likewise, with Ilan Pappe—a strident demonizer of Israel—from Oxford. Many professors from less well-known universities have also been invited to present their anti-Israel perspectives.
My hosts expected, therefore, that their offer to have me present a somewhat different academic perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be eagerly accepted, since I have written half a dozen books on the subject presenting a centrist view in support of the two-state solution and against civilian settlements on the West Bank. Indeed, one of my books is entitled The Case For Peace, and former President Bill Clinton praised my blueprint for peace as "among the best in recent years." But each of the three universities categorically refused to invite me to give a lecture on that subject. The dean of the law faculty at Bergen University said he would be "honored" to have me present a lecture "on the O.J. Simpson case," as long as I was willing to promise not to mention Israel. The head of the Trondheim school was more direct:
"Israel and international law is a controversial and inflamed theme, which cannot be regarded as isolated and purely professional. Too much politics is invited in this."But is it less "controversial" and "inflamed" when rabidly anti-Israel professors are invited to express their "politics?"
Apparently, a pro-Israel perspective is more controversial, inflamed and political than an anti-Israel perspective—at least at Trondheim. The University of Oslo simply said no without offering an excuse, leading one journalist to wonder whether the Norwegian universities believed that I am "not entirely house-trained."
Only once before have I been prevented from lecturing at universities in a country. The other country was Apartheid South Africa where the government insisted on "approving" the text of my proposed talks on human rights. I declined.
But despite the refusal of the faculties of Norway's three major universities to invite me to deliver lectures on Israel and international law, I delivered three lectures to packed auditoriums at each university. It turns out that the students wanted to hear me, despite their professors' efforts to keep my views from them. Student groups invited me. I came. And I received sustained applause both before and after my talks. Faculty members boycotted my talks and declined even to meet with me. I was recently told that free copies of the Norwegian translation of my book, The Case For Israel, were offered to several university libraries in Norway and that they declined to accept them.
It was then that I realized why all this was happening. At all of the Norwegian universities, there have been efforts to enact an academic and cultural boycott of Jewish Israeli academics. This boycott is directed against Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian land, but the occupation that the hundreds of signers referred to is not of the West Bank but rather of every single inch of Israel. Here is the first line of the petition: "Since 1948 the state of Israel has occupied Palestinian land…" Not surprisingly, the administrations of the universities have refused to go along with this form of academic collective punishment of all Jewish Israeli academics. So the formal demand for an academic and cultural boycott has failed. But in practice, it exists. Jewish pro-Israel speakers are subjected to a de facto boycott. Moreover, all Jews are presumed to be pro-Israel unless they have a long track record of anti-Israel rhetoric.
Read the words of the first signer of the academic boycott petition—an assistant professor of Trondheim named Trond Andresen as he writes about the "Jews"—not the Israelis!
"There is something immensely self-satisfied and self-centered at the tribal mentality that is so prevalent among Jews. [Not] only the religious but also a large proportion of the large secular group consider their own ethnic group as worth more than all other ethnic groups. [Jews] as a whole, are characterized by this mentality…it is no less legitimate to say such a thing about Jews in 2008-2009 than it was to make the same point about the Germans around 1938. [There is] a red carpet for the Jewish community…and a new round of squeezing and distorting the influence of the quite dry Holocaust lemon…."This line of talk—directed at Jews not Israel or Israelis—is apparently acceptable among many in the elite of Norway. Consider former Prime Minister Kare Willock's reaction to President Obama's selection of Rahm Emanuel as his first Chief of Staff:
"It does not look too promising, he has chosen a chief of staff who is Jewish, and it is a matter of fact that many Americans look to the Bible rather than to the realities of today...."Willock, of course, did not know anything about Emanuel's views. He based his criticism on the sole fact that Emanuel is a Jew.
All Jews are apparently the same in this country that has done everything in its power to make life in Norway nearly impossible for Jews. Norway was apparently the first modern nation to prohibit the production of Kosher meat, while at the same time permitting Halal meat and encouraging the slaughter of seals, whales and other animals that are protected by international treaties. No wonder less than 1000 Jews live in Norway. No wonder the leader of the tiny and frightened Jewish community didn't get around to meet me during my visit to his country. (The Chabad rabbi did reach out to me and I had a wonderful visit with a group of Norwegian Jews at the Chabad house.) It reminded me of my visits to the Soviet Union in the bad old days.
The current foreign minister of Norway recently wrote an article in the New York Review of Books, justifying his contacts with Hamas, a terrorist group that demands the destruction of Israel. He said that the essential philosophy of Norway has always been to encourage "dialogue." But I'm afraid that that dialogue in Norway these days is entirely one-sided. Hamas and its supporters are invited into the dialogue, but supporters of Israel are excluded by an implicit, yet very real, boycott against pro-Israel views.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Anti-semitism vs anti-Zionism - Dershowitz
With the upcoming (12/01/10) documentary Defamation on Channel 4, featuring amongst others the charming Norman Finkelstein, the ever clear-thinking Alan Dershowitz provides a checklist for distinguishing anti-semitism and anti-Zionism:
When Legit Criticism Crosses the Anti-Semitism Line
Alan Dershowitz
Huffington Post
01/07/05
...
A CHECKLIST OF FACTORS THAT TEND TO INDICATE ANTI-SEMITISM
1. Employing stereotypes against Israel that have traditionally been directed against "the Jews." For example, portraying Israel as devouring the blood of children or characterizing Israeli leaders with long hook noses or rapacious looks.
2. Comparing Israel to the Nazis or its leaders to Hitler, the German army, or the Gestapo.
3. Characterizing Israel as “the worst,” when it is clear that this is not an accurate comparative assessment.
4. Invoking anti-Jewish religious symbols or caricaturing Jewish religious symbols.
5. Singling out only Israel for sanctions for policies that are widespread among other nations, or demanding that Jews be better or more moral than others because of their history as victims.
6. Discriminating against individuals only because they are Jewish Israelis, without regard to their individual views or actions.
7. Emphasizing and stereotyping certain characteristics among supporters of Israel that have traditionally been used in anti-Semitic attacks, for example, “pushy” American Jews, Jews “who control the media,” and Jews “who control financial markets.”
8. Blaming all Jews or “the Jews” for Israel’s policies or imperfections.
9. Physically or verbally attacking Jewish institutions, such as synagogues or cemeteries, as a means of protesting against Israel.
10. Stereotyping all Jews as fitting into a particular political configuration (such as “neo-conservatives,” Zionists, or supporters of Sharon).
11. Accusing Jews and only Jews of having dual loyalty.
12. Blaming Israel for the problems of the world and exaggerating the influence of the Jewish state on world affairs.
13. Denying, minimizing, or trivializing the Holocaust as part of a campaign against Israel.
14. Discriminating against only Israel in its qualification for certain positions or statuses, such as on the Security Council, the International Court of Justice, and the International Red Cross.
15. Blaming the Jews or Israel, rather than the anti-Semites, for anti-Semitism or for increases in anti-Jewish attitudes.
16. Taking extreme pleasure from Israeli failures, imperfections, or troubles.
17. Falsely claiming that all legitimate criticism of Israeli policies is immediately and widely condemned by Jewish leaders as anti-Semitic, despite any evidence to support this accusation.
18. Denying that even core anti-Semitism—racial stereotypes, Nazi comparisons, desecration of synagogues, Holocaust denial—qualifies as anti-Semitic.
19. Seeking to delegitimate Israel precisely as it moves toward peace.
20. Circulating wild charges against Israel and Jews, such as that they were responsible for the September 11 attacks, the anthrax attacks, and the 2005 tsunami.
A CHECKLIST OF FACTORS THAT TEND TO INDICATE LEGITIMATE CRITICISM OF ISRAEL
1. The criticism is directed at specific policies of Israel, rather than at the very legitimacy of the state.
2. The degree and level of criticism vary with changes in Israel’s policies.
3. The criticism is comparative and contextual.
4. The criticism is political, military, economic, and so forth, rather than ethnic or religious.
5. The criticism is similar to criticism being raised by mainstream Israeli dissidents.
6. The criticism is leveled by people who have a history of leveling comparable criticisms at other nations with comparable or worse records.
7. The criticism is designed to bring about positive changes in Israeli policies.
8. The criticism is part of a more general and comparative criticism of all other nations.
9. The criticism is based on objective facts rather than name calling or polemics.
10. The critic subjects his favorite nation to comparable criticism for comparable faults.
...
When Legit Criticism Crosses the Anti-Semitism Line
Alan Dershowitz
Huffington Post
01/07/05
...
A CHECKLIST OF FACTORS THAT TEND TO INDICATE ANTI-SEMITISM
1. Employing stereotypes against Israel that have traditionally been directed against "the Jews." For example, portraying Israel as devouring the blood of children or characterizing Israeli leaders with long hook noses or rapacious looks.
2. Comparing Israel to the Nazis or its leaders to Hitler, the German army, or the Gestapo.
3. Characterizing Israel as “the worst,” when it is clear that this is not an accurate comparative assessment.
4. Invoking anti-Jewish religious symbols or caricaturing Jewish religious symbols.
5. Singling out only Israel for sanctions for policies that are widespread among other nations, or demanding that Jews be better or more moral than others because of their history as victims.
6. Discriminating against individuals only because they are Jewish Israelis, without regard to their individual views or actions.
7. Emphasizing and stereotyping certain characteristics among supporters of Israel that have traditionally been used in anti-Semitic attacks, for example, “pushy” American Jews, Jews “who control the media,” and Jews “who control financial markets.”
8. Blaming all Jews or “the Jews” for Israel’s policies or imperfections.
9. Physically or verbally attacking Jewish institutions, such as synagogues or cemeteries, as a means of protesting against Israel.
10. Stereotyping all Jews as fitting into a particular political configuration (such as “neo-conservatives,” Zionists, or supporters of Sharon).
11. Accusing Jews and only Jews of having dual loyalty.
12. Blaming Israel for the problems of the world and exaggerating the influence of the Jewish state on world affairs.
13. Denying, minimizing, or trivializing the Holocaust as part of a campaign against Israel.
14. Discriminating against only Israel in its qualification for certain positions or statuses, such as on the Security Council, the International Court of Justice, and the International Red Cross.
15. Blaming the Jews or Israel, rather than the anti-Semites, for anti-Semitism or for increases in anti-Jewish attitudes.
16. Taking extreme pleasure from Israeli failures, imperfections, or troubles.
17. Falsely claiming that all legitimate criticism of Israeli policies is immediately and widely condemned by Jewish leaders as anti-Semitic, despite any evidence to support this accusation.
18. Denying that even core anti-Semitism—racial stereotypes, Nazi comparisons, desecration of synagogues, Holocaust denial—qualifies as anti-Semitic.
19. Seeking to delegitimate Israel precisely as it moves toward peace.
20. Circulating wild charges against Israel and Jews, such as that they were responsible for the September 11 attacks, the anthrax attacks, and the 2005 tsunami.
A CHECKLIST OF FACTORS THAT TEND TO INDICATE LEGITIMATE CRITICISM OF ISRAEL
1. The criticism is directed at specific policies of Israel, rather than at the very legitimacy of the state.
2. The degree and level of criticism vary with changes in Israel’s policies.
3. The criticism is comparative and contextual.
4. The criticism is political, military, economic, and so forth, rather than ethnic or religious.
5. The criticism is similar to criticism being raised by mainstream Israeli dissidents.
6. The criticism is leveled by people who have a history of leveling comparable criticisms at other nations with comparable or worse records.
7. The criticism is designed to bring about positive changes in Israeli policies.
8. The criticism is part of a more general and comparative criticism of all other nations.
9. The criticism is based on objective facts rather than name calling or polemics.
10. The critic subjects his favorite nation to comparable criticism for comparable faults.
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