Crowd: Israel is the enemy of Allah.
Man: May the hands of the infidels be chopped off.
[...]
Man: All together now: Death to America! Death to Israel!
Crowd: Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to America! Death to Israel!
[...]
Speaker: Today, the impure world Zionism, in the modern Age of ignorance, has emerged with the same (polytheistic) ideology, but with new methods. It wants to take over the fields of economy, of culture, and politics, as well as the military, throughout the world.
[...]
We, the pilgrims who have come to the house of God, condemn the plots and the measures taken by the international Zionism - the deceitful Satan who spreads heresy, polytheism, and idolatry, enslaving human beings with a new method. It abuses the divine religion of Moses. It takes Satanic measures, and arouses the world's hatred towards this divine religion, and its true followers. We denounce these criminal acts. We call upon the world of Islam and the free peoples to take significant measures to thwart the Satanic policy of this camp.
Crowd: Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar.
Via The Moderate Voice, the latest anti-Semitic upsurge in Russia comes in the form of synagogue stabbings.
A man armed with a knife stabbed and wounded 11 people, including three Israelis, in a Chabad synagogue in downtown Moscow on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the Jewish community in Russia said that four of the wounded were seriously injured in the attack, which occurred around 5:30 P.M. (1430 GMT). The spokesman said that the wounded were taken to hospital, and that some of them were undergoing surgery.
Polyakova Synagogue Rabbi Yitzhak Kogan, who is also an Israeli citizen, was among the injured. A witness said Kogan and several security guards wrestled the attacker to the ground and held him until police arrived.
[...]
An initial investigation revealed that a skinhead wearing a leather jacket told the guards at the entrance to the synagogue "I will kill people. I will kill Jews," before bursting into the synagogue.
Ha'aretz also gives a chronology of the latest anti-Semitic acts in Russia.
In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez:
"The world has enough for all, but it turned out that some minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ, descendants of those who threw Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way in Santa Marta, there in Colombia. A minority took the world's riches for themselves,"
Some people have defended that last one by saying that the Jews didn't fight Bolivar, so he must be talking about someone else. The argument proceeds to note that since mainstream scholars no longer subscribe to the view that the Jews killed Christ, he must be talking about the Romans. Of course, the Romans didn't fight Bolivar either, so this is somewhat inconsistent. I think that the plain meaning of the statement is as an anti-Semitic slur.
In Canada, Anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic actions are on the rise in major universities:
Speakers from the student club Zionists at McMaster shared their frustration over anti-Israel literature on campus. The group was formed three years ago in response to anti-Zionist activity on campus by the group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights.
As well, Betar-Tagar's director of campus affairs, Jonathan Jaffit, showed photos from Israel Apartheid Week at the University of Toronto earlier this year.
Signs displayed on campus at the time included, "Globalize the Intifada," "JNF out of Canada" and "Zionism = Racism."
Flyers displayed and distributed included the logo of the Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade militia, which has been named by the Canadian government as a terrorist organization.
Independent documentary filmmaker Igal Hecht presented a documentary about anti-Israel vitriol at York University. The film, Protest, which aired on Vision TV in 2003, showed confrontations between Arab and Jewish students that went from verbal to physical.
In the film, one student warns that Jewish students should be cautious on York's campus, while another doesn't recommend the campus to Jewish students.
Uri Nachim, Betar-Tagar's co-president at York, remembers how in his first year, discussions between Arab and Jewish groups centered on how Israel and Palestine could peacefully coexist. Now, he said, the debate is about whether Israel should exist at all.
Dina Glatter, a York student, recalled an event organized to honour the Israel Defence Forces that was stormed by protesters, and signs saying, "IDF = Gestapo" remained in a central campus location for a week before being removed.
I am particularly curious about the call to "globalize the Intifada". How would one go about doing that? Who would one suicide bomb in Canada, or France, or America? Is there any plausible answer to that besides "the Jews"?
In Paris, 3 Jews are assaulted by African and Arab men.
So I open the floor. What do we do about it? What's sustaining the rabid anti-Semitism that continues the world over, and how do we combat it?
" Who would one suicide bomb in Canada, or France, or America? Is there any plausible answer to that besides "the Jews"?"
ReplyDeleteIn the US, there is: "The Americans." Any Americans.
How much time and space you prepared to give one comment David?
ReplyDelete1. Throughout history the Jews have been persecuted by most of the cultures they have come in contact with. That is no reason to justify yet another instance.
2. The most recent - the Holocaust of Germany - should remain for all time as the iconoclastic reminder of man's inhumanity to man.
3. For all of that, the Jews (or I should be more specific here and say Israelis) do not in any way help themselves either.
4. There is no refutation to the fact that their nation (irrespective of any ancient history and perhaps even including that) was born in blood.
5. There is no refutation to the fact that much of that blood was spilt by men who are still among the leaders of the nation and who are considered heros of the nation.
6. The "popular image" of modern Islam could perhaps be represented by Abu Hazma - currently on trial in Britain for inciting murder. It can equally be said that the "popular image" of Christianity is the likes of Pat Robinson. Both are equally valid as the images of their respective beliefs.
7. Why is that relevant? Because David uses Islam as the image of anti-semitism.
8. That comparison is wrong. Why? Simple! I have been described as "anti-semitic" simply because I criticise, strenuously, some of the policies and actions of the Israeli government against the Palestinians.
9. So, how do we take the misconceptions and poison out of the debate? To a very great extent we can not.
10 And that is why the US does itself no favours by its continual and unstinting support for a government that practices terrorism against people within its own borders.
I'll admit that comment confuses me, Prob.. Obviously I agree with some of the points, so let me just hit the ones I find a bit odd. I want to start with #7, because I think that's just factually wrong. The only identifiably muslim actors in my list were those in the first example. Hugo Chavez isn't, I'm pretty sure a skinhead in Russia isn't. Pro-Palestinian advocates in Canada may be (but may not be). To be fair, the "African and Arab" men in the last example probably are. That layout I don't think justifies saying I make Islam "the image of anti-semitism."
ReplyDelete3 is okay as a limiting factor, but only the Saudi and Canada examples deal with Israelis directly. The other 3 are attacks on Jews as Jews. So it lends credance to my suspicion that this is about global anti-semitism, not anti-zionism.
Let's move to #4. The big question here is how this makes them unique from any nation. All nations are born in blood--my own and your own included. The historical link may not mitigate that, but it does seem to put them on stronger footing than, say, New Zealand, Australia, or America--none of whom has to defend its "right to exist" to any serious critic. Tying to #5, if I don't consider Israel's establishment to be a bad thing (even if it required a war to do it), then I'm not sure why I should condemn those who took part in the battle. I don't consider George Washington to be evil just because he was a general. But its at some degree moot--Ariel Sharon is the last political leader to have real ties to the Independence War, and he's a vegetable.
For 6, see 7.
8 is a problem--but in all directions. It is very difficult to disentangle anti-semitism and anti-zionism. Clearly, one has to be possible without the other. But it is equally obvious that the two often inform each other, consciously or not. I think that subconscious anti-semitism operates in similar manners to unconscious racism or sexism, and needs to be addressed by the same theoretical models.
10 also strikes me as factually inaccurate. Our support for Israel has neither been unstinting nor continual--we pressure them all the time to do things they don't like. Everything is relative in foreign affairs--America LOOKS like it's rabidly pro-Israel because the median amongst countries is that the country itself was a catastrophe that never should have existed in the first place.
I don't think that we should continue to used the holocaut of Germany as a reminer o fman's inhumanity. Why should we when there are so many needless deaths now caused by men of all nationalities. In my opinion the holocaust just gives the jews a pacifier that they have a right to kill, more so than others. None of us have a right to continue to kill. Everyone is forgeting judgement. lol It isn't up to us to judge. I believe only one element as that right. Our judgement is simply used to create war.
ReplyDeleteThe Holocaust was horrid but it is more about the Horrors of Fascism than the special place for the Jews.
ReplyDeleteThe Jews were half the total murdered(6 million out of twelve million killed in the camps) but every other available minority (from gays to Roma)got the same treatment.
Slipping into fascism is a danger in every society. Americans and Israelis are not special in that regard for or against and there are forces headed in that direction in both and elsewhere.
A Kahanist, Dominionist, Islamist, or Straussian, may think they are different from each other but they are closer to each other and fascism than they are to the group they pretend to be a part of.
Neither religion, or ethnicity have a thing to do with it.
(check Google or my website if the names confuse you)