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Antisemitism Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 15, 2014 12 Comments
This week we have seen a rise in open anti-Semitism throughout the world as protests against Israel spread in reaction to the Gaza conflict. It is expected in places like Pakistan and some Arab countries, where hatred and demonization of Jews always is in the open. But what is remarkable is that it is in the open in Europe and to a lesser extent in the United States.  And the heart of the hate is a coalition of leftists and Islamists -- a coalition we have written about for years regarding places such as Malmö, Sweden, and British universities. Anti-Israeli protesters carrying Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) banners and messages attacked a Synagogue in Paris while it was packed with worshipppers. In Boston, an anti-Israel protester not only attacked a pro-Israel student, she shouted that there would be no place for Jews once Israel was defeated -- only for Christian and Muslims: "We'll claim back Jerusalem, Christians and Muslims." The protest was organized by leftist and anti-Israel "Jewish Voice for Peace" -- which is anything but. Throughout the U.S. comparisons of Israelis to Nazis were predominant at demonstrations, including anti-Semitic smears. In Frankfurt, Islamist and leftists were joined by neo-Nazis, as reported by The Jerusalem Post:
A demonstration in Frankfurt against Operation Protective Edge erupted into violence, with protesters tossing stones at the police. According to the Frankfurter Rundschau paper, about 2,500 protesters appeared in downtown Frankfurt, screaming “God is great,” and slogans such as “freedom for Palestine” and “children-murderer Israel.” Eight police officers were injured. One sign at the rally was titled, “You Jews are Beasts.” German media reported that after the protests, groups sought to locate Jewish institutions. The Frankfurt police said Jewish institutions would be protected. It is unclear if the goal was to attack said institutions
The JPost did not run the photo, but I believe this is the sign "The Jews are Beasts" to which they were referring (see Featured Image also):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 13, 2014 10 Comments
On the streets of Paris today, a crowd of anti-Israel protesters surrounded and attacked a Synagogue full of worshippers, throwing rocks and attacking the building, via Times of Israel:
Several thousand demonstrators walked calmly through the streets of Paris behind a large banner that read “Total Support for the Struggle of the Palestinian People”. But clashes erupted at the end of the march on Bastille Square, with people throwing projectiles onto a cordon of police who responded with tear gas. The unrest was continuing early Sunday evening. Media reports said that hundreds of Jews were trapped inside a synagogue in the area and police units were sent to rescue them. A person in the synagogue told Israel’s Channel 2 news that protesters hurled stones and bricks at the building, “like it was an intifada.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 12, 2014 9 Comments
Chloé Simone Valdary is an outspoken pro-Israel student who has organized pro-Israel events, made pro-Israel videos and written op-eds critical of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement. We have featured her videos several times, and also written about the vicious, racist attacks on her because of her pro-Israel views: On Friday, July 11, 2014, Chloé attended a pro-Israel counter rally in Boston near the Israeli Consulate. There were about 75 anti-Israel protesters, according to Chloé, and about 12 pro-Israel protesters. [caption id="attachment_91881" align="alignnone" width="500"](Protest Boston, July 11, 2014, Chloé Simone Valdary center) (Protest Boston, July 11, 2014, Chloé Simone Valdary center)[/caption] As this video shows, Chloé was physically assaulted by a woman carrying a pro-BDS poster in what appears to be an unprovoked attack: Here are more images of the woman provided to me by Chloé (photo credit Elan Kawesch):

Posted by Mandy Nagy on May 25, 2014 5 Comments
A shooting at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels left three dead and another severely injured on Saturday. (Update: Fourth person has died.) From CNN:
Three people were killed and another was seriously injured in a shooting Saturday at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, Belgian officials said. A person arrived by car at the museum in central Brussels, entered and quickly opened fire before leaving the scene, Belgian Interior Minister Joelle Milquet told CNN affiliate Bel RTL. The circumstances of the shooting have raised suspicions that it may have been an anti-Semitic attack, but no motive has been determined. The shooter remains at large, and the nation's terror alert level was raised. Belgian public broadcaster RTBF quoted Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur as saying those killed were two men and a woman, while a man was seriously injured at the museum, which is near the tourist sites. At a press conference, Milquet said the threat level is highest at locations frequented by the Jewish community. This measure was precautionary, she added.
Other news reports, including a BBC News report, indicated that a possible suspect had been detained, but no additional details had been released at the time of this writing (which was Saturday evening).

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 15, 2014 31 Comments
NOTE: Literally seconds after this went live I received a message that Vassar had taken down the Wall of Truth which is the subject of this post after it was defaced by anti-Israel students.  The title and text of the post has been adjusted accordingly. Vassar College has been a hotbed of anti-Israel agitation by Students for Justice in Palestine and supporters, as documented in the following prior posts: The situation is so bad that a self-avowed left-wing Daily Kos Diarist and Vassar alumna/us wrote a stinging rebuke, Anti-Semitic Times at Vassar College:
I graduated from Vassar two years ago and I am a proud left winger, but I just can't be down with the Students for Justice in Palestine group at my alma mater. The group is full of filthy anti-Semites, who are spectacularly ignorant about everything from Nazi propaganda to Israel's defense of itself..... At Vassar, even for me, the unhinged left wingers could be too much.... Vassar has become a reactionary, ignorant, illiberal place full of unlettered bigots. No longer will I aid those values with donations.
The Vassar Conservative-Libertarian Union (VCLU), which sponsored my speech at Vassar, decided that it was time to protest before students left campus for the summer. VCLU erected a Wall of Truth to counter the many defamatory and false allegations made against Israel. [caption id="attachment_86233" align="alignnone" width="547"](Wall of Truth at Vassar College, May 2014, feat. Alec Ferretti and Julian Hassan) (Wall of Truth at Vassar College, May 2014, feat. Alec Ferretti and Julian Hassan)[/caption] The Wall of Truth specifically was placed in the same location that Vassar SJP puts its misnomered "Apartheid Wall" during Israeli Apartheid Week:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 14, 2014 13 Comments
In February and March 2014, Vassar witnessed ugly and racialized taunting of professors and students regarding a class trip to Israel, Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar.  The administration took a hands-off approach. Starting shortly after my appearance at Vassar on May 5, to speak against academic BDS, Students for Justice in Palestine began a social media campaign focused on the race of the crowd as a means of denigrating my appearance as an old white Zionist alumni intrusion onto campus. SJP's social media then devolved further, into tweeting and posting of white nationalist and neo-Nazi anti-Zionist material: [caption id="attachment_86121" align="alignnone" width="549"]Vassar SJP Twitter Nazi Poster Screen Shot 2014-05-12 at 12.03.51 AM (Image via Prof. Rebecca Lesses)[/caption] The tweets and postings were documented by Ithaca College Professor Rebecca Lesses at her blog, Mystical Politics.  SJP initially defended the conduct at its Facebook, WordPress, Tumblr and Twitter accounts, but then apologized on Sunday, May 11 and again on Tuesday, May 13:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 28, 2014 17 Comments
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. A two minute siren is sounded in Israel and everything comes to a stop. On this day we remember not only the 6 million Jews, but the millions of non-Jews killed by the Nazis, the "righteous gentiles" who risked their lives and the lives of their families to hide and shelter Jews, and the soldiers who liberated the camps. Like Vernon Tott and others, about whom we wrote in 2009:
When I think of the exceptional nature of this country, I also think of the rows upon rows of white crosses in cemetaries above the beaches of Normandy, of thousands of mostly Christian soldiers floating on the shores of islands in the Pacific, and the mostly Christian American soldiers who liberated numerous concentration camps. I think of Christian Americans like Vernon Tott of Iowa who not only liberated concentration camps, but took the time thereafter to bear witness to what he saw (and decades later to reunite with one of the prisoners he liberated):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 15, 2014 14 Comments
Max Blumenthal is experiencing what goes around coming around. Having blamed various critics of radical Islam as well as international Zionism for the 2011 mass murder in Norway, unfairly, Blumenthal now is in focus because the Overland Park shooter was a big fan of Blumenthal's Jewish money and Israel Lobby conspiracy theories.  The shooter was a Neo-Nazi and KKK leader for whom Jewish control of the media and international money was a core belief motivating hatred of Jews.  That's a shared space for anti-Zionists of multiple political ideologies and religions. Specifically, the shooter focused on Blumenthal's theory that Jewish campaign donors were trying to buy the 2012 U.S. presidential election for Bibi Netanyahu, as expressed by Blumenthal in a lengthy article and a Russia Today television interview, to which the shooter linked.  It's ugly stuff, but the type of ugly stuff for which Blumenthal has become known. I've been less harsh on Blumenthal than others, The Overland Park murders, anti-Zionist conspiracy theories, and the blame game:
Assuming Cross [aka Glenn Miller] linked to Blumenthal’s conspiracy theories about the 2012 election, would that mean Blumenthal is responsible for the Overland Park shooting? Absolutely not. Is the intersection between neo-Nazi and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories worthy of examination? Absolutely. We have seen in Europe in particular how anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism go hand-in-hand, often based on conspiracy theories about Jewish and Israeli influence. [image omitted] Those types of consipiracy theories regarding the alleged manipulations of Jewish money and interests are as old as hate itself. That is a fair subject of discussion. I wonder if the mainstream media will go there, as it did in the Norway shooting.
Others are more direct in drawing the connection between the shooter's adoration of Blumenthal's anti-Zionist conspiracy theories and the shooting, in part perhaps because Blumenthal tried to lay blame on some of  them for the Norway shooting (Pipes, Geller):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 13, 2014 6 Comments
When these types of shootings take place, initial news reports often are inaccurate, so caution is urged. . Kansas City News41 identifies the following person as having been taken into custody, and says at least 3 people dead:
Three people are dead following multiple shootings reported at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park and Village Shalom. Overland Park Police confirm multiple shots were fired at the center, which is located at 5801 W 115th St. and Village Shalom, a retirement home located at 5500 W. 123rd. Both areas are currently on lockdown. Police took one man into custody at the Valley Park Elementary at 123rd and Nall. The man was heard yelling "heil Hitler" as he was taken into custody. A 41 Action News photographer on the scene spoke with a man who says another man pointed a gun at him and shot the windows out of his car. That person was not injured.
Alleged Shooter Overland Park KS Jewish Center

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 28, 2014 20 Comments
So last night I saw a term I had not heard before, "The Jew Flu." I'm not sure how I found the column from Haaretz on that topic. Someone may have tweeted the link, but regardless, it talks about what I've noticed regarding the obsession of the Jewish left with demonizing Israel beyond all rational thought. How is it that so many progressive Jews are happy to break bread with Islamists and other assorted Jew haters, but can only find harsh things to say about Israel? The Haaretz column was by Uzi Silber from 2009, but it rings true today when I see the Jews put out ahead of the BDS movement as cover. Here's an excerpt, The Jew Flu: The strange illness of Jewish anti-Semitism:
Diagnosis The 1930s Labor Zionist leader Berl Katznelson asked "Is there another People on Earth so emotionally twisted that they consider everything their nation does despicable and hateful, while every murder, rape, robbery committed by their enemies fill their hearts with admiration and awe?" This is Jew Flu - the virus of Jewish Anti-Semitism, and its Jewish Anti- and Post-Zionist mutations, afflicting a small but inordinately loud minority of Hebrews. Its modern symptoms are a rejection of Israel's identity as a Jewish state and a dismissal of its right to defend itself militarily, while embracing the goals of its nihilistic Arab enemies. Those infected with the virus wildly inflate Israeli sins real or imagined, while excusing or rationalizing Palestinian anti-semitism and outrages against Jews. Those afflicted with Jew Flu often view the notion of Peoplehood as an artifice, which implies a rejection of Jewish national self-determination and acceptance of the 90-year-old Palestinian Arab contention that Jews are not a nation but merely members of a religion, and as such don?t merit a national home of their own.
Silber then goes on to describe some historical,  sociological and psychological research on the subject, which I have no way of evaluating on medical grounds, but was interesting to read. Regardless of cause, here's his conclusion:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 09, 2014 15 Comments
Several of most prominent promoters of the American Studies Association academic boycott of Israel attended a bizarre "redwashing" panel discussion in Beirut, at which they tried to delegitimize the Jewish people's indigenous history in Israel and connection to other indigenous peoples. I'll have much more on that insidious conference in another post, but for now you can read the posts by Jeffrey Goldberg and Prof. Jonathan Marks. These academic boycotters gave an interview to The Daily Star of Lebanon that is very revealing. They played upon classic anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish money controlling the press in trying to minimize the overwhelming rejection of the academic boycott throughout most of academia. ASA scholars stand firm by Israel boycott (emphasis added):
Since then, the organization has been forced to defend itself from a barrage of highly vocal critics who have accused the ASA of everything from anti-Semitism to threatening academic freedom. At the conference this week, however, many ASA members reiterated their strong support for the motion. “The boycott is also about the vision of a right to education for people; it’s about a right to democratic participation of all people and it’s about the right to land,” said Alex Lubin, a professor at AUB [American University in Beirut, on leave from University of New Mexico] and ASA member. Despite efforts to publish op-ed pieces explaining the ASA’s position, Lubin said the organization had “effectively been blocked out of [the] U.S. press.” The reason, he said, was “donor dollars that come to them [the publications] from the Israel lobby.” Lubin also said many Americans took issue with the comparison between the treatment of Palestinians and Native Americans.
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