On a roll: Lobby targets yet another anti-racist conference

Here we go.  Just when you think they can't stoop any lower the lobby manages to stoop lower.  Having got meetings cancelled in Southampton and Toulouse they now want to get a meeting called off because it treats antisemitism and islamophobia as equally nasty.  See the Jerusalem Post:

Jewish organizations worldwide expressed shock and dismay over the weekend following the announcement that the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency is planning on holding a conference that implies an equivalence between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

The first annual colloquium on fundamental rights in the EU, held by the racism watchdog organization and titled “Tolerance and respect: Preventing and combating anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hatred in Europe,” is scheduled to be held in Brussels in early October.

It will focus on the rise of anti-Jewish sentiment and violence across the continent and the “growing evidence in many European countries, especially in the past two years, of very high rates of anti-Muslim incidents, including acts of verbal and physical violence,” according to the organizers.

Jewish community leaders in Europe and elsewhere told The Jerusalem Post that despite being largely supportive of the FRA’s work, they believed it inappropriate for it to juxtapose hate directed against Muslims with anti-Semitism as if both were one and the same.

“The challenge of combating anti-Semitism would be better served by a stand-alone colloquium fully focused on the problem,” said Eric Fusfield, the legislative affairs director of the B’nai B’rith International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy. [so why doesn't B’nai B’rith organise one?]

“Opponents of anti-Semitism have tried for years to promote greater understanding of anti-Semitism as a distinct phenomenon with unique dimensions sometimes requiring unique solutions,” he said.[I'm guessing he means they want the political persuasion of zionists to be included in the protected characteristics of Jews]

“It is true that some strategies for combating anti-Semitism may apply to other forms of intolerance as well, but the fact is that, for too long, the tendency of governments and international organizations to conflate anti-Semitism with other social illnesses has served as a means of avoiding the problem rather than addressing it head on, even as the crisis facing Jewish communities has intensified in Europe and elsewhere,” he added.

While it is “critical” to deal with discrimination against Muslims in Europe, the FRA “should have been more sensitive to the long and tragic history of anti-Semitism in Europe and kept these two issues separate, particularly in the context of the most recent anti-Jewish violence,” agreed Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman.[he's hinting that antisemitism is worse but there's more]

“These problems are totally different, the origin of both problems is very different, the only common point is that both are racism,” asserted Eli Ringer of Belgium’s FORUM der Joodse Organisaties.[heaven prevent intercommunal unity against racism!]

According to Ringer, even though the FRA is exhibiting good intentions by organizing the conference, he fears that “some might profit from such a colloquium to evade the issue of anti-Semitism.”

England’s Community Security Trust, an anti-Semitism watchdog, was likewise opposed to the format of the conference.

According to Michael Whine, CST director of government and international affairs, many European countries seek to “equate anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hatred in the same breath and they are not the same. Muslims are suffering in Europe, and that is being monitored, but it’s certainly not coming from the Jews, whereas many of the attacks against Jews are coming from the Muslims.” [I don't wanna do the whataboutery thing here but what about when chief rabbis addres thousands of Jews at rallies supporting Israel latest Palestinian cull?  A joint conference on antisemitism and islamophobia could discuss whether such rallies are good for intercommunal relations or not. They might also discuss whether nasty generalisations against the Muslims are helpful too.]

“The growing problem of anti-Semitism in Europe comes from Muslims and the Left and anti-Israel agitators,” he added.

In its announcement of the conference, the FRA pointed to other roots for the rise in anti-Semitism, citing a recent Pew study indicating that “incitement and hostility rooted in theological and other discourse, far-right ideologies and Holocaust denial are growing in Europe.”

“There is a heightened interest [regarding anti-Semitism], obviously influenced by the recent events in Paris and Copenhagen and so on,” Ioannis Dimitrakopoulos, the head of the FRA’s Equality and Citizens’ Rights Department, told the Post, referring to a number of recent terrorist attacks against Jews by Muslim extremists.

Research by the FRA indicates that “there is a problem which we haven’t resolved yet [and] we have to do more about it,” he said.

Asked if he thought that there was any problem with juxtaposing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the context of the conference, Dimitrakopoulos replied negatively.

“I don’t think so, because first of all tackling anti-Semitism is part of a wider effort to tackle prejudice and intolerance, and somebody who suffers from a hate crime and hate speech can be Jewish, can be Muslim, can be lesbian or gay, can be Roma, can be a member of minorities that live within societies in Europe,” he said.

“I think that the approach to single out each one and see how we can tackle each one has not worked out, and it’s very important to see how we can build up a common approach to this,” he said, adding that “it is very important also to note the Jewish communities are largely behind this effort.”

“Nobody is denying that there are problems between the groups [Muslims and Jews] but one needs to look at it also from a common perspective,” Dimitrakopoulos asserted.

Not everyone in the Jewish community was fully opposed to the way in which the colloquium is to be organized.[now you wouldn't know that from the headline, sub-title and first half of the article]

“The Jewish people do not have a monopoly on persecution,” remarked Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which sponsors Jewish- Muslim interfaith events on the continent.

“This is an opportunity for Jews and Muslims to recognize that we share both a common faith and a common fate.

Yet, the Fundamental Rights Commission of the EU must acknowledge that a contributing force to growing European anti-Semitism are elements of the Muslim community.”[it might also note that western and Jewish communal leadership support from Israel is a manifestation of and a cause of both islamophia and antisemitism]

Maurice Cohen, the chairman of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, was likewise rather sanguine about the conference.

“As Irish people, we are all too aware of how sectarian and religious intolerance has affected relations between Catholic and Protestant traditions in Ireland, and therefore we welcome any and all initiatives by the EU or anyone seeking to examine and highlight the futility and destructive nature of intolerance and xenophobia within societies,” he said.

“Time and perhaps the conclusions of the colloquium will tell how effective this initiative will have been and whether or not it was correct to examine both anti-Semitism together with anti-Muslim hatred,” he said.[wow there's an innovation the zionists might try, ie. see what the conference actually says and concludes and take it from there]

“As a small Jewish community in Ireland, we have experienced differing degrees of intolerance over the years. It should be pointed out, however, that this has been very infrequent and not anything like that experienced by Jewish communities on the continent,” he added.

“We have excellent relations with the Muslim community here in Ireland and they have informed us that they too experience varying forms of prejudice and intolerance against their community,” he concluded.

The FRA had previously drawn Jewish ire after it removed a working definition of anti-Semitism from its website in 2013.[aha, the good old working definition which zionists all over the net are now saying is simply a common sense consideration of context before loosing off about antisemitism.  It's nothing of the kind of course but some people will say anything to defend Israel and silence its critics]

So there we have it.  There are major Jewish organisations telling anyone who cares to listen that racism against Jews and Muslims cannot be dealt with at the same time because whilst no Jews can ever be accused of racism, the Muslims most definitely can.

Ethiopians protest against racism in Israel

This reminds me of a joke I heard a long time ago about the Israeli Education Ministry ordering teachers to honour the legacy of the late Rahavam Ze'evi, an open advocate of the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine.  A teacher told the her class how courageous Ze'evi had been in advocating the, ahem, "Transfer" of the Palestinian population. A child said, "that's wonderful, Miss, when can we do that to the Ethiopians." The teacher said "don't be so racist in my class!"

Anyway, a couple of days ago Ha'aretz reported on a demo by Ethiopians and "representatives of various groups who feel weak in Israeli society."

"The phenomenon of racism harms us all, and it is impossible to separate the discrimination of Ethiopians in Israel from the discrimination of Arab residents or Russian-speakers," said Rabia Elsagir, a resident of Shfaram and member of The Coalition Against Racism in Israel, who attended the protest with a handful of people from the Arab sector.

There are of course many examples of racism in Israel but two more occurred just recently. One was the water throwing incident in the Knesset just the other day:




For a comment on this see Magnes Zionist.


The other is a further degeneration of the State of Israel into an explicitly apartheid situation within Israel itself and not simply between Israel and the occupied territories.  The Israeli High Court has now effectively ratified Israel's so-called Citizenship Law which spells out a crucial difference between the Jewish and Arab inhabitants of Israel within the pre-67 boundaries.  Again here is Ha'aretz:

Israel’s High Court rejected on Wednesday petitions against the Citizenship Law, which prevents Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs from receiving Israeli citizenship or residency. Six judges voted to reject the petitions, while five voted to accept them.

Israel generally grants citizenship to spouses of Israelis in a gradual process. In the spirit of this process, a similar process was instituted for the naturalization of spouses of permanent residents, though the process is a little longer. A 2002 temporary order excluded Palestinian spouses from these processes and barred them from becoming Israeli citizens.

 And again Magnes Zionist has a scathing comment:

Yesterday, the State of Israel became the first western state whose High Court ruled that some citizens have fewer fundamental rights than other citizens based on their ethnicity. Actually, it had done so before, but yesterday it rejected  the most sustained challenge to the “Citizenship Law,” which bars the non-Israeli spouses of Israeli Palestinians from becoming citizens. So while an Israeli Jew from Brooklyn has the right of marrying anybody she likes, and having her spouse naturalized, a native Palestinian Israeli citizen cannot marry  a distant relative who lives in a town five minutes from her house – unless that relative was a Palestinian collaborator, working for the Israelis, and then, only by special approval of the Minister of Interior.

Yet another answer to Goldstone and all those who try to make out that Israel isn't an apartheid state.

The Story behind the film that "saved Israel's reputation"

As PACBI and many others have been claiming, based on quite explicit and publicly available information, Israeli state institutions fund and use art in order to whitewash Israel's image and deflect attention from its vicious apartheid and daily murder. This effort is called "Brand Israel." According to Haaretz, the Oscar winning film "Strangers No More," masquerading under progressive politics of inclusion and attention to the plight of non-Jewish refugees inside Israel, was conceived as a propaganda project that associates Israel with all the humane values that Israel tramples upon every day.

The Oscar-winning film Stranger No More, according to Keren Tal [Rogozin school manager] was produced in order improve Israel's shaky image after operation 'Cast Lead'. The idea for the project was advanced among others by the Tel Aviv Development Fund. "After a consultation with Tel Aviv's Mayor Ron Huldai, the Foundation invited Lin Arison (second wife of billionaire Ted Arison, founder of the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts) to examine how to promote Israel's image," says Tal. "I was informed that she will attend school and that she had half an hour for the purpose." The visit ended Arison's words: "We will be in touch."

A month and half later Tal received an email from Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon, the directors of the film, informing her that they wanted to visit the school. They remained there for about a year and a half, shooting the film a week at a time.

What did you think of the film?

"It brings an intense emotional story because it zooms in on something human and touching. The film was one of the factors that halted the deportation of the children. The producers say that it was screened in about a hundred festivals".

So did the film achieve its aim, improving Israel's image?

"I am at peace with that even though it is contrary to my political views. I want to see Israel undergoing a change. The film did well for children who live with a feeling of social exclusion. Ours is a society surrounded by racism, and children suffer from it as they walk down the street. I feel proud when I see the faces of the children and the staff in the film.

“People were paying attention to the Oscar while and I went back to dealing with the daily grind, especially since this was when Eli Yishai came with the deportation announcement. The movie did not not bring me to where I am today. My work brought me. The everyday puts one in touch with so many wrongs and difficulties, that the ratings and the publicity are not important to me”.

Dr Maggie Navon, North America Vice President for Tel Aviv Development Foundation, gave a slightly different account this week of the birth of film. Three years ago, the Foundation decided to raise funds in the United States on the occasion Tel Aviv’s centenary. Among others, they contacted Lin Arison. When Arison came to Israel she went off to explore cultural hubs such as the Suzanne Dellal Centre, It was then that Huldai and the Fund suggested that swing over to the Bialik – Rogozin school. What should have been a fifteen-minute visit lasted an hour, and Arison was captivated by the children’s and Tal’s charm.

"The directors contacted Tal two weeks later. Arison paid for the production out of her money and the US HBO channel only acquired the movie during the final production phase. It was ready for release just when Israeli Apartheid Week was taking place in the United States. During this week the state of Israel was the object of grave accusations and it was described as an apartheid state, and the film saved its reputation. If it were only possible to duplicate Karen Tal, who is a model of ultimate leadership, the state's situation would be infinitely better.”

From Haaretz, translated from Hebrew by Sol Salbe, with my humble improvements.

So what do you say about Cultural boycott?

Well, the translator of this text, Sol Salbe, doesn't like it. He is also peeved at Boycott from Within,

I also wanted to make the point that the self-proclaimed BDS from Within is a phony. It is strange that not a single one of their "hundreds of supporters" has read this Haaretz article. It really helps their case but evidently none of them is sufficiently integrated to Israeli society to read the culture pages, at least not in Hebrew.

Got to love it when liberal Zionists, especially those who got a good Israeli education, reveal their deep far right-wing racist xenophobic worldview, which in Israel is simply mainstream, and even called "left". You get it? If you live under the Israeli apartheid regime, but you get your news from an Yiddish or Arab or Russian or English source, and don't read the "cultural pages of Haaretz" (which means that most likely you are not a white, European, upper middle class, over-educated and under-politicized Ashkenazi snob), then you don't have the right to describe your political view as "from within." You are a foreigner. Not "well integrated," and Eli Yshai probably got your number.

Struck dumb at Brum

The Jewish Chronicle is applauding the adoption of the so-called "working definition" of antisemitism by the students' union at Birmingham University.  Here's the JC under the misleading headline, Birmingham embraces EU:

All speakers invited to appear at the University of Birmingham will, in future, be required to adhere to the EU Monitoring Committee's working definition of antisemitism.

Birmingham Guild of Students passed a motion last week requiring all societies and speakers to work with the EUMC guidelines to ensure incidents on campus do not allow antisemitic language or behaviour.

The move follows a controversial lecture in February during which US army veteran Mike Prysner, speaking to the Friends of Palestine Society, compared Gaza to a concentration camp..

I think this is quite important because, in spite of being hosted by what used to be the European Monitoring Centre on Xenophobia and Racism, now the Fundamental Rights Agency's website, it has never been formally adopted by any part of the EU bureaucracy, commission or judiciary.  It's almost like the zionists that pulled it together don't want it subjected to forensic, judicial or parliamentary scrutiny.

Since we've covered this on JSF before, let's just have a quick look at what the dodgy definition consists of.  It starts innocuously enough with an abstract definition headed, "Working Definition" and states, :

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

Ok, but when the American Jewish Committee first pulled the thing together, it said that

Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel include: ·         Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor.   ·         Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. ·         Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis. ·         Drawing comparisons between contemporary Israeli policy and that of the Nazis. ·         Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.

That was a bit too obviously designed to stifle criticism of Israel so they threw in a couple of sops to free speech involving "context" and the word "could". So now rather than saying that "Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel include" it now says, 

Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel taking into account the overall context could  include

And then it sets out those various things by which "antisemitism" "could" manifest itself, subject to "context". I've had some chats about this on line, and the Israel advocates are very quick to accuse a person of dishonesty if they fail to mention the "context" and the "could".

The problem now is that this has been adopted by a students' union because someone likened Gaza to a concentration camp at a public meeting on campus. So what happens now? Will people who want to give talks about Israel on campus be asked what they are going to say so that can be told they are not allowed to say a certain thing? Will they be vetted for what they have said in the past so that they can be banned forevermore? Will they have to sign a document promising not to say anything that sounds like it might be accusing Israel or bearing comparison to the nazis or of practicing apartheid, or of being generally not nice to the Palestinians but without criticising other states that do nasty things too?  Was it even discussed before being adopted? I couldn't find the new policy or discussion of it on the University of Birmingham Guild of Students website though I'm not the best of web searchers. If someone finds anything please let me know.

The fact that the working definition exists on line at all under the auspices of the EU is a disgrace. It clearly essentialises Jews as zionists and seeks to implicate Jews generally in Israel's crimes at the same time as correctly pointing out that it is antisemitic to hold Jews responsible for the State of Israel. So it is antisemitic in itself though the clearest intention is the stifling, indeed preventing of meaningful criticism of Israel.

It is all the more problematic that it doesn't inform the laws of any EU state as yet because that has enabled it to evade scrutiny and simply get adopted where activism outweighs forensics, like students' bodies.

And this Birmingham Uni Students' Guild decision is disgraceful, particularly as I understand it was proposed by the Guild's anti-racism officer. But now it has been adopted by an organisation with the ability to approve or ban speakers, we might be able to see how the working definition, er, works. But I must say, that more needs to be done against it than the setting up of a facebook page.