Spain: 'Islam' band posts musical death-threat against journalist Pilar Rahola

Sources: Islam in Europe and Periodista Digital

Journalist and author Pilar Rahola is under police protection after a death-threat clip recorded by a band named "Islam" was posted to YouTube. The song repeats "I'll kill Pilar Rahola", and the clip is accompanied by a woman wearing a burka. Rahola lodged a complaint about the clip, and the Spanish authorities had turned to the US Authorities to remove the video in question. [ed: the video was already removed]

Pilar Rahola is known for her denunciations of Islamic and Arab dictatorships, as well as for defending the rights of women in Islamic societies. She recently published a book titled "The Islamic republic of Spain". IN the past she got death threats and was designated an 'enemy of Islam' by Spanish Muslim organizations for her positions favoring Israel and opposing Palestinian terrorist organizations.

35% of Spaniards do not like Jews

35% of Spaniards have a bad opinion of Jews. The percentage represents 17 million Spaniards. And 11% -  almost 5.2 million people - believe that Israel "must disappear" - more than five million Spanish people want Israel wiped off the map.

Those who commissioned the survey indicate that the 35% figure is "less than expected". Their comment is understandable in the light of previous surveys that put Spain as the most antisemitic country in Europe and with the deluge of anti-Israel info poured on Spaniards on a daily basis, the numbers could have been worse. But they are very bad.

Still it is hard to follow Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Spanish Foreign Minister, when he indicated at the presentation of the report: "Public opinion in our country is not anti-Semitic or anti-Israel". Well, in arithmetic terms, there is not a majority that holds such obnoxious views but, when in your own country 5 million human beings (so to speak) argue that Israel should disappear and another 17 million say that do not want Jews there is no cause for celebration. Do they really represent the quintessence of tolerance and respect ?

Source: Jorge Marirrodriga @ Sobre Israel opinamos todos (Millones de tolerantes)

- Anti-Semitism in Spain
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- Spain's Jewish problem, by Michael Freund
- The anti-Israel hysteria, by Pilar Rahola  

Catalunya government: a Palestinian holocaust is taking place

"Holocaust survivors have no need for moments of silence for dead Jews from people who have no respect for live Jews."

"The Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced the government of the Spain’s Catalunya region for cancelling its public commemoration of International Holocaust Day on January 27th as a way to protest Israel’s operations in Gaza. An official from the city of Barcelona, where they memorial was to be held, was quoted as saying, "Marking the Jewish Holocaust while a Palestinian holocaust is taking place is not right."

"The Wiesenthal Center denounces this perverted inversion of truth and memory by officials in Barcelona. Holocaust survivors have no need for moments of silence for dead Jews from people who have no respect for live Jews," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Center. "In dealing a telling blow against Hamas in Gaza, Israel ensures that the terrorist organization's open goal of making the Holy Land 'Judenrein' (free of Jews) will never happen," he added.

"The Catalunya government would do well to learn the moral difference between a terrorist group targeting civilians who protected themselves by using their women and children as human shields and a member state of the United Nations doing what any government, including Spain would do: eliminate such a threat against her civilian population. Israel should be rightfully proud of the extraordinary steps her military took to minimize casualties among civilians, cynically put in harm’s way by Hamas," Cooper concluded."

Source: Simon Wiesenthal Center

- ¿Qué està pasando en Cataluña?, Pilar Rahola
- The anti-Israel hysteria, by Pilar Rahola, Pilar Rahola
- 46 per cent of Spanish have a negative/very negative view of Jews

The anti-Israel hysteria, by Pilar Rahola

"Does Hamas have anything to do with freedom, or rather, doesn't it have everything to do with Islamism of a fascist tendency? Is freedom defended by training children to commit suicide attacks and by enslaving women? Is freedom defended by Iran, which supports Hamas financially? Does freedom belong to the terrorists of Hezbollah?"

"I understand that you want to wipe us off the map, just don't expect us to help you attain that goal. The fact that this old sentiment - the gist of a line uttered by a caustic Golda Meir to the Palestinian leadership - is so relevant these days, gives us a sense of the scope of the tragedy the Holy Land has been suffering through for so many decades.

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In fact, this same idea - the need for continued efforts to curb the intended destruction of Israel - lies behind the dramatic military decision made by the Israeli government, one that has again made it an object of wrath for so many around the world.

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As Prof. Joan B. Culla said recently, there can be multiple reactions to the Israel Defense Forces' military incursion in the Gaza Strip, and some of these are justifiably critical. But, given the fact that hysterical reactions abound, lacking any semblance of calm reflection, and based strictly on Manichaeanism and prejudice, there are some questions that must be asked.
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Ari Shavit wrote recently in Haaretz ("A Just but Tragic War," January 1) that "Operation Cast Lead is a just campaign" and that it is also a "tragic campaign." I disagree with the term "just," because, as Golda Meir also said, "We don't want wars, even when we win." A military incursion that causes dozens of deaths can never be considered just, even if it is aimed at the destruction of the Hamas military machine. But can it be considered inevitable?

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Some intellectuals, including Amos Oz, have already warned that the Gaza incursion will lead to a significant new wave of anti-Israel sentiment. But even the Israeli left has taken a very lukewarm position about the incursion. The decision to attack Hamas was made by an Israeli society suffering from fatigue, fed up of not being able to find a way out, or reason for hope. And fed up, too, of the knowledge that the other side is working tirelessly to destroy it.

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Here they are, then, the questions, directed particularly to those carrying signs proclaiming their hatred of Israel through the streets of our cities - most of them the usual suspects, from the certain ones belonging to the radical left, always ready to raise their fist against Israel, to the various sectors of Islamism. It's curious, in fact, this obscene partnership.

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Those who go into the streets claim to do so in favor of the freedom of Palestine. Well, where have they been all these years, as the fundamentalist phenomena that oppressed the Palestinians were on the rise? Does Hamas have anything to do with freedom, or rather, doesn't it have everything to do with Islamism of a fascist tendency? Is freedom defended by training children to commit suicide attacks and by enslaving women? Is freedom defended by Iran, which supports Hamas financially? Does freedom belong to the terrorists of Hezbollah?

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Those who protest in the streets also say they do so out of solidarity. Well, solidarity with whom? With Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, who has been less critical of the incursion than any European carrying a sign? With the Palestinians who do not agree with having the financial aid sent to their people being used to build armies and prepare bomb attacks? Do they wonder what happens to these funds? Does solidarity with the Palestinians mean defending terrorism and excusing Hamas' aggressions? Is peace defended by boosting Palestinian leaders who do not believe in it?

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It is true that the intolerant left lives better by being anti-Israel. And it is also true that, in the face of complex realities, the vociferous masses prefer the simplicity of the "good" and the "bad." But, beyond prejudice, facts are stubborn. Israel withdrew from Gaza, leaving intact the economic structures it had created. Hamas destroyed them all, and took advantage of the withdrawal to prepare an army of destruction. And hundreds of missiles later, it continues its preparations. The silence of this left, which is so loud today, has been very significant. What is happening in Gaza is tragic. But it did not start with the Israeli incursion. And to put all the blame on Israel is comfortable and simple, but useless. Because the main enemy of the Palestinian people comes from within."

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Source: Haaretz

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Pilar Rahola is a Spanish-Catalan journalist. She writes a regular column for the Barcelona paper La Vanguardia, where this article originally appeared in Spanish.

- Cross-eyed Europe. The Protocols of the Sages of Information, by Pilar Rahola (2003)

- Apology of evil, by Pilar Rahola

Cross-eyed Europe. The Protocols of the Sages of Information, by Pilar Rahola (2003)

"The present anti-Semitic edifice is built on two equally powerful pillars. One has to do with the culture of the hatred and prejudice that marks us as a people. However, the other pillar is absolutely necessary for those prejudices to take wing and fly: the informative lie. And "lie", nowadays, is a verb conjugated with equal enthusiasm by journalists and intellectuals, to such a degree that the truth about Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict is being superseded by a parallel truth, based on the distortion and falsification of history. Here, too, there is nothing new, inasmuch as historical and contemporary anti-Semitism have to do with lying. I will put in the harsh terms merited by the accusation: Europe - erudite, intellectual, media-minded; the Europe that reports daily on the Middle East and which is responsible for the voraciously anti-Israel cast of opinion, is rewriting a new version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The secret agents of czarism have replaced by modern-day journalists; the ancient peril of a Jewish plot is now being couched as a Yankee-Israeli plot; the evil Jew of yesteryear is the same evil Jew he always was, except that now his plot is situated on Wall Street and he has an army. I shall never cease to be amazed and horrified by the force of old iniquities. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) put it this way in a study it conducted among adults in five European countries: it is alarming to find in this post-Holocaust and post-September-11th world that one out of five persons believes in the old slanders. In Spain, for instance, some 70% believe in the concept of a Jewish financial lobby, as lobby that, naturally, pulls the world’s strings. Thus, in the beginning of time, we had Christian texts converting the Jewish people into God killers. I believe that somewhere there is a wretch who wants to make a movie out of it… In 1903, we had the Protocols garbed by the Russian extreme right, who contributed to instigating the pogroms that devastated that country until 1914, with the slaughter of 60,000 Jews in the civil war between the whites and the reds. In 1920, we had Henry Ford and frenzied international Jew. And in vanquished and convulsed Germany, well nourished on the Protocols, Hitler wrote his Mein Kampf and Rosenberg and Goebbels saw to the propagation of hatred and, therefore, the legitimization of persecution. The outcome is well known.
Today, the same Europe which gave rise to everything - hatred, persecution and extermination, is now giving birth to a new narrative whose stigmas are distant and the distortion of which is equally inconsiderate and whose consequences, in any event, will never be good. This is my explicit accusation: the journalistic and intellectual world, fundamentally composed of leftists, has written new highly influential Protocols, with devastating consequences. Day by day, with every news item, with every declaration, we don’t have the odd ferocious book; today, we have a library full of them. Like their forebears, the Protocols of the Sages of Information are fake, criminal and false. Israel is the target. The reason - there are many, most of which are ignoble. The justification is Sharon. The excuse - anti-Zionism. The weapon - prestige. The propagator - thousands of media. The ally - Arafat. The result - anti-Semitism."
From a speech delivered at the International Keren Hayesod Conference, 25.11.2003.
Pilar Rahola comes from a republican and anti-fascist family. She is a Catalan writer, journalist and former parliamentarian of the republican left.
Also by Pilar Rahola.

Apology of evil, by Pilar Rahola

“I want to shatter the core of the lie”, stated the elated Robert Faurisson, cheered loudly with passionate applause. The well-known French negationist Faurisson had just been sentenced in his country for having denied the Nazi extermination against Jews. Yet, this did not prevent him from enjoying a pleasant holiday in the Iranian paradise, and from participating as a speaker in the congress on the Holocaust organised by Iranian fascists. In the corridors of the congress, David Duke, ex leader of the Ku Klux Klan, expressed his satisfaction to the few European journalists that covered the event, and took advantage to talk about the western “shame”, that represses freedom of speech… Of course, Iran was, for the well-known American racist, a model of freedom.

... It means that the Iranian Congress on the Holocaust was a great show of hate and disdain for the Jewish victims of the Shoah, funded by a member state of the UN, whose influence in Islam, in the Middle East and the world, is more than notorious. Obviously, once again President Ahmadinejad threatened Israel, called for its disappearance and encouraged all Muslims to take part in its demise. In conclusion: an apology for hate, a war threat on another country, a public show of Anti-Semitism, without complexes an Anti-Semite orgy, and lastly, the notorious inaction and indifference of the world, perfectly demonstrated in the perverse silence of the Organization of the United Nations. If the Iranian Congress served any purpose, unfortunately it was to confirm what we already knew. It proved that the apology for Nazi negationism can be made without suffering any consequences.

I have dozens of friends who have been victims of the terrible disaster of the Holocaust; I remember my Colombian friend, whose grand-mother had completely lost her mother tongue, Polish, when she, at 13, was rescued from Auschwitz, having lost her whole family. I remember the trembling look of a Chilean survivor telling me, in tears, that a European had never apologized. I remember a sad man that I met in Santiago whose father, working as a musician, was forced to play the violin as his family was executed. There were more than 1 million children, two thirds of the European Jewish population disappeared; dozens of villages with their centuries of Jewish life, poets, school teachers, peasants, traders, doctors, children and grand-parents, men and women, all were wiped off the map. Smoke, only smoke, and some do not even want them to be remembered. Smoke and oblivion.

For such pain, for such evil, for such a tragedy that is such burden to carry, with centuries of guilt in Europe, I feel a profound sadness, I feel profoundly lost and profoundly defeated.

It is true. Duke the racist has reasons to feel exultant, feeding the hate for Jews and laughing at the extermination of six million people, it does not cost anything. Who cares? Which country has expelled the Iranian ambassador from its territory? Who has demanded an explanation at the United Nations General Assembly? Who is going to send to prison those who participated in this apology for evil? Who is moved by this horror?

Having written a number of times that Jews stand alone in their misfortune and that Israel faces survival alone, this occasion gives me the most evidence to be sure of the fact. I wonder whether the world would have allowed an official congress, public and legal, in favour of racism. Would there not have been all kinds of protest and acts of solidarity? Wouldn’t they have envisaged an economic boycott, military intervention? Wouldn’t the route of diplomacy have been exhausted first? Wouldn’t left-wing organisations have taken to the streets, indignant about the apology of evil that racism represents? Wouldn’t SOS Racism have been outraged? Wouldn’t those like the writer Saramago have expressed their profound rage? Yet, when racism is perpetrated against Jews, the victims of the greatest extermination of all times, the world considers that this is not its problem, as it has never been.

Impunity gives rise to hate, raging and reinforced, and, with hate reinforced, all the doors of evil are opened.

As an old saying puts it: “When your enemy assures that he wants to kill you, believe him”. What should the Israelis think confronted with the reiterated threats of destruction by Iran, a country that will have nuclear weapons without being punished? What can the Jews think around the world? They think that they stand alone. That they always stood alone in the face of the anti-Semitic hate.
December 14, 2006
Translated by Margarita Estapé.
Pilar Rahola comes from a republican and anti-fascist family. She is a Catalan writer, journalist and former parliamentarian of the republican left.
http://www.pilarrahola.com/