Kristoffer Larsson, a Swedish theologian, backs Israeli organ theft claim

"Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman managed to tacitly draw the attention to—you guessed it!—the Holocaust [...] Lieberman’s Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt blatantly refuses to cave in [...] Ostensibly, Israel is using the article to get a message across: Sweden is an anti-Semitic country. They are set to pressure the Swedish government until it condemns the ‘blood libel accusation’. All of a sudden everyone is discussing good old anti-Semitism instead of Israel’s state terrorism and its apartheid policies towards the Palestinian people."

Source: article "The Organ Theft Affair" by Kristoffer Larsson (Kristoffer Larsson is a Swedish theology student occasionally commenting on political issues. He works with the Bethlehem-based International Middle East Media Center and is a Director of Deir Yassin Remembered.)

"Swedish photojournalist Donald Boström has really infuriated the Israelis and its supporters. On August 17, Sweden’s most widely circulated newspaper, Aftonbaldet, carried an article by Boström entitled "Our sons plundered for their organs."1

The usual suspects immediately cried "anti-Semitism," claiming that the old blood libel accusation has been brought to life again.2 The Israelis have even threatened to sue him. Such reactions were anticipated, however. Innumerable hate mails have found their way into Mr Boström’s inbox since the publication, including death threats. More surprising is that Sweden’s ambassador to Israel, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, issued a condemnation of the article. It was "as shocking and appalling to us Swedes as to Israelis," the ambassador claimed in a press release that was later withdrawn, having attracted criticism from the Swedish foreign ministry as well as from the government.

On top of that, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that the Swedish government renounce the article, something which would be unconstitutional in Sweden. A statement from Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman managed to tacitly draw the attention to—you guessed it!—the Holocaust: "It is regrettable that the Swedish foreign ministry does not intervene when it comes to a blood libel against Jews, which reminds one of Sweden’s conduct during World War II when it also did not intervene." (I would urge Lieberman, himself a hard-core racist, to read Lenni Brenner’s excellent 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis.)

Lieberman’s Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt blatantly refuses to cave in: "As a member of the Swedish government, acting on the Swedish constitution I have to respect freedom of speech, irrespective of the personal views that I might have." His boss, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, also rejects commenting on the article. Bildt is expected in Israel in about a week’s time, but Israelis are threatening to cancel his trip.

Despite all the fuss, this isn’t the first time Donald Boström publicly vents suspicions about Israelis stealing organs from Palestinians. One chapter of the book Inshallah: konflikten mellan Israel och Palestina ("Inshallah: the Conflict between Israel and Palestine"), edited by Boström and first published in 2001, was an account of what happened to a 19-year-old Palestinian boy. It includes the photo now published in Aftonbladet. Donald Boström decided to shed new light on the affair following the mass arrest in New Jersey of people involved in illegal organ trade that included a shockingly high number of Rabbis.

Read the whole piece here

SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST SCANDOS! ISRAELIS POKE FUN!

US 'concerned' with Goldstone report

"We have long expressed our very serious concern with the mandate that was given by the Human Rights Council prior to our joining the council, which we viewed as unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable." (Susan Rice)

Unfortunately (predictably), no such reservations and concerns about the Goldstone Report were voiced either by the European Union or by European governments.

Source: article by E.B. Solomont, TJP

The United States expressed grave reservations Thursday with the findings and recommendations of a UN report that accused Israel of war crimes during the Gaza conflict and left open the possibility of prosecution at The Hague.
"We have very serious concerns about many recommendations in the report," Ambassador Susan Rice, the permanent US representative to the UN, told reporters following a closed Security Council meeting.

The nearly 600-page report, presented on Tuesday by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, and recommended that if no appropriate independent inquiry takes place in Israel within six months, the Security Council should refer the matter to prosecutors at the International Criminal Court.

"We will expect and believe that the appropriate venue for this report to be considered is the Human Rights Council," Rice said on Thursday, in the first official American response to Goldstone's report. "We have long expressed our very serious concern with the mandate that was given by the Human Rights Council prior to our joining the council, which we viewed as unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable." [...]

Several members of Congress issued sharp condemnations of the Goldstone Report, which they said ignored Israel's need to defend itself against terrorism.

"In the self-righteous fantasyland inhabited by the authors, there's no such thing as terrorism, there's no such thing as Hamas, there's no such thing as legitimate self-defense," Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said in a statement. "Certainly, the United States should do all that it can to ensure as little time as possible is wasted on this distraction from the real work of making peace," he said.

In a similar vein, a joint statement by Reps. Shelley Berkley of Nevada and Eliot Engel of New York staunchly defended Israel's right to defend itself against rocket and mortar attacks from the north and the south.

"Israel took every reasonable step to avoid civilian casualties," they wrote. "It is ridiculous to claim that Israel did not take appropriate actions to protect civilian populations."

- Goldstone Report: 575 pages of NGO "cut and paste"
- Goldstone´s sins of omission

Why did Ken Loach boycott Melbourne and not Cannes ?

"Why Melbourne and not Cannes? Perhaps because Cannes is a large film festival with an extensive media exposure and the financial issues are too important for even such a committed filmmaker as Ken Loach to ignore, whereas Melbourne is a small film festival where it is easy to play the militant game and perform a great lesson-giving act."

Unauthorised translation of an extract of a piece (Israël, cible de Ken Loach) by Ariel Schweitzer published in Le Monde

"We learned this summer that filmmaker Ken Loach, who was presenting his latest film, Looking for Eric, at the Melbourne Festival, in Australia, had decided to withdraw. Loach wanted to protest against the screening of an Israeli film, The Meaning of Life for $ 9.99, and the fact that travel expenses of the author, Tatia Rosenthal, were being defrayed by an Israeli public institution. Previously, Loach had asked the festival director, Richard Moore, to refuse Israel's financial contribution. Faced with the refusal of the latter, who described Loach's request as "blackmail", the English filmmaker chose to boycott the event. [Melbourne film festival rejects Ken Loach anti-Israel pressure]

This is not the first time that Loach resorts to this method. In May, he succeeded in convincing the management of the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland to refuse the participation of another Israeli filmmaker Tali Shalom-Ezer, whose trip was to be paid by the Israeli embassy. After a lengthy debate, the director came to the festival, but she had to pay for her own travel costs. [Edinburgh film festival refuses Israeli grant due to pressure by Ken Loach]

Ken Loach is free to screen his film where he pleases. It is also his right to protest against the State of Israel and its occupation policies. The problem is the method chosen. For if one follows the Loach's logic, it is reasonable to question the filmmaker's decision to boycott the Melbourne Festival and not, for example, the last Cannes Film Festival where he came to present the same film, Looking for Eric. Indeed, five Israeli films (three long and two short films) were screened at Cannes this year. All supported by Israeli public funds and whose presence at the festival was also supported by institutions in the country.

Why Melbourne and not Cannes? Perhaps because Cannes is a large film festival with an extensive media exposure and the financial issues are too important for even such a committed filmmaker as Ken Loach to ignore, whereas Melbourne is a small film festival where it is easy to play the militant game and perform a great lesson-giving act."

- Ken Loach: "self-proclaimed Jewish State" is greatest instigator of anti-Semitism
- Marxist Film Director Says Antisemitism is "Understandable"

Norwegian scholars call for Israel boycott

Source: SPME Emily Tall, University of Buffalo, and Manfred Gerstenfeld

Twenty-one Norwegian academics at the University of Tromsø have signed a call for a boycott of all Israeli academic institutions. The initiative calls for the University to “establish an academic boycott of Israel,” of Israel’s “institutions of education, research and culture, and the institutions’ representatives, regardless of religion and nationality.”

The University of Tromsø has 9000 students and is known in Norway as the “peace university.” It was a leading force in Norway during the massive boycott of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. The city of Tromsø has a twinning relationship with the city of Gaza and inhabitants of Tromsø turned out in good numbers for a Gaza demonstration in January.

The boycott call comes at the same time that the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim has begun a series of lectures on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The lectures are supposed to build a “broad perspective.” The list of speakers includes the American Stephen Walt and the Israelis Ilan Pappe and Moshe Zuckerman. The latter claimed initially on German radio that 400,000 people were killed during Operation Cast Lead. These names and those of several Norwegian anti-Israeli lecturers leave little doubt about the pro-Palestinian thrust of the series.
________

NTNU rector Torbjørn Digernes: “Seminar series is praiseworthy initiative”
NTNU is one of Norway’s most prestigious universities. This autumn the university is presenting a series of seminars on the Palestine-Israel conflict where all of the speakers, as well as the members of the organizing committee, are known adherents of the Palestinian narrative. Why is the Israeli narrative not given equal attention? Is Israel so fundamentally evil that her perspective is irrelevant? NTNU rector Torbjørn Digernes says that all speakers at the seminar are required to be objective, and that he as rector stands by the decision to host the seminars.

Unauthorized translation from NTNU’s Rector’s Page: HERE
(Norway, Israel and the Jews blog)

Anatomy of a media manipulation, Manfred Gerstenfeld

"Israel Criminal State" masks sold at French Communist party event

PARIS (EJP)---Jewish organisations have denounced the sale over the weekend at a French Communist Party annual event of protection masks against the H1N1 swine flu marked with the mention “State of Israel.Criminal State."

In a statement, the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism and the Councils of Jewish Communities of Seine-Saint-Denis condemned the initiative taken at the "Fête de l’Humanité" or Festival of Humanity, and particularly the sale by a Communist municipal councilor [Madjid Messaoudene] from the Paris suburb city of Saint-Denis, of anti-Israel masks.

T-shirts emblazoned with “Stop the Capitalist Flu” could also be seen at the stand [photo].

"This type of initiative is likely to lead to anti-Jewish acts," the organisations warned, recalling the fact that after an anti-Israel demonstration in Saint-Denis earlier this year nine petrol bombs were thrown against the local synagogue.

The Jewish groups demanded that security measures be taken around Jewish worship places in view of the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur.

In their statement, they also called on French Interior Minister "to use his authority so that elected officials of the Republic and in particular those of the Communist Party stop misusing their mandate to accuse and insult the Jewish state by inciting to hatred of Israel which leads to anti-Jewish act."

This year 600,000 people attended the Communist Party event at a huge park in the north of Paris near the suburb of La Corneuve.

Article by Joseph Byron at EJP

The Islamisation of Anti-Semitism

"In the 1930s [...] a growing convergence of German and Arab enmities allowed Nazi-style anti-Semitism to penetrate the Arab world. [...] Although early in the Third Reich, a Jewish homeland in Palestine was, in fact, thought of as a convenient dumping ground for Europe's Jews, soon, a covenant between anti-Zionist Arab leaders and the Nazis began to emerge. Leaders on both sides chose to finesse or ignore the implications of the kind of anti-Semitism featured in "Mein Kampf". An article in the Nazi Party newspaper, published in 1937, explained that Arabs had been at least partly "Aryanized" through mixing with Armenians and Circassians."

Source: article by Micha Odenheimer in Ynet News

"[...] One important lesson of the past year is that Israel should have taken the Palestinian incitement to hatred seriously, and America should have paid more attention to bin Laden's declaration of war against the West. Words count. Portraying Jews as a demonic people aimed at destroying Islam and enslaving mankind may be a warning that the deployment of weapons of mass destruction against Israel is not an unimaginable next step.

For hundreds of years, the virulent form of anti-Semitism that is now endemic in the Islamic world has been the heritage of the Christian West. In Christianity, the Jews had a starring role: they were the killers of Christ, and some Christians believed that they reenacted this ultimate evil by drinking Christian blood every Passover. In Islam, the Jews were more like shlemeils than God-slayers: the Jewish tribes in Arabia opposed Muhammad, but he easily defeated them. Although the Koran contains numerous harsh statements about Jews, the bottom line in Islam was that Jews were protected under Islamic law as long as they accepted Islamic political authority and the social and political limitations this imposed. Prejudice against Jews existed, and at periods of turmoil this prejudice sometimes turned violent, but eras of cooperation and relative peace were also often characteristic of Jewish life under Islam.

Anti-Semitic ideas infiltrated into the Arab world, according to Bernard Lewis, one of the greatest living scholars of Islamic history, as Islam expanded into the West. Christian converts to Islam and Greek Orthodox Christians who found themselves living under Islamic rule introduced anti-Semitism, including the notion of the blood libel, into the Middle East. In the first half of the 19th century, Christian Arabs, who were in continuous contact with Western Christians, brought numerous blood libel charges against Jews living in the Ottoman Empire. Often, money was at the root of this evil. In many cases, the Jews were the Christians' business competitors. Attempts to inflame Arab passions against the Jewish minority "were actively encouraged by Western emissaries of various kinds, consular, commercial, priests and missionaries," writes Lewis, in his book "Semites and anti-Semites", and blood libels were often accompanied by calls for commercial boycotts. In the 1840 Damascus blood libel, the most famous of such cases in the Arab world, it was Capuchin monks who made the false accusation, backed energetically and vociferously by the French consul. Interestingly, Islamic political authorities often attempted to quell the blood libel accusations, and Islamic intellectuals attacked Christian prejudice on the pages of newspapers and journals.

The translation of European anti-Semitic tracts into Arabic began in the second half of the 19th century. Most of the tracts were written in French; all were translated and published by members of the Christian Arab community. [...]

In the 1930s, nearly two decades after the Balfour declaration aroused further Arab suspicions and hostilities, a growing convergence of German and Arab enmities allowed Nazi-style anti-Semitism to penetrate the Arab world. Although technically the Arabs were also "Semites" disdained by the Nazis, both the Germans and Arabs had hatred of the British and the French in common. To the top of this list was added the Jews. Although early in the Third Reich, a Jewish homeland in Palestine was, in fact, thought of as a convenient dumping ground for Europe's Jews, soon, a covenant between anti-Zionist Arab leaders and the Nazis began to emerge. Leaders on both sides chose to finesse or ignore the implications of the kind of anti-Semitism featured in "Mein Kampf". An article in the Nazi Party newspaper, published in 1937, explained that Arabs had been at least partly "Aryanized" through mixing with Armenians and Circassians. While some Nazis even argued that "Mein Kampf" should be emended to make clear that only Jews and not Arabs were meant as objects of Hitler's rage and disdain, the sacred text did not bear emendation.

The Nazis used radio broadcasts to propagandize in the Arab world. Attacks on their common enemy, the Jews, were a major feature of these broadcasts. At the same time, Hajj Amin al Husayni, the mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, obsessively pursued links with fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and lived out the war years in the Axis countries. Amin's long term goal, he said, after preventing Jewish settlement of Palestine, was to lead, in alliance with Germany, a Holy War of Islam against world Jewry that would result in the final solution to the Jewish problem.

Murderous anti-Jewish riots in Iraq in 1941, in Egypt, Syria and Libya in 1945, and massacres in Aleppo and Aden in 1947 demonstrated how the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazis, the activism of the Mufti, and increasing tension over the emergence of a Jewish state in Palestine combined to completely erase the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. New forms of Arab nationalism also left less room for the tolerance of minority groups than had existed in the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the odd relationship that had developed between the Nazis and some Arab countries continued after the war. Egypt, for one, became a magnet for ex-Nazis. Nazi war criminal Johannes von-Lirs, an expert in anti-Semitic literature, was one of a number of Nazis welcomed warmly by Egypt for their "expertise in Jewish affairs". Von-Lirs was greeted by none other than Mufti Hajj Amin al Husayni. In his speech welcoming Von-Lirs, Husayni remarked: "We thank you for venturing to take up the battle with the powers of darkness that have become incarnate in world Jewry." [...]

Read the whole article HERE

Sweden: 2004 State subsidized anti-Israel and pro-terrorism conference

"At a time when the world mourns the terrorist massacre in the Russian town of Beslan, the Swedish state agency for foreign aid, SIDA, is subsidizing a conference aimed at finding ways to fund Palestinian terrorism. The "Palestinian Solidarity Conference", scheduled to be held in the Gothenburg municipality Culture House starting September 7, culminates in a celebratory party on the night of September 11 – while the rest of the world finds other more sober ways of marking the anniversary of this turning point in the impact of terrorism."

Source: Norway, Israel and the Jews blog

Remember the 2004 "Palestinian Solidarity Conference" in Gothenburg, Sweden ? When you examine what the Palestine lobby says and does, and then look back a bit in time and see what they have said and done in the past, you quickly find that there is no real difference. Operation Cast Lead didn’t really change anything – the Palestine lobby were just as critical of Israel before. The 2006 war in Lebanon, which upset our dear Jostein Gaarder [Norway up in arms after author asserts Israel has lost right to exist] so, didn’t really change anything – the Palestine lobby was just as furious before that again.

Here’s a snippet from 2004, on the "Palestinian Solidarity Conference" in Gothenburg, Sweden. Read the whole piece here. Now 2004 is five years ago now. Yet hate-mongers have been hard at work for a long time, 2004 was just yesterday.

Swedish state agency subsidizes Gothenburg terror conference
Lisa Abramowicz and David Frankfurter

At a time when the world mourns the terrorist massacre in the Russian town of Beslan, the Swedish state agency for foreign aid, SIDA, is subsidizing a conference aimed at finding ways to fund Palestinian terrorism.

The "Palestinian Solidarity Conference", scheduled to be held in the Gothenburg municipality Culture House starting September 7, culminates in a celebratory party on the night of September 11 – while the rest of the world finds other more sober ways of marking the anniversary of this turning point in the impact of terrorism.

One of the main conference agenda items is action to remove the PFLP, Hamas and other terrorist organisations from the EU’s terror list, so that these organizations can resume collecting money in Sweden and other European countries. Another agenda item is promoting a total boycott of Israel and other sanctions against the Jewish state. A third is developing strategies to explain the need for "armed resistance" (i.e. terrorism) in the struggle.

The conference is being organized by the Revolutionary Communist Youth, and the Proletären FF (Football Club), together with the Palestinian Progressive Youth Union (PPYU). The first two are associated with the most extremist and Stalinist of communist parties in Sweden. The PPYU ascribes to the most uncompromising Palestinian positions in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

So, what else is new? There are plenty extremists around. They hold conferences and demonstrate for all kinds of outrageous causes - all part of a democratic, open society.

True, but not every public outburst is deserving of government support. In fact, supporting these EU blacklisted terrorist organisations is illegal – something even recognised by the conference agenda. Notwithstanding this, the conference has been subsidized by the Swedish International Development Aid Agency, SIDA – which has donated over 5,000 Euro in support. SIDA has also given 16,000 Euro to conference co-organizer Proletären FF. When challenged, SIDA chose to ignore information about the conference objectives published by the organizers at www.rku.nu, and claimed that it is a "get-together for youth to be able to discuss Human Rights issues".

Continue reading here

Dear Foreign Minister Bildt, David Harris