Belgian politician: Muslims are better integrated than Jews who dread foreign people

"The Jews still live off one of the greatest crimes in the history of mankind, but the Holocaust happened 65 years ago. You and I weren't responsible for it, period. You can, for that matter, wonder what's the difference between the Holocaust and that they're doing in Palestine. That is also mass murder. They salivate about apartheid, but they are building a wall and settlements on land that isn't theirs. And in our society they've really also built a wall around themselves. Although I understand that they have an enormous trauma and therefore dread foreign people."

Source: Islam in Europe

Belgian P Magazine interviewed politician Selahattin Koçak (Flemish socialist party) on integration policy. Following are selected segments:

Q: Do you think that Muslims are better integrated than Jews, who seldom commit crimes? [This is typical.  Jews have lived in Europe for many centuries, but Europeans still wonder if they are well integrated. Europeans believe that Jews are immigrants ...]
A: "Absolutely! Your article from several weeks ago about the way in which Jews have closed themselves off from the rest of our society, doesn't that say enough? I was shocked by it. Especially by the way in which they silence their own people. It's unfair that you can't criticize Jews in the least without being accused of antisemitism. Michael Freilich (editor of Jewish magazine Joods Actueel), is in my view a much more dangerous figure than Abu Imran (leader of Shariah4Belgium). He does nothing else than sifting every day through all the papers, looking for one slanted word about Jews, so he could respond very offended. He does his job very well, because he naturally draw all Jewish readers behind him. But he also creates 'we-them' thinking."

"The Jews still live off one of the greatest crimes in the history of mankind, but the Holocaust happened 65 years ago. You and I weren't responsible for it, period. You can, for that matter, wonder what's the difference between the Holocaust and that they're doing in Palestine. That is also mass murder. They salivate about apartheid, but they are building a wall and settlements on land that isn't theirs. And in our society they've really also built a wall around themselves. Although I understand that they have an enormous trauma and therefore dread foreign people."

"But it also has to do with money. A community that has enough money, can withdraw from the majority. You see that all over the world. A community that isn't as rich, is doomed to integrate, and I mean that positively."

Spain: Salafists organized 10 conferences in 2010

Sources: Islam in Europe and ABC (Spanish)

There were ten Salafist congresses in Spain during 2010, compared with only one in 2008.

Experts warn that 10% of the nearly 1,000 mosques in Spain preach Jihad during Friday sermons, with about 70-80 imams from Morocco and Algeria used for this radical discourse.

Salafists have spread from Catalonia to other areas in Spain: to the Ebro Valley in Basque Country and the Henares Corridor in the south, between Madrid and Guadalajara. Their main means of spreading their doctrine is through their congresses. In 2008 there was only one, in Reus (Catalonia). This year there were ten: eight all across Catalonia (three in Girona, two in Tarragona, two in Barcelona and one in Lleida), one in Basque Country (Biscay), and one in Castile-La Mancha (Guadalajara).

Salafist scholars from Jordan, egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Belgium come to Spain to run workshops, usually attended by 2000-3000 people. These preachers have extensive religious training, coupled with a lot of charisma, and their visits are an effective tool for radicalization. Their speeches, in contrast to the limited knowledge of many local imams, have an impact on the Muslim community, and prevents their integration in Western society.

The conferences are also a source of funding. Significant amounts were collected in recent months to fund new Salafist mosques.  In addition, the Salafists want to export their 'religious police' from Catalonia to other places in the country, with one such force already growing in Olot (Girona) (see also T&P's report)

Israel-hater and Nobel Peace Prize candidate Belgian priest admits child abuse 40 years ago

We wrote this post in October : François Houtart, Hamas supporter Belgian priest, the next Nobel Peace Prize laureate ? and this one in 2009 François Houtart, a Belgian anti-Zionist priest, awarded UNESCO prize for tolerance and non-violence.  One of his recent initiatives aiming at delegitimising Israel is his support for the Israel-bashing Russell Tribunal created by another Belgian Pierre Galand.

It has now come to light that the "Pope of anti-globalisation" was a child molester.  His cousin was so shocked when she heard that he was being nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize and the way he was being celebrated as a great man in Belgium that she decided to speak out.  This is a translation of part of her account of the facts, which, unsurprisingly, differs from Houtart's own account minimising the horror of what happened :

"[...] the man committed the crime of rape on my brother 40 years ago. My father died this year and was the same age as A and was his friend. He venerated him as a great man until that night when he stayed over at my parents' home and broke twice into my brother's room to rape him. Before this happened a third time, my brother told my parents who kept him their own room. But the next morning over breakfast, they treated A as if nothing had happened so that he could give his lecture in Liège. My brother had been "left" with a neighbor. A few days later, my father went to find A in Leuven to speak with him about what he had done to his son and asked him to apologize. But he did not and went one further, he told my father that  "Nothing could be more normal!" After this my father banished him forever as a friend. My brother was never recognized as a victim of child abuse! It is hard to imagine that A has not committed other rapes on other children ...".

Source: Daily Mail

A Belgian Catholic priest and would-be Nobel Peace Prize holder has admitted that he sexually abused an eight-year-old boy 40 years ago.  The case only came forward when his cousin, the sister of his victim, came forward in reaction to a campaign to nominate Francois Houtart for the accolade.  She told the Belgian church authority that looks into child abuse, the Adriaenssens commission, that the abuse on her brother happened in 1970 while he stayed at their house.

Houtart, 85, was a prominent third world activist and chairman of a development agency that he founded in 1976, Center Tricontinental, until he resigned from the board in November in light of the allegations.
He is currently in Ecuador and was not responding to phone calls or emails but told Belgian newspaper, Le Soir, that he twice touched ‘the intimate parts’ of a boy he described as his cousin and said the incident was ‘inconsiderate and irresponsible’.

Prominent Norwegians sympathetic to Hamas and hostile to Israel

"Norway, according to the cable, has engaged with Hamas, and the organization’s vow to destroy Israel “was ignored or characterized as only rhetoric by the Norwegians.” “Although the GON [Government of Norway] would deny it, there are clear signs that contacts with Hamas go beyond a tactical desire for dialogue to a level of sympathy for Hamas positions. The FM once told DCM [deputy chief of mission] for example that one could not expect Hamas to recognize Israel without knowing which borders Israel will have. While the FM expresses some sympathy for Hamas’ positions only in unguarded moments, other prominent Norwegians go further.”"

Source: TJP ('Norwegians in UNIFIL causing negative view of J'lem', by Herb Keinon) 

WikiLeaks doc.: Norway laboratory for understanding Israel’s difficulties in Europe: The country sanctifies dialogue, has an aversion to force.

Norway’s aspirations to be a “moral superpower” and play a key role in the Middle East peace process could be constrained by its tense relationship with Israel, anti-Semitism at home and its approach to Hamas, according to a WikiLeaks cable published by the Oslo-based Aftenposten paper.

The cable, written on February 13, 2009, by Kevin Johnson, the deputy chief of the US Embassy in Norway, summarizes Oslo’s aspirations to be a leader in the Middle East peace negotiations.  The cable could serve as an important source document for those seeking to understand the difficulty Israel has in getting its narrative across in Europe.

According to the analysis in this cable, the Oslo process seemed to herald a new peacemaker role for Norway, which it relished. But as the Oslo Accords crumbled, “ties between Norway and Israel weakened,” the cable read.  “The Lebanon wars had a major impact, with approximately 20,000 Norwegians serving in UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon from 1978 to 1998. These soldiers came home with sympathetic reports about Palestinian refugees and negative impressions of Israelis. Israeli settlements and walls in the West Bank, and invasions of Lebanon and Gaza contributed to Norwegians’ increasingly negative view of Israel,” the US diplomat wrote.

“Norwegian society values dialogue above all,” the cable read. “Talk, even without any expectation of results, is seen as valuable. Anyone who draws a line and refuses to talk to an opposing party is seen as a radical unilateralist. Conversely, Norwegians are extremely opposed to the use of military force to achieve goals, no matter how laudable.”

Europe: antisemitism has entered the bloodstream

Antisemitism has entered the bloodstream, by Hans Rustad (via Norway, Israel and the Jews blog)

The revelation that Wikileaks’ contactpersons in Sweden and Russia are the notorious antisemite Israel Shamir and his son Johannes Wahlström, is an indication that antisemitism now has entered the bloodstream of the establishment.

For people outside of Europe this is very hard to fathom. It has to do with a much deeper development in Europe, one that should worry Americans. Europe is shifting, groping, undergoing a major transformation, and people within the media establishment are allowing extremists to play a role. That is because political correctness, as practised in Europe, dulls the senses and deprives people of normal reflexes. Extremists may enter the fray, unnoticed.

Under normal circumstances Wahlström would never have been given a second chance. He burned his bridges when he wrote an article for a leftist magazine, Ordfront, back in December 2005, alleging that Israel controls Swedish media. This in itself was not shocking. That is staple food on the left. What caused an uproar was that he cited two of Swedens most experienced and renowned Middle East correspondents, Peter Löfgren from Swedish Television, and Lotta Schüllerqvist from Dagens Nyheter. It was they who explained how Israel rules and manipulates and bullies Swedish editorial rooms and journalists. Except for one thing: they never said as much. It was all a lie. Wahlström invented the whole story. He met both of them, but never bothered to write down their real replies, instead he invented what he wanted them to say.

He used them cynically, arrogantly and one must say – stupidly. How could he possibly expect to get away with it? He did not of course. Both Löfgren and Lotta Schüllerqvist wrote scathing denounciations and the editor of Ordfront was obliged to retract.

Read the whole piece on Document.no

- Harry's Place has been following the Julian Assange/Israel Shamir connection

- Andrew Brown also wrote about the connection in The Guardian : WikiLeaks and Israel Shamir - WikiLeaks is represented in Russia and Scandinavia by a father and son team with a disturbing record of antisemitism

Germany: long-standing anti-Semitic, anti-Israel exhibit in Cologne city centre

Some say anti-Israeli sentiments are high in Cologne, and that this helps explains the civil society’s failure over the years to mount widespread protests against the “Cologne Wailing Wall.”

“If one shows a figure with an Israeli flag devouring a Palestinian child, this reminds us of the most scurrilous accusations of ritual murder in European anti-Semitism...”


In a recent op-ed in Le Monde, German writer Peter Schneider complained that when dealing with the Israel-Palestine conflit "Germany is still petrified by the notion of guilt" ...  Really ?  Another Germman Israel-basher is Prof. Christian Tomuschat.  There seems to be a lot of them.

German mayor slams ‘Cologne Wailing Wall’ exhibit, By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL (TJP)
City partners in Tel Aviv and Bethlehem blast ‘anti-Semitic, anti-Israel presentation.’

Mayor of Cologne Jürgen Roters (Social Democratic) and its sister city partnerships, Cologne-Tel Aviv and Cologne-Bethlehem, issued a joint statement last week blasting the long-standing anti-Israel exhibit in his community’s bustling Cathedral Square pedestrian-only zone.

According to the resolution, “The anti-Semitic and anti- Israel presentation of the socalled ‘Cologne Wailing Wall’ spreads hatred against humans and feeds anti-Israel resentments.”

RELATED:
Cologne tolerates 'anti-Semitic’ exhibit

Members of the major parties on the Cologne city council, representatives of the Catholic and Evangelical churches, the Society for Christian- Jewish Relations in Cologne, and the local Jewish community also signed the resolution.

Roters and the Cologne authorities called on Walter Hermann, the organizer of the “Cologne Wailing Wall,” to “immediately remove the installation that shows contempt for humanity” and said the city of Cologne would no longer accept Hermann’s exhibit and approach.  The resolution said that Hermann has displayed his hatefest against Israel since 2004.  During his visit to Israel earlier this month, Roters presented the resolution to his Tel Aviv counterparts.

Hermann’s display of an anti-Semitic cartoon in January triggered a legal complaint and a grassroots campaign from the non-Jewish theater director Gerd Buurmann. The cartoon showed a man sporting a Star of David on his bib as he devoured a young Palestinian boy with a fork while draped in an American flag and a knife with the word “Gaza.” A glass filled with blood stood next to to his dinner plate.

Brussels : IDF child killer Christmas demonstration

"NGOs are exploiting Christmas for radical attacks against Israel, through politicized carols, cards, and messages." (NGO Monitor)

An anti-Israel march (yet another one) will take place in Brussels on 26 December.  The demonstration poster carries a drawing by Brazilian caricaturist Carlos Latuff (who won 2nd prize in the 2006 Iranian International Holocaust Cartoon Competition). The drawing shows - birth of Jesus and Christmas reference - a pram being hit by an Israeli missile. The coordinator is Nordine Saïdi, a Belgian politician, who is a Dieudonné supporter.  He has been called admiringly and approvingly by Baudouin Loos of Le Soir as an "educator and militant for the autodetermination of the peoples" (understandanbly that means focusing on the Palestinian people).  A number of revolutionary (read anti-Israel) NGOs subsidised by taxpayers' money will also take part in the demonstration. 

We have been told that a demonstration was held yesterday at the Free University of Brussels (a hotbed of anti-Israel militancy).  Demonstrators wore T-shirts with the printed image of a pram being hit by a missile . The same ?

May 2010 in Brussels  :
Brussels: demonstration against Israeli blood drinkers - blood libel revisited

On Nordine Saidi, see Brussels: Jihad by vuvuzela !