BERLIN (EJP)---The new head of Germany’s Jewish representative body said Jews must move beyond the role of victims and moral critics in German society.
Dieter Graumann, who was elected in November President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the Financial Times Deutschland : "The role of the victim is not enough, Judaism is much, much more."
"Our community now consists 90% of people who have just come to us in the last 20 years," said Graumann.
"With all due respect to honoring the memories of the millions of Jews murdered during the Holocaust, the Council must also show that we do not always just criticize, that we do not always just correct others," he said. "That has something to do with us, but that also has a lot to do with the media, who often virtually challenge us to make such statements. We do not always need to serve this need, however," he added.
Graumann, who succeeded Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor, acknowledged that moral outrage had become an established ritual for the Council. The new Council president is the first post-war leader who is not a survivor of the Holocaust.
Friday, 7 January 2011
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Censorship In Hungary, by Karl Pfeifer
Source: The Propagandist (Censorship In Hungary, by Karl Pfeifer)
I am told not to be alarmed when I encounter aggressive anti-Semitism in Hungary. After all there exists a vibrant Jewish culture in Budapest and there was hope the “conservative” Fidesz government would curb the development of aggressive anti-Semitism - although it is tolerating the implicit and not so implicit anti-Semitism of some Fidesz journalists at present. But Fidesz is supposed to do this only to attract Jobbik voters. A dim hope indeed, when a random sample of Hungarian media proves the continuing anti-Semitic incitement after the overwhelming victory by Fidesz at local and national levels.
There are the Fidesz politicians who light Chanukah candles and Fidesz media like “ECHO TV” and the Budapest daily “Magyar Hirlap” (both owned by Fidesz millionaire Gábor Széles) who regularly distribute anti-Semitic incitement, often in its crudest form.
One of the arguments for a new media law in Hungary was the anti-Semitism present in Hungarian media. But traditional Nazi propaganda can be legally rehashed and is taken for true by many Hungarians. They consider the Jews who pull the strings behind the scene as the root of evil. The extreme diversity of Jewish existence is taken as proof for the reality of the mythical hate-figure of the extreme right. The intellectual assimilated Jew stands for the despised modernity; the religious Orthodox Jew fits into the traditional image of Christian anti-Semitism; the economically successful Jew stands for the “money-grubbing capital” and liberalism, and the Jewish socialist for abominable “Marxism”.
If you want to understand Hungary in the 21st century, visit Budapest and see the plaque in the military history museum which honors the memory of the Hungarian gendarmes, an organization whose record in the Holocaust is comparable to that of the SS.
The Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs has published a remarkable report on anti-Semitism in Hungary by László Molnár in November 2010. I am quoting from the chapter “Anti-Semitism in the Subculture”:
“After the 1990 transition, the quickly emerging extreme-right subculture also strengthened the traditional anti-Roma attitude. A good many neo-Nazi, Hungarist, “nationalist rock” bands came into being in including HunterSS, White Storm, Endlösung, Blood Libel, Power and Vendetta, Romantic Aggression, New Order, Mos-OI, Stoned Cherry, and others. All of these have used extreme racist language and symbols. A song by Mos-OI threatens to turn the country into a “Gypsy-free zone”. It contains the lyrics: “The flamethrower is the only weapon I need to win, all Gypsies, adults and children we will annihilate, but we can kill all of them at once in unison, after it is done we can say it is a Gypsy-free zone.” A song by White Storm proclaims: “Let's exterminate Gypsies!” In their racist outlook, “every Gypsy is a criminal, there is only one solution for them: Auschwitz.... There is a cloud of dust above Poland, where every Gypsy is traveling in the sky.”
These and many other bands perform at illegal concerts and at the infamous Magyar Sziget or Hungarian Island Festival. This year this summer camp for “nationalistic youth” was organized for the tenth time. The camp offers national-heritage competitions featuring archery, animal tracking, runic script, Hun cuisine, as well as family and children's programs and with anti-Semitic and racist lectures that deny the historical Jesus his Jewish identity and talk about “Jewish world conspiracy”.
Read the whole article HERE
I am told not to be alarmed when I encounter aggressive anti-Semitism in Hungary. After all there exists a vibrant Jewish culture in Budapest and there was hope the “conservative” Fidesz government would curb the development of aggressive anti-Semitism - although it is tolerating the implicit and not so implicit anti-Semitism of some Fidesz journalists at present. But Fidesz is supposed to do this only to attract Jobbik voters. A dim hope indeed, when a random sample of Hungarian media proves the continuing anti-Semitic incitement after the overwhelming victory by Fidesz at local and national levels.
There are the Fidesz politicians who light Chanukah candles and Fidesz media like “ECHO TV” and the Budapest daily “Magyar Hirlap” (both owned by Fidesz millionaire Gábor Széles) who regularly distribute anti-Semitic incitement, often in its crudest form.
One of the arguments for a new media law in Hungary was the anti-Semitism present in Hungarian media. But traditional Nazi propaganda can be legally rehashed and is taken for true by many Hungarians. They consider the Jews who pull the strings behind the scene as the root of evil. The extreme diversity of Jewish existence is taken as proof for the reality of the mythical hate-figure of the extreme right. The intellectual assimilated Jew stands for the despised modernity; the religious Orthodox Jew fits into the traditional image of Christian anti-Semitism; the economically successful Jew stands for the “money-grubbing capital” and liberalism, and the Jewish socialist for abominable “Marxism”.
If you want to understand Hungary in the 21st century, visit Budapest and see the plaque in the military history museum which honors the memory of the Hungarian gendarmes, an organization whose record in the Holocaust is comparable to that of the SS.
The Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs has published a remarkable report on anti-Semitism in Hungary by László Molnár in November 2010. I am quoting from the chapter “Anti-Semitism in the Subculture”:
“After the 1990 transition, the quickly emerging extreme-right subculture also strengthened the traditional anti-Roma attitude. A good many neo-Nazi, Hungarist, “nationalist rock” bands came into being in including HunterSS, White Storm, Endlösung, Blood Libel, Power and Vendetta, Romantic Aggression, New Order, Mos-OI, Stoned Cherry, and others. All of these have used extreme racist language and symbols. A song by Mos-OI threatens to turn the country into a “Gypsy-free zone”. It contains the lyrics: “The flamethrower is the only weapon I need to win, all Gypsies, adults and children we will annihilate, but we can kill all of them at once in unison, after it is done we can say it is a Gypsy-free zone.” A song by White Storm proclaims: “Let's exterminate Gypsies!” In their racist outlook, “every Gypsy is a criminal, there is only one solution for them: Auschwitz.... There is a cloud of dust above Poland, where every Gypsy is traveling in the sky.”
These and many other bands perform at illegal concerts and at the infamous Magyar Sziget or Hungarian Island Festival. This year this summer camp for “nationalistic youth” was organized for the tenth time. The camp offers national-heritage competitions featuring archery, animal tracking, runic script, Hun cuisine, as well as family and children's programs and with anti-Semitic and racist lectures that deny the historical Jesus his Jewish identity and talk about “Jewish world conspiracy”.
Read the whole article HERE
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Holland: comparing persecuted Jews in the 30s to Muslims today
"Yet if the main threat is revolutionary Islamism and the collapse of national identity, stability, and democracy, then Europe is in a lot of trouble."
Source: Barry Rubin (What's Happening in Europe: Holland As A Case Study on Islam and Israel). Excerpts:
"Another development in Europe, however, is rising antisemitism. Here's an article providing examples of both sympathetic and unsympathetic reactions on the issue by various Dutch figures.
Having reliable statistics at last regarding the number of Muslims in Europe also makes it timely to discuss that issue. The European left often argues that Muslims face imminent persecution and even massive repression. One of the more sophisticated versions of this theme comes from the Dutch Labor Party journalist and intellectual Geert Mak in one of the country's leading newspapers: "No, in the comparison between Jews and Muslims it's not about deportation and mass-murder. It's about the beginning, about the 1930s, when Jews felt themselves excluded and when it was spoken about them as it is now about Muslims."
Yet how can one deal with this issue without noting the fact that Islamists who are Muslim have committed more than 10,000 terrorist attacks in the last two decades? Or the fact that in many mosques in the West, preachers systematically incite hatred for Jews and Christians? Or that a whole series of special privileges are demanded by local Muslim leaders that break the Western democratic tradition of equal treatment under law? Or that the overwhelmingly main cause of growing antisemitism in Europe comes from the Muslim sector of the population?
Needless to say, Jews in the 1930s weren't doing any of these things. There was not a single incident of violence by Jews against the Christian majority. While Jews were sometimes accused of religiously preaching hatred against Christians, those claims were always false. And far from asking for special privileges, most Jews were trying desperately to assimilate culturally while the rest only wanted to be left alone. If one ignores these differences it is impossible to understand the situation today.
Here's one little detail reported by the French press agency, AFP that provides an ironic example of the problem. A Lebanon-born Swedish citizen named Munir Awad was arrested in Somalia in 2007 and again in 2009 in Pakistan on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. The Swedish foreign ministry helped get him freed on both occasions. Awad expressed his gratitude. Now Awad has been again arrested--in Sweden--after participating in a plot to "kill as many people as possible" in an attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons he found objectionable.
Source: Barry Rubin (What's Happening in Europe: Holland As A Case Study on Islam and Israel). Excerpts:
"Another development in Europe, however, is rising antisemitism. Here's an article providing examples of both sympathetic and unsympathetic reactions on the issue by various Dutch figures.
Having reliable statistics at last regarding the number of Muslims in Europe also makes it timely to discuss that issue. The European left often argues that Muslims face imminent persecution and even massive repression. One of the more sophisticated versions of this theme comes from the Dutch Labor Party journalist and intellectual Geert Mak in one of the country's leading newspapers: "No, in the comparison between Jews and Muslims it's not about deportation and mass-murder. It's about the beginning, about the 1930s, when Jews felt themselves excluded and when it was spoken about them as it is now about Muslims."
Yet how can one deal with this issue without noting the fact that Islamists who are Muslim have committed more than 10,000 terrorist attacks in the last two decades? Or the fact that in many mosques in the West, preachers systematically incite hatred for Jews and Christians? Or that a whole series of special privileges are demanded by local Muslim leaders that break the Western democratic tradition of equal treatment under law? Or that the overwhelmingly main cause of growing antisemitism in Europe comes from the Muslim sector of the population?
Needless to say, Jews in the 1930s weren't doing any of these things. There was not a single incident of violence by Jews against the Christian majority. While Jews were sometimes accused of religiously preaching hatred against Christians, those claims were always false. And far from asking for special privileges, most Jews were trying desperately to assimilate culturally while the rest only wanted to be left alone. If one ignores these differences it is impossible to understand the situation today.
Here's one little detail reported by the French press agency, AFP that provides an ironic example of the problem. A Lebanon-born Swedish citizen named Munir Awad was arrested in Somalia in 2007 and again in 2009 in Pakistan on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. The Swedish foreign ministry helped get him freed on both occasions. Awad expressed his gratitude. Now Awad has been again arrested--in Sweden--after participating in a plot to "kill as many people as possible" in an attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons he found objectionable.
Thursday, 30 December 2010
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."
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
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)
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Israel-hater and Nobel Peace Prize candidate Belgian priest admits child abuse 40 years ago
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’.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
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.”
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.”
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