Most Europeans ignorant about the Holocaust

“Europeans have already forgotten the Holocaust and now politicians are making it official”

Six million Jews, of which 1.5 million were children, were exterminated by the Nazis and their willing executioners, but six decades later Europeans demonstrate a "disturbing lack of knowledge about the Holocaust".

European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Dr. Moshe Kantor slammed Belgian Justice Minister Stefaan De Clerck for his comments about forgetting the Nazi period, especially due to the current ignorance of Europeans about the Holocaust.

A recent European Jewish Congress survey on Holocaust awareness, undertaken in several European countries demonstrated that there is a disturbing lack of knowledge about the Holocaust.

The survey asked five questions about the Holocaust and found that many European respondents were especially ignorant as to the basic facts of the Holocaust. Two thirds of respondents under-45 surveyed did not know that six million Jews died in the Holocaust.

Similar ignorance was displayed to the question, “Who was Adolf Eichmann?” Only around a third of those under 45 in Europe knew that Eichmann was the chief organizer behind the Nazi mass murder of Europe’s Jews. [...]

The poll was conducted by Toluna on behalf of the European Jewish Congress using 3,233 participants.

Unholy Money, Unholy Lies: Swedish Diakonia and the UK Methodists

Source: Sweden, Israel and the Jews 

As we reported last year, in 2010 the Swedish government was funneling 800 million SEK ($111.5 mil USD) to organizations like Diakonia, a church NGO which also sponsors anti-Israel activism. Some of the funds also find their way via Diakonia and other organizations (such as SIDA) to terror-linked organizations in Gaza and the West Bank, or may be squandered through corruption and mismanagement.  As we noted regarding the Israel delegitimization efforts of these NGOs:

“In Sweden, these campaigns are a large part the contribution of aid to the Palestinians. This political lobbying is clearly not meant to get the Palestinians to the negotiation table, recognizing the Jewish state or stopping terrorism. It is solely about making Israel into a pariah state.  The top agenda items for these government-funded campaigns are: questioning Israel’s right to exist, forcing territorial concessions, and putting all the blame of the conflict on Israel.”

It must be pointed out that although Sweden is large part of this campaign as a major international donor, it is not alone. There is a linkage with other countries through Christian Aid and its activist recruiting partner Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). These international organizations work to delegitimize Israel through fund-raising and propaganda. In the UK most churches (with the notable exception of pro-Israel evangelical Christians) support Christian Aid and its agenda.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, whose representative recently visited Malmö in an attempt to promote tolerance, published a blog post which takes the UK Methodists—probably the most radical of major UK churches—to task for an article published on the official Methodist website by a church official.  The main point of the article, which purports to give Jewish and Muslim perspectives on Israel and Palestine, is that Jews use Holocaust education to justify Israel’s existence. It also complains that non-European Jewish students are being indoctrinated about an event which had nothing to do with them.

Norwegian academic: ‘Norway is the most anti-Semitic country in the West’

"O

ne c

ould at least have stopped the harm this man [

Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr-Store] 

is doing when it comes to degrading Norway’s international reputation. For Mr. Store is internationally ridiculing his own country by acting as a self-styled Hamas activist. He was recently caught lying in a live TV2 show, denying his continuous political talks with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. He only changed his story when the reporter told him Mr. Meshaal had spoken about his conversations with Mr. Store

."

Sources : Norway, Israel and the Jews and Tundra Tabloids


Hanne Nabintu Herland is the kind of Norwegian intellectual who stands out from the crowd. In the piece below she states that Norway is the most anti-Semitic country in the west and explains how the state of affairs sometimes makes her ashamed to be Norwegian.  She is Norwegian academic, historian of religions and bestselling author.

The President of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres’ critical comments on Norway's reluctancy to follow EU, UN and USA in denouncing Hamas as a terrorist movement, are timely remarks. If one adds Harvard professor Alan M. Dershowitz article in the Wall Street Journal (30 March), it all makes me ashamed to be Norwegian. Under the title Jews are not welcome in Norway. Mr. Dershowitz told of his encounters with anti-Semitic Norwegian academics who made it clear that he was unwanted as a guest lecturer at Norwegian universities. This is how Norwegian intellectuals treat one the West’s most famous defense lawyers and an internationally renowned Harvard University professor.

I met Dershowitz in March during Oslo Symposium 2011. His description of the obvious anti-semitism and the lack of willingness to be objective that characterizes Norwegian academia, is flat out shocking. During my opening lecture at the same Symposium Conference, I pointed out that the lack of nuances that characterizes the Norwegian understanding of the realities in Israel and the Middle East are not only shameless, but historically inacurate.

For culturally we have much more in common with the Jewish people than one would think. Western civilizational values ​​has its cradle in the Greek and Roman contributions, but also, and especially when it comes to values, in the Hebrew-Christian contribution. The European humanistic view of the dignity of human beings regardless of rank, class or ethnicity carries deep impact from Judaism. These values are at the core of what it means to belong to Western Civilization today.

Half of Muslim high-school students in Brussels are anti-Semitic

It is estimated that 30% of the Brussels population (1 million) is Muslim.  Although the problem is serious and well-known, it is the first time that such a survey has been carried out and the results published in a Flemish newspaper.  Brussels is the capital of Belgium and of Europe ...

Pages 4 and 5 of the daily De Morgen of today carry the results of a survey among young Muslims in Brussels high schools. It finds that half  "can be described as anti-Semitic which is a very high rate", says VUB sociologist Mark Elchardus. The corresponding rate for Dutch-speaking Flanders is 10 percent.

"Worse, [in Brussels] anti-Jewish sentiments are unrelated to the level of education or poor social living conditions," says Elchardus.  "Anti-semitism is theologically inspired. There is a direct link between being Muslim and anti-Semitic feelings. Catholics, too, are negative toward Jews too, but their sentiments are by far not as strong."

Here is the approval rate of 4 statements about Jewish people put to respondents:

- "Jews want to dominate everything" (31.4% agree)
- "Most Jews think they are better than other people" (29.9%)
- "When you do business with Jews, you have to be extra alert" (28.6%)
- "Jews agitate for war and blame others" (28.4%)

Flemish Jewish magazine Joods Actueel is not surprised by the findings and, by way of example, quotes thius statement which features on the website of Arab Students in Brussels:

"Defending the Arabness of Palestine alongside the plight of struggle with its people towards the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea [i.e. total annihilation]. Hence, the Zionist entity ‘Israel’ remains a colonial settler base with no right to exist on any fraction of Arab soil. Furthermore we consider armed struggle and martyrdom as the unique strategy for liberating Palestine."

Brussels: pro-Hamas demonstration (January 2009)

For more about Brussels click HERE

EU foreign policy: intrusive and paternalistic

"European states do not agree on much. But the EU, as manipulated by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, does agree on at least a few things, “peace,” oil, and eliminating pesky problems, especially the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is little domestic price to be paid for anti-Israel policies in European nations and none at all at the EU level. Quite the contrary, the conceit of “peace,” to be realized almost exclusively through Israeli concessions, is an unquestioned ideology.  Like the UN, EU foreign policy directorates are staffed with internationalist true believers who are paid to moralize and not consider the interests of member states, much less those of Israel. European states may be broke and the union in disarray about virtually everything, but pressure on Israel and the “peace process” is a convenient source of reconciliation." 

Ynet: Op-ed: EU foreign policy directorates staffed with internationalist true believers paid to moralize, by Alex Joffe

European relations with Israel are in flux after the signing of the Palestinian reconciliation deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been meeting European counterparts to shore up support for a series of red lines regarding negotiations with a new Palestinian government, namely the recognition of Israel and renunciation of violence. This has met with predictably limited success.

A certain amount of bilateral duplicity is expected in Israeli relations with European countries. British Prime Minister David Cameron met with Netanyahu and then called on Hamas to reject violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and to join in negotiations. But this was immediately undercut by an “unnamed senior diplomatic source” who threatened that Britain would recognize a unilaterally declared Hamas-Fatah state if Israel did not make “substantive progress” – meaning major concessions – to the same Palestinian Authority that has refused to negotiate for more than a year.

Netanyahu claimed to have secured similar assurances from French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and similar threats were made by Foreign Ministry sources about French recognition of a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence.

Both Cameron and Sarkozy need to pander to substantial Muslim electorates, as well as to non-Muslim voters who are, in the uniquely European fashion, dedicated to pacifism at all cost, particularly Israel’s. But there is another level altogether that should be addressed, the European Union and its foreign policy, as embodied by Catherine Ashton.

European foreign policy is a vast new institution. The “European External Action Service” is the diplomatic corps and foreign ministry of the EU, directed by former British Labor Party apparatchik Catherine Ashton. It has a proposed budget of almost $8.3 billion and will have a staff of 7,000 spread out in 137 missions around the world. European Union foreign policy is a mechanism in search of a problem.

Spanish journalist uses Yom HaShoah to criticize Israel.

Source: Spain, Israel and the Jews (Eugenio García Gascón uses Yom HaShoah to criticize Israel)

On Sunday, May 1, 2011, Israel commemorated the 6,000,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust through the Yom HaShoah, i.e., the Holocaust Day. The next day, Público published an article by Eugenio García Gascón titled Antisemitismo (Anti-Semitism). This journalist's double standard and lack of historical accuracy is more than evident in this article. Please pay attention to the first paragraph (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"Yesterday night, during a ceremony held at the Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told that the world hasn't learnt the lesson derived from the Holocaust, and compared the Holocaust, that is the Second World War nazi actions against Europe's Jews with the current Iranian threat. It's something which seems to be disproportionate and out of place but all Israeli leaders talk endlessly about Iran, once they see a microphone within their reach, and Netanyahu is not an exception, although Iran is a country which never has attacked anybody, unlike Israel, and in exchange it had to endure aggressions."

So Eugenio García Gascón pretends to make his readers to believe that Iran never attacked anybody while Israel did, and that Iran suffered attacks. The truth is that Iran attacked others in the past and is currently doing so. Its victims include Iranians (real or alleged political dissidents, homosexuals, adulterous and raped women, and so on), Israelis (who suffer attacks by terrorists organizations supplied with weapons by Iran), Palestinians (who suffer repression by the aforementioned organizations) and the Red Crescent (whose ambulances were used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to smuggle weapons into Lebanon).

Meanwhile, aggressions against Israel are not mentioned by Eugenio García Gascón as the main cause of Israel's defense policies. It's not also told by the Spanish journalist how, while Iran was being attacked by Saddam Hussein-led Iraq between 1980 and 1988, the Persian State received Israel's help; in spite of this, Iran refused to re-establish ties with Israel.

Read the full article HERE

European parliament celebrating Hamas friend Vittorio Arrigoni

Vittorio Arrigoni was the Italian "pacifist" who was murdered by his Palestinian friends in the Gaza strip.  He loved Hamas and hated Zionists (or Jews?) and called them "rats".  Now the European parliament is celebrating the man and the "peace" flotillas.  No wonder Europeans are discontented with the EU.  See: The murder of a European 'pacifist' who hated Israel.

The Free Gaza movement is a human rights group that, since August 2008, has travelled nine times to Gaza by sea to break Israel's illegal stranglehold on the 1.5 million Palestinians that live there. On 31 May 2010, in a lethal attack against the Freedom Flotilla, nine people were killed and many more injured by Israeli commandos. The FREEDOM FLOTILLA – STAY HUMAN is the next  flotilla of boats that will be sail to Gaza to break the siege.

They are named in memory of Vittorio Arrigoni, Italian activist and volunteer who was murdered on 14 April 2011 in the Gaza Strip. HEARING

GUE/NGL press contact :
Gianfranco Battistini + 32 475646628

For more on Arrigoni click here (Elder of Ziyon):

http://www.google.com/cse?cx=004212307780651616265%3Ad87yif98dry&ie=UTF-8&q=arrigoni&sa=Search&siteurl=elderofziyon.blogspot.com%2F

(H/T C.F.)