Belgian government anti-racist outfit accused of anti-semitism

A police commissioner has filed a complaint about antisemitic statements at a seminar on multiculturalism (Source: Joods Actueel - Centrum Gelijke Kansen nu Zelf aangeklaagd wegens racisme)

It is with immense incredulity that senior police officers heard unacceptable racist, anti-semitic and Holocaust denial statements at a course run by the Centre for Equal Opportunities and the Fight against Racism (CECLR). It is unfortunate that CECLR staff, an organisation which reports to the Prime Minister and is meant to combat racism (their record on anti-semitism is very poor) believe in vicious anti-Jewish stereotypes and are prepared to make them known in public to people who in no way share their views - the vast majority of the Belgian population firmly rejects such views. The gay community was also the target of unflattering judgments. But it was against the Jews that a 50-year-old Turkish-born female anti-racist "expert" launched a tirade:

"These people [the Jews] can get away with anything because they have money and financial power, but they also exploit our guilt [meaning the Holocaust]."

Commissioner David Vroome (43) [photo] of the Federal Police of Brussels and twenty senior colleagues attended a course hosted at the Geruzet centre in Brussels. The course on multiculturalism was given by two instructors from the CECLR.

"Never in my life have I heard such remarks about the Jewish community", said Vroom to Joods Actueel. "And the fact that they came from a CECLR employee makes matters even worse."

Police commissioner Vroom, who is a lawyer by training and worked as a lawyer in Antwerp and Brussels, recounts the scene:

"At one point we were discussing the ethnic and cultural groups in our society. It was indicated that the Chinese, the Japanese and the Eurocrats [EU officials] who live in Brussels go to their own shops and restaurants and may also have different sets of rules and behavior. This led us to the Jewish community and then the speaker made shocking statements. My attention was caught when she mentioned the "financial power" that prompts Jews to believe that they can get away with anything". But when I heard her remark that "Jews always hark back to the past" - a clear reference to the Holocaust - I was shocked. Especially since she said "that Belgium has nothing to do with it." [1].

"It caught the attention of the delegates in the room," testified another police commissioner who attended the course and who wants to remain anonymous. "The silence that followed was such that you could hear your neighbours breathing and all looked in disbelief. The other CECLR female lecturer did not react and the course continued as if nothing had happened."

MORE TO FOLLOW

The record of CECLR as regards anti-Semitism is far from satisfactory. See: Jozef De Witte, an anti Israel militant, appointed director of the Center for Equal Opportunity in 2004)

[1] It is estimated that 67,000 Jews were living in Belgium before the war. 25,000 Jews were deported, including 5,093 children of which 145 were under two years old. Of the 25,000 deported, 1,205 survived: "One deported Jew out of five was under 16. There are even children under 2. The youngest, who left in the twentieth convoy, and was not forty days old. " (historian Maxime Steinberg). "Under conditions generally very sordid men, women, children and the elderly were parked in camps that served as an antechamber to the Nazi death camps: Drancy in France, the Dossin barracks in Mechelen [Malines], Belgium [situated close the Archdiocese ...], Westerbork in the Netherlands or Italy Fossoli are among the most famous." After the war, 25,000 Jews were living in Belgium and nowadays there are between 35,000 and 40,000. Several studies have shown Belgian authorities' involvement in in the Holocaust. There are more than 1,500 Righteous in Belgium.  See HERE.

Cross-posted in French (Belgique: le Centre pour l'Egalité des chances est accusé de racisme)

The Committee to Protect Journalists blatant biais against Israel

At least 64 jounalists are in jail in Turkey  and 42 en Iran.  42 journalists were killed in 2011 (none in Israel).  But by cleverly using  a photo the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) points the finger at Israel!  The CPJ is "A group of U.S. foreign correspondents created CPJ in response to the often brutal treatment of their foreign colleagues by authoritarian governments and other enemies of independent journalism."

The CPJ, New York, posted a special report "Imprisonments jump worldwide, and Iran is worst - Stark regional differences are seen as jailings grow significantly in the Middle East and North Africa. Dozens of journalists are held without charge, many in secret prisons. A CPJ special report."  The photo they chose to illustrate this is "Here, Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian journalist. (Reuters)":

The CPJ is suggesting that Israelly prisons are full of journalists, is that the case? No.  The CPJ, does not say that in the Palestinian territories under the PA and in Gaza, journalists can work without fearing censorship and being jailed.

But there is more.  The way the CPJ lists the journalists imprisoned in Israel in 2011 is a model of misinformation: "Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory: 7".  The last three on the list (Ziyad Awad, Mahmoud al-Barbar and Hani al-Agha) are Hamas prisoners.  It follows that for the CPJ the Gaza strip seems to be Israel and Hamas an Israeli organisation.  This type of biaised reporting is the best way to discredit journalists and journalism.

To get a better view of how journalists are both treated in Gaza and in the West Bank read  Khaled Abu Toameh's US and EU Funding Palestinian Repression and PA Tortures Journalists.

Palestinian Authority unhappy with Gilad Shalit's release terms, complains to Europe

Issa Qaraqe came to Brussels with a nine other people and was also received by the Belgian parliament.  He told Belgian newspaper Le Soir: "At least people listen to me here in Brussels. European parliamentarians, European Commission senior officials, Catherine Ashton cabinet, the two chambers of the Belgian Parliament and several organisations have received me and listened to me. My message is to plead with them to put pressure on Israel - and if needs be to reconsider the association agreements that include a clause on human rights - to make this State [of Israel] respects the rights of prisoners on the one hand (those Gaza have no right to family visits, for example) and their release of the other. Israel considers itself above international law and this is everybody's concern". As to Gilad Shalit's release the minister, who spent ten years in detention in Israel, claimed that it sent the wrong signal that the only way to free Palestinian prisoners requires the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

Qaraqe Calls on European Parliament to Investigate Palestinian Prisoners Situation
BRUSSELS, December 6, 2011 (WAFA) - Minister of Detainees and Ex-Detainees, Issa Qaraqe, Tuesday called on the European parliament to send a fact-finding committee to investigate Palestinian prisoners’ conditions and suffering in Israeli jails.

In a meeting in Brussels with Vice-Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, Tokia Saïfi [a former French Minister in Jacques Chirac's government], Qaraqe gave a detailed description of the difficult situation prisoners face in Israeli jails, which violates all international laws and humanitarian values.

He added that Israel does not care for any criticism regarding its violent and inhumane measures against prisoners, including 23 members of the Palestinian parliament, who are also considered international parliamentarians and cannot be detained under any justification.

Qaraqa said there is an unjustified delay by the European parliament in taking the required decisions to insure the protection of prisoners.

He stressed the need for the European parliament to support the Palestinian bid to the United Nations in order to determine the legal status of prisoners, and to be able to protect them in accordance with the relevant laws.

On her part, Saifi said she will support the request to send a fact-finding committee to the Israeli prisons as soon as possible, stressing the need to get all the information for the parliament in dealing with the prisoners’ issue.

Israel-bashing: Norwegian Church Minister in Jerusalem to open Gullvåg exhibition

German-Norwegian perfect cooperation!

"Requiem for the children of Gaza" (9 metres wide)

Source: Norway, Israel and the Jews 

Ministry of  Government Administration, Reform, and Church Affairs
Press release 2011 12 02 (No signature)

The Minister of Government administration, reform and church affairs, Rigmor Aasrud,  is to visit Jerusalem.

She will speak to religious leaders on Israeli and Palestinian side, and visit religious sites.

Among her visits, one will be a visit to the Augusta Victoria church [German Hospital and church ("Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension") on the north side of Mount of Olives]in Jerusalem, to see an exhibit by Norwegian artist Håkon Gullvåg; which will open on December the 16^th. The exhibition is sponsored by the Norwegian Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church, The Country Municipality of Sør- Trøndelag (the first  and only county council that adopted a boycott Israel motion), the Municipality of Trondheim, (which regularly sponsors pro-Arab, anti-Israel art), Fagforbundet i Trondheim, the  local union chapter that asked  The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) in Trondheim to convert the Mai 1 Labour Day parade into a Pro-Palestinian event. The fourth sponsor is a commercial bank who to my knowledge maintains impeccable neutrality to preserve its commercial reputation. However, three out of 4 sponsors are rabid anti-Israeli’s all coming form what now appears to be the hub of anti-Israel political initiatives in Norway, with the NTNU being their standard bearer.

Mr. Gullvåg is the artist who got the hump when the French Cultural Center in Damascus took down some of his paintings exhibited for the Terra Sancta exhibition. Censure, he furiously claimed, until confronted with the reality that his blood tainted pictures were not deemed sufficiently anti-Israel by the Damascus art lovers.

Belgium's New Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and the Jews

Please note that former Belgian PM Yves Leterme (Flemish) never expressed such disdain.  On the contrary.  See his comments on the right-hand column of this blog.

Newly appointed Belgian PM Elio di Rupo stated in January 2009:

Killing in cold blood: "What the Israeli government is doing in cold blood - killing innocent people, killing women and children - is totally unacceptable and I think that what happened in some parts of the world, I mean some people were dragged before international courts, should happen to those men and women who are responsible for what is being done [in Gaza]. There is nothing that can justify killing civilians. Nothing can justify killing children, women ... people like you and me. [...] I believe that one day or another they will be brought to justice. "

Jews are remorseless: "I must tell you that I have more than sympathy for the Jewish population, I feel a form of love for them. But I also wish that the Palestinians live in prosperity and peace. And this cold blooded and remorseless attitude, while witnessing schools being destroyed and all those deaths, is unacceptable. It is totally unacceptable."  Soon after (March 2009) a Belgian Socialist (held in high regard by Mr Di Rupo) Pierre Galand (see below) created a ferociouly anti-Israel kangaroo court: the Russell tribunal on Palestine. Here. [1]

"I complained that while the Flemish Parliament maintained commercial and cultural treaties with Israel, similar agreements had been rejected by the Walloon and Brussels Parliaments.Wallonia had however, such agreements with Libya and Cuba. Di Rupo answered that he would correct this after the elections; yet he did nothing."

Israel's former ambassador to Belgium, Jehudi Kinar [photo]: "Di Rupo once said that he had not known there were poor Jews."  Interview by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld.

"Belgium is a country with a complex political system that is difficult to analyze. It is a federal state and there are tensions between its two major populations, the Dutch-speaking Flemish and the French-speaking Walloons.

Now, 540 days after the last parliamentary elections, the Wallonian Socialist leader Elio di Rupo has been appointed prime minister of a broad six-partcoalition. An analysis of his and his party’s hostile attitude toward Israel for many years already, makes it easier to understand how he might conduct himself in future."

Jehudi Kinar was the Israeli Ambassador to Belgium and Luxemburg from 2003 until the end of 2007. Before that, he had foreign postings in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, and Canada.

"The Socialist Party (PS) is currently the dominant party in Wallonia. Di Rupo was a big disappointment for me, yet I should have known better. After he returned from Israel in 1999 when he was Prime Minister of the Walloon Region Di Rupo said that he ‘had not known that there are poor Jews’.

During our first meeting I complained that while the Flemish Parliament maintained commercial and cultural treaties with Israel, similar agreements had been rejected by the Walloon and Brussels Parliaments.Wallonia had however, such agreements with Libya and Cuba. Di Rupo answered that he would correct this after the elections; yet he did nothing.

“We had several other bad experiences with the Socialists. In 2001, a politically motivated court case was brought against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Israeli Generals Rafael Eitan and Amos Yaron, regarding their alleged involvement in the murders of Palestinians by Christian militia in the Lebanese refugee camps Sabra and Shatilla. We won in the District Court. [2]  Then in 2003, the Wallonian and Flemish Socialists, the Greens and the CDH – a Wallonian former Christian party — passed a rare retroactive change of law in the Senate which enabled prosecution of non-Belgian citizens for crimes committed elsewhere.

Article on anti-Semitism in Spain

Source: Spain, Israel and the Jews

An article on anti-Semitism in Spain was published by El País on Friday, December 2, 2011, under the title España encabeza las encuestas de antijudaísmo (Spain leads the polls on anti-Jewishness). It was written by Juan G. Bedoya and reads as follows (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"'We are often asked why the Jews have been being hated so much and for so long. The question has to be made to those who hate us, not to those who are hated.' This thought by Isaac Querub Caro, president of the Federación de Comunidades Judías de España (F.C.J.E. [in English, Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain]), summarized the IV International Seminar on Anti-Semitism. It was closed the last night at the Fundación Caja Navarra [Caja Navarra Foundation]. Several graffiti in the street insulted those present with phrases such as 'Zionism is terrorism' and red crossing-outs on the Star of David.

'The insults, the graffiti, and the slogans against the Jews are considered something normal, when the truth is that they reflect an underlying anti-Semitism. They're a symptom of a social pathology', Alejandro Baer, professor of Sociology at the University of Munich, had denounced previously.

Jurist Jorge Trías Sagnier, who participated in the debate Penal struggle against anti-Semitism and hate offences, expressed his repugnance regarding last April [Spanish] Supreme Court sentence which revoked the conviction against four nazis when considering that phrases such as: 'The Jews are destroyers and promote the wars'; 'The Germans were wrong for not having burnt all of them'; or that 'They're a pestilent race', don't pose a danger and don't deserve a penal reproach.

Trías Sagnier described that sentence as 'barbaric'. 'Some of the magistrates who passed it are the same who are chasing Baltasar Garzón [a Spanish magistrate currently under a judicial investigation for his alleged missconduct during his own judicial investigation on the crimes committed by former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco], but there was a particular vote, full of dignity, by magistrate Martínez Arrieta', he added.

Jews are just a o.1% of Spain's population, but the anti-Semitism levels are among the highest ones in Europe, Querub denounced. The final manifesto of the seminar concluded that 'the denial of the existence of this anti-Semitism aggravates the problem and stops its prevention'."

The 70th anniversary of Hitler meeting the Mufti (Elder of Ziyon)

"The Mufti isn't a Palestinian Arab hero despite his Jew-hatred.  He is a hero because of it."

"It seems that my meeting with Eichmann undermined efforts deployed at the time with the Führer to stop the genocide of the Jews." [1]

Today is the 70th anniversary of Hitler meeting the Mufti (Elder of Ziyon, 28/11/2011)

Germany stands for an uncompromising struggle against the Jews. It is self-evident that the struggle against the Jewish national homeland in Palestine forms part of this struggle, since such a national homeland would be nothing other than a political base for the destructive influence of Jewish interests. Germany also knows that the claim that Jewry plays the role of an economic pioneer in Palestine is a lie. Only the Arabs work there, not the Jews. Germany is determined to call on the European nations one by one to solve the Jewish problem and, at the proper moment, to address the same appeal to non-European peoples....At some not yet precisely known, but in any case not very distant point in time, the German armies will reach the southern edge of the Caucasus. As soon as this is the case, the Führer will himself give the Arab world his assurance that the hour of liberation has arrived. At this point, the sole German aim will be the destruction of the Jews living in the Arab space under the protection of British power. (Adolf Hitler to Haj Amin Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, November 28, 1941)

The Mufti of Jerusalem was the undisputed leader of Palestinian Arab nationalism from the 1920s through the 1940s, and his hatred of Jews pervaded all he did.

It will be recalled that the Mufti was given his position by the British because he was regarded as a "moderate." This is what gave him the platform to start his career of inciting against and murdering Jews in earnest.

He was responsible for the anti-Jewish pogroms in Palestine in 1920, 1921 and 1929; he initiated the deadly riots from 1936-1939, and he initiated contact with the Nazis as soon as they came to power in order to come up with ways to work together with them to get rid of the Jews.

Not only that, but towards the end of the war, he pulled out all the stops to murder Jewish children rather than have them rescued - even when the desperate Nazis were considering swapping them for money or for German prisoners. Meaning that his desire to murder Jews exceeded even that of Hitler himself.

The Mufti was an unrepentant anti-semite and desired nothing less than the complete genocide of the entire Jewish people, every man, woman and child.


Today, November 28th, is the anniversary of the Mufti's seminal meeting with Hitler where the Fuehrer explained his genocidal plans in detail to his kindred anti-semite.

Today, the Mufti of Jerusalem is considered a hero among Palestinian Arab leadership.

One year ago, Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech,

We must also recall the outstanding [early] leader of the Palestinian people, the Grand Mufti of Palestine -- Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, who sponsored the struggle from the beginning, and sponsored the struggle and was displaced for the cause and died away from his home."