Denmark: More Scandinavian Blurry-Headed Anti-Semitism

Source: Sweden, Israel and the Jews

Off-topic a bit again, I suggest that our readers have a look at a brief critique from Piety on Kierkegaard. The blogger rakes Ole Jørgensen over the coals for dragging out anti-Semitic stereotypes to defend Peter Tudvad’s book Stadier på antisemitismens vej: Søren Kierkegaard og Jøderne (Stages on the way of anti-Semitism: Søren Kierkegaard and the Jews). Jørgensen's article appeared in the Danish Kristeligt Dagblad (Christian Daily News). 

I think this gives you a little peek into how insular people can drag out Christ-killer accusations along with greedy-Jew characterizations, and then claim that these are simply factual depictions. Under this rubric, no one tarring Jews with these lies can be termed an anti-Semite.  The blogger concludes that:  "It makes the textbook example of 'For a fat girl, you don’t sweat much,' seem positively considerate!"

Damning with Faint Praise: Bizarre Defense of Kierkegaard in Danish Newspaper

Just when you thought the debate surrounding Peter Tudvad’s book Stadier på antisemitismens vej: Søren Kierkegaard og Jøderne (Stages on the way of anti-Semitism: Søren Kierkegaard and the Jews) (Rosinante, 2010), had probably died down, it’s actually flared up again. Ole Jørgensen published what has got to be the most bizarre defense of Kierkegaard yet. Jørgensen’s article, “Sjusk med ord. Søren Kierkegaard var ikke antisemit” (Linguistic carelessness. Kierkegaard was not an anti-Semite) appeared in Monday’s edition of Kristeligt Dagblad (Christian daily news). The title might lead one to suppose that Kristeligt Dagblad is a relatively obscure paper. It isn’t. Remember, Denmark has a state church. The Danish Lutheran Church is the official church of the Danish people. This undoubtedly explains why Jørgensen took it upon himself to defend not only Kierkegaard, but also Martin Luther against the charge of anti-Semitism. Luther, he asserts, merely “chastens the Jews in his book On the Jews and their Lies.” One might be tempted to conclude from that remark that Jørgensen hasn’t actually read Luther (or Tudvad either since Tudvad quotes extensively from Luther’s works where they bear on the Jews).

Five arrested in Rome for plotting against Jewish community

ROME (AFP-EJP)---Police in Rome have arrested five Italian neo-fascists belonging to the "Militia" movement on harges of plotting violence against the Rome Jewish community.

The accused plotted to attack Rome's Jewish community president, Riccardo Pacifici [right], as well as the city's mayor, Gianni Alemanno [left]; the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Gianfranco Fini; and the president of the Senate.

All five are charged with having spread ideas based on ethnic and racial hatred by means of a bimonthly magazine called "Insurrection," as well as through offensive graffiti on the eternal city's ancient walls.  Police said 11 others were under investigation.

Those arrested Wednesday include the "Militia" longtime leader, Maurizio Boccaci, who is in his 50s. Police raids were carried out in several cities across the country.

According to Italian state television, the accused wanted to foment a "revolutionary war" against the official Italian institutions. Alemanno and Fini both are mainstream right-wing politicians who had their political roots in the neo-fascist movement but now demonstrate strong support for Israel.

Vaclav Havel, a ‘great friend' of the Jews and of Israel, dies at 75

Havel was a "true friend" of Israel who in recent years joined with other international leaders to defend the Jewish state against delegitimization.

PARIS/PRAGUE (EJP)---European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Moshe Kantor said former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel, who died on Sunday, "was known as a great friend of the Jews and did much to confront anti-Semitism and teach the lessons of the dark chapter of the Holocaust during his two terms in office."

Vaclav Havel, a dissident playwright who was jailed by communists and then went on to lead the Prague "Velvet Revolution" and become Czech president, died at 75 after a long illness.

"He was a figure for a new and modern Europe to emulate. President Havel lived through communism and led the Czech Republic to a new era helping move his countrymen through a troubled past to a more open, free and tolerant future," Kantor said.

Belgian designers to erect flashy Holocaust-themed fence featuring a crematoria

"The annihilation of six million Jews and millions of others must not become a tool to merely titillate and outrage in the name of art.”

Source: JPost Belgians Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel plan to erect Holocaust-themed fence in Amsterdam.

AMSTERDAM – Two famous designers from Antwerp have announced plans to erect a flashy, Holocaust-themed fence here featuring a crematoria and replicas from the Buchenwald concentration camp. Designers Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel revealed the project after a Dutch museum rejected their “inappropriate” works on Auschwitz.

The fence, which Smeets, 40, and Tynagel, 34, designed, had been commissioned by a Dutch art collector for the collector’s estate, Smeets said during a performance on a prime time Dutch television show on December 7. He said he would not reveal the collector’s identify. The fence design includes a translation of the German writing on the gates of Buchenwald – Jedem das Seine (“to each his own”).

Smeets and Tynagel – described in a New York Times profile piece as “the poster boy and girl of the new expressionism in design” – designed for the same collector a dining set with a mass-grave motif. They also sent the Groninger Museum prints of tablecloths with an Auschwitz-Birkenau theme to be displayed along with other works by Smeets and Tynagel in the museum’s reception room.  However, the museum – among Holland’s finest contemporary art museums – refused to show the tablecloths, which display an overview of the compound and a heap of reading glasses in the middle.  Willemien Bouwer, a spokeswoman for the museum, said the hall is sometimes used to host parties and dinners.

Europe: Hands off Israel!

"The last thing that Israel needs is for the sanctimonious, hostile and (to a great extent) stupid European Parliament to stick its nose into the relationships between Jews and Arabs in Israel."

Considering that the Far Right gaining strength and that neo-Nazi groups (like in Italy and Germany) have attacked and killed immigrants, as welle as the rise in anti-Semitism, it takes a lot of arrogance for Europeans to lecture Israel.  Deborah Lipstadt said recently "that overall the situation in Europe was "not good" and added: "I wouldn’t want to send my kids to Jewish school in Belgium.""

Source: Fresno Zionism

The European Union, as well as EU countries independently, provide millions of dollars annually to finance left-wing Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which could not survive on what they would get from the small number of Israelis that support them.

These organizations use their resources to try to influence Israeli policies, laws, actions and even elections. They sponsor anti-government demonstrations, protests against the security fence, etc. In addition, they present highly distorted ‘data’ to the UN and to the media outside of Israel. For example, the majority of the material cited by the Goldstone Commission to support its false and libelous conclusion that Israel deliberately targeted Arab civilians in Gaza came from these NGOs.

They have also participated in ‘lawfare’, instigating prosecutions in foreign countries of Israeli officials for ‘war crimes’ which did not occur, supported boycott-divestment-sanctions, encouraged anti-Zionist activities among Arab citizens of Israel, etc.

These groups are in the forefront of the effort to delegitimize the Jewish state from without and destabilize it from within, and there is an ongoing debate in Israel’s Knesset about how to control, or at least expose, their foreign funding. An excellent summary of the issue is provided by NGO Monitor here.

No nation likes it when others interfere in its internal affairs, and the massive scale of intervention in the case of Israel is remarkable. But recently an internal EU document has come to light which calls for an even greater attack on Israeli sovereignty:

The European Union should consider Israel’s treatment of its Arab population a “core issue, not second tier to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” according to a classified working paper produced by European embassies in Israel, parts of which were obtained by Haaretz.
This is an unprecedented document in that it deals with internal Israeli issues. According to European diplomats and senior Foreign Ministry officials, it was written and sent to EU headquarters in Brussels behind the back of the Israeli government.
Other issues the document deals with include the lack of progress in the peace process, the continued occupation of the territories, Israel’s definition of itself as Jewish and democratic, and the influence of the Israeli Arab population.
The original document also included suggestions for action the EU should take, but these were removed from the final version at the insistence of several countries.
Among these were the suggestion that the EU file an official protest every time a bill discriminating against Arabs passes a second reading in the Knesset, and that the EU ensure that all Arab towns have completed urban plans, “with each member state potentially ‘adopting’ a municipality to this end.”

There is no internal issue more pressing for Israel than the relationship between the Jewish population and the 20% of Israeli citizens who are Arabs. Simplistic understandings of the admittedly difficult relationship as one of a powerful majority discriminating against a minority ignore the increasing perception of many Arabs that they are ‘Palestinians’, not Israelis (and the idea that ‘they are all disloyal’ is also simplistic and wrong).

Secret EU paper aims to tackle Israel's treatment of Arab minority

According to a European diplomat involved in drafting the report, work on it began more than a year ago at Britain's [!] initiative. The idea was to write a report that could be debated by a forum of EU foreign ministers. At some point, however, several countries, among them the Czech Republic, Poland and the Netherlands, expressed objections to its contents.

More evidence of the total lack of consideration European élites have for Jews and Israel. Considering how Europe treats their fellow Europeans, the Roma, and other minorities, European arrogance is amazing.

Source: Haaretz

The European Union should consider Israel's treatment of its Arab population a "core issue, not second tier to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," according to a classified working paper produced by European embassies in Israel, parts of which were obtained by Haaretz.

This is an unprecedented document in that it deals with internal Israeli issues. According to European diplomats and senior Foreign Ministry officials, it was written and sent to EU headquarters in Brussels behind the back of the Israeli government.

Other issues the document deals with include the lack of progress in the peace process, the continued occupation of the territories, Israel's definition of itself as Jewish and democratic, and the influence of the Israeli Arab population.  The original document also included suggestions for action the EU should take, but these were removed from the final version at the insistence of several countries.

Among these were the suggestion that the EU file an official protest every time a bill discriminating against Arabs passes a second reading in the Knesset, and that the EU ensure that all Arab towns have completed urban plans, "with each member state potentially 'adopting' a municipality to this end."

European Jewish NGOs members of NGO headed by a Muslim Brother

A handful of European Jewish associations are members of the European Network against Racism (ENAR) pompously self-proclaimed "the voice of the anti-racist movement in Europe".  No less...

Two from Britain feature on their website : the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Academic Response to Antisemitism & Racism (ARAR).

ENAR is based in Brussels and is headed by Michael Privot, a Belgian convert to Islam and a Muslim Brotherhood member as he revealed himself in a newspaper "Muslim Brotherhood: Time for coming out! '". See also: Verviers: Hamas headquarters

A little background on Mohammed Abdul Aziz, a founding member of ENAR, before Privot took over: "Mr Aziz has also been involved with the East London Mosque; the London Muslim Centre; the Muslim Council of Britain; the Commission for Racial Equality; the Equal Opportunities Commission; the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism; the European Network Against Racism [you will find his name here on p. 3 last para.]; and the UK Race and Europe Network. First, the advice Mr Aziz gives. The Daily Telegraph revealed this year that Mr Aziz had suggested that the new Government build closer ties with the controversial East London Mosque. He said that ministers should be willing to share a stage with groups that promote "a message of divisiveness, expressing intolerance towards other communities in the UK", and to treat privately with organisations that might support "violent extremism in Britain". Last night he apparently claimed that this was "completely untrue"."

Moreover, among the 13 European associations (transnational) affiliated with the ENAR, two are Jewish: the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the European Centre for Jewish information. The national Jewish associations listed as being members are:

Belgium: Auschwitz Foundation (ENAR is cited on the website of the Belgian Auschwitz Foundation)
France: Simon Wiesenthal Center
Germany: Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland
Netherlands: CIDI
Hungary: B'nai Brith
UK: Board of Deputies of British Jews and Academic Response to Antisemitism & Racism (ARAR).

See: The Muslim Brotherhood in Belgium, a NEFA Foundation report (2008).  Note disturbing links with Hamas.