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ADC Webwatch
8 Mar 2010
Volume 3 No. 09 |
Who spreads antisemitism amongst children?
Systematic antisemitism and anti-Israel advocacy aimed at primary school kids |
Israel's ambassador in Spain Mr. Rafi Shotz received dozens of postcards from students ages 6 and 9 - including hand-written anti-Semitic messages such as "Jews kill for money," "Evacuate the country for Palestinians," and "Go to someplace where someone will be willing to accept you." This was reported in a number of newspapers in the world. Israel's foreign ministry officials told English daily Haaretz that the handwriting appears typical of children six to nine years old. "Apparently there are anti-Semitic and anti-Israel individuals who get permission to operate within schools," the official said.
It further said, "Each time, the embassy has received several dozen postcards from a different school. And it seems as though whoever is doing this is moving from school to school." Israeli government on Sunday [February 28, 2010] lodged a formal complaint with Spain, charging that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are being instilled in elementary students across parts of the country. According to sources in the Foreign Ministry, this is an organized campaign by officials outside the education system in Spain that have been given permission to work with the students. Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, Weekly Blitz, 4 Mar 2010 |
The oldest hatred in modern times
Book review of "A Lethal Obsession", By Robert S. Wistrich |
Many of today’s leftists would doubtless shrink away from the kinds of guttural anti-Jewish barbs so patiently documented in this book: Bakunin’s “bloodsuckers,” Marx’s “loan-mongers,” the “dirty Judases” of the Russian Narodnya Volya (People’s Will) movement, and so forth. Contemporary leftists would insist that their opposition to Zionism and Israel is based instead on anti-racism. But Wistrich debunks these semantic games. Whether they like it or not, what the advocates of an Israel boycott share with Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the belief that Israel is singularly, as Wistrich puts it, “an organic obstacle to peace and progress.”
Given its emphasis on the current climate, A Lethal Obsession is organized along thematic and geographical, rather than chronological, lines. There are chapters on Britain and France, on the dovetailing of anti-Semitism with anti-Americanism, and on the implications for European Jews of their continent’s various troubled models of multiculturalism. The dramatis personae of anti-Semitism’s history all make an appearance, from Wilhelm Marr in Germany (who coined the term as a positive means of political identification) to Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran.
The final sections of the book are devoted to the explosion of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, with a particular accent on both the Palestinians and post-revolutionary Iran. Building upon a fascinating discussion of the relationship between the Nazis and Palestinian wartime leader Haj Amin al-Husseini, Wistrich demolishes the notion that anti-Semitism is an alien import into the region, a mere byproduct of the conflict with Israel. Iran under Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, he says, “is a state with a totalitarian ideology, radically opposed to the Western democracies and inspired by hatred of the Jews.” Ben Cohen, Jerusalem Post, 26 Feb 2010 |
Terror's new breeding ground
Yemen attracts jihad trainees and security surveillance |
LATE last year, under the watchful eye of Australia's security services, Sydney man "Abdullah" boarded a plane out of Mascot airport, bound for the Middle East. An associate of the nine-man cell that was recently convicted of preparing for a terrorist act in Sydney, the man had been under close surveillance for several years. But on this occasion, it was his destination that set red lights flashing in counter-terrorism circles. He was travelling to Yemen, now regarded among CT professionals as "the new Afghanistan" for al-Qa'ida, and a magnet for Australian and other Western supporters of the global jihadist cause.
Yemen has played a central role in the emergence of the global jihadi movement. It is the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden and of Jemaah Islamiah founders Abu Bakar Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar. It was the site of al-Qa'ida's first anti-US attack, against US troops on their way to Somalia in December 1992. It was a launch pad for the 1998 al-Qa'ida bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and injured hundreds. It was also the scene of the 2000 bombing of the American warship the USS Cole in Aden harbour. Sally Neighbour , The Australian, 1 Mar 2010 |
'Black armband' view risks national curriculum
Culture Wars over balance in History curriculum |
The curriculum, the product of more than 30 years of agitation by education experts and two years of negotiations by federal, state and territory governments and Catholic and independent school sectors, could be binned before it reaches classrooms if Labor is defeated at the election expected in the second half of this year. Speaking to The Age soon after launching the draft curriculum yesterday, Education Minister Julia Gillard said she took the threat seriously. ''I am worried … because … we were fought every step of the way in delivering the legislation that is the foundation stone for the national curriculum and the foundation stone for the My School website. ''When you've seen the opposition fight up hill and down dale to wreck the national curriculum and to wreck My School, then it does send a shiver up your spine about what they may do in the future,'' she said.
Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said the curriculum was ''unbalanced'' and seemed to push ''a black armband view of history''. This was a term coined by historian Geoffrey Blainey to describe a gloomy view of Australian history focused on the treatment of minorities, especially indigenous people. ''While there are 118 references in the document to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people and culture, there is one reference to Parliament, none to 'Westminster' and none to the 'Magna Carta','' he said. ''Grade 9s will consider the personal stories of Aboriginal people and examine massacres and 'indigenous displacement', without any reference to the benefit to our country of our European heritage and the sacrifice of our forebears to build a nation.'' Dan Harrison, The Age, 2 Mar 2910 |
Town camps leave Abbott speechless, almost
Quick visit to Aborigines in NT reveals conditions are "pretty grim" |
THE Tony Abbott straight-talking express blew into Alice Springs yesterday, an apparition as mystifying to the locals as the deluge of rain that has filled the Todd River and the homeless shelters of the central Australian town over the last couple of days. For once, the loquacious Opposition Leader appeared stumped for words as he met three elderly Aboriginal inhabitants of Hoppy's Camp - two men and a woman making do in an open-air shelter, cooking a meal. ''Anyway … sorry about the intrusiveness,'' Mr Abbott offered as his small entourage of staffers, political colleagues and media observers crowded into the shelter. 'Anyway … we are just up from Canberra to see what is happening.''
After establishing that one of the men was 68, Mr Abbott declared that his circumstances were ''pretty grim''. ''Well, look, we'll do what we can to try to make sure that things get better. It's not right that people should be living in sub-standard accommodation.'' The Opposition Leader began a four-day visit to the Northern Territory by paying quick visits to some of the most disadvantaged Aborigines living in the town camps around Alice Springs. Mark Davis, The Age, 2 Mar 2010 |
Islamic scholar Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri issues anti-terrorism fatwa
Leading cleric denounces terrorism and radicalisation of British Muslims |
A PROMINENT Islamic scholar will use a speech in London to issue a 600-page religious edict denouncing terrorists and suicide bombers as "unbelievers.". Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri is a leading figure who has promoted peace and interfaith dialogue for 30 years, Sky News reports. He said he felt compelled to issue the fatwa because of concerns about the radicalisation of British Muslims at university campuses and because there had been a lack of condemnation of extremism by Muslim clerics and scholars.
Ul Qadri says his fatwa, which is aimed at persuading young Muslims to turn their backs on extremism, goes further than any previous denunciation. "This is the first, most comprehensive fatwa on the subject of terrorism ever written," said ul Qadri, who has written about 350 books on Islamic scholarship. Mark White, Herald Sun, 3 Mar 2010 |
Why Palestinians Riot Over Jewish Heritage Sites
Does rewriting history differ from menticide? |
Palestinian riots against the rights of Jews to visit holy and historic sites are nothing new. In Jericho and Gaza, ancient Jewish synagogues from the Talmudic period have been destroyed and are off limits to Jews. In Shechem, Nablus , the site of Joseph’s Tomb, was attacked by Palestinian mobs in 2000, fire-bombed and destroyed. A wounded Israeli soldier inside bled to death while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, negotiated with the Palestinian Authority. On the Temple Mount , the Palestinians have been systematically destroying Jewish artifacts and antiquities from the Second Temple period.
Why is attacking and destroying Jewish heritage sites so popular among Palestinians? Arabs claim their own heritage sites. Their claims go back about 1,300 years, when the Al-Aksa mosque and golden Dome of the Rock were built on the Temple Mount. These buildings exist today under Muslim authority (Wakf); Jews are prohibited by Israeli police from praying, carrying holy books, or ritual objects on the Temple Mount, in deference to Muslim restrictions. During the Muslim occupation of Israel, with the exception of about two centuries of Christian Crusader occupation, various public buildings, palaces, mosques and bridges were built. Remains of Crusader fortresses are popular tourist sites, along with Nabatean (pagan) sites in the Negev, many of which are UNESCO-designated. All are part of the history and heritage of the Land of Israel. Except for their buildings on the Temple Mount, however, Muslims do not consider the Land of Israel, Judea and Samaria, Palestine, sacred in any way. Moshe Dann, Frontpage, 3 Mar 2010 |
AFP officers hit and run Israeli woman while probing passport puzzle
'Monty Python' AFP team slammed after hit-and-run |
The strange Australian Federal Police investigation of alleged identity theft by those responsible for bringing Hamas arms-dealer and terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh has descended into farce with The Australian’s revelations that officers crashed into a bicyclist in Tel Aviv and – in violation of Israeli law – failed to stop at the scene of the accident.
The Australian Embassy in Israel, often occupied by Arabists from DFAT in search of reasons to pick a fight with the democratically elected government there, seems mortified by the embarrassing turn of events telling The Australian’s patriot scribe John Lyons: “It is a very serious issue. We are currently investigating it. We have not been contacted by anyone who has been knocked off her bike. I can confirm that that (the car which left the building) is an embassy car. I don’t think at this point that I can comment on who was and was not in the car.”
With people smugglers running rampant across South-East Asia looking to cash in on perceived Australian weakness, dangerous drugs of addiction still commonly available in nightclubs, the mean streets of our poorest suburbs and even in some schools, you’d think the AFP would struggle to find the resources for escapades like this that are essentially little more than an anti-Israel PR offensive Vexnews, 4 Mar 2010. |
Israel victim of double standards after slaying
A short history of intelligence agents of various states |
The intelligence agents of states sometimes operating with direct authority, sometimes not, have carried out many assassinations and assassination attempts in peacetime without the legitimacy of those states being called into question, or their being described as "rogue". In 1985 the French Deuxieme Bureau sank Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior trawler, killing photographer Fernando Pereira, without anyone denouncing France as a rogue state. Similarly, in 2006, polonium 210 was used to murder Alexander Litvinenko without Putin's Russia being described as "illegitimate".
That kind of language is only reserved for Israel, even though neither Pereira nor Litvinenko posed the danger to French and Russian citizens that was posed to Israelis by the activities of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. The reason that such double standards still apply more than six decades after the foundation of the state of Israel is not because of the nature of that doughty, brave, embattled, tiny, surrounded, yet proudly defiant country, but because of the nature of its foes. Even though one has to be in one's 70s to remember a time when Israel didn't exist, nevertheless there are still those who call the country's legitimacy into question, employing anything that happens to be in the news at the time, such as this latest assassination, to try to argue that Israel is not a real country, and therefore doesn't really deserve to exist. Real rogue states such as North Korea might be loathed and criticised, but even they do not have their very legitimacy as a state called into question because of their actions. Andrew Roberts, The Australian, 6 Mar 2010 |
Orchestrated Antisemitism
Disturbing patterns in the genocide calls at Oxford and UC Irvine |
While anti-Semitism dates back to Old Testament times, it always finds new ways to express itself. While it’s true that there has long been enmity between Jews and Muslims, it’s also true that some of this new hostility toward the Jews is coming from the far left. And that radical extremists are exploiting it for all it’s worth. Like at UC Irvine and the Oxford Union. We ought not find this surprising. One Jewish blogger makes the compelling case that “the agenda of the left was an end to ethnicity and religion, a one world government in which everyone would be brothers. Rebuilding Israel flew in the face of that agenda.” After all, Israel, as the homeland of the Jews, could never be a part of a worldwide socialist utopia.
Traditionally, radical leftists like Karl Marx have vilified Jews as purveyors and perpetrators of capitalism. Oddly enough, Hitler’s fascist propaganda machine did the same thing with what they called the “plutocratic” Jewish business leaders and bankers whom they claimed were pulling all the strings in the world economy. The Jews have always been convenient targets for demagogues, which is why in Europe today, there is a whole new and dangerous wave of anti-Semitism.
But back to what happened at Oxford and UC Irvine. Danny Ayalon is considering pressing charges against the student who yelled “Slaughter the Jews” because, as he said, that is a call for genocide. And at UC Irvine, students who insulted Israel’s ambassador are facing disciplinary action. Good. I’m glad UC Irvine didn’t simply ignore what happened. Neither should we.Chuck Colson, Christian Post, 6 Mar 2010 |
Iran's Ahmadinejad calls Sept 11 "big fabrication"
The mind of a holocaust-denying genocide inciter |
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States a "big fabrication" that was used to justify the US war on terrorism, the official IRNA news agency reported. Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West and Israel, made the comment in a meeting with Intelligence Ministry personnel.
It came amid escalating tension in the long-running dispute between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear program, with the United States pushing for new U.N. sanctions against the major oil producer.
Ahmadinejad described the destruction of the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001 as a "complicated intelligence scenario and act," IRNA reported. He added: "The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan." He did not elaborate. Nearly 3000 people died in the hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington, which were carried out by al Qaeda operatives. The Age, 7 Mar 2010 | |
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ABOUT ADC WEBWATCH
Welcome to ADC Webwatch, a weekly update on what the public is hearing about issues of race, tolerance and human rights. Skim the newsletter to stay abreast of the issues or click on the hyperlinks for more information.
ADC Webwatch is published by the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, a community organisation dedicated to opposing antisemitism and racism and promoting respect and tolerance.
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