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Yad Vashem Hall of Names
Tonight, Israel and Jewish communities around the world will commence marking Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day.
At the central ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, six torches will be lit in memory of the six million murdered.
For the twenty-third consecutive year, the names of victims – including one and a half million children – will be read out as part of the initiative known as ‘Unto Every Person There is a Name’.
Sixty seven years after the end of World War II, around two-thirds of those murdered during the Holocaust have been identified – over four million names. Work still continues in trying to name the remaining victims.
Yom HaShoah is not only a day for remembrance of the personal tragedies of so many which form a collective trauma for the Jewish people, but also a day to reflect upon contemporary forms of the same anti-Semitism which continue to blight the world.
In a story entitled ‘Esperanto’ from Amos Oz’s recent book ‘Between Friends’, one of the characters recounts:
“During the war I hid from the Nazis, but a few times I got to see them quite close up. Simple boys, not monsters at all, a bit noisy [and] infantile, they liked to joke, played the piano, fed the small cats, but they had been brainwashed. And only because they had been brainwashed they did terrible things even though they were not terrible but spoiled. Corrupt ideas spoilt them. “
Six million victims of genocide were not enough to oust these corrupt ideas from a Europe which has – in less than a lifetime since the guns fell silent – managed to re-brand itself as a self-appointed guardian of human rights.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee called for a day of boycott of Israeli goods in a ‘Global Day of Action‘ on March 30th 2012. Its Western and other sympathisers are of course quick to rally to the cause.
Whether they are ignorant of or indifferent to the fact that they emulate one of the first actions of the Nazi regime (a boycott of Jewish owned businesses) almost 79 years to the day, one of the functions of Yom HaShoah is to serve as a reminder of the potentially dangerous power of such morally toxic ideas.
Like this:
As I was Tweeting last night at Ben Gurion Airport while covering the extremist organized Anti-Zionist provocation known as ‘Air Flotilla 2‘, I came across these Tweets on the Fly2Palestine hash tag. They were so over the top they could have almost been sent by a Zionist troll, or one of those intentionally fake Twitter accounts which parody well-known Twitterers.
This Twitterer is?
Yes, Ali Abunimah: co-founder of Electronic Intifada, bold one-state solution proponent, and CiF contributor through 2009.
Abunimah is the man who The Jewish Forward characterized as a “rock star” in the title of a complimentary profile. Interestingly, The Forward subsequently changed the title to “Lightening Rod of the BDS Movement” but evidently forgot to wipe clean the original title from its Facebook page.
It looks like the Forward’s social media manager isn’t quite on top of things!
Oh, and one last thing. The most risible line from the progressive Jewish paper’s piece on the advocate of the Jewish state’s demise, was this:
[Abunimah] speaks out frequently against anti-Semitism, partly, he says, because he’s often accused of it. Zionism, he claims, is itself form of anti-Semitism — the idea that all Jews should live, and can only be safe, in Israel.
Well, that’s not quite fair. Here’s exactly how he’s framed it.
“supporting Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.”
I simply can’t imagine why he’d be accused of antisemitism.
Related articles
- ‘Air Flotilla 2′ Participants – the trailer (Anti-Zionist ‘activists’ consumed by hate) (cifwatch.com)
- Israeli Jews characterized as Nazis on the ‘Air Flotilla 2′ Facebook account (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch Special Report: Latest Assault on Israel’s legitimacy, ‘Air Flotilla 2′, April 15th, 2012 (cifwatch.com)
- ‘Airflotilla 2′ & “normal,average Europeans” (cifwatch.com)
- Bigotry & justifications for terror as ‘progressive’ politics: Air Flotilla 2′s York PSC contingent (cifwatch.com)
- Classic anti-Zionist PR strategy employed by ‘Flytilla 2′ activists: Fail Miserably, Claim Victory (cifwatch.com)
- Ali Abunimah Tweets for a third violent Intifada (cifwatch.com)
- Live Blogging from Ben Gurion Airport for ‘Flytilla 2′: latest extremist inspired Anti-Zionism PR stunt (cifwatch.com)
Metula, Israel
Fortunately, no Global March to Jerusalem related clashes occurred at the Israeli-Lebanese border in the city of Metula (the small town where I traveled to cover the story for CiF Watch), as had been expected. So, I spent some time at the border location where reporters were stationed conversing with a few of the IDF soldiers assigned there.
The conversations with one soldier in particular touched on many topics: some light and humorous (like my difficulties learning Hebrew in contrast with her remarkably fluent, and unaccented, English). But, others were more weighty, such as the cognitive war against Israel in the context of the GMJ, antisemitism, and the politics of the Middle East more broadly.
She also told me about her late grandfather’s experience surviving the Holocaust.
It was one of the many tales of the suffering and profound strength displayed by those who survived the Shoah most of us have read about, but which, I’ve learned, occasionally possess more meaning in particular times, places and moments in our life.
Here I was, a recent immigrant to Israel, blogging about an organized attempt to erode my nation’s moral legitimacy and (if their long-term wishes are fulfilled) our very existence, with a native Israeli whose own life is as improbable as was the rebirth of the modern Jewish state itself.
Though estimates vary, the latest research suggests that roughly 1 million Jews died in Auschwitz, a good percentage of whom were children. Many Jews who weren’t immediately gassed died from malnutrition, disease, hideously cruel “medical experiments”, or torture – with most inmates surviving merely weeks or a few months.
The late grandfather of the IDF soldier I spoke to somehow survived four years at this Nazi extermination camp.
Shortly before liberation, he was sickened by disease and, no longer able to work, was sent by Nazi guards to be killed.
However, a Jewish inmate who was working in the camp infirmary noticed that this man minutes away from execution had a number on his arm indicating how long he had survived. Somehow, the physician was able to rescue my friend’s grandfather and brought him into the infirmary, telling him that to survive this long he must be incredibly strong, and promised to do everything in his power to help him recover from this seemingly fatal disease.
He did survive and, after liberation, was reunited with his wife, who had survived in France by working as a nurse, passing as a non-Jew.
They both soon emigrated to Israel, started a kibbutz and started a family.
The young Israeli woman I was sitting with owed her life to her late grandfather’s unfathomable courage, an indescribable will to survive.
Much of what inspired me to make Aliyah – and to blog for Zion – was more than a desire to protect Israel, informed by a sober understanding of the malevolence of our enemies. Both were also motivated by a reverence for the heroism of those who came before me, and a desire to honor their memory, those who managed to pass on to future generations the precious gift of continued Jewish existence.
I’m haunted by the fear of not being worthy of their sacrifices: the brave early Zionist pioneers who gave up so much and endured physical hardships scarcely recognizable to our generation so that a nation may rise; the Soviet Jews who worshiped in secret, often studying Torah under candlelight, in a nation dedicated to eradicating religious observance, so that their thousands year-old traditions would be passed on to future generations; and the Israeli soldiers who fought and, far too often, died so that their children, and their nation, could live.
I am forever in debt to the countless sacrifices of Jewish heroes and heroines over the ages, Guardians of the Jews, for whom words such as valor, determination, duty, and courage (in the face of often impossible odds) weren’t simply vacuous platitudes, but values they lived every day.
These brave souls are for whom I blog.
As Zionist activists we can never assume that victory is assured, but neither can we succumb to the supremely dangerous vices of cynicism, defeatism, fatalism or resignation.
Surrender is never, ever an option.
Cross posted by Mark Gardner at the blog of the CST
According to an article by “M.S.” on the Economist blog, Israel and its Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu fear Iran because they suffer from “Auschwitz complex”. Furthermore, this “Auschwitz complex” supposedly links with the Jewish festivals of Purim and Passover. At its end, we are told that Netanyahu’s fears over Iran, reveal his “ghetto mentality”.
The Holocaust, Jewish history and religion are crucial to the Israeli national psyche and the decisions of its leaders: but this is not a serious article on that multifaceted subject. Instead, this article’s lack of accuracy and sensitivity make it little more than an abuse of the Holocaust and Jewish religion in order to stick two fingers up at Netanyahu. (The Economist is perfectly entitled to criticise Netanyahu: but to do so on the premise of supposed Jewish psychological, religious and historical traits takes us into altogether different territory.)
To begin, the article’s title, “Auschwitz complex”, belongs more on the websites of Gilad Atzmon (eg “Swindler’s List”) and David Irving (eg “Auschwitz: the End of the Line”) than it does on that of the Economist. It is a cold joke, poking fun at the Holocaust to evoke a wry grin and not a little coldness in the heart of the reader.
The article opens with an attack upon Netanyahu for telling President Obama (in the context of Iran’s nuclear ambitions) that Israel seeks to remain “master of its fate”. The author ridicules the notion that any individual country, especially one in conflict with its neighbours, can be master of its own fate in an inter-dependent world. This is a facile straw man argument that sets the tone for what follows.
Next, Israel and Netanyahu are blamed for every failure of the Oslo Peace Accords and for the ongoing conflict situation. There is nothing unusual about such condemnation, but in this context it is required by the author to justify the notion of an “Auschwitz complex”, whereby Israel’s and Netanyahu’s actions are presented as a mix of premeditated ideological malice and unwarranted paranoia. (It is possible that the title, “Auschwitz complex” was written by the Economist, not the author. Nevertheless, the article is woeful; and if the Economist chose the headline, then that is, in a sense, even more depressing.)
Having built the platform, we get the crux of the article:
Having trapped themselves in a death struggle with Palestinians that they cannot acknowledge or untangle, Israelis have psychologically displaced the source of their anxiety onto a more distant target: Iran…the notion that it represents a new Holocaust is overstated…But Iran makes an appealing enemy for Israelis because, unlike the Palestinians, it can be fitted into a familiar ideological trope from the Jewish national playbook: the eliminationist anti-Semite.
Where to begin with this? For the sake of brevity, two points:
Firstly, it is plain wrong to say that Palestinians cannot be “fitted into a familiar ideological trope from the Jewish playbook: the eliminationist anti-Semite”. Palestinian and Arab threats to destroy Israel have consistently formed an “ideological trope” in the Israeli psyche, just like today’s Iranian threat. Prior to the state’s creation, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was (and still is) reviled in this manner, just as Egypt’s President Nasser was in the 1950 and 60s. Then, Menachem Begin’s leadership of Israel (1977-1983) was marked by his characterisation of Yasser Arafat and the PLO as Nazi inheritors. Similarly, the Hamas charter bears comparison with any“eliminationist” text.
Secondly, as the ever-excellent Professor Alan Johnson points out, “let us note that far from the concept of eliminationist antisemitism – being part of some ‘Jewish national playbook,’ it was the absence of such an orientating concept among the Jews of Europe that made the nature of the Nazi assault so difficult to understand and respond to.”
The author, “M.S.”, then draws upon Netanyahu’s presentation to Obama of the Book of Esther, which tells how a Persian king was persuaded by (the Jewish) Queen Esther to prevent the massacre of his country’s Jews. The story is read at the festival of Purim, which coincided with the Netanyahu-Obama meeting. We are then told how Passover includes the “Ve-hi she-amdah” prayer, “Because in every generation they rise up to destroy us, but the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands”.
The article says that Netanyahu “seems to be wooing Mr Obama and the American public just as effectively” and that this “resembles” a “doomed marriage” in which
the more stubborn and unstable partner drags the other into increasingly delusional and dangerous projects whose disastrous results seem only to legitimate their paranoid outlook.
No consideration is given to Iran’s past and present actions. No mention is made of its nuclear programme, its goal of regional domination, its leader’s apocalyptic outbursts, its denial of the Holocaust, its terrorism against Jews and Israelis. It is simply all down to Israeli delusions, which rest upon paranoid Jewish religious and Holocaust foundations. This is superior to Gilad Atzmon’s work, such as “Trauma Queen [Esther]…Pre-Traumatic Gas Syndrome…From Purim to AIPAC”, but it is still reminiscent of it. Surely the Economist ought to have far higher standards than the dross psychology and selective facts that comprise and compromise this article.
Finally, the author signs off with a couple more digs at Netanyahu, claiming his concerns over Iran (and Palestinians), and his Book of Esther gift to Obama reveal the failure to fulfil “the Zionist mission…to give the Jewish people control over its destiny”, and his being “still in” “the ‘Ghetto mentality’”.
By comparison, the Jerusalem Post (traditionally a somewhat more pro-Israel publication than the Economist), noted that against American advice, Israel had very successfuly declared independence (1948), launched the Six Day War (1967) and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear programme (1981). The editorial also had this to say about Netanyahu, the Book of Esther, Zionism and Iran:
That message from the Megila [Book of Esther] that encourages Jews to proactively take their fate into their own hands is also the story of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel. Refusing any longer to reconcile themselves to traditional passivity vis-à-vis the creation of a sovereign state, Jews who adhered to Zionism called to take hold of their own destiny.
…Unfortunately, they failed to achieve their goal before the Holocaust, which proved beyond a doubt Zionism’s premise that the Jewish people could not rely on the compassion of others.
…The message of the Megila is not one of militarism.
The lesson that Netanyahu wanted to impart to Obama was not that Israel must launch an attack against Iran to stop its mullahs from developing nuclear weapons.
However, the Megila does value Jewish action over Jewish passivity and recognizes that whether through ingenuity, good luck, divine intervention or a combination of them all the Jewish people, when given the chance, have managed to foil the plans of their many enemies. Let’s hope we have the same success in facing the Iranian challenge.
Related articles
- AKUS @ AIPAC Conf: House leader vows Congress will declare red lines for action on Iran (cifwatch.com)
- Oh, That’s It – Just That Pesky Ol’ Auschwitz Complex (Victor Davis Hanson)
Like this:
This was written by our friend Chas Newkey-Burden, and originally posted at his blog, OyVaGoy
It is Holocaust Memorial Day [today]. You can read more about this year’s theme here.
On days such as this I am reminded of the words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel who wrote the following:
‘What cannot help but astound us is that the Hasidim remained the Hasidim inside the ghetto walls, inside the death camps. In the shadow of the executioner, they celebrated life. Startled Germans whispered to each other of Jews dancing in the cattle cars rolling towards Birkenau; Hasidim ushering in Simchat Torah. And there were those who in Block 57 at Auschwitz tried to make me join in their fervent singing. Were these miracles?’
What a passage: it is haunting and inspiring, harrowing and uplifting all at once. Similar emotions are provoked by a recording made at Bergen-Belsen shortly after it was liberated in April 1945. It includes weary Jewish survivors singing Hativkah (The Hope), the song that became the national anthem of the state of Israel. You can find a link to the recording on the right-hand side of this page. (Or, see YouTube clip below)
‘Never despair! Never! It is forbidden to give up hope,’ wrote Rabbi Nachman, a century before any of these events took place. These are wise words, yet not always easy to live up to.
Yet consider the Hasidim who celebrated life in the death camps, and the survivors who sang of hope at Bergen-Belsen. Stories such as these remind me how even in the darkest moments it is possible, and essential, to maintain hope.
This is cross posted by Richard Millett
Mads Gilbert and Jenny Tonge last night in Parliament.
Last night yet another hate-meeting took place in Parliament with the Palestine Return Centre holding an event “to commemorate the memory of Palestinian victims over the past six decades especially the last war in Gaza”. (Here is what the PRC is all about. It makes unpleasant reading for Jews).
Jenny Tonge was there ranting about how the Palestinians weren’t responsible for the Holocaust and asking “how can the Israelis treat the Palestinians the way they do after what happened in the Holocaust”.
She criticised the power of the “Israel lobby” and held up a magazine with Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh on the front cover and proceeded to idolise him.
She told us about a Palestinian fishing-boat which was boarded by the Israeli navy off Gaza. She said the Palestinian fishermen had their hands bound behind their backs and were forced to swim to the Israeli boat.
And she spoke about why she thinks she comes in for such heavy criticism and put this down to the fact that she stands up for the Palestinians and criticises Israel. The latter, she thinks, is viewed as being anti-Semitic.
When challenged by Jonathan Hoffman to give an example of when criticism of Israel has been called anti-Semitic she said she could give “many examples”, but failed to come through with even one. Here’s the action:
We also heard from Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian anesthesiologist, who gave us the names of Palestinian children who had been killed or who had horrendous injuries. He spent most of last night trying to flog his book about it all called Eyes on Gaza. Available from all good retailers.
We heard from Manal Timraz. Manal lost 15 members of her family during Operation Cast Lead, 11 of which were aged between twelve and two, and has lost another four since. After asking us to stand for a minute’s silence she emotionally outlined how the only way forward is a one-state-solution.
She lives in England next to a Jewish woman who “didn’t steal my land and I didn’t steal her’s”.
Gilbert had called for an academic boycott of Israel and during the Q&A I asked him how he could propose such an obviously racist policy and whether he used any Israeli products himself.
He said that the accusation that he was “a racist” was “absolutely preposterous” (I didn’t call him “a racist”) and said that he used computers without Intel chips. He then accused me of “smiling and laughing arrogantly” while Manal was speaking. I was smiling, but only at Manal’s suggestion that Jonathan go to the West Bank with her to drink tea “like a Palestinian”.
Gilbert further rejected accusations of anti-Semitism, eventhough none were made, with:
“If you want to look for anti-Semitism don’t look among us because we are profoundly anti-racist”.
He’s even friends with a Canadian Jew!
But how can anyone seriously claim to be “profoundly anti-racist” while hero-worshipping a self-confessed Jew hater (see Hamas Charter) like Ismail Haniyeh?
Here is the Q&A footage. First you hear PRC’s Sameh Habeeb, then Manal Timraz, then Mads Gilbert (from 4 mins. 15 secs.) and, finally, Jenny Tonge again, who, sadly, wasn’t impressed with me or Jonathan:
Additional photo:
British Palestinian Manal Timraz speaking last night.
H/T Elder
Here’s a thought experiment: Just imagine for a second if London soccer fans chanted for a return to black slavery.
What would the reaction from liberal intelligentsia be to such abominable racism?
How would the Guardian cover such a story?
Well, can someone please explain why the following call, by masses of Egyptian soccer fans (at an April 6th match) for another Holocaust against the Jews, hasn’t been universally condemned, or even reported, by the Guardian or anyone else in the mainstream media?
Here’s a sign at the same soccer match, posted on the “Fuck Israel” Facebook page:
Related articles
- Palestine Solidarity Campaign complains that Holocaust denier was harassed by Millett and Hoffman (cifwatch.com)
- Antisemites, terror supporters, & Holocaust deniers: aka, just another Palestinian Solidarity Campaign event (cifwatch.com)
- Why is anti-Israel extremist Gary Spedding affiliated with Holocaust Memorial Day Trust? (cifwatch.com)
- When CiF commentary about the Holocaust elicits contempt for Jews by Guardian readers (cifwatch.com)
We already responded to a Dec. 11th straight news story by Phoebe Greenwood, the Guardian’s new Israel correspondent, which implicitly questioned the validity of evidence consistently offered by Palestinian Media Watch of incitement in Palestinian schools.
However, her report was not a polemic, and thus, by merely citing Palestinians who questioned PMW’s work, protected her from charges that she similarly possessed such doubts.
The wonderful thing about Twitter, however, is that it often provides a glimpse into the political views of correspondents who otherwise hide their ideological orientation behind rhetorical obfuscation.
As such, a recent Tweet confirms that Greenwood indeed doubts whether such incitement permeates Palestinian schools and textbooks.
Okay, Ms. Greenwood, I’ll take that challenge.
In 2006, the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Higher Education introduced new 12th grade schoolbooks written by Palestinian educators who were appointed by the Fatah leadership. PMW reviewed these books and found that they make no attempt to educate for peace or coexistence with Israel. Instead Israel’s right to exist is adamantly denied and the Palestinian war against Israel is presented as an eternal religious battle for Islam.
Here are some highlights from their extensive report which Greenwood is free to read on PMW’s website:
The PA schoolbooks teach that fighting Israel is not merely a territorial, nationalistic conflict, but a religious battle for Islam. The educators define the conflict with Israel as “Ribat”- a concept from Islamic tradition signifying Muslims defending the border areas of Islam. Moreover, the youth are taught that their specific fight against Israel – Ribat for “Palestine” – is “one of the greatest of the Ribat, and they [Palestinians] are worthy of a great reward from Allah.” Palestinian use of violence against Israel is called “muqawama - resistance” [Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Commentary, grade 12, p. 105]
A visual world without Israel: on all maps “Palestine” exists, Israel does not. Below is a map which includes all the names of the states except for Israel, which is marked “Palestine.” [History of the Arabs and the World in the 20th Century, grade 12, p. 153]
Rejection of Israel’s right to exist: Israel’s founding was “a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history”. While “Palestine” is described as existing in a world without Israel, Israel’s founding is taught and vilified as “a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history. The Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its people from their cities, their villages, their lands and their houses, and established the State of Israel.” [Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Criticism, grade 12, p. 104] Israel is described as foreign, colonialist, and imperialist. The youth are taught that Israel’s creation was immoral and Israel unequivocally has no right to exist.
Holocaust Denial: World War II without a Holocaust. The textbook History of the Arabs and the World in the 20th Century teaches the military and the political events of World War II in significant detail, including sections on Nazi racist ideology, yet neither persecution of Jews nor the Holocaust is mentioned. It is apparent that the PA educators made an active decision to exclude the Holocaust from history. The new book writes selectively about the issues of the Holocaust, citing Nazi racist ideology and restrictions the Nazis placed on “inferior” non-Aryan nations, yet it makes no reference to the Holocaust or to Jews.
Terminology of Disdain and Demonization in schoolbooks. The terminology the educators have chosen for the schoolbooks demonizes Israel and reinforces the rejection of Israel as a neighbor with a right to exist. The following terms are used to refer to Israel, its founders and its ideology:
“The Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled the inhabitants…”
[Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Criticism, grade 12, p. 104]
“The occupation of its country by the Zionist Enemy…”
[Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Criticism, grade 12, p. 122]
“…the Zionist entity occupied the rest of Palestine, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip…”
[Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Criticism, grade 12, p. 104]
Jihad, and Shahada – Martyrdom for Allah. The new PA schoolbooks teach and idealize Jihad – war for Islam — and Shahada - death for Allah - as basic Islamic principles to which to aspire. Jihad and Shahada are at times taught as general Islamic ideals, and at times focused against Israel. This promotion is not limited to the formal Islamic education books, but is found in many different schoolbooks. Often the original Islamic sources from the Quran or Hadith are used as the tool of promotion.
Glorification of Jihad: Grammar is taught by analyzing a Quran verse whose message is that believers who fight are said to be superior to those believers who do not fight. Grammar Exercises: “Believers who sit at home, other than those who are disabled, are not equal with those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives.” [Note: Passage from Quran, Sura of Al-Nissa, verse 95] [Arabic Language and the Science of Language, grade 12, p. 97]. A grammar book instructs the children to read carefully about the importance of Jihad. I read attentively the underlined in the following:…[Muhammad] God bless him and grant him salvation, said: “First and foremost, Islam [resignation to the will of Allah] its pillar, prayer and its peak is Jihad.” [Arabic Language and the Science of Language, grade 12, p. 60] Source: Reading and Texts Part II, Grade 8, Jan. 1, 2010. Schoolbook: “Your enemies seek life while you seek death”
So, if Ms. Greenwood wishes to dispute PMW’s translations she can do so.
But, more likely, as with so many anti-Zionist activists (journavists) who happen to find gainful employment writing for the Guardian, not even the most irrefutable evidence regarding endemic antisemitism and incitement within Palestinian society could penetrate Greenwood’s rigid ideology.
As it’s impossible to really understand the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict without understanding such Palestinian racism against Jews, such antisemitic sins of omission by the Guardian’s Israel correspondents will continue to ensure that the paper’s vast audience will remain thoroughly ignorant of the dynamics which really represent the root cause of the conflict.
Related articles
- Phoebe Greenwood continues Guardian tradition of dishonest reporting about Palestinian incitement (cifwatch.com)
- How the Jews steal Christmas: Ugly Guardian story evokes Jesus as an “oppressed” Palestinian (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s Phoebe Greenwood promotes the new kinder, gentler, peaceful Hamas (cifwatch.com)
- What Harriet Sherwood won’t report: PA kindergarten students sing “Martyrdom for kids” (cifwatch.com)
- What the Guardian won’t report: Palestinian schools teach Protocols of Elders of Zion as fact (cifwatch.com)
A guest post by Sam Westrop (A version of this essay originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post)
In 2000, Norman Finkelstein published his book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitations of Jewish Suffering, which posited that the accepted account of the Holocaust is merely a Zionist narrative, which is cynically used to justify putative Israeli ‘cruelties’. Finkelstein frequently invokes his family’s suffering during the Holocaust as a premise to sanitise his obsessive demonisation of Israel, and frequent use of antisemitic tropes.
Finkelstein’s method is not lost on a new breed of anti-Israel activists, who often employ the memory of the Holocaust to sanitise their abhorrent views on living Jews.
Enter Gary Spedding.
Garry Spedding
Spedding is chair of the Queen’s University Belfast Palestine Solidarity Society, the group which orchestrated the attack upon Solon Solomon, a former legal adviser to the Knesset Foreign Affairs committee, who was invited to speak to law school students at Queen’s University. Solomon was heckled by members of the university’s Palestine Solidarity Society (PSS) and the youth wing of Sinn Féin (the political wing of the Irish terrorist organisation the IRA) during a lecture, and the protesters then attacked the car in which Solomon escaped, attempting to smash its windows.
After being contacted about the attack, Spedding stated he does ‘not condone violence’, yet is evidently proud of his relationship with Holy Land Trust Director, Sami Awad - characterizing him as his ”Best Friend, Mentor, colleague and leader” - who certainly does not condemn terrorist violence. Wrote Awad:
“[non-violent resistance] is not a substitute for the armed struggle. This is not a method for normalization with the occupation. Our goal is to revive the popular resistance until every person is involved in dismantling the occupation.”
Spedding’s mentor Awad has also hosted the extremist Greek Orthodox priest Atallah Hanna – who can be seen here condemning the “Satanic” and diabolical Zionism, and promising that Palestine will be free “from the river to the sea”- at the Holy Land Trust.
Sami Awad and Atallah Hanna
In fact, both Sami Awad and Atallah Hanna have defended the quite reactionary Raed Salah, and Hanna has expressed support for suicide bombings.
Further, about Awad, Spedding has written:
“Sami you have taught me so much and I hope that I have represented you in a good way in my writings, you are a light to me in this time much as Jesus Christ is a light for all of us! … My deepest love goes out to you, my thanks and appreciation nothing can really substantiate in words what you mean to the people here or what you mean to me!”
Spedding also has echoed Deborah Orr’s claims that Jewish supremacism guided Israel’s deal with Hamas to exchange over 1000 Palestinian terrorists to secure the release of Gilad Shalit. :
“There is a point that needs addressing in the use of language by media outlets because of the specifics in the deal surrounding Shalit’s release especially in the mainstream media in the USA and Israel reporting along the lines of ’1000 or more terrorists to be exchanged in prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit’ this viewpoint is highly inaccurate it degrades the Palestinian prisoners being swapped for Gilad Shalit whilst reinforcing the current view among many right wing Zionists and their supporters that 1 jewish life is of more value than say 1000 Arab lives which is incredibly racist in and of itself.”
Spedding also wrote this about the brutal murder of the Fogel family:
“The J’post article sickening invokes the cloudy and unclear death of the Fogel family an attack which I have the report and pictures of in my email inbox from the day after it happened. I find it sick that the J’post is still using this attack for political gain suggesting Palestinians are to blame when there has been no further information, news or otherwise released about the murders since the IDF conveniently caught two Palestinians kept them in torture for a month until they ‘confessed’ and then announced they had caught the killers despite the evidence and speculation of it being the work of a migrant worker from asia.”
This was published months after the murders, when it was clear that Palestinian terrorists were responsible for the murders. The theory about a migrant worker was put forth by the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda unit, and was discounted as agitprop months before Spedding’s comments.
Finally, here’s Spedding expressing support for Finkelstein’s unique understanding of Israel.
“Ah but Anny, I do live in Palestine and i know a lot about this conflict! accusing people of not knowing about the conflict by the way just because they don’t live there is silly really, theres countless middle east experts who don’t live in Israel who know about the conflict in great detail, my friend Norman Finkelstein for one…. i would agree with my friend Norman Finkelstein when he describes Israel as a lunatic state.”
And, evidently inspired by Finkelstein’s example of invoking the memory of the Holocaust in the service of legitimizing extreme anti-Israel politics, Spedding has recently decided to volunteer with Holocaust Memorial Day Trust - a charity which works to raise awareness of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Interestingly in the context of Finkelstein’s critique of the “accepted” Zionist account of the Holocaust in Israel as a ploy “to justify putative Israeli ‘cruelties”, Spedding’s flirtation with antisemities and proponents of terror attacks against Jews would suggest this his association with such a Shoah remembrance organization is itself a supremely cynical attempt to sanitize his alliances with those possessing a decidedly Judeophobic orientation.
You can visit the FB page of Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (or email them at enquiries@hmd.org.uk) if you wish to express your displeasure with their association with Spedding, whose presence is an insult and abuse of genuine Holocaust memory.
Related articles
- Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2011 Top 10 anti-Israel and antisemitic slurs (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian gratuitous anti-Israel photo of the day (& a story about the photojournalist behind the lens) (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian, PalFest and the ‘culture’ of anti-Israel activism (cifwatch.com)
- Tell us why you love Israel…in as many words as you like! #WhyILoveIsrael (cifwatch.com)
- The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman and the Guardian’s increasing notoriety (cifwatch.com)
- Antisemites, terror supporters, & Holocaust deniers: aka, just another Palestinian Solidarity Campaign event (cifwatch.com)
Well, it’s good to see that CiF moderators are not necessarily deleting every reference to our blog.
Beneath Guardian Readers’ Editor Chris Elliott’s post, “on averting accusations of antisemitism“, which made a clear reference to our blog – “organisations monitoring the Guardian’s coverage examine the language in articles and the comments posted underneath them online…as closely as the facts” – which we’ll comment on soon, were a few interesting comments.
This one by serial Israel hater, Berchmans, did contain the odious suggestion, which he’s leveled before, that Zionists cynically “use” the Holocaust to deflect criticism of Israel, but also leveled an accusation which is just funny.
Do you hear that? He’s “accusing” CiF Watch of the evidently unique Zionist tactic of “trying to sway opinion”.
Next, we’ll no doubt be accused of the colonialist methods of employing facts, logic and common sense in defense of Israel.
Berchmans’ dire warning of our Hasbara infiltration received 72 recommends.
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- Guardian readers claim leading Zionists during WWII rooted for Hitler. Comments not deleted by CiF Moderators (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian reader comment of the day: The Protocols of the Learned Elders of CiF Watch Zionists (cifwatch.com)
- ‘Comment is Free’ Land: Here be Jews… (cifwatch.com)
- CiF piece critical of Gilad Atzmon elicits storm of antisemitic reader comments, including organ theft libels (cifwatch.com)
- Unintentionally comical CiF reader comment of the day: CiF moderators are biased IN FAVOR of CiF Watch (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian readers note CiF Watch’s presence, & object to our suggestion that blood libel against Jews is false (cifwatch.com)
H/T Zach
This is cross post by Martin Krossel at The Huffington Post
Bogdanovka (Romanian, Bogdanovca), camp located on the Bug River, in the village of Bogdanovka in Transnistia.
Seventy years ago this month, Jews, mainly from Romania and provinces that it acquired through the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles, were deported to the Ukrainian territory of Transnistria. As Nazi Germany marched on the Soviet Union, it left their Romanian allies to administer Transnistria.
Between 150,000 and 250,000 Jews were murdered there by the authorities between 1941 and 1944.
Last weekend, Transnistria survivors in Toronto held their annual public memorial gathering. The numbers of both attendees and organizers are dwindling with the passage of time.
That’s unfortunate. The slaughter of Jews in Transnistria is among the least known aspects of the Holocaust.
This is attributable to many factors. The Ukraine was far away from the central theatre of the Holocaust in Germany and Poland. In Transnistria the Germans stayed in the background leaving much of the dirty work to enthusiastic Ukrainian and Romanian henchmen. Also, Transnistria had few gas chambers or well-organized killing operations.
Most of the Jewish victims died while being transported in cattle cars; on long forced marches that went for days or even weeks; arbitrary shootings; or, from hunger and disease in the concentration camps and ghettos that were the direct result of their persecutors’ deliberate policies of starvation and deprivation.
Both speakers at the commemoration portrayed the Arab-Israel conflict as a continuation of the Jews’ struggle for survival against the Nazis.
That’s not off the mark. Arguably the father of Palestinian nationalism, the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, spent World War II in Berlin where, among other activities on behalf of the Nazis, he made anti-Semitic radio speeches in Arabic, targeting audiences in the Middle East.
These speeches were supposed to inspire local Muslin populations to violently attack Jews once the Germans conquered the Middle East and North Africa. Historian Jeffrey Herf who studies Nazi propaganda in the Arab world points out that the Middle East was one of the few places in the world where accused war criminals could settle after World War II without hiding their old Nazi identities. Popular anti-Semitism has disappeared in subsequent years.
However, viciously anti-Semitic material is spread through the government-controlled media and in school texts and curricula in the Palestinian Authority and the rest of the Arab world.
In Monday’s National Post, Abraham Cooper dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told the story of David Gerbi, a Libyan Jew who was forced to flee his country during Gaddafi’s rule, but who recently returned to test the new government’s commitment to the establishment of a moderate Muslim regime that would respect the norms of human rights.
But Gerbi found that some of the locals in the new Libya warned him to leave for his own safety, while others demonstrated in front of his hotel for a whole day shouting threatening slogans such as “No Jews or Zionists.” Eventually, Gerbi was evacuated from “free” Libya in an Italian military aircraft.
In the Arab-Israeli conflict, disputes over borders, Jewish settlements and even the status of Jerusalem are all peripheral. Like their brethren in Nazi Europe, Israel’s Jews are struggling for the physical survival. When the popular Arab animus against Jews is shed, all other disputes could be resolved easily.
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- The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland, Hebron and the logic of ethnic cleansing (cifwatch.com)
- On why many liberals continue to ignore explicit anti-Semitism in the Palestinian media (cifwatch.com)
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What the Guardian should have posted about Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel
April 21, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: Guardian, Harriet Sherwood, Holocaust, Yom HaShoah | by Adam Levick | 2 comments
H/T AKUS
While Harriet Sherwood was busy exploiting a Holocaust survivor on Yom HaShoah, April 19, to vilify Israel, sirens were sounded throughout the country for two minutes.
During this time, people ceased from action and stood at attention; cars stopped and drivers emerged from them, even on the highways, and the whole country came to a standstill as citizens of the modern Jewish state payed silent tribute to the six million dead.
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