10/01 Links Pt2: Post-Liberal Europe and its Jewish Problem; Muslim Zionist recalls his transformation

From Ian:

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Natan Sharansky: Post-Liberal Europe and its Jewish Problem

Why should European Jews, or anyone for that matter, choose to hold fast to their particular identity in the face of so much pressure to abandon it? Because identity, Jewish or otherwise, imbues life with a meaning and purpose beyond mere material existence. It satisfies a basic human longing to be part of something bigger than oneself, an inter-generational community that shares a set of values and a sense of overarching purpose.
Of course, there is another basic human longing: the desire to be free, to think for oneself and choose one’s own path. But these two basic desires—to belong and to be free—can reinforce rather than oppose one another. Freedom provides the opportunity to cultivate one’s identity fully; but freedom must be defended, and identity gives one the strength for that task. Just as it is a perilous mistake to sacrifice freedom for the sake of identity, it is a potentially disastrous mistake to jettison identity in the name of freedom, as today’s European post-liberals have done in their belief that nothing is worth dying for.
Indeed, the real issue here is not the future of the Jews; as so often in history, Jews are a litmus test. What is really at stake is the future of Europe. The attempt to liberate itself from its history and its traditional institutions has made Europe decadent and weak. Now that Islamic fundamentalism, an identity violently at odds with liberalism, has moved into the heart of tolerant, multicultural Europe, the question is whether a society that has run away from its identity in order to enjoy its freedom can muster the will to fight, before losing them both.
As one who grew up in the darker corners of Europe, and who garnered from the great European liberal tradition the strength to struggle against oppression, I can only hope that the democratic nation states of Europe will rediscover the capacity to fight for their freedom. But my task as an Israeli citizen is simpler. I must make sure that every Jew in the world who feels homeless will be able to find a home here, in this small island of freedom in a great ocean of tyranny, in this small oasis of identity in a desert of post-identity anomie. To these Jews I say: welcome to the Jewish democratic state.

Europe's 'Other': A Response to Natan Sharansky

n a forthright article in Mosaic, Natan Sharansky does us a valuable service in explaining the roots of disdain in Europe for Jews in general and Jewish national rights in particular. He correctly points to a 'post-liberal' culture which derides national identity and ironically extolls the most anti-liberal and violent minorities. The voices he brings from Europe about what Jews can and can't do are very troubling to say the least.
Yet I believe Sharansky missed a key part of the puzzle of this phenomenon, one which he must be aware of: the disdain of Western and Northern Europe for the people in the rest of the continent. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

World Must Understand That Anti-Semitism is a Universal Problem, Israeli Envoy Tells The Algemeiner (INTERVIEW)

In a lengthy interview with The Algemeiner in New York, where he discussed his work with Jewish advocacy groups, academics and others, Behar was keen to talk about the impact of the recent Gaza war on Jewish communities abroad. “When we looked at what was happening in Europe, we noticed that in places like Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, there was no rise in anti-Semitism,” he said. “Those countries that were once communist didn’t experience the levels of anti-Semitism that we saw in western Europe.” While eastern Europe is certainly not free of Jew-hatred – at several points in the conversation, Behar talked with concern about Jobbik, the neo-Nazi Hungarian party that has grown markedly in popularity – he emphasized that in western Europe, there has been an alarming crossover between anti-Israel rhetoric and demonstrations, and violent attacks on Jews, often carried out by Muslims.
There are, Behar said, four principal sources of anti-Semitism today: the Arab and Islamic world, the neo-fascist right, the radical left and online – during Israel’s operation in Gaza, social media platforms and website comment sections bristled with anti-Semitic invective, often from anonymous contributors. Anywhere where there are acute social, economic or political problems, Behar argued, is fertile soil for anti-Semitism. That also applies to those countries, especially in Europe, which Behar described as undergoing an “identity crisis.” The spectacle of Hungarian fascists unveiling a statue of the country’s pro-Nazi wartime ruler, Admiral Miklos Horthy, as well as the images from Greece of supporters of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party offering Hitler salutes, suggests to Behar that Europe has not quite gotten over its deadly recent past.
How, though, can a phenomenon that surfaces from Venezuela to Turkey, and that has rightly been described by scholars as “the longest hatred,” be countered effectively? Behar is modest about what is possible and he doesn’t claim that anti-Semitism will eventually disappear. But its toxic influence can, nonetheless, be ameliorated – and education, Behar believes, is key.

In Vienna, Edelstein warns: Indifference to anti-Semitism is not an option

Indifference to anti-Semitism cannot be allowed, because it was a crucial component in bringing about the Holocaust, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein warned Tuesday at a ceremony posthumously honoring 11 Righteous Among the Nations in Vienna.
“The Holocaust did not start in Auschwitz, Treblinka, Babi Yar, or any of the other myriad Nazi killing grounds.
It began in cities when bricks were thrown through Jewish storefronts, when synagogues were desecrated, and when Jewish businesses were boycotted, and it spread because too many of those good people remained indifferent,” he stated.
Edelstein pointed to “clouds of anti-Semitism brewing over Europe,” including attacks on synagogues and well-attended rallies featuring anti-Semitic slogans.

Israelis did come to aid of besieged Irish troops

The United Nations has confirmed that Israeli forces did come to the assistance of Irish UN troops who were caught in a fierce fire fight in the Golan Heights last month.
The acknowledgement by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon of Israeli military assistance to our peacekeepers contradicts Defence Minister Simon Coveney who flatly denied that our soldiers received help in an RTE interview.
Irish soldiers were continuously caught in the middle of all-out war over July and August in Syria before withdrawing to Israel, the report to the UN Security Council says.
It describes in detail the "fierce fighting" that raged round UN posts in the Golan Heights area with "numerous" incidents of shells, rockets and small arms fire in close proximity, or actually hitting UN bases.
None of this information was relayed at the time by the Defence Forces or Government here.

Why Munich needs one more memorial

We were painfully reminded of this fact when the International Olympic Committee refused to hold a moment of silence in memory of the murdered Israeli athletes during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Those games coincided with the 40th anniversary of the infamous terrorist attack by the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September. So the moment was ripe for a reconsideration of this lacuna in history and memory.
But the leadership at the time did not have the moral courage or political will to get it done. The Olympic Committee balked with more of the usual excuses — that a moment of silence was inappropriate, would detract from the current athletes’ moment, or would somehow politicize the games.
Things may finally be changing.
In June, the IOC, under new leadership, confirmed that it would contribute $250,000 toward a memorial for the Israeli victims of the attack. The German Olympic Sports Confederation had already pledged $27,000 for the project, and the German government is moving ahead with a competition for the memorial’s design. Construction is expected to be completed by fall 2016.

German Broadcaster Compares Foreign IDF Recruits With Islamic State Terrorists

A piece published earlier today on the DW website, entitled “US recruits join foreign forces to find acceptance,” notes that 100 American Jews joined the IDF during the recent war in Gaza, and goes on to claim that these recruits may find themselves indicted on war crimes charges. Observing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday “used the UN stage to launch a blistering attack on those alleging that his forces committed war crimes during the war against Hamas,” the article asserts that “those accusations – if proven – could also affect foreign soldiers.”
The article contains an interview with an anonymous Israeli soldier who is identified as “an American Israeli from a Muslim family.” The soldier is said to have told DW that “an investigation into potential Israeli war crimes is a fair assessment as long as Hamas is investigated too and other independent authorities conduct investigations.” Later on, the anonymous soldier says that “Jihadis… remind me of Zionists going to Israel to serve.”
DW then adds that Americans joining a foreign military “now accused of war crimes comes at a time when Americans are also in the spotlight for joining extremist groups in Syria and Iraq.” Making no mention of the atrocities committed by the Islamic State against Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities, as well as its gruesome practice of beheading its enemies, the article quotes an American writer, Michael Muhammed Knight, who toyed with the idea of joining a jihadi organization before opting not to do so. “Maybe the Islamic State is trying to deliver justice as they see it,” Knight is quoted as saying.

French Police Launch Probe of Paris Youth Who Threatened to ‘Kill Jews’ on Television (VIDEO)

JTA reports that Yves Jannier, the prosecutor of the Pontoise region north of Paris, ordered the probe after the program was broadcast on the France 2 network last Friday. In the clip, an unnamed youth wearing a white tracksuit top is shown loitering with friends outside a Middle Eastern takeaway restaurant in Sarcelles, a heavily Muslim suburb of Paris which also contains a Jewish population of 60,000. “What they are doing over there in Palestine, we are doing here to the Jews, ” the man says during the interview. “And if we get real angry, we might just kill them.” Later on, he adds: “If I get angry, I will light up all of them, all the Jews.”
As anti-Semitic incidents rocked France during the summer, during widespread protests against Israel’s counter-offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, relations between Muslims and Jews in Sarcelles were on a knife-edge. On July 20, Muslim youths rampaged through the suburb, attacking a synagogue and Jewish-owned shops. 18 people were arrested during the violence. The French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, slammed the rioters, declaring: “What’s happened in Sarcelles is intolerable: attacking a synagogue or a kosher grocery, is quite simply anti-Semitism, racism.” Roger Cukierman, head of the French Jewish organization CRIF, echoed the prime minister’s concerns, saying: “They’re shouting ‘Death to the Jews’ and attacking synagogues. It’s completely out of control.”

The Most Important Thing Netanyahu Did in New York Wasn’t at the U.N.

The two leaders met on Sunday, in what was the first meeting between an Indian prime minister and his Israeli counterpart in 11 years. It was also Bibi’s first scheduled stop when he arrived in New York. “We are two old peoples, some of the oldest of the nations on earth, but we’re also two democracies,” Netanyahu said at a press appearance with Modi. “We’re proud of our rich traditions but we’re also eager to seize the future.” The Indian leader, who met earlier that day with American Jewish leaders, reciprocated in kind, noting “India is the only country where anti-Semitism has never been allowed to come up, and where Jews have … lived as an integral part of our society,” and that “there was a time in the city of Mumbai that Hebrew was officially taught in the university and even one of the mayors of Mumbai city was from a Jewish family.” But the meeting wasn’t simply an exchange of pleasantries.
Netanyahu invited Modi to visit Israel, something the Indian leader had done as a local governor in 2006, but would be historic for an Indian prime minister. And according to the Hindustan Times, the Israeli leader proposed a joint cyber-defense initiative between the Jewish state and India, laying the groundwork for closer intelligence and technological ties. Notably, while Modi went on to meet with other world leaders, he did not meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

What Israel Really Wants from Ties with China and India

But in reality, Israel is seeking a very different foreign-policy benefit from its trade ties with India and China–one it has never spelled out explicitly, for very good reason: What it wants is an economic insurance policy against European countries that it still officially labels as allies.
The EU currently accounts for about one-third of Israel’s exports. This constitutes a dangerous vulnerability, because Europe is the one place worldwide where Israel faces a real danger of economic boycotts and sanctions. Granted, few European leaders actually want this; they consider the economic relationship with Israel mutually beneficial. But European leaders are generally far more pro-Israel than their publics, and since European countries are democracies, public opinion matters.
To date, the public’s anti-Israel sentiment has produced only marginal sanctions, like those on Israeli exports from the West Bank (a minuscule percentage of Israel’s total exports). But Israel can’t rule out the possibility that public pressure will eventually produce more stringent sanctions if Jerusalem continues refusing to capitulate to EU demands on the Palestinian issue that are antithetical to its security. In short, Israel could someday face a devastating choice between its economic needs and its security needs–unless it can diversify its trade enough to be able to weather EU sanctions if and when they occur.
And that’s precisely what Israel seeks from China and India, two countries with a history of not allowing policy disagreements to interfere with business: If it can build up its Asian trade enough to reduce its economic dependence on Europe, it will be better placed to withstand European pressure to adopt policies inimical to its survival.

Israel’s Top Oil Supplier Endures Gaza as Azeri Ties Grow

What started as a marriage of convenience has netted Israel its closest Muslim ally.
The majority Shiite nation of Azerbaijan is the biggest supplier of oil to Israel, which reciprocates by selling sophisticated arms including missile systems and drones. While the flow of oil in exchange for advanced weapons is the backbone of the alliance, a confluence of interests is propelling the former Soviet republic on the Caspian Sea closer to Israel, often in defiance of discontent at home and dismay among neighbors Iran and Turkey.
Tested by Israel’s 50-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which sparked protests among Azeris, President Ilham Aliyev is throwing his lot in with Israel to maintain a military edge in a quarter-century-long conflict with Armenia. Azerbaijan, which together with Armenia also buys Russian weapons, benefits from access to advanced technology from Israel as part of $3.7 billion in annual spending on rearmament.

How Christians are Persecuted in the PA

“Persecution of Christians by Muslims throughout the Middle East is severe and has been progressively increasing in intensity. In the early twentieth century, Christians accounted for about twenty percent of the Middle East population. At present, this figure is estimated at around four percent.
“The persecution of Christians in the Palestinian territories is less severe than in a number of other Muslim countries. Yet, it is still discriminatory and sometimes fatal. However, this is hidden from the international community, partly by false statements from several Palestinian Christian leaders who are in alliance with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas.” 
Justus Reid Weiner is an international human rights lawyer and a member of the Israel and New York Bar Associations. He would like to express his appreciation to intern Nataniel Lelental for his contributions to this project.
“A few among many more examples of persecution and discrimination of Christians in the Palestinian territories illustrate their varied nature: In April 2013, the Christian Holy Family School in Gaza was set on fire.

Scholarship at Palestinian University Named After Dem Congressional Candidate Joe Bock

Indiana Democratic congressional candidate Joe Bock has a scholarship named after him at the Palestinian Al Quds University, a controversial institution that has come under fire for holding on its campus an anti-Israel rally that featured students dressed in military gear giving the traditional Nazi salute.
Bock, who is fighting to unseat Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski, has not much discussed the issue of Israel while on the campaign trail.
However, his past work with a group known for its anti-Israel activism, as well a scholarship in his name at Al Quds, could raise questions with some voters as Bock looks to defeat Walorski, who has built a record in Congress as a pro-Israel ally.

Anti-Israel J Street Launches Fundraising Blitz for Braley, Udall

The controversial liberal advocacy group J Street has launched a fundraising blitz for two of its “strongest allies on the Hill,” Rep. Bruce Braley (D., Iowa) and Sen. Mark Udall (D., Colo.).
“We can’t afford to lose these two races,” J Street political director Dan Kalik wrote in a recent email to supporters, urging them to donate at least $18 dollars to Udall and Braley.
J Street, which recently came under fire for accusing Israel of “fanning the flames of growing anti-Semitism,” said that it is depending on Udall and Braley to serve as vocal advocates for its pressure campaigns against Israel on the Hill.

J-Street’s Beyoncé Blunder

To conclude, of course J-Street’s raison d’etre is to lobby the American administration and lawmakers to pressure Israel. No doubt many Israelis will see that as anti-democratic. After all, here in Israel, we vote and choose our future. It is the height of arrogance for J Street to think they know better than Israelis who live here. But beyond their overarching goal, this latest campaign is silly and misleading.
So here’s my request to those behind the “Put a Border On It” campaign. As an Israeli, I and my fellow citizens would like nothing more to live in borders that we could be confident are safe. In case you have forgotten, we sat, hunkered down this summer in bomb shelters for weeks on end, with our nerves on edge at every boom overhead. Don’t be so arrogant as to lecture us on who wants peace, J Street. Israelis – of all shades and stripes – desperately want peace.
But here’s the rub – we also want to live. With Hamas continuing their efforts to attack us, with Hizbollah exercising more and more control in Lebanon, with Iran striding towards a Nuke and with ISIS at the gates – we are rightly worried about our borders, on all sides. Glibly stating that peace is in Israel’s gift to give, alone, is wrongheaded and dangerous because it misrepresents the facts, places pressure only on Israel and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
So, while you are busying yourself with Beyoncé memes, spare a thought for us and the very real danger we face in Israel trying to build a secure, free, future for ourselves. After all, you say you are “pro-Israel” don’t you? So if are, and you like it, put a lid on it.

World Council of Churches presents: World week for release of Palestinian terrorists

Despite its self-styled role as a prophetic voice, the World Council of Churches (WCC) again displayed its bias against Israel. Last week, September 21-27, WCC observed its fourth annual “World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel” (WWPPI), organized by WCC’s Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF).
Last week’s theme was “Let My People Go” and, based on the input of many highly politicized non-governmental organizations (NGOs), called for the release of all Palestinian “political prisoners” held by Israel. This, in WCC’s definition, includes those convicted of murder and other acts of terrorism against civilians.
How is this call consistent with a prophetic voice? Why was WCC promoting an event purporting to encourage reconciliation that instead degrades the rule of law and rewards violence?

Editor of Medical Journal That Published Anti-Israel Letter Visits Haifa Hospital

The Rambam Health Care Campus (RHCC) in the northern Israeli city of Haifa is hosting a series of meetings this week with Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, which came under fire this summer for publishing an open letter signed by 24 doctors and scientists who accused Israel of a “massacre” as well as a “ruthless assault of unlimited duration, extent, and intensity” in Gaza.
The Israeli hospital said it invited Horton in order to showcase the diversity of the facility’s staff and patients as well as the medical cooperation regularly taking place between RHCC and the Palestinian Authority in order to treat patients in Gaza and the West Bank. In addition to treating Gazan patients and training Palestinian physicians, the hospital is receiving wounded Syrian refugees. Recently, RHCC doctors conducted a successful kidney transplant on a 14-year-old boy from Gaza.
RHCC is proving that medicine has “no borders,” Prof. Rafi Beyar, the director of RHCC,recently told JNS.org. Many of the hospital’s Gazan patients are children facing cancer and kidney diseases. “These kids don’t have any other solutions,” Beyar said.

NYU Students Fail to Protest Abbas or Defend the Jewish State

If you’d been driving down Bowery Avenue in New York City last Monday night, you might have noticed approximately 20 young Jewish students standing on the side of the road screaming “Shame on Cooper!” That night, Mahmoud Abbas had arrived to give a speech at the Great Hall of Cooper Union, which stands nestled within the campus of NYU.
What you might not have noticed is that the entire group was under the age of 18, and had come from the local Rambam High School. There are more than 50,000 students at NYU, and almost a third of them are Jewish. Yet, aside from me and these High School students, not one had shown up to protest the honorable platform that had been provided to the blood-soaked despot that is Mahmoud Abbas.
In the arena of pro-Israel activism, a small private high-school had outshone more than 10,000 Jewish students at NYU. Even worse, they’d done so at what we might call an NYU home-game.

Loyola U. Chicago suspends, then reinstates anti-Israel group

Loyola University Chicago suspended and subsequently reinstated its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
The action followed an anti-Israel protest this month by the SJP chapter that blocked an event promoting Birthright Israel.
According to a statement released by Loyola, the university informed the chapter on Sept. 19 that it was “temporarily prevented from hosting any on-campus activities or events until their leadership meets with University representatives and the group complies with stated policies and procedures that apply to all student organizations.”
After meetings with university officials on Sept. 25 and 26, the group was allowed to resume its activities.

Electronic Intifada’s Rania Khalek Libels Mordechai Kedar

We already know that Ali “Abumination” Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada will use lies and deception to achieve its goal of demonizing Israel. And today is no exception.
In a particularly insidious piece, notorious Israel basher and confirmer of a Norwegian doctor Rania Khalek calls Mordechai Kedar, Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, a “rape advocate.”

The Guardian caught using wrong photo to highlight anti-Israel protest at Californian port.

The Guardian has been caught out in a fauxtography fail when it reported on 29th September 2014 on an otherwise barely noticed anti-Israel demonstration in Oakland, California.
According to The Guardian 200 anti-Israel protesters managed to cow the International Longshore and Warehouse Union into agreeing not to unload the Israeli-owned ship Zim Shanghai in the Port of Oakland, CA.
There’s something quite funny about a group of burly longshoremen being shouted into submission by a group of screaming yahoos. Perhaps that is why The Guardian chose to post this picture instead:
Michael Brown’s original article dated 21st August 2014 about Ferguson does indeed contain the snap The Guardian inexplicably decided to use for the story about the Israeli cargo ship dated 29th September 2014!
Footnote:
While the Zim Shanghai was heading to the Port of Los Angeles to be unloaded unhindered there may now be substantial financial repercussions for the Port of Oakland due to its perceived unreliability. There is not only the possibility of losing 150 visits by Zim ships each year but other shipping companies could now become wary of docking there.

The Truth About Israel and Dissent

If Zonszein is far from the finest thinker and writer, it is much more difficult to excuse the Times this lapse of judgment. If the newspaper truly believes Zonszein’s premise, it should push its reporters on the ground to do their jobs and report on these very serious allegations: if Israel has joined the ranks of the world’s most benighted regimes, and is silencing the voices of dissenters, such news ought to be reported not on the op-ed page but on the front page. Otherwise, it’s hard not to see the decision to run Zonszein’s piece as driven, at best, by the reckless calculation of click-bait, or by the same lazy narratives of convenience that paint Israel as a black-and-white villain because it makes the world easier to understand.
But there’s time for repentance yet: if the Shrinking Grey Lady cares so deeply about quashing dissent, it may want to consider having one of their reporters place a call to Mudar Zahran, a leader of the Palestinian community in Jordan who used his own connections to convince Gazans to speak freely about life under Hamas. “If Hamas does not like you for any reason,” went one typical testimony, “all they have to do now is say you are a Mossad agent and kill you.” That’s what silencing dissent sounds like. And substituting a bogus story with an incendiary headline for a real story in order to maintain a simplistic narrative of heroes and villains has nothing to do with the practice of journalism. Rather, it’s what journalism was invented to guard against.

The BBC’s Ongoing, Pervasive Distortion of Gaza Casualty Figures

No effort is made to inform BBC audiences, for example, of the ongoing analysis being carried out by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre which, after examination of some 35% of the named casualties, so far indicates that the ratio of combatants to civilians stands at 49% to 51% respectively.
The section goes on to present graphics including one complied on the basis of information provided, inter alia, by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health and “Al Akhbar” – an anti-Israel Lebanese online media organization considered by some to be pro-Hezbollah. It further includes ‘analysis’ from the BBC’s head of statistics who – as readers may recall – was forced to radically amend a previous article on the topic of casualties in the Gaza Strip due to outside pressure from politically motivated organizations.

Anti-semitic anti-Israel propaganda delivered to Birmingham homes

"Slaney St Free" - (described on their website as a "Birmingham based democratic news co-operative") is a free monthly newspaper delivered to homes throughout Birmingham. It is not clear who funds it, as the website 'about' link is empty. The September edition - delivered to the home of a friend - has the Palestine flag on its cover and contains some of the most vicious anti-Israel propaganda I have seen outside of Muslim countries - mixed in with good old-fashioned anti-semitism.
As an example, the article below by Robert Brenchley called the "Cleansing of Palestine" repeats all the usual well-known lies and blood libels (including the infamous maps that lie) and inversion of reality (whereby it is the Jews who are apparently racist and terrorists and "Israel has had opportunity after opportunity to make peace and settle the conflict, and has thrown away every one of them."). But it also contains some fairly novel material such as the spectacularly bizarre notion of Israel's 'demonization of Arab resistance' which presumably means that Israel is committing a crime for trying to stop terrorists killing its civilians. The article misquotes a fringe Israeli politician to conclude that the policy of the Government of Israel is to commit a Nazi-style genocide against the Palestinians. And it claims that the Jewish suffering in the Holocaust was not only not unique, but "was one of many genocides that resulted from the spread of the European empires". This is the kind of material that is especially being used to target and brainwash students.

Dutch teen suspended after threatening to cut off Jews’ heads

The De Spindel high school in Hengelo, a city in eastern Netherlands, suspended the 14-year-old in recent days, according to a report Saturday by the De Telegraaf daily. The student, who according to the newspaper is a Muslim boy of Balkan descent, was identified in the media only as Ilhan M.
“Hi, I am from ISIS and I would like to cut off the heads of Jews,” he is seen as saying, followed by profanities about Jewish women.
It is not yet clear whether the teen was suspended because of the video or a recent inquiry by police initiated earlier this month after faculty reported that he may have possessed a weapon. Police found the boy owned a prop gun.

Why is Adolf Hitler popular in India?

Growing up in India, Rohee Dasgupta didn’t realize the irony on display in bookstores across the country. There, next to the Diary of Anne Frank or biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, would be a copy of Adolf Hitler’s infamous polemic, Mein Kampf. It was only after spending numerous years in the United Kingdom studying anthropology and Eastern European Jewish history that she was taken aback.
“It was rather striking and odd. It just shows ignorance to display Anne Frank and Mein Kampf on the same shelf,” says Dr. Dasgupta, now a professor of European Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University, a private Indian university north of Delhi.
It’s hard to miss Mein Kampf on the shelves of India’s bookstores. One of the country’s largest book chains, Crosswords, holds four copies of it in a glitzy and Western- infused shopping center in the northern city of Udaipur.
Small book vendors setting up shanty shops on the sidewalks around New Delhi’s upscale Connaught Place display the book prominently. In one of Delhi’s most popular local bookshops, Bahrisons, they always make sure to have two copies in stock.
“It’s a classic for us, we have to sell it,” said Mithilesh Singh, Bahrisons’ floor manager. When I first approached Singh to talk about the book he grinned.
“At least once a year someone from the West asks me questions about this book.”
He said on average the store sells up to 10 copies each month, and that those who buy it come from all walks of life.
Overhearing my conversation with Singh prompted Bahrisons patron Renuka Narayanan to add, “It’s curiosity about a really sick and evil mind. We read it the way you read [Karl Marx’s] Das Kapital.” Curiosity, at least in one part, stems from the fact that Hitler, and the book, “had such an impact.”

Argentina's President Sees Jewish Conspiracy?

Addressing the assembly, Fernandez charged that “The Jewish institutions that always support us, they turned against us. When we signed the agreement [of cooperation with Iran] it seemed that the internal and external demons were unleashed. Jewish institutions who had accompanied us turned against us. When we decided to cooperate they accused us of complicity with the State of Iran.”
The speech was not well received by Argentina's Jewish leaders. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency quoted Julio Schlosser, head of the country’s Jewish political umbrella organization, as saying “we've always said that the Republic of Iran, or the terrorist state of Iran, is not a valid partner since they are not trustworthy in any memorandum that seeks the truth. She (Fernandez) tried to turn victims into victimizers. We were victims of terrorism. We are the victims of the only demon which is the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Kirchner appeared to draw a link between Jewish opposition to Argentina's cooperation with Iran on the AMIA bombing, the “vulture funds” – commonly known as hold-out funds – that her country owes money to, and Israel's Gaza war, in her speech at the General Assembly. She devoted a large portion of her speech to the need to confront “economic terrorists” like the hold-out funds.

Muslim Zionist recalls his transformation

Kasim Hafeez was taught from childhood that much of the evil in the world could be attributed to Jews and Israel.
The child of Muslim Pakistani parents in Nottingham, England, Hafeez saved his money to fund a trip to a jihadist training camp.
However, a book and a trip to Israel to view the society he had long despised forced him to rethink his former views. They turned a budding terrorist into an avid Zionist who speaks on behalf of his former enemies, including on college campuses and to multi-faith groups.
“I used to be an anti-Semite who thought the way to peace was to kill Jews,” said Hafeez during a Sept. 7 program at Congregation B’nai Tikvah in North Brunswick, cosponsored by StandWithUs, a pro-Israel education and advocacy organization.

Son of Hamas: Education Combined With Islamist Ideology Makes for More Deadly Palestinian Terrorism

Islamist ideology together with advanced education makes for a deadly combination for Gazan Palestinians, the son of one of Hamas’ founders, and a former spy for Israel, asserted at a recent event in New York.
“If you give Palestinians opportunity and higher education and they’re still under the influence of a deadly ideology, they will use this education for deadly terrorist attacks,” Mosab Hassan Yousef said at a private screening of his new film The Green Prince, which is based on his life story as an informant for Israel. “I guarantee you this because actually the most dangerous terrorists, those are the ones with higher education. Those are the ones who went to engineering schools. You’ll find [a] connection between engineering schools and bomb-making.”
“We need first to shift the paradigm that is created by the culture, the environment, the ideology. Once we are able to expose the lies of the ideology and help them shift their paradigms, education is not the only way,” he added.
Yousef was born in Ramallah and is the eldest son of Hamas founder and the movement’s leader in the West Bank, Sheikh Hassan Yousef. The Sheikh was a leader of the Second Intifada and has been arrested multiple times by Israel.

Honest Reporting: Blankfeld Award 2014: The Winner is . . .

HonestReporting is proud to announce that Elijah Granet, 19, from San Diego, California, and currently studying in New York City, is the winner of the third Blankfeld Award for Media Critique.
It was a unanimous decision to give this year’s award to Elijah Granet, currently majoring in Political Science and Talmud at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. Elijah has been a regular contributor to the Times of Israel blog section and wrote several opinion pieces for the Daily Californian having spent the first year of college at the University of California, Berkley.
Elijah has been a dedicated Israel activist from high school where he founded an AIPAC club to his time at UC Berkley where he was on the executive board of the Tikvah: Students for Israel group. Elijah was also a recipient of the Goor Prize in Jewish Studies.

Rock in the Red Zone: music and romance in Sderot

When Los Angeles documentary filmmaker Laura Bialis came to Sderot in 2007 to see how its music scene was shaped by the unrelenting drum of Kassam rockets, she found a flourishing “little Liverpool” in the small working-class city less than a mile from the Gaza Strip.
Bialis fell in love with Sderot and married one of its musicians, Avi Vaknin. Ultimately, Sderot’s story became hers.
Rock in the Red Zone will have its world premiere on Oct. 12, 13 and 14 at the 30th Haifa International Film Festival.
Though filming began seven years ago, the movie ends with present-day scenes. Bialis believes its message is especially relevant in the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge.
“The film is about life under rocket fire in the South, but as I was making the film I had the sense that in many ways Sderot is a microcosm of Israel, a kind of a metaphor,” she tells ISRAEL21c.

Israel Daily Picture: Yom Kippur at the Western Wall 100 Years Ago - reposting a feature from last year

On Saturday, Jews around the world will commemorate Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. For many centuries, Jews in the Land of Israel prayed at the Western Wall, the remnant of King Herod's retaining wall of the Temple complex destroyed in 70 AD.
Several readers noticed and commented on the intermingling of men and women in these historic pictures.
It was not by choice.
The Turkish and British rulers of Jerusalem imposed severe restrictions on the Jewish worshipers, prohibiting chairs, forbidding screens to divide the men and women, and even banning the blowing of the shofar at the end of the Yom Kippur service. Note that the talit prayer shawls, normally worn by men throughout Yom Kippur, are not visible in the pictures.
We found one rare picture in an Irish church's archives, dated 1897, showing men wearing prayer shawls at the Kotel.