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Monday, September 30, 2013

9/30 Links Pt2: Story of the Jews - Last Episode, Kurdish Festival in Jerusalem, More EU Hypocrisy

From Ian:

'Israeli Apartheid? I Know What Apartheid Really Is'
After participating in a two-day conference held in Jerusalem last week, Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, a member of the Parliament of South Africa and founder of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), vocalized why calling Israel an apartheid state actually "minimizes the pain of apartheid."
Meshoe, along with 25 other international members of parliament, is one of the chairmen of the Israel Allies Caucuses, which represent hundreds of members of Congress and Parliament around the world. Under the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), these caucuses coordinate international activity on Israel-related issues.
Daphne Anson: "Christian Palestinianism ... The Inverted Mirror Image Of Christian Zionism"
Below is a very disturbing insight into the malicious phenomenon dubbed "Christian Palestinianism" as exposed by Dr Paul Wilkinson, of Hazel Grove Gospel Church in Stockport, Cheshire and author of For Zion’s Sake: Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby. In this talk a couple of years ago (but no less valuable for that) he demonstrates the political revisionism, replacement theology, and repugnant teachings of organisations like Sabeel that promote a movement in which "The Holocaust is resented, not remembered," that ignores the violence to which Israel is subject, and that aims to portray Jesus not as what he was, a Jew from Judea, but as a "Palestinian born under occupation".
Muslim scholar: 'I refuse to let Islam fall captive to the Islamists'
There is such a thing as a different kind of Islam. Dr. Qanta Ahmed, a student of pluralistic Islam, is a British physician specializing in sleep disorders. She is also an author, a newspaper columnist and an associate professor of medicine at the State University of New York. Her paper on "The psychological manipulation of Islam in the service of terror focusing on the cultural phenomenon of suicide bombing," made her the first physician and first Muslim woman to be selected as a 2010 Templeton-Cambridge Fellow in Journalism at the University of Cambridge.
Ahmed arrived in Israel last week to attend the 13th International Counterterrorism Conference, hosted by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, where we met. For us, who are accustomed to anti-Israeli positions, her sympathetic views on Israel breed hope that there is such a thing as a different kind of Islam.
Europe wouldn’t allow it, why should Israel?
More importantly, even without legislation, there is no country that allows foreign donations for radical political NGOs that undermine the country’s founding ethos. There is not one country in Europe that dreams of funding one of the bodies in Germany dealing with the rights of refugees from central Europe. And of course, there is not one European country that would deliver money to an NGO in the Czech Republic or in Poland promoting the German right of return (if such an organization existed).
Double Standards
Those are the rules in Europe. So why do official government bodies in Europe heavily fund NGOs promoting the destructive fantasy of the Palestinian right of return to Israel? Why is there a European fortune, according to a report by NGO Monitor, behind a conference of an extreme left Israeli NGO preaching the “right of return?” There is, after all, no “right of return” for the tens of thousands of exiles inside Europe who were deported in the 1940s, and certainly there is no funding for NGOs dealing with this issue. The idea of return contradicts the European Human Rights Court ruling in the matter of refugees in Cyprus and regarding Germans deported from Poland. So why are principles that are widely accepted in Europe practically and legally turned upside down when it comes to the Middle East?
European MPs: Why We Support Israel
Three members of the European Union parliament who were in Jerusalem last week for the Israel Allies Caucuses spoke to Arutz Sheva about why they support Israel.
Italian representative Magdi Christiano Allam cited Israel’s freedom of religion, and said he hopes that Europe will come to realize that only Israel will guarantee freedom of worship at the many holy sites in Jerusalem.
Netherlands representatives Bastiaan Belder explained why Europe needs healthy ties with Israel – and why he is concerned that the EU’s current policy may come across as “double faced.”
Barry Rubin: The region: How the far Left controls campuses
What was he talking about? Jews? He explained that he had just come from a meeting where it had been made clear that the university had a problem: It was getting Arab money, but on the secret condition that while it was for teaching about the Middle East, none of it could be used to teach about Israel. The purpose of the meeting had been how to solve this problem. The solution? Simple: They would call the institution to be created the “Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.” It was explicitly expressed that this was how the problem would be dealt with.
Quigley expressed his disgust to me.
Ever since then, I have referred to that institution as the “Center for Contemporary Arab Money.”
Jewish Group Takes California State University Trustees to Task Over Anti-Israel Professor
AMCHA Initiative, a national organization fighting anti-Semitism on college campuses, is taking the Board of Trustees of California State University to task over a CSU-Northridge mathematics professor’s use of the school’s name and resources to promote the boycott of Israel.
In what could be a precedent-setting move, AMCHA is asking the university’s trustees, meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday at their annual summit, to respond to specific California legislation that bars university employees from using school resources, in this case email and web hosting, to support a boycott.
Camera: Personifying C-SPAN's Tolerance of Anti-Israel, Anti-Jewish Callers
The record, clearly shown by video clips and transcripts at C-SPAN Watch, proves that Washington Journal routinely accepts callers' anti-Jewish racism and anti-Israel defamation including blaming Jews for problems throughout the world. No other ethnic or religious group has been subjected to such continuous and virulent defamation on the network. Israel is the only country defamed on a regular basis by a cadre of determined, indulged callers who are rarely challenged by hosts or guests.
One of the most troublesome aspects of this chronic problem is C-SPAN management's complete indifference to it – a refusal to respond to complaints or acknowledge it in any way. C-SPAN is long overdue, whether due to ignorance or design, to correct Journal's journalistic malpractice of allowing inflammatory, antisemitic fallacies to be disseminated to millions of potential viewers. Cable television viewers should e-mail, call or write TV providers (cable or satellite) and urge them to call for an end to this chronic problem. Keep in mind that a portion of your cable/satellite fees supports C-SPAN.
What makes US-Israeli intelligence co-operation exceptional?
Simply put, it takes a rather large journalistic leap to assert that the NSA is routinely sending unminimized information about U.S. citizens to Israel without any protection measures.
The fact remains that the U.S. is engaged in sober and even-handed intelligence gathering. Of course the United States should and does share intelligence with Israel as many of the same people and terrorist groups would target both countries. It is hard to get too concerned up about what Israel might do with any unminimized information that might come its way. They have very real threats along their borders and beyond. It is most likely that their resources are devoted to the terrorist groups and hostile governments in their own neighborhood, rather than the email I just sent my parents.
Will Norway’s New Government Crack Down on Anti-Semitism?
Earlier this month, conservative candidates in Norway won landslide elections, deposing the Labour party majority that has ruled for nearly a decade. Many are hopeful that the new government will address social intolerance in Norway, including the rampant anti-Semitism affecting a population of nearly 2,000 Jews.
But Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, an author who has written extensively on the prejudices facing Norway’s Jewish community, is skeptical that Norwegians will be able to forget their prejudices. He uses the phrase “part-time anti-Semitism” to describe common attitudes and to highlight the general public’s susceptibility to bias.

French Comedian: ‘One Can be Jewish and Not be Completely Disgusting’ (VIDEO)
New York based French Jewish artist, activist and Algemeiner blogger Ron Agam said that “These incendiary remarks are the culmination of an attitude often found in French media where Jews are often demonized for their support of Israel.”
“These two minutes set off a huge storm within the Jewish community in France, including outrage and demands of resignation addressed to CANAL+,” Agam said. “The indignity is mounting daily; the realization that such words of extreme gravity can be pronounced on TV is creating a feeling that it is OK to lash out with anti-Semitic remarks.”
Chinese billionaire to fund joint China-Technion program
The richest man in Asia is giving $130 million to the Technion to build a research center in China. Li Ka Shing, estimated to be worth some $31 billion – and, according to Forbes, the world’s eighth-richest man – is funding the joint project between the Technion and Shantou University, located in Guangdong Province.
The new center, to be called the Technion Guangdong Institute of Technology (TGIT), will be located on its own 330,000 square meter campus to be built by the local government, while the Li Ka Shing Foundation (LKSF) will fund projects and programs at the new center. LKSF is the main funding arm for Shantou, providing nearly all of the school’s HK$6 billion endowment. The $130 million gift for the joint Technion-Shantou project, meanwhile, constitutes the largest gift ever to the Technion, and one of the largest to any Israeli school.
Cultural pride, and unlikely guests, at Kurdish Jewish festival
Muslim visitors travel from Syria and Iraq to join their brethren at the annual Saharane celebration in Jerusalem
“The Kurdish people you know are in four lands, and you go to Israel, a country like Israel — a powerful country, a big country — and you see Kurdish people there, and they are powerful, it makes you very very happy. I thought I will go and see old people, but I saw young people dancing, singing, it was really great.”
Seeing an immigrant Kurdish community thrive was especially exciting for Darwish.
“Before I came to Israel, I thought, no, nobody helps us, no one gives us anything. But now that I was there, and I saw the people, I say why not, these people are Kurdish, and they are strong, and they get help from Israel. And I think that between Kurdistan and Israel the relation is very good. (h/t Zvi)
First Egyptian Righteous Among the Nations honored
The Berlin-trained Dr. Mohamed Helmy is credited with saving 21-year-old Anna Boros Gutman and her family, whom he helped starting in 1942.
During a wave of Jewish deportation in the city, Helmy hid Gutman in a cabin he owned in Berlin-Buch, where she stayed until almost the end of World War II. Her parents and grandmother were hidden separately
Denmark marks 70th anniversary of rescue of Jews
A ceremony has been held in Denmark to mark the 70th anniversary of the evacuation of 7,300 Jews during World War II to prevent their deportation to a Nazi concentration camp.
At Copenhagen’s synagogue Sunday, Jewish community leader Finn Schwarz told several hundred people it was “almost a miracle” that the October 1943 operation in Nazi-occupied Denmark dodged German patrol boats to deliver the Jews across a waterway to neutral Sweden.
The Story of the Jews Episode 5/5 - Return