Friday, March 07, 2014
The Obscenity of Blaming Zionism for the Holocaust: A Response
Wolfgang G. Schwanitz answers Tablet’s review of his and Barry Rubin’s book
In his Feb. 3 review in Tablet, David Mikics misrepresents our book Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East. It is not a biography of the grand mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husaini, though one is in the making, and Mikics fails to show how it compares to related works. He bit off more than he can chew. Thus, he exaggerates: the book, he alleges, purports to demonstrate that “Zionism caused the Holocaust.” He then calls this invention “their logic, a “flawed conclusion,” as if he were refuting what he has in fact attributed to us. In the light of Barry Rubin’s passing—see the obituary by Lee Smith in Tablet—I will answer here.Sarah Honig: Krake Zuckerberg
Zionists rescued Jews on many occasions: in the attempted genocide in Palestine 1915 to 1917, in the Holocaust of World War II, and thereafter in global pogroms and Middle Eastern conflicts. As we have shown, the seeds of the State of Israel stem from the advent of Zionism and the League of Nations. At its 1922 San Remo conference this world body assigned the mandate of Palestine to Great Britain as 52 states recognized historical ties of the Jewish people with Palestine and favored the “reconstituting of their home” there.
Most German publications no longer even pretend any wariness about coming off as anti-Jewish. Gone are the days when Germans had to at least appear a tad more cautious than their fellow Europeans. The latter reverted quickly enough to their old Jew-baiting habits but the Germans have willy-nilly caught up.Richard Millett: Jews under attack at Centre for Palestine Studies as Ilan Pappe comes to SOAS.
A cogent example is being consistently provided by Munich’ s left-liberalSueddeutsche Zeitung, which also happens to be Germany’s largest broadsheet daily. It recently featured a cartoon lampooning Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg after his outfit had acquired WhatsApp. The idea was to show Zuckerberg as a voracious octopus that swallows up everything around it. The caption at the bottom left-hand corner of the cartoon clearly read “Krake Zuckerberg” (German for Octopus Zuckerberg.) Up to this point, it’s tolerable criticism.
But the octopus, as drawn by cartoonist Burkhard Mohr, was also given quite a distinctive face. Its function, presumably, was to make sure we don’t lose sight of the fact that young Zuckerberg – innovative enough to have given the world a social network which millions of Germans also use – is a Jew. To that end, Mohr portrayed him with a preposterous hook-nose and thick fish-lips – as per the freakish stereotype sinisterly ascribed to Jews by their tormentors.
Jews came under fire last night at the Centre for Palestine Studies, based at SOAS and under the chairmanship of Gilbert Achcar. It was irrelevant if you are a Jew in Israel, Scotland, Wales or England. Ilan Pappe, the CPS guest speaker, doesn’t discriminate.
Pappe, a lecturer at Exeter University, started by saying he wished “to answer the riddle of the growing gap between the image Israeli Jews have of themselves and the external image the world has of them”. In North Korea the gap between the view North Koreans have of themselves and that of them by outside world would not be much different, but in Israel there is “genuine difference”.
Vatican denies reports Pope cancels visit to Israel in May
The Vatican denied on Friday reports coming from Israel stating that Pope Francis has cancelled his visit to Israel, scheduled for May, due to the ongoing strike of Israel's Foreign Ministry workers.Presbyterians Have It Back-to-Front on Zionism
"The strike may create difficulties but for now there is nothing further as far as were concerned," said Father Frederico Lombardi.
The Pontiff's May 24-26 trip to Amman, Bethlehem and Jerusalem will mark the 50th anniversary of a landmark trip there by Pope Paul VI in 1964, the first by a pope in modern times. Pope John Paul II visited in 2000 and Benedict XVI went in 2009.
In the neighborhood of Kerem Hateymanim, the bougainvillea spill out over the terraces. The one-story homes, built higgledy-piggledy, jostle for space. Here, like in much of south Tel Aviv, outsiders have been buying up property as the area undergoes inevitable gentrification. But in the beginning, the neighborhood was constructed out of wooden beams and tin roofs by desperately poor Jews from the Yemen in 1904, before Tel Aviv itself was founded.Do Funders Like George Soros Pose a Threat to Evangelical Christian Support for Israel?
It has become almost received wisdom that the first Zionists to resettle in 19th century Palestine were European Jews. Not so. The Jewish immigrants from Yemen arrived in 1882, seven months before the first wave of Jewish farmers from Russia.
The Zionists arriving from Yemen on foot were living proof that their yearning to live as masters of their own destiny in the land of Israel had been a motivating force for Mizrahi (oriental) Jews before Theodor Herzl made his mark. For centuries before them, waves of Sephardi (Spanish) Jews from the Ottoman Empire had resettled in Hebron, Jerusalem, Safed and Tiberias.
For well over a century, Christian Zionists have been steadfast in their support for a Jewish homeland. Emerging from this movement, Evangelical Christians have served as the foundation of Christian Zionism due to a number of theological, moral, and political reasons. At the same time, there is a growing movement of mainline Protestants who are critical of Israel.NGO Monitor: "Christ at the Checkpoint" Aims to Weaken Evangelical Support for Israel
With the support of anti-Israel Palestinian groups and non-governmental organizations funded by liberal philanthropists like George Soros, some are seeking to sway Evangelicals away from support for Israel.
Can Israel and the Jewish community take Evangelical support for granted, or will Evangelicals follow the path of mainline Protestant groups in their growing criticism of the Jewish state?
“There has always been an undercurrent of anti-Zionism in parts of the Evangelical community. It was always there, but it was a marginal force,” Dexter Van Zile, Christian media analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), told JNS.org.
In advance of the 3rd "Christ at the Checkpoint" conference, set to take place March 10-14 in Bethlehem, NGO Monitor released a report: Christ at the Checkpoint: How the U.S., U.K. and Dutch Governments Enable Religious Strife and Foment Mideast Conflict. This detailed report, part of theBDS in the Pews project, examines the funding sources of Christ at the Checkpoint, and their impact on the conference's agenda.Pink Floyd star falls foul of Sir Gerald Ronson
BDS in the Pews Director, Yitzhak Santis, said, "Our research indicates that the conference's political purpose is to weaken Evangelical Christian support for Israel in the United States and elsewhere. They do this by providing a stage to delegitimize the State of Israel and rejecting its historical, religious and legal underpinnings."
The conference's sponsors, Bethlehem Bible College and Holy Land Trust, have been directly and indirectly funded by the governments of the United States, the Netherlands, the UK, and prominent religious and educational institutions.
The hostilities between Roger Waters and the Jewish community has intensified with Gerald Ronson accusing the co-founder of the rock band Pink Floyd of being anti-Semitic.'Disappearing Palestine' Ad Going To Canada Supreme Court
At a dinner of the Community Security Trust at the Grosvenor House Hotel attended by Ed Miliband, Dominic Grieve, Ed Balls and Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi, Ronson, the charity’s chairman, made withering reference to the rock star. “You may remember Roger Waters from the rock band Pink Floyd,” he said. “Nowadays, at his concerts, he has a giant inflatable pig with a huge Star of David scrawled across it.”
To scornful laughter from his audience, he added: “But, he insists that he is only anti-Israel, and is not, of course, anti-Semitic.” Ronson was referring to an inflatable pig, stamped with the Star of David, that Waters, a vociferous champion of Palestine, floated during a concert in Brussels last year.
A pro-Arab organization in Canada, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), has resorted to a supreme court petition after its ad campaign smearing Israel was blocked.Ethiopian/Israeli Delegation Headed for South Africa To Counter Apartheid Weeks
The ad campaign features a map series entitled "Disappearing Palestine," depicting the Israeli "occupation of Palestine since 1946." The spurious maps show a "Palestine Mandate" in 1946 occupying nearly all of Israel, in reference to the period of British, not Arab, control. The current end of the spectrum shows only Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria, administered by the Palestinian Authority (PA), as "Palestine."
The IDC Herzliya, in cooperation with the Zionist Federation of South Africa and StandWithUs, have organized a very special mission to South Africa.European Youth Group Votes Against Boycotting Products From Judea and Samaria
Our tremendous partnership will take a group of Ethiopian Israelis to schools and communities in SA to discuss Israel as a country that stands out as a light among nations because of its diversity and human rights.
Their outreach events on campuses in Johannesburg and Cape Town will counter so-called “Israel Apartheid Weeks”, being run by pro BDS-Boycott groups and will help give a different perspective to South African students as they discuss everyday life in Israel, the diversity of Israeli society as well as their own families journey to escape persecution and reach their Jewish homeland.
The Youth of the European People’s Party (YEPP)—a center-right political youth organization representing 39 European countries has cast the first-ever vote against boycotting products and factories in Judea and Samaria.Anti-Israel academic boycotters reaping counter-boycott they sowed
The Samaria Regional Council in tandem with Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu party youth leaders successfully lobbied to pass the vote against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which took place at the YEPP conference in Hungary. (h/t Yenta Press)
Butler and the academic boycotters are also part of a BDS movement conceived at the anti-Semitic 2001 Durban NGO conference and which at its core is simply the latest in a century of anti-Jewish boycotts directed at Jews and only Jews in the region.Minister Tim Uppal responds to the one-sided anti-Jewish referendum at University of Windsor h/t IsraellyCool
After the American Studies Association anti-Israel boycott, for which Butler actively advocated, there is something of a counter-boycott growing.
Butler is a subject of that growing movement, recently withdrawing from a Jewish Museum event after protests at her invitation.
That’s one of the problems with academic boycotts — they are easy to start, but hard to contain. If Butler can boycott Israeli academics, then why can’t pro-Israel academics, students and supporters boycott Butler?
Muslim group urges Egypt to ban Paramount Pictures' 'Noah'
A Muslim group in Egypt is urging the country to ban the Paramount Pictures epic depicting the biblical story of Noah and his ark, Al Arabiya reported on Thursday.Rome Jewish leader also received pig’s head
Egypt-based Al-Azhar published a statement Thursday, with the title “Al-Azhar prohibits the screening of a film that characterizes Noah.”
“Al-Azhar renews its rejection to the screening of any productions that characterizes Allah’s prophets and messengers and the companions of the Prophet [Mohammad],” Al Arabiya quoted the statement as saying.
The president of the Rome Jewish community revealed that he too had been sent the severed head of a pig about 10 days after pig heads were sent to Rome’s main synagogue, the Israeli embassy and a museum with an exhibit on Jewish culture in January.Technion ranked among world's 100 top universities
Riccardo Pacifici made the revelation during testimony Wednesday at the trial of seven right-wing extremists accused of violating Italy’s anti-racism, anti-fascism laws by scrawling anti-Semitic graffiti on city walls. Pacifici said he had not alerted the media to the incident earlier in order not to give it attention.
Times Higher Education -- a weekly business publication based in London and sponsored by Thompson Reuters -- has ranked the Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology one of the world's 100 most prestigious universities. The Haifa-based university and 10 other schools were ranked 91-100 on the 2014 World Reputation Rankings list published Wednesday.University of Colorado gets Holocaust archive
The list is compiled from a survey of 10,536 senior, published academics from 133 countries who were asked to list what they considered the best institutions in their field of expertise. "While reputation is based on subjective opinion, in this case it is the informed, expert opinion of those in the know: experienced scholars from around the world," said Phil Baty, editor at large of Times Higher Education magazine.
The University of Colorado in Boulder is the new home of an extensive collection of Holocaust-era documents, books and photographs.International Women's Day brings IDF servicewomen to the front
The university on Tuesday announced the donation of the Mazal Holocaust Collection, calling it the world’s largest privately owned Holocaust archive and the most significant in the United States outside museums.
The collection includes original transcripts of the Nuremburg trials. It was amassed by Harry W. Mazal, a retired Mexico City businessman who lived in San Antonio, Texas, before his death in 2011.
International Women’s Day is a celebration of women worldwide, but it is easy to forget the girls who place themselves in danger everyday for their nation.IDF Blog: International Women’s Day: Facts You Need to Know About Women in the IDF
“There are a lot of girls here in the combat unit. That’s more than you could say for I think any other country if I’m right,” said 26-year-old combat soldier Chaya Winterseld. “The girls give of themselves what they can. They push themselves as much as they can.”
Women have proudly served in the IDF since its establishment. Almost all positions in the IDF are open to women, and they serve in every branch of our military. This International Women’s Day, we are celebrating the growing role women play in defending the State of Israel. Share these facts with your friends.PM to Hollywood stars: Make movies about Israel
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu continued his visit to California with a stop at Israeli movie producer Arnon Milchan's home in Malibu, where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Barbra Streisand.Netanyahu Gives Tour of Israel Tonight on PBS
Kate Hudson and Keanu Reeves were also guests at the gathering, as were Netanyahu's wife Sara and son Yair.
Milchan, a multi-billionaire and leader in the film industry, is behind such films as Pretty Woman and War of the Roses.
Interested in a tour of Israel led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? You’re in luck. Tonight at 8 p.m. on Channel 13, PBS will be premiering the hour-long documentary Israel: The Royal Tour. In it, Netanyahu gives journalist Peter Greenberg a tour of the Holy Land, from the snow-topped peaks of the north to the deserts of the south. Together they float in the Dead Sea, take a boat through the Red Sea, and raft down the Jordan river. They visit the ancient site of Masada before traveling to Haifa to see the high-tech world of the Technion.Visit the Knesset with Google Maps
“It was a great mix from the Mediterranean Sea to the (Negev) desert. We had a lot of fun. He said that he hadn’t been on a bicycle for years because of security,” Greenberg told the Jewish Star. “So we put the bikes on the road and jumped on and were racing and the security guards ran after us.”
The Knesset, Israel’s seat of parliamentary government, on Monday became one of a select group of democracies in the world, also including the White House, 10 Downing Street and the Canadian parliament to launch an interactive tour in cooperation with Google. “Today the Knesset is becoming the House of the people once again; a glass house which can be toured from the inside,” Knesset Speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein said at the launching of the virtual tour. “There is a real opportunity here to see the beauty of the Knesset, to appreciate its delightful treasures.”Visit the Knesset with Google Maps
