Thursday, April 17, 2014
A perplexing rewriting of history
“The Encyclopaedia of Jewish-Muslim relations from their origins to the present day” was launched in November 2013. There is a more modest English version, published by Princeton.Iraqi Writer: The Jews Are Behind All Confrontations Worldwide
Critics such as the authority on Sephardi Jews, Professor Shmuel Trigano, have charged that the encyclopedia is nothing but a work of propaganda. It is all the more insidious because so much money has been spent on its promotion. Unusually for a book, the encyclopedia has a website all to itself and was the subject of a TV series on the French channel Arte.
Among the sponsors are The Alliance of Civilisations (co-sponsored by Spain and Turkey, and adopted as a UN initiative which excludes Israel from its Council of Friends), whose task is to change the ‘narrative’ by promoting the Spain of the Three Religions, the Andalusian Golden Age, and so forth.
As far as Arab collaboration with the Nazis is concerned, Dr. Roth accuses Henry Laurens, the author of the two pages on the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, of minimizing his role. There is no mention, says Roth, of the pro-Nazi Palestinian leader Fawzi al Qawuqj, or the Mufti’s broadcast calls for genocide on Radio Berlin, nothing on the Mufti’s creation of the SS Handschar division staffed by Bosnian Muslims, nothing about the part he personally played in condemning 20,000 European Jewish children to the death camps, and nothing about the Mufti having contact with the Nazis as early as 1936.
Regrettably, the Encyclopaedia is typical of the politicization of the study of Islam and its treatment of non-Muslims. Young minds are being brainwashed by a sanitized version of history with a huge promotional budget – replete with distortion, minimization and omission. Are we going to sit back and let it happen?
In an antisemitic article titled "Al Qaeda – a Zionist Product," Iraqi writer 'Amr Hadi Al-'Issawi argued that the Jews viewed other peoples with arrogance, following the directives of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and that they have deceived other peoples –the Arabs in particular – and fed them poison for decades. Al-'Issawi added that the Jews and the Hebrew state are responsible for stoking conflict in all the world's hotspots, and are behind all major events in the world, including the toppling of the constitutional monarchies and the deposing of Arab dictatorships – this, in a bid to transfer control to political Islam and set the entire region ablaze as a prelude to the establishment of Greater Israel.Obama Apologizes To Muslims For Anti-Jewish Kansas Attacks (satire)
“In is unconscionable that in twenty-first century America a man can, with the pull of a trigger, manage to generate solidarity, even empathy, for non-Muslims,” read the statement. “In the name of all Americans of conscience, we beg the forgiveness of our Muslim countrymen and resolve to work diligently to prevent any cause for sympathy for anyone else, especially Jews.”
Muslim representatives welcomed the apology as a necessary first step. “We would have liked to see a more comprehensive expression of solidarity with our worldview,” said the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Mahder Fahkir. “But this is at least a suitable preliminary indication that we are headed in the right direction, that eventually the non-Muslim establishment will acknowledge that no other religious or ethnic group is worthy of protection. We encourage our non-Muslim co-citizens to embrace their status as dhimmi.”
Other leaders said the statement did not go nearly far enough. “Where is the open condemnation of Israel? Where is the naked justifying of the act as a natural consequence of Jewish behavior?” wondered influential political commentator Max Blumenthal, whose Jewish followers number at least in the teens. “The president squandered a golden opportunity to state openly that violence against Jews can only be blamed on Jews, since nobody else has any agency.”
The U.K.’s Ed Miliband is No Friend of Israel
Count me – along with many other Jews – among those who are hoping that the U.K. has to keep waiting for its first Jewish Prime Minister.UK: Outrage as 'Neo-Nazi' Store Opens in Jewish Neighborhood
While Miliband proclaims “I am not religious. But I am Jewish. My relationship with my Jewishness is complex. But whose isn’t?” – the man doesn’t believe in God and describes himself as a “Jewish atheist” – he is no friend to the State of Israel.
There is plenty of history to show the Jewish community should have many concerns about Miliband. While he has visited Israel (including as a child), and has said he supports “the homeland for the Jewish people,” there is ample evidence that should lead to many questions and concerns in the Jewish community.
German clothing brand Thor Steinar opened its first UK store in Finchley, north London, yards away from the office of the Chief Rabbi, and not far from the headquarters of the Islamic Association.JPost Editorial: The Hirsi Ali debacle
The brand is popular among Neo-Nazis and other fascist groups, and heavily features Nodic symbols often associated with white supremacism.
Its original logo featured runes placed together to resemble the insignia of the Nazi SS.
In 2012 it sparked anger after naming a German store "Brevik", which some critics said was a blatant tribute to far-right killer Anders Behring Breivik.
Perhaps this is too much to expect of CAIR, an organization known for shutting down debate about Islam by leveling claims of Islamophobia. Indeed, Islam has become the only religion against which criticism is regularly silenced, sometimes for fear of violent retaliation – as was the case in the 2005-2006 Danish cartoon controversy – other times out of political correctness and a desire not to offend Muslims.Islamophobia/Islamophilia: An intellectual inquisition
No comparably hysterical reactions follow the public airing of criticism against Judaism, Zionism, Catholicism, evangelical Christianity or any other religion or ideology.
It is worrying that Brandeis, an institute of higher learning purportedly dedicated to the sort of free exchange of ideas and open criticism that lead to righting wrongs and uprooting injustice, is being held captive by repressive forces that dominate most Muslim-majority countries. And Brandeis is not alone.
Hirsi Ali joins a long list of those impugned for “insulting the faith,” including Voltaire, Socrates and Spinoza. The key word in the modern debate is “Islamophobia.”Will anti-Israel Cornell divestment groups stage takeover?
A very crafty term, it was invented to strike the ear as similar to “homophobia” and thus foster the impression that any critique of Islam is simply an expression of bias. In this way the Islamic religion was implicitly transformed from a religion into a race or sexual orientation. Those Islamophilic supporters of Islam in the West understood that there is a vast and gloried enlightenment tradition of critiquing religion, and that to shield faith from criticism, one must pretend it is not a faith at all.
This isn’t the first time the notion of “phobia” has been invented as a shield for a culture to place it above other culture and free it from criticism. A similar lobby was created in the 1880s to castigate people as “Germanophobes.” After the unification of Germany, the creation of the German High Seas Fleet, and the rise of Teutonic colonialism in Africa, many voices in Russia, France and England became suspicious of German intentions. They were said to have a “phobia,” an irrational fear of German intentions.
Similarly fears of Russian expansionism were labeled “Russophobia.”
When a divestment resolution was tabled at U. Michigan, the pro-divestment students took over the student government offices and staged a sit-in until the student council agreed to a full debate and vote. That debate ended with the same result by almost precisely the same margin, but only after the campus was ripped apart with threats and harassment.American Studies Assoc pulls Institutional Membership list from Quarterly Publication
Will Cornell go the same way of U. Michigan with the losing side taking direct action after losing a vote?
Looks that way. A Cornell student forwarded to be the flyer below which is being circulated. While the flyer raises a number of issues, clearly the impetus was the Israel divestment vote. It looks like an attempt to hook other unrelated causes into the anti-Israel divestment cause through a solidarity movement — a pretty classic tactic:
ASA listed its Institutional Members in its American Quarterly journal, and in its annual meeting book. There was no other source of this information, as far as we were able to ascertain.Badil – a grantee of the New Israel Fund (UPDATE: No)
Of the 80 Institutional Members of ASA listed in ASA’s 2013 American Quarterly, many either withdrew membership or denied being members in the first place. We confirmed the following:
We also were aware that other Institutional Members were reevaluating membership, or considered moving the Institutional Membership out of the University name and into the Department name.
Since then, we have awaited ASA’s first 2014 American Quarterly issue, to see how the Institutional Membership list had changed. That next issue has shipped, but ASA no longer lists its Institutional Members.
BADIL’s mission is to “defend and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees and IDPs.”UPDATE: NGO Monitor never says that NIF gives money to BADIL, and they tell me that it doesn't.
That in itself sounds fine. However when you look deeper you find information you’d rather not find.
Its aim centres around promoting Palestinian “right of return.” It regularly accuses Israel of genocide and “slow genocide.”
In May 5, 2010, the Palestinian NGO BADIL awarded a prize to a blatantly antisemitic cartoon, featuring a grotesque caricature of a Jewish man standing over a dead Arab child and holding a pitchfork dripping with blood.
The image was featured on its website until NGO Monitor contacted DanChurchAid, a BADIL partner, and its officials intervened. The joint funding was frozen in May 2011. after BADIL posted antisemitic images on its website .
BBC continues to yawn at PA glorification of terrorism
Can we really imagine that if the Northern Ireland Assembly chose to name a forest after an IRA terrorist and to televise the inauguration ceremony on state-run TV, that would not make BBC headlines?Route 35 terror attack gets a grand total of 34 words in BBC report
We’ve said it before, but unfortunately we have to say it again: BBC audiences cannot reach an “understanding of international issues” if the habitual glorification of terrorists and terrorism by a party to the peace process is consistently and deliberately kept out of their view.
The photograph’s equally misleading caption reads:Donetsk Pro-Russians Order Jews to 'Register or be Deported' for Supporting Kiev Rule
“Tensions are high in Hebron after an Israeli policeman was killed in the West Bank”
That choice of wording reinforces the mistaken impression already given to BBC audiences by the photograph that the said policeman was killed in the line of duty rather than in a terror attack against him and his family.
In the original article’s final paragraph the BBC managed to come up with the following thirty-four words to describe the incident, with notable use of the politically partial term “occupied West Bank”:
“Israel is also angry at the killing of an off-duty Israeli policeman in the occupied West Bank on Monday on the eve of the Passover Jewish holiday. The officer’s wife and child were wounded.”
A flyer bearing the stamps of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk has allegedly ordered all Jews in the eastern Ukrainian city to register with the pro-Russian separatists - or face deportation.German Court Upholds Conviction of Holocaust-Denying Bishop
The leaflet, signed by self-styled "people's governor" Denis Pushilin, has been handed over to Jews near the Donetsk synagogue, according to Novosti Donbassa (Donbass News) news agency.
It orders all Jews aged over 16 years old to register before the government building, which has been occupied by pro-Russian insurgents in defiance of Kiev rule.
Jews would also have to pay a registration fee of $50 (£30) before 3 May and list all real estate and vehicles owned.
A German court in Nuremberg has rejected the appeal of the British-Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson, who was convicted of denying the Holocaust.Hungary marks Holocaust anniversary despite protests
In an interview to the Swedish channel SVT1 in 2009, 74-year-old Williamson, openly doubted that six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and claimed that the real numbers are much lower.
In Budapest, President Janos Ader and Deputy Prime Minister Tibor Navracsics lit candles at a monument by the Danube commemorating the thousands of Jews shot into the water in 1944-1945 by the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross militia.Italy’s Jewish locals insulted by comedian-politician’s remarks
A ceremony was also to be held at Budapest’s Holocaust Museum, with trees planted and candles lit to remember the 600,000 Hungarian Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
But the commemorations were marred by the absence of Hungary’s largest Jewish organisation, Mazsihisz, which has said it will boycott all “Holocaust 2014″ events.
Beppe Grillo, a comedian as well as founder and leader of the populist Five Star Movement (M5S), defended his use of the Holocaust, Auschwitz and Primo Levi as a launching pad for ferocious criticism against the president, prime minister and the entire Italian parliament.Nazi Memorabilia Sale Canceled by France Auction House
Grillo’s blog published a photo of the infamous Arbeit macht frei (Work makes free) sign above the gates of Auschwitz, retouched to read “P2 macht frei.” P2 is a secretive – and, in the eyes of many, subversive – Italian Masonic lodge that counts many politicians among its members.
The memorabilia included Goering’s passport and a wooden chest marked with swastikas, which was owned by Hitler. The French Culture Minister had joined Jewish groups in denouncing the sale. The auction house, Vermot de Pas, said it had not intended to stir controversy.Royal Jordanian adds two weekly flights to Israel
“We were pitching this as part of the responsibility to remember – but in no way to shock or create a polemic,” AP news agency quoted co-manager Laudine de Pas, as saying.
Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority has approved a request from Royal Jordanian Airlines to add two weekly flights to its schedule, increasing to 16 the carrier’s weekly trips between the Amman and Ben-Gurion international airport.British Airways to add more Tel Aviv-London flights
The two new flights, one each on Thursday and Saturday, will begin on May 1.
Starting next winter, British Airways will increase its number of weekly flights between Tel Aviv and London from 14 to 17. The purpose of the increase is to give travelers from Israel more convenient arrival times as well as shorter connection times.Thailand, Germany, France pick up Israeli reality TV formats
Under the new schedule, the first morning flight, a wide-body Boeing 777 aircraft, will depart Ben-Gurion International Airport daily at 7:30 a.m. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, a second morning flight will depart at 10:30 a.m. There will also be a daily flight departing at 4:30 p.m. Airbus 321 aircraft will be used for the 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. flights.
Following MIPTV’s spotlight on Israeli television, new deals between international broadcasters and Israeli format-makers have been popping up repeatedly.Sodastream surges on Starbucks, Pepsi sale report
ProSieben Germany recently announced the license of the dating format, Guys in Disguise. Newen, France also picked up the funny dating show that launched at MIPCOM. Guys in Disguise was developed by Armoza Formats together with Artza Productions.
Meanwhile, leading Thai production company, Zense Entertainment, has acquired the license for the street game show Do Me a Favor–an original format that tests just how far complete strangers would go to help you. And Thai group Kantana Group Public Company secured the rights to prime time studio entertainment format I Can Do That!
At-home soda may soon have a new big money backer.
Israeli financial news daily Calcalist reported (citing no sources) that Sodastream was in early talks to sell up to 16% of the company to a large potential investor, specifically mentioning PepsiCo , Dr Pepper Snapple Group , and Starbucks . The report jolted Sodastream shares up over 8% on Wednesday morning.
Calcalist wrote that the valuation discussed places Sodastream at about $1.1 billion, a 30% markup from its current market cap. That would put shares at $52 each, more than Tuesday’s close of $37.64, as well as $40.88 at Wednesday at 1:28pm EDT.
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