A round-up of violent anti-semitic incidents in 2011

The Kantor Center report on anti-semitism is now available. While they note that violent incidents decreased in 2011, reading about all of them at once is still jarring:

Despite the decrease in major violent incidents, Jews in 2011 were victims of numerous such incidents. According to the French SPCJ, violence in 2011 was much more severe than in the previous year, and led in some cases to the hospitalization of the victims. Thus, for example, in June, a rabbi was physically assaulted by two men in their twenties in the eleventh arrondissement in Paris. The perpetrators kicked and punched him in the head and body while shouting antisemitic abuse. The victim was hospitalized. In April a young Jew returning from the synagogue in Villeurbanne was assaulted by two youths who inquired first as to his identity. That same month, a young woman was violently attacked by a man on a bus in Caluire et Luire, Lyon. The assailant threw a bottle at the girl’s head, pushed her against a window and punched her in the face, while hurling antisemitic insults, such as: “Big Jewish nose” and “Dirty Jewish bastard, the Arabs will kill you.”

Similarly, throughout the year in Britain, visibly Jewish individuals were attacked by passers-by in close proximity to synagogues, and Jewish children were attacked on their return from school. In July, a Jewish individual walking home through a park in London was identified by a group of white youths as Jewish and brutally attacked. In another incident in February a Jewish woman was crossing the forecourt at a gas station in Manchester in order to pay when a car containing two women reversed sharply into her, knocking her to the ground, The occupants (two white women) then got out of their car, shouted “Dirty Jew” and spat at the injured woman lying on the ground, before getting back into the car and driving away.

In Lausanne, Switzerland, an assistant rabbi was brutally attacked when he left the synagogue and abused with antisemitic insults. In addition, an Orthodox Jewish young man was stabbed in front of his family in the parking lot of the Natural History Museum in Geneva in late December. According to the CICAD (Intercommunity Coordination against Antisemitism and Racism), the number of antisemitic manifestations recorded in French-speaking Switzerland increased by 28 percent (mainly cyber hate) from the previous year. Moreover the level of incidents of violence, vandalism and insults was the highest since monitoring began in 2003.

In Belgium, a 13-year old Jewish girl was physically attacked by a group of five girls of Moroccan origin, in November in Brussels. After shouting insults at the girl, the group leader said, “She’s only a dirty Jewess,” and all five began beating her on the head and the knees. The victim needed both medical and psychological treatment.

There were also incidents of physical violence in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For instance,the principal of an Orthodox Jewish school was beaten outside the premises in May. In September, an Orthodox Jew was attacked outside a synagogue in the neighborhood of Flores. The attacker pulled a skullcap from his backpack and made obscene gestures, declaring that the only solution was to burn the synagogues and the Jews.

Three matters that came to light in 2011 illustrate the danger to Jewish communities in the U.S. posed by white supremacists and Islamists. In October, a couple with a racist worldview from Oregon, who thought, erroneously, that they had murdered a Jew, admitted to interrogators that they had intended to kill more Jews. In May, New York police arrested two immigrants, an Algerian and a Moroccan, on suspicion of conspiring to attack a New York synagogue. This event may be added to the number of terrorist acts planned in recent years by Islamists in the U.S. against Jewish targets and which were aborted by early discovery of the organizations and plots. In addition, Emerson Begolly, an American citizen who was indicted in July 2011 for soliciting acts of terrorism and posting bomb-making materials online, exhibited rabid antisemitism in his extensive online activity. He called for the death of all Jews and encouraged others to target synagogues, Jewish schools and day care centers.

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The Guardian gives an antisemite a forum

I wrote about the party that was thrown in honor of Raed Salah, anti-semite and inciter to terror, in London.

It turns out that he wrote a column for Comment is Free in the Guardian where he pushes his normal lies. In it, he claims that he is against anti-semitism:

After a 10-month legal battle, I have now been cleared on "all grounds" by a senior immigration tribunal judge, who ruled that May's decision to deport me was "entirely unnecessary" and that she had been "misled". The evidence she relied on (which included a poem of mine which had been doctored to make it appear anti-Jewish) was not, he concluded, a fair portrayal of my views. In reality, I reject any and every form of racism, including antisemitism.

I have no doubt that, despite this, Israel's cheerleaders in Britain will continue to smear my character. This is the price every Palestinian leader and campaigner is forced to pay.

One of the pieces of evidence given to the judge was the entire passage of his blood libel:

“We have never allowed ourselves, and listen well, we have never allowed ourselves to knead the bread for the breaking of the fast during the blessed month of Ramadan with the blood of children. And if someone wants a wider explanation, you should ask what used to happen to some of the children of Europe, whose blood would be mixed in the dough of the holy bread. God Almighty, is this religion? Is this what God wants? God will confront you for what you are doing”.

Salah claimed that "holy bread" was metaphorical. The "expert" they used to debunk that this was anti-semitic was none other than Israel-hater Ilan Pappe! And the ruling showed that they didn't buy his argument, and in fact they destroyed it:

In our judgment this is all wholly unpersuasive. The appellant is clearly aware of the blood libel against Jews. If his intention had been to draw an analogy between events of the Spanish Inquisition and actions of the Israeli state he could have said so in clearer terms that did not require over ten paragraphs of explanation for his true meaning to be made clear. If he had meant to refer to Christians using the blood of others to make bread, which he seems to consider less offensive than referring to Jews doing so, then he could have inserted the word “Christian” into the text of his the sermon as he does in paragraph 175 of his explanation. Allusion to historical examples of children being killed in religious conflict does not require reference to their blood being used to make “holy bread”. The truth of the matter is that the conjunction of the concepts of ‘children’s blood’ and ‘holy bread’ is bound to be seen as a reference to the blood libel unless it is immediately and comprehensively explained to be something else altogether.

Besides, even the explanation does not quite work. Professor Pappe accepts that “superficially” the reference could appear to be to the blood libel but that the “sentence without the adjective Jewish is not a repetition of the blood libel.” He maintains that the next sentence of the sermon is a reference to a chapter in the history of the Inquisition. But neither the appellant nor Professor Pappe identified a source for this “chapter” of the Inquisition where Christians used blood of Muslim (or any other) children for Christian holy bread. There is no evidence that this is a commonly known matter in any of the communities in Israel, so that those hearing the sermon would recognise the reference. The explanation now put forward would not, so far as the evidence goes, moderate the meaning of the words in the sermon as actually delivered.

...We do not find this comment could be taken to be anything other than a reference to the blood libel against Jews and nothing said by the appellant or Professor Pappe explains why it would be interpreted otherwise from the original Arabic text or in the English text before us. We accept that this sermon was given on a somewhat turbulent day when the appellant had been refused permission to pray at one of the holy sites of his religion, one that he genuinely fears is under threat from the Israeli authorities. That is not sufficient to negate his comment and the hatred that might be fostered by it and lead to intercommunity violence in the UK. We conclude, therefore, that it was a comment that
the respondent was entitled to take into account and take seriously when considering whether the appellant should be deported.

The judge pretty much said that Salah's speech was in fact anti-semitic, although he found other reasons to downplay its importance. So despite Salah's protestations to the contrary, it is clear he was knowingly pushing the classic blood libel.

If the Guardian read the judgment, they know this.

But the judge ruled that since this was the only evidence of anti-semitism, he would let it slide:

There is no reliable evidence of the appellant using words carrying a reference to the blood libel save in the single passage in a sermon delivered five years ago. Similarly, the reliable evidence relating to calls to martyrdom is confined to the same occasion. The absence of other evidence is striking, for at least two reasons. The appellant is a prominent public figure and a prolific speaker. The first indictment shows that his speeches are of interest to the authorities in Israel. In these circumstances we think it can fairly be said that the evidence before us is not a sample, or ‘the tip of the iceberg’: it is simply all the evidence that there is.

I disagree. For example, Salah also wrote an article about 9/11 that pushed a number of classic anti-semitic tropes (although he was careful not to use the word "Jew" but "unique mover.") In that article, he claims that 4000 Jews were warned to stay away from work at the World Trade Center, that Benjamin Franklin wrote a document warning about Jewish control of the world, that Jews were behind the assassination of JFK (not because he was a Zionist but because he was a Catholic), and that Jews were behind the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

The larger point is that while the British legal system might have found that the evidence that Salah is anti-semitic not strong enough to have him deported, the Guardian clearly read the judgment and even so decided that Salah is an appropriate person to write a column for them - which is quite a different thing.

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Video: "Made in Israel"

From Israel21C:



(h/t jzaik)

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"Thousands of settlers storm town, perform Talmudic rituals"

As Sabeel reports:

Thousands of Jewish settlers burst into the town Kifl Hares southeast of Qalqilya in the northern West Bank, and performed Talmudic rituals in a memorial in the town, under the protection of the Israeli army and in coordination with the security services of the Palestinian Authority.

Thousands of Jews did some to visit the tomb of Joshua (as well as Caleb Ben Yefuneh) on the anniversary of his death.

The holy site has been vandalized a number of times by Palestinian Arabs, in stories that barely get reported, as opposed to the world headlines that accompany graffiti sometimes scrawled on mosques in Israel.

Existing signed agreements between Israel and the PA are supposed to allow free access to holy sites under Arab control. Then again, Jordan signed similar agreements with Israel in 1949, and yet Jews were not allowed to visit any of their holy places during that anomalous 19 year time period that so many still consider "the status quo."

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Islamists freaking out over Egyptian mufti who visited Jerusalem

Islamists are now calling for the resignation of Egypt's mufti Ali Gomaa over his recent visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque and other sites in Jerusalem, via Jordan.

Hamas official Izzat Rishq said that the only way that Muslims should visit Jerusalem is as conquerors, not under the protection of Jews.

Sheikh Azzam of Islamic Jihad in Gaza called the visit "reprehensible."

The Palestine Scholars Association condemned the visit, saying it was a "type of normalization with the Jews who usurped the land and holy sites."

In Egypt, Tariq Zomor, a spokesman for Jemaah Islamiyah, said that the visit was "irresponsible" and that there will be protests against the mufti on Friday. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood called the visit "a disaster." Other Egyptian Islamists derisively referred to Gomaa as "Mubarak's Mufti."

Al-Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the influential sheikh of Al-Azhar University, is calling an emergency meeting this afternoon of scholars at the institution and will issue a statement.

Israeli Islamist leader Raed Salah showed his own hypocrisy. He is currently barred from visiting Jerusalem because of his constant incitement and attempts to start new uprisings against Israel. He complained that since he is banned from the Al Aqsa Mosque, no Muslim leader should visit. "How can we explain that this military occupation prevents me from entering Jerusalem and at the same time allows some prominent Arab and Muslim to enter the heart of Jerusalem which is Al Aqsa?" he whined.

Islamic preacher Safwat Hejazi said that Gomaa's visit was a "criminal act" and a "fraud" of Muslims and called him a "sinner."

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Egyptian MB visitor to US was implicated in child porn

From Bikya Masr last week, in a story that really flew under the radar:

The US State Department broke with procedure last week when it ordered US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) not to conduct a secondary inspection on members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) on their way to visit government officials in the US.

It is not clear where the order was issued from.

This happened despite the fact that one member of the delegation had been implicated – though not charged – in a US child pornography investigation, according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The person of interest to the US State Department was Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, who was part of a pornography investigation in Pennsylvania. He was the senior member in the four-person FJP delegation, which held court with academic groups and met with senior officials at the White House and State Department.

Dardery had lived in the United States long enough to attain legal permanent residency, known as a Green Card. That status lapsed after he left the country for more than six months. The child pornography investigation took place during Dardery’s time in the US and was so noted in his immigration file. It surfaced when CBP officials learned of his pending visit.

A US official said that extra inspection is standard operating procedure when a foreign visitor has been tied to criminal or terrorist activities. “Secondary inspections” involve going through the visitor’s baggage and viewing the contents of computers and other electronic devices to search for evidence of illicit activity. Agents would typically search other members of the party to ensure Dardery did not hand off his computer equipment to an associate to avoid detection.

In addition, the Brotherhood’s relationship with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas would have triggered extra scrutiny for the incoming delegation. But that “secondary inspection” never happened, a law enforcement source said. The State Department ordered CBP not to do it.

The State Department issued a cable specifically barring customs officials from carrying out any inspections of Dardery and the other members of the delegation on their arrival at New York’s JFK Airport.

The Brotherhood recently won a near majority in parliamentary elections – a sweep by any evaluation.

Ironically, they are keen on introducing legislation to block Internet access to pornography in Egypt.

The IPT report is here.

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Yom HaShoah: Poster, trailer, video

The official poster for Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day is simple and poignant:

And from Times of Israel:

A pair of Israeli animation students used the Steven Spielberg-sponsored Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation project to produce an animated film that tells the story of a 10-year-old girl in Holocaust-era Poland. The film uses both stop-animation and classic animation techniques to describe an event in the life of Nyosha, the grandmother of Liran Kapel, who along with her partner Yael Dekel created the film. It will premiere at a film festival in Sderot in June, and from there will travel to other festivals around the world.

“It’s a story about faith,” Kapel told The Times of Israel, as she described the event that lies at the heart of the film. Nyosha lives in a small village in Poland with her mother, surviving from hand to mouth on very little money. One day, Nyosha sees a beautiful pair of shoes in the window of a shoemaker’s store, and decides she must have them. But after bringing what little money she could raise to the shoemaker, he tells her it isn’t enough; but if she wants, he will sell her one of the shoes.

Nyosha is so enamored of the shoes that she agrees, and for months walks around her hometown wearing that single shoe as she worked to try and raise money to buy its mate. But then comes the German invasion of Poland — and with it the destruction of her village and her way of life. As the Nazi soldiers approach, Nyosha and other townspeople take refuge in the attic of a building. Among those holed up in the attic is none other but the shoemaker, who now holds court over an enormous pot that everyone assumes contains food. The villagers beg for a morsel, but the hard-hearted shoemaker ignores their pleas.

This goes on for three days, after which the desperate villagers have had enough. They band together to attack the shoemaker and “liberate” the supplies — only to discover that the pot contained shoes, not food. One of the shoes, however, is the mate to Nyosha’s pair, and during the fight between the villagers and the shoemaker, she manages to get hold of the shoe, puts it on, and hides.

Just in time, it turns out. The Nazis, discovering the lair, march up the steps and hustle everyone outside, where they shoot the villagers. Nyosha’s mother is among those set to be shot, and she signals to her daughter to stay inside and hide. Nyosha does so just as a Nazi guard comes back upstairs looking for survivors. When he sees Nyosha’s small, pretty shoes lined up next to the bed she is hiding under, something apparently touches the Nazi and even though he knows Nyosha is there, he spares her. Hours later, when the Nazis have gone and the Jews have been killed or deported, Nyosha emerges to find herself utterly alone. She runs to the forest, wearing the shoes that just saved her life.

“It’s a true story,” Kapel said, adding that the follow-up was just as amazing. “She roamed the forest and eventually found villages, where she knocked on doors offering to work. One Polish family took her up on her offer, and she used a fake Polish name, never letting on she was Jewish. She worked for the family for years, and after the war she was eventually found by Youth Aliyah representatives, who put her on a boat for Israel, where she rebuilt her life.”

The trailer:




Finally, here is what a busy Israeli highway looked like today when the sirens went off:




(h/t Mike)

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Yom HaShoah: the murdered Jews of Gdow, Poland

For Yom HaShoah, I looked through the Yad Vashem victims database to find a typical small village in order to list all the victims we are aware of who lived there. (Yad Vashem limits queries to 1000, so looking for any well-known city or even popular last names would return only the first thousand names.)

Here are 82 of the Holocaust victims of Gdow, Poland.  In general the database only has a fraction of the actual victims of the Shoah.

The entire village had 375 Jews in the mid-19th century.

You can click on any name to go to that person's record at Yad Vashem.

Name	Birth year
Bodner, Elish Elisha
Bodner, Gitel
Bodner, Mirjam Miriam
Brand, Chawa Khava	1893
Eichhorn, Erna Ester	1907
Eichhorn, Helena
Feder, Huma Khuma	1862
Feder, Szymon Shama	1872
Geler, Berl Ber	1938
Geler, Shevakh	1902
Gotreich, Alter
Gotreich, Chaja Khaia
Gotreich, Hadassa Hadasa
Gotreich, Josel -
Gotreich, Sara
Grantov, Gdaliauhu Gdaliyahu	1893
Heller, Berta
Kleinman, Henny Hena	1880
Klinger, Haia Khaia
Klinger, Khenia Khana
Klinger, Tosia
Kuechler, Abraham Avraham	1882
Kuntz, Brenda -
Kuntz, Jacob Yaakov
Lebel, Chaskel Yekhezkel	1910
Lehrfeld, Hirsh	1880
Lehrfeld, Tauba Antonina	1885
Leibel, Abram Avraham	1895
Leibel, Aron Aharon	1865
Leibel, Avraham	1910
Leibel, Chawka Khava	1910
Leibel, Chenya Nekhemia	1910
Leibel, Chenya Nekhemia	1905
Leibel, Cheskel Yekhezkel	1901
Markus, Cecylia	1888
Mateles, Sala	1900
Perlberg, Eliasz	1886
Reisman, Giza Giza	1929
Reisman, Izak	1897
Reisman, Rosa
Reisman, Sydka Sidi	1918
Szmaje, Ester	1909
Szmaje, Moshe
Wellisch, Riwka Rivka
Windholz, Kalman	1897
Zimerspitz, Aleksander	1899
Zimerspitz, Volf	1873
Zimerspitz, Zisl Zysl	1903
Zwetschkenspiel, Sigmun	1878

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Time for another open thread

For two years I've been watching people complain about the Disqus comment system here, and how screwy it acts. From my perspective, though, it had one great feature that I loved -it automatically sends all comments to my email account and allows me to reply to messages (and moderate them) via email. This meant that I did not have to actually go into the Disqus system to administer the comments and it saved me a lot of time.

But now that feature just disappeared over the past few days, making it much harder for me to follow threads of conversations here without spending more time than I have.

Practically, this means that if you have interesting links to send me, email is probably the best way.

The other recent headache is that the scheduling capability in Blogger seems to have broken in the past couple of days. Articles that I thought would have been posted ended up in limbo until I re-edit them. It's just another time-suck that I don't need.

Moreover, it looks like my life will not be getting any less hectic. Quite the opposite.

Even so, over the next day or two, I will post my 14,000th blog entry.

I did notice that the last open thread from Monday night was quite busy, with nearly a hundred comments, so it seems like a good time to start a new one. Venting about these problems is just an excuse for an open thread, anyway.

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A cascade of non-trivial trivia from 1912-13

The virulently anti-Israel IMEMC says:

Israeli soldiers and policemen displaced resident Khaled An-Natsha and his family from their home in Al-Ashqariyya area, in Beit Hanina, north of Israeli controlled East Jerusalem. The eviction came following a court order that granted Israeli settlers ownership over the property.

The Palestinian News and Info Agency, WAFA, reported that the soldiers also detained An-Natsha after “arguing with the soldiers”.

The Israeli District Court in Jerusalem previously issued an eviction notice ordering An-Natsha to vacate the property, claiming that the land on which his home is built belonged to a Jewish man since 1936.

I was wondering if perhaps there were Jews in Beit Hanina who were forced to flee their homes in the 1936 riots, the way that the Yemeni Jews were chased out of their homes in Kfar HaShiloach (now knowsn as Silwan.)

Doing a little digging I came upon this illuminating item, from the American Jewish Yearbook for 1912-1913, under events that occurred in Palestine in October 1912:

Dilov and Bet-Hanina, in vicinity of Jerusalem, acquired by Zionist organization.

I never heard of Dilov, and the entry does not elaborate if (as implied) the Zionist bought all of Beit Hanina or a portion, but isn't that interesting?

In the same yearbook we also see other information that goes against the conventional wisdom of today's revisionist historians:

August [1912] At Rapha [Rafah - EoZ], Anglo-Egyptian authorities sanction sale of ten thousand dunams of land to Anglo-Palestine Company, for colonization by Agudath Yisroel (of Jaffa), and group of Bielistock Jews.

January [1913] - Turkish government confirms purchase of land in Samaria and Galilee by Palestine Department of the Zionist Organization. Amount paid, 750,000 francs ($150,000)

JUNE [1913] - Rechid Bey, former Minister of Interior and Governor at Jerusalem, in interview with representative of Budapest paper expresses himself in favor of Jewish activity in Palestine.

June [1913] — Hazim Bey, vali of Beirut, declares that he is in favor of Jewish immigration into Syria, as beneficial to the Empire.

Who knew that parts of Rafah were owned by Zionists and earmarked for religious Jews? How often do we hear about Arabs who actively supported Jewish immigration?

The things you learn when you just take the time to look...

(h/t Dan)

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A clear case of - snow-washing

From Israel's COGAT:

 3 Palestinian children went to Mount Hermon in Israel on March 19th, with a group of Israeli children, to enjoy the mountain and the snow.

The children, treated in Schneider Hospital and Sharei Tsedek Hospital were accompanied by soldiers from the Alpine Unit of Tsahal, who enjoyed the day with them.

The event was organized by the Civil Administration and the Israeli NGO “Tikva u'Marpeh”.

Last year I made a poster and video about this (or possibly a similar) program.



To those who look at Israel through their "occupation glasses," this is obviously an attempt by the IDF and Zionist groups to put a human face on their relentlessly evil society and distract the world from Ziocrimes. In fact, doing good things for sick Palestinian Arab kids may even be worse than "occupation" itself - because it makes the job of the Israel-demonizers so much harder, and making them look like the bigoted haters they are is an unforgivable crime.

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Egyptian Mufti visits Jerusalem, causes controversy

From AFP:

Egypt's grand mufti visited Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque on Wednesday, a senior Muslim official said, despite claims by an internationally prominent cleric that such visits are a sop to Israel.

Azzam al-Khatib said Ali Gomaa, Egypt's highest religious authority, "came for a religious visit to Al-Aqsa mosque" along with Jordan's Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed, King Abdullah II's cousin and advisor on religious issues.

It comes after Qatar-based Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian, said in a religious edict (fatwa) last month that Muslims should not visit Jerusalem "because it requires dealing with Zionist embassies to obtain visas."

"Such visits might also give legitimacy to the occupation and could be seen as normalisation," Qaradawi said in March.

His fatwa has drawn the ire of Palestinian awqaf minister Mahmud al-Habbash, saying it was "weird and contradicts the Koran and the Prophet's teachings."

"The fatwa serves Israeli policies that seek to isolate Jerusalem and Palestinians, who should be supported," Habbash said.

Earlier this month, the king's half-brother, Prince Hashim, paid a similar visit to Jerusalem. Also, Jordan's Interior Minister Mohammad Raud went to the Holy City this week.

The kingdom's powerful opposition Islamists have denounced such visits.

"In line with Islamic edicts issued by respected clerics and consultations with Christian religious leaders, we consider these trips as acts of normalisation that serves the schemes of the enemy," said Hamzeh Mansur, chief of the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, on the party's website.

"Mosque preachers, thinkers, intellectuals and journalists should intensify their efforts to warn the public against the dangerous risks behind such visits, which must not continue," added Mansur, who also heads an anti-normalisation committee.

There has been much opposition to any such trips within the Muslim world. for example, two years ago an Egyptian soccer team canceled their planned visit to play a friendly game against Palestinian Arabs.

Gomaa, however, seems to have avoided the biggest problem from the Muslim perspective. He came through Jordan and went with Jordanian authorities under cover of calling it a diplomatic mission, avoiding any contact with Israeli authorities altogether. Even so, the Mufti is receiving a lot of criticism in Egypt from the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists and others.

Last year Gomaa threatened Israel saying that if the country continues to disregard the feelings of all the Muslims, it would feel the wrath of 1.5 billion people.

Meanwhile, here's a new MEMRI video of an Egyptian TV host slamming the Copts who visited Jerusalem earlier this month.

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Anti-semitism up, violent incidents down in 2011

A great example of spin in three different headlines for the same topic.

Ha'aretz:

Report: Anti-Semitic incidents down 27 percent in 2011

Arutz-7:

Anti-Semitic Incitement and Harassment Up in 2011

YNet:

'Hate crimes against Jews becoming more brutal'

So, which  is it? 

As of this writing, the report is not available on the website of the Kantor Center that did the study, but Arutz-7 seems to have copied the executive summary, so that is the best we can do for now:

The Kantor Center's Program for Study of Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University released their 2011 Anti-Semitism Report on Wednesday.

The report noted both a "continuation and even escalation of harassment and incitement" and a "considerable decline in major violent incidents world wide" targeting Jews during 2011.

"The year 2011 marked a worldwide continuation and even escalation of acts of harassment and incitement, including verbal threats, insults and abusive language and behavior. Such acts have increased dramatically in recent years in various parts of the world, yet the most troubling phenomenon is in-your-face harassment, a daily occurrence, especially in western Europe, as well as in Australia and Canada, mainly against visible Jews, in the street, in public places and in the vicinity of Jewish sites, and against children and youth in schools. These acts are not fully reported due to the lack of proper monitoring in some countries, and cannot be counted," the report summary read.

"The level of major violent incidents (with or without the use of weapons, vandalism and direct threats) decreased in 2011 by 27% compared to 2010 (446 and 614, respectively – the US is only partly included). The decline in the UK (105 cases), France (114) and Canada (68), where 63% of all major violent incidents worldwide were registered, and where large Jewish communities reside, had an impact on the overall statistics. In other countries, such as Australia, Belgium, Ukraine the numbers of these incidents remained almost the same, , and in others such as Lithuania and Belarus it even increased. Still, statistical data shows that physical violence remained on a high level compared to former years, and that attacks turned more brutal and harmful.

"The reasons for the decline in the number of major violent incidents are not clear cut: they may include the absence of a major confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians, such as Operation Cast Lead in 2009 and the Marmara flotilla in 2010, which had sparked violent action against Jews; the fact that much of the far right violent activity was directed in 2011 against Muslim, Roma and other immigrant minorities; the "Arab Spring" which perhaps attracted much attention among Muslim youth in Europe; the growing number of complaints and litigations successfully filed by Jewish individuals and organizations against perpetrators and inciters; and the intensified efforts of Governmental agencies and NGOs to promote legislative and public tools against racism, anti-Semitism included.

"Reasons for the continuing high level of harassment and incitement may include: radicalization among young Muslims mostly from immigrant families and growing acceptance of anti-Semitic allegations; escalated animosity among militant extreme rightists whose activity intensified probably because of the economic crisis and the problems posed by multiculturalism; the growing use of the cyberspace, with its websites, blogs and social networks, which readily disseminates anti-Semitic messages, and anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli incitement often expressed in anti-Semitic terms. These messages are loudly heard in university and college campuses as well as in mosques, and are carried by the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction) campaigners; and the atmosphere created by the radical left's rhetoric and by expressions and accusations used and leveled in the mainstream discourse.

"The main allegations against the Jewish communities and Israel, perceived as a Jewish state, continue to be the holding of global power, including control over world economy, and constant conspiring according to Israel's interests, thus being responsible for economic and political crises, including incitement for and against the revolutions in the Arab world. These allegations are coupled with the labeling of Israel as a racist, Nazi-like illegitimate state, and its supporters as accomplices to an evil entity," the summary concluded.

It looks like Ha'aretz' headline is the least accurate because only violent incidents have decreased, not all incidents.

When the report is available we can see if there is anything interesting that the news media is missing.

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Birthright now has an Israeli fellowship program

From The Jewish Week:

A Zionist and junior at Cornell University, Rebecca Haft had a life-changing experience in Israel last summer — she learned to like cottage cheese.

Haft, a policy analysis and management major, spent 10 weeks working as an intern in the business development department of Tnuva, Israel’s largest dairy company, under the auspices of Birthright Israel Excel. She was among 20 college students from the United States chosen, from more than 200 applicants, to take part in the pilot version of Birthright’s elite fellowship program.

Think Birthright, business class.

Earlier this month, most of the 20 met here for a four-day retreat, to review last year’s experiences and suggest changes.

Haft’s fellow Excel colleagues, college juniors and seniors who participated in internships at high-powered Israeli companies in such fields as technology, business, venture capital and social media, were mentored directly by each company’s CEO, receiving backstage passes to the world of high-tech, corporate Israeli culture.

This year, more than 600 students applied; 36 made the final cut.

“This program, more than anything, is an investment in Israel’s future,” said Sharon Prince, U.S. coordinator of Birthright Excel. “We are pulling students from the top echelon of American society. We have high hopes that these students will go on to become leaders in their various fields. Creating this formative connection to Israel early on in their careers is key.”

“Compared to previous internships I’ve had in the States, the internship I received as a Birthright Excel fellow was completely different,” said Ben Goldhaber, a senior at Georgetown University majoring in science, technology and international affairs. Goldhaber interned at Pitango Venture Capital, Israel’s leading Venture Capital fund, under the mentorship of Chemi J. Peres, managing general partner and co-founder of Pitango, and son of President Shimon Peres.

“In Israel, they are much quicker to trust young people,” Goldhaber said. “When I arrived at my internship, I was given real responsibilities, and fast. This is no American, feel-good resumé booster. This was a job — a real job — and a chance to experience, firsthand, how Israeli corporate culture functions and operates.” As an afterthought he added, “I mean, I barely operated the copy machine once!”

“This trip shouldn’t be called ‘Birthright’ — it should be called ‘Birth responsibility,’” said Brett Levine, gesticulating as he spoke, a senior at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business with a major in finance. “As Jews, we have a certain sense of entitlement when it comes to Israel, and when it comes to our heritage. But what this trip taught me is that feeling entitled is not enough — we have a responsibility to our Jewish identity. We have a responsibility to Israel.” His words were met by hearty nods and exclamations of assent around the table.

Ha'aretz followed some of the interns last year and recorded their experiences.

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Iranian diplomat accused of molesting girls in Brazil; has diplomatic immunity

Brazilian news sources are reporting:

Iranian diplomat in Brasília, Hekmatollah Ghorbani, is accused of abusing minors in a pool club in Brasilia on Saturday.

Ten girls, aged 9 and 15, were swimming in a neighborhood club, the South Wing, and four of them reported that Ghorbani, swimming, approached to touch the private parts of the girls while diving.

According to a report of those responsible for the minors, one of the girls, aged 14, realized that the Iranian had touched other girls and asked him to stop. She went to tell the lifeguard of the club, who ordered the closure of the pool. The father of one of the girls, Fernandes José Roberto Rodrigues, returned to the pool and tried to attack Ghorbani.

Deputy Police Chief Johnson Miller, who took the complaint, confirmed the reports, but despite the clear facts, Ghorbani was released for having diplomatic immunity.

"We note that this gentleman is part of the diplomatic mission of Iran in Brasilia. In this position, he was under the cloak of diplomatic immunity. We made a record of the occurrence. We will forward it to the Foreign Ministry. If he were an ordinary person, he would be charged under Article 217 A, for rape of minors, with a penalty of 8 to 15 years in prison. "

Ghorbani, who is over 50 years old, is the third in the hierarchy of the Iranian embassy in Brasilia. The embassy confirms that he is a member of the diplomatic corps, and has been in Brazil for nearly two years. The club also declined to comment on the incident. The Foreign Ministry, according to its press office says that it has not been notified about the occurrence, but confirms that the families of the girls asked for an audience with the General Coordination of Privileges and Immunities, in charge of diplomatic missions. The meeting was still scheduled for this week. According to the delegate, the occurrence record is forwarded to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

While this is not my normal kind of posting, it is interesting that no English-language news source has covered this story yet.

(ht Oren)

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