Survivors to appeal to have Farhud seen as a Nazi event
Survivors of the Farhud pogrom in Iraq are to appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court after their failure in the lower courts to have the 1941 pogrom recognised as a Nazi-inspired event, writes Ofer Aderet in Haaretz. The judge seems to fear that such an indictment would let Arabs 'off the hook' for antisemitism.Melanie Phillips: ISRAELI PR, UK AND JERUSALEM, NORTH KOREA
The Supreme Court in Jerusalem will hear the Farhud survivors' appeal
Until now, however, the Israeli government has refused to recognize any ostensible connection between the Farhud and the Nazi regime, and as a result has not granted monetary compensation to its victims in the context of the Victims of Nazi Persecution Law. In February a panel of judges in the Haifa District Court rejected a lawsuit filed by about 2,000 survivors of the Farhud, who demanded legal recognition as Nazi victims. The judges sided with the government, ruling that the Farhud was not a pogrom whose roots lay in Nazi Germany.
“Nazi Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust of the Jewish people is not under discussion,” wrote Judge Ron Shapira in his ruling, although he also noted that Nazi Germany should receive “all the blame for pogroms against Jews everywhere.”
He added: “Anti-Semitism, in its various forms, existed prior to the rise of the Nazi regime, and didn’t disappear from the world after Nazi Germany was defeated. There are many causes for the phenomenon of anti-Semitism and some change from one period to the next.”
The judge criticized the attempt to blame the Nazis for the Farhud, and said that anyone who does so “is missing the mark and removing responsibility from any others who championed anti-Semitism and racist theories and xenophobia – and do so to this day.”
Please join me here for my discussion with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired on the media response to the Hamas attack on the Gaza border fence, Israel’s strategic failure to make its own case, the British government’s attitude to Jerusalem and the on/off/on US/North Korea summit.
Kuwait blocks US bid to condemn Gaza rocket fire at Security Council
Kuwait on Wednesday blocked a US-drafted UN Security Council statement that would have strongly condemned Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on Israel.
The United States had circulated the draft text ahead of an emergency council meeting, to be held later Wednesday at Washington’s request, on the rocket and mortar attacks by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups.
Kuwait, a non-permanent council member that represents Arab countries, said that it was blocking the statement to allow for consideration of a draft resolution it has put forward on the protection of Palestinian civilians.
In an email to the US mission seen by AFP, Kuwait said: “We cannot agree to the text put forth by your delegation especially as we are considering a draft resolution that deals with the protection of civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories and the Gaza Strip.”
Kuwait earlier this month blocked another US-proposed statement that criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s remarks about Jews as “unacceptable.”
Two other draft statements expressing concern about the violence in Gaza were previously blocked by the United States, laying bare the sharp divisions on the Security Council over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Security Council statements are adopted by consensus by all 15 members.
Haaretz’s Strange Tale About ‘Spying’ on Linda Sarsour
Why is it so important who wrote the document that Uri Blau obtained?
First, because this is not the case of an “Israeli organization” that “spies on an American citizen,” but an American organization collecting open source information on a fellow American.
Second, while Blau alleged that Shelson Adelson, a close associated of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, funded the “spying,” the Forum maintained that it never received any funding from Adelson.
Third, the letter against Sarsour is not a part of a campaign against the BDS movement, but a part of a project of an American organization to counter Islamists in America.
Fourth, nothing clandestine was done (as phrases such as “spying” and “collecting intelligence” suggest). All information was gathered from open sources in order to serve a clear agenda.
And so, a story – certainly not the one that Haaretz‘s Uri Blau set out to tell – emerges from a non-story. Haaretz pedaled a false story about a shadowy Israeli organization spying on an American citizen. But the real story became about the journalist’s false accusations, and his erroneous attribution of the document to the wrong organization.
Presspectiva, CAMERA’s Hebrew department, sent Uri Blau and Haaretz editors the following questions and also asked for response on the points made here:
Why was the report published only in English, an anomaly among Blau’s investigative pieces?
Do you intend to correct the report and/or apologize, per the Middle East Forum’s request?
As of this writing, no response has been received. Nor has Haaretz addressed or made any reference to the Middle East Forum’s statements.