Israel, US urge EU to take action against anti-Semitic boycott movement
Israeli and US officials warned Wednesday of a rise in attacks on Jews in western Europe and urged European Union leaders to stop funding organizations that support an international boycott of Israel, claiming they are encouraging anti-Semitism.Behind the Mask: Denying the Jewish People Their Right to Self Determination is Antisemitism
Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said before meeting with a group of European lawmakers that the EU should make sure its money does not go to groups that support the Palestinian-led boycott movement.
In Brussels, Erdan also released a report cataloging alleged examples of BDS branches or activists using anti-Semitic content in their campaigns.
He accused movement activists of hiding their true agenda behind liberal values such as protecting human rights and freedom of expression.
“BDS leaders who use anti-Semitic language and images that also prove their principles, of boycotting the Jew among the nations, Israel, are anti-Semitic,” Erdan said.
The report included 80 examples of what Erdan called anti-Semitism by key European promoters of the BDS movement against Israel.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) defines the denial of the Jewish right to self-determination as antisemitism. IHRA is accepted in over 18 Western countries and over 30 US states. The Ministry of Strategic Affairs exposes the antisemitism of BDS leaders in a new report called "Behind the Mask".
France Welcomes the Saudis, Condemns Critics of Islam
"Mohammed Al-Issa, who heads the World Islamic League, is credited for more than 500 executions when he was Minister of Justice of Saudi Arabia from 2009 to 2015, and countless orders of torture including the conviction of the famous Raif Badawi with 1.000 lashes." — Michel Taube, Le Figaro, September 16, 2019.Berlin cancels Palestinian terror concert
Raif Badawi has just launched a hunger strike over mistreatment by the Saudi prison officials. "As part of their cruel crackdown, they've just confiscated his books & crucial medication." — Irwin Cotler, former Canadian Justice Minister and head of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, in a tweet.
How can France, the country of "liberty, equality, fraternity," welcome the former Saudi minister who was in charge of Badawi's torture and imprisonment... who condemns apostates to death and inflicts public flagellation on dissidents such as Badawi?
Right after the extremist massacre at the weekly Charlie Hebdo, then-French President François Hollande invited the Saudis to join the march of solidarity in Paris. When the Saudis returned home, they started flogging Badawi.
Among the French Muslims, political Islam is rapidly increasing. Instead of embracing the West where they were born, the youngest generations are rejecting it.
Éric Zemmour, apparently, was found "guilty" by a French court of saying that Muslims should be given "the choice between Islam and France" and that "in innumerable French suburbs there is a struggle to Islamize territory". Freedom of expression... [is] under threat in France.
After Israel’s ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff and his counterpart US ambassador Richard Grenell urged Berlin authorities to ban a slated Wednesday event with two Palestinian rappers who glorify terrorism against the Jewish state, the government of the German capital city relented at the 11th hour on Wednesday.
Martin Pallgen, a spokesman for the city’s interior ministry senator, wrote on Twitter: ”A decision with a ban on political activity is ready and will be sent to the musicians.” However, the pro-Palestinian rally was not banned.
Issacharoff tweeted on Tuesday: “I appeal to the #Berlin authorities to prevent this disturbing event at the Brandenburg Gate featuring antisemitic rhetoric and glorification of violence against Israel. Berlin should unite, not divide!”
Grenell said that he agrees with Issacharoff’s appeal and that the “rappers sing about the annihilation of Jews.”
Berlin’s mayor Michael Müller, who is reeling from hosting an antisemitic Iranian mayor of Tehran just weeks ago, faced another crisis moment. Müller has been accused over the years of being soft toward rising Jew-hatred in Germany’s capital.
The Palestinian rappers, Shadi Al-Bourini and Qassem Al-Najjar, have sung for military action against Tel Aviv and urged the destruction of Israel.
In 2012, a video featuring a song by the duo circulated Palestinian websites threatened Israel and promised to attack Tel Aviv, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Their music was “accompanied by still images of rockets being fired, a plane being shot out of the sky, and Israelis injured and bracing for imminent landing of rockets, among others,” MEMRI said.
The rappers sung: “Strike a blow at Tel Aviv. Strike a blow at Tel Aviv. Strike a blow at Tel Aviv and frighten the Zionists. The more you build it the more we will destroy it.”