Exposing The Arab Narrative's "Inversion of Reality"

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Ahead of Prince William's visit next week to Jordan, Israel and the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority Marvellous Melanie reminds us  of nefarious Foreign and Commonwealth Office manipulation in the matter via semantics.

Inter alia, she writes:

'Britain is implying that the Old City of Jerusalem, which houses the holiest sites in Judaism and Christianity, belongs as of right to the “Palestinians” and is illegitimately “occupied” by Israel. (That may be the inescapable logic of Britain’s position, but it normally sidesteps this most sensitive of implications). Worse still, it appears that the UK government is also saying that the Western Wall – the retaining wall of the ancient Jewish Temple, one of the most sacred places in Judaism – also belongs as of right to the “Palestinians”.... 

If Israel really has accepted “Britain and the European Union’s definition of east Jerusalem as ‘an occupied Palestinian territory’”, it has made itself complicit in one of the Arab world’s Big Lies. For the issue here is not just about the territorial status of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Western Wall.

There are no “occupied Palestinian territories” because there never were any Palestinian territories at all. There never was a sovereign country called Palestine, and there never were Arabs called Palestinians – until they were invented solely to destroy the Jews’ historic entitlement to the land.

For around four centuries, the lands which now constitute Israel, the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by the Ottoman empire. After the First World War they were administered by Britain under the Palestine Mandate; after the 1948 Arab war of extermination against the new State of Israel the area beyond the ceasefire lines, including east Jerusalem, was illegally occupied by Jordan (which desecrated and ripped up synagogues and ancient Jewish gravestones).

“Occupied Palestinian territories” is quite simply a lie several times over....'

Meanwhile, here's a recent talk by Irving Weisdorf, founder and CEO of The Mozuud Freedom Foundation, at Toronto's Holy Blossom Temple about the "inversion of reality" that characterises the Arab narrative regarding Israel and its history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32so9SStfsE

As Much an Arab Story as a European

Well known for her Point of No Return blog, Lyn Julius has recently authored Uprooted: How 3,000 years of Jewish Civilisation in the Arab World Vanished Overnight, published in London by Vallentine Mitchell. 

Now she has written searingly as follows:

 On the day that the world commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, the U.K. liberal newspaper The Guardian declared in an editorial : “The Arabs, meanwhile, cannot be blamed for feeling that Europe’s blood debt to the Jews was paid with what they see as their territory.”

The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, meets with Adolf Hitler in 1941. Credit: German Federal Archives via Wikimedia Commons.

The myth of the Arabs as innocent bystanders, who had no responsibility for the Holocaust—and indeed, paid the price for a European crime when Israel was established—is widely believed.

The Arabs, like other third-world peoples, are only ever seen as victims of Western oppression and colonialism. They cannot themselves be guilty of oppressing others.

The West self-righteously deplores the old European anti-Semitism of the “far right.” But a new Green-Brown-Red anti-Semitism—encouraged by an alliance of the Far Left, the Greens and Islamist sympathisers—is studiously downplayed, ignored by the media, or blamed on Israel.

Truth be told, the virus of Nazi anti-Semitism was exported to the Arab and Muslim world as early as the 1930s. It gave ideological inspiration to Arab nationalist parties like the Ba’athists in Syria and Iraq and paramilitary groups like Young Egypt, founded in 1933. Anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are the central plank of the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, and their ideological cousins, Islamic State, who sought to impose Allah’s kingdom on Earth through jihad and forced conversion of non-Muslims.

The Holocaust was, in the words of author Robert Satloff, as much an Arab story as a European. In spite of efforts to trumpet the stories of individual “righteous” Muslims who rescued Jews (particularly in Albania), scholars continue to uncover evidence of Arab sympathy and collaboration with Nazism.

Said Walter Doehle, German Consul in Jerusalem, wrote in 1937:

“Palestinian Arabs in all social strata have great sympathies for the new Germany and its Führer..…If a person identified himself as a German when faced with threats from an Arab crowd, this alone generally allowed him to pass freely. But when some identified themselves by making the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute, in most cases the Arabs’ attitude became expressions of open enthusiasm, and the German gave ovations, to which the Arabs responded loudly.”

When Tunisia came under direct Nazi occupation between November 1942 and May 1943, some 2,000 Jews were sent to work in labor camps. The reaction of Tunisia’s Muslim majority was, according to Satloff, “widespread indifference.” He wrote:

“Gestures of support and active assistance for the minority being displaced, disenfranchised, plundered and conscripted into forced labour were very rare. Arab passers-by would publicly insult and physically attack individuals.”

Although he was not the only collaborator with Nazism—Fawzi al-Qawuqji, Rashid Ali al-Kelani, Abu Ibrahim al-Kabir, Hassan Salama and Arif Abd al-Raziq spring to mind—the role played by Palestinian leader and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini in fomenting anti-Jewish incitement and violence, not just in British Palestine but across the Arab world, is key. From 1931, he conflated “Zionists” with “Jews.” Any Jewish community became fair game for collective punishment—and still is.

The Mufti met with Hitler in Berlin in November 1941 to discuss the extermination of the Jews in the Middle East. He spent the rest of the war as a guest of the Nazis.Adolf Eichmann’s deputy Dieter Wisliceny (later executed as a war criminal) in his Nuremburg Trials testimony stated, “the Mufti was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures.”

On a visit to Auschwitz, the Mufti reportedly admonished the guards running the gas chambers to work more diligently. Throughout the war, he broadcast regularly on German radio to the Middle East, preaching his pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic message to the Arab masses back home.

Had the Allies not liberated Tunisia from the Nazis, Libya from the Italian fascists, and Algeria and Morocco from the Vichy regime in 1943, it is a fair bet that the local Arab population would not have lifted a finger to halt the deportation of the Jews of Palestine and the Arab world to death camps.

Arguably, North African states, having not yet achieved independence, were not responsible for Jewish suffering: anti-Jewish measures were implemented by the Vichy regime and the Italian fascists. But the Iraqi government cannot so lightly be let off the hook. Iraq, independent since 1932, was the scene of a pro-Nazi coup in 1941, leading inexorably to the Farhud, the Iraqi-Jewish Kristallnacht. In this two-day orgy of murder, rape, mutilation and looting, up to 600 Jews were killed, according to British archival records. The exact figure will never be known.

The Palestinian Mufti played a central role in plotting the pro-Nazi coup in Iraq.

The Mufti was personally responsible for the deaths of 20,000 European Jews murdered in the Nazi Holocaust. He organized the killing of 12,600 Bosnian Jews by Muslims, whom he recruited to the Waffen-SS Nazi-Bosnian division.  He personally stopped 4,000 children, accompanied by 500 adults, from leaving Europe and had them sent to Auschwitz and gassed; he prevented another 2,000 Jews from leaving Romania and 1000 from leaving Hungary for Palestine—they too were sent to death camps.

Only three years after the end of World War ll, the members of the Arab League were bent on emulating the Nazis. They set about making the Arab Middle East judenrein (free of Jews). They applied Nuremberg-style laws, criminalising Zionism, freezing Jewish bank accounts, instituting quotas, imposing restrictions on jobs and movement.

The result was the mass exodus and spoliation of a million Jews. Yet very few Arabs acknowledge they are to blame for the so-called Jewish nakba (catastrophe). Holocaust denial goes hand-in-hand with Jewish nakba denial.

In 1945, the Mufti of Jerusalem should have been tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg. He was indicted, judged and convicted by Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity, arising from his pivotal role in the Handschar and Skandeberg SS divisions which deported Balkan Jews from Kosovo, Macedonia and Thrace. But the Allies shrank from offending the Arabs.

Not only has the virus of Nazi anti-Semitism never left the Arab and Muslim world, it has grown exponentially. Muslim immigrants have carried the virus of Jew-hatred back into European countries. Saudi petrodollars have financed the spread of Islamism, with its implicit anti-Semitism, worldwide.

That is why today, in the Arab and Muslim world, Holocaust denial is alive and well.

The ghost of Nazi-inspired, anti-Jewish bigotry was never exorcised from the Arab world. In fact Arabs became its torch-bearers. On Jan. 14, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, whose university thesis was an exercise in Holocaust denial, shocked all right-thinking individuals with a speech dripping with anti-Semitism, and blaming the Jews for their own deaths in the Holocaust.

Eichmann himself hoped his “Arab friends” would continue his battle against the Jews who were always the “principal war criminals” and “principal aggressors.” He hadn’t managed to complete his task of “total annihilation,” but the Muslims could still complete it for him.

Enough said.

(Images added by Daphne. For the original article and its links go here)

"Hatred of Israel & Jews Corrupts Every Aspect of Arab Society" (video)

An American journalist tells how.

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAOzlinU94g)

To quote the maker and uploader, PragerU.com:

"What's holding the Arab world back? Why, by nearly every measure, are Muslim nations so far behind the West economically, culturally and scientifically? Bret Stephens, Global View columnist for the Wall Street Journal, explains."

"We Must Massacre Them...; In Palestine...They Cannot Have The Status Of Dhimmis": Hamas MP

Here's one of those nice guys from Hamastan, an MP and cleric named Yunis al-Astal, telling on Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV earlier this month what should be done with the Jews, as derived from the Quran itself.

 From the transcript provided by MEMRI:

'In today's show, we will discuss the demand that the Palestinian people recognize [Israel] as a Jewish state, so that the occupation will graciously hand them out scraps. I would like to begin by quoting what Allah said about them: "The worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are those who disbelieve. They are the ones with whom you made a covenant, but they break their covenant every time....

The obvious question is: What is the solution to this gang of people? The Al-Anfal chapter of the Koran provides us with the answer. After He said: "They are the ones with whom you made a covenant, but they break their covenant every time," Allah added: "If you gain mastery over them in a war, use them to disperse those who follow them that they may remember." This indicates that we must massacre them, in order to break them down and prevent them from sowing corruption in the world. They are the ones who still spark the flame of war, but Allah has taken it upon Himself to extinguish it....

We must restore them to the state of humiliation imposed upon them. They should be dhimmi citizens. This status must be imposed upon them by war. They must pay the jizya security tax while they live in our midst....

However, in Palestine, where they are occupiers and invaders, they cannot have the status of dhimmis...."

Well-known American Islam-watcher Dr Andrew Bostom has an in-depth analysis here
(Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog)

On Antisemitism Among The Syrian Demonstrators & Elsewhere In The Arab World

The cerebral and always interesting British blogger Edgar Davidson, who has previously drawn attention to antisemitism in the so-called Arab Spring,  has an important post regarding antisemitism among the Syrian demonstrators.

This is a post which deserves attention. Access it  here

As well, there's a current article on the website of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Public Affairs Council (AIJAC) website that begins:

"Two recent blog posts by bloggers of Arab descent bravely tackle the internally- taboo issue of antisemitism in the Arab world, both claiming that it is a well entrenched belief system which undermines the development of pluralistic, democratic societies in the Middle East, as the Arab Spring revolutions enter their second year."

The article (hat tip: Shirlee) goes on to describe the bloggers'  analyses.  Access it here

Mark The Islamic Expert's Words: It's Not About Politics and Borders - It's About Theology and Annihilation

Part of the London crowd; photo from Richard Millett's Blog

At yesterday's angry demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in London (see my previous post for a nine-minute video), where Hezbollah flags were waved by many in the mob, a certain genocidal chant rang out.

To quote Tom Friedmann, who has a most evocative description of the demonstration that deserves to be read in full:

"Over at the [simultaneous] Israeli demonstration Jewish teenagers waved Israeli flags, sang traditional Jewish songs and joined in chants declaring their will to peace. If they could have been described as provocative at all it was when they chanted ‘We love life, you love death’ yet undeniably quite accurately reflecting the statements of countless Islamist clerics on the subject. Nor could the Palestinian side really attempt to claim that they were not championing the Islamist cause; several Hezbollah flags could clearly be seen among their crowed. And while the Israeli demonstrators made their calls for peace and that Gaza be freed from Hamas the Palestinian group decided to go for a rendition of ‘Khyber al-Yahud’ which calls on Jews to remember how they were slaughtered by Mohammad and his men at Khyber in 7th century Arabia. [My emphasis] Indeed much of the chanting was in Arabic as most of the crowed appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin, many in traditional Islamic dress. The odd Quaker/Anarchist that had ill-advisedly come along nervously struggled to join in with the Arabic, but for the most part Middle England had stayed away this time. There was of course Lauren Booth who seemed to have come in fancy dress; sporting an amusingly dysfunctional combination of designer sunglasses, a pink jacket and a keffiyeh for a hijab, but then she can hardly be said to count."  See: http://tomfriedmann.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/two-very-different-demonstrations-at-the-israeli-embassy/ and also http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/naqba-day-extremists-spew-hate-outside-israeli-embassy/

No doubt the genocidal chant pierced the air at similar "Nakba Day" rallies in other cities round the world.

Binyamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, in assuring his compatriots that  "we are determined to protect our borders and our sovereignty" from "Nakba Day" incursions by Arab trouble makers, added:

"The leaders of these violent demonstrations have personally stated that their struggle is not over the '67 lines, but rather to undermine the very existence of the State of Israel, which they define as a disaster which must be corrected."

This fact - that the issue is not one of borders but of Israel's very existence - is powerfully expressed by Egyptian-born expert in Islamic radicalism Dr Tawfik Hamid, of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia.

 A former Islamic extremist who once belonged to the same terrorist organization as Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Dr Ayman al-Zawahir, he has a message for American diplomats that deserves to be heard and heeded by all who place the onus for peace upon the Jewish State:

"Approaching the Arab-Israeli conflict from the perspective that it is about land, so that giving more land to the Palestinians will solve the problem, is a failed endeavor.

Israel has already given Egypt the whole of the Sinai, and got nothing in return except a cold peace and rising anti-Semitism in the country. Similarly the disengagement from Gaza did not magically lead to a decline in the wave of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world.

Pro-Palestinian Muslim demonstrators across the world repeatedly use the chant “Khyber Khyber Ya Yahood... Gaish Muhammad Sawfa Yaood,” which reminds the Jews that the army of Muhammad is coming back for a repeat of what was done to the Jewish Khyber tribe.

According to authentic Islamic history books, the Islamic army, led by Muhammad, annihilated the Jewish tribe of Khyber, raping its women and killing all its men.

Such barbaric statements against the Jews have been used by many in the Muslim world, and even inside the US and Europe. Sadly the chant was also used on Friday by thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

The Hamas charter also calls for the destruction of Israel. This violent principle has its roots in the traditional Islamic teaching, based on Hadith books, that encourages the killing of all Jews before the end of days.

.... [T]he problem in the eyes of the Palestinians and their supporters is not the borders of Israel but the very existence of the country, all future missions will similarly fail. Solving the Arab-Israeli conflict must be done initially at the theological rather than the political level, as the former is impeding the latter.  [My emphasis]

It is unfair to ask Israel to trust those who shamefully advocate the killing of Jews, and claim that Islamic annihilation of the Jews by an Islamic army is a model that must be emulated today.  [My emphasis]

The problem is not only in the existence of violent teachings in historical Islamic texts, but also in the dangerous desire of many Islamists and violent Islamic scholars to revive such violence in modern times....

The problem is that this disastrous anti-Semitic religious dimension is not limited to verses in books, but is also propagated by a powerful media machine that utilizes vicious, Nazi-style propaganda across the Muslim world. Publishing dehumanizing cartoons in the mainstream media, and blaming Jews for nearly every problem in the world has become much too common in the leading Arab media over the past few decades.

It is virtually impossible to promote any form of peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict without reducing such levels of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world. 

Until future envoys to the Middle East understand the religious dimension of the problem, and that the Arab- Israeli conflict is not about borders but about the existence of the state of Israel, all future attempts to make peace in the area will fail. [My emphasis]  See: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=220694

And for a truly repellent Israel-delegitimising piece by Jody McIntyre in The Independent newspaper today that says, inter alia:

"I often wonder how I am expected to recognise the legitimacy of a state that does not recognise its own borders. I often wonder how I can recognise a state that has invaded and occupied every country it shares a border with. How can I recognise a country that refuses to recognise the right of return, as enshrined in international law, of the Palestinian refugees? Yesterday, those refugees proved that they will never allow that right to be forgotten. Despite the combined efforts of Israel, the US, and the Palestinian Authority, they will never forget the homes that they left in 1948."

see http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/05/16/a-right-to-return/

Passover: "The Holiday of Apes"

Traditionally, this season - that of Passover and Easter - was one of blood libels and pogroms in Christendom, especially in Eastern Europe.

There's something about Easter, with its imagery of the Crucifixion, which kindled, and occasionally still kindles, primitive antisemitism, despite the fact that the Romans, not the Jews, sentenced Jesus to death.

A news report in the Palestinian Authority's official newspaper tells that:

 "The spring carnival has retained its [Palestinian] flavor in towns such as Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Ramallah... with the demonstrations of the Scouts, songs, dances, and popular Palestinian hymns about Christian-Islamic unity and internal Christian unity. These hymns carry meaningful messages, in response to the Israeli prohibition [to enter Jerusalem], as seen in the calls of the youth who lead the procession of light, waving swords and not caring if anyone accuses them of anti-Semitism: ... 'Our master, Jesus, the Messiah, the Messiah redeemed us, with his blood he bought us, and today we are joyous while the Jews are sad,' and, 'Jews, Jews! Your holiday is the Holiday of the Apes, while our holiday is the Holiday of the Messiah.'"

Although this ditty is reportedly in retaliation for that "Israeli prohibition", it has (hat tip: Elliott Green) earlier echoes.  Elliott Green found that Saul S Friedman reports a similar ditty sung at Eastertime in the 19th century in his Land of Dust: Palestine at the Turn of the Century (Washington DC: University Press of America 1982), pp 115-116. The original version runs in part:

"Oh Jews! Oh Jews! Your feasts are goblin feasts. . . ."

Friedman cites the Palestinian Arabic-speaking Christian, Gamahliel Wad el-Ward in Palestine through the Eyes of a Native [New York: Fleming H Revell 1907]. pp 60-64.

Read more on the PA report: http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=4924
And for more examples of antisemitism in the PA invoking the "apes and pigs" definition of Jews see: http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=786

Goldstone Retracts; Arab Antisemites React



From ADL website

 The Anti-Defamation League reports that Judge Richard Goldstone's retraction of core conclusions in his notorious eponymous report has led to a flurry of antisemitic conspiracy theories in the Arab world, as seen in a number of antisemitic cartoons depicting Jews with stereotypical features and attributes.

On the left, for instance, is a cartoon that appeared on 5 April in the Gaza newspaper Filastin.  Below is one that appeared on the same day in the Jordanian newspaper Ad Dustur.

Explains the ADL's National Director, Abe Foxman:

"Just as the original report was celebrated by Arab cartoonists as ‘proof’ of the evil nature of Israel and Jews, so too has the decision by Judge Richard Goldstone to reconsider his findings inspired another round of hateful caricatures and stereotypes in the Arab Media.  Newspapers across the Arab world have responded to the Goldstone developments with a series of hideous caricatures, many of them viciously anti-Semitic."

See http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASaw_14/6021_14.htm

The antisemitic cartoons can be viewed on the ADL's website: http://www.adl.org/main_Arab_World/arab_anti_semitism_cartoons_2011