Living In Denial? Anglo-Jewish Leaders Walk Out On Speakers Warning Of Islamic Antisemitism

"I am touching upon the taboos that have to be broken, because a totally false narrative has been created in Europe

The idea that all cultures are the same is absurd. If there is no hierarchy in culture, then Nazi culture is equivalent to democratic Western culture.

There are Islamic groups which are equivalent in their language and ideology to Nazis. And I have no problem in saying that, because it is true."

That, according to a report in the Jewish Chronicle, is what Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld, an acknowledged expert on antisemitism in postwar Europe, and a founder of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, said following a walkout of some of the Anglo-Jewish communal personalities (notably from the Community Security Trust ) who, citing "Islamophobia" on the part of Dr Gerstenfeld and Egyptian-born author and activist Bat Ye'or (Gisèle Littman), walked out on a symposium on combating antisemitism that took place at London's Wiener Library recently.  (See Jonathan Hoffman's interesting and illuminating blog on this matter here)

One of the communal figures who reportedly walked out is quoted as explaining:

 "I was appalled by Gerstenfeld’s characterisation of Muslim culture as inferior. Nearly all the speakers on the day, including me, stressed that antisemitism must be understood and opposed within an anti-racist framework"

Bat Ye'or, widow of the late lamented David Littman, and author of Eurabia: The Europe-Arab Axis (2005) and other works including an article entitled "The Palestinization of UNESCO" that I mentioned here, reportedly told the symposium

 "The source of antisemitism is the organisation of the Islamic corporation"

and when the deputy communications director of Anglo-Jewry's Community Security Trust objected to the Islamophobic tone of such remarks, she responded:

"Islam is denying the root of Judaism and Christianity with a profound belief in Jihad."

Since I was not present at the symposium and did not hear the observations that led to frequent interjections and the walkout it would be quite wrong of me to characterise the reaction as that of "Trembling Israelites" or dhimmis.

Yet I'm worried that mainstream communal leaders appear to be echoing the mantra of the group Independent Jewish Voices:

"There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance."

Fine sentiments in the main: it's the bit about Islamophobia that's the bugbear.

 I'm worried that their evident ensnarement by the very dodgy school of thought that insists that "Islamophobia" (dislike of certain illiberal, antediluvian tenets of a particular worldview) is another side of the coin to the racism that is  antisemitism will blunt their responses to danger, a very real danger posed by radical Islam in Europe.

It would lead them to dismiss as mere hate-speech such warnings as this by the Arab-Christian scholar Raymond Ibrahim:

'These [persecuted] Christians [in the Islamic world] are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens in race, ethnicity, national identity, and language; there is no political dispute, no land dispute.  The only problem is that they are Christian—they are the other—and so must be subjugated, according to Sharia’s position for all “others,” for all infidels—including Israel and the West.

Such is the true nature of Muslim rage throughout the world: it is a byproduct of doctrinal intolerance if not downright hatred for the other, who must always be kept in a state of subjugation and humiliation, according to the letter of the Quran.

Accordingly, while Christian persecution is the clearest example of this hate, it also explains why others are so despised, for example, Israel.

Consider: Christians and Jews are both constantly castigated in the Quran: Muslims are admonished not to befriend either of them (5:51) and to fight and subjugate them “until they pay tribute with willing submission and feel themselves brought low” (9:29).  Christians under Islam are suffering accordingly—as despised dhimmis, abused and “brought low,” routinely plundered of their lives, dignity, and possessions.

On the other hand, Israel—the dhimmi that got away—actually has authority and power over Muslims.  Now, if dhimmis are supposed to be kept in total submission to Muslims, how then when one of them actually lords over Muslims?

Hence Islam’s immense and existential rage against the Jewish state."

As Isi Leibler has observed:

'It is surely high time for Diaspora leaders to stop living in denial and get their act together. Instead of competing with each other in oozing political correctness, they should display some backbone and call a spade a spade.

 We are currently witnessing the greatest revival of global anti-Semitism since the Middle Ages. This permeates all classes of society, and, ranging from academics to illiterates and European leaders who retain office despite making unabashed neo-Nazi remarks about Jews to mobs at anti-Israeli demonstrations carrying placards "gas the Jews".

It encompasses the entire political spectrum, but is spearheaded by liberals and Muslims. Muslim radicals relate to Israel in a manner reminiscent of the Church’s medieval attitude toward the Jews. They promote popular TV programs depicting the blood of Muslim children being used for baking matzot, and have revived The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a best-seller. They certainly compare favorably with the worst Nazi Jew baiting, with imams quoting genocidal religious texts to the faithful, inciting them to murder Jews, "the descendants of apes and pigs".

It is macabre to observe the alliance between liberals and jihadists who represent the antithesis of everything the Left purports to represent. The extremist Islamists are the most reactionary elements in the world. They reject fundamental human rights, proscribe freedom of expression and religion, promote the degradation of women and, to this day, implement barbaric laws including stoning of adulterers and homosexuals and the amputation of limbs for petty crimes. More than 50 Muslim countries deny Judaism or Christianity equal standing with Islam....

Alas, Jews who exaggerate the presence of Islamophobia become leading proponents of the campaign to sanitize and understate Islamic extremism. This is especially bizarre, given that Jews, especially in Europe, but also increasingly in the US, are facing far greater threats of violence than Muslims. It is also synagogues, rather than mosques, which are continuously being desecrated and vandalized, in many cases by Islamists....

This is an area in which Jews, who have the most to lose, must surely stand up and be counted."

 [Emphasis added]

And while we're on the subject of antisemitism in Britain see the sad report on the plight of Jewish students at Edinburgh University  here

Bat Ye'or OnThe EU's Dangerous & Destructive Foreign Policy Of Dhimmitude

The Egyptian-born scholar Gisèle Littman, who under the nom de plume Bat Ye'or is the author of Eurabia: The Europe-Arab Axis (2005) and other books, has published a powerfully provocative new article entitled "The Palestinization of UNESCO," in which she indicts the foreign policy of the European Union and warns that in adopting the Palestinian narrative of history the EU is betraying not only Israel, the Judeo-Christian heritage, and Christians persecuted by Islamic regimes, but Europe itself.

'In January 1981 the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Summit meeting in Mecca declared that, "Palestine should be viewed as the paramount issue of Muslim nations." Since then Europe hastened to adopt this path as well and has provided for the Palestinization of the cultural, social and above all political life of Europe.For three decades, Europe obeyed the OIC in a servile manner. The EU has effectively created a major problem for itself that is eating away and destroying it,' she begins.

Messages in Londonistan

'The EU made Palestine the hub of its international policy, transforming it into a symbol of peace and universal harmony, in a world that would not know "justice" until its coming. The only obstacle to this paradise is the Machiavellian Israel, the oppressor and usurper of Palestine, whose purity as a peaceful victim is the harbinger of global justice.Europe does not yet dare use armed force against Israel, whose existence it claims to defend, while advising it to commit suicide. Europe fights Israel with the infamous Nazi weapons by delegitimizing its existence, robbing it of its history, defaming it by propaganda, hatred and attempts to destroy its economy through boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS). Toward this goal it encourages an international campaign of incitement to hatred by financing anti-Israel NGOs and lobbies. Europe claims that Jewish existence in its ancestral homeland, Judea and Samaria, is an "occupation" - a colonization. In this way, Israel has become a state that is occupying its own historical homeland....

 The appropriation of a travel poster from the Yishuv

Euro-jihadists invoke "Palestinian resistance" rather than the reality of their terrorism that has spread throughout the planet. The EU has used every stratagem to force Israel to self-destruct in the name of Palestine.... This political link between the OIC and the European Union did not only appear in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict but also in internal European politics concerning the massive Muslim immigration into Europe, which started in the years 1974-75.

The dhimmi-dressed Mrs William Hague

It was then that a joint Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation (PAEAC) was set up with the task of passing on the political demands from the Arab League countries to the European Community and to monitor their implementation within Europe.Transposing its anti-Israeli policy to Europe, the EU wants to create a tabula rasa of historical nationalisms and of the privileges of sovereign states, to transfer to the UN – dominated by the OIC – the world governance of human rights. The basic rights of Europeans to security, to their history and freedom of expression are disproved, rebutted, dismissed by the OIC under the guise of Islamophobia and its vehement request for European multiculturalism. Rooted in the civilization of jihad and dhimmitude, it imposes its own criteria through its European and UN go-betweens in its new Western empire. So while Europe prides itself on creating universal, humanitarian governance, on the international scene the OIC is implementing a Koranic order of Islamic human rights.With the repudiation of Israel, the EU is repudiating itself. It is putting the emphasis on the Greco-Roman heritage and eliminating that of Judeo-Christianity to please the OIC and Muslim migrants....

Head-covered, seated low:Britain's former envoy to Lebanon

It means adopting dhimmitude.Eurabia and Palestinianism come from the same rejection and the same policy applied to the destruction of the nation-state, the manifestation of the spirit and culture of peoples, condemned to extinction in a globalized, humanitarian utopia. Their points in common are (1) the war against Israel; (2) the de-Judaization of Christianity; (3) the de-Christianization of Europe; and (4) the joint EU-OIC policy to strengthen the UN's global governance that the OIC aims to monopolize. This suicidal approach is specific to Europe; it does not exist in China or in India, or even in Muslim countries....'
Read more here
Hat tip: BoL

"Palestinism Makes The Destruction Of Israel A Universal Duty"

In her must-read interview, to which I drew attention on my previous post, Bat Ye'or gives this salutary warning :

"Palestinism is a world policy initiated and imposed by the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference] and its Western allies that aims to transfer to Palestinian Muslims the history, and the cultural and religious heritage of the Jewish people. The origin of this belief is in the Koran which states that the Bible is a falsification and that the biblical figures, including Jesus and the apostles were all Muslim prophets who preached Islam. This theory suppresses Jewish and Christian history and legitimacy. Palestinism struggles to eliminate Israel and replace it by a Muslim Palestine since it is based on the Islamization of the Bible.

Palestinism is also a political and theological current working for the Islamization of Christianity by replacing its Jewish biblical roots by the Koranic interpretation of the Bible. The promoter of such theology is the Sabeel Christian Center in Jerusalem that teaches Christians the Islamic interpretation of the Bible.

Palestinism is at the base of the whole Eurabian construct, European dhimmitude and the submission of Western leaders. Palestinism encompasses all Western-Muslim relationships, this is the reason why the West has made the creation of Palestine and the destruction of Israel the most urgent topics of the planet.

This is also in obedience to the OIC who made of Palestinism/antisemitism the base of its policy with the West and its subjugation. Support for the Palestinians is the guarantee for Europe’s security. Westerners have paid billions of jizya (tribut) to the Palestinians as a protection from terrorism. The OIC obliges the West to deny Israel’s rights and adopt the Islamic conception of history where Jewish and Christian rights to their history and culture are denied as we have seen recently with the Islamization of the Hebrew Patriarch tombs in Hebron by UNESCO.

Palestinism makes the destruction of Israel a universal duty."

I guess that's what this chap is telling us, in a crude way.  I have to admit that I'm definitely not a fan of his - yes, much of what he says has merit, but he's so strident, so in-your-face, and he can come across almost as  an anti-Arab hate preacher, which I deplore.   But several people have asked me to post this.  It's appeared on other blogs, but in case you haven't seen it elsewhere, voilà!

A Jewish Refugee From Egypt Remembers ...

Gisèle Littman, aka Bat Ye'or ("Daughter of the Nile"), the nom-de-plume attached to her famous book  Eurabia (2005) and other works, has given a fascinating interview on the subject of growing up Jewish in Egypt.

Of the situation of Egyptian Jewry in the immediate wake of the Suez Crisis of 1956, she recalls:

"The anti-Jewish apartheid system deepened. Jews were expelled from clubs, forbidden to go to restaurants, cinemas and public places. Many were immediately expelled from the country or thrown into jail. The secret police would come at night to arrest them. Others, like my mother, were under house arrest and their bank assets frozen. Their telephones were suppressed. Many Jews were isolated and could not communicate. Many left the country immediately, abandoning everything. I remember seeing their flats and beautiful villas ransacked. Each one was leaving in secret, fearing to be prevented from leaving their country which had become a jail.

Just before my mother was put under house arrest, I accompanied her to the bank where she quickly withdrew her jewels. We sold our flat for nothing since the pillage of Jewish homes had lowered prices. I choose twenty books among the hundreds we had and we sold all the rest. This was heart-breaking, as I always wanted to be a writer. I had accumulated many diaries since an early age, and later essays and literary criticisms. I realized that I was witnessing the agony of the Egyptian Jewish community and I made notes for a book. One night I burnt them all in the chimney. It was like dying. I knew we could only leave with two cases each and that the censors would read every piece of paper.

Families were dispersed in all directions. One sister went to London with her husband and child, another planned to go to Belgium, cousins went to Brazil, others went to Switzerland and France. As people were leaving secretly, I never knew whether I would be seeing them for the last time. I was living through the death of a world, not knowing if I would survive the next day. While the mob rejoiced in pillaging, I observed closely the inner destruction of family, friendships, bonds, society and the dignity and resolve of the victims.

By then, I had very few friends remaining. For me they belonged to a beloved and disappearing world that was dying with a part of my life, where everything being so transient also became so precious. In the last months preceding our departure, I walked alone throughout Cairo and Alexandria, their old quarters, their museums and every place that now was deserted of friends and family. For years I was fascinated by Egyptology, art and history. I knew I would never see these treasures again.

We left at night in secret. My father and mother could hardly walk. Thanks to a lawyer my father had at last sold a parcel of land. The proceeds from this sale, together with my mother’s jewels were sent out of the country through a clandestine channel. The Swiss consulate gave us a Nansen passport since Egyptian Jews were allowed to leave Egypt only on condition that they renounce their nationality and all their belongings in Egypt and never come back. We all signed such a declaration.

We had reservations on a KLM flight. We were kept at the airport for hours, our bodies searched, our cases emptied on the floor, insulted, humiliated and threatened by an Egyptian Sudanese officer who was cracking a whip (curbash) around us. My meager twenty Egyptian pounds were confiscated. Finally, they let us depart. We stopped at Amsterdam where my other sister came from Belgium, with her husband and baby to see us and tell us that money and jewels were safely deposited in a bank.

It was strange to see them in an Amsterdam hotel. We were now refugees, homeless, stateless, in a world where we knew no one. We were full of apprehension on the threshold of a new life, where we would destroy our past to build the future. It was my first night in exile."

Read more here.

And on the subject of those forgotten refugees, Jewish fugitives from Arab lands, see Michelle Huberman's new piece here.

David Littman's "Little Red Book": How Arab Theologians Depict Jews and Israel

In 1961 British-born David Littman, who later moved to Switzerland with his Egyptian-born wife Gisèle, undertook with her a covert mission in Morocco which led to over 500 Jewish children finding refuge in Israel.

Gisèle is well-known today under her pseudonym Bat Ye'or ("Daughter of the Nile"), having authored The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (1985) and Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis (2005).

With her husband David, she has been active in the World Organization for Jews in Arab Countries.

David Littman's important, illuminating text - known to some as his "little red book" - on the way Arab theologians depict Jews and Israel, is essential viewing, and available here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/51211757/Arab-Theologians-on-Jews-and-Israel-4th-Edition

See also the posts by Brian of London, whose input has made this E-Book possible, and who advises that hard copies will hopefully be out soon: http://www.israellycool.com/2011/04/11/arab-theologians-on-jews-israel/ and http://www.israellycool.com/2011/03/22/arab-theologians-on-jews-and-israel-settlement/