Not Cute & Cuddly (videos)

 Activists on an American campus and their Jew-hatred:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yME1TdrkYcY

"The Jews are behind every conspiracy ... human garbage ..."
So, citing the Quran, stated Abdul Samee' Al-'Arabeed, Professor of Quranic Studies at Al-Aqsa University, on 19 July this year (Memri.org video):

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebbyeR1bk1s

Another Memri.org video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNVXblIUV44

In a Friday sermon on 27 July at the Al-Faruq Mosque, Copenhagen, Imam Mundhir Abdallah claimed that his sermon of 31 March last year, for which he was recently indicted on charges of hate speech, was not about the Jews, but about Palestine. To quote the uploader:

For MEMRI TV’s translation of this sermon, in which he had recited the antisemitic hadith about the Prophecy of the Rock and the Tree, see MEMRI TV clip 6013. "The only solution for Palestine is Jihad," said Imam Abdallah in his recent sermon, calling for the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate. "That means war," he emphasized, "not in Denmark and not elsewhere, but in Palestine, to liberate it from the occupation." For more statements by Imam Abdallah, where he said that the "rampaging, filth, and vileness" of the Jews reflect their "immutable nature," see MEMRI TV clip 6689. The July 27 sermon, which was delivered partly in Arabic and partly in English, was posted on the Al-Faruq Mosque Facebook page.

Meanwhile, towards the end of this clip, plucky Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist politely but passionately explains to an interviewer why Islamic face coverings should not be tolerated in Denmark, Sweden, or the rest of Europe.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNcgwnKNml4

An Aussie Academic Regarding BtS: "What is the Jewish value of vilifying one's own nation to the delight of its enemies? "

"There is a well-funded and powerful cottage industry of NGOs, journalists, academics and activists who are crystal clear about their unabashed anti-Israel ideology. The goal of their openly declared war is to damage Israel’s standing in the court of world opinion and to bring about its collapse."

That's the opening paragraph of a typically hard-hitting article written for his regular op-ed column in  Australian Jewish News last month by Dr Dvir Abramovich, a prominent Jewish Studies academic at the University of Melbourne, who's also chair of the local B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission.

Later in the article Abramovich justifiably declared:

'Billions of people are manipulated by a tsunami of malicious op-eds, dishonest news items, scurrilous caricatures and disparaging articles that are awash with crude fabrications. Too many adopt the skewed narrative, lock, stock and barrel.... 

Which brings us to Breaking The Silence (BtS) a radical Israeli NGO, with a budget of nearly four million shekels. Bankrolled mainly by European countries, and foreign entities, it is made up of former Israeli soldiers who are paid to collect anonymous testimonies and evidences of “crimes” so as to prove that Israel is guilty of “intimidation, instilling of fear, and indiscriminate punishment of the Palestinian population.”

In 2009, BtS accepted 75,000 shekels from Oxfam on the condition that it will interview as many soldiers as possible who will confirm the IDF’s “immoral actions”.

Last week, BtS published a new report relating to Operation Protective Edge which accuses the IDF of “indiscriminate fire on civilian targets” and “deliberate mass destruction”.

It has been reported that The Arab Human Rights Fund, which has links to Global jihad and the PFLP, provided BtS with US$300,000 to craft the report. Now Hamas is calling for Israeli “war criminals” to be brought to trial in the International Criminal Court.

Here are some BtS quotes, “Israeli self-defence measures are pretexts for ‘terrorising’ Palestinians”, and “We are the oppressors … we are creating the terror against us basically”. Got it? It’s the fault of terrorist Israel.

Unsurprisingly, reports from BtS (produced in English only for overseas consumption) which depict the IDF as dehumanising, unethical and as the worst serial violator around, are splashed across the international headlines, chipping away at Israel’s image.

BtS is a convenient pipeline, a weapon in the hands of Israel’s assorted haters. By its own admission, BtS is not a “normal human rights organisation”, or as Haaretz correspondent Amos Harel noted, “They have a clear political agenda, which is no longer really covered under the term ‘human rights organisation’.”

BtS deliberately withholds context, and uses misleading headlines and hearsay. There’s no description of the complex situation of fighting armed terrorists hiding in houses, or that the IDF sends leaflets to warn civilians, or that Hamas fired rockets from schools and hospitals, dug tunnels to launch mega-attacks, and used children as human shields.

The infamous Goldstone Report, referenced and thanked a BtS report 27 times, since it aided Goldstone to reach his discredited findings that the IDF “repeatedly opened fire on civilians who were not taking part in the hostilities and who posed no threat to them.”

The distorted accusations contained in BtS reports are impossible to verify because the group refuses to hand over their documents, or disclose the identity of those making the complaints, or provide the date or military unit detailed in their accounts, thereby preventing the IDF from investigating the “allegations”.

 As part of its propaganda warfare, BtS does global speaking tours, helping to fan the flames of rabid anti-Zionism, and denying Israel the legitimate right to protect its citizens from murder.

 For the real story, as told by Israeli soldiers, go to the Facebook page #my_truth.'

http://www.jspacenews.com/israel-soldiers-fighting-back-claims-abused-gaza-citizens/

The following week, under the title "Breaking my Silence," a squalid defence of BtS appeared in the same paper.  It was written by a Tel Aviv-based former student of Dr Abramovich, a young woman named Kate Rosenberg who in Melbourne attended a Jewish day school and Habonim Dror.  Inter alia, she fumed:

"Dr Abramovich's words smack of a frightening growing trend in Israel which likens democratic values to being anti-Israel or to suggest that believing in the human rights of African refugees or Palestinians to [sic] being anti-Jewish."

In the current issue of the paper, a leftist in supporting her and BtS shows his naivety in the face of current reality in commending their work "in trying to bring Israel closer to the ideals of the 1948 Declaration of Independence."   But then, as another correspondent notes, BtS

"disqualifies itself from acting as an agent for change ... because its work is infested with an ideology that insists, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that only Israel and the occupation are blocking peace, not Palestinian extremism.

Hence, BtS is always quick to defend the rights of Palestinians, but never supports the right of Israel to defend itself from rocket and terror attack....

By highlighting and often inflating out of all proportion a few unfortunate incidents of the sort which are inevitable in any large-scale conflict, BtS sets out to delegitimise the entire IDF and its matters of fighting as inherently immoral in order to further its explicitly political ends...."

That the IDF behaved with commendable restraint in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge has been confirmed by such respected observers as Martin Dempsey (chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff), Michael Shmitt and John Merriam (US military law experts), Colonel Richard Kemp (former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan), and Australian general Jim Molan.  The fact that the ratio of civilians to combatants killed was 1:1 (compared to the norm of 3:1 in similar conflicts) underlines that.

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/IsraelGaza2014/Pages/2014-Gaza-Conflict-Factual-and-Legal-Aspects.aspx

 In a  splendid refutation of Kate Rosenberg's "grossly simplistic, Israel-bashing" piece, Dvir Abramovich writes inter alia:

"Rosenberg knows very well that BtS, which has close to zero electoral and public support in Israel, sends its "star recruits" to tour campuses around the world, unafraid unafraid to spread their animus-filled venom about the IDF.  There, they are free to brainwash impressionable students and to contribute to the chilling festival of demonisation....

Campuses have become hotbeds of anti-Semitism [I do wish the Aussie Jewish press would adopt the "antisemitism" spelling - D.A.] and anti-Zionism, and BtS adds dangerous fuel to the spreading fire of intimidation and hostility directed at Jewish students.

Irresponsibly, Rosenberg recycles the libellous Goldstone slander that the IDF indiscriminately fires on highly populated areas in Gaza....

The same soldiers who stand guard at night and risk their lives to ensure that Rosenberg can sleep comfortably, safe and sound, in her bed, are depicted as part of a vicious, murderous military machine....

BtS hurts Israel, empowers the BDS gang, and gives credence to those who want to put Israel on a list, as a recent UN draft report recommended, alongside ISIS, al-Quaeda, the Taliban, Syria and Sudan as an entity that systematically harms children....

Rosenberg speaks of the value of Achvat Amim.  Perhaps it's time to show a little solidarity towards her own country.  After all, what is the Jewish value of vilifying one's own nation to the delight of its enemies? ...."

Update: Excellent video here

The Apathy & The Ennui: An academic anti-Israel move thwarted

"It is time that Zionists are asked to finally account for their support to the illegal occupation of Palestine since 1967.  This resolution rightly targets only Israel given the humongous influence that Jewish scholars have in the decision making process of Academia in general."

So opined American academic Alessio Lerro regarding the US Modern Language Association's proposed move against Israel.

This is it:

   Resolution 2014

    Whereas Israel has denied academics of Palestinian ethnicity entry into the West Bank;

 Whereas these restrictions violate international conventions on an occupying power’s obligation to protect the right to education;

Whereas the United States Department of State acknowledges on its Web site that Israel restricts the movements of American citizens of Palestinian descent;

 Whereas the denials have disrupted instruction, research, and planning at Palestinian universities;

Whereas the denials have restricted the academic freedom of scholars and teachers who are United States citizens;

 Be it resolved that the MLA urge the United States Department of State to contest Israel’s denials of entry to the West Bank by United States academics who have been invited to teach, confer, or do research at Palestinian universities.

Needless to say, Lerro's leaked remarks have been widely seen and condemned as antisemitic, as have the leaked remarks of certain other academic BDSers.

As reported here:

'Last January, the organization became the subject of major controversy after the group’s Delegate Assembly considered a resolution condemning Israel and calling on the U.S. State Department to “contest Israel’s denials of entry to the West Bank by U.S. academics who have been invited to teach, confer, or do research at Palestinian universities.”

The resolution did not, however, call for an academic boycott of Israel, a move which has been pushed by some activists and endorsed by the American Studies Association last December.

Supporters of the resolution said it would bring needed attention to alleged abuses of academic freedom by the Israeli government. Opponents argued the resolution was singling out Israel while ignoring far more severe abuses in other countries.

The resolution passed the Delegate Assembly 60 to 53, but to be officially approved it had to be endorsed by at least 10 percent of the MLA’s membership in a vote.

In the vote among the MLA’s entire membership, which ended Sunday, the anti-Israel crowd triumphed 1,560 to 1,063. However, at least 2,390 “yes” votes were needed to reach the 10 percent threshold. Nearly 90 percent of the MLA’s member decided this debate was one worth sitting out....'

More here

"I Urge Jewish Students ... To Avoid Most London Colleges...; The Atmosphere is Thoroughly Toxic"

Remember my recent post here regarding the adoption of a BDS motion by the King's College London Students' Union (KCLSU)?

As reported in the campus newspaper, KCLSU's Trustee Board has since decided that it won't override the motion, and that consequently

"the motion will be published within the KCLSU Welfare and Community Zone alongside other issues on which our members have, by majority, voted."

The same source reports that the Trustee Board also decided that

''we will not use KCLSU resources to implement the ‘Resolves’ section of the motion or otherwise promote the BDS movement through the union."

 It quotes KCLSU President and Chair of the Trustee Board Sebastiaan Debrouwere thus:

"[The Board] decided that the motion as democratically approved by Student General Meeting should stand as a record of the majority view expressed on the issue, but that we should not act on the resolves, given the laws that govern us as a charity and our wider objectives as a charity..."

Cold comfort for Jewish and other pro-Israel students on a campus where for all too many anti-Israel activity seems to have become a way of life:

"As an alumnus of KCL, I wrote to the Chancellor a few months ago, expressing concern about the College - during my time there, extremist groups like Hizb-ut Tahrir set up stalls at the entrance and acted in an intimidating way, and the Jewish Society's noticeboard was routinely vandalised and defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, including Holocaust denial. The College also has the dubious "honour" of educating a British suicide bomber, who attempted to blow up Mike's Bar in Tel Aviv (his accomplice was unfortunately successful).

The Chancellor's representative assured me that the atmosphere was now completely different and there was no problem at all.

They then invited Richard Falk, the anti-Semite at the UN, to give a speech. This time the Chancellor gave me a list of Falk's credentials, and defended the invitation.

I see nothing has changed. The College authorities, whilst not directly responsible for the shameful vote, stoke the fire and then act all surprised when it the fire spreads.

I urge Jewish students, and right minded decent young people, to avoid most London colleges - indeed, most UK campuses, and study somewhere else. The atmosphere is thoroughly toxic."

So writes a commenter named Adam on my recent post here.

 Oxford student Jonathan Hunter (if the name if familiar, it's probably because of this incident)  reflected thus on KCL's invitation to Falk:

".....This man has repeatedly violated principles at the forefront of King’s College’s own external speakers policy; especially in regard to the incitement of religious hatred. And his talk wasn’t even educational; it was filled with garbage. A moral equivocation between U.S. military action during the Second World War and Nazi genocide. A defence of what he even termed ‘inconsistency’ in singling out Israel and the U.S. for human rights abuses. After the talk, when I approached him for clarification on some his views, he basically denied outright that he was a 9/11 truther; despite being a signatory to an organisation called 9/11 Truth.

So why on earth did King’s College invite this clown? Why should King’s grant legitimacy to this complete and utter nut? And more bizarrely, how can this be a compulsory session for students?....

In essence, it boils down to that obsession with Israel which permeates nearly every academic institution. A pathological infatuation which latches onto any crank so long as he has something bad to say about Israel. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Holocaust denier like Israel Shamir – the House of Lords will warmly receive him. Nobody cares if it’s someone as offensive as George Galloway – the Oxford Union will still invite him. Who gives a damn if they’re an apologist for suicide bombers? Azzam Tamimi continues to hop from campus to campus spouting hatred...."

The toxic atmosphere which Adam cites is, of course, apparent on many campuses in the Western world, especially during the excrescence known as "Israel Apartheid Week" (see, for example, the  outbreak of antisemitic daubings at Adelaide University recently (more here) and the outrageous goings-on at Vassar, as described here.

British blogger Edgar Davidson has many interesting insights on Israel Apartheid Week here.  In that must-read post, dated 18th March, he notes, inter alia:

'A number of my friends' children have just experienced their first 'Israel Apartheid' week on campus ... and this has raised the question of how best to respond.... You should expose the person who says that as the liar and insane psychopath that they are.

The long-term objective of the ‘Israel is an apartheid state’ lie is similarly nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state and its 6 million Jewish inhabitants. Just look at the people who are behind the lie....

  I am not talking about the thousands of naive, easily influenced (and sometimes well-meaning) university students who have fallen for the lie .... I am talking about those who started the lie and those who actively promote it.'

He goes on to say:

'For the historical record the apartheid lie was actually invented by the KGB in communist Russia as part of the Cold War – after the total defeat of the Arab armies with their Soviet equipment  in 1967.  The KGB produced all the propaganda material in the late 1960s and 1970s that was then used by radical leftists throughout the Western world. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the apartheid lie has been driven by a hard core of anti-Semites, leftist revolutionaries and Islamists – the latter of whom  come from Arab countries which practice real apartheid (those same Arab countries provide much of the funding now for the propaganda which is still based on the Soviet material). The liars’ agenda is the destruction of the State of Israel. Despite belonging to organisations with names like the ‘Palestine Solidarity Campaign’ or 'Students for Justice for Palestinians' they have no interest in the welfare of the Palestinians; this is proven by their total lack of concern for the genuinely appalling plight of Palestinians in Syria (where they are being starved and murdered) and Lebanon (where for over 65 years they have been denied rights of citizenship and are banned from most professions).  Read here about the kind of Western student organisations who promote Israel Apartheid week....'

The first source linked to by Davidson  in the paragraph above is an article by the splendidly pro-Israel Professor Alan Johnson, who is associated with BICOM.  Johnson writes:

'....The smear originated in "anti-Zionist" campaigns that were waged without let up by the Communist states during the Cold War. Seeking Arab allies, these campaigns frequently descended into antisemitism, the word "Zionist" understood by all as a fig-leaf for "Jew". Many ideas that have since spread around the world, especially amongst "progressives", began here: Zionism equals racism, Zionism equals imperialism. Israel is the USA's "watchdog" in the Middle East, Zionism is complicit with, or even promotes, antisemitism, and, of course, Zionism equals South African apartheid....

The smear got a huge boost in 1975 when a coalition between the Soviet Bloc, the authoritarian Arab states, and the so-called "Non-Aligned Movement" used its built-in majority at the UN General Assembly to pass Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism. (The UN rescinded the resolution in 1991.)

The third key moment in the growth of the Apartheid Smear came in 2001 with the failure of the Camp David peace talks. This gave the smear an opening which was seized by tightly-organised, politically motivated and well-resourced group of NGOs and anti-Israel activists who hijacked the UN’s World Conference against Racism, Racial Intolerance and Xenophobia in Durban, South Africa to launch a global campaign against Israel as a "racist, apartheid state" and Israel itself as a "crime against humanity".

South Africa’s then Deputy Foreign Minister, Aziz Pahad, was appalled: "I wish to make it unequivocally clear that the SA government recognises that … [the Durban Conference] was hijacked and used by some with an anti-Israel agenda to turn into an antisemitic event."

The event was marked by hate speech. Pamphlets were circulated filled with grotesque caricatures of hook-nosed Jews depicted as Nazis, spearing Palestinian children, dripping blood from their fangs, with missiles bulging from their eyes or with pots of money nearby. In a Palestinian-led march with thousands of participants, a placard was held aloft that read ‘Hitler Should Have Finished the Job.’ Nearby, someone was selling the most notorious of anti-Jewish tracts, ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, a forgery which purports to be the minutes of a world Jewish Conspiracy, and which has been called a ‘warrant for genocide’....

 Davidson, in his post, continues:

The Arabs who promote the Apartheid lie are simply projecting the Apartheid that is rampant in their in their own countries and minds.  The Apartheid states are all Arab and Muslim: not a single practising Jew lives in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority areas (where Jews cannot even travel without facing likely murder),  Jordan and Saudi Arabia (where in both countries it is illegal to be a citizen if you are a Jew). There are just 2 remaining Jews in Iraq (where there were 300,000 as recently as 1952), 3 in Syria, 40 in Lebanon and 30 in Egypt, and less than 3000 Jews live in all of the other Arab countries combined. Yet, less than 60 years ago those Arab countries had thriving communities of Jews totally over 1,000,000.  They have all been driven out. But while every University student knows about the ‘plight of the Palestinians’ none know about the plight of Jews forcibly driven from Arab lands.

The most curiously misunderstood thing about the 'Israel Apartheid' lie is that the only people in Israel who are actually subject to legal restrictions because of their religion are the Jews. For example:

while Muslims are free to pray at any of their holy sites anywhere in Israel, Jews are banned from stepping foot on their holiest site (Temple Mount) and can only enter others (such as Rachel's tomb) at great risk under army escort. Israeli police are not even allowed to intervene when Arabs stone Jews from the Temple Mount.

    only Jews (and Druze) are legally forced to give up 3 years of their life (and then one month per year until retirement) to go in the army. Muslims have no obligation at all for any type of national service despite having full (and indeed disproportionately large) access to all national benefits.

    because all terrorism in Israel is committed by Arabs against Jews, only Jewish-owned buildings and businesses are forced to maintain costly security guards, barriers, and checks on each person entering.

 ....

No Jew can freely walk into any Muslim neighbourhood in Israel without endangering their lives. In contrast any Muslim can enter any Jewish neighbourhood without any fear at all.

    Any plans for new construction in Jewish neighbourhoods result in condemnation by the ‘international community’.  Meanwhile completely illegal construction by Muslims anywhere goes unchallenged both by the ‘international community’ and by Israel lawmakers themselves..

As Davidson observes,

'[T]here is a wealth of unimpeachable, easily accessible material that exposes every single facet of the Israel Apartheid lie (see, e.g. here, here, here, here and here)...'

And here's an excellent interview with Rabbi Marc Golub of Shalom TV,  in which a Jewish, pro-Israel academic at Stanford University, Charles Small, exposes the BDS Movement for the hypocritical, antisemitic movement it is.  Rabbi Golub had asked a pro-BDS academic at Stanford to appear with Small, but the anti-Israel academic had refused, insisting on being interviewed alone; Small pulls no punches in his interpretation of this refusal.  The interview, which took place earlier this year, is well worth listening to: it is very insightful and instructive:

The American Campus War Against The Jewish State (video)

I've just stumbled across this newly-uploaded video concerning supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah on campuses in America, and thought it well worth posting here:

It exposes lies, and Islamic antisemitism, very well.

Inspirational Video For Those On Campus Who Are Pro-Israel - But Afraid To Say So

Bravo to these fine young victims of harassment on American campuses who summoned the courage to put their support for a just cause ahead of their personal fears, and grew as human beings as a result.  Given the ferocity of the anti-Israel totalitarian left on Western campuses - and indeed not only on campuses -  theirs is a story which can and must serve as an inspiration to us all.

Going Out All Over Europe? The Lights Flicker In Brussels

Last Autumn, to the dismay and disgust of the Union of Jewish Students in Belgium (UEJB), as well as of the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS),  the Free University of Brussels showed a film featuring an incorrigible  antisemite of African origin, French comedian Dieudonne M'Bala M'bala, an admirer of Jean-Marie Le Pen and of Ahmadinejad.

In the film he described Jews as "the biggest swindlers on the planet" and declared "Death will be more comfortable than surrender to these dogs."

The film, 90 minutes in length, was shown during a discussion, open to the public, on freedom of expression focusing on Dieudonne.  Only one panellist, a history professor, spoke out against Dieudonne.

Viviane Teitelbaum, a Brussels legislator present, afterwards condemned the event as glorifying the French antisemite's bigotry and racism.

In a joint statement the UEJB and the EUJS denounced the "partiality" of the university's vice-rector, who moderated proceedings, expressed their shock at the "tense atmosphere of intimidation with regard to the Jews and the State of Israel which characterised the interventions of a large part of the public," and urged the university to pay heed to "the alarming deterioration of the climate on our campus and to fight against the consequences of the importation of the Israeli-Arab conflict".

Other incidents on campus, naturally also denounced by the UEJB, have included the staging of an Israeli military checkpoint there, a Nazi-style student feast, and the publication of an article in a university magazine that bore antisemitic stereotypes and assertions reminiscent of that despicable judeophobic forgery The Protocols of Elders of Zion.

Despite all this, in an interview published last month by the Belgian weekly Le Vif-L’Express, the university's rector denied that his university has become antisemitic, and alleged a "smear campaign"against it.

Feeling that the Free University of Brussels has become "the university of free antisemitism" and noting that many worried Jewish parents now prefer their children to study at the local Catholic university, an honorary professor at the former, internationally renowned neurosurgeon Jacques Brochi, a Jew who is also a Liberal member of the Belgian Senate, has resigned from the board of the university foundation that collects funds for research:

"I deeply deplored the absence of a strong and appropriate reaction from the university authorities to a succession of antisemitic incidents.

I don’t feel at home anymore at ULB." 

Of the situation on campus, he says:

"It is comparable to what is happening in other universities in Europe and elsewhere with the academic boycott of Israel campaigns where anti-Zionism takes the form of antisemitism.

But this is no reason to stay without reaction."

 Last week, in the Belgian Senate, Brotchi and two other members of his party abstained in the vote on a Socialist-initiated resolution calling on the Belgian government to recognise a Palestinian state:

"We abstained because the resolution doesn't condemn the political objective of Hamas which is to destroy the state of Israel."

Read more:
http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/46159
http://www.ejpress.org/article/52125