Hillel's Happy Hannukah

Pretty good stuff from the estimable UN Watch guy, eh?

An Israeli's Message to Mark Zuckerberg

Raped. Tortured. Murdered.  For being a Jew.

Jean Vercors made aliya from France some years ago.  He will be familiar to regular readers of this blog, since he has had guest posts here before.  This latest post of his is entitled
"An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook".

It's prompted me to add this link to a brand-new article by a non-Jewish Sorbonne scholar, the courageous and prescient Guy Millière, regarding the plight of French Jewry at the hands of hate-filled antisemites.

Writes Jean Vercors:

I have used Facebook for years as a platform to share my thoughts, comments and articles. I value that platform because of its global reach.  It connected me to some of my friends in France, the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and many other countries. It is a window to the world to differing opinions by allowing me to see what my friends think and share on their walls.It gives me an outlet to speak my mind and to share my thoughts on topics ranging from domestic politics to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

However, I have observed that your social media has reached a point of violent antisemitism, at least for me, and I guess many other people too. I am appalled by Facebook’s insistence to allow this on social media.  I cannot believe that a group that calls for the death of the Jews, your own people for that matter, does not violate Facebook’s “Community Standards.” Do you realize how dangerous your media has become allowing the antisemites of the world to vomit their hate on Israel with lies?

I am disgusted that Facebook not only calls this group socially acceptable, but it endangers the lives of our brothers, our families, our children, and more importantly, our people as a whole.

Free Speech should not be Hate Speech.

We all know too well that allowing such a negative behavior only encourages the killing of Jews as we have seen it lately when Facebook users that were anti-Zionists and posting anti-Jewish posts assassinated innocent people in France, Israel or elsewhere.

As a Jew, I was taught to stand up for Justice and truth against anyone not matter his faith or ethnicity.  We Jews have been standing in front line for thousands of years, defending, protecting and teaching human rights.

As we celebrate Pesach, we all retell the story of our journey from bondage to freedom when we were slaves in Egypt reading the Haggada. Not only to ourselves but to our children and the future generations. It has been this way for 3000 years.

You were quoted coming to the defence of Muslims after the November 2015 Paris attacks “As a Jew, my parents taught me that we must stand up against attacks on all communities. Even if an attack isn’t against you today, in time attacks on freedom for anyone will hurt everyone.  So I wonder Mr.Zuckerberg have you forgotten or ignored your statement that all of us should “stand up against attacks on all communities?” Maybe you do not even know about the double standards applied to Jews and Palestinians on Facebook?

The latest violence in Gaza sponsored by Hamas has launched a virulent anti-Israel campaign on Facebook against Israel and therefore the Jews in general.  I remember you said last year on your Facebook page: 

”For me, the most important tradition is to remember that we will not be truly free until every person is free”.

I am asking you a simple question, are you really free?  If you do not support your people. I believe you are still in Egypt and you have not yet escaped it morally.

You also said that you believe in free speech but at the same this free speech turns out to be a highway for free hate.

Why I am saying this is because my account has been suspended 3 times (30 days each time). Every comment I posted in favor of Israel, your automated response said i was violating Facebook community standards.

In fact, I believe my account was reported to Facebook by anti-Israel trolls and your moderators in Morocco or Pakistan did not hesitate a second to suspend my account.

In France, rumors abound that Facebook's moderators are located in French-speaking Muslim countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco which explains why most critics of hamas, Islam and political Islam are censored by Muslim moderators who support Hamas.

Notably, Muslim hate-speakers continue to proliferate on Facebook, while anti-Islamists face harassment and the loss of their accounts.

My comments were not offensive but true but based on facts. Some examples:

·        Hamas is using children as Human shields,

·        14 of the 16 killed in Gaza were Hamas terrorists,

·        Israel has the right to defend itself…and so on

And every time, I get the same answer” your behavior is not allowed on Facebook by violating Facebook Community Standards”

Facebook  is dealing with some serious contradictions of promoting free speech while running the world’s biggest social network, after being called out on the gap between his words and Facebook policy.

Since the violent Palestinian protest in Gaza last week, antisemitism has reached peaks that it was not touching since World War II.

I reported hundreds of times the violent and antisemitic hate speech posted on Facebook that should be considered against your Community Standards.

Every time I get the same answer: It does not violate our standards. 

It does violate a standard. My moral standard.

It is my duty to write a comment that expose facts about Israel.

For this reason, I am writing this letter to you in hope that you read it well and understand why I cannot accept the existence of Facebook pages that incites hatred against the Jews or any other religious/ethnic minority.

The antisemites who abound on Facebook post the same hatred that led the Jewish people to the gas chambers.

This group spews the same hateful propaganda that targeted a minority population to carry out a systematic genocide against the Jews in Europe. Are you conscious of that?

No Hate Speech on Facebook, unless it’s against the Jews, of course!

This is not the first time that Facebook chooses to take sides. I have reported several pages over the last five years only to get the same answer from Facebook staff.

This group produces the same vile hatred that has persecuted your people for millennia under the false premises that the Jewish people are the cause of all of the world’s problems.

I think Facebook has a moral obligation to stop giving antisemites a voice and an outlet to call for murdering Jews and comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. It is unacceptable for a social media as important as yours to allow such blatant Jew-hatred, or any hatred for that matter.

I reported pages inciting against Jews and received a message from Facebook staff saying that “ it was not in violation of Facebook rules.” Wait a minute! I thought that violence and hatred against anybody was to be reprimanded.

I speak for the millions of Jews who are scared to death to stand up for their people, to stand up for Israel, and to stand up for their right to self-determination on Facebook, in part because of antisemitic Facebook users like these that fester such undeniably antisemitic opinions and claim that the man responsible for killing six million Jews was “right” all along.

As a Jew, you can’t ignore the hateful rhetoric against Jews that has always been rampant on Facebook for decades.  Or perhaps it just doesn't matter to you?

The majority of what I see is dishonest criticism of Israel
•        Critics who habitually single out Israel for condemnation while ignoring far worse actions by other countries (especially other Middle Eastern countries) are antisemitic.•        Likening Israel to Nazi Germany or to traditional anti-Jewish stereotypical behavior is another sure sign of Jew-baiting.•        Attacks on the merits of Israel's existence rather than individual government policies are antisemitic.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr put it this way when he was approached by a student who attacked Zionism, When people criticize Zionists, King said, they mean Jews. You're talking antisemitism.

If you read this letter, I hope that you take my words to heart and do the courageous thing. Do the humane thing. Do the right thing.

·        Remove all Facebook pages that call for the death of Jews, Israelis(or Zionists).

·        Remove all articles from media like Al-Jazeera, TeleSUR, RT, MintPress News, Middle East Eye, Sydney Morning Herald, BBC, The Guardian, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Courrier international, Le Nouvelobs, Le Parisien and others that promotes hatred against Israel and the Jews.

·        Remove this comment posted (april 2016) on your page with 475 likes

We all know too well that Antizionism is Antisemitism.  

The time has come where our people need to be united as one. Our people need to come together and support one another.

I urge you, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook to respond the call and stand as a proud Jew against the blatant Jew-hatred that has plagued us for millennia and has only gotten stronger in the last few weeks.

You can file complaints on Facebook’s Help Center and you don’t have to be Jewish, Muslim, Christian or anything else for that matter. You just have to be a proponent of truth, justice, fairness and accountability for all mankind. If we don’t say anything, we have no right to complain when Israelis are getting stabbed to death on the streets of Israel or French Jews machine gunned in a Kosher supermarket or Mireille Knoll, the 85-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor who was murdered in her apartment.

Mark Zuckerberg, Give yourself a chance to leave Egypt and be closer to your people, if you claim to be Jewish.

Shalom from Jerusalem

The Chamber Goes Silent (video)

Splendid stuff from UN Watch's Hillel Neuer in the UN Human Rights Council on 20 March in response to the slanderous denunciation of Israel by the usual suspects:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35eEljsSQfc

Inter alia:

 Mr. President, let me begin by putting the following on the record: Everything we just heard — from the world’s worst abusers of human rights, of women’s rights, of freedom of religion, of the press, of assembly, of speech — is absolutely false; and, indeed, Orwellian.

Today’s report does not consider Israelis to be deserving of human rights — consistent with the approach of this council, where today’s notorious agenda item against Israel completely ignores their human rights.

Over the weekend, President Abbas announced he was giving his highest medal to Rima Khalaf, who resigned from the Economic and Social Commission of Western Asia, a Beirut-based UN agency of 18 Arab states, after Secretary General Guterres rightly instructed her to remove an absurd report which accused Israel of “apartheid.”

Mr. President, why is Mr. Abbas celebrating a report written by the notorious Richard Falk, after his own Palestinian Mission here, tried in 2010, to remove Mr. Falk on the basis that he was “a partisan of Hamas,” as we know from WikiLeaks?

The accusation against Israel is absurd. Israel’s 1.5 million Arabs…

[Interruption with objections by Palestinians, Egypt, and Pakistan.]

Israel’s 1.5 million Arabs, whatever challenges they face, enjoy full rights to vote and to be elected in the Knesset, they work as doctors and lawyers, they serve on the Supreme Court.

Now I’d like to ask the members of that commission, that commissioned that report, the Arab states from which we just heard. Egypt, Iraq, and the others:

How many Jews live in your countries? How many Jews live in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco?

Once upon a time, the Middle East was full of Jews.

Algeria had 140,000 Jews. Algeria, where are your Jews?

Egypt used to have 75,000 Jews. Where are your Jews?

Syria, you had tens of thousands of Jews. Where are your Jews?

Iraq, you had over 135,000 Jews. Where are your Jews?

Mr. President, where is the apartheid?

Why is there a U.N. commission on the Middle East that does not include Israel? From the 1960s and the ‘70s they refuse to include Israel. Where is the apartheid, Mr. President?

Mr. President, why are we meeting today on an agenda item singling out only one state, the Jewish state, for targeting.

Where is the apartheid, Mr. President?
UNHRC chamber goes silent.

Full transcript here

Meanwhile, the odious fork-tongued author of the report in question, who's been defaming Israel in Edinburgh and London, to the exultation of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other Israel-haters, whines about his richly-deserved come-uppance:

To read Falk's whine click here

Rejoice, Rejoice! A Christian Gospel The Israel-Haters Will Hate

Here's a Christian gospel that will definitely not leave the Tutus and Sizers of this world smiling.

Thanks to the initiative of a prominent South African Christian pro-Israel activist, and her tenacity in raising funds from generous like-minded people, this full -page ad appeared in the South African Sunday Times of 31 August.

Packed with a number of pertinent items, it is a splendid refutation of those Christians who attempt to delegitimise the little Jewish State.

Sincere thanks to Vivienne Myburgh and everyone else who made it possible.

(And hat tip to the indefatigable Shirlee)

Among the items in the ad are these:

Amen!

Two Terrorists, Two Assassinations, Two Standards: International Hypocrisy Towards Israel in Action

The following pungent exposure by well-known scholar and commentator Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld of international hypocrisy as seen in world reaction to the assassinations of two dangerous terroristic fanatics, and entitled "Hypocritical World That Slammed Killing of Hamas'[s] Yassin Now Lauds Bin Laden Hit" is a must-read.  It originally appeared at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4064079,00.html

I might add that the assassination of Sheikh Yassin (pictured; see http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3522191,00.html) was the subject of much hand-wringing on the part of Al Beeb (aka the BBC), which reverentially described and still describes him as Hamas's "spiritual leader," and seems never to waste an opportunity to remind us that he was "wheelchair-bound". 

Writes Dr Gerstenfeld:

The flurry of international reactions to the killing of Osama bin Laden by the American army provides Israel with a great opportunity to demonstrate the double standards applied against it by so many in the Western world and elsewhere. All one has to do is compare the reactions of major institutions and leaders with those after the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. This leader of the Hamas terrorist organization was killed by Israel in 2004. He was directly responsible for many lethal attacks on Israeli civilians including suicide bombings.

On Monday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters that "the death of Osama bin Laden, announced by President (Barack) Obama last night, is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism." Yet after the killing of Sheikh Yassin, then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said "I do condemn the targeted assassination of Sheikh Yassin and the others who died with him. Such actions are not only contrary to international law, but they do not do anything to help the search for a peaceful solution.”

The now-defunct UN Commission on Human Rights condemned “the tragic death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in contravention of the Hague Convention IV of 1907.” At the Security Council, the US had to use its veto power to prevent condemnation of Israel.

After the bin Laden killing, the leaders of the European Council and European Commission stated that his death made the world a safer place and showed that terrorist attacks do not remain unpunished. Following the Yassin killing, then-EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said, "This type of action does not contribute at all to create the conditions of peace. This is very, very bad news for the peace process. The policy of the European Union has been consistently condemnation of extra-judicial killing."

British Prime Minister David Cameron congratulated President Obama on the success of the bin Laden assassination. Cameron considered it a massive step forward in the fight against extremist terrorism. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair also welcomed bin Laden’s demise.

However, the killing of Sheikh Yassin was called by the then-British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw “unacceptable” and “unjustified.” The official spokesman of then-Prime Minister Blair condemned the “unlawful attack“ and observed: "We have repeatedly made clear our opposition to Israel's use of targeted killings and assassinations.”


A case of anti-Semitism?

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed Bin Laden’s killing as a coup in the fight against terrorism. He called President Obama, praised his determination and courage and all others who had pursued the head of al-Qaeda for 10 years. Sarkozy added that the two heads of state had agreed to continue the just and necessary fight against terrorist barbarity and those who support it.

Yet after Sheikh Yassin’s death, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hervé Ladsous, said, “France condemns the action taken against Sheikh Yassin, just as it has always condemned the principle of any extra-judicial execution as contrary to international law.” Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin declared that “such acts can only feed the spiral of violence.”

German Chancellor Angel Merkel said at a recent press conference, “I’m glad that killing bin Laden was successful.” She also called it “good news.” Then Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had stated after the killing of Sheikh Yassin that “the German government is deeply concerned about the development.”

Russia released a statement regarding bin Laden which the Voice of America quoted as saying that retribution inevitably reaches all terrorists and that Russia is ready to “step up” its coordination in the international fight against global terrorism.” After the Yassin assassination, a foreign ministry spokesman said that Moscow was deeply concerned about the situation.

President Abdullah Gul of Turkey declared that the killing of bin Laden was a message for terrorist organizations all around the world. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called the killing of Yassin “a terrorist act” and said that “the assassination was not humane.”

This comparison gets even more meaningful when seen in the context of the definition of anti-Semitism as regularly used in the European Union. It was prepared by one of the EU agencies. It gives examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel, including the following: “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

Israel could considerably improve its public diplomacy by using the comparison of the two killings and other comparisons of events which occur with great frequency to stress such double standards. This is one of the many ways that Israel can fend off at least part of the unjust criticism against it.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4064079,00.html

Glenn Beck on the Contrast Between Israel and its Enemies

Glenn Beck is a rather - how shall I put this? - loud-voiced member of the team at America's Fox ("Fair and Balanced") TV.  He's not everyone's cup of tea, but here he is, saying some obvious truths about Israel and the double standards that apply to that much-traduced liberal democracy (hat tip: reader Rita):