A Tale of Two Vehicles

“Every day we have people who are hurt, every day we have people who are insulted," French Jewish leader Richard Abitbol has been quoted as saying recently.

"We can be hurt by words, but we don’t mind, but when we are hurt by a knife, a gun, you can’t say I don’t mind. In a few decades, there will be no Jews in France. And there is also a problem in Europe. There are almost no Jews now, they are leaving. So, it’s terrible what I will say, but Europe is continuing in peace what Hitler had done by war."

 And now comes this report, of a kosher store near Paris being set alight.  That's cultural enrichment for you.

The threat to European civilisation, to the values of the Enlightenment, to Jews, and to women's rights, posed by the inexorable mass migration of Muslims into Europe, does, of course, agitate many minds concerned for the future of the continent, with foreboding expressed by numerous well-informed and decent people including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Douglas Murray, Melanie Phillips, and Mark Steyn, to name a mere handful.

Their warnings, which should make free peoples everywhere pause for thought, seem to cut no ice with the Australian-based so-called Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI), a high-handed censorious thought-policing organisation about which I've blogged several times before. 

What would appear to be its increasing focus on right-wing "hate speech" seems to be borne out by a recent article by the OHPI's CEO (and, whisper it softly, sole staffer?) Dr Andre Oboler on the Jewish website J-Wire:

'After Charlottesville American attitudes on Hate Speech are shifting....

The gap between violent extremism and hate speech has narrowed after the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in August 2017.

The rally which became violet, ultimately led to the vehicular attack by a 20 year-old far-right activist which killed Heather D. Heyer and injured 19 others. President Trump’s refusal to call out right-wing extremism following the attack became a tipping point in American attitudes to hate speech....'

The article goes on to explain that under new rules Twitter has closed a number of right-wing accounts, but those of 'military or government entities' will not be affected.

'The new rules seek to “reduce the amount of abusive behaviour and hateful conduct”, a move which still seeks to create some sort of distinction between “speech” and “action” even as it enlarged the scope of what crosses the line into unacceptable activity on Twitter. A spokesperson explain that, “If an account’s profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended”. When it comes to Tweets, hateful imagery will be hidden and users will have to click a button to see it. Such imagery includes “logos, symbols, or images whose purpose is to promote hostility and malice against others based on their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin”. This sends the message that those promoting hostility and malice against minorities can continue to use Twitter for this purpose provided their account isn’t clearly setup exclusively for this purpose....

Finding hate symbols like swastikas or racial slurs with such approaches is straight forward as the context in which they appear seldom matters. Other hate speech which uses more general language is harder to detect....

Twitter has taken an important step to tackle online hate, but there is a growing concern that rather than tackling the online hate which has the most impact on society, the focus is instead drifting to those forms of hate which are the easiest and cheapest to find. If we want to stop the spread of hate, we need to do better.'

Unfortunately, the OHPI has become known for meddlesome mischievousness and double standards.

Take a look at its latest report, concerning the recent Flinders Street outrage in central Melbourne shortly before Christmas, in which a driver mowed down pedestrians in cold blood (one of the badly injured, a gentleman of 83, has since died).  

Notice how, referring to a number of tweets by "islamophobe" Amy Mek, the OHPI seeks to downplay or even deny the oppression of women in Islam  (Dr Oboler abhors "islamophobia"):

And notice how the OHPI is now (is that the royal "we" its CEO is using, incidentally?) liaising with the police, already, in the state of Victoria (where violent crime by youths of South Sudanese background is spiralling out of control) in thraldom to political correctness:

No wonder so many people abhor the Online Hate Prevention Institute's meddlesome mischievousness and double standards.

We see this abhorrence in the three comments that Dr Oboler's J-Wire article attracted:

1.

Do we really want a privatised censorship?

Do you all understand that one day pro-Israel speech could be deemed “hate speech”?

2.

Sorry, but I don’t agree with “hate speech laws”. What a person thinks doesn’t hurt anyone: what they say can lead to someone being hurt, but it is what they DO that can hurt people, and that is punishable by law, as it should be.

I have seen many good people hurt by these “hate speech laws” simply for telling us news we are not hearing, and expressing a concern for the safety of innocent people – and that often includes Jewish people. To be labelled “far right” these days is merely to be proud of your race, faith and country, and unwilling to throw it all away for some disastrous Utopian fantasy.

Freedom of speech is the most important asset we have, and we must not sacrifice any of it in the false hope of protecting innocent people. Rather, we should meet any hateful speech we hear with a deafening crescendo of disapproval and ridicule.

3.

Readers may well not be aware that Dr Oboler is the self-appointed censor of online “Hate Speech.” What is “hate speech”? No one knows – it is whatever he thinks “hate speech” is. I and others have repeatedly asked him how he defines “hate speech,” and he has consistently refused to answer. In matters of defining “hate speech,” he is the prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and executioner, and the court proceedings are secret. Sounds like North Korea? You bet it does. And how many examples of, say, leftists calling Israel “genocidal” or “an Apartheid State” has he zapped? How many online Islamic sites denouncing the Jews in anti-semitic terms has he zapped? Maybe zero is the answer? Only right-wingers need apply. Frankly, if it is a choice between some ratbag online nonsense and a self-appointed private censor answerable to no one, the latter is the more dangerous. America has a First Amendment to protect its people from self-appointed censors.

 Yep.  As someone once said, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" ...

(UPDATED) In Melbourne, "'The Threat of Islam to Jews' is Going Ahead and We Have to ... Tell Them to F*ck Off"

Under the presidency of Sydney medico Dr David Adler, a new Jewish communal organisation calling itself the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) has been set up "by a team including senior community members of standing in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia" unhappy at what the pervasive drift towards political correctness in the Jewish communal leadership:

'You can expect it to be more direct and outspoken on matters of principle rather than cowed by “political correctness”. AJA will speak out clearly on security issues, sources of anti-Semitism, other external threats and advocacy involving Israel,' its website avers.

Its mission statement here begins:

"The mission of AJA is to be a membership based representative organisation for the Jewish community in Australia based on genuine authentic Jewish and conservative Australian democratic values.

The AJA welcomes members from the Jewish community who support this mission.

To be guided by authentic Jewish values means having regard in policy formulation to principles of Torah. This imposes no requirement on how members conduct their lives. The organisation will welcome members of all levels of observance.

To be guided by conservative Australian democratic values means prioritising policies which support individual freedoms, self-determination, human rights, security and respect for rule of law."

Regarding Israel, it breaks ranks with the official communal leadership's position:

"Support Israel as the only nation-state and the cultural and religious home of the Jewish people. Support the right of Jews to live in security and peace in their traditional ancient biblical homeland"

continuing in the relevant clause:

"Jerusalem is the eternal undivided capital of Israel and the entire city including the Temple Mount should be administered by Israeli authorities.

The land of Israel includes the biblical Jewish homelands of Judea and Samaria.

Support policies and initiatives to further develop and strengthen the relationship between Australia and Israel."

The AJA was scheduled to be launched in Melbourne tomorrow (Sunday, 10 September) at the Beth Weizmann Community Centre, with the distinguished Anglican scholar of Islam Dr Mark Durie as guest speaker.  But when it became known to Zionism Victoria, the body that administers Beth Weizmann, that the theme of the evening would be "The Threat of Islam to Jews" the longstanding booking was cancelled.

The current issue of the Australian Jewish News (AJN; 8 September) quotes Beth Weizmann chairperson Ben Tatarka thus:

"Having just become aware of he details of the event, which had been booked as a 'public speaker', and after due consideration, we have decided that we are not prepared to have the Jewish Community Centre of Melbourne used for or associated with an event that, on its face, seeks to foment fear and hatred."

The same paper reports Dr Adler's reaction:

"It would have been expected that instead of reacting to erroneous information, that the management of Beth Weizmann would have made contact with us, the organizers, to find out the truth.

As soon as possible we gave them additional information for consideration because they had made false assumptions and we informed them that the talk, or similar ones, had been presented in NSW Parliament in March this year and at Limmud New Zealand last month."

Dr Adler went on to tell the AJN that an alternative venue had since been found, and at first he was unwilling to disclose it, being loath to

"attract the aggressive and irrational group who, without information and based on false assumptions, went off the rail." 

(That new venue hired was the Goldenberger Hall of the Mizrachi Synagogue on Balaclava Road in the heart of the Shtetl on the Yarra's "Golden Mile"; the Mizrachi Synagogue itself, the AJN noted, had not endorsed the event.)

Immediately, the name of the new venue was made known, the Jewish far-left anti-Israel movement sprang into attack mode:

(The above group loves to note that it's coming to you from "The occupied lands of the Kulin nation, Melbourne, Australia"; curiously, however, it shows no sign of preparedness to evacuate those lands.)

(The CSG is the Community Security Group.)

An urgent call to action went out from one Israel-bashing Jewish lefty to his cohorts:

'This is not a drill. You are needed.'The Threat of Islam to Jews' is going ahead and we have to turn up to tell them to fuck off.

You can expect a superchilled affair with a stack of Jewy tunes. But you need to come: to take responsibility for this in our community, to not be silent in the face of hate.

Invite your friends. Now.' [Emphasis added]

Suggestions for "Jewy tunes" with which to serenade try to shame and intimidate members of the Jewish community attending the Adler/Durie event quickly came:

By invoking the heroic Bundists and other resisters and martyrs, these "Jews Against Fascism" are, of course, implying that all who are wary of and warn of the dangers of Islamist antisemitism are comparable to Tsarist antisemites and informers and to the bestial Nazis, which, needless to say, is as ludicrous as it is obscene. 

Unfortunately, the totalitarian Left have succeeded in getting the event cancelled for a second time.

Claim and counter-claim continue to fly, as this is something of a "breaking story," with one commenter on the Facebook page of the outraged "Nothing Left" (closely linked with the AJA and the event) writing that it was cancelled owing to fears of reprisal attacks on the Mizrachi-associated Yavneh kindergarten:

"This event was cancelled because of protests from Yavneh parents who didn't want you turning our children's kindergarten into an increased risk of terror attack. It had nothing to do with politics....

You're the ones running talks about the threat they pose to Jews. As you well know, they have targeted Jewish institutions and places they perceive as insulting their prophet. It's a terrible problem that we as a community have to deal with. Why would you increase the risk of my children's kindergarten? Do it in your own home so Islamic extremists can target you."

Meanwhile one Jew who had intended to turn up to protest the event jibes:

"Nothing Left , that [the cancellation] is the best news I have had all week. You may want to check the mirror for fascist, threaten, intimidate. Not afraid of you. Disgusted is more the word that comes to mind."

And another Jewish leftist, a university academic, makes the breath-taking assertion:

"Jews have nothing to fear from Islam. Only from terrorists who kill more of their own people."

(Clearly, he could benefit from listening to Islam-expert Dr Durie on what's been going on in Europe!)

An apt retort to the leftists from a Nothing Left spokesman:

"I find it kind of ironic one of the main Jewish fascists behind the shutting down of free speech [by other Jews] is a member of a Jewish Palestinian activist group [presumably the Australian Jewish Democratic Society] affiliated with JCCV [Jewish Community Council of Victoria] and only recently some members of this same group demonstrated on behalf of Arabs in Israel outside the very offices of Beth Weizmann and these are the types B[eth] W[eizmann] Board have aligned them selves with , Crazy world we live in"

Though happy as Larry (pardon the pun) one of the activists centrally involved in the campaign to cancel the meetings has proved rather modest:

Not so modest, the Jews Against Fascism (but not Islamofascism), displaying their customarily elegant, erudite turn of phrase:

Incidentally, on leftwing hypocrisy and Islamofascism/da Joos/Zionism see two good articles here and here

UPDATE

I'm delighted to add that the launch of the AJA, and the meeting as planned, went ahead as scheduled on Sunday evening,  at another location.  Congratulations to the organisers on a terrific turnout, despite very short notice, with the venue filled to capacity.  All praise to the management of the alternative location for refusing to be intimidated by the far left and the lily-livered. Dr David Adler and the Rev. Dr Mark Durie provided disturbing evidence of the antisemitism that pervades the Quran, the Sura and the hadiths and which informs Islamic attitudes to this day.  Neither speaker indulged in any "hate speech".  The only examples of hate speech came in the examples they quoted. 

It's said that a leftist infiltrator or two were present (tasked with subsequently exposing the "hate speech" they hoped to hear from the speakers) deliberately sitting quietly so not to attract attention.

These Jewish fascists had sought in vain yesterday to get the event cancelled for a third time: