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" ...

Beware the Diktats

As the BBC, to its credit, reports at length here, there's a Twitter campaign afoot to show solidarity in France with beleaguered French Jewry by wearing kippot in sympathy with that community, whose members are feeling so vulnerable that (as again the BBC reports) they are making aliya in unprecedented numbers.

The reason for their plight and flight is, of course, heightened levels of antisemitism, including vicious physical attacks and killings, perpetrated mainly by Islamic haters of Jews and Israel.

"Eurabia" and its consequences for Jews, for Israel, for women, for western civilisation itself, is of course a legitimate, indeed a vital subject for discourse.  The ramifications of mass Muslim migration, particularly of unaccompanied males, affects us all.  Many Europe-watchers predict dire consequences for Europeans' progeny.  Some foresee a civil war.  Others believe that it is not too fanciful to suggest that, if demographic trends remain as they are, national legislatures, including the parliament at Westminster,might one day consist of a majority of persons who would vote in sharia law!

Meanwhile,  however, the increasingly dictatorial Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) has chided a social media user concerned at the recent sex assaults on women in Germany and elsewhere who used the phrase "gangs of young Arab men of military age" in relation to the attacks.

Warns the OHPI:

I have blogged  about the deleterious implications for free speech now posed by the OHPI. 

So, much more ably, have others.

See, for example, here

And here

There is even a rather disturbing video in existence.  You can see it here

Whatever its merits (and it certainly has some), the OHPI must not be permitted to muzzle or intimidate political discourse by a campaign of removal or threats to remove, or to dilute (I could almost say "emasculate"!) the narrative of that discourse by dictating how legitimate concerns are to be phrased.

Sentiments On The Sydney Siege

At the time of writing, the Sydney siege is still in progress, and an Islamic flag can still be seen in the window of the Lindt Café where it is taking place, despite the fact that the lights have been turned off for the night. There is no information regarding the identity of the perpetrator (it would seem, from television reports, that he uses a human shield, seemingly female, when he passes windows, that he barked out his demands via two females hostages forced, at different times, to a Channel Nine reporter, and that he is acting alone).

[Update: culprit was Man Haron Monis, granted asylum to Australia in 2001 ... a vile antisemitic ndividual who was out on bail despite facing 40 charges of sexual assault! An accessory to the murder of his wife, he had sent poisonous letters to the families of dead Aussie servicemen - hand-delivered at the funerals! The two persons killed.   Wikipedia has wasted no time in writing him up. This is believed to be his Twitter page. See also my next post.]

But what his demands are have not been divulged by the station on instructions by police.  To date, five hostages have managed to escape.  How many remain is unclear. [Two hostages dead, along with the gunman; four injured.]

On social media, a number of leftists who also happen to be dedicated anti-Israel activists have posted conspiracy theories regarding the identity of the hostage-taker.  There's a marked reluctance to accept that he's a Muslim.  One leftist suggests that he is "a Christian fundamentalist" seeking to pin the blame on Muslims, some allege a political ploy by Tony Abbott to demonise Muslims and win popularity: that sort of thing.  I haven't seen any allegations that it is the work of Mossad, or the CIA, but given the intensity of Far Left antisemitism anti-Zionism on there, I wouldn't be at all surprised if such messages come, or have already been posted.

All that seems to be known for sure about the perpetrator is that he's a middle-aged man wearing a headband bearing Arabic writing (saying “We are your soldiers O Muhammad” according to some reports), that he is carrying a backpack, that he is armed, and that he forced two terrified female hostages to display the black Islamic flag in the window. A Muslim leader who is being interviewed as I write describes the use of the flag, with its legend that the only god is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet, as "blasphemous" in the circumstances.  He points out that it's not certain as this stage that the perpetrator is a Muslim.

Channel Nine and other television channels I've seen today appear to be bending over backwards to assert that Muslims in Australia generally are not involved in this incident and that they deplore it.  They are denouncing "Islamophobia" and talking up the "I will ride with you" hashtag.

And there's this.

On the other hand, the Sydney Daily Telegraph issued, this afternoon, this unsqueamish edition (pictured), and editor Piers Akerman wrote this no-holds-barred article.  No political correctness there, obviously.

Various Muslim institutions in New South Wales issued the following press release:

 

On Facebook, the Online Hate Prevention Institute, which is a Jewish initiative run by Dr Andre Oboler, has issued this statement:

 

 And this one:

All fine and dandy, eh?

But wouldn't it be great if the Online Hate Prevention Institute would (perhaps with the aid of the Muslims for whom it has gone into bat) exert itself in getting Facebook to remove some of the truly despicable antisemitic pages that still defile it.

Pages such as this and the page which produces outright racism:

Facebook Antisemitism: Please Sign The Petition

This petition speaks for itself.

The required target is 10,000.

So spread the word!

For background see my post here or Dr Andre Oboler's article in the Jerusalem Post.

Thanks!

"No Israel=No War" & Other Judeophobic Filth: The Ugly Side Of Facebook

The Australia-based Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI), founded this year and headed by Dr Andre Oboler, has drawn Facebook's attention to a number of loathsome Jew-hating images posted by users on the site, images which for some unfathomable reason Facebook denies are antisemitic, and consequently allows:

 "OHPI recently reported a number of antisemitic images to Facebook using the regular reporting facility available to all users. Every one of our reports was swiftly reviewed and swiftly rejected.

Facebook is making a serious effort to respond faster to complaints, but this is meaningless if the response is to invariably reject the complaints. There is also no appeal and we have no details of any internal review process – if there is one, Facebook is welcome to share details to reassure us."

These reported images fall into several categories identified by the OHPI:

Mocking victims of the Holocaust ("Whats that burning? Oh it's my family" is superimposed upon a photograph of a smiling Anne Frank);

Promoting blood libel ("No Israel=No War" appears below two other lines, one in Arabic, on an image of a baby awaiting its turn to go through a meat grinder embossed with a Magen David and made into mince); Denying Jews human rights; and Holocaust denial.

Observes the OHPI:

"There is no way of knowing what is going on at Facebook, but three possibilities suggest themselves: (1) Facebook is giving control of the review process to a group of died in the wool racists, (2) Facebook review staff are well intentioned but seriously ignorant about hate speech, (3) Facebook as policy is doing everything it can in order to normalise the presence of hate speech on its platform. Either the recruitment process is serious[ly] flawed, or the training provided to staff is seriously inadequate, or something is rotten at the core of Facebook.

OHPI believes that these examples are exceedingly clear demonstrations of racism. We call on Facebook to:

1. Remove the offensive images

2. Close the offensive pages they are posting them

3. Permanently close the accounts of the users abusing Facebook to spread such hate

4. Review which staff assessed these examples and audit their decision making

5. Take active measures to improve staff training to avoid similar poor decisions in the future

6. To institute an appeal process as part of the online reporting system

7. To institute systematic random checks of rejected complaints
 
 .... The concern here is not simply that this content was on the Facebook platform, but that Facebook staff were not able to identify this as hate even after it had been reported to them."

To read and see more, click here
Update: please sign this petition