"The Jeu de Paume Honours Killers Of Jews"

This is a guest blog by M. Jean Vercors, from France, whose photographs with captions formed the substance of this post last year.

Writes Jean Vercors:

The Jeu de Paume in Paris is one of that city's most important exhibition spaces dedicated to photography, video, installation, and other image-based arts. Located on the edge of the Jardin des Tuileries, adjacent to the Musée de l'Orangerie, the Jeu de Paume regularly hosts exhibits highlighting important 20th and 21st century photographers, video artists, or performance artists.

From 28 May until 1 September 2013 the Jeu de Paume is honouring a photography exhibit from Palestinian militant Ahlam Shibli.

http://www.hatjecantz.de/controller.php?cmd=detail&titzif=00003576&lang=en

 An apology for terrorism

 Here (in French, with English version following it) is my letter to the museum.

 Paris, le 29 mai 2013

 Madame La Directrice Marta Gili

 Le musée du Jeu de Paume connu dans le monde et subventionné par Le Ministère de la Culture propose depuis le 28 mai au 1 septembre 2013 à  ses visiteurs, une exposition de la photographe Palestinienne Ahlam Shibli.

 Cette exposition « Foyer Fantôme » est constituée de 68 photographies de portraits de terroristes palestiniens, tous membres des brigades des martyrs d'Al Aksa, organisation classée terroriste par Israël, les USA et l’Union Européenne

 Cette exposition met en avant la mémoire entretenue par des familles palestiniennes de ces hommes et femmes morts dans de nombreux attentats-suicide commis contre des civils israéliens.

 Les légendes qui accompagnent chaque photo reprennent systématiquement la terminologie du culte de la mort: « martyr mort en opération ».

 Le musée de paume honore des tueurs de Juifs.

En cautionnant une telle exposition qui est à mes yeux pure propagande anti Israélienne, celle-ci ne peut que produire d’autres tueurs de Juifs comme Mohamed Merah à Toulouse.

la propagande désigne un ensemble d’actions psychologiques influençant la perception publique des événements, des personnes ou des enjeux, de façon à endoctriner ou embrigader une population et la faire agir et penser d’une manière voulue. Et c’est exactement ce que fait cette exposition.

Une telle exposition exaltant du sacrifice humain et les attentats suicides,

Equivaut à faire « L’apologie du terrorisme » ou « l’appel à la haine et à la violence émanant de certains photographes militants.

 Merci de bien vouloir me faire part de vos commentaires sur cette exposition.

 Veuillez croire, Madame la directrice, à mes salutations distinguées.
Jean Vercors

 NB/Copie traduite et envoyée aux Medias US, Canadiens, Anglais, Australiens et Israéliens

Paris, May 29, 2013

 Madam Director Marta Gili

 The Jeu de Paume a well known museum in the world subsidized by The French  Ministry of Culture has since May 28 to September 1, 2013 offered visitors, an exhibition of Palestinian photographer Ahlam Shibli.

This "Phantom home" exhibition consists of 68 photographs of portraits of Palestinian terrorists, all members of the brigades of Al Aqsa Martyrs, ranked terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union

This exhibition highlights the memory maintained by Palestinian families of these men and women who died in numerous suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

The captions that accompany each photo automatically resume terminology death cult "martyred in operation."

The Jeu de Paume honours killers of Jews.

Endorsing such an exhibition is to my eyes pure anti-Israeli propaganda, it can only produce MORE killers of Jews as Mohamed Merah in Toulouse.

Propaganda is a set of psychological operations affecting the public perception of events, people or issues in order to indoctrinate and indoctrinate the population and to think and act in a desired manner. And that's exactly what this exhibition does.

Such an exhibition of human sacrifice and suicide bombings, equals  to "The glorification of terrorism" or "incitement to hatred and violence by some activist photographers.

 I’ll appreciate your thoughts about this.

 Kind regards,
Jean Vercors

Update: William Goldnadel, a well-known French Jewish lawyer, has written an Open Letter to the Minister of Culture: see here

"Israelis Want To Maintain The Idea That ... The Church Is Siding With Zionism Against Islam": anti-"Islamophobia" Christians gunning for Israel

"Over the course of its history, the WCC [World Council of Churches] – an umbrella organization of 350 Protestant and Orthodox churches – has worked assiduously to demonize the Jewish state while remaining silent about the sins of its adversaries. It has also made bowing and scraping in the face of Islamic violence a central plank of modern-day ecumenism. Speaking up forcefully on behalf of the victims of such violence is simply beyond the ken of the WCC. The organization is simply incapable of speaking the truth about this problem."

That justifiable indictment is made by the Christian Media Analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, Dexter Van Zile, in his article (hat tip: reader Ian) about the WCC's just-concluded conference in Lebanon.

Van Zile goes on:

'The WCC set itself up for failure even before the conference began. Prior to the conference, which lasted from May 21st to May 25th, the WCC described the upcoming meeting about Christians in the Middle East as giving voice to “ecumenical Christian concerns about the presence of Christians in the Middle East” which the organization stated, “differ from those who seek to kindle Islamophobia.”

The May 15th press release announcing the meeting also reported that the speakers would include Palestinian diplomats Afif Safieh and Samir Morcos, and a former assistant to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a man who has utterly failed to protect Coptic Christians in their homeland.

This pre-conference press release, issued on May 15th, served as fair warning that meeting’s attendees would sweep the problem of Islamist violence under the rug and then accuse anyone who would talk openly about the impact of jihad against Christians in the Middle East of being Islamophobes. It also served as fair warning that the attendees would try to steer the conversation toward Israel.

And that is exactly what happened.

In the statement issued after the conference, the attendees lamented the kidnapping of two Christian clergy in Syria and said they “pray and hope that their speedy release, and assistance of the leaders of Muslim and Christian communities, will strengthen inter-religious co-operation.” The leaders in question are still in custody.

The reference to the captivity of these two leaders was about the only mention of Muslim wrongdoing in the document, which condemned Christian Zionism as an ideology that enables “the manipulation of public opinion by Zionist lobbies, and damage[s] intra-Christian relations.” ....'

Read the entire article here

As reader Ian added, regarding a book mentioned in the article and published, in 2000, with the WCC's assistance (Jutta Sperber’s book Christians and Muslims: The Dialogue Activities of the World Council of Churches and their Theological Foundation):

'The book is also pretty revealing. In her assessment of the WCC’s dialogue with Muslim leaders, Sperber gives the game away:

“The solution of the Palestinian problem in the sense of the West’s abandoning its pro-Israeli attitude became the criterion to judge the credibility of the Christian/Muslim dialogue, and indeed, of inter-religious dialogue in general. This attitude was not only adopted by Muslims but also by Arab Christians.”

In other words, if the WCC was going to have good relations with Muslim leaders, it needed to attack Israel’s supporters in the West.'

On reading the above article I thought, inevitably, of the recent, notorious Church of Scotland report that seeks to undermine Jewish claims to Eretz Israel by disavowing Scripture itself.

I see that anti-Christian Zionism crusader, Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer ("Don't bother blogging about him, he's not worth a pitcher of warm spit" advises one friend), has been talking up the report's significance to a reporter from the propaganda channel of the Ahmadinejad regime, on which he (who's visited Iran twice, I understand) not infrequently appears.

"It's news that the Israelis don't want because they want to maintain the idea that they have the Church in their pocket, that the Church is siding with Zionism against Islam – well, this report questions that premise," the clerical anti-Israel warrior explains to the already highly opinionated Amina Taylor in that deceptively soft voice of his:

And he appears on Press TV a little later to help justify BDS:

But what, I wonder, do Sizer and the rest of the Israel-demonisers (sorry, human rights activists), religious and secular, who readily give interviews to Iran's Press TV excoriating the little Jewish State and attempting to justify BDS make of such reports as this, and this:

'The attacks against Baha'is in Iran represent one of the clearest cases of state-sponsored religious persecution in the world, said Heiner Bielefeldt, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.

Speaking 6 March 2013 in Geneva at a side event during the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council, Dr. Bielefeldt discussed the release of a new report by the Baha'i International Community, which documents rising violence against Iranian Baha'is and the utter impunity enjoyed by attackers.

 "It's really one of the most obvious cases of state persecution," he said, noting that the repression faced by Baha'is spans "all areas of state activity, from family law provisions to schooling, education, and security."

He asked participants at the side event – which drew some 50 representatives from governments, the UN, and non-governmental organizations – to visualize the impact such wide-ranging persecution has on an individual as he or she moves through the stages of life.

 "Imagine what that means for a child, in school, maybe even kindergarten, sometimes even in the preschool phase, of young life. To be exposed to the stigma, to be told there is something wrong with your family, that you have to change, you have to adapt ...Then, as the child gets to the age of higher education, now the problem is how to get access ... We have lots of cases of Baha'is who have been expelled from universities and other sectors of higher education. Imagine what it means if a person wants to gather position in life, to get a job. There is not the slightest possibility for a Baha'i to take a position in any public sector [job]. But even in the private sector, there is mobbing and stigmatization."

"How can a person start a family life, if in family law there is no official space for Baha'is to conclude valid marriages?" he asked, noting that this deficiency affects concerns ranging from inheritance to rights of custody.

 Attacks do not even end with death, he added. "There is the experience of desecration of cemeteries... [of] cemeteries being also bulldozed down by someone."

Pointing to the report, titled "Violence with Impunity: Acts of aggression against Iran's Baha'i community," Dr. Bielefeldt said that the increasing violence against Iranian Baha'is – and the degree to which attackers escape prosecution for their crimes – is clear.

"Not only do Baha'is have to expect a lack of protection – government agencies are very often inimical, hostile forces."'

Requiem For A Ruined Land (video)

A few days after my recent return to the Lucky Country from the Motherland, I bought an item in a Jewish op shop* that the volunteer saleslady thought at first inspection had no pricetag.

"It's £8," I told her.

"Pounds? Don't you mean dollars?" she queried, smiling.

"Yes, of course!" I replied. "Force of habit. I've just come back to Australia to live after many years in Britain, and I'm still rather spaced out with jetlag."

"And how did you find Britain?" she enquired archly.

"Um... Just let me say I'm glad to be back!" I responded.

"Quite," she replied. "I haven't been there for a long time, but the last time I was there London had changed out of all recognition."

"I lived a long way from London, and rarely went there," I said.

"I don't blame you!" she shot back, as she handed me my purchase.  "I don't know what Australia's future is going to be, but I reckon Britain has no future."

Oh, it has one, I thought as I left the shop, but probably not one that she or I would be likely to relish...

The following video, of anti-Israel marchers taunting a large squad of Metropolitan police, and from time to time hurling objects at the bobbies' backs, dates from 2009, but I hadn't seen it until reader Rita, who's posted it on her blog, drew my attention to it today.

Interspersed among bellowing chants of "Free Palestine!" and "Allahu Akbar!" are cries of "Run, run, you cowards!" and "Run, you swine!" and obscenities aimed at the bobbies, who appear to be under orders from on high not to respond to the provocation, but who are thus made to look as if they are fleeing from the mob.

Only occasionally does a bobby, truncheon drawn, turn to confront the tormentors.

Even without the raw emotions kindled by the horrific slaughter of poor Drummer Rigby, how painful it is to witness such a spectacle, and to reflect that these figures in seeming retreat are the posterity of men who sailed into battle to the strains of "Rule Britannia" and "Hearts of Oak," led by an immortal hero who, high atop his granite column, surveys through sandstone eyes (or should that be eye?) such humiliating scenes.

As for the murder of Drummer Rigby, Tony Blair, whose government zestfully  permitted mass Third World immigration into a small overcrowded island, has made some unexpectedly tough comments about Islamic extremism here

A local lass looks at extremism in Luton: see here

*Aussie for "charity/thrift shop"; short for "opportunity shop"

David Singer On Why Sinking US Dollars Into Palestine Won't Bring Peace

Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer's latest article is entitled "Palestine – Pouring Money Into A Bottomless Pit:"

Writes David Singer:

'US Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Jordan this week proposed investing another four billion dollars in trying to resolve the 130 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Why these billions would succeed – when tens of billions given at previous international aid meetings failed – remains a mystery.

The belief that economic prosperity for the Arabs living in the West Bank will bring a lasting end to the conflict has proved worthless in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

When the international community pledged $7.4 billion dollars at the Paris Donors Conference in December 2007 to achieve the creation of the two state solution by the end of 2008, my article "Paris Produces Palestinian Funding Frenzy" made the following observations: 

"Creating two separate States for one Arab population living in the territorial boundaries of former Palestine always was an artificial invention that had no basis in history, geography or demography. It was a fiction contrived by the international community at a particular time to solve a particular problem"

There are two questions that remain unanswered – when will the international community stop pursuing this fiction and when will they turn off the money tap trying to make it happen

Solutions – other than another Arab State – are possible and achievable.

Pursuing those solutions – and throwing money at them in amounts similar to the Paris pledges – have a far better chance of success than the continued promotion of a 70-years-old concept that has well passed its 1967 expiry date

Surely the time is fast approaching for these donors to cut their losses and simply say “enough is enough”.

The Paris Conference final communique declared:

"The Paris Conference has made evident the high degree of confidence of the international community in President Abbas and PM Fayyad’s reform and development programme"

Arafat afterwards repudiated the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap.

Fayyad is no longer Prime Minister – having left his reform and development programme in tatters as the International Monetary Fund makes clear in its report released in Brussels on 19 March 2013:

"the economy has deteriorated markedly and the public finances are on an unsustainable track. Economic growth has weakened, the unemployment rate has increased, and the fiscal position has deteriorated to the point where core government functions have been affected, with ongoing cash rationing eroding public financial management institutions. Unsustainably high fiscal deficits combined with aid shortfalls are resulting in a large buildup of arrears and increased bank borrowing in the context of a slowing economy. Worryingly, with donor aid receding, the government‘s ability to finance large deficits is becoming more and more circumscribed. Thus, arrears, many with private suppliers, are causing them to become progressively more reluctant to provide the PA with goods and services while also causing distortions in the private sector. Arrears in the form of delayed or partial payment of wages risk social unrest and strikes, while additional recourse to the banks would further increase banking sector vulnerabilities."

Yet just two months after this alarming IMF report – Secretary of State Kerry and the 300 Israeli and Palestinian industrialists and entrepreneurs gathered at the World Economic Forum are still prepared to keep this rapidly sinking fiction afloat – no matter how much it costs.

No doubt they are well intentioned in their desire to see the two state solution concluded between Israel and the PLO – but they completely ignore the following political realities:

1. Palestine is an economic basket case – run by an unelected and unconstitutional self styled head of State - Mahmoud Abbas – who refuses to sit down and negotiate with Israel without pre-conditions.

2. Elections have not been held since 2006 and there is no prospect in sight for the people to have their say as to who should govern them.

3. Hamas and the PLO remain at loggerheads allowing the West Bank and Gaza to become separate fiefdoms under different power structures that brook no opposition.

In this mire – even if Abbas returned to the negotiating table – the negotiations would founder on the following two demands made by Israel – which Abbas refuses to concede:

1. That Israel be recognized as the Jewish National Home as determined by the San Remo Conference, the Treaty of Sevres and the League of Nations.

2. That any Palestinian Arab State be demilitarised.

Israel's raison d'être and right to live in freedom and security free of any future Arab threats are non- negotiable.

Abbas – on the other hand – has made it clear that:

1. He will never agree to abandon the right of return for millions of Palestinian Arabs and their descendants to what is now Israel.

2. He will not countenance Jews remaining as equal citizens with Palestinian Arabs in any Palestinian state

These demands can never be accepted by Israel.

So Senator Kerry's four billion dollars will only serve as a pinprick in the demand for continuing financial aid to prop up entrenched institutions of power bringing little relief to a long suffering population which could have had its own independent state in 1937, 1947, at any time between 1948-1967, in 2000/2001 or 2008.

Apparently this never ending game seems set to continue – as are the casualties of terrorism, violence and social upheaval.

Jordan – not the PLO – still remains the key to ending the conflict.

Continuing to pour money into the bottomless pit represented by Abbas is certainly not the answer.'

(This post, like the previous one, was posted on  Sunday, 2 June, but for some strange reason the Blogger clock/date seems to think Australia is lagging behind the Northern Hemisphere rather than vice versa!)

Daniel, Still Unafraid Of Feral Beasts (video)

Remember the teenaged Daniel Pereg, who faced down a feral mob of Israel-haters in Los Angeles three years ago?

Read more here

Well (hat tip: reader and resource extraordinaire Ian), he now takes on one of the most repulsive feral beasts of all:

"The Religion Of Peace": An Australian-born rabbi's warning to the West

David Bar-Hayim, the rabbi in the following video ( hat tip reader Rita, who has it on her blog) was born in Sydney and lives in Jerusalem.  I confess I'm unfamiliar with his organisation, and hold no brief for or against it, but his robust message here, following the barbaric killing of Drummer Lee Rigby (hat tip to reader Shirlee for this report about "Islamophobic" reactions to that act) seems worth heeding:

And (hat tip: Michelle H.) here is another Aussie with strong opinions: blogger Josh Holley expressing his contempt for this country's BDS Movement and the abhorrent anti-Israel stance of the Loony Left.  While Josh makes some valid points, I must point out that, historically at least, there has been a philosemitic thread running through Australia, as we read in a number of articles in the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society and in the book Philosemitism: Admiration and Support in the English-Speaking World for Jews, 1840-1939.  Still, as elsewhere in the contemporary world the support for Jews on the part of many on the Left has proved inconstant, evaporating with the perception that Jews are no longer history's victims.

Muslims Going Against The Grain (includes video)

At the weekend I attended a booksale of Judaica, and included among my purchases a paperback entitled Al-Yahud: Eternal Islamic Enmity & The Jews, by Elias Al-Maqdisi and Sam Solomon.

It distills, in simple form, the often blood-curdling antisemitism inherent in Islam and the Muslim tradition.

Needless to say, it makes frightening and depressing reading.

So it's good to be reminded that there are Muslims out there (though woefully too few) who disavow Jew-hatred and even speak up forcefully for the right of Israel to exist, denying the "apartheid state" libel.

One such is British Muslim Kasim Hafeez, a former fierce opponent of Israel:

“When people say that anti-Semitism exists in the Muslim world because of Israel, that is simply an excuse.

People here [in Israel] get Islamic anti-Semitism. In Europe, we deny it.

As a university student, I would attend radical anti-Israel rallies in Trafalgar Square. Here I am standing in London in the middle of a European capital – chanting ‘death to Israel’ and nothing was ever done....

What people don’t understand, is that it doesn’t matter if you bend over backwards for radical Islamists. If you are Jewish, they will hate you no matter what.” 

Says Muslim-turned-Christian Rev. Majed El Shafie, the founder of One Free World International (OFWI):

“They [moderate Muslims] must speak up.  Anti-Semitism is everyone’s problem. The moderate Muslims don’t understand that after the radical Muslims finish with the Christians, Bahai, and Jews, they will come after them. The minute we stop fighting for each other, we lose our humanity....

When Israel’s right to exist and Israel’s right to defend itself, come into question, a line has been crossed, The new anti-Semitism today is to hate Israel.”

Both men were panel speakers at  the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism held this week in Jerusalem.

Read more here 

And, while on the topic of Muslims, see this ABC programme about Australian radical sheikhs.  I saw it last night and was impressed by the ABC's investigation (I can't imagine the BBC being as frank).  H/t reader Shirlee for the link